The concept of "Yi Xia" is rooted in the original tribal identity and distinction, which undoubtedly contains the early strong understanding of blood and race. This is consistent with the general principle of national consciousness in the history of world civilization. Because primitive society is the earliest social form of human beings, its basic unit is a clan linked by blood relationship and lineage, and then several clans closely related to marriage and economic life form a consortium-tribe. For example, the tribe of the Yellow Emperor and the tribal alliance established by Xia people regard themselves as "Xia" and the tribes and tribal alliances other than Huaxia as "Yi". These appellations essentially reflect different understandings of the origin of race, so they have the nature of consanguinity and racial differentiation, and also contain the elements of regional reference. Later, the Xia Dynasty regarded the merchants in the East as "foreigners" and the Shang Dynasty regarded the western Zhou surname as "foreigners", which was the legacy of this concept. Therefore, as far as the initial ideology is concerned, the early distinction of "Yi Xia" is based on blood, race and region.

In the process of tribal civilization's breakthrough and leap to the country, China's national concept represented by "Yi Xia Guan" showed its own characteristics. Historically, Xia, Shang and Zhou nationalities, which originated in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, have all strengthened themselves because of agricultural civilization and have successively established themselves in the Central Plains. With the change of political power, not only the rule area is getting bigger and bigger, but also the culture is inherited and integrated, as Confucius said: "Yin thus knows the gains and losses; Zhou's gains and losses are thus known. "In this way, political unity and cultural interaction from generation to generation have created a nation with a higher culture-the Huaxia nationality. Among them, Zhou people, who are backward in rites and music and culture, absorbed the culture of Xia and Shang Dynasties, so Confucius called them "depressed and literary". In order to describe the development of their own culture, Zhou people used the new term "Huaxia" to indicate that they were different from other economically and culturally backward races, which meant to belittle and stick to the old hunting customs. Therefore, Mr. Qian Mu said: "Generally speaking, the culture of Xia and Shang Dynasties seems to be in the same strain, and there is no significant difference. Then Xia and Shang Dynasties were almost two Chinese nations, not two. "It can be seen that in the long process of three generations' replacement, political unity based on cultural continuity has made people gradually abandon the blood and ethnic consciousness of national identity, and gradually formed the ethnic consciousness of the Chinese nation represented by Yanhuang. This process is long, but it is natural.

On the one hand, the original concept of "Yi Xia" distinguishes others from me based on blood and race, which is increasingly inconsistent with the actual evolution of history. In fact, the Xia, Shang and Zhou tribes, which have become the centers of Xia, are related to the so-called "Yi, Di, Man and Rong" in origin and culture. For example, the Xia people who established the Xia Dynasty were once called "foreigners", and in the twenty-ninth year of Zuo Zhuan, Xiang Gong wrote: "Qi and Xia are redundant, and they are foreigners". It can be seen that the so-called summer itself is developed from tolerance and ease. Another example is that the Shang nationality was once called "Dongyi" and "Rong" in history. Zhou's ancestors were also closely related to Rong Di. According to "Guoyu Zhouyu", Zhou people are not taboo about this. They claimed that "my late king ..." ran between Rong and Di. Later, although Zhou people regarded themselves as the "summer" of the west, they still married Rong Shitong, surnamed Jiang. It can be seen that Ji and Jiang are of the same origin, but they are divided into Yi and Xia due to different degrees of evolution. Even when it was enfeoffed earlier this week, many "foreign" countries were enfeoffed. In the early years of the Spring and Autumn Period, many of the more than 300 "Fangguo" were outside the Zhou clan. The so-called "four countries, not nephews and uncles, Wang Mu brothers, are barbarians, Jing, Rong and Di". It can be seen that Zhu Xia and Yidi are related by blood, and the same caste has existed since Zhou Youwang. However, in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the marriage between China people and foreigners did not embarrass Zhou Tianzi (such as King Xiang of Zhou), governors (such as his daughter married) and ministers (such as his sister married the Northern Emperor). Huayi Alliance has also seen more historical records. Therefore, in the so-called "Yi Xia", the difference between descent and race is not the main basis.

On the other hand, as a standard to distinguish nationalities, residential areas have been shaken and even gradually abandoned with the development and integration of history, and have been given new significance.

Due to the low productivity and unbalanced development, various tribes or tribal alliances generally existed in the early history of China, even in the Central Plains, the birthplace of Chinese civilization. Historical Records Biography of Xiongnu said: "Above Tang and Yu, there were mountain Rong and stubborn", "Living in the north, moving with the herd." It can be seen that the so-called "Yi", although some of them have lived in remote areas of the Central Plains since the Neolithic Age, was also formed by the migration of the Chinese people in the Central Plains. They should live with the Chinese people in the big river basin. Historical data prove that many ethnic minorities lived in the Central Plains like the Han nationality before their formation, and then gradually separated, such as Huns, formerly known as Guifang and Kunyi, belonging to the tribes of the Central Plains and calling themselves "post-Xia Houshi". They live in the mainland, in today's Shaanxi and Shanxi areas, not in the north and south of the desert. Later, they developed and moved to the desert to explore. Turkic originally belonged to "Pingliang Miscellaneous Hu", Pingliang belonged to Anding County in Han Dynasty, belonging to the mainland. Of course, the Turks originally belonged to the tribes of the Central Plains, and only later did they move out. Therefore, the situation of Chinese and foreign mixed communities in China was natural from the beginning, not from the eastward movement of Zhou family. For example, in the fourth year of Zuo Zhuan, the text of the Tang book Feng Jin said: "Xia Zheng is the starting point, and Xinjiang is proud", so the Xia site is the Rong site. After entering the civilized society, although Xia, Shang and Zhou established their rule in a vast area, they still failed to be unified like the unified dynasty after Qin and Han dynasties, but "Yi Xia" lived in the wrong place and was staggered. Not only that, within a country, China has China in a righteous way. In this regard, Cui Shu, a famous scholar in Qing Dynasty, made textual research, while Gu Jiegang and Shuye Tong, modern scholars, made more detailed dialectical analysis on the basis of Cui Shu's textual research results. Mr. Tong pointed out that such names as "Yi", "Man", "Rong" and "Di" were very common as early as in Oracle Bone Inscriptions and China, and existed in the East, West, North and South during the Three Dynasties. "These four names have similar meanings, but there is little difference." As a collective name of tribes with backward culture and martial arts in East, West, North and South, it is not limited to a fixed position. It is an orientation theory that was matched after the Spring and Autumn Period. Even in the Spring and Autumn Period, the distinction between "Yi" and "Xia" was not absolute. Therefore, due to the mutual influence of mixed living and consanguineous culture, all tribes in the three generations are related to "Yi Di", and the distinction between "Yi Xia" is not very strict, nor can it be very strict. Therefore, the concept that China is in the center and the Yi, Manchu, Rong and Di are separated from each other in the southeast and northwest does not conform to the historical reality before the Spring and Autumn Period. In history, Dongyi, Nanman, Xirong and Beidi lived for four generations each. The clear pattern of "Zhu Xia" in the Central Plains is only an understanding of the national regional boundaries after the unification of the Warring States, Qin and Han Dynasties. Before the Warring States Period, although there were four concepts of East, South, West and North, and there were titles such as barbarian, barbarian, Rong and Di, the "four barbarians" did not match the four directions, forming a fixed North Di, Nan Man, Dongyi and Xirong. This fixed collocation is the result of conceptualizing, regularizing and sorting out the world order according to the actual distribution of nationalities in the Warring States period. It can be seen that regional differences are not the focus of ethnic differences.

In the meantime, the competition of tribal alliances for living areas, as well as the economic expansion, military conquest and cultural assimilation among governors of various countries since Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, are constantly dissolving the geographical boundaries between China people and foreigners.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, with the decline of Zhou Gongzhu, civil strife occurred in various countries and princes merged. "South Yi and North Di make good friends, and China is endless." After the middle and late Spring and Autumn Period, new technologies such as Niu Geng, iron farm tools, fertilization and large-scale irrigation appeared in the Central Plains, which led to a breakthrough in productivity development. Technological progress has not only increased the output per unit area, but also turned the land unsuitable for agriculture into fertile land. As a result, the economies of countries that adopt farming methods have developed greatly, which can expand the farming area and gradually expand the territory. After the Warring States Period, if the "Yidi" who lived together in the Central Plains could farm and settle down and adopt Hanfu and rites and music, they would be integrated into the Huaxia nationality and the Huaxia system, while the tribes who could not keep pace with the times, refused to assimilate and could not adapt to the agricultural settlement life had to leave the Central Plains and move to the mountains or grasslands far around the Central Plains. In an environment unsuitable for farming, they return to nomadic habits and run nomadic or other lifestyles to adapt to the environment. This is the so-called "four foreigners". This situation is also common later. For example, after the demise of the Yuan Dynasty, Mongolia returned to the desert and still lived a nomadic life. The long-term interaction between ethnic groups has led to many large-scale ethnic flows and migrations in history. For example, the Huns, Qiang people and Yi people who had already moved inward in the Eastern Han Dynasty all went deep into the mainland from the frontier during the Three Kingdoms and the Jin Dynasty. During the Tang and Five Dynasties, Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan Dynasties, Xianbei, Turkic, Uighur and other frontier nationalities entered the Central Plains in large numbers. Of course, in times of turmoil, it is common for a large number of Han people to move to the frontier. It is these complicated factors that make the geographical boundaries of ethnic groups clear and vague. Although the Central Plains Dynasty clearly realized that the core of the frontier issue was the "four foreigners", the basis for distinguishing "China foreigners" was not the regional differences, but the economic and cultural differences.

There is no doubt that "the self-identity of civilized' us' and the rejection and separation of' them' outside civilization have always existed in human history." However, different ethnic development history naturally leads to different ethnic viewpoints, which in turn affects different understanding of the country and political power, as well as different interests in border management and border strategic concepts.

Academics believe that the historical forms of nationalities can be roughly divided into four categories, namely, tribal nationalities, racial nationalities, cultural nationalities and political nationalities. Tribal nationality is an early form of a nation and a concept of consanguinity. According to Morgan and Marx's research, "blood revenge" is an unchangeable feature of this society, because "nothing outside the tribe is protected by law", so all members of the tribe have the responsibility to safeguard the interests of individuals and the whole tribe. Ethnic groups belong to the extension and development of tribal groups. Political nationality embodies the unity of nationality and national sovereignty, and represents the modern nationality of nation-state since modern times. Cultural nations are characterized by cultural identity and cultural integration, and regard culture as the standard of national identity, which has the basic connotation of respecting culture, while in foreign relations, it is manifested as non-violent and non-military expansion. Correspondingly, there are four kinds of nationalism in history, among which political nationalism and cultural nationalism just represent two different kinds of nationalism in the East and the West. Generally speaking, cultural nations often have no concept of national sovereignty, only the concept of world unity; There is no sense of territorial integrity, only one world; There is no sense of citizen participation, but the subject's sense of obedience is emphasized. Political nationality emphasizes the integration of sovereignty, links the independent development of nationality from bottom to top and the maintenance of basic social system with national interests, and puts loyalty to the country above loyalty to family, village, community, rank and class, thus developing into a modern nation-state.

The national view represented by "Yi Xia View" produced by the Chinese nation in its unique formation and development process is a typical representative of oriental cultural nationalism. Historically, although it did not integrate the ancient nation into a "nation" in the modern sense, it provided the foundation and resources for the formation of the Chinese nation. Judging from the historical evolution of the standard of "Yi Xia", although there are factors of race, blood relationship and geographical division, these differences are obviously symbolic in national identity. The distinction between "Zhu Xia" and "Rong Di" is essentially the difference and gap between economic model and culture (agricultural economic culture and nomadic fishing and hunting culture), that is to say, the concept of "Yi Xia" takes culture as the national identity standard. The two complementary understandings of "preventing foreigners" and "melting foreigners" in the Concept of Foreigners and the resulting idea of "changing foreigners in the summer" fundamentally provide ideological guidance for China's traditional border management.