Tianxia as the source of ontological insecurity: The construction, essentialization, and weaponization of ontological insecurity in modern China

While how ontological insecurity has served as the foundation for the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) irredentism toward Taiwan and the South-China Sea have been described, it remains unclear how it was produced in a way that it could serve these functions. To this lacuna, this paper investigates the production, transformation, and weaponization of ontological insecurity in the PRC by reconstructing a genealogy of China’s sovereignty and re-interpret the transition of the self of the Chinese states. The paper thus argues that, first, the self of the modern Chinese states is produced based on the ontological insecurity of the Chinese empire, which understood itself to be a universal empire. Second, such a self of modern Chinese state experienced another ontological insecurity from World War I to the end of World War II. Third, based on this, the CCP’s ascension weaponises this ontological insecurity.