Deconstructing Identity Politics: The Tripartite Formula of Sovereignty, Nationality, and Ethnicity

This paper proposes a structural framework — the Tripartite Identity Formula — separating geographic/sovereign affiliation, statutory nationality, and ethno-cultural lineage as three independent analytical axes, applied to Chinese-diaspora communities across Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. Drawing on comparative linguistic analysis, PRC identity-card architecture, the 1909 Great Qing Nationality Regulations, and Zhou Enlai's 1955 Bandung Conference doctrine, the paper traces the historical entanglement of nationality and ethnicity to pragmatic asset-protection strategies among early overseas Chinese migrants, and argues this entanglement was formally and permanently dissolved by PRC policy itself. The framework is offered as an analytical tool for disambiguating identity-political discourse in contemporary cross-strait and diaspora contexts.