MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has compared Russians and Ukrainians with Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in China. In his opinion, historical continuity and a common ethnic origin are a source of rich cultural heritage for both Russia and China.
"Russians and Ukrainians can be compared to Han Chinese inhabiting different regions and provinces of China," Medvedev wrote in an article in the International Affairs Journal.
Medvedev noted that Chinese historians considered all historical stages as an inseparable process of functioning of a single Chinese nation, "and only by historical accident" until 1949 it had been temporarily divided into two semi-independent state entities.
Russian historians, he said, use a similar approach to comprehending the national past - the principalities that were parts of the Old Russian state, the period of feudal fragmentation, and then the process of unification of Russia into a Moscow-led centralized state. It was these stages that gave an impetus to the entire civilizational development of the country up to the present day.
"For both Russia and China, such historical continuity and centuries-old unified ethnic-national lineage serves as an inexhaustible source of rich cultural heritage and traditions. It makes an important contribution to the formation of either country's social identity," Medvedev explained.