籍, 公民，民族

[HSC]

If I write 中国籍美国人, does this mean a person born in China but who now holds American citizenship?

Also, there seems to be a fine line between the distinction of nationality and citizenship. 民族 can represent an ethnic group or more generally can be defined as nationality or even as a "people".

An example from dict.cn is 中国人民是一个勤劳的民族 = The Chinese are industrious people.

Here, 民族 collectively refers to the Chinese people, which is comprised of many ethnic groups.

Also, the application form for a visa to the PRC asks for current nationality (现有国籍) and former nationality (曾有国籍). I think in this context it means "citizenship" (公民), right?

[Lu]

If I write 中国籍美国人, does this mean a person born in China but who now holds American citizenship?

No, exactly the other way around. 籍 refers to the country to which you hold the papers and thus nationality. Hence the bamboo radical, because such papers used to be bamboo slips.

[monto]

A 中国籍美国人 should be understood as an American with Chinese citizenship, and thus he/she is 中国公民。

When met with "籍", we must judge what kind of "籍" it is from the context

1）国籍 —— citizenship. When "籍" follows a country name, we know it;

2）祖籍/籍贯 —— family origin. The two are similar in meaning, but 祖籍 is more remote, concerns with one's ancesters;

3）户籍 —— place of residency registration. It is Chinese particular, it answers the quastion “你的户口在哪？”。if you read "安徽籍民工" or something like that, you will know it means 户籍 by "籍".

民族 —— ethnic group, to be strict. But it is often translated into English as "nationality". I often see them together in bilingual forms. Also it is ocassionally used in extended manner to just mean "people", of which I see mostly in the “中华民族”or the like..

An example from dict.cn is 中国人民是一个勤劳的民族 = The Chinese are industrious people.

Here, 民族 collectively refers to the Chinese people, which is comprised of many ethnic groups.

Also, the application form for a visa to the PRC asks for current nationality (现有国籍) and former nationality (曾有国籍). I think in this context it means "citizenship" (公民), right?