Xinjiang, Tibet and Beyond

The ethnic protests and clashes in China's westernmost region of Xinjiang on 5-6 July 2009 and the following days have caused around 200 deaths. The deadly violence [1], mainly between the Uyghur (and Muslim) population and the Han Chinese - but also involving the security forces killing some protesting Uyghurs, in circumstances that are not yet clear - has shocked and polarised public opinion across China. They have also focused renewed attention on the sensitive and complex theme of the relationship between different ethnic groups in the People's　Republic of China.

The argument can be heard on either side of the divide in
Xinjiang [2] that the political arrangements in the region don't
match its socio-economic circumstances. Uyghurs are unhappy
with the tokenism of "nationality policies", and demand more
participation and more of a share in the Xinjiang economy and
its social proceeds; Han Chinese are unhappy with what they
see as official favouritism towards the Uyghurs, and seek to
remove the guarantees of autonomy and special treatment that
Uyghurs (and other ethnic minorities) are supposed to benefit
from.

A balance of favour

The events of early July 2009 - which mainly, not not exclusively [3], occurred in Xinjiang's capital, Urumqi - reflect the deeper processes of rapid economic growth and social transformation during in the 1990s and 2000s. In particular, the national policies of China's leadership in opening the economy, creating new labour-market mechanisms, and encouraging internal-migration flows have had profound effects in this region [4] (as elsewhere).

These processes have accompanied China's historic shift from a centrally planned to a market economy, which has made it the manufacturing centre of the world. Many have benefited, but there have also been great problems, including new development gaps - between urban and rural areas, coastal regions and inland/frontier areas, and prosperous and poor in the same places. In addition, there are huge insecurities: many people in China have lost the assurance of a lifetime job and the social safety-nets that they enjoyed a generation ago.


The Uyghur intellectual and scholar Ilham Tohti - who was detained [8] in the wake of the Urumqi events - has offered two examples. First, the Xinjiang production and construction corps is an all-embracing institution that brings together the communist party, government, army, farms, and factories; it has taken the best farmland in Xinjiang and diverted rivers from the upper streams to its further advantage. Second, Xinjiang has been supplying oil, coal, gas and cotton to more developed Chinese regions, yet locals have to pay higher prices for some of those products than are charged in inland Chinese areas.
Ilham Tohti argues [9] that China's Xinjiang policy is worse even than "colonialism". When foreign capital comes to china or other less-developed countries, local people at least have the chance to be "exploited" in "sweatshop factories". But when China establishes state farms, businesses, and oil companies on its own territory, it imports large numbers of Chinese workers to the area concerned. Uyghur workers have in the main not been absorbed by state factories in
Xinjiang; some though have been sent 4,000 kilometres away to work in factories in Guangdong province, where the deaths [10] of two of them in a conflict with Han Chinese workers on 25-26 June 2009 played a role in the outbreak of the violence in Urumqi (see Henryk Szadziewski, "The discovery of the Uyghurs [10]", 9 July 2009).
An ideological disguise Chinese communist forces entered Xinjiang in 1949 and disbanded the republic of East Turkestan. Since then, under successive systems of effective local independence and regional autonomy, China has created a facade of equality between the "nationalities". In practice, however, the new China continues to implement some elements of an older "frontier strategy": that is, using large-scale Chinese emigration to consolidate the strategically important regions
across its western frontier (see "China and its Continental Borders [11]", China Perspectives [2008/3]).
Human Rights Watch [12] estimates that Han Chinese in Xinjiang composed 6% of the entire regional population in 1949, but had become 40% by 2007. The current figure does not include either members of the Chinese military and their families, or unregistered migrant workers. In addition, the aforementioned Xinjiang production and construction corps is the largest ever of its kind; its control of farms, mines, factories, towns, schools, hospitals, police and courts makes it in effect an independent kingdom transplanted into Xinjiang (and, significantly, it is praised by
Chinese media as a "deterrence to guarantee the state's unity"). The establishment of Chinese immigration and dominance in Xinjiang, however, took place under the disguise of an ideology that was at once "supranational" and "socialist". In the
communist doctrine of "proletarian internationalism", nations and national sentiments - whether of the Chinese or non-Chinese peoples [13] - are regarded as temporary, destined to disappear into a nation-less communist commonwealth at a higher level of development.

The supranational policy and this associated ideology were
equally against local ethnic nationalisms and manifestations of
Chinese chauvinism, the latter including the oppressive policies
toward non-Chinese peoples pursued by (for example) the
pre-1949 Chinese warlords, the Manchu dynasty, and the
Kuomintang. The legitimacy of Xinjiang's integration into China
is based on the claim that the common interests of the toiling
masses of Chinese and non-Chinese alike made unnecessary
any demands for national self-determination by local non-
Chinese peoples.
Page 2 of 6
An ethnic revival Since the late 1980s the supranational emphasis of Chinese nationality policy [14] and theory has increasingly collided with the effects of China's market-reform policies. The older official ideology has little purchase on the emergent [15] social realities, and the state's response has been to swerve to the right by emphasising statist cohesion and the idea of an all-inclusive Chinese nation. These notions need legitimacy, which is met in part by theories that have
emerged to compete for prominence - among them the "Zhong Hua nation", the descendants of Yan and Huang", the "people of the dragon", and other quintessences of "Chinese culture" and "Chineseness".
The period when China's official ideology has swung rightwards has coincided with the country's acquisition of tremendous economic strength and political influence in the international arena. The perception of a rising China is acutely felt at home. In particular, it acts to reinforce Han Chinese ethnic identity and nationalist sentiment; this in turn influences the internal ethnic relationship, by heightening the sense of insecurity felt by non-Chinese minorities facing economic marginalisation and cultural assimilation (see Robert Barnett, "Tibet: questions of
revolt [15]", 4 April 2008).
Two more positive factors intensify the process of a sharpening of ethnic identity in regions such as Xinjiang. First, many people in Xinjiang share close ethnic affinities with those in the five central Asian and majority-Muslim states - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. These states, which emerged out of the collapse of the former Soviet Union, represent a powerful reminder to the Uyghur [16] in Xinjiang of their distinct identity and potentially different political loyalty in relation to their Han Chinese neighbours.
Second, the past two decades have witnessed the spread of new communication technologies such as the internet and the mobile phone. These have facilitated new forms of discourse, organisation and information flows on the part of the Uyghurs and comparable peoples. The connections between people in Xinjiang and those across the border or in the wider diaspora are an important part of this (see Yitzhak Shichor, "The Uyghurs and China: lost and found nation [16]", 6 July 2009).
At the same time, the creation of online networks also creates the possibility that false or malicious rumours can have nefarious effects in the real world; the Guangdong violence and that in Urumqi were characterised by the online fanning of hatred between Han Chinese and Uyghurs.
Much of this online orchestration of prejudice exploits pre-existing ethnic stereotypes. It is important to recognise here that these can work both ways. For example, at the national people's congress in Beijing in 2004, I witnessed the then Xinjiang governor Ismail Tiliwaldi [17]
react with visible irritation to a formulaic question from a Hong Kong journalist that invited his comment on the large number of common crimes allegedly committed by Uyghurs in Chinese cities. Tiliwaldi reminded the questioner of the need for balanced reporting, and added that ethnic population-exchange went in both directions.
The huge number of Chinese people who have migrated to Xinjiang in recent decades include many who have been through China's own prison system; some too are survivors of the many large state prisons scattered across Xinjiang's Gobi desert). Indeed, from the Manchu dynasty to 1949, Xinjiang played a role not unlike colonial-era Australia to Britain, as the enforced destination of many of its convicts. Members of local non-Chinese minorities complain about the high proportion of convicts among the Chinese immigrant population.Page 3 of 6
The emergence of deep divisions along ethnic lines - even when they fall, as they usually do, very far short of violence - suggests that much more than cosmetic repairs and propaganda spins will be needed if the fundamental problems in areas such as Xinjiang are to be addressed.
A quiet end
Today, many Chinese regard the old system of nationality-based regional autonomy as a proven failure. They criticise what they perceive as the central state's excessively benign policy towards ethnic minorities [18], claiming that this extends even to treating people as above the law. They blame especially the so-called "two restraints and one leniency" policy announced by the CCP in 1984, which enjoins leniency in restraining and prosecuting crimes committed by members of minorities.
These attitudes fuel nostalgia for the "good old days" of the 1950s, when Xinjiang was under the iron reign of General Wang Zhen [19] - notorious for his merciless handling of ethnic and religious affairs, including the massacre of large numbers of minority people. Even Mao Zedong criticised Wang Zhen for his "ultra-left" zealotry and later removed from his Xinjiang post.
Wang Lixiong recounted his personal experience [20] in Xinjiang in his book Our West Region is Your East Turkistan. He encountered the sharp contrast of views expressed by the different nationalities about General Wang Zhen and to the Chinese warlord Sheng Shicai,who had ruled Xinjiang in the 1930-40s [21]. The ethnic minorities in Xinjiang regarded Wang Zhen and Sheng Shicai as ruthless mass-killers; some even called Wang Lequan, the current Xinjiang party boss, "Wang Shicai". But most Chinese in Xinjiang see Wang Zhen and Sheng Shicai as national heroes who expanded and consolidated Chinese territory.
These attitudes influence political beliefs. Many influential Chinese figures - including Qian Xuesen, and other leading intellectuals and dissidents - have asked the Chinese authorities to re-examine the "favouritist" nationality policy [22]. Some even have called for the cancellation of the existing nationality-based autonomous regions, and returned Xinjiang to its status as a Chinese province. The American model of "melting-pot" assimilation is widely regarded as the solution to China's ethnic problems.
Wang Lixiong [22] too has more recently argued that China can do without the system of nationality-based regional autonomy, as long as individual rights are guaranteed under a democratic system. He says: "If individual rights are guaranteed, naturally the rights of ethnic groups consisting of individuals can be guaranteed; hence the nationality-based regional autonomy is no longer needed" (see Asia Week interview with Wang Lixiong, in Woeser's blog).Â
An impossible problem
A wider view, however, suggests that there is little empirical evidence in international history for the view of Chinese dissidents that democracy is something of a miracle solution to ethnic conflicts. Dibyesh Anand [22] wisely comments that a "non-communist democratic China may not necessarily be more accommodative of minority interests" (see Dibyesh Anand, "China's borderlands: the need to rethink [22]", 15 July 2009). In theory, China historically incorporated non-Chinese regions not via the will of leaders or by naked conquest, but by forging agreements with local ethnic elites - either radical (in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia) or conservative (Tibet). The basis of these agreements is a compromise between Chinese communist goals and non-Chinese nationalist demands for national autonomy or liberation. The pacts include the "seventeen-point agreement" and many other directives
Page 4 of 6
promulgated by Chinese communists and local non-Chinese communist and nationalist
collaborators around 1949. The legitimacy of the nationality-based regional-autonomy system
derives from these agreements (see James A Millward, Eurasian Crossroads: A History of
Xinjiang [23] [C Hurst, 2007]).
In another words, the major ethnic minorities of the autonomous regions consider that they
joined the People's Republic of China in 1949 as groups - with their elites (revolutionary or
conservative as the case may be) as their political representatives in the new system.
But after 1949, the ethnic elites within the system were gradually purged and replaced by more
obedient ethnic cadres, who became the only legitimate representatives of their groups left
within the system. China's lordly policy toward non-Chinese nationalism means that non-
Chinese minority cadres have more worries than their Chinese counterparts about defending
local interests (see Tsering Shakya, "Tibet and China: the past in the present [23]", 18 March
2009).
Now, sixty years on from 1949, the nationality system may serve a legitimation purpose for
China as a multi-ethnic state - but in practice it has lost its original meaning. China is at a
crossroads: after decades of capitalist reform, state control - including the nationality system -
is in deep tension [24] with forces of unrestrained economic change.
In this respect, the call for American-style assimilationism to deal with non-Chinese minorities
represents support for a market-forces solution: one that (it is argued) tends to break down
regional and ethnic barriers, and replace ethnic relations with individually-based economic
relations. The logic is that as a result the state's core character would change from a multiethnic
one into a homogenous nation-state.
A tough choice
The way Chinese authorities have responded to the Xinjiang riots [25] has been criticised by
both the Chinese public and Uighur exile groups. It is Chinese authority's supranational (even
ostensibly "neutral") stance - seeing the riots not as an ethnic incident but as a political one -
that is scorned come by Chinese (for the "official" position, see Fu Ying, "Unity is Deep in
China's Blood [26]", Guardian, 13 July 2009).
For the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and other non-Chinese minorities, the great concern is how far
Chinese authority can resist [27] increasingly populist opinion and retain this limited neutrality.
The answer to this question will affect how far and how much non-Chinese minorities can
identify with the state. As China's society becomes more loose and state power recedes,
government policy is more and more subject to social influences.
The Chinese authorities face a tough choice over how they maintain the state's legitimacy and
deal with ethnic relations (see Tsering Shakya, "Tibet and China: the past in the present [27]",
18 March 2009). If they seek to respond to growing Han Chinese ethnic nationalism by
accelerating assimilation of non-Chinese groups, this would provoke the minority-nationalist
causes with which the Chinese state found some accommodation in 1949: national selfdetermination
and national liberation. But if they seek to amend and improve existing multiethnic
arrangements to improve inter-ethnic relations in autonomous regions, they risk severe
problems with Chinese business interests and popular opinions.
China has no easy way out. The fires of Lhasa, and now Urumqi, cannot be extinguished
without the most intelligent and sophisticated policy mix. But even that might not be enough.
Several genies are out of the bottle, and flying free. Welcome to the 21st century, China.
Page 5 of 6
Source URL:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/xinjiang-tibet-beyond-china-s-ethnic-relations
Links:
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8138866.stm
[2] http://www.chinahighlights.com/xinjiang/map.htm
[3] http://www.rfa.org/english/multimedia/unresttimeline-07072009122503.html
[4] http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/china_pol96.jpg
[5] http://xinjiang/
[6] http://www.rferl.org/content/Chinas_Uyghurs__A_Minority_In_Their_Own_Land/
1772366.html
[7] http://xinjiang/
[8] http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/callforrelease-07142009162553.html
[9] http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/tohti-03062009130647.html
[10] http://www.china.org.cn/china/news/2009-06/27/content_18023576.htm
[11] http://www.cefc.com.hk/perspectives.php?iid=174
[12] http://www.hrw.org/asia/china
[13] http://english.people.com.cn/200502/28/eng20050228_174944.html
[14] http://www.iss.nl/DevISSues/Articles/The-key-to-understanding-and-interpreting-ethnicrelations-
in-contemporary-China
[15] http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/07/09/behind-violence-xinjiang
[16] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=uig
[17] http://www.bjreview.cn/EN/200417/Nation-200417%28C%29.htm
[18] http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/china/geog/bei_rev.htm
[19] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-wang-zhen-1497308.html
[20] http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/document776.html
[21] http://www.oxuscom.com/sovinxj.htm
[22] http://www.iisg.nl/landsberger/xsmz.html
[23] http://www.hurstpub.co.uk/BookDetails.aspx?BookId=408
[24] http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13988502
[25] http://www.rfa.org/english/news/special/XinjiangRiot
[26] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jul/13/china-urumqi-uighur-han
[27] http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/07/06/chinas_latest_tibet
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opendemocracy.net: http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/xinjiang-tibet-beyond-china-s-ethnic-relations

从新疆骚乱看中国的民族关系

新疆乌鲁木齐民族抗议骚乱造成大批平民死伤使中国的民族问题再次成为关注焦点。事发后中国政府立即将抗议骚乱说成是政治和刑事犯罪事件，试图作出超民族的中立姿态，但公众表现出的强烈对立的民族情绪显示出解决中国民族问题面临的重重困难。

中国官方声明一开始就坚决认定新疆骚乱是境外分离组织策划的政治事件，而不是民族矛盾所致。当局努力淡化骚乱的民族色彩，避免破坏中国是民族团结大家庭的和谐形象。

在汉族人口占91%的中国，许多人认为国家在多方面对少数民族的优惠，诸如升学和计划生育方面，是对汉族人口的逆向种族歧视。这次乌鲁木齐发生的暴力，和去年在拉萨发生的抗议骚乱一样，令许多人感到困惑，他们不理解中共对少数民族政治、经济上的优惠政策何以没有能够增强少数民族对国家的归属感。

激烈对立的舆论

新疆的血腥冲突似乎同样激烈地反映到网络论坛中，中文网络言论大致按照民族界限，形成激烈对立的观点。许多网民批评中共过于优待少数民族，使很多少数民族犯罪分子无法无天。不少人缅怀中共建国后在新疆主持移民开垦的王震将军，赞扬王震用高压手段平定新疆（王震处理新疆的民族和宗教问题采取激进手段被毛泽东指为左倾，后被调离新疆）。

中国作家王立雄在去年出版的《我的西域，你的东土》一书中专门探讨过新疆问题。王力雄在新疆亲身感受到汉族人和当地少数民族对王震和30-40年代统治新疆的汉族军阀盛世才有截然相反的评论。王震和盛世才在少数民族眼中是杀人如麻的刽子手（少数民族还把在新疆实行强硬政策的中共书记王乐泉称为王世才），但在汉族民众的眼中却是开疆拓土的民族英雄。

还有人呼吁当局检讨偏袒少数民族的民族政策，呼吁取消新疆和其他一些民族自治区，要求全国人大考虑在新疆设省。

超民族的极左政治

新疆最近的民族抗议和骚乱，和去年西藏拉萨抗议骚乱一样，都说明了少数民族对以汉族为主体的国家的认同存在的问题。从1949年开始到中共开始摒弃共产主义意识形态前，中共一直实行一种淡化民族性的政策来加强少数民族对新国家得认同。民族和民族主义在新国家的意识形态中只是过渡性质，并非政治目标。但是这种民族政策和理论随着毛泽东时代结束而被忽视。

根据超民族的意识形态和国际主义理论，中共政权在否定地方民族主义和民族自决的同时，还着重谴责所谓的大汉族沙文主义，这包括对国民党、汉族军阀等旧政权和满清王朝的民族压迫政策的谴责。具体在新疆，1949年中共军队进入新疆，解散了新疆要求民族自决的革命政权（"东土耳其斯坦共和国"），后来在新疆建立民族区域自治，以超民族的意识形态和强调共同的阶级利益，作为统治新疆的合法性基础。

但在具体做法上，中国仍沿用传统做法，对新疆搞移民实边，组织大规模移民进入新疆。据人权观察公布的统计数字，在新疆的汉族人口从1949年占当地总人口 6%，到2007年上升到了40%。这些数字还不包括军队及家属，以及未注册登记的流动工人。另外中国在新疆建立了规模最大的生产建设兵团。新疆生产建设兵团这个以汉族移民为主的党、政、军、企合一的组织，在新疆主要的绿洲和战略要地建农场和城镇，被中国媒体报道称为"维护国家统一的威慑"。

民族性复兴

在过去20年中，显然"去民族化"的民族政策和理论随着中国市场经济改革和意识形态右转而失去影响。取而代之的是对国家和民族凝聚力的强调。 "中华民族"，"炎黄子孙"，"龙的传人"，各种"国学""国粹"的理论、概念纷纷出台，在意识形态真空中争夺一席之地。

中国意识形态右转的20年也是中国经济实力和国际政治影响力猛增的时期。国力强大和中国崛起的概念产生国际影响的时候，占人口大多数的汉民族的民族认同得到强化，在对内民族关系中，进一步加强了少数民族面对文化同化压力和经济边缘化的不安全感。

与此同时中国官方一直拒绝承认少数民族集体诉求的正当性，把民族问题简化成经济发展问题。认为少数民族地区的经济发展了，人们生活水平提高了，民族矛盾也就迎刃而解了。中国领导人自邓小平开始一直到胡锦涛和温家宝都在少数民族地区或少数民族问题上发表过类似内容的讲话。

就新疆的民族状况而言，90年代初苏联解体后，中亚地区出现了许多跟新疆当地民族同源同种的独立国家，无疑加强了新疆境内许多民族的自我意识。过去20年也是新媒体和互联网通讯发展迅猛的时期，通讯和舆论传播无疑进一步加强了这个民族化的过程。

民族偏见

许多报道说，互联网传播谣言煽动民族仇恨是新疆维吾尔人抗议的最初起因。中国媒体报道说，6月25日韶关汉族和维族工人斗殴系一名汉族工人散布关于维族工人的谣言、在网络煽动民族仇恨引起。韶关维族工人被殴致死引发了新疆维族人抗议。网络谣言具有如此的煽动力，也说明在当地公众中普遍存在对维吾尔族人的程式看法和偏见，比如许多内地人往往把维吾尔族移民同刑事犯罪相提并论。

2004年全国人大期间新疆政府主席司马义・铁力瓦尔接受记者提问时，被香港记者特别问到维吾尔族人在中国内地的犯罪问题。司马义・铁力瓦尔似乎流露出对问题的反感，他提醒记者不要片面报道，他说民族人口流动是双向的，大批汉族人口去新疆，里面也有不少刑事罪犯。

前途未卜

中国民族政策的形成和执行，无论是极左时期还是搞资本主义市场改革的时期，都是在精英集权的体制下完成，并没有公众的参与。所以虽然中国对少数民族及地区的经营符合占国家人口大多数的汉族的整体利益，但他们并不能完全认同和理解中国在民族地区的政策。

对于各民族自治区的主要少数民族来说，他们在本民族的革命的或者传统的精英的代表下作为整体加入1949年建立的新国家。随后中国发生的社会改革和政治斗争逐减破坏了少数民族的上层，民族干部成了各民族在体制内的唯一代表。但由于中国对民族分离主义的戒备和严厉打击，少数民族干部在维护本民族利益方面远不像内地省份的汉族干部那样敢于向国家争取地方利益。

因此在中国各省地方利益形成的同时伴随着民族自治区的地方利益相对被削弱，少数民族在经济和政治生活中被进一步边缘化。随着中国政府对社会控制范围缩小，中国社会舆论对政策的影响力不断加强，而其中汉民族和小民族社会影响力的反差也越来越大。

此次新疆骚乱后中国当局表现出中立姿态以及尽快平息冲突的做法也受到来自汉族公众的非议。但是对于少数民族来说，中国当局能够在多大程度上继续控制社会舆论或者抵制舆论压力，维持有限的超越民族的姿态，直接影响他们整体的安全感和对国家的认同程度。