Xinjiang and China, tragedy foretol

Xinjiang and China, tragedy foretold
KERRY BROWN 11 July 2015
China's official mindset towards its troubled, majority-Muslim region is flawed. Many outside views are simplistic. A new book makes the case for a deeper understanding to help avert disaster.

China's policy regarding ethnic-minority issues has always been problematic. In the early years after the People’s Republic of China was created in 1949, its guiding ideas were largely borrowed from the Soviet Union. These were framed in talk of different cultural and language rights, and a benign multiculturalism based on social equality, though China never went as far as importing the theoretical right of individual "Soviet socialist republics" to secession (which, in the seven decades of the USSR, only the foolhardy or doomed ever tried to pursue). An important influence was Sun Yat-sen’s articulation in the 1920s of five major groups (Han, Mongolia, Tibetan, Uyghur and Hui Muslim) making their way, eventually, towards some kind of cultural unity.

These days, ethnic policy in China is dominated by a sometimes fierce debate between moderates and the so-called second generation of thinkers, led by scholars like Beijing University’s Ma Rong, and Qinghua’s Hu Angang. For the latter, the whole architecture of autonomous regions and special rights for China’s fifty-five ethnic minorities needs to be eradicated. In their view, the country is on a journey towards an idealised super-unity along the lines envisaged by Sun Yat-sen. Their critics, including prominent academics like Hao Shiyuan of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, have effectively accused them of promoting Han chauvinism under another name, with Han constituting over 92% of the current national population.

All this hovers in the background of a lucid and up-to-date book by Nick Holdstock - China’s Forgotten People: Xinjiang, Terror and the Chinese State - which focuses on the problems of one of the most contentious and increasingly restive of China’s five autonomous regions, Xinjiang. This north-west region, constituting almost a fifth of China's total landmass, matters on several levels. The most obvious is its tangible resource value: Xinjiang is a source of over a third of the country’s crucially important coal and gas. Beyond this, it is a strategic buffer with the central Asian region and Russia, as well as sharing borders with Pakistan and (for a mere 14 kilometers) Afghanistan.

Xinjiang has been a great strategic centre for centuries. This role is now being revived by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping's, idea of a new "silk road", unveiled in 2014. Such attention may lead many of the native Uyghur Muslim population to wish that (despite the title of Holdstock’s book) they were more "forgotten" than they are. But their region is becoming increasingly significant and they are not remotely likely to be left alone.

Nor is this just because of Xinjiang’s strategic and economic value, but, in ways Holdstock’s topical study makes clear, also because it is a cultural and ideological battlefront. This was most vividly revealed by the uprising in Urumqi, the regional capital, in 2009, and has been confirmed by repeated tension and occasional violence since (see "Xinjiang: China's security high-alert", 14 July 2009). The great question for the ethnic-minority policy championed by second-generation thinkers is simple: just how far can everyone eventually become ethnically "Chinese" without recourse to any other descriptor?

In the abstract, it sounds straightforward. But in the concrete, things look different. For most in Xinjiang, it would entail being absorbed into a stark concept of generic "Chinese" ethnicity that would have to be so wide enough as to meaningfully accommodate (for example) use of a non-tonal language with cursive script rather than tonal Mandarin in characters, worship in mosques, non-eating of pork, and observation of Muslim holy days and religious rites. But how realistic is this outcome? Would Uyghurs - or any other ethnic group - really be comfortable falling under a "Chinese" rubric of this kind without feeling like they had lost something of themselves?

An absent dialogue

The evidence Holdstock assembles in his book doesn’t give much foundation for optimism. He shows a region where the relationships amongst Uyghur communities, and between them and various Han and other groups, is complex, often fractious, and where divisions are, if anything, deepening. He rightly challenges the dominant, Manichean, portrayal amongst some media outlets of division along crudely ethnic lines between resentful, unified locals and "outsiders". But his experience of living in Xinjiang and recently visiting the area produced little unequivocal evidence of the forging of a bold new harmony.

This militates against the Beijing government's mindset, committed to the idea that economic development and (even more contentiously) heavy immigration into the region will ensure that all problems

結果 (繁體中文) 1:

新疆和中國，預言的悲劇凱瑞? 布朗 2015 年 7 月 11 日中國官方對其陷入困境，穆斯林占多數的地區的心態是有缺陷的。很多外部意見是簡單化。一本新書進行更深層次的理解，以説明避免災難的情況。關於少數族裔問題的中國的政策一直是有問題。在最初的幾年中中國人民共和國成立于 1949 年之後, 其指導思想是很大程度上借來的從蘇聯。這些被陷害在談論不同的文化和語言的權利，和良性的多元文化社會以平等為基礎，雖然中國永遠不會去作為遠一樣進口權利理論各自的"蘇維埃社會主義共和國"分裂國家 (其中，在七個幾十年的蘇聯，只有魯莽或註定曾經嘗試追求)。重要的影響是統一的孫中山先生的鉸接在 20 世紀 20 年代的五個主要群體 (漢、 蒙古、 藏族、 維吾爾族和回族穆斯林) 使他們的方式，最終，實現某種文化。這些天來，在中國的民族政策是由支配溫和派和所謂之間有時激烈辯論二代的思想家，為首的學者，比如北京大學馬戎和清華大學胡鞍鋼。對於後者，自治區和中國五十五個少數民族的特殊權利的整個體系結構必須根除。在他們看來，該國是在理想化的超級統一設想由孫中山先生的路線走向。他們的批評者，包括像郝時遠的中國社科院著名學者有效地指責他們的促進下另一個名字，是大漢族主義與韓占目前全國人口的 92%以上。這一切懸停在清醒和最新的書，由尼克 Holdstock-中國忘記了人民的背景: 新疆、 恐怖和中國國家-重點之一越來越躁動不安的我國五個自治區，新疆與最有爭議的問題。這個西北地方，占中國總陸地面積的五分之一事項在幾個層次上。最明顯的是其有形資源價值: 新疆是超過三成的該國的極為重要的煤炭和天然氣的來源。除此之外，它是與中亞地區和俄羅斯，以及與巴基斯坦和 (為僅 14 公里) 的共用邊界的戰略緩衝阿富汗。幾個世紀以來，新疆已一個偉大的戰略中心。這個角色是現在正在復興的中國國家主席習近平的新的"絲綢之路"，想法在 2014 年推出。這種關注可能導致許多本機的維吾爾穆斯林人口，希望 (儘管 Holdstock 的書的標題) 他們被更"被遺忘"比他們。但他們的區域變得越來越重要，他們不是遠端有可能被排除孤獨。也不是這只是因為新疆的戰略和經濟價值，但在方式 Holdstock 的專題研究清楚，還因為它是文化和意識形態的前線。這在烏魯木齊市，該地區的首府，在 2009 年，這次起義的最生動地揭示了，並證實了反復的緊張和偶爾暴力以來 (請參閱"新疆: 中國安全高度戒備"，2009 年 7 月 14 日)。為宣導的第二代思想家的少數族裔政策的重大問題是簡單: 能最終成為種族上的"中國"，而無需訴諸任何其他描述項的每個人都只是走多遠?抽象的聽起來很簡單。但是在具體的事情看起來不同。在新疆的大部分，將需要被吸收到形成了鮮明的必須要過寬，足夠，意味深長地適應 (例如) 使用的草書，而不是字元，崇拜在清真寺，穆斯林的宗教節日和宗教儀式的療效及非吃豬肉，色調普通話非聲調語言的通用"中國人"種族概念。但如何現實是這樣的結果嗎?維吾爾人-或任何其他族群-真的會舒服屬於這種"中國人"專欄沒有感覺他們失去了自己的東西嗎?缺席的對話Holdstock 聚集在他的書的證據並不為樂觀多打下基礎。他顯示了在哪裡維吾爾社區，以及它們和各種漢與其他群體之間的關係是複雜的往往難以駕馭，一個地區和在哪裡分裂，如果有的話，深化。他正確地挑戰的主導，摩尼教，寫照當中一些媒體司粗暴種族界線之間的憎恨，統一的當地人和"外人"。但他的生活在新疆，最近前往該地區的經驗證據小明確鍛的大膽新的和諧。這對北京政府的心態，致力於這個想法產生不利影響，經濟發展和區域 (甚至更引起爭論) 重入境將確保所有問題