Rethinking Multiculturalism in China

Author(s): Pitman B. Potter

Published: September 21, 2009  

Op-Ed

Continuing his occasional series of contributions, noted China scholar Pitman Potter examines the outbreaks of ethnic violence in China’s Xinjiang Province this year and in Tibet last year. He explains they are symptoms of the failure in China’s version of a multicultural policy rather than manifestations of terrorism or foreign agitation. Beijing must become more responsive to the legitimate aspirations of ethnic minorities, he argues.

Recent events in Xinjiang, falling roughly a year after similar unrest in Tibet, suggest that China’s policies toward its minority nationalities require substantial rethinking. The government’s claims that the unrest in Urumqi was fomented by outside agitators echo the position

taken last year after protests by ethnic Tibetans, and ring just as hollow. Pointing the finger at external hostile forces is often the first response of a government reluctant to revisit its own policies and anxious to blame breakdowns in social harmony on foreign influences. Similar claims have been levelled by the PRC government in response to a wide range of social and political challenges, ranging from pleas for broader internet freedom to calls for political and legal reform. However, such a familiar and habitual response simply won’t wash.

There is little question but that in China’s increasingly globalized society, people are inspired by international events and ideas. Support for more effective environmental protection; challenges to the inequities of globalization; pleas for more fairness in labour relations, health policy, and housing and property rights all bear the influences of international conversations in which China is an increasingly active participant. But inspiration and instigation are not the same. Just as Mahatma Gandhi was the inspiration but hardly the instigator of Martin Luther King’s struggle for racial justice in the United States, neither can the struggles for justice by Chinese Tibetans and Uighurs reasonably be blamed on the foreign manipulation. And just as the demonstrators for racial equality at Selma, Alabama or in the 1963 March on Washington were not all Black Panther revolutionaries, neither can it be credibly claimed that terrorists or separatists dominated the demonstrations in Lhasa and Urumqi. Rather, the overwhelming evidence from eyewitnesses and people with first-hand knowledge is that the unrest in both regions erupted as a result of local police mishandling what started as peaceful demonstrations, combined with deep simmering frustration over China’s policies on minority nationalities. Clearly a rigorous policy review is needed.

Such a review should move beyond the rhetorical themes of sovereignty and territorial integrity that are so frequently cited as justification for policies of control over local minority communities. While historians may debate competing claims around China’s sovereignty over Tibet and Xinjiang, the political reality is that China is there to stay. Yet, the socio-cultural reality is also that Han China is a relatively recent arrival. The Taklimakan mummies on display in Urumqi (and still awaiting completion of a proper museum for conservation and display), are eloquent testimony to the historical dominion of Indo-European peoples in the Tarim Basin. In Tibet, whatever might have been the commitments and understandings around Chinese suzerainty, very few Chinese have ever considered the region their home. In these and other areas, the PRC government faces the challenge of managing a state and a society in which the dominant Han culture is accompanied by significant minority cultures. This multicultural environment requires thoughtful policies that address the root causes of local tension and unrest.

Three issues need particular consideration: economic opportunity, migration and language policy. Following a reassessment of minority nationality policy in the early 1990s after earlier protests in Tibet and Xinjiang, the government undertook a series of initiatives focused on economic development. These later gelled into the Western Development Strategy. Underlying this initiative was the hope that economic development would quiet the dissatisfaction widely felt among minority nationality peoples. However the results have not been particularly salutary. Economic development policies placed a high premium on literacy in Mandarin, technical skills and standardized formal education, which are not endemic to the local minority populations and put them at a severe disadvantage when competing with Han Chinese for advancement. Even where local nationalities have achieved the educational standards imposed by PRC policies, they often fail to gain access to meaningful jobs and opportunities.

The economic development policies of the past 15 years have also resulted in significant increases in Han migration to Tibet, Xinjiang and other areas. This has contributed to a sense of disenfranchisement by local people in their own homelands. Conflicts between migrant Han labourers and local workers suggest that whatever class solidarity might be espoused by the ideals of Chinese socialism remains compromised by ethnic tensions. Government policy has accepted limited protection of local languages and cultures but implementation has been inconsistent. In Tibet and Xinjiang it is very common for Han Chinese officials to not speak any local languages, whereas Tibetans in Tibet and Uighurs in Xinjiang must speak Mandarin if they are to have any hope of prosperity. More recently, PRC officials have begun to denigrate the importance of minority languages, adding to local bitterness.

Sustaining China’s local minority nationality communities is not only a legal obligation under international treaties to which China is a party, but a fundamental moral obligation. Accommodating local needs for economic opportunity, managing migration so as to ensure mutual respect and substantive equality across China’s richly diverse population; and preserving local nationality languages and cultures might be called the cost of multiculturalism. Policies of economic opportunity that create genuine participation by local minority nationalities in China’s economic growth miracle; travel and migration policies that prevent the displacement of local minority nationalities; and language policies that genuinely protect and preserve local culture will all be crucial to bringing peace and reconciliation to ethnic relations in China.

Specific solutions will not be easy and cannot be achieved through rote copying – or rejection -- of governance models from abroad. But attention to best practices on multicultural policies with adjustments to meet China’s specific conditions will certainly help. The first step, however, is to recognize that existing policies have not achieved the goals of harmony and peace that all citizens of China deserve. As Marx himself observed, history involves the activity of people in pursuit of their own ends. China’s policies and practices on minority nationalities are neither immutable nor sacred, but simply the result of political decisions made to address the complex problem of multiculturalism. In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of such history, everyone who wishes the best for China should work together to learn from past mistakes and build a new future where harmonious relations between nationalities is not simply a rhetorical slogan, but a reality.

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