Scaling back minority rights? The debate about China's ethnic policies.

• Author: Sautman, Barry

1. INTRODUCTION: THE TIBET AND XINJIANG RIOTS AND PROPOSALS TO SCALE BACK ETHNIC MINORITY RIGHTS II. BACKGROUND TO THE PROPOSALS: CHINA'S CONTEMPORARY ETHNIC POLICIES A. The Chinese Government's Official Recognition of Ethnic Minorities B. Ethnic Regional Autonomy: The Centerpiece of China's Ethnic Policies 1. Structures and Politics of the Ethnic Regional Autonomy System 2. An Excursus on Russia: Territorial Autonomy Versus National Cultural Autonomy C. Preferential Policies: Subsidies for Minority Areas and Affirmative Action for Minority People D. Other Ethnic Policies III. THE DEBATE: PROPOSALS AND CRITIQUES A. The Leading Proponent: Ma Rong's Proposals B. Beyond Ma Rong: Wang Yingguo and Other Proponents C. The Critiques: The Blogsphere and Academia IV. PLACING THE DEBATE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES A. State Recognition as the Sine Qua Non of Minority Rights B. Ethnic Regional Autonomy: Distinguishing the Soviet Case 1. Differences in Systems: Ethnic Regional Autonomy versus Ethno-Federalism 2. Differences in National Conditions: Core Region, Minority Power Concentration 3. Misunderstanding the Role of Ethno-Federalism in the Soviet Collapse C. Preferential Policies: Less Effect than Imagined D. India as an Exemplar E. The United States as an Exemplar V. CONSEQUENCES OF SCALING BACK ETHNIC MINORITY RIGHTS IN CHINA VI. CONCLUSION: EXPANDED MINORITY RIGHTS, EQUALITY-IN-FACT, AND ETHNIC PEACE I. INTRODUCTION: THE TIBET AND XINJIANG RIOTS AND PROPOSALS TO SCALE BACK ETHNIC MINORITY RIGHTS

   The 2008 Lhasa and 2009 Urumqi riots altered popular perceptions among China's majority Han population about China's Tibetan and Uighur minorities, and thus, Han views about the country's ethnic policy. (1) The riots included anti-Han pogroms, which Chinese media asserted were externally organized by Tibetan and Uighur separatists. (2) Popular Han resentment of minorities became more vocal, especially on the Internet, with complaints that minorities are ungrateful and that leniency toward them spurs separatism and ethnic murder. (3) Uighur attacks on Han in Urumqi during the summer of 2009 led not only to retaliation by Han in that region, but also to discrimination by Han against a different ethnic group of Muslims, the Hui, at the other end of the country, in Jiangsu. (4) Though this was not the first manifestation of Han resentment, it has had a huge effect in generating a national discourse in China about ethnic policies.

   Han resentment of minorities, who are seen as having an unwarranted advantage, is not unique: English resentment exists about Scottish privileges, (5) as does white resentment of affirmative action in the United States. (6) Han resentment is also not new. It was manifest against the Hui in nineteenth century Yunnan. (7) More than a century later, Yunnan Han reportedly "are [still] resentful of the preferential policies favoring minority groups like the Hui." (8) Increased Han resentment of the ruling Manchu minority's privileges in the nineteenth century factored in the 1911 overthrow of China's last dynasty. (9) In Xinjiang in the 1940s, Hart resented the power attained by local Turkic elites when the central government's presence dimmed due to civil war in China proper. (10) Forty years on, Xinjiang Han complaints of discrimination in favor of minorities were still to be heard and grew louder after the 2009 Urumqi riot. (11)

   Surprisingly, the long history of Hart resentment has not directly impacted China's ethnic policy. Some Han have resented preferential policies (youhui zhengce) for minorities in family planning, school admissions, hiring and promoting officials, bank loans, poverty alleviation, etc. (12) But that resentment did not result in strong ethnic tensions, as indicated by a lack of demonstrations about the policies, despite the staging of hundreds of thousands of public protests in China on many topics in recent years. (13)

   The main impact of the discourse on the preferential policies' fairness has been indirect in highlighting Han identity among Han living in minority areas. But even that effect is "less pronounced among Han living outside an autonomous region, where the question of minority rights, and thus the government's ethnic policy, is a non-issue." (14) Not only have the ninety-one percent of Han who live outside the minority areas (15) been generally unconcerned about preferential policies, but anthropologist Mette Hansen has found through fieldwork that Hart migrants to minority areas have a low degree of common identity as Han. (16) Both they and minorities divide along social and class lines, with different segments of the Han and minorities relating in disparate ways to other segments of their own and other ethnic groups. She found, moreover, that even in minority areas:

   [T]here seems, among many Han, to be a widespread understanding, or at least acceptance, of why the government has insisted on these policies--a conviction that the areas inhabited by minorities are backward, that the people belonging to ethnic minorities need special help, and that preferential policies are therefore a sign of the willingness not merely of the Communist Party, but also of all the Han, to assist in their development and modernization. (17) Hansen further notes that at her research sites, many Han benefit from preferential policies for minorities because, as offspring of cadres sent long ago to border areas (of Yunnan), they are accorded minority-like preferences, or their long-settled families absorbed minority language and culture and secured re-classification as minorities (in Gansu's Tibetan prefecture). "[O]nly a few Han immigrants rejected, or had any strong opinions about the preferential policies for ethnic minorities" and recent Han migrants dissatisfied with family planning rules applied to themselves "rarely directed their resentment against the minorities." (18) If most Han do not resent preferential policies the core of putative discrimination against them--then claims that most Han feel discriminated against (19) are likely inaccurate. Even if most Han claim that discrimination exists after the riots, that opinion may be no more grounded in their actual experience than similar claims made by majority peoples elsewhere. (20)

   After the Lhasa and Urumqi riots, resentment has had a national impact on discussions among Chinese elites about ethnic policy through online attacks on preferences and calls to curtail minority rights. But proposals to "de-politicize" ethnicity by diminishing the state role in ethnic affairs predate 2008-2009. (21) They were thus not induced by Han hostility to preferential policies, except perhaps among some liberal intellectuals. (22) Only after the riots did these proposals become congruent with complaints of favoritism and leniency and calls to curb minority rights.

   The strongest complaints concern a policy for minority criminals that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Hu Yaobang promulgated in 1984: "two restraints [in arrests and executions] and one leniency [in treatment]" (liang shao yi kuan). (23) There have been complaints about favoring treatment of minority criminals for years. (24) Many Chinese believe that the policy is applied generally, (25) but in fact it is used only in ethnic autonomous areas, and not for economically and culturally developed minorities or minority persons who have long lived among Han or in Han areas, those with a decent education, or CCP members and government cadres. (26) Nevertheless, the policy is implemented, (27) and "[i]n legal and civil disputes, authorities throughout the nation tend to side with ethnic minorities for the sake of preserving ethnic unity, even to the dissatisfaction of the Hart." (28) The leniency expressed in the policy contrasts with the overincarceration of minorities elsewhere in the world. (29)

   Chinese officials are aware that complaints about preferential policies in criminal justice, family planning and school admissions grew after the riots and that even state recognition of minorities is being challenged in Internet forums. (30) Soon after the Urumqi riot, Wang Yang, CCP Politburo member and provincial Party Secretary of Guangdong (where a Uighur/Han clash among factory workers occurred a month before the Urumqi riot), said ethnic policies had evolved based on China's experience with ethnic issues. He added, however, that "[t]he policies themselves will definitely need adjustments.... We have to adjust to the actual situation.... If adjustments are not made promptly, there will be some problems." (31) State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) vice-minister Wu Shimin averred that "[s]ome people think the government is treating ethnic minorities too well and even complain the policies go too far, but these policies are all based on certain laws, regulations and procedures." (32) He added, however, that "a deeper understanding is needed when it comes to making policies at the local level." (33) The September 2009 Communique of the Seventeenth CCP Central Committee (CCPCC) Fourth Plenum also indicated that government departments were instructed to study how to eliminate factors that adversely affect ethnic relations. (34)

   Although some officials dropped hints of possible changes in ethnic policies, others fully affirmed them. President Hu Jintao stated that "the party's ethnic policies are totally correct." (35) SEAC Minister Yang Jing asserted, "our ethnic polices have proved to be correct and effective and we must stick to them for a long time to come." (36) That was also the essence of the September 2009 State Council White Paper on Ethnic Policies, which reiterated themes of multi-ethnicity, ethnic equality and unity, ethnic regional autonomy, development, protection of minority cultures, and fostering minority cadres. Development and stability are still seen as the key policies and increased subsidies to minority areas are pledged. (37) Such official...