The Chinese elite seeks routinely to perpetuate a myth that outsiders too areoften willing to collude in, one that portrays China as a gigantic monolith. Thehigh-profile events and anniversaries that punctuate this period in China'shistory-- the Beijing Olympics in August 2008 and the 60th birthday of thePeople's Republic of China in October 2009 among them-- are moments when themyth reaches its peak of official expression.
It is at such very moments, however, when the signals of monumentalcelebrations to come are becoming routinely interrupted by uncomfortablereminders that China is in fact a far from monolithic society. The protests inTibet in March 2008 and now in Xinjiang in July 2009 remind both China and therest of the world that millions within the country are unwilling to join theparty.
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The perception lenses
These disruptive interventions in the frontier regions of modern Chinaprovoke a range of reactions. There are two dominant ways in which such protestsare perceived-- as ethnic conflict masterminded by inimical outside forces, oras a revolt of suppressed minorities against an authoritarian state. Each hasits limitations and is detrimental to the interests of people in China.
The ethnicity lens deployed by the Chinese state and media in Xinjiang (as inTibet) shifts the blame from the government to the recalcitrant minorities andhostile outsiders. Han Chinese migrants and the government are represented asvictims of the violent extremism of the ungrateful minority separatists. Thedanger with this lens is that it does not encourage critical reflection on howcertain policies (such as encouraging Han immigration) contribute to alienatingthe minorities in the first place. It prevents a rethinking of how thegovernment can effectively involve minorities in policy-making andimplementation instead of considering them as passive subjects or activeirritants. It leaves unquestioned-- and thus unaddressed-- the prejudices,stereotypes and hatred that exist amongst different ethnic groups, including Hanpeople. Instead of treating the cause of the wound, it accepts the wound asnatural and tries to manage it.
The ethnicity lens also fuels a backlash from the majoritarian Han community.The result is that very soon the tensions, animosity and violence becometit-for-tat and acquire a lethality beyond the state's control. In the long run,it is Han chauvinism instead of minority nationalisms that poses the greatestthreat to the viability of a multiethnic China. The state, after all, can useits coercive might more easily against minorities than against the majority.
The ferocity of attacks on Han and Hui Chinese in Xinjiang on the first day ofthe protest was not due to an ancient hatred. It is an understandable, butunjustified, reaction against people who are seen as the face or the agents ofthe state. The state, instead of unconsciously stoking greater inter-ethnicrivalry and coming down heavily against the restive minorities, should calm thesituation by ordering an independent and impartial inquiry into the relevantincidents. If the violence was started by protestors or provoked by the police,the culprits should be legally held to account. The state should use the mediato make it clear to the people that it is willing to listen and not to distortthe complexity of the situation. Why start by blaming the separatists? Why notstart by promising a thorough investigation? Why not assure Han, Uyghur, Huialike that China will protect all equally irrespective of their ethnicity?
The other dominant way of seeing the eruption of protests in the borderlands isas the desperate resistance of downtrodden minorities against an overweeningstate. This is reflected in the familiar tendency in the west to reservecynicism for Chinese claims while accepting at face value the picture ofhuman-rights abuse by exiled politicians or activists. There is every need torecognise that violations take place in China, especially in the border regions;but it would be refreshing too if this were accompanied by some appreciation ofthe difficulties faced by a rapidly modernising China in balancing statestability with social harmony. Instead of painting every event in stark termsand focusing exclusively on the sufferings of co-ethnic people, activists and(especially) exiles could also help shape a more constructive discourse andbetter outcomes by seeking to calm things down in periods of great tension andviolence.
There is something, after all, even more important than human rights; that is,humanity itself. By insisting that more Uyghurs have been killed, parts of thediaspora engages in a numbers-game which dehumanises all (Uyghur as well asHan). There are many reports of sympathy for Uyghurs in certain Muslim-majoritycountries, especially Turkey. But why sympathy only for Muslim Uyghur victimsand not Han victims? What, other than a warped sense of morality that privilegesethnic or religious solidarity over humanity, explains the Turkish primeminister's reference to genocide in China when set against his denial of theArmenian genocide? Outsiders need to reflect on their own politics and theselective (im)morality of sympathy.
Before outsiders adopt the trigger-stance of lecturing China, they would do wellto consider that in many respects China is quite tolerant of cultural plurality,sometimes more so that some European democracies (note, for example, thehostility toward the hijab in France or Germany). Cultural difference is notonly accepted but also promoted to a limited extent, even in the sensitiveborder areas; but there is no room for political disagreement. When minoritiesappropriate cultural symbols for political purposes, the Chinese state -- notwithout justification-- gets paranoid. This paranoia is the product of apostcolonial condition where a global and national identity is asserted in theface of hostility from (still) more powerful western countries.
The only durable solution
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The riots, growing ethnic tensions, increasing minority nationalisms as wellas Han chauvinism also point toward an uncomfortable possibility: that anon-communist democratic China may not necessarily be more accommodative ofminority interests. "People power" is not always progressive andliberal. The west, in its zeal for democracy-promotion, should not forget thatdemocracy is an ideal over which no one geopolitical entity has an exclusivepurchase. People struggle over it in different ways. Foreign interference oftenbackfires.
China is not a monolithic civilisational state; it is a modern construct thatbrings together a diverse set of peoples. People within China now need tore-imagine China differently for their own sake; paternalism of the majority andexclusivism of the minorities has to go. The only durable solution to thecurrent crisis is an acknowledgment by the government that there is a seriousproblem in Xinjiang and that it does not favour one ethnicity over another. Thishas to be followed by an open, frank deliberation with various groups of people,including the exiles. The government can make it clear that everything exceptethnic exclusivity and independence is on the table. It should invest moreenergies in understanding and dialogue and less in rejecting the exiles asseparatists. A more open and relaxed China may prove to be a more stable China.This can make China a genuinely multiethnic global power.
Dr Dibyesh Anand is an Associate Professor of International Relations atLondon’s University of Westminster, an expert on majority-minority relationsin China and India and the author of Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in WesternImagination. This piece also appears on openDemocracy.net
