Lesser Dragons: Minority Peoples of China 1780239114, 9781780239118

Table of contents :
Cover
Title Page
Imprint Page
Contents
Preface
Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities
1. Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies
2. Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park
3. Hakkas: A Han Minority
4. Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China
5. Xinjiang and the Uyghurs
6. Mongols of Inner Mongolia
7. Tibet and the Tibetans
8. Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province
9. Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group
10. Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities
11. Taiwan: Another China, Another Model
12. Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict
Conclusion: Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Xi Jinping
China’s National Minorities (shaoshu minzu)
References
Further Reading
Acknowledgements
Index

Citation preview

LESSER DRAGONS



LESSER DRAGONS MINORITY PEOPLES OF CHINA MICHAEL DILLON

Reaktion Books

Published by Reaktion Books Ltd Unit 32, Waterside 44–48 Wharf Road London n1 7ux, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2018 Copyright © Michael Dillon 2018 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library isbn 978 1 78023 911 8

Contents Preface 7 Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities 9 1 Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies 28 2 Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park 45 3 Hakkas: A Han Minority 59 4 Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China 70 5 Xinjiang and the Uyghurs 90 6 Mongols of Inner Mongolia 117 7 Tibet and the Tibetans 134 8 Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province 155 9 Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group 167 10 Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities 177 11 Taiwan: Another China, Another Model 186 12 Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict 200 Conclusion: Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Xi Jinping 217 China’s National Minorities (shaoshu minzu) 222 References 225 Further Reading 237 Acknowledgements 243 Index 247

Preface

M

uch of this account of the ethnic-minority communities of China is based on research that I have carried out over the past 30 years; it also draws on the published work of many other academic researchers, which I am pleased to acknowledge. Where this book deals with the Muslim Hui and Uyghur peoples and to some extent the Mongols, it is based largely on my own documentary research and fieldwork in northwestern China and Inner Mongolia, and I have drawn on my earlier published work for these chapters. In the case of other ethnic groups, notably the Tibetans and the minor­ ities of Yunnan, I have been more reliant on the work of scholars with detailed knowledge and greater experience of those communities. I am aware that, within the limited scope of this book, I will inevitably have oversimplified some of the topics on which they have written in much greater detail. Because it is intended to be of interest to a wider readership than just academic specialists in this field, the text has been footnoted lightly, but the bibliography indicates the sources consulted and offers suggestions for further reading. The study of the peoples referred to by the Chinese as ‘minority nationals’ (shaoshu minzu) is contentious and highly politicized, especially in China but also in the wider scholarly community. My intention in writing this book has been to give as balanced an account as possible of ethnic minorities in contemporary China, including the often violent conflicts between some minority groups and the Chinese state, while avoiding the entrenched positions that are often adopted in debates about these issues. I have paid particular attention to the historical process by which the minority groups and their relations with the majority population 7

LESSER DRAGONS

have evolved. In recent years clashes between some of these groups and the state have increasingly brought them to the attention of the media and the public. These conflicts have deep roots and, in spite of the way in which they are often portrayed in the Western media, they are not exclusively the result of the application of the policies of the Chinese Communist Party (ccp) or its government. In most cases the conflicts pre-date the existence of the ccp by decades or even centuries, and there is every indication that they will continue for the foreseeable future.

8

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

T

he dragon is a widely recognized symbol of China, and Chinese people are often referred to as ‘sons of the dragon’. In this account of the ethnic-minority people of China, I have tried to show that they are far from insignificant and at least ‘lesser ­dragons’, although this is not an idiom that is used in China. In trad­ itional Chinese culture the dragon is the most potent symbol of both natural and supernatural power; it is consequently the supreme emblem of imperial authority and majesty. Representations of the dragon have appeared on imperial robes and banners and as part of the decoration on the finest porcelain produced for the courts of all the emperors that ruled China from the earliest times until 1911. Indeed, the word ‘dragon’ is frequently used as a synonym for emperor: the expression ‘the dragon is flying’ (long fei) indicated that a new emperor had ascended the throne, and, under the empire, the throne itself was commonly referred to as the ‘dragon throne’ (longwei). This did not always imply awe and reverence; the historian of the Qing dynasty Zhu Weizheng remarked that an ‘old Jiangnan peasant (according to Confucius’s definition) was wiser and more brilliant than the silk-clad emperor lording it over the dragon court [gaoju longting]’.1 The origins of the dragon symbol are complex, intricate and difficult to locate precisely in either history or early culture. In the conventions of Chinese legends dragons live underground or at the bottom of the sea. This suggests a parallel with the Neptune legends in the Western tradition, but dragons are also sometimes thought of as snake gods, and the snake is the nearest known living creature to any attempts at precise depictions of dragons in Chinese as in 9

LESSER DRAGONS

Western art. Legendary accounts of Chinese dragon kings (longwang) – sometimes called sea dragon kings (hailongwang) – can be traced back at least to the semi-mythical Xia dynasty, the first ruling house in the list of official Chinese imperial dynasties, conventionally dated to the twenty-first to sixteenth centuries bc, even though there is little evidence that such a dynasty existed. One of the ancestors of the Xia is said to have metamorphosed into a dragon after having been cut to pieces, in what can be interpreted as a resurrection after a ritual sacrifice; this is reminiscent of the symbolic role of the equally mythical phoenix or firebird in the folk culture of Russia and other Slavic peoples and the legends of ancient Persia. The Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), a purely legendary figure but often regarded in popular culture as the progenitor of the entire ‘Chinese race’, is said to have ridden to the land of the immortals on the back of a dragon. The dragon became a symbol of rain that brought fertility to crops, and this symbolism was extended to fertility in humans and by extension to power in the broadest sense, usually power that was constructive rather than malevolent. Legends of the dragon kings are told and retold in literature associated with China’s Daoist and Buddhist folk traditions.2 Dragon boats The dragon has become synonymous with China and Chinese people, whether they are the majority Han or ‘lesser dragons’, and this identification has spread with the expansion of the Chinese diaspora. In Europe and North America no self-respecting Chinatown is without its own dragon dance or lion dance troupe. What was once an obscure folk custom in southern China has become an indispensable ritual for the display of community identity at celebrations of the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) and, increasingly, on other public occasions. The popularity of dragon-boat races has also spread outside China, initially through the overseas Chinese diaspora, but subsequently to groups with only tenuous connections to the Chinese world.

10

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

Qu Yuan and the exotic south In China the races are a central feature of the Duanwu Festival, which is held in the fifth lunar month of the year. This festival is inextricably linked in the minds of Chinese people, from their schooldays, with the suicide in 278 bc of the poet Qu Yuan, an official of the state of Chu, which had asserted its independence from the empire of the Zhou during the Warring States period. Qu Yuan was the author of at least part of the seminal anthology Chuci (Songs of Chu or Songs of the South), which reflects his exile south of the Yangzi River. What is important for our understanding of China’s minorities is that the culture of the kingdom of Chu reveals a distinctively southern civil­ ization, influenced by the customs of ‘barbarian’ peoples beyond the frontiers of the dominant ‘Chinese’ culture of the day. Qu Yuan had been exiled to the outer reaches of Chu, where the way of life was considered mysterious and exotic, and he observed traditions and customs that were very different from those of the ‘Chinese’ states of Chu and Qin. For this early period of the history of China it is not prudent to speak with any certainty of a distinct ‘Chinese’ civilization that was completely separate from a ‘non-Chinese’ civil­ ization of ‘barbarians’, although that is the way in which it is often represented in traditional Chinese histories of China. Miao people as ‘lesser dragons’ In the light of these historical and literary antecedents, and the overlap and the intermixing of cultures in southern China in this early period, it is not surprising to discover that the celebration of the Dragon Boat (Duanwu) Festival and reverence for the symbol of the dragon are not confined to the Han Chinese population (the majority of the inhabitants of China). The Miao people, who live mainly in the highlands of the southwestern provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan and are closely related to the Hmong of Vietnam, have their own tradition of racing dragon boats; the dragon symbol plays an important role in Miao culture and is a popular motif in tribal jewellery. There are similar traditions among the Dong hill tribes of the borderlands between the provinces of Hunan, Guizhou and Guangxi. The Miao and other minorities might be ‘lesser dragons’ compared with the great dragon of the Han Chinese majority, but 11

LESSER DRAGONS

they are nevertheless an important component of the Chinese popu­ lation and the Chinese nation. Other ethnic groups, whose origins lie even further beyond the limits of China Proper (the conventional name for the main part of China where most of the population identifies as Han Chinese, in contrast to the frontier regions of Tibet, Xinjiang, the Mongolias and Manchuria), are also an important part of the nation’s ethnic mix, whether they live to the north in the deserts and steppes of Mongolia, to the west in the grasslands of Tibet and the desert oases of Xinjiang, or to the east on China’s frontiers with the Korean peninsula. Manchus and the dragon in the north and west Manchu aristocrats were not ethnic Han Chinese – who considered them to be barbarians from the north – but they ruled China as the Qing dynasty from 1644 to 1911. The Qing is often assumed to represent the quintessence of traditional Chinese culture, but its ruling elite was dominated by Manchus, not Chinese. In Chinese, which became one of the languages of the Qing court, the Manchu aristocracy referred to their Manchurian homeland in China’s northeast (where many of the early Manchu emperors were buried) as the ‘land of the rising dragon’ (longxing zhi tu). The Qing emperors wore ‘dragon robes’ on ceremonial occasions, and the dragon motif was prominent on the flag of the Qing dynasty. There is less emphasis on dragons among the other frontier peoples of the north and west, but in the traditional calendar of the Mongols each year corresponds to an animal of the zodiac and one of these is the dragon – the luu in both classical and modern Mongolian. In one of the traditional calendars used by the Uyghurs, the dragon is also used as the name for one of the years, and this is also the case with one form of the traditional Tibetan calendar.3 Lesser dragons and the myth of Chinese uniformity The people of China, even if not direct descendants of the clans of these ancient emperors, are frequently if somewhat fancifully referred to as the ‘sons of the dragon’, or the ‘nine sons of the dragon’ (longsheng jiuzi). Even if daughters are included, it is indisputable that they are the descendants not of one single ethnic group but of 12

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

a complex mixture of peoples who, over the centuries, have intermingled, intermarried, migrated, conquered or been subjugated in the vast territory that we know today as China. The phrase ‘sons of the dragon’ is used principally of the Han Chinese majority, but it should not exclude the ‘lesser dragons’, members of ethnic-minority communities. Any account of China today or in the past that is not woven from threads that include their histories will be incomplete and misleading. In the West there has long been a popular assumption that China is a monoculture, populated entirely by a homogeneous Chinese population who all speak the same Chinese language and follow a more or less uniform Chinese way of life. At its most simplistic, during the 1950s and 1960s, when the newly created People’s Republic of China (prc) was isolated and very little reliable first-hand information was available, Western observers spoke of China as a ‘nation of blue ants’. This image was reinforced by the state-controlled Chinese media. Photographs of the masses, clad in uniform blue denim and marching under Maoist banners, were published widely during the Great Leap Forward of 1958 and the Cultural Revolution (conventionally dated 1966–76). These images did nothing to dispel the myth of a homogeneous population. Uniformity, the ccp and Chinese citizenship This myth is reinforced by the aspiration of the Chinese Communist Party (ccp) to create a political pan-Chinese, but non-ethnic, identity of Zhongguoren, which implies ‘citizens of China’, whose loyalty is to the nation and its state rather than to one ethnic or racial group. This was not purely an invention of the ccp: it perpetuated concepts of national unity that had been propagated by Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Chinese Republic, and his followers at the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition, the ccp and the government of the prc insist that over 90 per cent of the total population can be classified as Han and that the 55 ethnic minorities – often referred to in the official terminology as ‘national minorities’ but more accurately ‘minority nationalities’ (shaoshu minzu) – constitute only about 8 per cent. The way these figures are presented implies that the minorities are insignificant in the total population. While the raw percentages may be technically correct, at least in terms of the official classifications, 13

LESSER DRAGONS

they are seriously misleading, especially when the geographical distribution of ethnically diverse populations in sensitive border regions is taken into account. Not all Chinese people subscribe to this rigid official view, and there is some evidence that the authorized account began to change during the Hu Jintao administration (2002–12). An authoritative report on reforming the administration of minority regions published at the end of 2014 conceded that ‘ethnic autonomous areas account for 64 percent of the country’s total land territory.’4 This is a much more realistic appreciation of the significance of the nonHan population than the simple percentage difference, but at the time of writing it is far from clear whether this view will be sustained during the increasingly authoritarian regime of Xi Jinping, which began in 2012. The enduring myth of an unchanging China Underlying the misinterpretation of the relationship between China and some of its minority communities is another enduring myth: the continuity of an unchanging China within the borders it occupies today. The comforting map of the country with the southeastern bulge of the coastal provinces and the wavy line around the northern borders is deeply ingrained in the hearts and minds of Chinese people, whether in the prc or in Taiwan, and it is difficult to persuade those who are not historically informed, or have not been exposed to alternative explanations, that this has not always been the shape of China. The territory that is China today has in the past frequently been divided among different states, many of them not entirely ‘Chinese’ in the generally accepted sense. This his­ torical experience is comparable with the history of Europe, which ­occupies a similar land area. Imagine a series of slides of historical maps depicting the shape and extent of China through the centuries and run in sequence; the lack of continuity is immediately apparent. The maritime frontiers in the east and south appear fairly constant, but that does not take into consideration the status of Taiwan or the Paracel and Spratly islands in the South China Sea, which remain disputed territory in the twenty-first century: the status and legitimate ownership of these islands, particularly the smaller archipelagos, are fiercely 14

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

contested. The borders of northern and western China and its Inner Asian frontiers have been far from constant, and the extent of territory controlled by states that are generally accepted as ethnically Chinese – that is, Han Chinese – has varied greatly over the cen­ turies. Moreover, non-Chinese regimes ruled over the entire region that is today known as China for long periods of its history, notably the Mongols from 1276 (or even earlier, depending on how the dates of the conquest are calculated) to 1368 and the Manchus from 1644 to 1911. The boundaries that the prc (and indeed the Taiwanese government) claims as the unchanging borders of an eternal China are essentially those of the eighteenth century. The frontiers of this ­territory were established by military conquest during the expansionary phase of the Chinese empire under the Manchu Qing dynasty, especially during the reign of the emperor Qianlong (1736– 95). The Qing period is often treated as if it were just another in the long list of Chinese dynasties, but it was an empire dominated by Manchus, although a substantial number of its ruling elite were Han Chinese officials. This Manchu empire included all the traditional Chinese-speaking lands, but by the late eighteenth century it had also expanded to embrace the whole of Tibet, Eastern Turkestan (which was not designated as a province with the name of Xinjiang until 1884) and Mongolia. Nation and nationalism After the uprising in Wuhan that brought about the final collapse of the Manchu Empire in 1911, nationalists (who were primarily Han Chinese) attempted to reconstruct the Chinese state on what was in effect a racial basis. Some even advocated the expulsion of all alien Manchus to their northeastern homeland to allow the resurgence of a state and culture dominated by the Han. Although the Qing imperial court had been based in Beijing, Manchus were scattered throughout China, especially in the former garrison towns of the Qing dynasty.5 The nationalists repudiated the legacy of the Manchu ruling elite, accusing them of being the cause of China’s decay and degeneration, and in particular blaming them for the humiliation of defeat and partial occupation by the West following the Opium War of 1839–42. There is merit in this argument, although it is not 15

LESSER DRAGONS

the full story, but the new nationalists did not reject the legacy of the territorial expansion that the Manchus had achieved. Between 1911 and 1949 China was ravaged by war and civil war. Rival provincial warlords alternately fought one another and formed fragile and unstable alliances. There was no effective central government or state apparatus, and from 1917 the country was fragmented into warlord satrapies. It was then subject to a gradual process of economic and political encroachment by Japan and eventually to a Japanese military occupation. Manchuria was occupied in 1931 and the eastern part of China Proper in 1937. No single government was strong enough or enduring enough to control the whole of the territory that the Qing Empire had conquered. The National Government of Chiang Kai-shek was based in Nanjing between 1928 and 1937. It did not control the whole of the nation but had to share power with warlords. Chiang lost most of what he had controlled when his administration was forced to flee before the occupying Japanese armies. From 20 November 1937 until the defeat of the Japanese in August 1945, the National Government was based in Chongqing, its temporary capital in the southwest of the country. As central power weakened, the frontier territories began to detach themselves. Mongolia became independent in 1911, and in 1921 a revolutionary government, established with the backing of Russian Bolsheviks, took power in Urga, later renamed Ulaanbaatar. Tibet was virtually ignored and was able to function as an independent state until 1951; this is one of the key arguments for the claim by Tibetans that they are entitled to an independent government. Xinjiang, also in turmoil during the 1930s and 1940s, was nominally ruled by Han Chinese governors, who tried to keep the region at arm’s length from the politics of eastern China. The native Uyghurs, assisted by other Muslims in Xinjiang, established short-lived independent regimes in the cities of Kashgar and Ghulja. Those administrations were not successful, but that experience of autonomous government, however brief, has continued to influence demands by Uyghurs for an independent Eastern Turkestan. The Japanese occupying powers meddled in the politics of the border regions as part of a divide-and-rule policy that was designed to weaken China and enable Japan to take control of the whole country. They supported an independence movement in Mongolia against the Chinese, and attempted (unsuccessfully) to persuade 16

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

Hui Muslim organizations in the northwestern province of Gansu that they should create a secessionist state. This history of actual or potential collaboration rankles with the current Chinese government, and much of the population. People associated with the independence movements sponsored by the Japanese were regarded as traitors, at least by most Han Chinese. This is the historical perspective of the ccp, but it is also a point of view that is endorsed by many people in contemporary China and reinforced in popular culture by fiction, film and television. It is a simplistic but powerful argument that resonates with people today: China between 1917 and 1949 was ‘split’ and therefore vulnerable. The ccp and the government believe that the unity of China must be preserved at all costs to prevent a repetition of such a tragedy. This belief has profound implications for the way China is governed, but particularly for those minority communities whose political ­aspirations are deemed to be a threat to ‘split’ China again. Qing borders and the People’s Republic The official position that has emerged from this historical experience enjoys popular support among Chinese people who assert their patriotism, and not only among those who are members or supporters of the ccp. There is widespread agreement that only by maintaining national unity and ‘territorial integrity’ on the basis of the borders of the Qing dynasty can China be preserved from division, conquest and humiliation in the future. The construction of a strong and united nation has been the overriding aim of the government of the prc, and this has greatly affected the position of the minorities, especially those communities in the frontier regions that have a tradition of self-determination or independence. Although the ccp rejected the ancien régime of the Manchus as well as the nationalist Guomindang (Kuomintang), it sought to rebuild the Chinese nation on the basis of the borders of the empire as it existed at the end of the Qing dynasty. This nationalism or patriotism of the Han Chinese is a much more important part of the revolution of the ccp than is usually acknowledged. It was the success of the ccp in harnessing the patriotic sentiments of rural Chinese, at least as much as its revolutionary social policies, that drove it to victory.6 This patriotism required the integration 17

LESSER DRAGONS

of all ‘Chinese’ territories into the prc, including of course Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and it implied an absolute determin­ation to maintain control over Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia. For Beijing there are strong economic and geo-strategic reasons to retain these territories within China, but the emotional and psychological attachment of Chinese political leaders and a significant proportion of the population to them should not be underestimated. Great myths survive not only because they are politically expedient but also because they fulfil an emotional need. For many Chinese citizens the sheer size of China as it existed at the beginning of the twentieth century is evidence of the potential greatness of the country, in spite of more than a century of national humiliation at the hands of Western and Japanese colonialists. Anyone challenging this myth by suggesting, for example, that there might be a case for Tibetan or Uyghur independence is likely to be accused by Chinese patriots of wanting to ‘split China’. This partly explains the vehemence of Chinese reaction to any Western support, real or perceived, for the independence of ‘minority’ groups. Any suggestion of sympathy for such ideas – even something as apparently innocuous as a meeting between a foreign politician and the Dalai Lama – is invariably met with negative publicity that reinforces nationalist sentiment in the prc. On the other hand, there has always been some support in China, even within the ccp, for genuine autonomy – although not national independence – in what are now classified as autonomous regions on the frontiers: the Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongol regions. Some of these attitudes are based on theoretical debates on the ‘national question’ that took place in the Soviet Union during its early years, when it was considered important to avoid the risk of Great Russian chauvinism. The concrete outcome in China was the creation of autonomous regions (zizhiqu), which have a formal structure that normally includes significant representation for the named ethnic minority of the region but which are in practice dominated by Han party leaders. In contemporary China it is not always possible for views on minority autonomy to be expressed openly. In the 1980s it was well known that the then general secretary of the ccp, Hu Yaobang, was sympathetic to greater autonomy for Tibet. Hu and another reformer, the premier and subsequent general secretary Zhao 18

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

Ziyang, were both purged for their excessive liberalism in the 1980s, and subsequent supporters of similar open-minded views, including genuine self-rule for minority regions, have exercised considerable restraint on the question.7 Among the Han population in general, the ‘broad masses of the people’ as Mao Zedong would have called them, there is not a great deal of sympathy for the rights of citizens who are not Han, but in any public forum this is usually masked by genuflections towards the ‘great unity of the ethnic groups’ (minzu da tuanjie).8 Parallels with minorities in India Since China has a population of 1.3 billion and a land area compar­ able to that of Europe, it is hardly surprising that its demographic composition is more complex, and more interesting, than the official position allows. India is of a comparable size and is almost universally referred to as a subcontinent – although this perspective is to some extent based on the India of pre-independence days and normally includes the present-day states of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Even so, there is clear recognition within India of the great variety of languages, cultures and religions in the majority Indian population alone, in addition to the scheduled castes and tribes (often referred to colloquially as ‘tribals’), which are the equivalent of the national minorities of China. The ‘tribals’ of India suffer discrimination and exploitation at the hands of the majority population in spite of measures adopted by legislators to protect their interests. The photographer Sunil Janah visited remote villages in a study of the culture of the tribals that he undertook over a period of more than 30 years, and criticized the way in which many of them were treated by mainstream society: Unfortunately the tribals are ruthlessly exploited by everyone from the outside world who comes into contact with them – timber contractors, merchants and licensed distillers of the liquor they drink. Some petty officials even make a regular habit of collecting chicken, eggs, rice and forest produce from them without making any payment. The tribals are too poor to offer bribes and to avoid harassment, most of them run away from outsiders.9 19

LESSER DRAGONS

Debt burdens and the visits of the moneylender are also a source of constant concern to these marginalized people. Without a detailed comparative study it is not possible to determine whether India’s tribals fare better or worse than China’s ethnic minorities, but it is important to bear in mind that there are actual or potential conflicts between majorities and minorities across the whole of Asia. Similar questions can be raised about the treatment of minorities in China’s near neighbours, including Vietnam, Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand. Han and Chinese: Identity, language and culture There is widespread confusion outside China about what is meant by ‘Han’ and ‘Chinese’ identities. The Han (or Han Chinese) are the majority population, who speak one of the languages (sometimes misleadingly referred to as dialects) that are grouped as Chinese and whose written language and culture are expressed through the medium of Chinese characters. Even this is not entirely straightforward, since two distinct versions of the Chinese script are in current use. Traditional full-form characters, which were standard throughout the whole Chinese world until the 1950s, are still used in Taiwan, by most people in Hong Kong and in émigré Chinese communities in the diaspora in Europe, Australasia and North America. Simplified characters (modified as part of a prc campaign in the 1950s to reform the language in the interests of greater literacy) are the written standard on the mainland, where complex characters are not easily read by most of the population, particularly the younger generation. The simplified script is increasingly used elsewhere as the global reach of the prc has extended, but it has not yet replaced the traditional script outside China. Because the traditional script is used in Hong Kong, where the dominant spoken language is Cantonese, the misapprehension has sometimes arisen that it is a Cantonese script; it is not. The traditional script is also used by Mandarin speakers in Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere. There are in fact additional characters that can be used to represent Cantonese speech, but they are used only in special circumstances, such as the production of scripts for drama in the local vernacular. The dominant Chinese spoken language, that is, the language of the Han, is the ‘common language’, Putonghua. During the 20

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

imperial era an earlier form of this ‘common language’ was known as Mandarin, the Chinese term for which is Guanhua, literally ‘language of officials’. What is known on the mainland as Putonghua was called Guoyu, the National Language, during the Republic of China before 1949, and it is still known by that name in Taiwan; in Singapore it is called Huayu, which just means the Chinese language. Putonghua is the national language of China, but it originated in the speech of northern China and the standard version is based on the pronunciation of Beijing (although the dialect of Beijing itself deviates from the standard Putonghua in many ways); variants are also found in central and southwestern China. The languages of southeastern China, which include Cantonese, Fujianese (Hokkien), Shanghainese and Hakka, are very different. Because speakers of all these languages use the Chinese script, it is assumed that they are simply dialects of one Chinese language, but in practice these spoken forms are mutually incomprehensible and as different from one another as are Portuguese, Italian and Romanian (all members of the Romance family of languages) in Europe. There are also dialects or sub-dialects of all the main variants of Chinese. Native speakers of all these languages are considered to be Han, and are also likely to identify themselves as such. This is in contrast to minority peoples such as the Uyghurs, Tibetans or Miao, almost all of whom have their own languages and scripts but have in theory learned Standard Chinese (Putonghua) at school. This criterion of identifying members of the Han ethnic group in terms of their language is essentially cultural, and does not preclude the division between groups of Han that will be discussed in subsequent chapters. Ethnic groups in China It is not possible in a book of this length to cover in detail all the 56 ethnic groups in the prc (the Han and the 55 officially designated as minorities), many of which are small. Studies of key minorities will be offered to illustrate the diversity of ethnic groups in China and their complex relationship with wider Chinese society. It is instructive to consider the shifting nature of majorities, minorities and the changing frontiers of China. In present-day China some regions, especially border regions, are predominantly nonHan. Tibet is the best-known of these, but this is assumed to be a 21

LESSER DRAGONS

special case and simply the result of the Chinese invasion in 1959 of a state that was previously completely independent of China. The truth is inevitably more complicated: Tibet was part of the ‘Chinese’ empire under the Manchus, and today there are Tibetan commu­ nities outside central Tibet (the Tibetan Autonomous Region); these overlap with other minority populations, notably the Muslim Hui community. The case for Tibetan independence has been widely publicized. Similar demands by Mongols and Uyghurs, ‘national minorities’ who live in adjacent border regions where they are – or once were – the majority populations, have attracted much less interest in the West, although the escalation of violence in Xinjiang since the Urumqi riots of 2009 has resulted in greater coverage of that conflict in the media. Urban and rural minorities There are important differences between the way of life of ethnic­ minority groups in the cities and that of those in the countryside, especially in the more remote rural areas. These include the high plat­ eau of Tibet, the oases of Xinjiang and the grasslands of Mongolia, where in practice minorities may well be in the majority. In cities and large towns, ethnic-minority individuals and families often live in the same areas and engage in the same types of employment as the Han – teaching, office and shop work and so on – and may also dress in the same way; this is especially the case among the younger generation, who are more likely to be interested in contemporary fashion than in traditional costume. However, even in the cities of eastern China there are certain areas where minority groups have settled and have re­­-created the atmosphere of the traditional communities, for example Hui and Uyghur areas in Beijing (some of which have been demolished). In the more remote rural areas, minority cultures flourish and are less subject to the influence of the majority Han culture. The distinctiveness of smaller ethnic groups in the way they dress, eat, live and behave is usually more pronounced in the countryside. Religion and minorities Religious differences constitute an important symbol of the division between ethnic groups. Tibetans and Mongolians are Buddhists, 22

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

but their sacred traditions and practices are not the same as those of Chinese Buddhists – and there are differences between patterns of observance in Tibet and Mongolia. The Hui and Uyghur people are Muslim, and their religion is an integral part of their identity, but they rarely pray in the same mosques as each other or eat in the same halal restaurants. There are Han Christians as well as Christians from minority groups. Religious differences overlap with ethnic differences. Followers of new religions, especially Falun Gong, have sometimes been treated as if they were members of an oppressed minority; the activities of Falun Gong have indeed been ruthlessly suppressed by the government of the prc, but there is no real similarity with the position of ethnic minorities, and most adherents of Falungong are probably from the majority Han community.10 Cultural and linguistic differences between minorities Most ethnic minorities in China have their own languages, which distinguish them from the Han and also from other minorities. This is not universal; the Hui, for example, are considered to be a distinct group but there is some disagreement about whether they have their own separate language. The differences between the languages of the minorities may be significant but in some cases, especially where small populations are involved, they are slight – although it is usually important to the different groups that they preserve those distinctions. There is resistance to the compulsory teaching of Standard Chinese in minority areas, and some ethnic groups, not­ ably Tibetans and Uyghurs, consider that even bilingual education poses a threat to the survival of indigenous non-Chinese languages. As a result, the level of competence in Standard Chinese found among non-Han people ranges from true bilingualism to virtually none, depending on an individual’s ability, level of education and outlook, and on the attitudes of their community. Major differences are apparent in the social practices of ethnic minorities, particularly those that relate to courtship, marriage, birth and death, although some of these have been lost as China has modernized under a Han-dominated Communist Party determined to abolish practices identified as superstitious, feudal and backward. Traditional music, dance and theatre have usually survived, encouraged to some extent by the government, which tolerates them as 23

LESSER DRAGONS

acceptable expressions of ethnic-minority culture as long as they do not threaten the political status quo. To what extent these genuinely represent a living culture, rather than a sanitized version to satisfy official claims of ‘the great unity of the nationalities’ (minzu da tuanjie), is questionable. Han majority Although this is a book devoted mainly to the non-Han ethnic­ minority groups of China, it is clearly impossible to ignore the Han majority, the greater dragons. The Han are often presented in China as homogeneous, the most advanced of the ethnic groups and the one against which minorities should be measured, however inappropriate that might seem to members of minority groups or independent thinkers. The use of the word Han to denote an ethnic group is usually traced back to the term Hanren (people of Han), which refers to the subjects of the Han dynasty emperors (206 bc–ad 220) and their descendants. It was primarily a cultural and geographical distinction rather than an ethnic or racial one, and is often synonymous with the settled agricultural communities of the Central Plains as distinct from the nomadic pastoralists of the northern and western frontiers. The Han were linked by a common written language, which those beyond the frontiers did not share, and this linguistic connection and its complexities have been discussed above. Another term, Tangren (people of Tang), was also used; it alludes to the Tang dynasty (ad 618–907) – much later than the Han – and was applied mainly to the Chinese of the south. This can be seen in contemporary Chinatowns in Britain, Europe and elsewhere that are often called Tangrenjie (Streets of the Tang People), reflecting the origins of most of these communities in migrations, direct or indirect, from Guangdong and other southern provinces. As we have seen, many diaspora Chinese in Southeast Asia prefer a different term, Hua, for Han Chinese, and in Singapore the standard form of Chinese that is known in the West as Mandarin (Hanyu) is known as Huayu. The nature of the Han Chinese ethnic group became a major preoccupation of Chinese radicals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and is still the focus of academic studies to 24

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

determine to what extent they can be classed as one ethnic group. Over 90 per cent of the population of China are classified as Han, and according to the census of 2000 there were approximately 1.1 billion Han, which could qualify it as the largest ethnic group in the world. Given the geographical spread of Han communities, from the far northeast in what was once called Manchuria to the borders of Burma and Vietnam, and from conservative Beijing southwards to livelier and more cosmopolitan and commercially minded cities such as Shanghai in the east of China and Guangzhou close to the border with Hong Kong, it would be surprising if all Han were culturally identical. Although on one level Han people tend to be comfortable with identifying themselves as part of this majority group, there is also a large measure of agreement about differences between the Han of one area and another. Beijingers, Shanghainese and Cantonese all have stereotypical views of one another; southerners, for example, frequently characterize Beijingers as stuffy and pompous. There are recognized subgroups of Han, some of which suffer discrimination: among the best documented are the Subei people of northern Jiangsu, who are the butt of jokes.11 The Han can be subdivided most easily according to the languages they speak but also, especially in the rural areas, by different local customs, especially in relation to marriage, child-rearing and religious worship. dna testing has been carried out in a number of studies to determine the relationship between different groups of Han people, in particular the contrast between those who live in the north and in the south. These studies are controversial, since they remind some scholars of the racial stereotyping practised in Europe before the Second World War. They are far from comprehensive, but they do indicate the presence of ‘northern’ dna in the south, presumed to be the result of migration southwards over the centuries, often to escape from armed conflict or famine. They demonstrate a predominance of male dna, which would be consistent with a long-drawn-out process of male migration and intermarriage that can be correlated with historical studies of migration. Differences between diverse groups of Han in southern China are attributed to genetic mixing with what are now termed ethnic minorities. Various studies have argued that some communities that identify themselves strongly as Han exhibit patterns of dna that are close to those of the minorities in the same region.12 25

LESSER DRAGONS

Alternative approaches to minority matters The methods of classifying minorities in China and the policies of successive governments towards them are problematic and highly political. There are different and often contradictory approaches to these questions within and outside China. The discourse on minorities within China is dominated by the research carried out in institutions such as the Institute for Nationality Studies (Minzu Yanjiusuo) of the Academy of Social Sciences and parallel organizations in the provinces and autonomous regions. This research is carried out under the strict supervision of party and government bodies and, broadly speaking, is expressed in the idiom of the style of Marxism-Leninism that has developed in China since the 1950s, notably in the retention of the concept of minority ‘nationalities’ (minzu), which in turn was adopted from natsionalnost’, a term developed in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s time, with little consideration for its relevance to China. Since the relaxation of many of the ideological constraints on Chinese academic research in the 1980s, specialists in the minorities have been able to carry out research and publish their results with much greater freedom than before, although this does not always apply to research into those areas deemed sensitive for state secur­ity, notably Xinjiang and Tibet but increasingly Inner Mongolia. These researchers have the advantage of easy access to minority groups in a way that has only recently become possible for non-­Chinese researchers, and many are competent in the languages of the minorities they study. Such research often results in important data and insights, but it must be read critically in the light of ­restrictions on the way in which it is written and published. Many Western specialists are critical of the official Chinese approach, and the more trenchant critics, notably some North American anthropologists and sociologists, reject the model of minority classification and the methodology of minority ethnic ­studies that have been in place in China since 1949, seeking to replace them with models based on the application of contemporary Western theories of social science. The best of this work has been carried out on the basis of fieldwork, the acquisition of the appropriate languages and an understanding of the cultural background of the specific minority studied and of China in general. 26

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities

There is more common ground between these approaches than might be expected, and the differences are often as much ideological as they are academic. The most celebrated Chinese anthropologist and sociologist of the twentieth century, Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005), was trained in Western methodology by Bronislaw Malinowski at the London School of Economics and A. R. Radcliffe-Brown in China and later at Oxford. Fei fought heroically to reintroduce his academic specialisms to the curriculum of Chinese universities in the 1980s after they had been abandoned during the Cultural Revolution. However, before he came under the influence of the British school of anthropology, he had studied under the émigré Russian Sergei Shirokogorov in the Department of Ethnology of Academia Sinica in Beijing. Shirokogorov was a White Russian who had escaped the Revolution, and Fei later acknowledged that the Russian’s approach to ethnology had been a powerful influence on his early intellectual formation. As a refugee from the Bolshevik regime, Shirokogorov was not a Marxist, but Marxist ethnology – including the theories of the American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan, whose ideas on social change influenced Marx and Engels – spread into China from the 1950s onwards through the work of academics in the Soviet Union. In common with other intellectuals in China, in his working life Fei had to balance his commitment to independent academic research with the political demands of the state that financed that research.13

27

1 Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

T

he civilization of China, the land that today constitutes the mainland territory of the prc, was formed over centuries as a result of interaction between settled agriculturalists in the central plains and nomad pastoralists from the steppes of inner or central Asia. Taiwan’s history as an island on China’s maritime ­frontier is somewhat different, and will be considered separately. Broadly speaking, in the centre and north of the mainland, the agriculturalists were from populations that are now considered ethnically Han, and the nomads belonged to tribal confederations that occupied the frontiers of the settled land and were the ancestors of today’s Mongol, Manchu, Turkic and Tibetan ethnic groups. In southern and southwestern China, although there were boundaries between the Chinese and non-Chinese populations, the distinction between settled and nomad does not apply in the same way because the mountainous topography does not lend itself to a largescale pastoral economy. The significant division in the south is that between the agriculturalists of the plains, predominantly Han, and the farmers of the poorer land in the highlands; the latter are often, but not exclusively, of non-Han origin and are often referred to as ‘hill tribes’. This is not the place to analyse in detail the complex interactions between these groups, which were the result of conquest, trade, raiding, intermarriage and living in close proximity over many centuries, but there is no doubt that migration across the cultural frontiers and throughout China has played a major role in the formation of the ethnic groups that exist in China today. This complex interaction at the elite political level in late medieval and early 28

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

modern times has been simplified into a chronological list of dynasties, the rule of the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368), the Chinese Ming (1368–1644) and the Manchu Qing (1644–1911), usually making a clear distinction between ‘conquest’ (Mongol and Manchu) and ‘native Chinese’ (Ming) dynasties. This distinction does not stand up to close scrutiny when the ethnic composition of the successive elites is examined in detail. The elites of Chinese society during these dynasties were generally multilingual and multicultural, although different groups predominated depending on the period. During the Yuan dynasty the highest level of the ruling elite were the Mongols, who had incorporated China into their empire but used officials of Han Chinese and other ethnic groups to assist in the administration of that empire. Muslims, who were mainly from Central Asia and speakers of Turkic or Persian languages, also played a key role in governing the country: some were employed at court for their technical abilities in architecture and astronomy, and many more worked throughout the empire as tax collectors. Some of these Muslims who had settled permanently in China and inter­ married with Han and Tibetans can be considered as the forefathers of the minority group known today as the Hui, the Chinese-speaking Muslims. The Ming dynasty was praised by traditional Chinese historians as a native Chinese house that had expelled the alien Mongol overlords, but the Ming court was content to continue the Yuan practice of using Muslims in its administration. It has even been claimed that the founding emperor of the Ming, Taizu, who was born Zhu Yuanzhang, was of Muslim origin, although this is unlikely. During the Qing dynasty the Manchus ruled the Chinese territory they had conquered in 1644, but the role of Han officials in administration in both central and local government became so important that the political system has been referred to as a Manchu-Han dyarchy. Modern research based on documents in the Manchu language as well as those in Chinese indicates that the use of the term ‘dyarchy’ may seriously underrate the authority of the Manchus within the governing system, but there is no denying the important role that Han officials (together with Mongols, Tibetans and Muslims) played in enabling the Manchu ruling house to retain control over the territory of China.

29

LESSER DRAGONS

Anti-Manchu sentiment and the Revolution of 1911 For Han Chinese the Qing had always been an alien conquest dynasty – although many served it – and by the nineteenth century it was also widely perceived as corrupt, incompetent and acting against the interests of the majority of the population of the empire. It was castigated particularly for its inability to defend China from the increasing commercial and diplomatic demands that were being made by Western powers, and later by Japan. Much of the hatred of the regime was directed personally against the Dowager Empress Cixi (formerly written Tzu Hsi). Not only was she from an aristocratic Manchu family, but also, as a woman, she was ineligible to rule according to the traditional laws and entrenched conventions of a patriarchal society that claimed to adhere to strict Confucian precepts. The ruling elite of the late Qing period, especially during the nineteenth century, was not purely Manchu but included many Han and Mongol courtiers and officials, but this did not lessen the antipathy of many Han people, including some of the most highly educated, towards the Manchus, who shouldered the blame for the failures of the regime. As the Manchu Qing dynasty neared the end of its life, many Chinese intellectuals became convinced that a revolution to expel the Manchus and replace their dynasty with one controlled by ethnic Han Chinese was the only solution to the problems that threatened to bring about the downfall of the Chinese nation. Zhang Binglin and a new language of race To provide a theoretical justification for this belief, a new racial­ national discourse emerged. The revolutionary writer and thinker Zhang Binglin (1868–1936; also known as Zhang Taiyan) argued that the Han, the settled agriculturalist majority of the population of China, had a common ancestry and pedigrees that could be dated as far back as the mythical Yellow Emperor; their surnames could also be traced back to the earliest times, and these names distinguished them clearly from the Manchus or Mongols who were from frontier pastoralist backgrounds. This argument is supported by the existence of Han family and clan records ( jiapu), many of which have been compiled with great care and preserved over centuries. 30

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

There are thousands of these, of which many have been published. They are not completely representative of the population as a whole, however: most extant jiapu date back to the later dynasties; there are far more from the south than the north; and there are more from wealthy and powerful clans than poorer ones. To take one instance only, in the case of a husband brought into a family that lacked a biological son, that incomer might be included in the family tree without any indication of the fact that he came from another family, or of the origins of that family. Jiapu are an important indication of the importance Han people attach to their genealogy, but are not conclusive for ascertaining whether families were ‘purely’ Han. Many minority people have used surnames and given names written in Chinese characters that are virtually indistinguishable from names used by the Han Chinese. This was particularly the case in the south but also not uncommon among Mongols, many of whom used a Chinese name in addition to their Mongol name, especially if they were educated and in contact with Chinese officials. This is still the case in contemporary China, and individuals who identify themselves as ethnic Mongols may be known solely or primarily by a Chinese name. The pioneering geologist Li Siguang is one example, but the most prominent is Fu Ying, deputy foreign minister of the People’s Republic of China and former ambassador to the United Kingdom; she was born in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Manchus also used names in Chinese as well as their native Manchu language, but the fact that the Chinese names of Manchus are usually written with two rather than three characters is a useful, although far from infallible, indication of their background. Today, Chinese of Manchu origin rarely use names in Manchu, at least in public. Zhang Binglin used the term ‘Han Chinese’ or Hanzu in a new sense that clearly emphasized a racial rather than a cultural identity. The Han, he argued, were racially or ethnically quite distinct from the originally nomadic Manchus of the north – who had subjugated them since the seventeenth century – and the sometime allies of the Manchus, the Mongols. This was in contrast to the prevailing thinking among Chinese scholars in his lifetime (many of whom were influenced by Western Social Darwinism) that both Manchus and Chinese were part of a ‘yellow race’ that was in conflict with the ‘white race’ of Europeans. Zhang’s analysis was far from an objective academic study: it was a political manifesto designed to ‘drive 31

LESSER DRAGONS

a wedge between the Han Chinese and the Manchus’, and was part of the wider strategy of opposing and overthrowing the Manchu regime. A racial classification of this nature is no longer considered academically respectable or otherwise acceptable, but the concept of a distinctive Hanzu remained during the governments of the Republic and the prc, even though both have attempted to be more inclusive towards the different ethnic groups and consider both Mongols and Manchus to be part of the wider Chinese nation.1 Sun Yat-sen and minorities during the Republic (1911–49) The Republic that followed the downfall of the Qing did not last. Sun Yat-sen, its inspiration, was unable to secure enough support from provincial warlords to retain the presidency that he had initially been offered, and was obliged to cede it to Yuan Shikai, a former Qing military official, in 1912. The country descended into a period of bitter and chaotic civil wars between regional warlords, most of whom were Han, although parts of western China were controlled by Muslim warlords of the Ma family. In 1926, after the death of Sun, Chiang Kai-shek ( Jiang Jieshi) took control of the Nationalist forces and launched the Northern Expedition to unify the nation by military force. By 1928 he had secured the support of most of the southern Chinese warlords and, after attempting to annihilate his erstwhile supporters in the Communist Party, was able to establish a government of the Guomindang nationalists based in Nanjing. During what became known as the Nanjing Decade, the government did not control the whole of China, and in 1937 much of the country was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. Chiang and the Nationalists then retreated to Chongqing in southwestern China, and remained there until the end of the Second World War, returning to Nanjing after the surrender of Japan in August 1945. In 1949, after losing a final civil war against the Communists, they withdrew to Taiwan, where the Guomindang ran a one-party regime until 1986; it remains one of the major ­political parties on the island. Sun’s ideas on nation and nationhood were crude and simplistic, but they reflected and reinforced common views held even by educated Han Chinese in the early twentieth century, and had an influence that persisted long after his death. His views were based 32

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

not on any scientific analysis or the systematic gathering of evidence but on his belief in the necessity of developing and sustaining Chinese nationalism, in a broad sense, to save the nation: The development of Chinese nationalism will give our people a permanent place in the civilized world; so it is our duty to make effective the doctrine of nationalism. Although there are a little over ten millions of non-Chinese in China including Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans and Tartars, their number is small compared with the purely Chinese population, four hundred million in number, which has a common racial heredity, common religions and common traditions and customs. It is one nationality! . . . Unite the four hundred millions and save the nation through nationalism.2

By ‘Tartars’, Sun means the Turkic-speaking Muslim people of Xinjiang, most of whom would now be classified as Uyghurs; it is a confusing name, since in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ‘Tartars’ was used by some Western writers to mean all the northern minorities – Turkic, Mongol and Manchu. Sun is explicit about the ‘common racial heredity’ of the 400 million Han, their leading role as saviours of the nation, and by implication the secondary status of the minorities. If the population figures he cites are brought up to date and a few words altered, there are striking similarities between his approach and that of the ccp. Sun is revered by the Guomindang as the father of modern Chinese nationalism, but the ccp also respects him as a progressive political figure and the forerunner of its own revolution; many of his ideas and attitudes continue to influence policies in the prc. Investigating and classifying minorities in the 1950s When the ccp came to power in 1949 it had little experience of Western ideas, apart from those of the Soviet Union, and only a few individuals in its leadership had studied or travelled in other countries. Its approach to nationality policy, as policy towards ethnic minorities was called, was based on the model that had been developed in the Soviet Union, initially by Lenin but mainly under Stalin, in which ethnic-minority communities were assigned to a 33

LESSER DRAGONS

natsionalnost’, a ‘nationality’. The ccp applied a similar approach in China, although this was modified on the basis of the ideas of Sun and the practical experience of the party in its members’ encounters with different non-Han communities in the 1930s and 1940s. This was initially during the Long March of 1935–6, which took the party into ethnically mixed regions of western China, and then in the ‘liberated areas’ that it governed independently during the resistance to Japanese occupation between 1937 and 1945. Ethnic-minority communities that had been disadvantaged and had suffered discrimination during the empire and the early years of the Republic were often willing to lend their support to the ccp before and after it came to power in 1949. The most important evidence on which the ccp relied in constructing its minority policies was gathered during the earliest years of the prc. In the 1950s fact-finding and propaganda missions were deployed throughout China to investigate and classify national minorities, and also to spread the word about the policies of the new government. This took place immediately after the end of the civil war, and was part of an operation by the ccp to bring outlying areas under central control. The intention of these missions was primarily political rather than scholarly; it aimed to bring to an end the historical conflicts between ethnic groups and replace them with improved ethnic relations based on the ccp’s Common Programme. This document, the forerunner of the first constitution of the prc, had been adopted in September 1949 by the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (cppcc). The cppcc, which still has an important consultative role in the governance of China, is a broadly based united-front organization that focuses on ethnic and religious minorities. It was formally established in September 1949, although there had been similar bodies before then. The decision to send fact-finding missions to the minority areas was made in June 1950 by the Government Administration Council, the cabinet or highest administrative body and the predecessor of the current State Council. The first group, of 120 researchers, was assembled under the leadership of Liu Geping, a veteran Communist Party activist who was also a Hui Muslim and later held senior party and government appointments in Ningxia and Shaanxi; his approach to minority matters was moderate and liberal, and he fell foul of the dogmatic Maoists in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. His 34

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

deputies in the fact-finding mission were the sociologist and anthropologist Fei Xiaotong, and Xia Kangnong, an academic biol­ogist and, like Fei, a member of the China Democratic League, one of the eight recognized non-Communist political parties that had origin­ ated in a wartime grouping that attempted to create a ‘third way’ between the Nationalist and Communist parties. This combination of ccp and non-Communists is a reflection of the inclusive approach attempted by the ccp during this ‘New Democracy’ period in the early 1950s. New Democracy began to falter in the middle of the decade and came to an abrupt end with the Anti-Rightist Campaign, after which the non-Communist parties lost such influence as they had previously been able to exercise. The delegation was divided into three, and each section included cultural, medical, photographic and film specialists. They set out from Beijing on 2 July 1950 and visited the minority areas of the provinces of Sichuan, Xikang (which is no longer a province, but at the time included the Tibetan areas of western Sichuan and part of what is now the Tibetan Autonomous Region), Yunnan and Guizhou, all of which are in the southwest of China. In August 1950 similar groups were deployed to Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai and Xinjiang, in the northwest. In June 1951 and July 1952 minority communities in the centre and south of China were also visited, principally those in the provinces of Guangdong (including the island of Hainan), Guangxi and Hunan. Teams were also deployed northwards to Inner Mongolia and the former province of Suiyuan, another Mongol area in the northeast. Fei Xiaotong also participated in these later visits.3 University for Nationalities The motivation behind these missions was necessarily political, given the position of the ccp at the time, but serious academic work on the minorities also began in the early 1950s. One important institution for the study of minorities is the Central Nationalities University (Zhongyang Minzu Daxue), known before 2008 as the Central Institute for Nationalities. In English communications it uses a hybrid name and is known as the Minzu (Nationalities) University of China. The original Central Institute was based on an earlier body that had operated in the Communist redoubt of Yan’an in the 1940s, 35

LESSER DRAGONS

but its development as a national institution began in 1951 and it was formally opened on 11 June 1952. From the outset, the primary function of the institute was to educate cadres from the minority nationalities, and there is no hiding the fact that training and education went hand in hand and that the university has provided an understanding of the position of minorities on the basis of Marxism and not from any objective or general educational standpoint. The university offers degree courses in a wide range of subjects, including anthropology, ethnology and minority languages. A quota system ensures that it draws from the whole range of minority groups in China, and its entrance requirements are flexible enough to allow positive discrimination in favour of minority students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Some 60 per cent of the student intake and 30 per cent of the academic staff are from ethnic minorities, but Han Chinese students are also accepted.4 Fei Xiaotong and fieldwork in the 1950s Fei Xiaotong became one of the prc government’s leading experts on minority affairs, and is remembered with respect and admiration for the part he played in reintroducing the academic study of sociology to China after it had been proscribed during the Cultural Revolution. He was also one of the pivotal figures in the establishment of the Central Institute for Nationalities and was associated with it for more than 30 years. Fei had been an important figure in the programme to identify and classify minorities in the early years of the new regime, and had organized fieldwork in some of the most ethnically complex areas in southwestern China. One of the trickiest problems he and his colleagues faced was that by 1955 more than 400 separate groups had formally registered claims that the authorities should designate them as ethnic minorities; no fewer than 260 of these groups were from the southwestern province of Yunnan alone. But were there really so many nationalities in China? A prelim­ inary examination revealed that many of these could be classified as subdivisions of existing ethnic groups; others were variant names applied to people of essentially the same ethnic group living in different places; and in some cases the different names merely reflected variations of translations into Chinese. Beginning in 1953, extensive fieldwork was carried out to test these claims as the researchers 36

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

attempted to arrive at classifications that were acceptable in orthodox Marxist terminology but did not offend minority groups. By early 1957 the number of ethnic groups that were considered to be genuinely independent had been officially defined ‘through exhaustive investigation and study as well as consultation with the leaders and masses of each group’.5 This was only the beginning, and there were further special investigations in 1956 as the ccp grappled with the reality of relations between the Han and the minorities in mixed areas and the problem of Han cadres who had little understanding of, or sympathy with, minority cultures. Many of these cadres were accused of having adopted an attitude of Great Han chauvinism (da Hanzu zhuyi), a concept that was a direct borrowing from the ‘Great Russian chauvinism’ of which Russian cadres were accused in the Soviet Union if they denigrated the non-Russian population.6 Eventually the Central People’s Government and its successor, the State Council, confirmed 55 groups, and these are now officially recognized as minorities. The appropriateness of the methodology and the accuracy of the results of these investigations have frequently been questioned, but the classifications that were approved during the investigations in the 1950s have been adopted for all practical purposes in China. Individuals and communities commonly describe themselves in terms of these classifications, and the 56 ‘nationalities’ (minzu) are used to indicate the ethnic origin of all Chinese citizens in passports, identity cards and other official documents. Nevertheless, there are still disputes over the classifications, both by academic analysts and by members of the minority communities themselves; some have never been resolved, and there are still groups petitioning to be recognized as ethnic minorities. In the early 1950s government policies were adapted to take into account the differences between the minorities and the majority Han. Policies directed at minorities included the provision of minority education: specialist schools and colleges were created, designed to integrate minorities into the broader Chinese society while catering for particular linguistic, religious and cultural needs. Soviet precedents were consulted in the formulation of these programmes, but the ccp went to considerable lengths to ensure that its policies were based on the realities of minorities in China rather than those in the Soviet Union. This relatively liberal and inclusive 37

LESSER DRAGONS

model did not survive the Great Leap Forward of the later 1950s and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, during which uniformity and conformity to Han norms were enforced. Representing ethnic minorities in the People’s Republic of China The way in which ethnic minorities are currently represented in China was determined largely by the projects to categorize ethnic groups organized by the Chinese state in the 1950s. Informing its wider policies on nation-building, they enabled the ccp to repay ethnic minorities for the support they had offered before 1949 by giving them representation in People’s Congresses at various levels and creating autonomous counties, prefectures and regions. As a result of these undeniably top-down projects, not only were the 55 official ethnic minorities identified, but also the government succeeded in ensuring that what had originated as official classifications were broadly accepted and used by the general population, notwithstanding resistance from members of some minority groups who have argued for a different, bottom-up approach to the way in which they are represented. The importance of the representation of ‘nationalities’ in the construction of the prc was highlighted in 1959 with the completion of the Cultural Palace of Nationalities (Minzu Wenhuagong) as part of celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the new state. It was ‘particularly designed as a showcase through which the state could present its accomplishments in the area of “nationalities work” [minzu gongzuo] by demonstrating how the state takes care of minority nationalities’. An important part of this work was the building of a museum and a library to display materials that had been collected and carefully selected to demonstrate the success of the ccp’s ethnic policies.7 One component of the government’s programme that has had lasting value is a project for research into the social histories of the minorities. It was inaugurated in 1956 and enhanced in 1958, when the number of teams was doubled as part of the Great Leap Forward – an example of a positive outcome during a period that is generally regarded as having been a national disaster. This project, which investigated the history of twenty different ethnic groups, was completed in 1964 and has yielded a mass of data on ‘the basic 38

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

situations of minority nationalities in terms of their origins, economic and socio-political structures, ideologies, customs and habits, and religious beliefs and practices’.8 The data that resulted from this work enabled the state to classify and organize ethnic minorities, but it has also yielded an important body of knowledge that suggests new approaches to the history of these minority groups. Most of this material remains unpublished, but some published research on Xinjiang and the Hui Muslims of Yunnan Province, based on these studies but not published until 50 years later, includes detailed socio-economic data that is not available elsewhere. Conflict over minority policy during the Maoist era The period between the foundation of the prc in October 1949 and the death of Mao Zedong in September 1976 is referred to loosely as the ‘Maoist era’. The politics of this period were far from uniform: policies were not consistent and Mao and his policies did not dominate it completely, however much he might have wished. Other senior leaders were influential in policymaking before 1966, notably Liu Shaoqi, Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai. Mao had lost much of his earlier authority after the Great Leap Forward began in 1958; he was obliged to stand down as head of state and recovered his earlier supremacy only when he launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Although he appeared to be in command between then and his death, in practice China was not firmly under the control of the Communist Party or the government for much of this chaotic decade. Policies aimed at the minorities, in common with all other policies in the prc, have varied significantly over the decades, whether in line with changes in the balance of power within the party leadership or with the shifting ideological landscape. As a broad generalization, minorities were permitted freer expression of their own identities in the early and mid-1950s and again briefly in the early 1960s. During the Great Leap Forward (1958) and the most chaotic phase of the Cultural Revolution (1966–9) the insistence by non-Han communities that they should be permitted to maintain their cultural and ethnic differences was attacked as a form of ‘local nationalism’. Members of the ccp, either nationally or locally, who argued for more tolerance of minority cultures were accused 39

LESSER DRAGONS

of a range of ideological crimes including special pleading, encouraging backward cultures and above all divorcing themselves from politics (that is, Mao’s politics of the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution). Ironically, during the Great Leap, as has been shown, research into the minorities expanded greatly in accordance with the insistence on faster growth in every aspect of the economy and of society. After the death of Mao in September 1976 and the return of Deng to the leadership of the ccp, many of the more radical policies of the late 1950s and 1960s were repudiated. The criticism of ‘local nationalism’ was re-evaluated and found to have been an example of ‘Great Han chauvinism’ towards the minorities, just one example of the many errors and excesses of the Maoist era.9 To take one example among many, the effect on Tibet of this sharp policy turn in 1958 and the post-Mao reversal were devastating. These consequences are recounted in the autobiography of a senior Tibetan member of the Chinese Communist Party, Baba Phuntsok Wangyal, an active supporter of the faction within the ccp that advocated genuine local autonomy for minority areas within the prc, but not independence. In the summer of 1958 he was marginalized and then transferred out of Tibet for his ‘local nationalist’ tendencies. In May 1980, after Deng’s return to power, the decisions in the political case against Phuntsok Wangyal were reversed and he was welcomed back into the fold personally by Deng and by the pragmatic and open-minded general secretary of the ccp, Hu Yaobang.10 Hu in particular was known to be sympathetic to the idea of allowing minority groups to exercise genuine autonomy in their own regions. He was a protégé of Deng and belonged to the more ‘liberal’ wing of the ccp. After a visit to Tibet in 1980, and in recognition of what were by then acknowledged as errors in ccp policy towards the Tibetan people, Hu had ordered the removal of large numbers of Han cadres and insisted that those remaining should learn the Tibetan language. He became general secretary of the ccp in 1982, but was forced to resign in 1987 after being accused of having been too sympathetic to pro-democracy demonstrators (and incidentally to Japan) during the previous year. In spite of his dismissal, his influence persisted and continues to persist within the ccp; his death in 1989 was the inspiration for the new wave of the democracy movement that ended in the deaths of many hundreds 40

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

after units of the People’s Liberation Army forced their way into Tian’anmen Square on 4 June of that year. Since the launch of the post-Mao economic reforms by Deng in 1978, the key slogan in minority politics has been the ‘great unity of the nationalities’ (minzu da tuanjie), which implies equality between ethnic groups while recognizing differences. It represents official policy and features regularly in the mass media, but it is also heard fairly commonly on the lips of ordinary citizens, particularly in areas where there are concentrations of non-Han people. The policy of equality and recognizing differences is supposed to apply to all parts of China, but it is not much in evidence in the border regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, where the government is particularly concerned with stability and perceives that there is a serious risk to the interests of the Chinese state. In these regions, the priority of the government is the resolute suppression of any expressions of independence or separatism. Where there is a conflict between the repression of separatism and policies espousing ethnic unity, ethnic unity comes a poor second. Managing minority affairs in the prc In the prc there is a firm constitutional and legal framework for the implementation of policies on minority affairs, but in many areas there is a significant gap between this framework and the way in which it is implemented on the ground. Nevertheless, the ­framework is the basis for the discussion of these issues within China. The cppcc was set up in 1949 as a forum for the interests of individuals and groups who were not members of the ccp. Its central body is based in Beijing and has the ear of the party and the government; it is regarded as an important national institution for promoting the interests of ethnic minorities, religious groups and the eight nominally independent but virtually impotent non­ Communist political parties that are permitted to exist. Within the overall structure of local government in China, autonomous regions (zizhi qu), autonomous prefectures (zizhi zhou) and autonomous counties (zizhi xian) have been established in areas where there is a significant non-Han population. Minorities are represented in the local governments of these bodies and in local branches of the cppcc, but it is the Communist Party machine, 41

LESSER DRAGONS

almost always dominated by Han members, that is in ultimate control, especially in politically and strategically sensitive border areas. As an example, in remote Jingyuan County, deep in the mountains in the south of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the local party and government are proud of their success in maintaining an ethnic and religious balance in the county’s branch of the cppcc. The population of the county in 2001 was 81,432, and of that 97.8 per cent were Hui Muslims. Local officials emphasize the fact that this is the county with the highest proportion of Hui people, not only in Ningxia but in the whole of China. The 143 mosques and other religious bodies (principally Sufi shrines) in Jingyuan represent four main strands of Chinese Islam: Gedimu, Jahariyya, Yihwani and Khufiyya. The main task faced by the Jingyuan local government, in the opinion of the mayor and party secretary, was to balance the often competing interests of these Sufi orders or sects within the local cppcc, since the differences between these groups are at least as important as their collective differences with the local government. They have had some success: Jingyuan has avoided the intra-religious conflict that has broken out from time to time in other areas of Ningxia.11 Development and minority concerns The most pressing concerns of ethnic-minority communities typically focus on their languages, culture and religion. In most cases these communities demand policies to enable them to preserve these traditions, and their leaders frequently express anxiety about perceived threats from an all-embracing dominant Han culture. Minority communities are also strongly attached to their traditional residential areas, which are often the locations of sacred or significant sites, including temples, mosques, shrines and graveyards. In the case of the nomads of the northwest, the priorities might be different, including the retention of traditional seasonal grazing patterns. Economic and social development often impinges on the concerns of non-Han groups (as indeed it does on some Han), especially if the removal or dispersal of a community is required for the building of roads, railways or dams. Such internal migration creates additional problems for minority communities that would not be faced by Han people in a similar situation. 42

Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

Some state policies, notably the one-child policy, have had a different impact on ethnic-minority communities than the Han majority. In some cases the policy contradicts minority belief systems and local ethnic and religious customs. There is also a pervasive fear, not always expressed, that the growth of such communities is being restricted by the Han. Modifications were made to the onechild policy to permit certain categories of minority people to have more than one child, and that in turn led to allegations of positive discrimination by Han critics. The one-child policy was effectively abandoned in October 2015; it is too soon to assess the long-term impact of this radical policy change on minorities. Minority communities often have their own local dedicated economies, particularly in areas where they form the majority of the population. This specialized economic activity is tied to social needs and sometimes to specific religious requirements. In many cases these activities are much less well developed than the Han-dominated majority economy and may rely on subsistence agriculture and even, in some of the more remote areas, on the remnants of a hunter-gatherer economy. Crafts and other manufactures often reflect local traditions rather than modern technology. The integration of such minority economies into the national Chinese economy is proceeding at an uneven pace, but in broad terms, as modernization proceeds, economic enterprises owned or run by Han Chinese tend to dominate. There have been attempts to use local cultures as the basis for a modern economy that also serves the needs of ethnic minorities, such as the establishment in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of an Islamic economic zone to promote the involvement of the local Hui Muslim communities in trade with the Middle East. The aim of the economic zone was to build on similarities in religious and cultural background and a shared understanding of Islamic financial principles. In the longer term the authorities in this region intend to establish an Islamic Financial Centre in conjunction with the Bank of Ningxia. At the time of writing there is little reliable evidence of how successful this project has been. Gulf Times reported in May 2015 that it was still a work in progress although there was considerable interest among financial specialists in the Middle East.12 Tourism has also become increasingly popular in minority areas, which are magnets not only for foreign visitors but also for 43

LESSER DRAGONS

Chinese tourists, predominantly Han, who are attracted by the idea of visiting exotic regions within their own country – regions that were inaccessible until the 1980s but which appeared frequently on national television. Areas dedicated to tourism, such as the Dai minority region of Xishuangbanna in the far south of Yunnan Province, have attracted much-needed finance from this source. Tourism has also brought social problems, and serious concerns have been raised about the effects of the long-term dependence of such areas on foreign visitors.

44

2 Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

B

eijing, the capital of the People’s Republic of China, was also the capital of many of the dynasties of imperial China; it was the capital of the final dynasty, the Manchu Qing, which ruled from 1644 to 1911. Capital cities tend to attract outsiders, who are lured by the work or wealth that the city’s political and financial power make possible, and Beijing is no exception. During the Qing period the capital was home to prominent and powerful members of the Manchu, Mongol and Han Chinese aristocracies and their families and retainers. It also had a long-standing community of Chinese-speaking Muslims, and this is reflected in the number of mosques in the city that are still attended by members of the Hui community and foreign Muslims in the present day. The adventures of Aladdin from the Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) – which are so familiar in Western culture as a story, a pantomime and more recently an animated film – were set in Beijing, and few have questioned the presence of a hero with such an obviously Arabic name in the Chinese capital. Uyghurs – also Muslims – and Buddhist Tibetans from the far west of the Chinese empire also had a presence in the Qing capital. In contemporary Beijing it is possible to meet members of any of China’s 55 minority groups, although they are not always distinguishable since for everyday purposes they tend to dress in much the same way as one another and the Han, particularly permanent residents and the young. Some street traders may stand out in the very centre of Beijing if they wear traditional costumes; they are likely to be moved out of the centre by police when there are important state occasions. Enterprising Tibetan pedlars, many of them women, are 45

LESSER DRAGONS

easily distinguished by their dress, their language and the Tibetan artefacts they sell. They ply their trade in many locations across the city, such as near the underground station in the Wudaokou district of northern Beijing, which is close to two of the country’s major institutions of higher education, Beijing University and Tsinghua (Qinghua) University. In the Wudaokou area there are also many Korean shops, cafés and restaurants, and signboards and advertisements in Korean mark them out clearly from Chinese businesses in the same district. Most of the Korean businesses have opened to serve the increasing number of students of South Korean origin studying in the capital, but they also cater to ethnic Korean i­ ncomers from northeastern China. Ethnic Koreans, mostly from Yanbian prefecture, close to the border with North Korea, also run popular barbecue restaurants in the capital. Perhaps surprisingly, in spite of the much vaunted political closeness of Beijing and Pyongyang, there are few North Koreans in the Chinese capital; they have neither the opportunity nor the resources for foreign travel. Uyghur kebab-sellers from Xinjiang are also a permanent feature in the fastfood court off Wangfujing in central Beijing, as they are in many towns and cities throughout China. Two important institutions, both in the north of Beijing, offer valuable insights into the experiences of non-Han people and attitudes towards them now and in the past. The Yonghegong, better known in English as the Lama Temple, is a survival from the Qing dynasty and offers a window on the religious and cultural thinking of the Manchu elite. The Chinese Ethnic Culture Park is a modern museum and tourist attraction, but it is also a convenient microcosm of the official government and Communist Party attitude to minority cultures in contemporary China. Lama Temple (Yonghegong) and Manchu multiculturalism The Lama Temple is a monastery or lamasery in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. It is in the Beixinqiao area of north Beijing’s Dongcheng district, and can be seen clearly from the North Second Ring Road. It has become a popular destination for tourists, both foreign and Chinese, and in 2002 it was estimated that over the years it has had 25 million visitors from China and elsewhere. It is one of the most important symbols of the cultural and architectural 46

Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

history of Beijing, and as such is protected and supervised by the Chinese government, through the Beijing Municipal Department of Religious Affairs in consultation with an administrative committee composed of the abbot, supervisors and senior lamas of the monastery. The close involvement of the government has led to scepticism about the authenticity of the religious observance in the temple complex, but it is indisputable that it is attended regularly by citizens of Beijing and visitors, who worship there as they might at any other Buddhist holy place. The Yonghegong, literally the Palace of Harmony and Peace, is a lamasery of the Gelug or Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. This is the sect of the Dalai Lamas, of which the current incarnation is the fourteenth, and is also known as the Yellow Sect. The Gelugpa emerged as the dominant sect in Tibetan Buddhism in the late sixteenth century; it also became the main Buddhist tradition in Mongolia as a result of religious and political alliances between the Tibetan and Mongolian people. The institution of the Dalai Lama (Ocean or Universal Lama) is a result of this alliance. In 1578 the title was bestowed on Sonam Gyatso, a Gelugpa monk of the Drepung monastery in Tibet, by the Mongolian chieftain Altan Khan; since the title was conferred retrospectively on Sonam Gyatso’s two ­predecessors, he was deemed to be the third Dalai Lama. The Lama Temple complex was built in 1694 and began life as a residence for officials of the Qing imperial court. It was briefly the imperial palace during the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor (1722– 35), who lived there before he ascended the dragon throne. From 1744 it was developed and rebuilt as a lamasery on the instructions of the Qianlong Emperor, who had succeeded his father, Yongzheng, in 1735. The reconstructed Lama Temple became the main centre of Tibetan Buddhism in Qing dynasty Beijing, and it remains an important symbol of Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhism in the Chinese capital today. The architecture of the Lama Temple combines features of Han Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan building styles. There are five main halls, and the subsidiary halls are devoted to the study of scripture, the esoteric tradition in Buddhism, mathematics, medicine and monastic discipline. One hall is dedicated to followers of the Panchen Lama, the second most senior figure in the Gelugpa tradition and the subject of continuing religious and political 47

LESSER DRAGONS

controversy, during both the life of the Tenth Panchen Lama and, after his death in 1989, the recognition of the eleventh incarnation. Each hall is furnished with images of the Buddha and other cultural relics. Three of the most highly prized of these relics are known as the ‘matchless treasures of the Yonghegong’. The first is the Mountain of the Five Hundred Arhats in the Hall of the Dharma Wheel (Falundian). It is carved in red sandalwood, and each of the 10-cm-high (4-in.) arhats (followers of the Buddha Sakyamuni) is cast in gold, silver, bronze, iron or tin. The second treasure, in the Tower of Buddha’s Radiance (Zhaofolou), is a shrine to the Buddha, carved in precious timber from the evergreen Nanmu trees that grow south of the Yangzi River. Within the shrine a Ming dynasty standing statue of Sakyamuni (one of the names of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha) carved in sandalwood is flanked by Ananda and Kasyapa (two of the Buddha’s principal disciples) and enclosed by pillars carved with 99 coiling dragons. The third treasure, which stands in the Hall of Infinite Happiness (Wanfuge), is a giant statue of the Buddha Maitreya – the Buddha of the future, who has been a central figure in millenarian religious movements that have arisen from time to time in the history of China. It is 18 m (59 ft) high and intricately carved in sandalwood. Signs bearing the names of the halls and pavilions of the Lama Temple – like those in the Imperial Palace (Forbidden City) complex in central Beijing – are inscribed in Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan, the four main languages of the Qing dynasty elite. The Lama Temple has been praised as a symbol of the broad­ mindedness and religious tolerance of the Manchu rulers, who wished to indicate their inclusiveness and in particular their support for Buddhism. It honours the Buddhist tradition practised on the frontiers of China, in the steppes and grasslands of the Mongolian and Tibetan regions, a tradition that follows sacred texts in the Tibetan language. It is the form of Buddhism that was adopted by Manchus, who also retained their traditional beliefs in shamanism. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition is quite distinct from the numerous schools of Chinese Buddhism that have developed their own canon of scriptures in the Chinese language. Although both traditions are Buddhist and ultimately draw on original sacred texts in the classical Sanskrit and Pali languages of India, they operate separately and in parallel, rather than together. These differences do not, however, 48

Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

discourage ethnic Chinese from worshipping at the Yonghegong temple. Another example of the importance attached to Buddhism by the Qianlong Emperor is his order in 1772 for the construction of miniature pagodas to be placed in Tibetan-style palaces in the Manchu imperial hunting grounds of Rehe (the former province of Jehol, now divided between Hebei, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia). These intricate works of art are effectively three-dimensional mandalas. The term ‘mandala’ is more commonly used for symbolic representations of the universe in two dimensions, usually in the form of a circle within a square. The miniature pagodas have four gates, fashioned from cloisonné enamel, coral, silver and jade, and Buddhist symbols on the roofs include canopies, fish, umbrellas and banners. Preserving the Lama Temple The Qing dynasty architecture of the temple has largely been preserved, although by 1949, after decades of war, invasion and civil war, it was in a parlous state. Isaac Taylor Headland taught science at Peking University from 1890 to 1907. As a somewhat puritanical American missionary, he was scandalized by some of the temple images but impressed by the building itself, and refrained from commenting on the poverty and disease of the surroundings, which had shocked Western visitors in previous decades: In the east side buildings there are a few interesting, though in some cases very disgusting idols, such for instance as those illustrating the creation, but over these draperies have been thrown during recent years, which make them a trifle more respectable. The temple is very imposing. At the entrance there are two large arches covered with yellow tiles, from which a broad paved court leads to the front gate, on the two sides of which are the residences of the Lamas or Mongol priests. At the hour of prayer, which is about nine o’clock, they may be seen going in crowds, clothed in yellow robes, to the various halls of worship where they chant their prayers.1

49

LESSER DRAGONS

After the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911, the lamasery was used as the Office for Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs under the government of President Yuan Shikai. It was no longer a haven of peace but a crowded and busy office complex. Although it was an important cultural monument, it was sadly neglected, and there was little protection for the temple buildings or such religious and cultural relics as remained. Some attempts at restoration were subsequently made, but lamas recalled having to hide precious religious artefacts from foreign adventurers, archaeologists and dealers intent on acquiring them at the lowest price possible. The buildings were further damaged in 1948, when they were used by units of the Nationalist military police: statues and other cultural relics were destroyed during this period; many walls had collapsed and the courtyards and halls were overgrown with weeds and grass. The Lama Temple was handed over to the Beijing Temple Regulation Committee on 22 February 1949, not long after the first units of the People’s Liberation Army had entered Beiping (as Beijing was known at the time). When the new government of the Chinese Communist Party was established in October 1949, senior party and government figures inspected the temple on a number of occasions, and decisions were made in 1950 and again in 1952 to preserve it as a ‘major national cultural relic worthy of preservation’. This was during the period known in China as ‘New Democracy’, during which – in spite of the professed atheism of the ccp – there were serious attempts to take into account the opinions and needs of non-Communists, including ethnic and religious minorities. In 1961 the lamasery was designated by the State Council a ‘major national historical and cultural site under state protection’ and funds were allocated for its renovation. It survived unscathed the Cultural Revolution, when many places of worship – of all denominations – were destroyed by Red Guards determined to root out ancient superstitious practices, used for other non-religious purposes, or closed down and sealed up for their protection. Two historians of the Lama Temple, Liu Yanjiang and Du Dianwen, attribute its survival during this period primarily to the personal intervention of Premier Zhou Enlai; in view of his record of trying to minimize damage to cultural relics during the Cultural Revolution, this is entirely convincing.2

50

Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

Revival of Buddhist practice and tourism As China opened up in the 1980s the temple was developed as both a monument and a religious institution. In 1979 the state made substantial extra funding available for its restoration, and it was eventually reopened as a place of worship for Buddhists in 1981. During the Cultural Revolution there had been very little, if any, open Buddhist worship across most of China; to have been seen even burning incense would have invited severe public criticism or even arrest. This was not entirely the case in Tibet and the Tibetan areas of western Chinese provinces, where Buddhism was an integral part of society, but even in those regions Red Guards attacked temples and monasteries and attempted to suppress all religions, including Buddhism. In Beijing, where some of the main conflicts of the Cultural Revolution were played out, and which was one of the focal points of Red Guard activity, religious worship was ruthlessly suppressed and that included all activities in the Yonghegong. After the lamasery complex was reopened to the public in 1981, the number of worshippers grew rapidly. The Lama Temple’s own website reported that at Chinese New Year in 2014, some 76,000 people had visited the temple to burn incense, 5,000 more than in 2013. Incense-sellers were queuing outside the main gate from 5 a.m., and the local police station had deployed more than 2,000 staff because of the crowding and traffic problems that were regularly experienced on these occasions, but there were no reports of trouble or crime. The lamasery is seen today as a symbol of religious tolerance in the prc, although the history of ccp policy on religion is chequered to say the least. Tourists visit the Yonghegong in large numbers, and their admission fees are an important source of income for its upkeep. Many Chinese citizens visit the temple, even on non-festival days, and they can frequently be seen offering prayers and burning incense. Whatever their background or their motives, there is no doubt that the Yonghegong still has religious significance for these people. Although it is the Tibetan form of Buddhism that is practised at the Yonghegong, rather than one of the many schools of Chinese Buddhism, most visitors who burn incense are Han Chinese, either from the Beijing region or tourists from outlying provinces. 51

LESSER DRAGONS

The lamasery also enacts traditional ceremonies, of which the most celebrated is the one known colloquially as ‘beating the devils’ (tiaogui or dagui in Chinese) or the ‘devil dance’. It follows eight days of prayer for peace and prosperity in the year to come, and is held annually beginning on the thirtieth day of the first lunar month. Younger lamas in elaborate masks perform energetic and physically demanding dances to ‘beat the devils’, accompanied by drums and cymbals, and the three-day ritual attracts large numbers of spectators. In a report on the ceremony in the spring of 2013, China Daily explained that the ritual had been performed every year since it was reinstated in 1987. Mongolians and Tibetans do not usually refer to this ceremony as the ‘devil dance’, which is a pejorative description used by the Chinese. It is the Tsam (in Mongolian) or Cham (Tibetan) festival, and different rituals of this type take place at different times of the year. It is not just a dance, but a dance drama that includes the reading of Buddhist scriptures, and it performs a function that suggests parallels with the medieval mystery plays in the United Kingdom, spreading religious knowledge to the wider populace through accessible performances. The most popular Tsam ceremony takes place in the sixth lunar month and tells the story of the victory of good over evil, symbolized in the death of an ancient Tibetan ‘evil king’, Langdharma, who suppressed Buddhism and restored the earlier Bön religion of Tibet. On the following day a statue of the Maitreya is carried on a circumambulation of the monastery. Mongolian connection Although the Lama Temple is a symbol of the Gelugpa Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there are few if any Tibetan lamas in the monastery. The monks are mainly of Mongolian origin, and it cannot be assumed that the practices of the temple are representative of Buddhism in either Tibet or Mongolia, although there are many local variations in the practice of Buddhism in both regions. There were no Tibetan monks at all in the Lama Temple in 2000, according to one of the senior lamas interviewed by the author. He indicated that in recent times most of the monks staffing the temple have been Mongolians from Inner Mongolia. This is not peculiar to contemporary China: travellers’ accounts from the early twentieth 52

Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

century usually refer to the lamas as Mongolian. However, one of the official publications, Lamasery of Harmony and Peace, refers to ‘a small number’ of Tibetan and Tu monks (the Tu are speakers of a Mongolic language and also known as Monguors) from Qinghai, the province that borders the modern Tibetan Autonomous Region and controls much of what was the Amdo province of traditional Tibet. The abbot in 2002 was Jamyang Tubudan, an ethnic Mongolian and a high lama with a Geshe academic degree in the philosophy, logic and ethics of Tibetan Buddhism. By 2012 he had been succeeded by his deputy, Lobsang Samten. That is a Tibetan name, but he also uses the Chinese name Hu Xuefeng, and it is not clear whether he is of Han, Tibetan or Mongolian origin. On 13 June 2014 Lobsang Samten travelled to Mongolia to attend a ceremony at the Dashchoilin monastery, an important Tibetan Buddhist monastery that reopened in 1990 near the centre of Ulaanbaatar, the Mongolian capital. The occasion was a donation by the Yonghegong of a 21-m-high (69-ft) statue of the Buddha Maitreya, made of copper embellished with gold, to the Mongolian temple. This was represented as a symbol of the close ties between the Beijing lamasery and the monastery in Ulaanbaatar, but it also had wider diplomatic implications for relations between the prc and independent Mongolia. According to China’s ambassador to Ulaanbaatar, who attended the ceremony, it was an important event that ‘not only [strengthened] religious contact between the two countries but also [consolidated] friendly exchanges among the people’.3 Visitors to the Lama Temple are confronted with contrasting and contradictory images: foreign tourists with cameras; Chinese citizens burning joss sticks and kneeling before images of the Buddha and bodhisattvas; young monks in the dark-red robes of the Tibetan tradition using their mobile phones and possibly, although not necessarily, accessing a Buddhist app. Some cynics argue that the Yonghegong is primarily a tourist trap that presents ersatz and distorted versions of religious ceremonies, but beneath the surface it does serve as a genuine place of devotion to Buddhism and respect for the traditional culture of the Qing dynasty. Tourism is a ­convenient cover as well as an essential source of revenue.4

53

LESSER DRAGONS

Chinese Ethnic Culture Park There are no exact modern parallels with the Lama Temple to illustrate the status of minorities in China today, but there is one establishment that has been designed to represent the diversity of contemporary China and the positive impact of government policy on minority groups in the prc, and it provides a useful comparison. This is the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park (Zhonghua minzu yuan), which is associated with the Chinese Ethnic Museum (Zhonghua minzu bowuguan). The park is a living museum, although more jaundiced observers have described it as an ethnic Disneyland. It is in the Chaoyang district in the northeast of Beijing, directly to the west of the Olympic complex. The main entrance is on the eponym­ ous Minzuyuan Road, to the south of the North Fourth Ring Road. The community that lives around the museum is appropriately mixed and is served by businesses that include a prominent Kyrgyz restaurant. The avowed aim of the culture park is to provide ‘an introduction to culture, singing and dancing performances, traditional housing and art and craft while providing the opportunity to experience ethnic flavoured cooking of 56 ethnic groups’.5 At the time of writing the displays that were fully open to visitors represented just 40 of those groups. Each separate ‘nationality’ has its own enclave in the form of a model building or village typical of that group, and these are treated by the management of the Culture Park as branch museums. A great deal of care and attention has been paid to the presentation of these buildings, ensuring that they are built in the most authentic architectural styles typical of the different ethnic groups and that as far as possible they are in realistic settings. Images of Tibet The Tibetan section is represented by what are described as typical houses of the Khamba Tibetan people. The Khamba or Kham is one of the major subgroups of Tibetan speakers. They live in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, in the western part of the province of Sichuan and in other areas of China that were previously part of traditional Tibet. Kham fighters were among the most militant in the resistance to the Chinese military occupation of 1959, but naturally that 54

Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

is not mentioned in the exhibition. The buildings look convincing, in both design and colour; they are festooned with the customary prayer flags and four white stupas stand at the top of the steps in the approach to the house. The Sanskrit word stupa is commonly used in the West, but in Tibetan it is a chorten, a monument in the shape of a vertically compressed dome below a perpendicular structure that looks like a miniature steeple. In Tibet chorten are normally used to house Buddhist relics. There is also a hall for the chanting of sutras – Buddhist canonical texts – and it is based on one of the halls in the Jokhang Temple, a Gelugpa temple in Lhasa that is considered by Tibetans of all sects to be the most sacred holy place in Tibet. A display of Tibetan artefacts and tangka (religious pictures) completes the exhibit. At certain times visitors ‘can also watch Tibetan-style singing and dancing performances, drink buttered tea and sew Pulu (a handmade woollen product used for making clothes and carpets and often presented at ceremonies)’.6 Wa temple and dances Another of the official 55 national minorities of China represented at the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park is the Wa ethnic group (Va in their own language), who are far less well-known than the Tibetans, but no less interesting. Some 400,000 Wa live in the southwest of Yunnan Province, close to the border with Burma, in a part of the province best known for Pu’er tea, a fermented and aged dark tea exclusive to this region and esteemed by connoisseurs throughout the world. The Wa are mainly settled in the highlands of this border region. Some counties of Yunnan, such as Ximeng and Cangyuan, are formally designated Wa autonomous counties, and there is a concentration of Wa settlement in these areas. The border areas are mixed, however, and many of the Wa live alongside communities of other hill tribes, including the Dai and the Bulang. Some of those classified by the Chinese government as Wa reject the name and consider themselves to be a separate ethnic group; in Chinese one group calls itself Benren, which simply means ‘ourselves’, and there are many other community names used in different mountain areas. The Wa are also recognized as an official minority in Burma, where 55

LESSER DRAGONS

their numbers are estimated at 800,000, and the border between China and Burma divides the territory that they consider to be their traditional homeland. Some ‘rebel’ Wa in Burma administer their own unacknowledged state, rejecting the authority of the government. The Wa are primarily farmers, producing rice, maize and the fruit and vegetables of this subtropical region, such as sugar cane, bananas, mangoes and pineapples. Their traditions and customs are similar to those of the better-known Naga peoples on the Burma– India border and, like the Naga, during the colonial period they were regarded as nothing more than savage headhunters. Their language is part of the group known as Mon-Khmer or Austroasiatic, and is widespread throughout Southeast Asia; the best-known languages in this group are Vietnamese and Khmer (Cambodian). In the Culture Park the Wa are represented principally by architecture and dance; awkward subjects such as past headhunting or their independence movement in Burma are avoided. The Long Flying Dragon Pagoda in the Wa section of the park is a replica of a genuine Wa pagoda, pure white and topped with eight ornate spire-like structures. The name of the pagoda is another example of the dragon motif used by a non-Han group. The earliest religion of the Wa was animist, with a prominent role for shamanic spirit healers, but they were later influenced by Buddhism. In more recent times the Wa have also been subject to a programme of conversion by foreign Christians who, as part of their mission, assisted in the provision of a script for the Wa language so that the Bible could be translated into that tongue. A second script closer to Hanyu ‘Pinyin’ was created by the prc government in the 1950s. Performances of traditional Wa music and dance are given twice a day near the Long Flying Dragon Pagoda Square. Young women dressed in red jackets and long blue skirts with red and pink stripes dance to a wooden oboe-like instrument played by the Wa men of the troupe. The subtle, graceful and intricate movements of the Wa dancers suggest the influence of south and southeast Asia rather than China. Unity in diversity Similar settings have been created at the Ethnic Culture Park for the other ethnic groups. The theme of the park is ‘unity in diversity’, 56

Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park

and a great banyan tree symbolizes all 56 ethnic groups of China coming together in harmony. A typical schedule of performances begins with a ceremony to raise China’s national flag, followed by welcoming speeches. Then might come climbing stunts by Miao participants, a representation of the Dai ‘water-splashing’ festival (which some more traditionally buttoned-up Han Chinese find particularly exotic and exciting) and performances of traditional songs and dances by ensembles of the different ethnic groups. The singing and dancing and the national dress the performers wear while working in the park distinguish them readily from the majority Han, who form the greatest part of the audience for their performances.7 On one level the aim of the museum is uncontroversial and even laudable: to acknowledge the ethnic diversity of China and to present the best examples of minority cultures to the majority population and to visitors from outside the country. However, while local Han Chinese are intrigued by the unfamiliar or even alien activities of their fellow citizens, there is something disturbing about the way the lives of the ethnic minorities are circumscribed and sanitized by the museum. There is no mention of conflict with the state or between ethnic groups. From the Tibetan exhibits, visitors would not be aware of the ongoing conflict in Tibet and other areas of China where Tibetans live, or the distressing spectacle of monks and nuns immolating themselves in protest against Chinese policies. To many Western visitors, the approach represented by the Ethnic Culture Park appears condescending and patronizing, but the Chinese are not alone in portraying ethnic minorities in this manner. There are uncanny echoes of the way in which the ‘native peoples’ of the British Empire were portrayed in exhibitions and publications during the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and of the representation of American ‘Indians’ in circuses, rodeos and early films, before it was decided that it would be more courteous to designate them Native Americans.8 Western portrayals of minorities have evolved, however slowly or partially, but China has not followed this example, partly because of the prevalent attitude that China is different and that civilization and society in China cannot be equated with their counterparts in Europe or the United States. This Chinese version of exceptionalism is controversial, and many examples can be given of attitudes to minority peoples that smack of colonialism, although most Chinese would vehemently 57

LESSER DRAGONS

deny any similarity or any colonial relationship. Be that as it may, minority groups and their cultures are commonly regarded by Han people as quaint and perhaps amusing. There is an underlying feeling – rarely voiced openly, but strongly held – that, as China modernizes, these minorities will inevitably evolve into a version of the Han.

58

3 Hakkas: A Han Minority

T

he Hakka people are an intriguing case study for anyone trying to classify China’s minorities. Although they are never classified as an ethnic minority in China and do not appear on the official list of 55 minority nationalities, the Hakka are clearly a distinctive social group, and their status is important for understanding the relationship between the Han majority and ethnic minorities. No one in China would argue that the Hakka are anything other than part of the wider Han group, and yet their distinctiveness and separateness from other Han groups has been recognized for centuries. The reality of these differences is demonstrated by records of frequent conflict between the Hakka and neighbouring groups, most dramatically in the origins of the Taiping Rebellion, which ravaged south and central China in the mid-nineteenth century. Most Hakka communities are found in the south of China, where they are settled in enclaves surrounded by much larger populations of speakers of Cantonese and other southern forms of Chinese. Rural Hakkas often occupy hilly terrain or other land that is poorer than that farmed by the majority population. The Hakkas speak a language that is not Mandarin or Putonghua but is recognizably of northern origin, and this marks them out, in historical terms, as relatively late arrivals in the southern provinces. Their northern origins and the Hakka narrative of migration from the north are the explanations most frequently offered for the difference between the customs of the Hakkas and those of their Cantonese and other Han neighbours.1 These differences are significant and conspicuous. Before the twentieth century almost all Han communities practised the binding 59

LESSER DRAGONS

of women’s feet. One of the characteristic and immediately obvious features of Hakka culture was that they did not. Traditional Hakka women, especially of the older generation in the villages, wore black trousers and black jackets that, with their unbound feet, made them instantly recognizable. This form of dress has become less common as Chinese society has modernized and urbanized, but it has not disappeared entirely. Because of the lack of footbinding, Hakka women were able to work outside the home, principally in agriculture. Relations between Hakka men and women have been less unequal than in other Han communities, and this is probably connected with the lack of footbinding. This ‘surprisingly egalitarian gender system’, in the words of the American anthropologist G. William Skinner, meant that women were more highly valued than in other Han cultures, and female infanticide was less widespread. Hakka communities typically practised the system of ‘daughter-inlaw marriage’ in which the bride-to-be moved into the home of her prospective in-laws at a very young age; this ensured that the child would be available for marriage while also relieving the girl’s family of the economic burden of bringing her up – until, of course, they took in their own daughter-in-law.2 Origins and migration There is no firm agreement among scholars on the origins of the Hakka, but accounts passed down in Hakka communities have always insisted that they came from the north of China, the provinces of Shanxi and Henan being most often mentioned, and that they arrived in what became their southeastern heartland after a series of five migrations that began as early as the Qin dynasty (221–206 bc). It may seem far-fetched to insist on dating the history of Hakka migrations this far back, but migration was a common feature of all periods of Chinese history. Much more plausible is a major migration from the north during the Southern Song dynasty (1127–1279), after the Jurchens, who were farmers and semi-nomads of Tungusic stock and ancestors of the Manchus, had established the Jin dynasty (1115–1234) in northern China. The emperor and court of the Song dynasty (960–1127; sometimes referred to as the Northern Song), which had previously controlled the whole of China, had been forced to flee south in the face of military conquest by the 60

Hakkas: A Han Minority

non-Chinese forces of the Jin; its capital, Bianliang (at present-day Kaifeng), fell to the invaders in 1127. A migration of Jurchens into northern China is likely to have displaced Han Chinese farmers, who would naturally have moved southwards to land that could be farmed, rather than north or west into plains and semi-desert, where stockbreeding predominated. The Jin dynasty was in turn overthrown by the Yuan, which was established by Mongol conquerors from the steppes in the early thirteenth century and wiped out the Song dynasty. Migrations away from this conflict are credible sources of a further southward push of the Hakka, but it is not possible to be precise about the nature of these migrations into the heartland from the north. They may have involved whole families or communities relocating to escape hostilities during times of war or rebellion, but at other times it is just as likely that indivi­ dual migrants sought sanctuary or the opportunity to earn a living. Later migrations out of the heartland – from the sixteenth century onwards – were typically by individuals as economic opportunities presented themselves, although there were also many instances of popular rebellion and civil strife that forced entire communities to relocate. Although there is still a broad consensus that the origin of the Hakkas is as migrants from the north, this is not universally accepted. The social and cultural historian Barend ter Haar prefers to characterize the traditional Hakka account as a migration ‘myth’ and suggests that claiming origins in the north, which was indisputably the centre of ‘Chinese’ culture, was a useful way of covering mixed ethnic origins that included minority or non-Han groups.3 This is an intriguing hypothesis – and it is most likely that mixed ethnic origins were involved – but, unless a partial component of northern origin is conceded, it does not begin to account for the northernness of Hakka speech, and to date there is not enough evidence to ­substantiate this alternative explanation. From the southern Hakka heartland there were migrations in search of land and different ways of earning a living. The possible pattern of migration from the heartland throughout southern China has been mapped by the historian Sow-Theng Leong: to oversimplify that argument, these migrations followed the southeastern coast westwards to Guangxi and eastwards into Fujian, with some northward movement into the inner regions of Jiangxi. As a result 61

LESSER DRAGONS

Hakka communities were established in all these provinces, often after conflict with the indigenous people, who may have been either Han or non-Han minorities.4 Hakka heartland In southern China the Hakka are mainly concentrated in the uplands on the borders between the provinces of Guangdong, Jiangxi and Fujian; this was the Hakka heartland, a poor, rural area with no cities and few major towns. Smaller settlements are also found further afield in Guangxi, Sichuan and other provinces, where the Hakka often farmed the less productive land in the highlands, a situation in which many of the official minority groups of southern China also found themselves. Hakka communities further afield were established as a result of an extended process of out-migration from this heartland between 1550 and 1850. Skinner links this out-migration with unusually high population growth among Hakkas, at least ­partially a result of more girls surviving to childbearing age. That in turn was influenced by the higher status of women in the Hakka community. Since Hakkas already had a tradition of internal migration, it is not surprising that they were also prominent in the wave of migration out of mainland China that began in the early and middle years of the nineteenth century. During this period the country suffered from a series of major economic disasters and serious internal rebellion, notably the Taiping insurrection affecting the south of China, where most Hakka lived. As a result of this emigration, there is a strong Hakka element in Hong Kong and Taiwan and in Chinese communities throughout Southeast Asia, and in Europe and North America. The Hakka, in common with many of the official ethnic minorities in the south, were restricted to the less productive uplands, since the rice paddies of the valleys had for centuries been in the hands of indigenous communities or earlier migrants. The Hakka operated as hill farmers, initially on the ‘slash and burn’ principle but over time developing a range of cash crops and learning to use southern China’s complex network of waterways to get their produce to market. Other Hakka people were even more resourceful in the way that they used the highlands, exploring and exploiting the mineral 62

Hakkas: A Han Minority

wealth of the mountains and developing expertise in prospecting and mining. As early as the sixteenth century – in the middle period of the Ming dynasty, which was a time of impressive growth in the Chinese economy – the Hakka were involved in the mining and processing of minerals such as iron, tin, lead, zinc and gold; they also opened quarries from which they could extract limestone and other stone for building. Some Hakka became cutters of stone, others turned to practical rural crafts and became blacksmiths or tinsmiths, and yet others harvested the mountain forests and made a living from timber, charcoal-burning and paper-making. All these economic activities placed the Hakka outside mainstream agriculture, which in the south of China concentrated on the cultivation of rice in low-lying paddy fields. In traditional Confucian thinking, agriculture was the only acceptable rural occupation for the vast majority of Chinese who were not scholars or officials. Since many Hakkas were excluded from this economy, the group as a whole was treated as being on the margins of society.5 Hakkas and the Pengmin and She communities In the history of the Hakka there are also frequent references to another category of marginal people, the Pengmin – literally ‘shed people’ – who overlapped with the Hakka. The Pengmin migrated into the Hakka heartland of Guangdong, Fujian and southern Jiangxi. Some of these new arrivals were acknowledged as Hakka, but others were not, and there was an intermediate category of people who were recognized to be of mixed origin. In the Hakka heartland region, living alongside the Hakka and Pengmin, there were also communities of an ‘aboriginal’ non-Han group, the She, who are classified as one of the 55 official national minorities. It is thought that the She people were originally settled in Fujian but were displaced during the Hakka migrations. Their language is related to that of the Miao and Yao minority people, although many are now speakers of Chinese (in its Hakka form). That may be the result of the assimilation of some of the She into the Hakka as the latter adapted to the ecology of the highlands, where the She had previously been settled. Both the Hakka and the Pengmin borrowed agricultural and mining techniques from the She, and although there was economic and social tension between the 63

LESSER DRAGONS

groups over resources, some accounts suggest that there may also have been intermarriage. Because of their close proximity, there is confusion over the ethnic boundary between the Hakka and the She. In the attempts to define ethnic minorities more precisely in the 1950s, some families that had previously identified themselves as Hakka chose to rediscover a She identity that they had not previously acknowledged. This has sometimes been interpreted (especially by unsympathetic Han people) as proof of dishonesty by communities wishing to bene­fit from the provisions of minority legislation; it is, however, at least as likely that the previous unwillingness to identify as She was to avoid the discrimination that would have resulted. Ambiguity and confusion about ethnic groups are not confined to the Hakka or the She, and illustrate the more general problem that both Chinese officials and academic researchers have faced in determining the nature of ethnicity and identifying distinct ethnic groups. The idea of a ‘pure’ Hakka people untainted by ties with minorities is not tenable. Neither is it possible to say that China’s official ethnic minorities have no family connections to the Han. The case of the Hakka and the She is also a salutary reminder that ethnic nomenclature does not remain static. Over time, especially with migration, assimilation and intermarriage, the nature of ethnic groups alters and the names by which groups identify themselves to the authorities or to other groups may also change.6 Hakka conflict with other Han communities Historically there have been many incidents of violent conflict between Hakka and ‘native’ (bendi, sometimes written punti) communities, which are also Han. The most dramatic of these conflicts was the hostility that led to the Taiping Rebellion in the mid-nineteenth century. The roots of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace (Taiping Tianguo), as it styled itself, the name for the new regime set up by the Hakka rebels, were in the Hakka community of Guangxi. The ensuing rebellion is an interesting example of how a powerful movement arose from a marginalized community that drew on a simplified and distorted version of an imported religion, in this case Protestant Christianity. Hakka people in rural Guangxi joined an organization known as the God Worshippers’ 64

Hakkas: A Han Minority

Society, which was initially supported by some foreign Christian missionaries. In February 1851 the Hakka visionary Hong Xiuquan declared a rebellion and the establishment of their new dynasty, the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. The subsequent eccentric and distinctly non-Christian practices of the Taiping in the government they formed in their new capital, Nanjing (renamed Tianjing, the Heavenly Capital), alienated Western Christians, who regarded it as heretical at best. The leadership of the Taiping Rebellion was primarily Hakka, but they were joined by other groups and by 1860 their movement controlled much of south-central China. It posed a genuine threat to the rule of the Qing dynasty and was suppressed ruthlessly by imperial military forces; its end came with the fall of Nanjing to troops of the Manchu Qing government in 1864.7 Hakka characteristics As a people who claim descent from northern Chinese groups that migrated and settled in the south, the Hakka were treated as outsiders by the majority communities among which they lived. This explains the literal meaning of the name Hakka (Standard Chinese kejia), which is ‘guest people’, although the way in which it is used often suggests a connotation closer to ‘alien’. Marginalized, often discriminated against and lacking the ancestral lands of the people among whom they settled, many Hakka were obliged to seek employment outside agriculture and found careers in the military or in business. The Hakka traditionally placed particular emphasis on success in the examination system as a means of moving up in the world, and they have also featured in the leadership of many radical and revolutionary movements. The Communist political and military leaders Zhu De, Ye Jianying and Deng Xiaoping were all of Hakka origin and were proud to acknowledge the fact. Among other well-known twentieth-century political figures of Hakka ancestry are Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian), the first president of the Chinese Republic; the Song (Soong) family, who were connected by marriage to both Sun and his successor as leader of the nationalist Guomindang, Chiang Kai-shek ( Jiang Jieshi), and who according to recent research stem from a Hakka family with the surname Han;8 Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, who was later to inspire the drive by his fellow Hakka Deng Xiaoping for economic 65

LESSER DRAGONS

growth in the post-Mao People’s Republic; Hu Yaobang, the reformminded premier of the prc during the 1980s; and two presidents of Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui and Ma Ying-jeou. Not all successful Hakka individuals have been enthusiastic about acknowledging their Hakka origins, however. There are many more possible historical examples, but classifying the dead as Hakka is problematic and it is by no means certain that all those claimed by the Hakka as their own would have been comfortable to be included in such a classification. There is a parallel with the posthumous identification of Jews in history. In spite of the caveats that must be made about the ambiguity and changing nature of ethnic identity and names, it is remarkable that the Hakka have asserted a distinct and consistent identity for so long. This identity is linked intimately with their history of migrations, their northern origin and life alongside, but separate from, other Han communities, but perhaps above all with their distinctive language. Hakka people like to assert that they have characteristics that emphasize their difference from the other Han groups – always positive ones – and they enjoy a reputation for being dynamic and energetic. A lecture given in the early nineteenth century by Xu Xuzeng, a Hakka scholar who had qualified in 1799 for the jinshi degree, the highest level in the imperial examinations, is quoted by the researcher Luo Xianglin in his book Introduction to the Study of the Hakkas. Xu set out the history of the Hakka as he saw it, and traced their flight from the north as they followed the defeated Song court southwards in the twelfth century, patriotically refusing to cooperate with the conquering nomads of the north. He argued that, because of this historical migration and the nature of their relationship with the other Han communities in the areas in which they settled, the Hakka had evolved characteristic values and traditions. He noted the important role played by Hakka women in farming and handicrafts as well as the traditional female sphere of domestic work and bringing up children. The fact that they preserved the ‘speech of the ancient north’ was also seen as a mark of their loyalty. Hakka people, he continued, were ‘diligent by habit, thrifty and unostentatious in customs, courteous, modest, elegant and polished by disposition’. Perhaps not all were quite as flawless as Xu averred, and it is even possible that some who were not Hakka could qualify for these descriptions, but it was crucial to their survival as a 66

Hakkas: A Han Minority

distinctive group that Hakka people felt able to assert a strong and positive sense of their own identity.9 Even among the Hakkas there is no uniformity: lifestyles and culture have always differed from region to region, and this is not surprising, since Hakka communities are widely dispersed. The circular clan houses of the Hakka of Fujian, the renowned ‘Fujian earthen structures’ (Fujian tulou), are rarely found outside the mountainous rural areas of that province, although some exist in Jiangxi. These clan houses are mostly circular, but sometimes rectangular, and they are constructed on the basis of solid rammed-earth walls from three to five storeys high. Each tulou can accommodate as many as 80 families, and within the external walls are smaller structures, including halls, storehouses and wells. The architecture of the complex is designed to provide an enclosed and secure space for groups of related Hakka families and to assist with their defence against potential aggressors. It is also a physical expression of how closely individual families are bound into Hakka clan organizations. China’s revolution and Deng Xiaoping the Hakka Hakka people, as we have seen, have been prominent in many radical political movements. Is it necessary to consider why so many have featured in revolutionary upheavals since the beginning of the twentieth century, or is it hardly surprising that a marginalized and disadvantaged group should play such an active part in movements for social change? The linguist Mary Erbaugh, in a provocative and consciously ironic article, cautions against conspiracy theories but points out the importance of Hakka networks and the overlap between Hakka areas and the revolutionary bases established by the ccp in the 1930s and 1940s. The latter is not difficult to explain, since both the Hakka lands and the ccp bases were in highland areas that were remote from political and social control and thus easy to defend against government forces, but it is interesting that the role of Hakkas in the history of the revolution is generally underplayed in the prc.10 One political leader who had no qualms about acknowledging his Hakka heritage was Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), who came to prominence as the architect of China’s modern economic reforms in the 1980s after the death of Mao Zedong. The Deng family had lived 67

LESSER DRAGONS

in Sichuan for three generations but, according to family tradition, had arrived in Sichuan from Jiangxi Province in the early years of the Ming dynasty, perhaps in the fifteenth century. Their distant origins were even further away, in Meizhou, a county in the east of Guangdong Province. Meizhou had, and still has, a large Hakka population, and that community has a long-standing tradition of migration in search of work, both within China and overseas. The Deng family were Hakka, and cherished the Hakka reputation for being exceptionally hardworking and adept at business. Whether or not this reputation is justified, it was how the Hakka were perceived, but they were also marginalized and knew that they had to make their own way in life. It was not business that attracted Deng, but he excelled at school, seemed set on a career as a professional soldier and eventually joined the ccp after a period working and studying in France. In common with many subsequently prominent Hakka indivi­duals, Deng was to play a major role in China’s military and political life. In 1933, after disagreements with ccp leaders during a factional dispute, he was effectively sent into exile in rural Jiangxi and was dispatched to Seven Li Village (a poor and backward settlement 7 li outside the county town of Ningdu) to work on a farm. The setting was a bare and treeless mountain landscape, and he spent long days clearing new land for cultivation. Although he was small in stature he was tough and could manage the back-breaking work, but the long hours and shortage of food made life difficult. A positive feature of this banishment, he later recalled, was that the area he had been sent to was populated by Hakkas, and the people and their culture were familiar to him from his upbringing in Sichuan. It is not clear from his recollections or those of his Chinese biographers how well he got on with the local Hakka community or whether he brought any of them into his political network, but it was important to him at the time. Many years later, when he rose to power after the death of Mao, his work on launching China’s economic reform programme was accompanied by visits abroad to establish the country’s new status. His visit to Japan in 1978 and his subsequent journey to the United States in 1979 made international headlines. In contrast, the impact of his visit to Singapore, just before the Third Plenum of the ccp Central Committee, which launched the reform programme, is often 68

Hakkas: A Han Minority

underestimated. It was not played down by Lee Kuan Yew, who was then prime minister of Singapore, remained active in the Singapore cabinet as minister mentor until 2011 and was determined to exercise political influence almost up to his death in 2015. Although brought up and educated in an English- and Malay-speaking environment, Lee was intensely proud of his roots in China and assiduously promoted the speaking of Mandarin (known in Singapore as Huayu). Lee, like Deng, was of Hakka descent, and this created an additional bond between the two men. Lee had visited China for the first time in 1976 and afterwards was always proud of the advice that he had offered to Deng on the opening up of China’s economy, claiming that he was Deng’s chief mentor on economic development. This may be an exaggeration – Lee was no shrinking violet – but there are good reasons for concluding that Singapore, more than any of the other countries that Deng visited before the Third Plenum, was the most influential model for China’s reforms and specifically for the Special Economic Zones, small regions based on cities, not unlike Singapore.11

69

4 Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

T

he ethnic composition of northwestern China is complicated. While it is not quite as complex as the patchwork of minority communities found in Yunnan and other regions of the southwest, some discussion of the impact of geography on its demography is necessary. Xinjiang, in the far northwest of the country, is the trad­itional home of the Uyghur people. To the east of Xinjiang is the province of Qinghai, which was known in the past by its Mongol name, Kokonor (both the Chinese and the Mongol names mean the same thing, ‘Blue Lake’). More than half of the population of contemporary Qinghai consists of Han Chinese, and the number of Mongol inhabitants is relatively small. Tibetans are the largest minority; they constitute about 20 per cent of the population, and those parts of Qinghai in which Tibetans live are regarded by Tibetans as part of the historical Tibetan province of Amdo. The other significant non-Han community are the Hui Muslims, who make up some 16 per cent of the population. Wealthy and powerful Hui warlords, especially those of the Ma family, controlled the government of Qinghai for much of the early part of the Chinese republic, roughly between 1917 and 1928, and used the province as a base from which to extend their control into Xinjiang. To the east of Qinghai are two regions, Gansu Province and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (formerly part of Gansu and now named after the Hui people), where the Hui form a much larger part of the population and live in what the Chinese call ‘compact communities’. The Hui also have a significant presence to the east and south, in Shaanxi and Sichuan respectively, and in parts of Yunnan, where they live in communities that are more scattered than in the northwest. 70

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

Outside these areas, Hui communities are found throughout China in greater or lesser concentrations. For example, during the 1990s conflict erupted between Hui villagers and their Han neighbours in the central province of Henan, drawing attention to the existence of Muslim Chinese in that province and also to the hitherto peaceful relations between the two communities there. Chinese Muslims: Language and culture Hui, which for centuries meant simply ‘Muslim’, is the modern name given to Muslims in China whose native language is Chinese or, to be more precise, different versions of Chinese depending on where they live or from where their community originates. This distinguishes them from all the other groups of Muslims in China: the Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and Pamir Tajiks (properly Wakhi or Vakhi) of Xinjiang, all of whom speak Central Asian languages of the Turkic family – apart from the Wakhi language of the Wakhan Corridor, which is an eastern relative of Persian. This division by language of Islamic societies in China, distinguishing primarily between the Hui and non-Hui, is not as precise or as satisfactory as this brief account suggests. Hui communities have lived among the Uyghurs of Xinjiang for more than a century and a half, as a result of migrations that followed the rebellions and political upheavals of the late nineteenth century; the Hui (also known in Xinjiang as Dungans or Tungans) and the Uyghurs, both Muslim, lead parallel but largely separate lives because of religious and ­cultural differences. The Hui are linked to the Han by the spoken and written Chinese language that both communities use, but they are separated by the religion of Islam and its associated customs. Han Chinese communities were traditionally followers of Buddhism and Daoism – and many still are – and also practise the veneration of ancestors and other traditional local religions. The influence of Confucian ethical and moral teachings was strongest with the Han but became part of Hui culture indirectly, through translations of the Qur’an and other Islamic texts, which perforce used Confucian terms to translate Islamic concepts. The Hui do not share any religious traditions with the Han, but regard themselves as orthodox Sunni Muslims. Their religious and social lives are lived principally around their 71

LESSER DRAGONS

local mosques, but many are simultaneously Sufis, who venerate the memory of a founding Sufi shaykh and worship at Sufi shrines. The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Gansu Province are particularly important for understanding the Hui. The size and concentration of the Hui population in those regions, especially in the rural areas, has given the local culture a distinctive Islamic flavour that is not found elsewhere in China. In the northwest, it is pos­ sible to speak of regions in which there are clear and well-defined Muslim societies, rather than just minority communities in a wider non-Muslim society. There are also significant Hui communities in many other parts of China, including major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. These communities run their own mosques, schools and other institutions, but urban Muslims are generally more closely integrated into the general population. In the rural areas there is less integration with the non-Muslim population; separate Hui villages, or even larger Hui districts, have evolved and some of these are recognized by the government as autonomous Hui counties or prefectures. The Hui are distinguished from other Muslims in the prc because they speak Chinese, but their language is more complicated than this suggests. Hui people, especially in rural areas, often incorporate into their everyday Chinese speech many words deriving from Arabic and Persian. These are used particularly, but not exclusively, in the context of religious practices and are not usually comprehensible to non­-Muslims, but to other believers they immediately identify the speakers as Muslims. In conversations with non-Muslims, educated Hui people will use a more standard Chinese, a local variant of Putonghua, although some who live in the more isolated communities do not find it easy to do so. In the village of Najiahu in Ningxia, the author, in company with a native speaker of Putonghua from Beijing, met an elderly Hui imam then in his nineties. Neither was able to understand the imam without the intercession of a local interpreter, who translated his comments into Standard Chinese. This situation is not peculiar to Muslim communities – there can be similar problems with Chinese dialects in other parts of the country – but the inclusion of a significant Arabic and Persian vocabulary in everyday speech adds to the difficulties of communication in these areas. The Arabic language is not just a legacy of the Hui’s distant Middle Eastern history; it is also studied formally in the madrasas 72

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

and the Islamic academies that train imams, and is used to varying degrees in services in the mosques and in religious publications. This is primarily Qur’anic Arabic, and is therefore not widely known outside the religious community, although some Hui people who have taken part in the hajj pilgrimages to Mecca have gone on to study Arabic. The study of modern Arabic for secular purposes is a recent development, and was particularly encouraged in the Muslim areas of northwestern China when the country’s economy opened up as part of the reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Because of its Islamic culture and the historically remote Middle Eastern heritage of its population, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region was encouraged to become a centre for the development of trading relations with the Arabic-speaking countries of the Middle East. To this end, a school for the study of the Arabic language was established in 1985 in Tongxin, a city in the centre of Ningxia. Funding was provided by the Islamic Development Bank, which is based in Saudi Arabia. The school has trained Arabic translators and interpreters, many of whom have subsequently found employment with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or commercial companies.1 Hats, beards, veils and halal Hui people are not always easily distinguished from the majority Han population of China in appearance or language, with the qualifications mentioned above. Pious Hui men normally cover their heads, usually with a small, round white cap that is similar to caps worn by men in Pakistani or some Arab communities. This is not universal among Hui men, however, and is seen more often in rural areas than in cities. In some country districts where there is support for the mystical Sufi orders of Islam, the round caps may be replaced by the distinctive headgear associated with Sufi orders, for example the six-cornered hat that is worn by devotees of the Jahriyya branch of the Naqshbandi order in, among other areas, Jingyuan in the south of Ningxia. Modern-minded Hui men, particularly if they are members of the ccp or if they work in one of the professions, may not wear a hat at all, or they might keep one to wear when they attend the mosque. Beards are important cultural and religious markers. They identify Hui men as Muslim, since Muslim Chinese often grow beards if they can, whereas they are less common among Han Chinese, 73

LESSER DRAGONS

although favoured by some artists and intellectuals and Daoist clergy. For Hui Muslims, the way the beard and the hair on the cheeks are shaped can also be an outward sign of the specific Sufi order to which they belong. Women in the more traditional Hui communities cover their hair, although most do not cover their faces completely as is the case in other parts of the Islamic world. This is in contrast with Xinjiang, where headscarves and full veils are more common: in the south of Xinjiang the heads and faces of some Uyghur women are covered completely with brown veils. Hui women may wear a simple white hijab, but in certain areas green and black head coverings indicate whether a woman is married or not. In the cities many Hui women prefer headscarves to the hijab, but the custom varies from place to place and has changed over time. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, a uniform Chineseness was enforced for political reasons, and symbols of ethnic differences, such as veils and beards, were strongly discouraged; anyone insisting on wearing them was likely to feel the wrath of the Red Guards. Since the 1980s these cultural and religious markers have been readopted, often with considerable pride, but there has still been occasional criticism by the authorities. In these matters, as in many others, the way in which the Hui are treated is different from that experienced by the Muslim communities who are not Chinese-speakers. In the Hui areas of Ningxia and Gansu there is no prohibition on veils and beards, but in neighbouring Xinjiang the local authorities associate these symbols with separatist Islamist groups and have introduced legislation in an attempt to ban them; it has been only partially successful. Food is a marker of cultural differences in many societies and particularly in Muslim communities. Hui Muslims observe halal food regulations whenever possible, and therefore avoid pork. This can be contentious since pork (alongside chicken) is one of the main meats used in the diet of Han Chinese. The author was present at a debate on the nature of the Hui people and their customs and habits at Ningxia University in Yinchuan in 1991. Such debates, especially in the presence of foreigners, tend to be carefully managed, polite, predictable and dull, but this discussion became lively and almost acrimonious when a Han student suggested that the Hui only ­pretended to avoid pork. 74

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

Although beef is consumed, lamb is the main meat used in Hui cuisine; it is served as kebabs and in other spiced dishes, although, as in the rest of China, the normal daily diet does not include much meat of any type. Many Han Chinese people, especially those from the south, dislike the taste and smell of lamb, which is associated with the ethnic-minority peoples of the north and west. They often describe it as having a shanweir (‘mountain flavour’), the closest English equivalent of which is ‘gamey’. The origins of Chinese Islam The origins of the Hui offer an insight into why China has minor­ ities. In this case it is their origin as migrants from lands that were Muslim, or that later became Muslim, that has defined their identity and culture. The term Yisilan (a Chinese transliteration of Islam) or Yisilanjiao is now in common use in China, but in earlier times Islam was more commonly referred to as Huihu jiao or Huijiao, terms that were not restricted to Chinese-speaking Muslims; the term ‘Hui’ in premodern texts means Muslim from whatever background. Another widely used term is Qingzhenjiao (literally ‘the religion of purity and truth’), and mosques in China today are almost all known as qingzhensi (literally ‘temples of purity and truth’). Precisely when Islam first reached China cannot be reliably determined. The date of the revelation of the Qur’an to the prophet Muhammad is conventionally given as ad 610, but contacts between China and the Middle East pre-date that by many centuries. Between the fourth and sixth centuries the Indian Ocean trade routes were navigated by merchants, mainly from the Arabian or Persian Gulf, who sailed into the ports of China’s southern and southeastern coast. At such an early date they cannot be described as Muslims; their working languages were primarily Arabic and Persian and they originated in lands where Judaism and Christianity were also practised, but which would eventually become predominantly Muslim societies.

75

LESSER DRAGONS

Chang’an and Quanzhou Officials, traders and religious figures from Central Asia and further afield travelled overland to visit the Tang dynasty (ad 618–907) capital of Chang’an (on the site of present-day Xi’an). Some of these visitors were Muslim, others Buddhist or Manichaean. Xi’an still has a Muslim population, but few of the Xi’an Hui can trace their origins as far back as that. The southeastern coastal city of Quanzhou in Fujian Province provides evidence of an early Muslim community in medieval China. Gravestones and stelae, inscribed in Arabic and Persian with the names and dates of the deceased, are the relics of a thriving Muslim community that was well established by the early eighth century. The Arab Mosque in Quanzhou, the only medieval mosque extant in the city, was built in the eleventh century in the Arab style. Arabic inscriptions inside the building include quotations from the Qur’an and a history of the mosque, including its reconstruction in 1310–11 by Ahmad bin Muhammad Quds, from Shiraz in Persia. Other mosques were built by Muslims from Yemen and Central Asia, but those buildings have long since disappeared. Inscriptions on gravestones indicate that the majority of Muslims in Quanzhou were of Persian origin, although these inscriptions are in Arabic, the primary language of Islam, rather than Persian. Sojourners from the Middle East remained in Fujian; some married local Han Chinese women, and their descendants form part of the modern Hui ethnic group. The province of Fujian remains one of the most outward­ looking in China, and its people have a tradition of emigration to Taiwan, Southeast Asia and more recently Europe.2 Mongol invasion The Mongol conquests in the thirteenth century transformed the political and social map of Asia and also increased China’s Muslim population. When the armies of Chinggis (Genghis) Khan and his successors captured such cities as Samarkand and Bukhara, the artisans were spared and conscripted into the service of the Mongols. Many were later taken back to China, effectively as slaves, and were required to build the new Mongol capital cities of Karakorum and Dadu (Beijing). Other Central Asians served 76

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

as soldiers, and eventually scholars, aristocrats, women and children were also transported to China; it is impossible to say how much of this migration was voluntary. This was the period of the gradual Islamization of Central Asia, but it cannot be said with any certainty that all the migrants to China at this time were Muslim. The majority were men, and what is now known as the Hui ethnic group in China, particularly in the west of the country, resulted from the intermarriage of these men with Han Chinese, Tibetan and other local women. Chinese Muslims of the Ming and Qing dynasties During the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the Chinese-speaking Muslim population of China grew numerically and settled permanently, notably in the northwestern provinces of Gansu and Shaanxi, but also in Yunnan and the city of Nanjing in the east. Nanjing in that period was the foremost centre of Islamic scholarship in China, but it no longer has a Muslim community of the same significance and the existence of its Islamic scholars is now remembered only by Chinese Muslims and academic specialists. Muslims lived side by side with their Han Chinese neighbours, often – although not always – harmoniously. Knowledge of the Arabic and Persian languages gradually declined as Chinese became necessary for everyday communication, and this created challenges for the propagation of religious teachings and the identity of the Muslims. The slow and laborious process of translating the Qur’an, commentaries and other religious texts into Chinese from the original Arabic or Persian began during the Ming but did not reach fruition until the twentieth century.3 Manchu armies from the northeast took Beijing in 1644, and their Qing dynasty (1644–1911) sought to expand its frontiers into Inner Asia. There was resistance to this expansion and in the northwest Muslims fought the Manchus, as did the Han. Expanding populations and the competition for scarce resources, particularly land and water, also led to religious and ethnic conflict between the Hui and the Han. Muslim Hui villages were reinforced to defend themselves and there were frequent clashes with neighbouring communities, mostly with the Han, but also with Tibetans and the related Qiang, in the Tibetan borderlands. This was complicated by 77

LESSER DRAGONS

conflict between Muslim villages and members of the different Sufi and other religious sects. Muslim rebels against the Manchus In the second half of the nineteenth century these conflicts escal­ ated. The imperial government designated them rebellions and deployed great military force to crush them. In 1855, after Han and Hui miners in the southwestern province of Yunnan came into conflict over mineral rights, the local government and landowners slaughtered Muslims indiscriminately. In August the following year a Muslim leader, Du Wenxiu, took over the city of Dali and declared an independent Islamic caliphate, which he ruled until he was defeated and beheaded in 1873. Conflict was even more savage and the repression most devastating in the northwest. Muslim Hui groups took up arms against militias organized by powerful Han landlords, and their forces then attacked major towns and finally launched an assault on the capital of Shaanxi Province, Xi’an. Qing government troops put down the rebellion and the Muslim rebels withdrew westward to Gansu. Hui forces in Gansu were concentrated in four locations associated with the main Sufi orders, which constructed sacred sites around the tombs of their revered ancestral shaykhs. Mosques and madrasas in these tomb complexes also served as the headquarters for the Hui resistance. The Hui uprising was suppressed in 1873 with great brutality and loss of life. Hui communities were moved from their traditional lands and the graves of their founding shaykhs, Sufi organizations were outlawed, and many mosques were closed, destroyed or even converted into Buddhist temples. Many of the public practices of Islam were concealed or modified in response to this repression; Muslims kept a low profile and mosques were rebuilt without minarets so that they were not so obviously different from Chinese temples. As a result of these conflicts, Hui Muslims have acquired a reputation for rebellion and fierceness that persists today. Islam in contemporary China Islam in China today adheres to the Sunni tradition and the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. Muslims of this mainstream tradition are 78

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

known in Chinese as Gedimu, a Chinese transliteration of the Arabic al-qadim (the ancient). Gedimu Islam emphasizes sharia law and the five major precepts of Islam: the attestation that there is only one Allah; prescribed prayer and purification; the giving of alms; the fast at Ramadan; and the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. This is essentially the same as in other parts of the Islamic world, although Chinese Muslims have often found the hajj impossible to perform, partly because of lack of resources and the distance involved, and partly because of the restrictions imposed on travel during both the Qing dynasty and the People’s Republic. The central figure in Gedimu Islam is the imam (ahong in Chinese, from the Persian akhond), who presides over the local mosque. Some imams inherit their role from a relative; others are chosen by the community; and there was a tradition of imams moving between communities, including some who moved into China from Central Asia. Gedimu Muslims observe all the major Islamic festivals. Schools for Muslims Religious education is important to Muslims in China, as elsewhere: it is vital to ensure the continuation of the religion and to instruct imams and other leaders for the community. Muslim education among the Gedimu consists of maktab primary schools, which concentrate on teaching the Arabic language and the basic requirements of sharia, and more advanced madrasas for potential imams. Much of this Muslim education takes place in the mosques, and is thus set apart from state education. Ningxia has separate state primary and middle schools for Muslim children, although the syllabuses echo the curriculum in mainstream schools. The type of education appropriate for girls and women is controversial. Single-sex schools for girls were closed during the Cultural Revolution, but reopened in 1987 to take account of resistance to co-education by some Muslim commu­ nities. The closure of these schools for ten years adversely affected schooling and literacy rates among Hui girls who did not enrol in ­co-educational schools. The Tongxin Girls’ Hui Middle School, a boarding school in the city of Tongxin, is spacious, modern and well-equipped by the 79

LESSER DRAGONS

standards of northwestern China. It provides a secular education for Muslim girls from Hui villages outside Tongxin. The overwhelming impression given by the school is of a confident and literate student body, undaunted by awkward questions from foreign visitors. Other rural Hui children attend the Tongxin Number 2 Hui Middle School, where pupils also board, going home on Saturday afternoons and returning to the school on Sunday evenings. Children who live in the town attend the Tongxin Number 1 Hui Middle School, and all these schools claim a substantial improvement in literacy among Hui students, especially girls.4 Islamic and secular higher education Eight Islamic academies for the training of clergy were opened in China in the 1980s and 1990s, the most important being in Beijing, Yinchuan and Urumqi. By 1988 some 400 students had been enrolled to study the Qur’an, Islamic culture and management for four or five years. The aim of the academies was to train researchers, teachers and high-ranking personnel engaged in international Islamic academic exchanges. Many of the students were ahongs who had been serving as clergy for some time but had been unable to obtain formal theological training because of restrictions on religious education during the Cultural Revolution. The leading training centre for Hui imams in the northwest of China is the Ningxia Islamic Academy (Ningxia yisilanjiao jing­ xueyuan) in the western suburbs of Yinchuan. It was built with funds provided by the Saudi Arabian Islamic Development Bank, but the government of the Ningxia Autonomous Region also contributed to the cost of its construction. Further technical support was provided during visits from Saudi engineers in February 1986 and October 1988. In 1990 the academy was clearly well-equipped but had hardly any students. By October 2001 it was fully functional, with well­ attended classes taking place in Arabic, Islamic law and computing. A new secular institution, the Tongxin Arabic Language School, was founded in 1985, also with aid from the Islamic Development Bank, to promote economic and cultural exchange between China and the Islamic countries of the Middle East. The design of the building is similar to that of the Islamic Academy in Yinchuan, but unlike the academies its role is not primarily religious. It is designated a 80

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

‘secondary vocational school’, specializing in training translators and interpreters at the elementary and intermediate level, although the students are of university age. The three-year course includes Arabic language and history, a general course in Islamic studies, and modules on the nationality theory and policies of the Chinese government. By 1988 the school had 98 students, mostly Hui, and 29 members of staff. By 1992 its 260 students were all Hui and three of its graduates had found employment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as Arabic translators. Although many of the students were from Ningxia, there were also some from outside the region, including Xi’an. Teachers at the school had studied in Kuwait, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, but core language-teaching materials were provided by the Foreign Languages College in Beijing, supplemented by newspapers and other materials from the Arab world. In 1990 preparations were made to host exchange teachers from the Middle East, including well-appointed accommodation. This programme took some time to implement, but by 2013 there were three foreign teachers at the school, two of them sisters who were native Arabic speakers from Tunisia. By this time the number of students had increased to more than 1,200 and the school had been renamed the Ningxia Muslim International Language School.5 That year China Daily interviewed one student who had used his religious background and academic language study at the college to find relevant employment: ‘I’m glad that my study in Arabic language enables me to engage in international trade, which I really like’, says Ma Xu, 23, a graduate of the Tongxin Arabic School who now works for a Palestinian company in Yiwu, East China’s Zhejiang province . . . Like most people in the poverty-stricken region, Ma felt at a loss about what to do after finishing middle school. While the possibility of finishing high school and getting into university was flimsy, becoming a migrant worker with no special skills did not promise much of a future. He chose to go to the Tongxin Arabic Language School. His earlier learning of the Arabic alphabet, when his grandfather taught him the Quran, helped him to pick up the language quickly. In the third year of Arabic school, Ma went to Yiwu to intern at a trade company. He liked it and decided to stay in the 81

LESSER DRAGONS

city. ‘There are so many alumni in Yiwu. We have online chat groups, and help each other to find jobs’, he says.6

Another example of the growing realization of the importance of the Middle East and the Islamic world outside China to the Muslim regions of the northwest is the China Institute of Arabian Studies, which was established at Ningxia University towards the end of 2014 as ‘an advanced think tank for Sino-Arabia cooperation’, with the intention that it would promote ‘all-round cooperation between China and the Arab world at a higher level’. The economic and political rationale of this project is that Ningxia should benefit from Beijing’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy for developing transAsian trade. A specialist in Arab and Middle East Affairs, Li Shaoxian (who is also head of China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, an influential think tank linked to the Ministry of State Security and the ccp Central Committee), was named as president of the institute, although given his demanding national role this may be little more than a courtesy title. The new body has links with the Ningxia Muslim International Language School and other academic and vocational colleges in the region.7 Mosques Mosques are the main physical symbol of the presence of Islam in China, as elsewhere. In Zhongguo qingzhen zonglan (Survey of Mosques in China, 1995), Wu Jianwei estimated that there were approximately 20,000 mosques of different types and sizes throughout China.8 Beijing alone has at least 40, the most famous being the Ox Street (Niujie) Mosque, which has become a showpiece and a tourist attraction. There is great variation in the style and size of Chinese mosques. Some are similar to Chinese or Mongolian Buddhist temples (or actually are converted temples); others have deliberately rejected Chinese architectural models and favour a Middle Eastern or Central Asian style. Some are on a grand scale: the Heytgar (Id Gah) Mosque in the centre of Kashgar is reputed to be the largest in China. Most are much smaller, and it is even possible to find one – deep in the Helan Mountains, which divide Ningxia and Inner Mongolia – that has just one room and backs on to an equally tiny Buddhist temple. 82

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

Shia Islam and China Chinese Muslims assert that there is no Shia Islam in either the Hui or Turkic Muslim communities in China, although the Isma’ili Shiism of the small community known as the Pamir Tajiks, who live in the mountains in the far west of Xinjiang, is acknowledged. However, some scholars of Islam in China have detected the pervasive and subtle influence of Shia culture and practices on Chinese Islam, not­ ably in the popularity of personal names associated with the family and followers of Ali, the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Shia caliph in the schism that followed the death of the Prophet and the dispute over his succession. This influence is not surprising in view of the close historical connections between Islam in China and the Persian-speaking world, which predominantly follows the Shia tradition of Islam. Chinese Sufism The influence of Sufism among Chinese Muslims is more apparent. A number of Sufi orders (tariqat in Arabic and menhuan in Chinese) exist in China, especially in the northwest, and the tomb of a founding shaykh is normally the focus of each order. This applies to the Chinese-speaking Hui and also to the Uyghurs, although with rare exceptions Hui and Uyghur Sufi orders do not worship together. There have been conflicts between mainstream Islam and the Sufis, but many Muslims observe both traditions. After the mosques, the most visible manifestations of Islam among the Hui people are the tombs (gongbei) of the Sufi shaykhs. Some of these are simple structures, but in others the tomb is the focus of a substantial complex of buildings that may include a mosque, a school, residential accommodation for students and guest accommodation for visiting worshippers. In Ningxia and Gansu, where the Sufi organizations are highly developed, the shrines are frequently in remote villages or on isolated hills, but distance is no object to devotees of the orders based there. Thousands of members of the Sufi orders to which the tomb complexes belong make pilgrimages on feast days, such as the anniversary of the death of the founding shaykh. The Chinese name gongbei for these tombs is not used in Xinjiang, where they are called mazars. 83

LESSER DRAGONS

Sufi orders play an important political and social role in the predominantly Muslim areas of China. Local government officials conciliate them and they are represented in local united-front bodies. Of all the different Sufi orders the Naqshbandi, which originated in Central Asia and remains powerful there and in Pakistan, is also the most influential in China. It is rarely referred to by that name among Chinese-speaking Muslims, but the Khufiyya and Jahriyya orders, which exert a powerful influence among the Hui in northwestern China, are subdivisions of the Naqshbandi that observe different forms of the fundamental ritual of the Sufis, the remembrance of Allah, the dhikr. In their social and political attitudes, the Jahriyya were considered to be more radical and aimed at a purer form of Islam. Many adherents adopted a simple and ascetic style of life, rejecting material goods and refusing to pay taxes to the government. This brought them into conflict with the Khufiyya order, which generally sought accommodation with the authorities. In spite of severe repression after the rebellions of the late nineteenth century, the Jahriyya flourished, although it operated clandestinely. One of the strongest outposts of Jahriyya Islam in China in the twenty-first century is Jingyuan County, a poor, mountainous area in the far south of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. As we have seen, almost the entire population of Jingyuan is classified as Hui Muslim (97.8 percent of a total population of 81,432 in 2001). The county government is proud of this heritage and of the way it has integrated the different Sufi orders into the local power structure, with representation on the Jingyuan Islamic Association in proportion to the numbers of the different sects. The Gedimu are in the majority, followed by the Jahriyya and the Yihewani. There are also two Khufiyya mosques. Most of the Jahriyya live in mountain villages, where they maintain the tombs of their founding shaykhs. Some of the men wear the distinctive six-sided white hat of their order, rather than the white skullcap that is worn by most rural Hui men. In economic and social terms the entire region is underdeveloped, even by the standards of northwest China. The Yihewani (Ikhwani) sect has also been influential in the northwest; the Arabic original of its name translates as ‘brotherhood’, but it is not connected with the Muslim Brotherhood of the Middle East. The role of the Yihewani is similar to that of the 84

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

Sufi orders, but it has often been in opposition to them. Members of all these Islamic orders may also be involved in secular social and political organizations. For example, the shaykh of a Sufi menhuan in Tongxin is also the chairman of the local Chinese People’s Consultative Committee, the united-front body established by the ccp to ensure the cooperation of ethnic, religious and other minorities. Muslims and the Chinese Communist Party The policy of the avowedly atheist prc government towards religious observance by China’s Muslims has not been consistent. In the early 1950s mosques and Sufi orders attempted to retain their landholdings during the national campaign to redistribute land and prepare for collectivization. Some land was confiscated, but at the time religious worship was tolerated, although some radical Sufi orders were treated as reactionary secret societies and outlawed. During the radical Great Leap Forward of 1958 Muslim communities lost more of their land and property, and religious activities were restricted. During the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966, mosques and tomb complexes were attacked in the Red Guards’ campaign against the sijiu, the Four Olds (old customs, old habits, old culture and old thinking). Most of China’s mosques were closed and many were badly damaged or even destroyed completely, but some communities managed to protect their places of worship. In common with other religions in the prc, Islam has been regu­ lated by the Chinese state through the Religious Affairs Bureau, which was created in 1954 by the State Council and renamed the State Administration for Religious Affairs (sara) in 1998. All officially recognized mosques are subject to the rules of the Chinese Islamic Association, which was resurrected after the Cultural Revolution and has been the main instrument of the ccp’s control over Muslims. Independent or radical groups have declined to register with this association, and that has created conflict with other bodies that are acceptable to the state or have been willing to work with it. Since the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 there has been a resurgence of Islamic religious activity in China’s Hui community. Mosques demolished during the Cultural Revolution have been 85

LESSER DRAGONS

rebuilt, many more Islamic books, journals and newspapers have been published, and Hui Muslims have become more willing to assert their ethnic and religious identity. Ningxia: Titular homeland of the Hui The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which was carved out of the much larger Gansu Province by the prc government, is the ­provincial-level unit with the greatest concentration of Hui Muslims in China. Much of its architecture, the dress and appearance of the population, and the nature of shops and other businesses give it the appearance of a distinctly Islamic region. It is classified as an autono­ mous region in deference to the size of the Hui population, but that does not mean that it is a genuinely self-governing Hui area. The Hui constitute about one-third of the total population; the remainder are predominantly Han, although members of other ethnic groups also live there. Although the Hui live throughout the region, they are concentrated in two areas: the southern mountainous region, which includes Tongxin, Haiyuan and Xiji counties, as well as the county of Jingyuan (where as we have seen the Hui constitute about 97 per cent of the total population); and Wuzhong and Lingfu counties near Yinchuan in the north of the region. Ningxia has an unusually productive agricultural economy for the north and produces wheat, paddy rice, hemp, oil-yielding crops and fruit. People living in the Ningxia grasslands also raise stock and produce fur and skins, including Tibetan lambskins. Sheep are particularly important in the foothills of the Helan mountain range, and tree-planting has been developed both as an economic activity and as a barrier to the southwards drift of the Gobi Desert. Ningxia celebrated its thirtieth anniversary as an autonomous region on 25 October 1988. The People’s Bank of China announced the issue of a commemorative 1 yuan coin that depicts the Great Mosque in Yinchuan on one side and two young Hui women on the other. Celebratory speeches inevitably praised ‘nationality ­solidarity’ and unity, claimed that disputes between the Hui and Han nationalities had ‘all but vanished’, and maintained that Hui officials occupied most of the senior posts in the autonomous region and its cities. However, at a meeting with cadres in Yinchuan on 86

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

27 September 1988, a senior figure in the ccp, Wang Zhen (a former commander of Chinese military units in Xinjiang), called for measures to increase the number of cadres from minority nationalities. It was revealed that, although Hui people accounted for about onethird of the total population of the region, they constituted less than one-fifth of the cadres, even though most of the leading posts were occupied by cadres of Hui origin. Religious observance in Ningxia was stifled during the Cultural Revolution, but that was the case throughout China and applied to all religious activity, not just Islam. Many mosques were completely destroyed and others lost much of their land, and for Muslims one of the most important features of the reform programme was the possibility of rebuilding or reopening mosques. There are no accur­ ate figures for the precise number of losses during the Cultural Revolution, but some examples will illustrate the point. The Nanguan (South Gate) Mosque is the largest in Yinchuan. In the courtyard is a shop that sells the Qur’an and other devotional materials. There is also a display of photographs depicting the destruction of the mosque by Red Guards in the mid-1960s; the makeshift prayer space made up of mats and tables that the congregation used thereafter; and the reconstruction of the mosque in the mid-1980s on a Middle Eastern architectural model, replacing the original Chinese style. By 1991 the mosque was fully active once more and had a madrasa where basic Qur’anic Arabic was taught to about a dozen boys. Another mosque in Yinchuan, the Xiguan (West Gate), which was originally constructed in the 1880s, was rebuilt in 1981, also in a Middle Eastern style. The Wuzhong Mosque, in a busy market town of that name south of Yinchuan, was built in 1778 and extended twice in the late nineteenth century. After severe damage during the Cultural Revolution, it was reconstructed in 1979 and again in 1987, although the present mosque occupies far less land than the original. The Najiahu Mosque in nearby Najiahu village was also badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution, but the imams and the congregation managed to protect its prayer hall, which combined Chinese and Islamic architectural styles, and it remained untouched. The Great Mosque in the predominantly Hui city of Tongxin was a Buddhist temple at the time of the Mongol conquest, and in appearance is similar to a Chinese temple. It was rededicated as a 87

LESSER DRAGONS

mosque when it was taken over by local Muslims after the expulsion of the Mongols in the fourteenth century, and the congregation now follows the Yihewani sect. It escaped damage during the Cultural Revolution, and the congregation is fiercely proud of its role in defending the mosque. Islamic literature is available throughout Ningxia, and with fewer restrictions than in Xinjiang. The magazine Zhongguo Musilin (Chinese Muslim) is published nationally, and the Qur’an is available in both Chinese and Arabic. Commentaries and other classic devotional literature, such as the writings of the Ming dynasty Muslim scholar Wang Daiyu, are published openly and are sold in state bookshops in Ningxia and Gansu, as well as in Beijing. The availability of religious material in Xinjiang is more restricted. Some religious publications are also available in Urumqi bookshops; fewer Islamic publications appear in bookshops in Kashgar, but religious works in Arabic and Chinese can be bought from street stalls in the bazaar. In Linxia, the main Hui area of southwestern Gansu and Guanghe, new and second-hand books on religious topics and Arabic-language courses are sold from barrows or stalls on the main streets. There is also a widespread network of underground or unofficial Islamic p ­ ublishing, with ahongs publishing and distributing their own books. Muslim communities and China’s economic reforms Mosques in Ningxia benefited from China’s move towards a market­ oriented economy by developing business interests to fund their religious activities. The Nanguan Mosque in Yinchuan runs a Muslim services company that manages an Islamic hotel with 60–70 beds; a canteen; a grocery; a shop; and a clinic. An Islamic bazaar in Yinchuan was planned with the support of foreign investment. Hui people have a long tradition of successful involvement in trade and finance, and this has helped them to prosper under the reform programme. Islamic financing in Ningxia evolved into a fully fledged Islamic capital market with the intention that this relatively small and underdeveloped region would become the gateway for the expansion of Islamic finance throughout China. It was planned that it would play a central role in the transfer of funds between China and the Middle East, by providing services that would be used 88

Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China

not only by Muslims in China but also by all businesses, whatever their background. By 2015 the Ningxia branch of the Bank of China was providing e-commerce services and accelerated financial trans­ actions between China and the Middle East in a range of currencies. Backward, landlocked, Muslim Ningxia had found a niche in the modern world economy.9

89

5 Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

X

injiang, in the far northwest of China, is a historically Muslim region, although in the distant past the dominant religious cultures were Buddhism and previously Manichaeism, a belief system that emphasized the contrast between good and evil or dark and light and originated in ancient Persia. Xinjiang is one of the two regions of the prc – the other being Tibet – where there is an active movement for independence in progress. There is a parallel movement for self-determination in Inner Mongolia, but, even though it is not as active as the others, it has been subject to severe repression. Since the 1980s Xinjiang has experienced outbreaks of violence, which became more frequent and more serious in the 1990s. In 1996, in its Document No. 7, the ccp Politburo declared the insurgency in Xinjiang to be China’s most serious ‘separatist’ problem, at a time when most people assumed that opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet was of greater concern in Beijing.1 Some contemporary commentators have attempted to characterize the conflict in Xinjiang as simply political opposition to the rule of the ccp or, more recently, an extension of Middle Eastern jihadism. Its roots are in reality local and much deeper. The native people, the Uyghurs, resent the fact that, having for centuries been the majority population of Xinjiang, they have become a minority in their own lands. Han Chinese immigration to the region, which began in the late nineteenth century, increased during the Republic and has done more dramatically since the foundation of the prc in 1949. Uyghurs have felt increasingly marginalized and progressively more like the subjects of a colonial regime. Their religion, Islam, is constantly under attack, as is traditional Uyghur culture and, last but 90

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

not least, their own Uyghur language, which they fear will gradually be displaced by Chinese. The modernization and industrialization of Xinjiang, especially in the north of the region, have been carried out largely by Han Chinese migrants, excluding local Uyghurs, who do not have the technical abilities or the required competence in Chinese to be considered for many of the skilled jobs that have been created in the oil, gas and other modern industries. Their resentment at Chinese control is the resentment felt by a colonized population towards their colonial masters, not unlike the anger felt by Indians towards the British at the end of the Raj. This is not an analysis that the Chinese authorities are willing to consider as they suppress Uyghur dissent by ever stricter security measures. Xinjiang’s geographical position The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang weiwu’er zizhiqu) lies on the northwestern frontier of China and has borders with several states of the former Soviet Union. It stretches some 2,000 km (3,220 mi.) from east to west and 1,650 km (2,660 mi.) from north to south, has an area of over 1,600,000 sq. km (617,000 sq. mi., almost three times the size of France) and is by far the largest administrative unit in the prc. It is so far west of Beijing that in real time it is two hours behind the Chinese capital. Officials in Xinjiang use Beijing time, in particular for long-distance air and rail transport and communications with Beijing and government offices, and partly to demonstrate that Xinjiang is an inalienable part of China. Local people also use local time, and that draws attention to the physical and cultural distance between Xinjiang and the rest of China.2 Xinjiang’s international borders are with Mongolia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India and with three of the Central Asian states that were formerly part of the ussr: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. It is also close to two other new post-Soviet Central Asian nations, Uzbekistan (with which the Uyghurs have close linguistic and cultural affinity) and Turkmenistan. Its nearest neighbours in China are the two regions with a sizeable population of Chinese-speaking Hui Muslims (Gansu Province and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region), Tibet and Qinghai, which is part of ­historic Greater Tibet.3 91

LESSER DRAGONS

Xinjiang is officially not a province but, since 1 October 1955, an autonomous region (zizhiqu), in deference to the non-Han population.4 Uyghurs are represented on government and party bodies, as long as they are loyal to the prc government, but the ‘autonomy’ is nominal and important decision-making bodies are dominated by Han officials who are answerable directly to Beijing. Some Uyghurs, who were historically the majority population in Xinjiang, and other non-Han people in Kazakhstan, Turkey and elsewhere reject what they regard as the colonialist Chinese name for their region, which means literally ‘New Frontier’ and dates back to the eighteenth century. Many Uyghurs prefer the name Eastern Turkestan (Sharqi Turkistan in the Uyghur language), which consciously links Xinjiang with Turkic-speaking regions to its west in former Soviet Central Asia. There is a strong, and at times militant, movement for Uyghur independence or, as the Chinese government calls it, ‘splittism’, which draws for its inspiration on memories of two independent republics in the 1930s and 1940s. Earlier studies of the region used the spelling Sinkiang, and it has also been called Chinese Turkestan, but the name Xinjiang is used here for consistency. Xinjiang is divided by the snow-capped range of mountains known to the Chinese as the Tianshan (Mountains of Heaven) and to the Uyghurs as Tengritagh (Mountains of God or Heaven), which tower over the plains and oases below. The Zhungar Basin lies to the north, and in the south are the Tarim Basin and the vast and mainly inaccessible Taklamakan Desert, which dominates the geography of Xinjiang. This southern part of Xinjiang, known as Nanjiang in Chinese and the Altishahr (‘Six Cities’) in Uyghur, is the Uyghur heartland, a settled and mainly rural society reliant on traditional oasis agriculture. The influence of Chinese culture is less marked in the south, but it is increasing. In the northern mountains and grasslands Uyghurs have lived alongside Kazakhs and Mongols for centuries, and the influence of the Russian empire, the ussr and its successor states has left its mark. The north of Xinjiang is also the most industrialized part of the region, and is home to many large cities that are devoted to modern industries such as oil-refining, food-processing and textiles. Most of the settled Uyghur population is in the south, in the dry and dusty oasis towns and surrounding villages. Many of these settlements owe their development to an ancient system of subterranean 92

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

aqueducts, the kariz, which supplement existing irrigation from streams and rivers. The kariz, which may have originated in Persia, where they are called qanat, draw the melting snows from the mountains and carry them in underground channels that restrict evaporation while the water flows to the oases.5 The main oasis towns, Kashgar, Karghalik, Yarkand and Khotan, lie on the southern fringes of the Taklamakan, as far from Chinese cultural influence as it is possible to be within the borders of the present-day prc. They are the home of the most traditional Uyghur culture and suffer from poverty and underdevelopment; they are fertile ground for militant separatist and Islamist activities. Towns and villages in the Ghulja (Yining) and neighbouring regions of northern Xinjiang also have their own traditional cultures, although these are Kazak, Kyrgyz or Mongolian in origin as well as Uyghur. Xinjiang is regularly affected by dramatic and dangerous weather conditions, and the more remote communities are often cut off by heavy falls of snow in the harsh winters. Earthquakes are frequent, especially in the mountainous border areas; most are mild, but they are occasionally severe enough to threaten lives and the livelihood of whole communities. In August 1997 new building codes were issued by the local authorities, which claimed that the new regulations would ensure that all future construction was resistant to earthquakes.6 Earthquakes have political implications in Xinjiang: when the decision was made to demolish the entire Old City of Kashgar – the bazaar and residential quarter – in the early years of the twenty­ first century, the official reason was that the old buildings were a hazard if the city were to be struck by a severe earthquake. This was not accepted by the city’s Uyghurs, who suspected a stratagem to ­disperse and dilute their community. Uyghur language and culture Uyghur, the language of the traditionally Muslim Uyghurs, is a Turkic language that is very close to Uzbek – some argue that they are effectively the same language – and related distantly to Turkish. Uyghur is used in the mosques of Xinjiang – in addition to Arabic – whereas the Hui Muslims (including Hui communities in Xinjiang) use Chinese. Like the Hui, many Uyghurs are also devotees of 93

LESSER DRAGONS

Sufi sects, whose worship centres on the shrines of their founding shaykhs. While separatist activities are a political response to what many Uyghurs regard as the occupation of Xinjiang by the Chinese, they are sustained by the local Islamic culture, particularly the Sufi organizations. Because of the central role these shrines play in Xinjiang society, they are regularly targeted by the government and in many cases denounced as sources of ‘illegal religious activity’. The sheer size of Xinjiang means that it is not surprising that the customs of Uyghurs vary in different regions. Men traditionally cover their heads with the doppa, a round and usually elaborately embroidered cap, whereas Hui men wear plain white caps. Poorer men in the villages typically wear cloth caps to accompany their denim work clothes. Uyghur women are more heavily veiled than their Hui sisters, but their head-coverings vary from flimsy and elegant silk scarves, used to great effect as a fashion statement by some young women, to the dull-brown all-over head-covering associated with some Sufi orders. Many educated and professional Uyghurs, especially those in government or ccp employment, avoid these forms of dress altogether. Uyghur food must reflect the prohibitions of Islam, so pork is prohibited and lamb is the main meat consumed, often in the form of kebabs. These are spiced to give a flavour that is unique to Xinjiang – somewhere between the Indian or Pakistani and Chinese taste – and are made with a selection of cuts of meat, fat and offal on the kebab stick. However, since much of Xinjiang is poor and underdeveloped, relatively little meat is eaten. The cele­brated Uyghur whole roast sheep is prepared only for special celebrations, either within families or at major religious festivals, such as the annual commemoration at the Imam Asim shrine in the Taklamakan Desert, near Khotan. The everyday meals of the Uyghurs are simpler, and similar to the food eaten by Han Chinese in the northwest. Noodles are a basic standby, mainly laghman (lamian in Chinese, a thick noodle made from wheat flour and usually served in a soup) heavily spiced and with some vegetables or in soup. Uyghurs also eat savoury pastries, including samsas (related to the Indian samosa) and other local variations, some of which contain lamb. Many Uyghurs do not consider that the standards of halal practised by local Hui people are sufficiently strict, and so avoid their restaurants. Fruit, nuts and 94

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

spices feature prominently in local markets. Melons from Hami and Turpan grapes, which are celebrated for their size and sweetness, are both grown in eastern Xinjiang. Although observant Muslims do not consume alcohol, there is a thriving wine industry, which exports to eastern China and abroad. Knives are part of traditional Uyghur culture, and most rural Uyghur men carry a knife that might serve as a tool, to cut meat for a meal and, if required, as a weapon. It is this last use that has been emphasized in the media coverage of violence between Uyghurs and representatives of the Chinese state. Nevertheless, the craft of knife-making is a specialist industry and has been developed to attract tourist money, especially in the town of Yengishahar, ­southeast of Kashgar. The architecture of Xinjiang provides examples of traditional Central Asian building forms within the borders of China. Mosques in Xinjiang are mostly constructed in styles reminiscent of Pakistan, Iran or former Soviet Central Asia, whereas some Hui mosques further east have been influenced by Chinese aesthetics. Vernacular Uyghur architecture at its best was found in the Old City of Kashgar, with its timber-framed houses, shops, bazaars, schools and mosques built close together to create a tightly knit community. Little of this remains following mass demolition and redevelopment in the early twenty-first century, and many of the modern buildings that have been constructed to replace the old shops and houses adopt an ersatz style that is neither Uyghur nor Chinese and does not meet with the approval of traditionally minded locals. The destruction of the old centre of Kashgar created great opportunities for development, and construction businesses from outside Xinjiang were given contracts to rebuild the city centre. Most of the work was carried out by firms from eastern China, which brought in Han Chinese labourers. This caused great resentment among the local Uyghurs, who were not considered qualified to carry out skilled work and did not even find it easy to secure employment in the unskilled building trades.7 A century of conflict with Chinese governments The violence that has escalated in Xinjiang since the late twentieth century is not simply a clash between Muslim Uyghurs and the ccp. 95

LESSER DRAGONS

Neither is it a conflict created by hostile external forces, even though this is the way it is portrayed by the government in Beijing. Tension and disputes over the control of Xinjiang can be traced back directly to the Republican Period (1912–49), when China was at least nominally ruled by the nationalist Guomindang. It was in fact warlords who ruled Xinjiang, and a powerful Uyghur ethnic nationalist movement against Chinese rule led to the establishment of two short-lived but influential independent regimes. The first was the Turkic Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan, which lasted for only a few months in 1933 and 1934. The second was another Eastern Turkestan Republic, based in the districts of Ili, Tarbagahtai and Altai in northwestern Xinjiang. It was more enduring than the Kashgar regime, and ruled that part of Xinjiang from 1944 until 1949, when it was absorbed by agreement into the prc in what was termed its ‘peaceful liberation’. This Eastern Turkestan Republic was a multi-ethnic and secu­ lar nationalist movement; it was influenced by the Soviet Union and dominated by Muslims, but was not Islamist in the modern sense. Chinese sources invariably refer to it as the Three Districts Revolution (Sanqu geming), preferring to avoid any reference to Eastern Turkestan for fear that even the mention of the name might excite separatist sentiment. The subsequent influence of these regimes among Uyghurs has been vastly out of proportion to their authority at the time, and their memory continues to inspire Uyghur activists seeking models for an independent Eastern Turkestan. Even further back, the independent Kashgar government established in 1867 by Yakub Beg (1820–1877?) and his followers relied in part for its legitimacy on the tradition of Naqshbandi Sufi shaykhs, who had exercised both spiritual and temporal authority over Kashgar and other parts of southern Xinjiang since the late seventeenth century. Yakub Beg was regarded as a rebel by the Qing Emperor and his regime overthrown by Qing forces in 1877. The ascendency of the Sufi shaykhs can be dated to 1679, when Afaq Khwaja, a descendant of the great shaykh of Samarkand Makhdum-i Az’am (1464–1542), took power in Kashgar. The Sufi Khwaja dynasty lasted until 1759, long after the death in 1694 of Afaq Khwaja (whose magnificent mausoleum, the Appak Khoja, remains a tourist attraction in Kashgar).8 96

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

This tradition of independent religious rule is still remembered in Xinjiang and influences, at least in part, the movement for separatism. It is another reminder, in addition to the legacy of the two Eastern Turkestan Republics of the mid-twentieth century, of how separate from China the Uyghur state and Uyghur culture and ­religion have been. Mosques and mazars The religious tradition of Uyghur separateness is sustained in the mosques and in the mazars – the Sufi shrines. The congregations that attend the Uyghur mosques are normally quite separate from those in the mosques of the Chinese-speaking Hui communities. However, there is evidence of some overlap between the Islamic traditions of Central Asia and China in links between Uyghur and Hui members of the Khufiyya Sufi order. The network of mosques across Xinjiang provides the framework for the complex system of worship, education and law that dominated the region before it came under the control of the ccp in 1949. It is difficult to obtain credible statistics on the total number of mosques, but one estimate suggests that in 1949 there were 29,545 mosques in the whole of Xinjiang. By the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, this had been reduced to 14,119: many had fallen into disrepair, some had been requisitioned by the government and others had been demolished or closed during anti-religious and other campaigns, such as the movement for land reform in the early 1950s. During the chaos of the Cultural Revolution there were probably fewer than 1,500 active mosques, but by 1990, after the relaxation of restrictions on religious activity, the number had risen again to over 17,000; there were also 43,000 other ‘places of ­religious activity’, presumably shrines and madrasas.9 While mosques in Xinjiang are found in most villages, towns and cities, the mazar tombs of the Sufi shaykhs and their religious complexes are usually in more isolated rural settings. The Uyghurs use the Arabic and Turkic term mazar (mezar in Turkish) for the shrines to their founding shaykhs, but there is also a tomb culture among the Hui (both in Xinjiang and outside), who use the term gongbei, a Chinese transliteration of the Arabic qubba (dome or cupola, after the dominant architectural feature of such tombs). 97

LESSER DRAGONS

These tombs are the bases for the mystical Sufi orders, which in Xinjiang are predominantly the Jahriyya and Khufiyya branches of the Naqshbandi. Members of the orders make pilgrimages to the tombs on the anniversary of the death of the founding shaykhs, and on important religious festivals. Pilgrimages have on occasion attracted crowds of such a size that the authorities have banned or restricted them. The mazar culture is viewed by the Chinese state as a serious threat to its authority and has been the subject of frequent repression; it has also been attacked by conservative Muslims and by Islamic reformers influenced directly or indirectly by Wahhabi teachings that have spread to Xinjiang from Saudi Arabia. An authoritative study by an Uyghur scholar lists 73 major active mazars in Xinjiang.10 Uyghurs dislike the government regu­ lation of mosques, so this parallel Islam is increasingly popular. The fact that these sects are connected with the Naqshbandi and other transnational Islamic movements is attractive to the isolated Turkicspeaking Muslims of Xinjiang, but deeply troubling to the Chinese authorities.11 Uyghurs confront the government of the People’s Republic of China After the Chinese Communist Party established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, individuals and groups inspired by the previous independent regimes and supported by the Sufi orders continued the conflict. In the Khotan rising of December 1954, Uyghur militants attached to Sufi orders attacked a prison, seized arms and ammunition and then launched an assault on a labour camp and a farm run by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (known colloquially as simply ‘the corps’ or the bingtuan), a quasi-military body that combines border defence and security with agricultural production. The rising was suppressed and those of its leaders who did not flee the country were imprisoned. The background to the revolt was resentment at the new policies of land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, which targeted, among others, influential Islamic figures hostile to the Communists. Documents seized by the Chinese authorities indicate that a clear plan existed to establish an Islamic republic in the region of Khotan, which had been the capital of independent Islamic caliphates before the nineteenth century. 98

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

Further dissatisfaction with the ccp emerged with the exodus of Uyghurs and Kazakhs from northwestern Xinjiang into the Soviet Union in 1962. When the Cultural Revolution started in 1966, the breakdown in authority nationally created an opening for the establishment of an Eastern Turkestan People’s Revolutionary Party, which was involved in skirmishes with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army but did not have much long-term impact.12 In the 1980s separatist activity escalated as a more open society began to emerge in China. This resistance was given a new lease of life after the collapse of the neighbouring Soviet Union in 1991, when independent Turkic Muslim states were created just across the border from Xinjiang, and Uyghur militants saw this as an ­opportunity to demand their own independent state. Uyghur communities (especially in rural areas) had become alienated from the Han majority and the political system that it dominates. Their marginalization was exacerbated by their exclusion from many sectors of the economy, including modern extractive and other advanced technological industries, for which rural Uyghurs were not considered to have either the technical education or an appropriate level of ability in Chinese language. Not all Uyghurs are alienated: an urban Uyghur intelligentsia has evolved a modus vivendi with the Chinese state, and bilingual Uyghurs can be found in professional roles in Xinjiang and other parts of China. However, Uyghurs who appear to be too close to the Chinese may find themselves rejected, and even attacked, by those who are more alienated. Beijing used both the carrot of economic development and the stick of political and religious repression to maintain its control of Xinjiang. It is the only part of Islamic Central Asia controlled by China and it is China’s land bridge to Eurasia. The importance of this has been emphasized through the One Belt, One Road concept for the future development of relations between China and Central Asia which was made public in the autumn of 2013. It is the policy of the government that Xinjiang will play a key role in the Silk Road Economic Belt, which, in parallel with the Maritime Silk Road, is intended to enhance trade across Eurasia. For this to succeed, regional stability is essential.

99

LESSER DRAGONS

Incidents in the 1980s and 1990s The conflict has been most severe in two areas of Xinjiang: the far south, which is dominated by the great Uyghur cultural and Islamic centres of Kashgar and Khotan, and the Ghulja (Yining) region in the northwest, close to the border between China and Kazakhstan.13 In April 1980 there were major disturbances in the southern city of Aksu, following clashes between local Uyghur people, members of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and groups of demobilized Red Guards who were mostly Han. Similar disturbances followed in Kashgar. There were student protests in both Urumqi and the Central Nationalities Institute in Beijing against racial and religious insults against Muslims. On 5 April 1990 in the town of Baren, which lies close to Kashgar, the regular prayers at a mosque turned into demonstrations against the ccp’s policies towards ethnic minorities. Some protesters called for a jihad against the unbelievers and there were demands for the establishment of an Eastern Turkestan state. It took the intervention of specialist riot squads of the People’s Armed Police and regular troops from the Kashgar garrison to subdue them. The Baren rising was the result of a carefully planned and organized operation by a group that identified itself as the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Party and explicitly linked politicized Islam with the call for the independence of Xinjiang. The rebels attacked military vehicles and attacked the town hall. Police, troops and the militia of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps put down the rising after an early morning counter-attack on 6 April, but there was no doubt about the depth of anti-Chinese feeling, the degree of organization of the rebels or the religious basis of the attempted insurrection. Bomb attacks on a bus in Urumqi followed in 1992 and then on government buildings in the city of Kashgar in 1993. Yining in the Ili region is of great symbolic importance to Uyghurs as the former seat of the Eastern Turkestan government in the 1940s. In the spring of 1995 demonstrators calling for an end to Chinese rule attacked and looted police stations and local government offices in the city. There were also assaults on imams who were considered too close to the Chinese authorities. Twenty thousand troops put down the insurrection, and a nationwide ‘Strike Hard’ campaign was launched to eradicate opposition to Beijing’s rule. 100

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

The campaign led to severe repression: in 1996 large numbers of Uyghurs accused of serious criminal offences linked to the separatist movement were put on trial, and many were executed. Persistent reports of secret executions without trial exacerbated the atmosphere of repression, and on 5 February 1997 angry young Uyghurs took to the streets of Ghulja, attacking Han Chinese residents and their property. This second Ghulja rising became notorious for the violence with which it was suppressed. Official accounts maintain that fewer than 200 people were killed by the police and military, but eyewitness reports suggest a much higher number. The violence continued sporadically until 9 April, and there were bomb attacks in Urumqi on 25 February and Beijing on 7 March. Public security organizations were placed on the highest level of alert nationwide, and thousands of people were arrested. Campaigns of political education emphasizing national unity were launched and many of the restrictions that were imposed have remained in place ever since.14 Control of religious activities in Xinjiang The ccp attempts to regulate all religions – including Islam – through the Religious Affairs Bureau, which was established by the State Council in 1954, and its successor organization, the State Administration for Religious Affairs (sara), established in 1998. All mosques, madrasas and other Muslim organizations are legally obliged to register with its subordinate body, the Chinese Islamic Association. Many groups in Xinjiang, including some of the Sufi organizations, have refused to register on the grounds that an a­ theist state should have no authority over their doctrines and forms of worship. This has created conflict, not only between unregistered Muslim organizations and the government but also between ­registered and unregistered Muslim groups. In the 1990s the rise of dissent in Xinjiang began to alarm the authorities, and a confidential internal memorandum, Document No. 7, issued by the Politburo of the ccp in 1996 identified separatism in Xinjiang as the greatest threat not only to the region but to the nation as a whole. Among other things it demanded a crackdown on illegal madrasas, a restriction on the construction of new mosques and an end to independent classes in martial arts and Qur’an study sessions, which were suspected of being used as cover 101

LESSER DRAGONS

for separatist activities. The document called for a purge of party cadres who were also devout Muslims and who had refused to give up their beliefs in spite of years of indoctrination. State control was strengthened after the publication of the docu­ ment, and again after the Ghulja uprising of February 1997. The attacks by al-Qaeda on New York and Washington in September 2001 reinforced China’s fears of the links between separatism and political Islam but had little immediate impact on either militant activity in Xinjiang or the repressive policies of the state, which had already been in place for over four years. The new restrictions prohibited children under the age of eighteen from entering mosques and forbade the wearing of the hijab or other forms of Islamic dress in schools. Members of the ccp and the Communist Youth League, and employees of government organizations – including retired members of staff – were not allowed to enter mosques. Notices outlining these restrictions appeared at the entrances to all mosques in Uyghur. Mosques were also barred from mediating disputes over marriage or family planning, and in particular it was forbidden to read out the Islamic marriage contract, the nikah, in the mosque before the issue of a valid civil marriage certificate. These restrictions emphasized the primacy of state laws over Islamic law and limited the authority of the local qadi judges. Printed or taped materials that were deemed to encourage religious extremism or separatism were banned explicitly, as was religious education anywhere other than in a registered mosque. A list of prohibited books was issued to booksellers. In the 1950s and 1960s the only organization training imams from the whole of China was the Chinese Islamic Academy in Beijing. In 1987 an Islamic Academy was established in Urumqi specifically to cater for imams from Xinjiang, and the first graduates left in 1992 to staff the mosques of the region. The Qur’an was also published in an Uyghur translation to cater to those whose grasp of Arabic was poor. The Religious Affairs Bureau exercised considerable control over the training and curriculum of Islamic education, and that intensified in 2001 when 8,000 Xinjiang imams were compelled to take part in a campaign of ‘patriotic education’. The imams were instructed in the ccp’s thinking on legal, political and religious topics and ordered to shun mosques or other groups that were judged to be involved in separatist activities.15 102

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

Xinjiang and economic reform Beijing’s strategy in dealing with the problem of ethnic separatism in Xinjiang since the early 1990s has been twofold. On the one hand there has been ruthless repression of unofficial religious activity and any activities that could be classified as separatist. On the other, the ccp has embarked on an ambitious programme of economic reform, on the assumption that the principal underlying reason for the disaffection of the Uyghurs is not ethnic nationalism but poverty and underdevelopment. That this is part of the problem cannot be denied, but it does not address the underlying resentment felt by many Uyghurs at being ruled by the Chinese. The decision was made to confront the problem of the relative underdevelopment of China’s western provinces as a whole, and the policy for the development of those western regions (Xibu da kaifa), popularly known as the Go West policy, was launched in 2000 in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. There has been substantial investment in the oilfields of northern Xinjiang, which has enjoyed far greater development than the predominantly agricultural south. This has been achieved in part by bringing in modern technology, technical expertise and labour, in some cases from abroad but mainly from the east of China. The expertise and labour are provided by predominantly Han Chinese engineers, technicians and workers, and their presence in the region, in well-paid and high-status occupations, has increased the anxiety of Uyghurs, who are usually less well educated and less competent in the Chinese language, that they are being marginalized in their own land. In spite of the undoubted improvements in the economy of much of Xinjiang, ethnic and political tension remains unresolved. The number of serious disturbances or acts of political violence by Uyghur groups in Xinjiang declined after 1997, but the problem did not disappear. Some of the armed insurgent groups that had previously existed in Xinjiang were forced out, first to Kyrgyzstan and then to Afghanistan, some finally ending up in the ‘tribal areas’ on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. If these exiled groups were renewed or replaced in Xinjiang, the new organizations kept a very low profile, but opposition to Chinese control remained as strong as ever. 103

LESSER DRAGONS

Urumqi, July 2009: Riots and deaths in the regional capital For the Chinese government the violence that erupted on 5 July 2009 in Urumqi, the administrative capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and cost the lives of at least 200 people, was a turning point that required a different, and harsher, political response. Such bloodshed in the regional capital also drew the attention of the world’s media, and it was reported in far more detail than any previous outbreaks of violence.16 The Urumqi riots were triggered by rumours of the ill-treatment of Uyghurs, and specifically reports from the city of Shaoguan in south China’s Guangdong Province of the deaths of two Uyghur migrant workers who had been falsely accused of raping Han women. The violence did not come as a complete surprise: the chairman of the Xinjiang People’s Congress, Nur Bekri, himself an ethnic Uyghur, had previously cautioned that maintaining stability in Xinjiang would be a problem. Speaking at a fringe meeting during the National People’s Congress in Beijing in March 2009, he had warned that unrest and militant activity in neighbouring states could spread into Xinjiang: We don’t believe that hostile forces from home and abroad will give up . . . I’m afraid that we will face a more severe situation in maintaining stability than last year, our task will probably be heavier, and the struggle will probably be fiercer.17

There had been demonstrations in the city in 1989 against the publication of racial slurs against the Uyghurs, and bus bombings and other isolated attacks in the 1990s, but otherwise Urumqi had remained insulated from the worst of the conflict. This is not entirely surprising, since Urumqi has a large resident garrison of troops and People’s Armed Police and, at least in much of the central area, is dominated by Han Chinese. The events in Urumqi began when a group of some 300 demonstrators, mostly Uyghurs, organized a sit-down protest in People’s Square in the centre of the city at about 5 p.m. on 5 July to demand an investigation into the affray in Shaoguan and to mourn the two Uyghurs reported to have been killed. Some of the demonstrators claimed that the real number of casualties in Shaoguan had been 104

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

higher. The crowd gradually grew to around 1,000, and when police arrived the demonstrators refused to disperse. According to Uyghur sources, riot police attacked protesters with truncheons and electric cattle prods, fired weapons and pinned individuals to the ground before taking at least 40 of them away in police vehicles. Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported that protesters had ‘attacked passers-by, torched vehicles and interrupted traffic on some roads’, but did not make it clear whether this took place before or after the intervention of the police. There were a number of casualties, including possibly two deaths, and the demonstrators were forced to disperse by the police, though they regrouped later.18 Information about the disturbances, including pictures of police vehicles, soldiers and burning cars, began to appear online. At about 8 p.m., as it was getting dark, there was still chanting from the crowds in the streets. Military vehicles, including armoured personnel carriers with machine guns mounted on top, moved through central Urumqi; soldiers emerged with riot shields and batons and loudspeaker messages ordered residents to stop looking out of their windows. During the assault that followed, demonstrators were arrested and some may have been shot and possibly killed. When local people felt it was safe to look out of their windows, they saw blood on the streets but no bodies. The soldiers were still there. By the following day the blood had been cleaned away.19 On the following day, 6 July, local television news programmes carried their first reports of the violence in Urumqi, but claimed that Uyghur people had initiated it by attacking Han Chinese. This was quite the opposite of what eyewitnesses reported. The ccp secretary of Xinjiang, Wang Lequan, and the Urumqi City Communist Party secretary, Li Zhi (both of them Hans), appeared on television, blaming separatist groups organized by outsiders and threatening that the authorities would ‘strike hard’, arrest everyone involved in this organized political action and treat them as separatists. On 7 July armed gangs of local Han Chinese retaliated, and Uyghurs were attacked and some killed in streets close to the city centre. The television news continued to show the same set of images from 5 July, all of which carried the official message that the conflict had been initiated by Uyghur violence.

105

LESSER DRAGONS

After Urumqi: Clashes in Kashgar and Khotan The violent clashes in Urumqi were followed by the inevitable clampdown on social and religious activities, but repression did not quell the discontent and Uyghur resistance to the Chinese continued, often taking the form of an increased adherence to Islamic forms of dress. In the summer of 2011 both Kashgar and Khotan were the scenes of conflict and bloodshed. On 18 July a group of Uyghurs armed with knives and explosive devices attacked a police station in Khotan and took hostages to bargain for the release of family members who had been detained in the clampdown after the Urumqi disturbances. The Uyghurs of the Khotan area had many grievances that help to explain the attack on the police station. Many young men had been detained without trial around the second anniversary of the July 2009 Urumqi riots. Family members were not able to make contact with them, and there were serious concerns after news spread of the disappearance of young Uyghurs who had been held in police custody. Official sources simply reported this as an organized attack with explosive devices, Molotov cocktails and grenades as well as axes, knives and ‘jihadi flags’. In the operation that followed, at least one police officer, two of the hostages and some of the attackers were killed. A campaign to prevent women from wearing black headscarves and robes had been under way for months, and in May and June young women in the nearby county of Karakash (Moyu) were banned by the local authorities from wearing the full-length black Islamic dress that had become increasingly popular since the Urumqi disturbances. Stalls in the Grand Bazaar in Khotan were ordered to stop selling Islamic dresses and veils. Violence broke out in Kashgar on Saturday 30 July 2011, the eve of the Ramadan fast. There were two explosions: the first blast came from a minivan at about 10.30 in the evening, and the second from a truck that was later hijacked at traffic lights and driven into a group of pedestrians on a crowded street where Han Chinese w ­ orkers were known to gather at food stalls. Six or seven people died and almost 30 were injured. Two suspects were later killed in a cornfield outside Kashgar, while others were detained. The government announced almost immediately that the attack was the responsibility of Islamic militants who had previously travelled from Xinjiang 106

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

to Pakistan, where they had joined the ‘separatist East Turkestan Islamic Movement’ (a group that may or may not exist) and had undergone training in the use of firearms and explosives. On the afternoon of 31 July a restaurant in Kashgar was set on fire and the owner and a waiter killed. The background to this attack was the resentment of the citizens of Kashgar at the demolition of the traditional Uyghur quarter in the centre of the old city, and anger that the authorities failed to respect Ramadan.20 Jeep attack in Tian’anmen Square, October 2013 One violent incident was so far out of the ordinary that it attracted immediate attention worldwide. On 28 October 2013 a jeep or suv was driven through a crowd of tourists and other pedestrians in Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square. It crashed and burst into flames near the symbolic Tian’anmen Gate, from where Mao Zedong had proclaimed the establishment of the People’s Republic in October 1949 and where his portrait still hangs. The square was also the scene of the military crackdown of 4 June 1989, and is very close to the ccp leadership compound of Zhongnanhai. The vehicle was driven by Usmen Hesen, an Uyghur: he and his two passengers, his wife and his mother, were killed in the crash; two pedestrians were also killed and 40 others were injured. Local police said that they had discovered explosive gas containers, knives and a jihadist flag inside the vehicle, but Uyghur sources have been sceptical about those claims. Some have suggested that the police deliberately planted evidence after the incident to persuade people that it was a jihadist plot. Meng Jianzhu, head of the Central Politics and Law Commission of the ccp, issued a statement accusing the East Turkestan Islamic Movement of responsibility for the attack, and called on the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to help China in combating the threat from this organization.21 It transpired that the motives for the attack were primarily personal and local; it was revenge for a heavy-handed raid on a mosque in the driver’s home village of Yengi Aymak in Akto County a year previously, and possibly for the death of a relative in the post-Urumqi clampdown.22 Although there was a religious element to the attack, it was not a jihadist plot masterminded by forces outside China. 107

LESSER DRAGONS

Immediately after the attack the authorities launched a wave of reprisals, including detentions in the Ghulja region and increased security checks and police searches throughout Xinjiang. In Beijing, Uyghur residents and visitors were subject to increased surveillance, and Ilham Tohti, a respected economics professor at the Central Nationalities University (Zhongyang Minzu Daxue) in Beijing, who ran a website that discussed Uyghur topics, reported that he had been harassed and threatened by police.23 Seriqbuya, Kunming and Luntai, 2013–14 In April 2013, 21 people were killed in clashes between local Uyghurs and police, and a house was burned to the ground in the village of Seriqbuya in Maralbashi County, southwestern Xinjiang. The following November three auxiliary police officers were killed during an attack on a police station in the same area.24 At Kunming railway station on 1 March 2014 a group presumed to be Uyghurs, wielding knives and meat cleavers, left 31 people dead and 141 injured. It is far from clear why Kunming, in the southwestern province of Yunnan, was the setting for this attack: there was no history of serious inter-ethnic problems in the city, despite its position on a recently established migrant route for Uyghurs trying to leave China. The Ministry of Public Security named the mastermind behind the attack as Abdurehim Kurban, but China Daily later reported that in September 2014 three men with Uyghur names, Iskandar Ehet, Turgun Tohtunyaz and Hasayn Muhammad, had been tried for the assaults by the Kunming Intermediate People’s Court and executed.25 Also in September 2014 there were explosions (apparently coord­inated) in at least three different parts of Luntai County, a remote area on the desert fringes of southern Xinjiang. Initially two people were thought to have been killed and many others injured. As more detailed information emerged, however, it became clear that the violence was far more serious than had at first been suggested: four days later the official media reported that 50 people had died and at least 54 had been injured. More details were revealed about the locations of the attacks, which took place in a shop, at an open market and in two police stations, possibly after a failed attempt to attack the local government offices.26 108

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

The case of Ilham Tohti The strongest evidence of the unwillingness of the authorities to tolerate even discussion of the conflict in Xinjiang was the trial of the Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti in September 2014. The trial, and the draconian penalty that was subsequently meted out to him, can only be interpreted as warnings that the Beijing government would not only ruthlessly suppress any secessionist activities by campaigners or militants in Xinjiang, but also not even permit any academic or theoretical debate of alternatives to the official government position, let alone any discussion of possible secession or independence. (The term always employed by Beijing is fenliezhuyi, ‘splittism’, which is also translated as ‘separatism’.) Ilham Tohti is an Uyghur from Artush in Xinjiang, but the activities for which he appeared in court took place in Beijing, where he was an established professor of economics at the Central Nationalities University. This institute is China’s leading institution of higher education for intellectuals from the country’s ethnic minorities, with the aim of ensuring that they are integrated into the mainstream political culture controlled by the ccp and its government. Ilham Tohti was part of the Beijing intellectual elite and openly criticized government policies on Xinjiang, but he had never advocated violence or supported separatist activities. His trial took place in Urumqi, the administrative capital of Xinjiang – a city in which he did not work or live, but where riots had taken place in July 2009 – in a crude attempt to link him to violent demonstrations in which he had had no part. Foreign diplomats from Europe and North America and representatives of the media were refused access to the trial, but stood outside the courtroom. In his closing statement, Ilham Tohti is reported to have said that ‘he loved his country . . . and that his opinion [had] always been that it is in the best interests of Uyghurs to  remain in China’. These are hardly the views of a separatist. However, on 23 September 2014 he was sentenced to life imprisonment and the confiscation of all his assets, an ‘unusually harsh’ sentence according to the South China Morning Post.27 An appeal was rejected at a hearing held inside the prison on 21 November, at a time when his lawyers were not able to be present.28 The verdict was unquestionably a political, rather than a legal, decision, designed to discourage any discussion of the Xinjiang issue that might deviate 109

LESSER DRAGONS

from the official government position: that all violence in Xinjiang is a result of the ‘three hostile forces’: terrorism, separatism and extremism. Refugees and possible jihadist links After the repression that followed the Urumqi riots of 2009, the number of Uyghurs determined to leave Xinjiang because of religious persecution increased. Those who left avoided the most direct exit route, through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, because of the strict border controls that were in force, and instead travelled southwards through China and into Southeast Asia via Yunnan Province, most with the intention of reaching Turkey. This route, pioneered by Chinese people-smugglers, took them through Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam into Thailand. Hundreds were detained in refugee camps in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand, where many were issued with Turkish passports. A group of 173 Uyghurs, mostly women and children, were released on 30 June 2015 and allowed to travel to Istanbul, where it was agreed that they would be resettled by the Turkish government, either in Istanbul or in the central province of Kayseri, both of which already have established Uyghur communities. The women and children were released after having been held for more than a year on suspicion of illegal entry into Thailand, but male Uyghurs related to these women and children were not released at the same time. The Ministry of Public Security in Beijing accused the government in Ankara of issuing counterfeit identity documents to some of these Uyghurs to enable them to enter Turkey, and insisted that the refugees were planning to join radical jihadist groups such as Da’esh (Islamic State) in Iraq and Syria. Turkey had been experiencing a wave of protests against Chinese repression of the Uyghurs, including the burning of Chinese flags and attacks on Chinese tourists and a Chinese restaurant called Happy China. These attacks were blamed on the Grey Wolves, a paramilitary group associated with the extreme right-wing nationalist party the mhp (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, Nationalist Action Party), but the organization denied that its members had been involved.29 The controversy over these detentions in Thailand reopened the question of the relationship between the Uyghur insurgency 110

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

and external Islamist or jihadist movements. Regular claims were made at the beginning of the twenty-first century that Uyghurs were moving out of China to join the Taliban, al-Qaeda or other Islamist militant groups, but it was difficult to find reliable, independent confirmation of these allegations. The presence of Uyghurs in Mazar-e Sharif in Afghanistan after the city was taken from the Taliban by the Northern Alliance and United States forces in November 2001 is, however, a matter of record, as is the detention of 22 of their number in the u.s. detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Some of these Uyghurs may have been trained in al-Qaeda-supported camps on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border, and there are reports of others who had escaped from Xinjiang and moved through Central Asia and Afghanistan to the ‘tribal areas’ of Pakistan, notably Hasan Mehsum, who was shot dead in south Waziristan on 2 October 2003.30 In the early years of the twenty-first century some radical Uyghur refugees explored the possibility of cooperating with Islamist movements in Malaysia and Indonesia, and concrete evidence of these connections emerged in a court case in the latter country. On 13 July 2015 three men with Uyghur names were convicted in the North Jakarta District Court of entering Indonesia illegally and attempting to join a terrorist group, the Mujahidin Indonesia Timur (mit, Eastern Indonesia Mujahidin), which is believed to be associated with Jemaah Islamiyah, an affiliate of al-Qaeda in Indonesia. They were travelling with Turkish passports and claimed to be Turkish citizens on holiday, but Indonesian officials claimed that their docu­ mentation was counterfeit. They were sentenced to six years in prison and fined the equivalent of u.s.$7,500 each.31 A quiet exodus from Xinjiang continues. There are still waves of protest in an atmosphere of severe repression that intensified with the appointment of the new Xinjiang Party secretary, Chen Quanguo, in 2016. Terrorism and Xinjiang Tibetans resisting rule by China have little difficulty in obtaining at least moral support from a wide range of opinion in the West. They are invariably presented as peaceful protesters, harming no one but themselves. The same cannot be said of attitudes towards their counter­ parts in Xinjiang, Tibet’s neighbour to the north. Militants in Xinjiang 111

LESSER DRAGONS

have all been classed as terrorists, particularly since the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda. It is often assumed that the militants’ actions are solely a result of associations with international jihadist movements, although the movement for independence, which many Uyghurs do support, has a history that precedes modern jihadism by many decades. Under the Terrorism Act 2000, the British government has included groups acting for independence in Xinjiang in its list of proscribed organizations. This followed action taken by the United Nations after sustained lobbying by the Chinese government. The entry in the official Home Office list of Proscribed Terrorist Organisations reads as follows: Turkestan Islamic Party (tip) also known as East Turkestan Islamic Party (etip), East Turkestan Islamic Movement (etim) and Hizb al-Islami al-Turkistani (haat) – Proscribed July 2016 tip is an Islamic terrorist and separatist organisation founded in 1989 by Uighur militants in western China. It aims to establish an independent caliphate in the Uighur state of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of North-western China and to name it East Turkestan. tip is based in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (fata) of Pakistan, and operates in China, Central and South Asia and Syria. The group has claimed responsibility for a number of attacks in China, the latest of these being in April 2014. tip has links to a number of terrorist groups including Al Qa’ida (aq). In November 2015, tip released the 18th issue of its magazine ‘Islamic Turkestan’ through the Global Islamic Media Front (gimf), detailing tip’s jihad against the Chinese authorities. Video footage from September 2015 shows tip hosting training camps in areas controlled by the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan. More recently tip has maintained an active and visible presence in the Syrian war and has published a number of video clips of its activities. Examples of this from March to April 2016 include: • tip claiming a joint attack with Jund al Aqsa in Sahl al Ghab and [publishing] a video of a suicide bomb attack in April 2016; 112

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

• a video published in March 2016 which promotes the victories of tip in Syria and calls for Muslims to join jihad; and • a video slide show published in April 2016 which shows fighters and children in training. tip has been banned by the un and is also sanctioned by the usa under the Terrorist Exclusion list.32

Although all this is presented by the Home Office as undisputed fact, there are reasonable doubts about the existence and the activities of these groups. There is no doubt that individuals and groups have carried out attacks within and outside Xinjiang that, by any definition, can be characterized as terrorist. What is less certain is whether these attacks are genuinely linked to the groups that claim responsibility on their web pages. Equally unclear is whether mili­ tant groups within Xinjiang have genuine links to jihadist groups based in the Middle East, such as al-Qaeda or Da’esh (also known as isis). There has been a long history of resistance by Uyghur militant groups to the Chinese authorities, long pre-dating the foundation of the prc in 1949 and the birth of Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, in 1957. Although activist groups inside Xinjiang have a history of seeking external support, they have for many years demonstrated their ability to act independently.33 Repression and counter-terrorism in Xinjiang The Uyghurs of Xinjiang have been subject to even stricter controls since the Urumqi riots of July 2009, and there is no indication that these will be relaxed in the foreseeable future. A new regional counter­-terrorism law was passed in May 2016; editors and contributors to Uyghur-language websites have been detained for criticizing government policies on religious observance; in some towns and cities, fences are being built around areas where large numbers of Uyghurs live to allow the police to carry out security checks more easily; more prisons are being built; and the security forces have been equipped with modern, sophisticated equipment for counter­ terrorism operations. Some local authorities have ordered Uyghurs to attend regular flag-raising ceremonies, evening classes or public taiji (T’ai chi) exercises, to demonstrate their loyalty to the state and to Chinese values. The confiscation and control of passports 113

LESSER DRAGONS

have also been reported, although this was at first carried out in a piecemeal way by county governments. Educational establishments have been particular targets, in an attempt to counter the Islamic education that is carried out in the mosques. Compulsory polit­ ical education has been introduced at universities and colleges, and regulations unveiled by the regional government in October 2016 provide for sanctions against parents who encourage their children to take part in religious activities. To verify the effectiveness of this repression, 350 cadres in the Khotan region were deployed to monitor religious activities in mosques and elsewhere. The concentration on Khotan followed an explosion on 10 September 2016 near Kokterek in Guma County (Pishan in Chinese), Khotan prefecture, which resulted in the death of a senior police officer and injuries to others.34 That incident followed a series of attacks on local government offices and police stations, relatively minor in comparison with the more dramatic and well-publicized attacks such as the knifing of passengers at Kunming railway station, but serious enough for the communities affected. In the absence of a new approach to break the vicious circle, retaliation to the repression has continued. Chen Quanguo and new initiatives in Tibet and Xinjiang A new political initiative to counter violent conflict was launched, first in Tibet and subsequently in Xinjiang, by Chen Quanguo, who was party secretary of the Tibetan Autonomous Region from 2011 to 2016 and was transferred to the same position in Xinjiang in August 2016, succeeding Zhang Chunxian. Chen, a Han Chinese who was born in Henan Province in 1955, was among the first cohort of students to graduate after the Cultural Revolution, and rose through the ranks of the ccp and government before becoming acting governor (later governor) of Hebei Province in 2009. In August 2011 he was appointed Party secretary in Tibet, the most powerful official in the region – a surprising move, since he had no previous experience of working in ethnic-minority areas. His transfer to Xinjiang was widely seen as a vote of confidence in the way he had managed conflict in Tibet.35 Chen’s strategy became more widely known after his move to Xinjiang. Zhang’s performance had been low-key, and he had been criticized for being lacklustre and for prioritizing economic 114

Xinjiang and the Uyghurs

improvement over security. Chen introduced new, draconian ­methods of repression, most of which he had rehearsed in Tibet. A network of new ‘convenience police posts’ was constructed. Intended to be manned day and night, they are equipped with first-aid kits and other items to assist in emergencies, but also with surveillance cameras, and can rapidly be converted to checkpoints in the event of a disturbance. Numerous auxiliary police have also been recruited. Families have been enrolled in a Xinjiang version of the ‘double-linked household management system’ that was instituted in Tibet, in which groups of ten families are required to spy on one another to check on security threats and risks of poverty – the double link. The intention is to appraise households regularly and reward or admonish them according to their reports. Although this scheme and its predecessor in Tibet were presented as innovations, they are essentially a revival of systems of local control that were practised in China under the Ming and Qing dynasties. The ‘double-linked household management system’ is borrowed with little modification from the baojia system of social control that operated during the later dynasties of the Chinese empire. Increased surveillance is likely to increase tension within the Uyghur communities and is not a useful long-term strategy for ending the conflict, but if the ‘poverty alleviation’ measures are genuine – and reduction of poverty is one of the true drivers of President Xi Jinping’s national political strategy – they could help to reduce conflict. These surveillance methods have been paralleled by a further onslaught on religious activities in Xinjiang, including forcing restaurants to remain open during Ramadan, billeting cadres in the homes of families to monitor their religious behaviour, and even attempting to prohibit parents from giving newborn babies names that are considered dangerously Islamic. Some of these repressive measures have been implemented by the regional government for the whole of Xinjiang, but others are local initiatives, and it is by no means clear that all these government instructions will be obeyed. On the basis of previous experience, it is likely that this additional repression will curb overt religious activity and related acts of resistance in the short term – perhaps while Chen remains in post – but in the longer term will be the source of great resentment that is likely to erupt into further conflict.36 115

LESSER DRAGONS

The policy that attracted most international attention after Chen’s move to Xinjiang was the confiscation of passports by local police, to be released on request. This was particularly targeted at Uyghurs planning to travel abroad, because of government concerns about outside influences on militant activists, but some reports suggest that it affected all residents, including Hui Muslims and Han Chinese. In May 2017 the authorities in Xinjiang confiscated all copies of the Qur’an that had been published before 2012, as part of a campaign against the ownership of ‘illegal religious items’. Official translations of the Qur’an published in 2012 were said to contain less ‘extremist’ material, but it is far from clear how different this translation is from earlier versions. The following June, Muslims in Kashgar and Khotan were fined heavily and forced to attend re-education classes if they had observed Ramadan against official instructions to ignore the religious duty of fasting during daylight hours. Officials were assigned to monitor families during the fasting period, and some were said to be compelling Muslims to eat during the day. In a parallel move guaranteed to infuriate Uyghurs, a directive from the Hotan Prefectural Education Department circulated in late July 2017. Although it was phrased carefully, the implication was that the Chinese language should be prioritized in primary and secondary schools at the expense of Uyghur, in spite of what was supposed to be a bilingual environment.37 In the second half of 2017 there was no sign of any relaxation in the repression. Reports were received of mosques being converted into patriotic and pro-Communist propa­ ganda centres and a network of training schools was established for the re-education of thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs believed to be susceptible to separatist or Islamist ideas.

116

6 Mongols of Inner Mongolia

M

ongolians living in the People’s Republic of China are treated by the Chinese government as just one of the country’s 55 official ethnic minorities or ‘nationalities’. However, they are also part of a much wider Mongol nation that stretches well beyond the prc, including those who live in the Buryat and Kalmyk republics within the Russian Federation. Of course, the most important of the Mongolian communities, for cultural and geopolitical reasons, is the population of the independent nation of Mongolia (Mongol Uls), which was previously known as the Mongolian People’s Republic (mpr, Bügd Nairamdakh Mongol Ard Uls) and, before that, as Outer Mongolia. Outer Mongolia became independent in 1911 after the collapse of the Qing dynasty, and it became the mpr in 1924 after the Mongolian Revolution (Inner Mongolia remained within China). The mpr was formally an independent state, but was so economically and militarily dependent on the ussr that it was referred to almost universally as a ‘satellite’ of Moscow. After the collapse of Soviet power in 1991 it achieved genuine independence and the Mongolian ‘democratic revolution’ unseated the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, which had controlled the territory since the 1920s. The older name Outer Mongolia, which was used until the early twentieth century, equates roughly to the present-day state of independent Mongolia.1 For Mongols living in China, the most important region is Inner Mongolia, but there are also Mongol communities in the northeast (Manchuria), and speakers of Mongolic languages are scattered in a number of provinces, for example the Monguor or Tu people of Qinghai. The current population of Inner Mongolia, 117

LESSER DRAGONS

which is designated the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region by the prc government, is just under 25 million. The 4 million ethnic Mongols who live in the region constitute less than 20 per cent of this total, but ironically even this is more than the total population of independent Mongolia, which in 2016 was approximately 3 million. Although the Mongols are a minority in Inner Mongolia there are some administrative divisions – ‘banners’ – in which they are the overwhelming majority. Supporters of a long-established but weak independence movement in this region reject the name Inner Mongolia as an expression of a traditional Chinese colonial ­mentality, and refer to the region as Southern Mongolia. The Mongols of Inner Mongolia, like their close relatives in independent Mongolia, are the descendants of the Mongols who once ruled China (as the Yuan dynasty) and indeed much of Eurasia. Unlike the Han Chinese population, who were traditionally agriculturalists, the Mongols of the steppes lived primarily by herding sheep, goats, camels, cattle and yaks, and were proficient horsemen. The current population of Inner Mongolia is predominantly Han (80 per cent of the total population of 25 million). Not only do the Han dominate in demographic terms, they also control most economic activity other than herding, particularly mining and other extractive industries, which have been developed under the prc and have become the focus of increasingly acrimonious disputes among local Mongol herders, the Chinese government and developers, who are mostly Han.2 Qing dynasty Mongolia The Manchu Qing dynasty controlled the whole of Mongolia until 1911, when what is now the state of Mongolia declared its independence. Migration to the region by Han Chinese settlers had begun on a significant scale in the early nineteenth century, and by 1912 there may have been as many as 1.55 million Chinese in Mongolia. Han immigration accelerated after the collapse of the Qing dynasty; rules of land ownership were changed by the new Republic of China and it became possible for Han Chinese farmers to buy land previously owned by Mongol bannermen. The number of pioneering Han in the region, attracted by new farming opportunities, continued to expand, and by 1937 there were almost 4 118

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

million. By the time the prc was established in 1949, that figure was over 5 million. Over the same period, poor conditions in the monasteries and high infant mortality had contributed to a decline in the overall population of Mongols. Mongolia and the Republic of China Although the Mongols of Outer Mongolia gained their independence after the creation of the Republic of China in 1912, many Mongols remained under Chinese rule in Inner Mongolia. The name Inner Mongolia was not used by the Guomindang regime, which instead divided these Mongol areas into the provinces of Rehe ( Jehol), Chahar and Suiyuan – names that have now disappeared – and there were other Mongol communities in all the provinces of Manchuria. The Japanese occupied Manchuria in 1931 and created what they termed an independent Manzhouguo; it was known at the time as Manchukuo and was independent of China but completely dependent on Japan. The following year the Mongol regions of Chahar and Suiyuan provinces were designated Mengjiang, the Mongol Border Autonomous Region. Mengjiang was governed by a Japanese puppet regime under a Mongol aristocrat, Demchugdongrob, also known by his Chinese name, De Wang (Prince De), who ruled from the regional capital at Kalgan (Zhangjiakou) until the end of the Second World War. Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region After the defeat of Japan in 1945 the Japanese forces occupying Mongolia surrendered, leaving a power vacuum in the region. Inner Mongolia was reoccupied by a combination of Soviet, Mongolian and finally Chinese Communist forces who moved in from their bases in Manchuria, and it was agreed that this territory would be returned to China. The idea of a unified but separate Inner Mongolia was, perhaps surprisingly, more popular with local Mongols than was a union with the Mongolian People’s Republic (mpr), a state that was formally independent but had been ideologically and practically close to the ussr since 1924. The mpr, for its part, did not wish to absorb the territory of Inner Mongolia, which had a huge Han Chinese population. 119

LESSER DRAGONS

The Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region (in Chinese, Nei Menggu zizhiqu) was established by the ccp on 1 May 1947, two years before the foundation of the prc, and it is still in existence. Like Tibet, Ningxia and Guangxi, the other autonomous regions in China, it is a provincial-level government body, but the autonomy its name implies is primarily symbolic. Mongols are represented in government bodies, but overall authority rests with the regional ccp Committee, which, with the notable exception of its one-time leader the loyal Communist Ulanfu, has been dominated by Han Chinese since the late 1960s. Ulanfu The founding chairman of the autonomous region was Ulanfu (1906–1988), an ethnic Mongol of the Tumed Left Banner, an administrative area close to the city of Hohhot, which became the capital of Inner Mongolia. Ulanfu had been a member of the ccp since 1925, although he was simultaneously a member of the Guomindang, as was permitted during the United Front, and had attended the inaugural conference of the Inner Mongolia Nationalist Party. He studied in Moscow at Sun Yat-sen University and the University of the Toilers of the East, and from 1929 he was engaged in clandestine work with the ccp in Inner Mongolia. For his military experience in the resistance to the Japanese and the subsequent civil war he was promoted to the rank of general in 1955. Ulanfu was the individual most responsible for the negotiations that resulted in the creation of the autonomous region in 1947, and he remained chairman of the autonomous region and a loyal supporter of the ccp until 1966, when, in common with many of the old guard of Communist Party leaders, he became the target of political attacks during the Cultural Revolution. He was one of the senior political figures who survived the Revolution – under the protection of Zhou Enlai – and then served as Vice-President of China from his rehabilitation in 1983 until his death. Mongolian languages and literature In Mongolia, the former Outer Mongolia, the national standard language is Khalkha Mongol, and there is some debate about whether 120

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

other varieties of Mongolian, such as Buryat, Oirat and Kalmuk, should be classified as dialects or separate languages. Khalkha Mongol is little used in Inner Mongolia; the official standard language of that region, known as Southern Mongolian, is based on a group of Mongolian languages and dialects spoken in the south. They include Chahar, Ordos, Baarin, Khorchin, Kharchin Oirat, Tumut and Alasha. There is a greater continuum of comprehens­ ibility between these different forms of Mongol than this list might suggest, and the Inner Mongolia standard pronunciation is based on a dialect that is not too different from that of Ulaanbaatar. The variations between the languages and dialects are not great enough to inhibit communication between educated Mongols from the two countries, but they are important to the different communities as ethnic and cultural markers. According to the eminent twentieth-century Mongolist Nicholas Poppe, ‘These languages do not differ from one another. The difference is mainly in the pronunciations. Therefore mutual understanding among those tribes is easy.’ The same cannot be said for communication between Mongols and Chinese. The Mongolian language is not related to Chinese in grammar, syntax or vocabulary (apart from loan words); it is close to Manchu, and is written in its own Mongol script, which bears no relationship to written Chinese. It is a vertical script, derived historically from Middle Eastern writing systems, particularly Syriac. This script was abandoned in independent Mongolia and, after an experiment with a Romanized alphabet, was replaced with the Cyrillic script in 1941 under the influence of the Russian-dominated Soviet Union. It was however retained in Inner Mongolia for a variety of reasons, principally the need to differentiate Chinese Mongols from those of Mongolia, and the refusal to use the Cyrillic script, of which there was no established tradition in China. Since the revolution of 1991 the government of independent Mongolia has attempted to revive the old script, for reasons of national pride and to stress the continuity of contemporary Mongol culture with that of the pre-Soviet period, but it has not replaced Cyrillic. The old script has been reintroduced into the school curriculum, but is still rarely used other than as ornamentation. By contrast, Inner Mongolia has a continuous tradition of its use in publications and in everyday life, although for practical purposes Chinese, as both the language of the majority population 121

LESSER DRAGONS

of the region and the national language of the prc, is the dominant idiom of the autonomous region.3 Belief and religious institutions: Alxa region Mongols who are believers follow the Lama Buddhist tradition of Tibet, although both Tibetans and Mongols prefer to call their religion Tibetan (rather than Lama) Buddhism. It follows a different tradition from the Chinese schools of Buddhism and is based on scriptures in Tibetan and Sanskrit, although the extent to which those scriptures are used depends on the degree of literacy and scholarship of the monks and priests. Some Buddhist temples remain in use for worship in Inner Mongolia; many others were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, though some are being restored at great expense and with great care. This dichotomy can be seen in the temples of Bayanhot and the Alxa League. The Alxa or Alashan League is the most sparsely populated region of Inner Mongolia, but even in this relatively undeveloped area the population is predominantly Han and the Mongols only account for just over 20 per cent of the total. The league is divided into three administrative districts, which use traditional Mongolian terms. They are the Alxa Left and Right banners and the Ejin Banner. ‘Banners’ were the traditional Mongol and Manchu tribal units and, as the name suggests, they originated in military formations. The administrative centre of the league is the town of Bayanhot (also known as Alxa) in the Alxa Left Banner. The Alxa League is more than 600 km (370 mi.) southwest of the Inner Mongolian capital of Hohhot, and the journey takes more than fifteen hours by overnight train. It is, however, quite accessible by road from Yinchuan, the capital of the neighbouring Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The road to Alxa crosses an old and dilapidated section of the Great Wall, and mosques of the local Hui Muslim community in the Alxa League can be found well inside Inner Mongolian territory. The majority of the population of Bayanhot are Han Chinese, but traces of the old Mongol town are still visible around the Lama Buddhist monastery, which has the Chinese name of Yanfu Si (Yanfu Temple). It is preserved almost as if it were a museum, but it still functions as a place of worship, and Mongols, mainly of the 122

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

older generation, can be seen praying there. Nearby is a museum containing photographs of the destruction of the Alxa Baraghun Hiid, a large Mongol Buddhist monastery in the Helan (Alashan) Mountains, which divide Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. The Alxa Baraghun Hiid, which is known in Chinese as the Nansi (Southern) Monastery, was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, but by 2001 a process of extensive restoration was under way, providing work for many young craftsmen, both Han and Mongolian.4 Gers, camels and horses Secular Mongol culture is inextricably entwined with the economy and lifestyles of nomadic herders. The felt tent that is the traditional home of Mongol nomads is often called a yurt in English, but that is a Turkic or Persian word, used by Kyrgyz, Kazakhs and other Central Asian peoples. In the Mongolian languages it is a ger. The ger has evolved into a structure that is easy to dismantle and reassemble during the migration from winter to summer quarters and back, but is sturdy enough to withstand extreme weather conditions and provide shelter. It can be seen as a distant relative of the Native American tepee, which was developed in the Great Plains of North America by communities that had nomadic lifestyles similar to the Mongols. The ger provides a protected living space for a large family unit; there is room for a fire and an outlet for the smoke; and ger etiquette is governed by strict rules that stipulate where family members and visitors may sit or sleep. The ger is used less in Inner Mongolia than further north in Mongolia – where there are ger communities in stockades on the outskirts of towns and cities, including the capital, Ulaanbaatar, as well as out on the steppe – but it remains a symbol of the distinctiveness of Mongol culture. Mongols in contemporary Inner Mongolia are more likely to live in blocks of flats or other accommodation alongside their Han neighbours, but the ger is so flexible that it can also be used as a temporary structure, for example to house workers on construction projects. The camel was once an indispensable part of the livestock of Mongol nomads, but, as many Mongols have adopted settled lifestyles, it has become increasingly redundant; abandoned camels that have been left to return to the wild can often be seen roaming the Inner Mongolian countryside. Horsemanship was once seen as 123

LESSER DRAGONS

an essential component of Mongol culture, since horses were the only means of fast and efficient transport in the Gobi Desert and the grasslands. For young urban Mongols, the horse has to some extent been replaced by the motorcycle as a means of transport. Horses, however, remain important: airag, fermented mare’s milk at approxi­mately 2 per cent alcohol, is the national drink and is ­sometimes used to make the stronger alcoholic beverage arkhi. Inner Mongolian resistance, nationalism and development Separatist or independence organizations have existed in Inner Mongolia since the 1950s, but compared with those in Xinjiang and Tibet they are small and have a much lower profile. The Chinese authorities have effectively neutralized them by arresting a few key figures. The break-up of the Soviet Union reawakened Mongolians’ interest in secession, and in 1990 there were demonstrations in favour of the independence of what the activists prefer to call Southern Mongolia; some secessionist groups pressed openly for the right to join the Mongolian People’s Republic, although this was not encouraged by the Ulaanbaatar government. In 1991 leaders of a group based near Hohhot were imprisoned for two years for sep­ aratist activity, and 26 others were placed under house arrest. In 1995 a second group was also broken up and its leaders arrested; one of the leading figures, Hada, was charged with separatist activities and espionage in 1996 after taking part in discussions about the possibility of the establishment of an independent Inner Mongolian People’s Party. He was sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment; he should have been released by 2011, but was not finally freed until 2014. This is an indication of the severity with which the prc government intends to suppress even the discussion of separatist movements. Although secessionist sentiment persists, a unified ethnic consciousness among the Mongols of Inner Mongolia is weak and lacks broad support. Mongolian groups are divided, and repression by the state prevents open political discussion and organization. The Inner Mongolian economy has been relatively successful, even if it benefits the Han majority more than the Mongols. The Mongols of Inner Mongolia have by and large been persuaded that their future lies in China, and not the mpr, which is much weaker than the prc and less developed economically. They are also completely outnumbered 124

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

by Han Chinese; that is not yet the case with the Tibetans in Tibet or the Uyghurs of Xinjiang, although both groups fear that Han ­migration could leave them in a similar position.5 Historically, most of the Mongols of Inner Mongolia were pas­ toral nomads and their economy was based on herding cattle, sheep, goats, horses and camels. Agriculture also played a role, but it was often carried out by Han Chinese settlers; its expansion in the twentieth century created tension with the nomads. During the Japanese occupation, mining and industry began to pose a significant threat to the nomadic way of life. However, it has been the long-term aim of the ccp to oblige Mongols, and other nomads, to make the transition from a herding economy to modern agriculture and industry. In 2001 the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre reported that this policy was being accelerated by the enforced migration of 640,000 herders from the grasslands to urban centres. The ostensible reason for this ‘ecological migration’ was to reduce overgrazing and avoid sandstorms and the desertification of the region’s delicate grasslands: these are real problems, but the causes and possible solutions are debatable. The displaced Mongols had little alternative but to move to unskilled work in agriculture or find employment in mining or in the towns: all these options would place them under the control of Han Chinese businessmen and officials. The ecological case has been rejected by Mongol activists, who argue that herding causes less damage to the environment than extractive industries or intensive agriculture.6 Since the 1990s, coal-mining and the extraction of iron ore, copper and rare earths have transformed the landscape of Inner Mongolia. Many Mongols complain that they have been ‘marginalized, sidelined, ignored’, and that their very identity has been threatened as the disappearance of grasslands removes their livelihood and their homes. Some Mongols have responded successfully to these challenges by moving into ‘modern’ employment, but many more have been left behind by the rapid development of new economic sectors.7 Disturbances in Inner Mongolia, May 2011 The death of Mergen, an ethnic Mongol herdsman, in the Xilingol League in northern Inner Mongolia on 10 May 2011 triggered largescale demonstrations.8 Xilingol is one of the few remaining areas 125

LESSER DRAGONS

of Inner Mongolia with a thriving nomadic culture, and Mergen was leading a group of twenty fellow herdsmen who were demonstrating against the noise and pollution produced during mining operations. The demonstrators maintained that their herds were being adversely affected. While attempting to prevent trucks carrying coal from taking a shortcut across traditional grazing lands, Mergen was dragged along by a coal truck driven by a Han Chinese, and was killed. Protests began outside the government offices of the Right Ujumchin Banner, which administers that area, and children from a local secondary school demonstrated outside government offices in the regional centre, Xilinhot.9 The protests spread, parts of nearby counties were cordoned off and some reports claimed that martial law had been declared. Detachments of police were moved into schools and colleges, and many students were detained in their classrooms and not allowed home until there was no longer any possibility of their becoming involved in demonstrations.10 As the protests escalated across Inner Mongolia, there were reports from émigré organizations that some Mongols were demanding ‘ethnic rights’. Riot police were deployed to control hundreds of demonstrators in Hohhot; student activity in all colleges was monitored; and access to the Internet was restricted. Demonstrators defied martial-law orders and there were reports of up to ten deaths, but these were not confirmed. Reinforcements from the People’s Armed Police were deployed from Baotou, Inner Mongolia’s main industrial city, and schools, colleges and all organizations that employed a significant number of Mongols were warned against involvement in what the government described as the ‘political conspiracy of external hostile forces and a very few internal extremists’. By 4 June 2011, the anniversary of the crushing of the Democracy Movement in Beijing’s Tian’anmen Square in 1989, martial law was effectively in force in Hohhot, Xilinhot and a number of other towns. Infantry units of the People’s Liberation Army were also dispatched to Inner Mongolia from Hebei Province and more students and herders were detained, as were writers and academics known to have sympathies with Mongol nationalism. Two universities that teach primarily in the Mongol language, the Inner Mongolia University for Nationalities in Tongliao, on the border with Manchuria, and the Nationalities University in Hohhot, were among those locked down.11 126

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

The public response of the Chinese government In contrast to the heavy police and security presence on the streets of Inner Mongolia, the public response of the authorities was positive and conciliatory. The chairman of the company that owned the truck that had caused the death of the herdsman visited the victim’s family, and there were reports that compensation had been offered. It was announced that the Han Chinese driver would stand trial for murder at the Xilinhot Intermediate People’s Court.12 The official Chinese-language media played down the unrest, but Global Times, an English-language tabloid published by the People’s Daily, argued that the ‘reasonable grievances’ of ethnic Mongols should be ‘properly addressed’. The paper insisted that the protests were caused by economic worries, not ethnic conflict, and added with great emphasis that there were no links between the protests in Inner Mongolia and recent disturbances in Tibet and Xinjiang.13 Following a remarkably swift legal process, the Han driver, Li Lindong, was sentenced to death after a six-hour trial, and reportedly executed. Another Han worker, Lu Xiangdong, who had been in the cab of the truck, was sentenced to life imprisonment. No Mongols were put on trial, although many had been arrested.14 The government of Inner Mongolia gave every indication of having taken the plight of Mongol herders seriously: it promised to ‘discipline the mining industry’ and compensate herdsmen for damage to the environment caused by the extraction of coal. Hu Chunhua, then secretary of the Inner Mongolian ccp Committee, recognized the public anger that had been aroused by the death of Mergen and announced the initiation of a programme to inspect mining sites throughout the region. Assistance from the Ministry of Environmental Protection was also promised.15 Bagatur, the ethnic Mongol chairman of the Inner Mongolia regional government, who is subordinate to the party secretary, asserted in the ccp theoretical journal Qiushi that there would be ‘immediate action to improve the lives of the Mongolians’, and that this would be a ‘major political task’. However, he also stressed that the preservation of ethnic harmony was essential and warned that Inner Mongolia must defend itself from ‘hostile forces’. On 1 June the prc-controlled Xinhua press agency reported on the need for greater regulation of the mining industry and on the decision that local government in Inner 127

LESSER DRAGONS

Mongolia would devote at least 50 per cent of its available budget to ‘improving the people’s livelihood’: the report indicated that the average income for farmers and herders would rise from rmb5,530 to 10,000 by the end of 2015.16 This response reflects the alarm felt in Beijing at widespread protests in a region that, until the death of Mergen, had been presumed to be stable. The emphasis on external ‘hostile forces’ mirrors Beijing’s response to disturbances in Tibet and Xinjiang, but the Mongols have no major international support network as the Tibetans do, although most believers in the region are followers of Tibetan Buddhism. The independent state of Mongolia to the north is not in a position to give support to any insurgency in Inner Mongolia; it is still underdeveloped and has itself been suffering from severe economic problems and political instability. It has also become increasingly, if reluctantly, dependent on Beijing since the collapse of the ussr in 1991. During the 1990s it had little foreign exchange and relied on barter agreements with China and other neighbours, such as Kazakhstan.17 In June 2011 the Mongolian government accepted a loan of $u.s.500 million (£382 million) from Beijing to construct processing plants and for much-needed improvements to infrastructure, including roads.18 The Mongolian prime minister, Sükhbaataryn Batbold, embarked on an official visit to China from 15 to 17 June at the invitation of the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao. This was announced at a routine press briefing on 9 June, and on Batbold’s arrival in Beijing joint press releases emphasized economic cooperation ‘in mineral development, infrastructure construction and technology sharing on animal husbandry’. Any mention of Inner Mongolia was avoided after the disturbances, but it may be significant that the statement mentioned animal husbandry as well as the aspects of development that required high technology.19 By early June, most of the demonstrations had ceased, although the situation remained tense. Life in Xilingol League, where the original protests had broken out, was superficially back to normal, but with tighter security: telephones were tapped and local people warned not to communicate with outsiders. Tourists travelling in Inner Mongolia were required to register with the police, and ­residents of the prc had to show identity cards.20

128

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

Hu Chunhua, the ccp leadership and Inner Mongolia The disturbances of May and June 2011 and the way they were managed by government and party officials offers an insight into the importance of ethnic-minority affairs to China’s central government. Hu Chunhua was born in 1963 and became secretary of the Inner Mongolia ccp Committee in November 2009, after a meteoric career in Tibet and Hebei Province and in the Communist Youth League (cyl). He is seen as one of the top three in the future ‘Sixth Generation’ leadership of the ccp, and is even tipped by some as a possible future general secretary and president of China. The way he handled the disturbances in Inner Mongolia is likely to have a positive impact on his career prospects.21 Because they share a surname and links with the cyl, it was wrongly assumed that Hu was related to Hu Jintao, who was presi­ dent and party leader at the time of the disturbances; indeed, Hu Chunhua is often called ‘Little Hu’ or ‘Facsimile Hu Jintao’. Hu Chunhua was actually born Wang Chunhua and is not a Mongol or a Han; he came from an ethnic Tujia family in a poor village in Hubei Province’s Wufeng Tujia Autonomous County, and changed his surname to Hu, his mother’s family name, only when an elder sister died. The Tujia are a small minority community: most of them live in the centre of China in the northwest of Hunan Province, and their native Tujia language is not spoken anywhere else, although it is related to other languages in the Tibeto-Burman family, which are found to the west of China. Hu was an exceptional student and came first in his county examinations to obtain a place in the department of Chinese at Beijing University. On graduating he insisted on working in Tibet, and this brought him to the attention of the national press, the secretary of the cyl at Beijing University, Li Keqiang, who became premier in 2013, and the general secretary of the cyl Standing Committee, Hu Jintao, who was president and ccp general secretary until 2012. Hu’s career was watched over by Li Keqiang and Hu Jintao, who were thought to be grooming him to be a core member of the Sixth Generation leadership. Hu’s first post in Tibet was with the cyl, but he rose rapidly through the ranks of party and government and became both deputy secretary of the ccp Committee of the Tibetan Autonomous Region and deputy chairman of the regional 129

LESSER DRAGONS

government; he was reputed to have become highly competent in the Tibetan language, probably assisted by his background in the Tujia tongue. He then became governor of Hebei Province before taking up the more senior post of party secretary in Inner Mongolia.22 The man Hu had succeeded as ccp secretary in Inner Mongolia was Chu Bo, a Han party official who had been known as the ‘King of Mongolia’. Chu (b. 1944) had run Inner Mongolia for eight years, and his record on the economy was impressive: Inner Mongolia had experienced a period of ‘Golden Years’, with rapid economic growth and a provincial gdp that was second to none. However, there were also allegations of corruption, which came to the attention of the ccp’s Discipline Inspection Commission. The infrastructure of Inner Mongolia had been improved, but the pace of industrial development in Inner Mongolia itself and the requirements of other provinces were making serious demands on the region’s raw mat­ erials. Hu Chunhua’s response was to ensure that he visited as much of the vast region as possible, covering most of Inner Mongolia in two months. He made a point of travelling to the old ccp revolutionary base areas in the region, ethnic-minority communities, border regions and the poorest areas, all of which made a good impression on local people.23 Hu’s twin-track policy of dealing with the demonstrations of 2011 by conciliation and firmness earned him praise from the national leadership of the ccp. He left Inner Mongolia in December 2012, when he was appointed to the even more prestigious position of secretary of the Guangdong Province ccp. Hu was elevated to the Politburo in November 2012 and had been seen as a front-runner for a seat on the powerful Standing Committee, the group of seven or so senior politicians who run China, when the new committee was decided upon in 2017. This promotion would have depended on many factors, only some of which were under Hu’s control. In the event, neither Hu nor any of his generation were promoted to the Standing Committee but Hu remained a member of the Politburo. The disturbances in Inner Mongolia were taken extremely seriously by the Chinese authorities, but are not likely to result in any fundamental changes in minority policies. The clampdown on dissent in Inner Mongolia was harsh, and human-rights activists inside China and elsewhere remain concerned about detentions without trial, deprivation of freedom of 130

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

movement and the loss of other liberties. The nature of the trial that led to the death sentence for the truck driver also gave cause for concern, even though it may have been supported by many Mongols in Inner Mongolia. The recognition by the regional authorities that Mongol grievances were justified was undeniably welcomed, and the remedies proposed will be watched with interest in China and elsewhere. Hu Chunhua handled the crisis adroitly; he had replaced an unpopular local Han leader, and as an ethnic Tujia with powerful supporters in the party centre he was too valuable to lose as a potential core member of the Sixth Generation. The authorities continue to insist that the unrest in Inner Mongolia was a result of economic rather than ethnic tension. Although many in Inner Mongolia have privately accepted that ethnic tension played a major part in the disturbances, these views cannot be aired publicly, since they do not conform to the official view that the ccp’s policy of ‘great unity of nationalities’ (minzu da tuanjie) has been broadly successful. There was no evidence in the public domain that the central ­leadership was thinking about the stable management of border areas in a more imaginative way; sending more economic aid remains the favoured, and indeed the only, solution. Underlying problems, including corruption during Chu Bo’s tenure as Inner Mongolia ccp secretary, and historical grievances that date back to the Cultural Revolution continue to affect the politics of Inner Mongolia and the lives of its Mongol people. Simmering discontent in Inner Mongolia Unlike Tibet or Xinjiang, there is little international coverage of ethnic issues in Inner Mongolia, but conflict is intensifying. Most disputes concern land, particularly traditional grazing lands, where clashes continue between developers and herding families whose traditional way of life is under threat. In April 2012 a group of 22 demonstrators from the Naiman Banner were arrested after protesting against what they regarded as the illegal acquisition of land in eastern Inner Mongolia by a Chinese forestry firm. Pollution by smelting plants in Zaruud Banner began to poison sheep on trad­ itional grazing lands in the spring of 2016; herders protested and a number were detained, including one who had made a video 131

LESSER DRAGONS

showing the effects of pollution on the animals. The following June, herders in the Shiilingol League of northern Inner Mongolia blocked roads in an attempt to prevent construction traffic from reaching a major new road that would encroach on grazing lands, and which was being built without consulting ethnic Mongolian herders. There were similar protests in the Zaruud region in July 2016, and farming families who refused to move when their land was requisitioned had their houses and farm buildings destroyed. In August there were similar protests over eviction in Shin-Barag in eastern Inner Mongolia. These were followed by heavy-handed police checks and attempts to prevent news of the demonstrations leaking out, even to the extent of confiscating the herders’ mobile phones. The difficulties of the herders, who are always vulnerable to dramatic changes in the weather, were exacerbated by severe drought in the autumn of 2016. As a result, the price of grass rose dramatically, leaving insufficient winter fodder for cattle and sheep; consequently the price of livestock dropped, reducing the income of the Mongolian herders severely. There were few explicitly political responses to this from the majority of Mongolians in Inner Mongolia. A dissenting writer and activist, Huuchinhuu Govruud, who had supported the dissident Hada and his wife, died on 25 October at the age of 61. Huuchinhuu was well-known for her essays and short stories, which strongly evoked the distinct identity of Mongolians in Inner Mongolia, and those of her writings that were published appeared in print against the wishes of the authorities. Huuchinhuu had been involved in Mongolian student protests in 1981 and had been arrested in 1995, when she joined the Southern Mongolia Democratic Alliance, created by Hada. Hada himself had been sentenced to fifteen years in prison for ‘separatism’, but he was incarcerated for an extra four years and released only in December 2014; he remains under house arrest in Hohhot. In November 2016 he applied to China’s Supreme Court for an injunction against the police, whom he accused of torturing and drugging him in order to extract a false confession. In September 2017, as the 19th Communist Party Congress approached, police surveillance of the block of flats where he lives was intensified and their Internet access further restricted. Language is always an emotive subject in ethnic relations, and on 5 December 2016 there were protests outside the local 132

Mongols of Inner Mongolia

government offices in Ulaanhad (Chifeng in Chinese) against a decision that Chinese, rather than Mongolian, would be used in the city’s kindergartens. This decision followed the appointment of two senior teachers who were Han Chinese and were alleged to have forbidden Mongolian teachers even to speak to one another in their own language. Parents were pictured outside the government offices with a banner demanding respect for Mongolian culture; legislation to protect minority education; the ‘purification’ of the language environment; and the appointment of ethnic Mongolian senior teachers. The authorities had previously indicated a willingness to replace the Han staff, but at the time of writing they had not done so. In June 2017, in Baarin Right Banner in the same region, there were clashes between Mongolian herders and Han Chinese from Shaanxi Province who were accused of illegally taking over communally owned grasslands to develop large-scale cattle ranches. Several people were injured, some of them seriously.24

133

7 Tibet and the Tibetans

I

t may seem inappropriate to treat Tibetans as an ethnic minority of China, rather than as a nation in their own right, but for all practical purposes that is their present position and they are subject to the policies of the prc government. Tibetans are listed as one of the 55 national minorities of the People’s Republic, and the government has designated the major part of the traditional territory of Tibet the Tibetan Autonomous Region; other parts have been incorporated into neighbouring Chinese provinces. Beijing governs Tibetans according to its policies on ethnic minorities, although this is done in the face of considerable resistance. In order to appreciate the current predicament of the people of Tibet and their religion, language and culture, it is essential to have some understanding of the operations and attitudes of the prc government, as well as of the attitudes of ordinary Tibetans and the motivations of Tibetan nuns and monks and activists in the independence movement. The case for the independence of Tibet is by far the best-known of the ethno-political conflicts involving the prc, but that does not mean that it is well understood, either in the West or in China. Many Tibetans reject the idea that Tibet should ever have been considered part of China, although it was administered as part of the empire of the Manchu Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of imperial China, from the eighteenth century until the final collapse of that empire in 1911. It was de facto independent from 1911 to 1951, when there was no effective government of China capable of ruling the whole of the territory inherited from the Qing. In 1951 it was absorbed into the prc by means of a controversial agreement. After the abortive Tibetan revolt of 1959, the ccp decided to create a Tibetan Autonomous 134

Tibet and the Tibetans

Region around the city of Lhasa in the central part of the Tibetan plateau, and this autonomous region was formally inaugurated in 1965. Tibetan communities and their language, culture and religions extend far beyond the boundaries of the current Tibetan Autonomous Region and into the provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu; in these provinces Tibetans are in the minority as a whole, but they form the majority in some counties and prefectures that are formally designated as autonomous. These regions are regarded by Tibetans as parts of old Tibet (cultural Tibet, or ethnographic Tibet as it is sometimes called), but to the prc government they are part of China Proper. In theory, Tibetan language and culture (and the most significant traditional Tibetan culture is religious) are protected in Tibet. In practice they are disparaged by many Han Chinese, especially officials and members of the ccp, although there are honourable exceptions to this generalization, including Hu Chunhua, who worked in Tibet for many years before he became party secretary of Inner Mongolia and then Guangdong. Tibetans must learn Chinese if they have any aspirations to live or work outside the confines of traditional Tibetan society, even in Tibet. Chinese officials and business people are notorious for not learning Tibetan (or any minority language), so there is built-in discrimination against the Tibetan language, even to the extent that post offices have been known to refuse letters unless the address is written in Chinese. Although Tibetans are stereotyped by Han Chinese as being focused on religious observance, there is an active commercial life in the whole of the Tibetan cultural region, where Tibetan ­traders face competition from, and are sometimes in conflict with, Hui merchants. These traders from the Chinese-speaking Muslim community have the advantage of being more easily able to communicate with Chinese officials in their own language. Tibetan pedlars, many of them women, are also a common sight outside Tibet. Many sell Tibetan souvenirs and curios by the side of the road in Beijing and other major cities; they work together for protection and make some kind of living from this precarious trade. The status of Tibet and its relationship with China has become one of the most intractable and emotive topics in Asian, and indeed world, politics. The official Chinese stance is that Tibet, which in print it insists without fail on calling Chinese Tibet (Zhongguo 135

LESSER DRAGONS

Xizang), has always been an integral part of China and that it always should be. Supporters of self-determination for Tibet point to its unquestionable de facto independence between the collapse of the Chinese empire in 1911 and the controversial Seventeen Point Agreement, signed under duress in 1951 between the Tibetan government and representatives of the newly victorious ccp. Many also argue that this independent status has had a much longer history, and that in practice Tibet has been an autonomous and genuinely self­ governing entity for centuries. Formal arrangements between Lhasa and successive imperial regimes in China brought Tibet within the imperial ‘tribute system’, which had evolved for the management by China of smaller states on its periphery, but Tibetan officials retained considerable authority. Tibetan activists habitually put forward the argument that Tibet was independent until 1951, and that it has suffered under an unlawful occupation by the Chinese thereafter. This is oversimplified, but it reflects a powerful sense among Tibetans that they should be permitted genuine self-determination. The Tibetan situation is complicated by the fact that there is another administration – recognized by many Tibetans as the legitimate government of Tibet – in exile in the Indian city of Dharamsala, where the Dalai Lama, the traditional spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, has lived since the abortive insurrection of 1959. The existence of this alternative focus of loyalty and authority has been a source of great solace for Tibetans inside and outside China, but simultaneously the cause of great irritation and anger for the Chinese authorities, who have worked tirelessly in their attempts to persuade the international community that the Dalai Lama should not be accepted as a major religious or political figure on the international stage. The government in Beijing considers the Dharamsala regime to be entirely illegitimate, and not only refuses to acknowledge the secular authority of the Dalai Lama but also objects to foreign governments having any contact with him. The dispute over Tibet has been highlighted by a number of prominent and glamorous media and Hollywood figures who have rallied to the defence of Tibetan culture, and also by Western adherents of Buddhism. Whether this cause has been taken up because of genuine spiritual conviction or deep knowledge of the religion, language and culture of Tibet, or for reasons of political fashion, must of course be a matter for individuals to judge.1 136

Tibet and the Tibetans

Tibet and China under the Manchus The first independent Tibetan kingdom was formed when Songtsen Gampo (ad 618–641) chose Lhasa for its capital and promoted the spread of Buddhism over the traditional Bön religion, which has been compared to shamanism but has its own rituals and scriptures, which have contributed to the particular Tibetan quality of Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan state competed with different regimes of Central and Inner Asia, but especially with China, signing a series of peace treaties with the Tang dynasty in the seventh and eight cen­ turies. Tibet, like China, fell under the sway of the Mongol conquest in the thirteenth century. By that time Buddhist monastic orders had become established as powerful landowners with both religious and political authority, but they were divided among competing schools, the greatest of which were the Karmapa (Red Hats) and the Gelugpa (Yellow Hats). After the Ming dynasty took control of China in 1368 there were negotiations with the Chinese imperial court but also with Mongol rulers, one of whom, Altan Khan, bestowed the title of Dalai Lama on the Gelugpa scholar Sonam Gyatso. This secured the close relationship between Buddhism in Tibet and Mongolia that persists to this day, and contributed to the pre-eminence of the Gelugpa sect. The Manchu Qing dynasty initially continued this political-cum-religious diplomacy and played an active but indirect role in Tibetan politics until the eighteenth century, when military invasions by Qing forces brought the country under the control of the Manchu empire. The Qing court in Beijing appointed officials known as ambans (a Manchu term that can be translated as ‘high official’ and is often applied to ­government residents in outlying regions) as its representatives in Tibet. Throughout the nineteenth century the Qing imperial court faced two sets of challenges that posed great threats to its authority and even its existence. Externally there were repeated Western incursions along China’s southern and eastern coasts, which culmin­ated in military victory by the British over Chinese forces in the Opium Wars. Internally there was a series of domestic rebellions, the most important of which were risings by the Taipings, the Nian and the Hui Muslims. In comparison with these crises, Tibet was not a major strategic concern for the Qing, and, although the amban system remained in place until 1911, by the middle of the nineteenth century the authority of the 137

LESSER DRAGONS

Manchus in Tibet had declined to a point at which Qing suzerainty was little more than symbolic. Under the leadership of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876–1933), the Tibetan government was increasingly autonomous. This spiritual leader of the Tibetans became known as the ‘Great Thirteenth’, not solely because of the extraordinary personal authority he exercised (even for a Dalai Lama), but because it was during his rule that Tibet emerged from direct Chinese control. An expedition under the command of the British army officer and explorer Sir Francis Younghusband in 1903 turned into a fullscale invasion of Tibet by the forces of British India. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama left Lhasa and took refuge in Urga, the capital of Mongolia, which was also a bastion of Tibetan Buddhism. (Urga was renamed Ulaanbaatar (Ulan Bator) after the foundation of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924, but still has active Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.) The Dalai Lama arrived there in October 1904, and in his absence the Chinese government declared that he had been deposed. Tension arose between the Dalai Lama and the Jebtsundamba Khutukhtu, the highest Mongolian spiritual authority, and the Dalai Lama withdrew from Urga and attempted to arrive at an agreement with the Chinese government. The Anglo-Chinese Convention of 1906 effectively repudiated the gains made by Younghusband’s adventure and reaffirmed the Qing dynasty’s suzerainty over Tibet, although by this time the authority of the Qing was on the wane as a result of the military defeats it had suffered at the hands of Japan, in 1895, and Russia, in 1905. In 1908 Zhao Erfeng, a Chinese bannerman in the Qing government’s administrative hierarchy, was appointed to the post of amban and charged with bringing the eastern province of Kham, and eventually the whole of Tibet, back under Chinese control and assimilating its political institutions into the Chinese empire. Troops under his command began to arrive in Lhasa in February 1910 and the Dalai Lama, believing the Chinese government had reneged on an agreement with his officials, fled again, although on this occasion his destination was Darjeeling in India. Tibetan independence after 1911 In October 1911 all the provinces of China seceded, one by one, from the central imperial government. The Qing dynasty was no more, 138

Tibet and the Tibetans

and revolutionaries and reformers struggled to establish a republic. When the news of the Chinese Revolution reached Lhasa, the Tibetans rose against their Chinese masters, under the direction of a special group that the Dalai Lama had established in India. By April 1912 the Tibetans had prevailed, and about 3,000 Chinese troops and officers surrendered and were permitted to leave Tibet via India. In the fifth Tibetan month of the Water-Mouse year (1912), the Dalai Lama returned to Tibet, staying first in Chumbi and in January 1913 finally entering a Lhasa free of Chinese troops and officials for the first time since the eighteenth century. Although the new president of the Republic of China, Yuan Shikai, attempted to mend fences with the Dalai Lama by restoring his former titles, the latter insisted that in future he alone would exercise both spiritual and temporal authority in Tibet, and ‘cut even the symbolic tie with China’.2 The position of Tibet in the years following the collapse of Qing rule has been described by the independent-minded Tibetan scholar Dawa Norbu as ‘static and non-changing, living in splendid isolation and illusionary independence’.3 Although this independence may have been an illusion, this was undoubtedly a period of genuine political separation from China, and lasted until 1951. Memories of the de facto autonomy of the period continue to fire the aspirations of Tibetans seeking to create a genuinely independent state. The political and legal status of Tibet has been a matter of international controversy since the middle of the twentieth century, when what had been primarily a long-standing but local question of borders and sovereignty achieved international prominence and was exacerbated by the disputes of the Cold War between the usa and China. It is worth repeating the entrenched positions that were taken up in this dispute. To many Tibetans, the position is simple: Tibet is, and always has been, an independent state and was occupied illegally by the Chinese in 1951. For the present government of the prc, the contrary position is equally simple: Tibet always has been and always will be part of China. The legal justification for this claim is questionable, but it is the premise on which Beijing’s actions in Tibet are based. What is incontestable is that, from the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 until the People’s Liberation Army (pla) marched into Tibet in 1951, Tibet functioned in effect as a fully independent state, ruled by a combination of secular and Lamaist 139

LESSER DRAGONS

bureaucracies.4 The situation is complicated further by the fact that the Tibetan Autonomous Region, as it is constituted today, is only the core region of what was Tibet before 1951. It was formally established in 1965, but substantial parts of the territory of old Tibet that had previously been part of Sikang, Chamdo or other districts were transferred to the Chinese provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu as early as 1955. Tibet incorporated into the People’s Republic of China When the ccp prevailed over the Guomindang nationalists in the civil war that ended in 1949, it was decided that Tibet would become part of the prc, as would its neighbour to the north, Xinjiang. The intention was that the incorporation of Tibet would be achieved by ‘peaceful liberation’ (heping jiefang). This was accomplished in Xinjiang to a certain extent, but Mao Zedong and the ccp acknowledged that the position of Tibet was different because of its isolation and the absence of a sizeable settled Han Chinese community in the territory. In December 1949, judging that Tibet could be ‘liberated’ only by military action, Beijing began to make preparations for an invasion of the eastern provinces of Tibet, particularly Chamdo, while at the same time opening negotiations with the existing Tibetan government. The Tibetans failed to send a delegation to Beijing for these talks, and on 7 October 1950 the Eighteenth Army of the pla crossed the frontier into Chamdo with the intention of rendering inoperative the Tibetan army units based there and cutting off Lhasa. The poorly led, and frankly amateurish, Tibetan forces were no match for their battle-hardened adversaries in the pla, and the entire Tibetan army was defeated within two weeks. The pla could have moved directly to take control of Lhasa, since there were no significant military obstacles preventing it from doing so, but Mao’s preferred strategy was to hold Chamdo and try to reach a negotiated settlement that would win the approval of the (fourteenth) Dalai Lama and thus the majority of the population of Tibet. Tibetans appealed to the United Nations, asking that the independent status of their country be recognized, but this was rejected after Britain and India vetoed any discussion on the subject. Britain believed that any demand for China to withdraw from Tibet would 140

Tibet and the Tibetans

be unenforceable, and India was reluctant to compromise the close relationships that, as a newly independent Asian state conscious of its own ethnic-minority problems, it was hoping to develop with the prc. Reluctantly, the Tibetan government decided to send a delegation to negotiate with its new masters in Beijing, and the result was the Seventeen Point Agreement, signed in Beijing on 23 May 1951, which gave the Tibetan authorities limited autonomy within the prc in return for agreeing to assist the pla in its occupation of Tibet and ceding to Beijing the right to conduct foreign relations on its behalf. On 16 October pla troops moved to garrison Lhasa under the terms of the agreement. The circumstances under which this agreement was signed remain controversial, but it was clearly concluded under duress and the Dalai Lama did not take part in the negotiations. He had moved from the Potala palace in Lhasa to the small town of Yadong, a Tibetan community close to Sikkim, on the border with India, in preparation for a swift withdrawal should the pla march on Lhasa. He returned to Lhasa in August 1951 and agreed to lend his support to the Seventeen Point Agreement in a telegram sent to Mao, as chairman of the ccp and head of state, on 24 October. The Seventeen Point Agreement preserved most of the traditional political and religious structures of Tibet, including the unique role of the Dalai Lama, in exchange for the acknow­ledgement of Chinese suzerainty over the country. Beijing’s strategy during this early period of the prc was moderate and laissez-faire in comparison with later policies; the feudal and monastic economy remained intact and there was no confiscation of land from either the secular landlords or the monasteries. The agreement applied only to the Tibetan Autonomous Region, that is, the area around the capital, Lhasa, with its Potala monastery (the traditional residence of the Dalai Lama); Shigatse (the site of the historic Tashilunpo monastery); and westwards into the high plains and the mountains. It did not apply to the sizeable Tibetanspeaking communities in Gansu, Sichuan and Qinghai. When the prc’s national policies of land reform and collectivization were carried out in these outlying areas, they provoked great hostility from the Tibetan-speaking population and there was large-scale migration westwards into central Tibet. In the mid-1950s the rad­ical collectivization programmes that were implemented throughout 141

LESSER DRAGONS

China finally reached central Tibet, and resistance to Chinese rule, largely organized by ethnic Tibetan refugees from outside the Tibetan Autonomous Region, grew apace. Mao tried to reassure the Dalai Lama that Tibet would be protected from the radical reforms that were designed to demolish the social structures of the old rural society in the rest of China, but the resistance movement proved too powerful and the Dalai Lama found himself on the sidelines. Tibetan insurgency In March 1959 the attention of the leadership in Beijing was diverted from its factional disputes, and the ill-tempered internal debates over the Great Leap Forward and the People’s Communes, by news from the far west that an armed revolt had broken out in Tibet. This was seen by Beijing as a serious assault on the integrity of the prc, and the leadership of the ccp decided that it required an immediate and determined response. The Tibetan revolt broke out on 10 March 1959, when the headquarters of the pla and the Chinese government in Lhasa were surrounded by demonstrators. Forces loyal to the Tibetan government turned on the pla garrison in the Tibetan capital on 19 March. The rising had little chance of succeeding, and assistance from the American cia – which some Tibetans believed they had been promised – did not materialize. Over the next four days the pla suppressed the revolt, both in Lhasa and elsewhere in Tibet. The Dalai Lama had left Lhasa two days previously and crossed the border into India on 31 March, renouncing the Seventeen Point Agreement of 1951. The Tibetan government was dissolved by Beijing and a preparatory committee set up to establish a new administration for a Tibetan Autonomous Region. The Chinese authorities also decided that, in light of the uprising, the Seventeen Point Agreement no longer applied, and moved against the monastic and landed elites, confiscating the largest landholdings and closing down monasteries. The Dalai Lama established a government of his own in exile, and the Tenth Panchen Lama, who was based at Tashilunpo monastery in Shigatse, became the highest-ranking spiritual leader remaining in Tibet. Historically, incarnations of the Panchen Lama have played an important role as a link between China and the Tibetans, and this particular one – Choekyi Gyaltsen – was viewed by many Tibetans 142

Tibet and the Tibetans

as a puppet of the Beijing government. He was appointed chairman of the preparatory committee for the Tibetan Autonomous Region on 28 March 1959 on the interesting, but specious, grounds that the Dalai Lama was being held by rebels against his will. In 1965 Tibet became an Autonomous Region of the prc. Dharamsala The Dalai Lama had fled to what was to be a permanent exile in Dharamsala, a hill station in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, and remained there with his senior religious and political officials, preserving his personal safety and independence of action but depriving Tibet of the spiritual leadership that most of the population recognized.5 The prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, had formally invited the Dalai Lama to establish his government in exile in Dharamsala, an area that, although predominantly Hindu, also had a tradition of Tibetan Buddhism that can be traced back to the eighth century. Dharamsala, especially the part of Upper Dharamsala that is known as McLeod Ganj, has since evolved into a substantial community of Tibetans in exile. The name McLeod Ganj (market) is a reminder of the history of the area as a nineteenth­ century hill station of the British Raj; it was popular as a resort for expatriate members of the Indian Civil Service working in Delhi who wished to escape the worst heat of the north Indian summer. Autonomous Region and Cultural Revolution Tibet was designated an autonomous region of the prc on 9 September 1965. This status, which has also been accorded to Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia and the Zhuang region of Guangxi, was a concession to the non-Han population of the region, but it did not confer genuine autonomy: Beijing attempted to include ethnic Tibetans in the local government, but ensured that overall control was always vested in the ccp, backed by the muscle of the pla. Within a year Tibet was affected – as was the whole of China – by the Cultural Revolution, launched on the instructions of Mao Zedong in the summer of 1966. One of the main targets was trad­itional religion; this included Buddhism, and there were determined attacks 143

LESSER DRAGONS

on Tibetan Buddhism and its material culture. These assaults exacerbated the damage caused by the repression that had already been set in motion after the suppression of the rising in 1959. The authority for this movement was Mao’s instruction to the Red Guards that they should destroy the Four Olds: ‘old customs, old habits, old culture and old thinking’. In Tibet, ‘old’ was considered to be syn­onymous with anything that was Tibetan or Buddhist in origin, while Chinese styles and methods could be identified as new, modern and progressive. Young and zealous Red Guards, many of them ethnic Tibetans, participated in assaults on monasteries to demonstrate their loyalty to Chairman Mao. As well as physical damage to monasteries, shrines and other manifestations of Buddhist culture, there were organized campaigns against religious practices, and monks and nuns were critic­ized and ridiculed by Red Guards. The Cultural Revolution in Tibet was effectively a campaign directed by predominantly Han Chinese political activists against traditional Tibetan culture, but there were many Red Guards of Tibetan origin.6 Hu Yaobang liberalization The death of Mao in September 1976 led to a period of relative lib­ eralization, and in the mid-1980s the policies of the ccp towards Tibet became more tolerant, under the influence of the reformminded general secretary of the ccp Hu Yaobang. Hu was purged in 1987 for his liberal views and his sympathy for pro-democracy demonstrations the previous year. His premature and sudden death on 15 April 1989 precipitated the Democracy Movement and the demonstrations in Tian’anmen Square that were crushed on 4 June, but his memory is still revered by those members of the ccp who have a more liberal and democratic outlook. Under Hu, the number of Tibetans participating in local government in Tibet increased and the status of the Tibetan language and Tibetan culture in government and education was enhanced.7 He visited Tibet in 1980, on the 29th anniversary of the Seventeen Point Agreement, and was openly critical of the condescending and, in many cases, frankly racist policies and attitudes of many Han Chinese cadres in Tibet.8

144

Tibet and the Tibetans

Resistance by monks and nuns In October 1987, partly in response to a major international diplomatic initiative by Dharamsala to try to secure a settlement of the Tibet question, a wave of demonstrations began in Tibet, spearheaded by monks and nuns who supported the creation of an independent Tibet under the Dalai Lama. The first demonstrations were led by monks of Drepung monastery, to the west of Lhasa, the senior monastery in the Dalai Lama’s Gelugpa or Yellow Hat tradition. The protesters performed religious circumambulations of Lhasa and marched on government offices. Violence broke out after demonstrators were arrested and assaulted, and police fired on the crowds, killing some of the protesters. The demonstrations continued, once more led by monks and nuns, whose courage and fortitude in the face of the brutal attempts by police to halt the protests was recognized internationally. A further demonstration took place in 1988, when the Panchen Lama (who was to die unexpectedly on 28 January 1989) visited Tibet from Beijing in an attempt to ensure the success of the Monlam Great Prayer Festival, traditionally held to accompany celebrations of the Tibetan New Year. Many monks felt their religious festival had been taken over by the ccp for its own political purposes, and what began as a minor contretemps exploded into riots that were followed by mass arrests and a political and religious clampdown. A nationalist Tibetan Buddhist movement had emerged, stimulated by, yet isolated from and essentially independent of, the spiritual leadership in Dharamsala.9 Search for the Eleventh Panchen Lama The death of the Tenth Panchen Lama and the search for the eleventh reincarnation precipitated another crisis. The Panchen Lama is second only to the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan spiritual hierarchy, and some Buddhists in Tibet even place his spiritual authority ahead of that of the Dalai Lama. In modern times successive Panchen Lamas have generally been closer to governments in Beijing than any other high lamas, and this has resulted in divisions and disagreements over spiritual and political precedence. Beijing tried to take control of the selection process for the new incarnation, but religious 145

LESSER DRAGONS

protocol also requires confirmation by the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama announced the name of his candidate for Panchen Lama – Gedhun Choeki Nyima – on 14 May 1995, but in November Beijing endorsed a different contender, Gyaltsen Norbu, and the whole process collapsed in disarray.10 In addition to the controversy over the Panchen Lama, there was a general increase in dissent and resistance in Tibet, and by the mid-1990s this had spread from the main urban centres to the rural areas. The response of the Chinese government, formulated at the Third National Forum on Work in Tibet, held in Beijing in July 1994, was to tighten control by dramatically extending the use of imprisonment for political offences and organizing campaigns of denunciations against Tibetan religious leaders. This increased repression led in turn to a further series of demonstrations in favour of independence in the spring of 1995, in which monks and nuns once more played the most prominent roles.11 Conflict between the Tibetan religious leadership and Beijing on the question of the succession of the Panchen Lama was highlighted when the abbot of Kumbun monastery, which is in the province of Qinghai, part of old Tibet, was expelled from the Chinese People’s Consultative Conference (a non-ccp advisory body) in June 2000 after leaving China for the usa. The abbot, Agyo Lobsang Tubdain Gyurma, had been a member of the committee established by the Chinese for the complex process of locating the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, but he spoke out in support of the Dalai Lama and rejected the Chinese choice of Gyaltsen Norbu.12 In October 2000 the Dalai Lama gave an interview to the journal Asiaweek in which he reflected on the effect his eventual death would have on Tibetan people. He gave his opinion that ‘the reincarnation would logically come [from] outside Tibet, in a free country. But China [would] choose a boy as the next Dalai Lama, though in reality he is not [the Dalai Lama].’ He added that Tibetans would reject any Panchen Lama who was nominated by Beijing.13 Reports of ill-treatment and brutality continued to come from Tibet, and monks and nuns – the standard-bearers of Tibetan national and religious identity – were frequently the targets. Five nuns, arrested after demonstrations in May 1998, were interrogated in Drapchi prison and beaten with belts and electric batons after calling out Tibetan nationalist slogans when they were ordered to sing Chinese patriotic 146

Tibet and the Tibetans

songs; they committed suicide. Among the prison officers and police who were accused of brutality were many Tibetans.14 Karmapa Lama A young lama, virtually unknown outside the Tibetan community, left Tibet in December 1999 to join the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. The Seventeenth Karmapa Lama is head of the Karma Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and he was fourteen years old when he left the Tsurphu monastery, his spiritual seat to the northeast of Lhasa, saying that he was going abroad to buy musical instruments and black hats traditionally associated with the Karmapa. Unusually, the Karmapa Lama (Ugyen Trinley Dorge, the son of Tibetan nomads) had been recognized in 1992 by both Beijing and the Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of the previous head of the Karma Kagyu tradition.15 The flight of the Karmapa Lama embarrassed the Chinese authorities and was followed by a fresh political offensive against monasteries in Tibet. Thirty monks were expelled from the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa in June 2000, and the government threatened reprisals against anyone who had taken part in pilgrimages during the festival of Saga Dawa, a month-long period of religious observance that takes place in May and June by the Western calendar. It is considered to be a time for great spiritual development, and many Tibetans take part in pilgrimages to monasteries, temples, mountains and other sacred sites. Children were told that they would be expelled from school, officials threatened with dismissal, and pensioners warned that their allowances would not be paid. There were also reports of houses being raided and religious objects and photographs of the Dalai Lama being seized. Members of the ccp and teachers who had photographs of the Dalai Lama in their ­possession were fined.16 In September 2000 the Tibetan government in exile published a report, China’s Current Policy in Tibet, in which it claimed that Beijing was aiming at the ‘total destruction’ of Tibetan culture. The report also argued that the Dalai Lama had moderated the more extreme elements of Tibetan nationalism and that China’s refusal to have any contact with him could lead to more violent expressions of dissent.17

147

LESSER DRAGONS

The Qinghai–Tibet railway Tibet’s isolation has been a decisive factor in the development of its distinctive culture. It is physically isolated from China by its location to the far west and by the difficulty of developing land transport links from the lowlands across rugged mountain terrain to the high plateau. It is isolated from its near neighbour, India, to which it owes its historic Buddhist tradition, by the Himalayas. For some passionate supporters of the culture of Tibetan Buddhism, this seclusion has been wholly positive, and there are those who argue that it is precisely Tibet’s contact with the outside world that threatens its ancient religious culture. Others, including many thoughtful Tibetans, have concluded that, on the contrary, this isolation has been at the root of Tibet’s problems, at least since the early ­twentieth century.18 That being the case, the construction of a railway link between China Proper and Tibet could never be discussed simply in terms of transport and communications. The railway, which now links Xining, the capital city of Qinghai Province, to the Tibetan cap­ ital, Lhasa, had been in the minds of Chinese government planners for generations. It was regarded as an indispensable infrastructure project, without which the economic development of Tibet and its integration into China could not be guaranteed. It took so long to come to fruition largely because of the difficult terrain it would have to cross, and the altitude problems that affect not only travellers but also engineers and labourers working on the roof of the world. The track, engines and carriages all required special designs in order to operate successfully at high altitude, and it was necessary for coaches to be equipped with an oxygen supply for the use of passengers. The Qingzang railway (Qing and Zang are the standard abbreviations for Qinghai and Tibet, respectively), which is mooted as the world’s highest railway, runs for a total of 1,963 km (1,220 mi.): the stretch from Xining to the city of Golmud has been operating since 1984, but the final section, which takes the railway through to Tibet, was not completed until it became part of the Western Development Programme. Construction of the key final stage from Golmud to Lhasa began in 2001 and was complete by the autumn of 2005. Golmud is the principal city of the Haixi Mongol, Tibetan 148

Tibet and the Tibetans

and Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, the very name of which gives an indication of the complex ethnic mix of this mountainous region. The formal opening ceremony took place on 1 July 2006, after months of testing of both track and rolling stock. Services using this line include long-distance trains that run to Lhasa from Beijing, Chengdu, Chongqing, Xining and Lanzhou. The journey from Beijing to Lhasa takes almost 48 hours, and even the section from Xining to Lhasa takes 26, in spite of speeds that are fast in comparison with much of the rest of China’s older railway system. Critics of the construction project argue that, far from improving the lives of Tibetans, the new rail link will strengthen China’s control over Tibet and encourage the migration of young Tibetans away from their homeland in search of employment: they are concerned that it will also promote the migration to Tibet of Han Chinese from the east, who are likely to obtain preferential treatment in employment opportunities. There are also concerns about the potential environmental impact of the increased flow of tourists and traders to the Tibetan plateau. The Qinghai–Tibet highway, which also brings in trade and migrants, has not experienced the same high-level criticism. Because the opening of the railway line was turned into a high-profile event by the Chinese government, it became a symbol of the entire economic and political relationship between Beijing and Tibet. This is the primary reason for the level of criticism to which it has been subjected, rather than any technical or practical issues. Protests and self-immolation Although protests by Buddhist clergy against the lack of religious freedom in Tibet are primarily of religious origin, they have been treated as nationalist disturbances by the Chinese government. Many monks and nuns have been imprisoned, and there are still consistent and credible reports of their brutal treatment in detention.19 In spite of these ongoing protests, talks on the future of Tibet between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s representatives continue behind the scenes, although this is not at all apparent from the rancorous rhetoric that is used by both sides in public, especially in statements emanating from Beijing. In October 2007 the Dalai Lama was awarded the Congressional Medal of Freedom by the President 149

LESSER DRAGONS

of the United States, George W. Bush. This was applauded by many Westerners as a sign of American support for religious freedom. Beijing was predictably outraged at what it viewed as outside interference in its domestic affairs, and demonstrations that took place in Tibet to celebrate the award of the medal were crushed with ­considerable force by the Chinese authorities. Tibet continues to experience a depressing cycle of repression and resistance that shows no sign of coming to an end. Monks and nuns persevere in leading the resistance to Chinese rule and the restrictions imposed by Beijing on their religious practice and teaching. Many of them have suffered the most unpleasant punishment and deprivation, sustained by their Buddhist beliefs and monastic discipline. The most shocking and controversial aspect of this resistance by the Buddhist clergy is the willingness of a significant number to set themselves on fire as a protest. In contrast to acts of violence against people and property that have been committed in other conflicts, including suicide bombings, self-immolation primarily affects the individual who undertakes the action. Self-immolation also has a profound effect on the monastic communities and the Tibetan Buddhist laity, and is said to strengthen their spirit of resistance. The Dalai Lama has not sanctioned the practice, but neither has he explicitly forbidden it, and as a result he has been criticized from many quarters. The Chinese government blames the Tibetan leader for instigating, or at least inspiring, the self-sacrifice, even though each self-immolation appears to be an entirely personal decision on the part of the individual. Self-immolation is not solely a Tibetan phenomenon; it came to the attention of Westerners in 1963, when a Vietnamese Buddhist monk set himself on fire in protest against the policies of the right-wing regime in Saigon. On 27 February 2009 Tapey, a young Tibetan monk of the Kirti monastery in the town of Ngawa (Aba in Chinese), in Nagwa County in Sichuan, attempted to burn himself to death in protest against the policies of the Beijing government. He is believed to have survived, despite having been shot by security personnel, and to be in detention. Some reports suggest that he has been used in a government propaganda campaign against self-immolation, but at the time of writing his fate is not known. On 16 March 2011 another monk, Phuntsok, set himself on fire in the same county; he died the following morning.20 The death of Phuntsok prompted demonstrations by 150

Tibet and the Tibetans

monks, nuns and lay people in the local community, and a campaign of self-immolations followed. Most of those adopting this drastic form of protest are young monks, some of them in their early teens. The Chinese authorities insist that the self-immolations are organized by supporters of the Dalai Lama, and have tried to prevent them, with little success. One young Tibetan, Sonam Topgyal, who had taken courses in advanced Buddhist Studies at the Dzongsar Monastery in Derge County, set himself on fire on 9 July 2015 in Gesar Square in the town of Gyegu (Yushu in Chinese), which is in a majority Tibetan area in the south of Qinghai Province. Whether he survived the attempt is not known at the time of writing, but his act prompted demonstrations in the town. The response of the Chinese authorities was to surround the town with units of the People’s Armed Police and other military units; to isolate his home and family; and to suspend telephone and internet services in an attempt to prevent the news from travelling.21 Self-immolation has drawn attention dramatically to the plight of the Tibetans, and the failure of the Dalai Lama to outlaw the practice has led the Chinese authorities to accuse him of manipulating, or even instigating, the campaign.22 The present campaign of self-immolation in Tibet began in 2009 and at the time of writing has cost 150 lives, although it is not possible to know whether this is a complete or accurate figure, since news blackouts are frequently imposed after these incidents. Some protesters are believed to have survived, with horrifying injuries. Although monks have been most prominent in the campaign, laypeople have also taken their own lives in this way, and not all instances of self-immolation have been in central Tibet. The last individual to set himself on fire in 2016, 33-year-old Tashi Rabten, lived with his wife and three children in Maqu, a county in the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu Province. Although witnesses insisted that he had called for freedom for Tibet and the return of the Dalai Lama as he set himself ablaze during the evening of 8 December, the authorities are reported to have put pressure on his family to say that his suicide was not connected to the Tibetan cause or Chinese policies, but was the result of family problems. The 150th individual to sacrifice himself was the monk Jamyang Losal, who died on 19 May 2017 in Gangca in the Tsojang Prefecture of Qinghai Province.23 151

LESSER DRAGONS

Chen Quanguo and new initiatives in Tibet and Xinjiang A new political initiative was launched in Tibet by Chen Quanguo. In August 2011 Chen was appointed party secretary in Tibet, the most powerful official in the region; this was a surprising move, since he had no experience of working in ethnic-minority areas. He remained in Tibet until August 2016, when he was transferred to Xinjiang, a move that was seen widely as a vote of confidence in the way he had managed conflict in Tibet. Although Chen’s policies may have resulted in temporary and local successes, they have done little if anything to break the vicious cycle of protest and repression. Chen’s approach to Tibet was undoubtedly innovative. He announced his wish to work with the Buddhist clergy in temples and monasteries, which some at least would have welcomed, and his intention to transform their institutions into centres of learning that would support the ccp, which most would not. He also declared that he would work to separate Tibetan Buddhism from the Dalai Lama, a statement that could only result in the most fervent opposition. Although these new policies were presented in a friendly and positive manner, the intended outcomes were no different from those of previous hard-line ccp leaders in Tibet. Visiting the Jokhang Temple on 10 January 2016, on the occasion of the Tibetan New Year, Chen made positive comments about Buddhism but insisted that it must be patriotic and ‘adapt to socialist society’. Chen’s policies of enforcing ‘patriotic education’ ensured that all monasteries and temples had access to modern Chinese media outlets and were under surveillance by government work teams. Work teams were also deployed in Tibetan villages throughout the region, and this mass surveillance was credited with substantially reducing active Tibetan opposition to Chinese rule. It did not, however, end the wave of self-immolations.24 Tibetans were ordered to surrender their passports in 2012 and networks of ‘convenience police stations’ were established, initially in Lhasa and then across the whole of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. A system of ‘double-linked households’ was instituted: groups of ten households were required to watch over one another to guard against the twin evils of insecurity and poverty. The Henan provincial media, proud of a local boy made good, described Chen’s policies in Tibet as ‘measured’ or ‘orderly’ (youban youyan). In 152

Tibet and the Tibetans

addition to this family surveillance system, Chen’s plan for stabil­ izing the region included the deployment of more than 100,000 cadres to live in the villages. He also enforced tighter control over monasteries, replacing the Democratic Management Committees that had previously been run by monks with government-run bodies. He is credited with adopting a positive approach to the monks or lamas, indicating that he wished to treat them as ‘friends of the citizens’ (gongmin de pengyou) rather than inherently implacable enemies, and is reported to have forged good personal relationships with leading monks in Lhasa. That is unlikely to have altered their attitude to his policies or the long-term aims of the ccp in Tibet.25 Destruction at Larung Gar During the second half of 2016 there were major protests after the Chinese authorities announced their decision to demolish buildings at the Serthar Buddhist Institute, a Buddhist academy and monastery in the valley of Larung Gar, in the Garze (Kardze) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province. This colossal complex of religious and residential buildings may be the largest institution in the world for promoting the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. The official reason given for the demolition was the overpopulation of the site caused by the number of monks and nuns wishing to study there. By the early twenty-first century it had become home to as many as 10,000 monks, nuns and other devotees: some reports indicated that the total number of students at the academy was in excess of 40,000, many of them living in makeshift accommodation that was turning into a shanty town. Demolition began in July 2016; by September as many as 9,000 people had been evicted and the demol­ ition of the temporary accommodation was well under way. Monks, nuns and laypeople who resisted were forcibly removed, and some were imprisoned or subjected to a course of ‘patriotic ­re­-education’, an instrument of ideological control that had been used in other Tibetan communities. One group of nuns was moved to a remote military-style camp in the Garze region. Officials announced that Buddhist education could restart in Larung Gar, but only under strict supervision by the state bodies that control religious activity. In June 2017 a senior lama claimed that a total of 7,000 buildings in the area had been demolished, but a report later in the year put the 153

LESSER DRAGONS

figure at about 4,700. In August 2017 the monastery was put under the control of a group of six Communist Party members. Although all six were reported to be Tibetan, the monks at Larung Gar feared that this new regime would severely inhibit their ability to teach and study Buddhism.26 Training Living Buddhas As part of a programme for bringing all religious institutions in Tibet more firmly under the control of the government, a training course was organized in late October 2016 for almost 400 Tibetan Buddhist clergy whose incarnations as Tulkus (Trulkus or Living Buddhas) had been included in a database compiled by the State Administration for Religious Affairs. The course, which was run by the United Front Work Departments of the ccp Central Committee and its Tibetan branch, included a visit to Changsha to see the newly built Mao Zedong Memorial Museum in Mao’s home province of Hunan. The lamas were also taken to the former homes of Mao and Liu Shaoqi in Hunan and the Revolutionary Martyrs Memorial Hall in the Jiangxi hill town of Jinggangshan, which celebrates the early activities of the ccp in its rural bases. The object of the exercise was to inculcate ‘national religious policies and socialist core values’ as expounded in courses provided by the Tibetan Institute of Socialism.27

154

8 Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province

T

he province of Yunnan is in the far southwest of China and is recognized as the most ethnically diverse province of modern China and a veritable patchwork of minority cultures. It is home to many of the large number of minority groups that inhabit the southwestern Chinese borderlands, notably the Yi, the Dai and the Miao (who are also known as the Hmong). Since Yunnan has common borders with Burma, Vietnam and Laos and is close to Thailand, it is not surprising that its mixed population includes groups closely related to those living in mainland Southeast Asia, as well as from other parts of China. As a result of this diversity, and the fact that the region is not dominated by one single minority ethnic group but by the Han, who constitute 67 per cent of the total population, there is no real question of ‘separatism’ in the same way that there is in Tibet or Xinjiang (although in one small area there were demands for an independent Islamic state in the mid­-nineteenth century and again as recently as the 1970s). The lingua franca of the province is the southwestern dialect of Mandarin Chinese, but in many of the minority communities only the educated and the young, who have to learn Putonghua at school, have a high level of Chinese. Almost 40 per cent of the population are officially classified as ethnic minorities, and nearly half of China’s 55 official national minority groups are found in Yunnan. Yunnan is often cited as a model for the policies of the Chinese Communist Party on ethnic harmony, and in some other inland provinces, where the pattern of ethnic relations in Yunnan is replicated, similar policies are applied. The circumstances of the northern and western border regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and Mongolia are very 155

LESSER DRAGONS

different and are not comparable. The existence of ethnic differences in Yunnan, as elsewhere in the prc, has been acknowledged in the creation of formally autonomous prefectures (zizhizhou) named after the most prominent ethnic groups: this is sometimes one group, sometimes two or three. For example, the Dali Bai and the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefectures are represented as the homelands of the Bai and Dai groups respectively, but it is not the case that all Bai and Dai people live in those prefectures or that they constitute a majority there. In fact, the Bai are about one-third of the population of Dali and the Dai one-third of Xishuangbanna. At the administrative level immediately below the prefectures, there are also autonomous counties (zizhixian) named after smaller ­concentrations of ethnic minorities. The minority communities of Yunnan have close ties with both majority and minority communities in the countries of Southeast Asia that are China’s neighbours across the international borders of the province. Many of these communities are settled on higher ground, which is the most difficult to cultivate, since over the centuries Han Chinese settlers have occupied the more fertile plains. In other cultures the minorities might be designated as hill tribes, and these highlanders were often ignored and poorly understood by the Han who farmed the low-lying land. Before 1949, many lived separate lives from the Han Chinese population, occupying their own settlements and practising their distinctive cultures in societies that were organized according to tribal customs and laws. In some cases they came into contact with the Han Chinese in markets, where they traded with each other, or when the Han farmers had need of the ‘Aboriginals’, as they were sometimes known, for seasonal labour in the fields. Those Han Chinese who did not meet minority people for work or for trade had very little notion of their way of life. Miao (Hmong) The Miao people are traditionally hill-dwellers in the southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Hunan. They are predominantly farmers and may have been among the earliest communities in this part of Asia to grow rice. The Miao are a loose grouping of tribes, or ethno-linguistic minority communities in contemporary scholarly terms. In addition to their communities in southwestern China, the 156

Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province

Miao also live in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Burma, where they are better known as the Hmong. The Hmong of Vietnam are often treated as a subgroup of the Miao, although some ethnographers consider the Hmong to be the more significant group. The presence of the Miao and related groups in Laos, Burma and Thailand is a result of a series of migrations, some of them relatively recent. As with many minority classifications in China, the ethnonym Miao is not accepted by all those grouped under it. Different communities, usually separated geographically, have their own names in the Miao languages. Some of these translate roughly, by way of Chinese, as the Red Miao, the Black Miao, the Big Flowery Miao and the Green or Small Flowery Miao. The total population of Miao in China was of the order of 9.6 million at the time of the 2000 census. Of these the largest concentration can be found in the province of Guizhou, where 4.8 million live; Hunan has 1.9 million Miao and Yunnan 1.2 million. In line with national government policies, there is a series of prefectures and counties designated as Miao autonomous administrations. There is a long history of conflict between the Miao and successive Chinese governments. Several rebellions against the Ming emperors were crushed, but the clashes continued sporadically and escalated in the seventeenth century, during the early years of the Qing dynasty. The new Manchu rulers attempted to abolish the old system of rule through local headmen and replace it with a network of central government officials based in all the tribal areas in the southwest. The culmination of conflict with the Manchu rulers was the great rebellion of 1855, which was led by a Miao whose Chinese name was Zhang Xiumei. Cooperation with the leadership of the contemporary Taiping Rebellion allowed the Miao to retain control over large areas of territory, but they were eventually crushed in 1872 by the Hunan army commanded by Zeng Guofan, and thousands of Miao were massacred. Although the rebellion is named after the Miao, it cannot be assumed that the tribes involved are identical to those groups called Miao in China today. After the Qing dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China, there was serious conflict with warlords who were predominantly Han Chinese, but during the Long March the ccp managed to win over many Miao leaders, and that stood them in good stead as they developed new political relationships with ethnic-minority groups after 1949. 157

LESSER DRAGONS

In common with many of the other hill tribes of southwestern China, distinctive Miao traditions survive in spite of pressure to assimilate to Han culture. The Miao language, which is also related to that of the Yao – another southwestern minority – remains in use, and three distinct dialects have been identified: in western Hunan, in the province of Guizhou and in the mountains on the provincial borders. Children, like those of all ethnic-minority groups, are obliged to learn Putonghua (Standard Chinese) at school, and bilingualism is increasing. Traditional religion among the Miao is a complex mixture of animism, shamanism and ancestor worship. The Miao share with other Southeast Asian communities a strong tradition of batik, the technique of dyeing clothing fabrics on which designs are applied in wax – a craft that is usually associated with Indonesia. The Miao national costume is worn during festivals and other special occasions, and of course for dances and other entertainments to attract paying tourists. Women’s costumes in particular are noted for their elaborate embroidery, complex patterns and layered fabrics. Wedding dresses may take as long as two years to make because of the complicated needlework and intricate designs, which incorporate the plaiting of silk thread, cross-stitch and silver ornaments. The traditional method of creating these designs is a carefully guarded secret passed down from mother to daughter, and they can include representations of the myths and legends of the Miao. In some subgroups, such as the so-called Longskirt and Longhorn Miao, cattle horns are incorporated into women’s elaborate headdresses. The precise designs of all these costumes, which vary from region to region, identify the subgroup of the Miao to which their wearers belong.1 Samuel Pollard’s mission to the Miao Western missionaries who travelled to Yunnan to spread the Christian gospel among the local Chinese population were often unaware of the existence of minorities, at least initially. This was certainly the case with the Miao, and it was some time before the British Methodist Samuel Pollard (1864–1915) made contact with these people, who seemed exotic even in the context of Yunnan. Eventually his missionary work came to be focused on the Miao, almost to the exclusion of all other communities in the province. He 158

Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province

had moved to the town of Zhaotong in the impoverished northeast of Yunnan in 1888, but it was not until 1903 that he acquired the contacts and the confidence to explore the territory inhabited by the Miao. The accounts of Pollard’s first encounters with the Miao give a vivid picture of the condition of this community in the early years of the twentieth century. It is a Westerner’s view and, considering they became the targets of his evangelical enterprise, he may have exaggerated their plight and the iniquity of the other groups who exploited them, but other sources tend to corroborate his impressions. He found the Miao to be desperately poor and weak and in constant danger of persecution and robbery by the rougher elements of the Han Chinese population, who despised them and treated them as if they were little more than animals. In addition they existed in a feudal-style relationship with the ‘No-su overlords and barons’, on whose ‘will and favour’ they depended ‘for their existence’. The Miao families encountered by Pollard lived in ‘mud huts, without windows or chimneys and with mud floors . . . unbelievably dirty and extremely uncomfortable’, with only the minimum of furniture and bedding; this accommodation was far inferior to the fixtures and furnishings in the houses of even the poorest local Chinese. As a fervent evangelical Christian who was concerned at least as much for their immortal souls as for their daily existence, Pollard was shocked at the rampant immorality that he uncovered among the Miao, and his campaign of conversion to Christianity was in large part directed at destroying what to him was a disturbing culture of sexual licence. In the 1950s the No-su tribes, some of whom were also known as Lolo, were included by Communist officials in the Yi ‘national minority’ classification, and the complex web of social and economic relationships within the Yi community and between the Yi and the Miao still included a type of slavery or serfdom. Rents and taxes were exorbitant and the Miao were one of the main sources of income for the No-su landlords, whose land was of little value without the labour of their Miao serfs.2 Fei Xiaotong and fieldwork in Yunnan The book Earthbound China by Fei Xiaotong and Zhang Zhiyi is rightly held to be a classic study of the rural economy of Yunnan. It was 159

LESSER DRAGONS

published in 1948, just before the Communist Party came to power in China, and is based on fieldwork carried out by Fei and Zhang in the province between 1938 and 1944. It was a study of China by Chinese anthropologists, but was also informed by the theories of two of the most celebrated Western anthropologists of the time, Robert Redfield and Bronislaw Malinowski. Although the ‘Aborigines’ of Yunnan are mentioned in the work, little information is given about their societies and no attempt is made to distinguish clearly between their different tribes or groupings. The authors did not avoid generalizations that reflect prejudices about minority groups that can still be encountered among Han Chinese today. They asserted that ‘Aboriginals are recognised as lazy’, and ‘on market day we meet hundreds of womenfolk, in colourful and exotic costumes, coming down from the mountains where Aboriginal communities live peacefully.’ The most useful information supplied by Fei and Zhang is on labour relations between the Aborigines’ of the highlands and the Chinese of the valley. The hill tribes grew corn and millet, which were cultivated according to a timetable that was different from the pattern of farming required to produce rice in the lowlands; during the rice harvest they were therefore able to make themselves available for hire in the village labour markets. Although most of the hill tribes lived in poverty, there was some social differentiation, and Fei and Zhang recorded the case of a wealthy timber merchant who was ‘the head of the Aboriginal population in the region’. After frequent contact with local Chinese he had become proficient in their language, and became the go-between in commercial arrangements between the Chinese and the ‘Aborigines’, amassing in the process a fortune by selling to the Chinese wood that had been cut by the hill tribes. Fei Xiaotong would later become far more expert on the cultures of the minorities, and he was closely involved in the project launched in the 1950s by the government of the ccp to study and classify China’s ethnic-minority groups. He is also justly revered as the person who reintroduced academic sociology and anthropology to China after they had been outlawed during the Cultural Revolution.3 Development and tourism in Yunnan In common with its neighbour Guizhou, and with most of China’s frontier regions, Yunnan has the reputation of being one of China’s 160

Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province

most underdeveloped provinces. This is partly because of its mountainous geography and partly because of neglect by successive central governments. Beijing has put in place plans to develop the southwest region, which includes Yunnan, and its priority has always been to improve the infrastructure. In doing so it faces the challenge of how to make progress while accommodating the cultures and customs of rural mountain-dwellers who will not automatically accept modernization in the Chinese style. Tourism has developed rapidly in Yunnan. As China opened up in the 1980s, Western backpackers looking for an escape from the dusty cities, the restrictive political atmosphere and the uncertain climate of northern China headed for the tropical climes of Xishuangbanna, which is on the Mekong River close to China’s ­borders with Burma and Laos. Later, as the national economy boomed, Chinese tourists were also able to afford to travel and explore their own country for the first time in decades, and Xishuangbanna became one of a number of established tourist zones. Exotic features such as the Songkran ‘water-splashing festival’ of the Dai in Xishuangbanna were an eye-opener for northern Chinese, who have a justified reputation for being rather buttoned-up. The festival, which takes place in mid-April and coincides with new year and spring festivals in Thailand and other Asian countries, achieved the distinction of being represented in a mural at Beijing Capital Airport. This was not entirely appreciated by Dai cadres, since some of the figures depicted were naked or only partly clothed, and there were complaints that the mural pandered to voyeurism and negative stereotypes of Dai women. Officials have vacillated on how to deal with this controversy, and the mural has been covered and ­uncovered several times. Reports of inter-ethnic conflict in Yunnan have been rare in recent years; that may be a consequence of the policies of the central government, but it also reflects the geographical dispersion and separation of the minority groups. In October 2013 there was a dispute between Dai residents of the town of Menglong in Xishuangbanna and the owners of the Huajie guest house, which was run by Han Chinese migrants from Hunan Province. A minor confrontation escalated rapidly into full-scale conflict when hundreds of Dai villagers, who had armed themselves with ‘knives, iron bars and machetes’, converged on the guest house. The fighting was brought to an end after police intervened, and there were some 161

LESSER DRAGONS

injuries. Local people complained afterwards that the owners of the guest house were connected with organized crime, to which the Dai objected. What had started as a civil dispute took on an ethnic character because of long-standing tension between Han migrants and the local Dai community.4 Yunnan and overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Burma are China’s ‘backyard’. China’s trade with mainland Southeast Asia has increased since the 1980s, and Beijing can exercise considerable economic muscle and exert a degree of political influence in the region, although there is resistance to this from the smaller nations. The governments of these states are enthusiastic about investment from China but also apprehensive about the risk of Chinese political domination. One additional complication is that there are Han Chinese communities in all these countries. The best-known are the ‘Vietnamese boat people’. They were always known as Vietnamese in the West, but the majority were members of Vietnam’s Hoa (Chinese-speaking) minority community, which had long been prominent in Vietnam’s business world. After the Vietnam War came to an end in 1975, with the ignominious withdrawal of American forces, hundreds of thousands of these ‘boat people’ left the country as refugees and settled in other Southeast Asian countries, Europe and North America. Since the introduction of the Đổi Mới policy of ‘renovation’ in 1986 and the move towards Chinese-style marketization and an enhanced role for the private sector, the position of the Hoa has improved. They have once again begun to play a prominent role in the development of the economy, and this has led to a resurgence of traditional resentment against them on the part of some Vietnamese. The Hoa are sometimes referred to as the Han in the specialist anthropological literature, and this follows the standard usage in the prc. There is another group of Chinese in Vietnam who are not classified by the Vietnamese as Hoa. These are the Ngai (Ngái), who are also Vietnamese of Chinese origin but who speak the Hakka language.5 Overseas Chinese communities such as these provide points of contact with Beijing, but have also been the focus of tension. On the other hand, local officials and businessmen in Yunnan – whose 162

Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province

native languages are related to Southeast Asian languages and who may also speak standard Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Khmer or Lao by virtue of official and business contacts with their counterparts across the border – are valuable intermediaries in commercial and political relations that are increasingly important to all countries concerned. The rapid emergence of Burma from a period of ­isolation is an interesting case in point. Ethnic groups and their classification: Lessons from Yunnan In the case of many minority ethnic groups, particularly the smaller and isolated ones, there is a lack of agreement even on what they should be called. The common or official names may not be the same as the ones the minority peoples themselves use. Several groups might be included under one name, but the members of those groups would use different names to distinguish themselves from the other communities, who might appear to outsiders to be closely related but would consider themselves sufficiently different to be in another ethnic group. This problem is not of course peculiar to China, and can be found in the investigation of ethnic minorities anywhere. This complexity of classification is, however, particularly preval­ ent in Yunnan, and one case can be used to illustrate a more general predicament. The term ‘Moso’ was habitually used by Han Chinese, and copied by foreign missionaries and travellers, to describe what are now largely accepted as four different minority groups who live both in Yunnan and across the provincial border in Sichuan. Each group had its own preferred endonym (the term they used to refer to themselves): Naxi, Na, NaRu and Nahing. Their languages are related to one another and are all part of the Yi group of languages in the wider language family that is called Tibeto-Burman: their history is probably linked with that of the Qiang people of the Tibetan borderlands. Between the Na, NaRu and Nahing, who live on the east side of the Jingsha River, there is a reasonable degree of mutual comprehension, but the Naxi on the west bank do not easily ­understand their distant cousins across the river. When the programme of classifying ethnic groups was completed in the 1950s, the prc government, relying on its officials in Yunnan and Sichuan, agreed that the name Naxi should be applied 163

LESSER DRAGONS

to those three groups who reside in Yunnan – the Naxi, Nahing and Na – in spite of the problem of language differences. The NaRu, who live in Sichuan, and that section of the Na who also live there, were incongruously classified as Mongols, on the basis that according to their traditions they were descended from the Mongol armies of Khubilai Khan that had conquered southwestern China. Since they do not speak Mongol and their customs are in no sense similar to those of the Mongols, this is anomalous to say the least, although there may be some truth in the historical connection. There have been repeated protests and petitions for a resolution of the anomaly, particularly from the Na people, who insist that they are not the same as the Naxi.6 Yunnan Hui and the Shadian incident Yunnan is also home to a considerable community of Muslim Hui people, but – in contrast to the position of the Hui in Ningxia and Gansu in the northwest, who are often the majority in their own regions – in Yunnan they are one minority living among many other minorities, and do not have the social cohesiveness of a concentrated (or, as Chinese analysts prefer, ‘compact’) community. They do have a history of opposition to the Chinese state, however, including the rising that outsiders called the Panthay Rebellion (‘Panthay’ being a Burmese term for Chinese Muslims), which raged through Yunnan between 1856 and 1873 under the Hui leader Du Wenxiu, who declared himself the ruler of an independent sultanate with its capital in the town of Dali. A more recent example of this opposition, and one of the most serious incidents involving Yunnan’s Hui Muslims in modern times, occurred in 1967 during the Cultural Revolution, in the village of Shadian, which is close to the border with Burma. Shadian, in common with much of China during that period, was divided between rival Cultural Revolution groups. A group of Red Guards insisted that the mosques in the village must be closed down, and burned copies of the Qur’an and other religious texts as being representative of the old and superstitious religious culture that they had been instructed to attack. Other political groups attempted to preserve the constitutional rights of ethnic minorities. The radical Red Guards claimed the support of the central Cultural Revolution 164

Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province

Group, which was controlled by Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, and dominated the chaotic central government in Beijing at the time, and they were supplied with arms by the People’s Liberation Army (pla), which had been instructed by Beijing to ‘support the left’. In July 1968 these Red Guards surrounded Shadian and fired on the mosque and houses. Several people were killed, but the Red Guards were prevented from entering the village. Shadian became a haven for the more conservative elements in the region, those who were opposed to the radical Red Guards. In November 1968 the Revolutionary Committee of Yunnan (the Cultural Revolution-period term for the provincial government) ordered a propaganda team to be sent into Shadian. The team chose to billet themselves in the main mosque of the village, and were accused of eating pork in the mosque and throwing the bones into the well that the Muslim congregation used to wash before prayers. To demonstrate their revol­utionary fervour, the propaganda team deliberately humiliated the local Hui people, and their activities provoked a violent response. In October 1973 Ma Bohua, a secondary-school teacher, led a movement to retake the mosque and open it for prayer. Ma Shaomei, a Muslim who was also the secretary of the local Communist Youth League, was detained by the authorities in May 1974. His fellow Muslims surrounded the office of the propaganda team and demanded that he be set free, but negotiations and appeals to the provincial government on the grounds of freedom of religion were not successful. In December 1974 the Hui community in Shadian established a Hui militia with Ma Bohua named as commander and Ma Shaomei as his political commissar. In May 1975 units of the pla that had been stationed outside Shadian attempted to enter the village, but their way was barred by the villagers. On 23 December leaflets produced by the Provincial Party Committee were dropped by helicopter on Shadian, denouncing the rebels as counter-revolutionaries and their leaders as reactionary imams. The Hui responded by burning the leaflets in front of the building where the propaganda team was staying. Negotiations to persuade the Hui to surrender their weapons failed, and the Chinese authorities accused them of cooperating with the Soviet Union (which was unlikely, but in line with Chinese paranoia at that time) and of wanting to establish an independent Islamic republic (which was certainly true of some of them). These accusations were later blamed on the Gang of Four, 165

LESSER DRAGONS

the group of radicals including Jiang Qing, who were positioning themselves to take power after Mao’s death. pla troops entered Shadian during the early morning of 29 July 1975, armed with artillery, flamethrowers and incendiary bombs. The Shadian Hui resisted, and at least 900 local people were killed and 600 injured during fighting that lasted eight days. Hundreds more were killed in military action in the surrounding villages. At least 400, and possibly as many as 700, pla soldiers died. Shadian was effectively razed, and after the massacre the remaining population had to be relocated to a new village that was constructed for the purpose. This was uncannily similar to the Qing government’s policies for dealing with uprisings in the nineteenth century. After the death of Mao in September 1976 and the arrest of the Gang of Four, there was a ‘reversal of verdicts’ on the Shadian massacre. It was agreed that those who had resisted the troops were no longer to be regarded as counter-revolutionaries, given the special circumstances of the time. Their organization, Hizb Allah (Party of God), was reclassified as a legitimate religious organization and not treated as an illegal secret society, which is ironic in view of the way in which similar organizations were subsequently treated in Xinjiang. This incident reveals much about the utter confusion of the Cultural Revolution period in Yunnan, and about the solidarity and determination of the local Hui people to resist a deliberate attack on the institutions and practices of Islam, even if it was carried out in the name of Mao Zedong.7

166

9 Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group

T

he Manchus were a confederation of tribes from the east of Siberia and north of China that came together in the seventeenth century in what is known in China today as the Three Northeastern Provinces (Dongbei sansheng) or simply the Northeast (Dongbei). The language of the northern tribes, which is spoken in both eastern Russia and northeastern China, was previously called Tungusic and is now known as Evenki. Their southern neighbours used the related language of the Jurchen, which later evolved into Manchu. The name Manchuria has never been used much in China, but it is the most common English name for the region, and it is used as a geographical term with no political or ethnic significance. The name in the Manchu language for the unified nation of the seventeenth century is Manju, and this may have come into the English language in the nineteenth century via the Japanese Manshū, but some Manchus prefer to associate it with the name of the bodhisattva Manjushri. One reason for its unpopularity in China is that it is a reminder of the puppet regime of Manchukuo (Manzhouguo) that was installed by the Japanese in 1932 and lasted until the defeat of Japan at the end of the Second World War.1 The Manchu conquest of China The Manchu Qing dynasty, the final dynasty of the ‘Chinese’ empire that collapsed in 1911, originated in a military alliance of a group of Manchu and Mongol tribes with powerful Han officials in the frontier areas to the north of China during the latter part of the Ming 167

LESSER DRAGONS

dynasty (1368–1644). After ‘entering the passes’ in 1644 – the conventional description of their military incursion into China Proper – the Manchu conquerors subdued the territory they now occupied by plunder and looting. The Manchu occupation of China took decades to achieve and is remembered for its brutality. The worst example was the Yangzhou Massacre: Manchu forces captured the commercial and cultural centre of Yangzhou on 20 May 1645, and the commander of the victorious troops, Dodo of the Manchu Aisin Gioro clan that was to rule China until 1911, ordered the execution of the entire population of the city. This was a punishment for the resistance by Chinese officials and other people who remained loyal to the Ming dynasty (the previous Chinese ruling house) and a warning to other southern Chinese cities of what they could expect if they did not capitulate. Chinese accounts of the massacre have estimated the number of dead as being as high as 800,000, but even if modern criticism of these numbers is accepted and these figures are deemed to be an exaggeration, the slaughter was horrifying. The classic narrative of the massacre is An Account of Ten Days at Yangzhou by Wang Xiuchu, who was an eyewitness to the carnage. Not surprisingly, the book was suppressed during the Qing dynasty, but it was republished towards the end of the nineteenth century and adopted as a key text by Han Chinese nationalist revolutionaries determined to rid China of their Manchu overlords. Chinese people have never forgotten the horrors of the conquest, and this memory would colour relations between Han and Manchu in China long after the fall of the Qing dynasty. It was only after repeated and long-term conflict between the Manchu conquerors from the frontiers and the Chinese society of the interior that the Qing system of civil government gradually evolved. In the conquered areas order was enforced by the military garrisons of the Eight Manchu Banners, supplemented by the Army of the Green Standard (which consisted mainly of ethnic Han Chinese troops). Han Chinese officials of the defeated Ming dynasty, and members of the landed gentry who had demonstrated their willingness to submit to the Manchus, were appointed to office under the new regime. They assisted their Manchu overlords in the reconstruction of a political and social order that owed much to the institutions of the defeated Ming dynasty and relied increasingly on the enlisting of talent through the traditional Chinese imperial examination system. 168

Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group

Manchu culture and society The background and culture of the Manchus and their northeastern ancestors was very different from the agricultural or urban cultures of the Chinese society that they conquered. Manchus were originally organized in nomadic communities with an aristocracy that favoured the manly martial arts of horse-riding and archery, rather than a literary culture based on reading, writing and painting, which had for centuries been the pathway to social and political success among the Han Chinese elite. The Manchus tended to consider this bookish culture of the Chinese to be effete, and attempted to prevent Manchu aristocrats from becoming seduced and softened by it. This was an uphill task for the Manchus, since many of their educated elite were drawn to traditional Chinese poetry and painting; the conflict between the priority given to the martial and the civilized arts would be a constant theme during the Qing dynasty. The bulk of the Manchu population were of course not aristocrats, and their daily lives were dominated by hunting and gathering, forestry and trade. Many were also engaged in settled agriculture where the topography permitted, and some Manchus, particularly those that had lived close to the frontier with Ming dynasty China, had adjusted to a way of life and culture that had in varying degrees assimilated to the Chinese model. The traditional belief systems of the Manchus were a combination of shamanism and the Lama Buddhism of the Tibetan and Mongolian schools, but even before the conquest they had also adopted some Chinese deities. There was also an accommodation with Confucianism and Buddhism as practised by the Chinese elite, but not with the popular versions of Buddhism and Daoism that would become the philosophical underpinnings of many anti-Manchu uprisings in the later years of the Qing dynasty. The Manchu language during the Qing dynasty Languages are one of the few reliable indicators of ethnicity. Neither the spoken nor the written forms of Manchu are connected in any way to Chinese. Linguists classify Manchu as a member of the Tungusic branch of the Altaic language group – other branches of Altaic are Mongolian and Turkish – so Manchu is related to those. 169

LESSER DRAGONS

Although the Manchu language is related to Mongolian, they are not close; the spoken forms are not mutually intelligible, but Manchu uses a modified version of the Mongolian script. Historically, Manchu evolved from the language of the Jurchen (Nüzhen) tribes, which had been united by Nurhaci during the sixteenth century in the territory between the lands controlled by the Mongols and the Ming dynasty. Nurhaci is regarded as the founding father of the Manchu nation, and the Aisin Gioro clan into which he was born ruled China as the Qing dynasty. Nurhaci was posthumously accorded the temple name Taizu, a Chinese title conventionally granted to the first emperor of a dynasty. This demonstrates the Manchus’ need to acquire legitimacy in the Chinese tradition in order to justify their rule over China. For a time the Manchu language was written in scripts that had the appearance of Chinese characters, but these were abandoned in favour of a version of the Mongolian script, a script written vertically that, unlike Chinese, is alphabetic but has different forms for independent, initial, medial and final letters. These variant letterforms betray the distant origins of the script in the Middle Eastern Syriac language, which, like modern Arabic, uses these different forms. In 1599 Nurhaci commanded two scholars to prepare a modified version of the Mongolian script that would be more compatible with the structure of Manchu, and to have Chinese books translated using that script. The Manchus increasingly used officials of the Mongol, Han and other ethnic groups to govern. Because of the number of ethnic Chinese who had been brought into the administration, it was thought for many years that the most important official documents of the Qing dynasty were those written in the bureaucratic literary Chinese of that period. Since the late twentieth century, substantial archives of official documents written originally in Manchu have become available, and these permit a far more nuanced picture of the ruling elite of the Qing and its literary culture. For many decades the spoken Manchu language was preserved in the Manchu heartland, the territory in the northeast beyond the ‘willow palisade’ that marked the formal boundary between Manchuria and China, and in the Manchu garrisons that had been stationed throughout China. It fell into decline, particularly in China Proper, as bannermen became used to communicating in 170

Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group

Chinese, a language by which they were surrounded and in many cases overwhelmed. In 1753 the Qing emperor Qianlong issued a decree insisting that spoken Manchu was an essential requirement for bannermen and that all must endeavour to use it. By 1791 a similar edict, issued by the same emperor, referred only to the need for Manchus to be conversant with the written form of their own language. Qianlong was fighting a losing battle; over time Chinese became the day-to-day language of the Manchus, and Manchu increasingly the preserve of court administrators. Some knowledge of spoken Manchu persisted into the twentieth century, and books and newspapers were published in Manchu in northeastern China as late as 1930. In the 1950s there were reports of elderly Manchus in outlying areas who could speak their own language, but by the end of the twentieth century virtually all the remaining individuals who had known Manchu from birth had died.2 Manchus and their language after the 1911 Revolution After the revolution that toppled the Qing Empire in 1911, the position of Manchus changed out of all recognition. From having been the political and social elite, they became a despised community of outcasts. They suffered from reprisals and severe discrimination, and were marginalized to such an extent that for decades afterwards many families chose to conceal their Manchu identity. The decline of the Manchus was apparent not only among the Banner garrisons of China Proper, but even in the ancient Manchu homeland of the northeast. After a period of nine months travelling and living in Manchuria in 1929–30, the American scholar Owen Lattimore observed that ‘the young Manchus of Manchuria are becoming rapidly indistinguishable from Manchuria-born Chinese.’ One important reason for this was the decline or, as Lattimore put it, ‘rapid extinction’ of the Manchu language. This was in contrast to the Mongol language, which had shown extraordinary powers of survival and flourished, in Manchuria as well as Mongolia, even when Mongol political power was at its lowest. In 1930 Mongol was still being spoken in the countryside around the city of Mukden, the former capital of the Manchu chief Nurhaci and today, as Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province. Mongol was spoken even in families that had been 171

LESSER DRAGONS

‘settled in the Chinese manner and surrounded by Chinese for several generations’. Even among Chinese who had migrated to the Mongol frontiers there were many who had ‘gone Mongol’. Manchus were far more likely to identify themselves with Chinese than were Mongols, and for Chinese to ‘go Manchu’ was unheard of.3 Manchu and the Sibe people of Xinjiang Even though the Manchu language has become virtually extinct in Manchuria and most of China, a form of Manchu survives, albeit precariously, among the Sibe (Xibo) people of Xinjiang. Their ancestors were troops who had been detailed to garrison the Ili valley on the frontiers with the former Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. The present community numbers only about 20,000, and is settled in a part of the Ili region that is designated the Sibe Cabcal Autonomous County. Their Sibe language, which is variously described as a dialect of or a successor to Manchu, is still spoken and written, and it is the only living repository of Manchu speech in China. It is still taught in schools, where it has been used as a medium of instruction for the earliest years and then as a supplementary language for older children, although this is undoubtedly subject to the vagaries of state policy. Books, magazines and news­ papers continue to be published in the Sibe language, but Sibe people are concerned about the influx of Chinese loan words and fearful for the future of their language.4 The disintegration and revival of the Manchu elite The Revolution of 1911, which overthrew the Manchu Qing dynasty and brought to an end the imperial system that had been in place since 221 bc, is presented in the prc in simplified Marxist terms as a democratic or bourgeois revolution that was the necessary forerunner to the socialist revolution led by the ccp. In fact its roots were in a movement by the Han Chinese elite, determined to remove their Manchu overlords, and it was as much a Han revival as a political revolution. The institutions of the Manchu elite had become ineffectual and corrupt, particularly the Manchu military garrisons that had been established in the provinces to govern the non-Manchu majority in the early years of the dynasty. By the eighteenth and 172

Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group

certainly the nineteenth century these garrisons had ceased to have any real function: civilian administrators dealt with day-to-day matters, and in times of crisis, such as the peasant rebellions that were a constant feature of the nineteenth century, the Manchu banner garrisons proved totally inadequate for the task of restoring peace and stability. The government was obliged to rely on the Chinese Army of the Green Standard, which was not much more effective, and eventually had to permit the creation of provincial armies, which were more professional. However, these armies, which were predominantly Han Chinese, acquired a great deal of regional power and authority and became the basis for the secession of provinces from the empire and the eventual end of Qing rule. In spite of the loss of any real purpose in their existence, troops of the Manchu garrisons still drew salaries or pensions and were widely seen by non-Manchus as parasites. A literary treatment of the changing perceptions of the Manchu bannermen can be found in the celebrated drama Teahouse (Chaguan) by the playwright Lao She, first published in China in 1957. Lao was one of the most successful dramatists in China after 1949, and he represented the Manchus in Beijing in an extremely negative light, in spite of the fact that he himself was of Manchu origin. Two of the characters in the play, Song and Chang, are Manchu bannermen who between the first and second acts descend from privilege to pathetic and degrading poverty when their pensions are withdrawn. Song comments that ‘the Great Qing Empire was not really that great but here in the Republic I am starving,’ and Chang, who has previously been arrested and imprisoned for more than a year for saying in 1898 that ‘the Great Qing Empire has had it’, complains that he has to be up before dawn every day to try and sell a couple of baskets of vegetables. The message for theatregoers in China in the 1950s was that the Manchus were useless and pitiable – although, according to the approved party view of history, this was not because of their ethnic origins but because they were representatives of a dying and decadent society.5 After the 1911 Revolution Manchus as a group were looked down on and often ostracized because of their association with the former regime, and, like Lao’s bannermen, many became destitute. Manchus no longer asserted the identity that had brought them such privilege in the past, and for much of the twentieth century they were virtually invisible as an ethnic group. 173

LESSER DRAGONS

The last emperor of the Qing dynasty, the Manchu Aisin Gioro Pu Yi, had been persuaded to collaborate with the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. He was appointed chief executive of the puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932 and was then enthroned by the conquerors as the Kangde Emperor; this only worsened the popular perception of the Manchus. Since the 1980s, as China has emerged from the blinkered and insular attitudes of the Cultural Revolution, there has been a revival of interest in the Manchu language and culture, and some individuals and families have publicly readopted their Manchu identities. It is still virtually impossible to distinguish Manchus from Han by sight, but more individuals are now willing to identify themselves as Manchu or of Manchu origin. One of the best-known is the internationally acclaimed concert pianist Lang Lang, who is descended from the aristocratic Niohuru clan, a rival clan to the imperial Aisin Gioro and also the clan of the Empress Dowager Ci’an – who served as joint regent with the notorious Empress Dowager Cixi – and the corrupt official Heshen. Lang Lang’s surname in Chinese means ‘wolf ’, which in Manchu is niohe, part of the clan name Niohuru. Manchus and the ‘New Qing History’ The status of the Manchus is not merely important for understanding the early modern history of China; it also has a resonance in contemporary politics. In recent years the nature of the Manchu people and Manchu rule during the Qing dynasty have become the subject of academic controversy that has involved foreign histor­ ians of China associated with what has been called the ‘New Qing History’ school. Although this phase of the controversy is new, it continues an old debate about whether the Manchus who ‘entered the passes’ in 1644 had managed to rule the Chinese empire for so long only because they had become ‘Sinicized’. This is an interesting and important discussion because it questions assumptions about the identity of the Manchus and also what it means to be ‘Chinese’ and the nature of ‘Chineseness’, concepts that are regarded as fundamental and unchallengeable by conservative academics in the prc. It has long been asserted by Chinese thinkers of a nationalist turn of mind, whether Communist or not, that Han Chinese culture has a special strength and staying power 174

Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group

that has enabled it to absorb foreign conquest dynasties, such as the Jin, Mongols and Manchus. It is argued that, rather than the Chinese being colonized by these ‘barbarians’ and accepting their cultures, it was the conquerors who were obliged to acquire and internalize Chinese civilization – effectively changing their thinking and ­behaviour to something closer to that of the Han Chinese. Behind this argument lies the great myth that Chinese history has an unbroken narrative of 5,000 years. To this is attached a slightly lesser myth that, during the Chinese empire under the Qing dynasty, the Chinese consolidated their control over the western, non-Han Chinese regions, territories that had in any case always really been part of China. This is part of the justification for the current insistence by the government of the prc that Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia (although, ironically and inconsistently, no longer ­independent Mongolia) must always remain part of China. The historians of the ‘New Qing History’ school, most of whom now live or were educated in the United States, have come under severe attack from historians in China. In the eyes of the Chinese historical establishment their crime is that, by asserting that the Manchus were foreign conquerors and that their arrival in China in 1644 was therefore an invasion, they are threatening the unity of China – which is what the ccp values above all else – and giving academic credence to the separatists and ‘splittists’ who argue for independence for China’s Inner Asian territories. This was articul­ ated with considerable vigour and no little venom by Li Zhiting of the National Qing Dynasty History Compilation Committee in the April 2015 edition of Chinese Social Science Today. A few paragraphs will serve to illustrate the extraordinary vehemence of Li’s argument: The so-called ‘academic breakthrough’ of ‘New Qing History’ does not reflect the reality. At its base it is a false and counterfeit good! Absent any academic breakthrough, it has lost the basis for survival. The whole range of views they express are cliches and stereotypes, little more than dusted off versions in a scholarly tone of the Western imperialism and Japanese imperialism of the 19th century! The American scholars who support ‘New Qing History’ view the history of China from an imperialist standpoint, with imperialist points of view and imperialist eyes, regarding 175

LESSER DRAGONS

‘traditional’ China as an ‘empire,’ regarding the Qing dynasty as ‘Qing dynasty imperialism.’ Their theory and discourse are shot through with imperialist arrogance. Differentiating their work from 20th century studies of imperialism, they call it ‘new imperial history’ [xin diguozhuyi shixue]. ‘New Qing History’ is one example. ‘New Qing History’ is academically absurd, and politically does damage to the unity of China. It is necessary to stir all scholars with a sense of righteousness to fiercely oppose it. We entirely reject ‘New Qing History.’ Moreover, we expose its mask of pseudo-academic scholarship, eliminating the ­deleterious effect it has had on scholarship in China!6

This attack by Li, which has been taken up by writers of a simi­ lar disposition, is a political polemic rather than a contribution to a historical debate, and is in line with the Chinese government’s increased attacks on the infiltration of Western ideas into Chinese academia. It does, however, give further credence to the argument that the importance of questions of minority identity is out of all proportion to the numerical size of the minorities. There are concentrations of Manchus in the northeast and north of the prc; in the provinces of Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Hebei, each of which have over a million; and in Jilin, which has just less than a million. Official census figures give the current total Manchu population of China as 10 million, less than 1 per cent of the total population of China. In spite of the relative numerical insignificance of the Manchus in contemporary China, their history is of great consequence for China’s present.

176

10 Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities

S

pace does not permit a full treatment of each of the 55 official minority groups in China, not to mention those that are not formally recognized. The larger non-Han groups that have been most significant in the political, social and cultural spheres of China as a whole, either historically or today, have been described in previous chapters. A brief account of some other minority groups – the Zhuang, the Monguor, the Koreans and the Jews – serves to illustrate the range of minorities in China today and to demonstrate in a little more detail some of the complexities of ethnic classification that have been alluded to in previous chapters. One of the commun­ ities examined here, the Chinese Jews, is not even acknowledged as a minority by the current government of the prc. Guangxi and the Zhuang people With an estimated population of 18 million, the Zhuang are the largest of all the officially recognized ethnic-minority groups within the prc. They are concentrated in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which is named after them; this provincial-level administrative region extends westwards from Guangdong Province to China’s border with Vietnam. Ninety per cent of all Zhuang people in China live in Guangxi, but their close relatives, the Nung and Tay, live across the border in Vietnam. Much of Guangxi is mountainous, and its best-known feature is the dramatic karst landscape of pointed hills around the city of Guilin, much painted by Chinese artists and now photographed even more frequently by tourists. The economy of the Zhuang 177

LESSER DRAGONS

region has been underdeveloped for centuries; before the establishment of the modern Chinese state it was predominantly agricultural and was organized through traditional social structures run by local headmen. Official Chinese publications classify the Zhuang language as part of the Sino-Tibetan family. More precisely, it is generally grouped with the cluster of Tai languages, to which the standard Thai of Thailand and the Lao language of Laos both belong. There is no single Zhuang language in Guangxi but rather a group of languages, some of which are not mutually intelligible. An attempt has been made to create a standard Zhuang language based on one of the northern dialects, and Zhuang–Chinese bilingualism is the aim of official language policies. Chinese, mainly in its Cantonese form, has spread throughout Guangxi to the extent that it dominates the linguistic landscape and at times serves as a lingua franca for Zhuang speakers from different parts of Guangxi who might otherwise find it difficult to understand one another. The language of the Zhuang was formerly written in a system based on Chinese characters, but a modified Latin alphabet has been in use since the 1950s.1 Monguor or Tu The minority people known as either the Monguor or the Tu inhabit an area that stretches across the borders between the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in northwestern China. They are a small group, numbering only about 290,000 according to the 2010 census (although this is a considerable increase on the figure for 1990, which was 192,568), but they are an interesting case study in the difficulty of classifying and identifying ethnic groups. As the name Monguor suggests, they have links with the Mongolian people, and the language that carries their name, Monguor, is Mongolic. It is related to standard Mongolian, although it is influenced by both Tibetan and Chinese, which is not surprising given the location of most of its speakers, and Chinese is a commonly used second language. Unlike the traditionally nomadic Mongols, the Monguor have been primarily farmers, although stock-raising has also been part of their economy. In spite of their small size and the fact that they are listed in official Chinese classification as one ethnic group, there is no agreement 178

Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities

among the Monguor people about this categorization, and recent research has uncovered at least eighteen ethnonyms used by different Monguor communities. There is also significant linguistic diversity: some Monguor have a local Qinghai Chinese vernacular as their first or main language; others use Monguor or another of the Mongolic languages; yet others use a language related to Tibetan that linguistic specialists assign to a larger group of languages, which they term Bodic. The problems faced when deciding whether the Monguor should be considered as one people or several are understandable in view of the geography of the territory they inhabit. The country of the Monguors is traditionally divided into the Seven Valleys, Three Valleys and Four Estates, the last being a traditionally Tibetan-speaking area. These are all separate mountain valleys, and the land of the Seven Valleys was originally under the control of the Rgulang Tibetan Buddhist monastery, but since 1949 new administrative units, counties and townships have been superimposed on the district. The population distribution in these valleys is reminiscent of that in the Balkans and the Caucasus, where the difficulty of communication between isolated mountain communities has also led to a degree of linguistic and social fragmentation that is reflected in the assertion of small, distinct ethnic identities. The religious affiliation of Monguor people is complex, as might be expected considering their location in a region where different cultures overlap. The Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism is the most widely followed creed, but other Tibetan Buddhist sects are also represented. In addition, shamanism, the pre-Buddhist Tibetan Bön religion, Daoism, Confucianism and the worship of various local deities are all practised. The origin of the Monguors is controversial. One theory is that they are descended from troops of the Mongol armies that pene­ trated the region during the Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century; an alternative is that they are the descendants of a much earlier people, the Tuyuhun, who once lived in this area.2 Koreans in China China has a long border with North Korea, and the current national borders cut across traditional areas of Korean settlement. Changes in political borders over the centuries have left a significant Korean 179

LESSER DRAGONS

population in the prc, much of it concentrated in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province. Yanji, the administrative centre of Yanbian, is close to the border with North Korea and only 190 km (120 mi.) to the west of the great Russian seaport of Vladivostok. Korean speakers account for approximately 40 per cent of the population in Yanbian, and there is widespread bilingualism: the Korean language is in daily use, in addition to Standard Chinese, which is taught in schools. Yanbian University, in Yanji, teaches in both languages, and is the alma mater of one of the most influential members of Xi Jinping’s government, Zhang Dejiang, who was a member of the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, and vice-premier. Zhang studied the Korean language at Yanbian University before reading economics at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The Korean community in Yanbian plays an important role in China’s tense and delicate relations with its notional ally North Korea. As with other border regions, the bright lights of Chinese towns and cities and Yanbian’s more advanced economy attract ­refugees from North Korea. Pyongyang expects China to return Koreans who attempt to flee to China, but many disappear into local Korean society. Tourism has become important for cities close to the Korean border that suffered an economic slowdown in the early twenty-first century as a result of a contracting market in the property and heavy industrial sectors, although they are still vastly wealthier than their neighbours in North Korea. Chinese tourists are attracted to tours on the Yalu and Tumen rivers, which form the border with North Korea. For most it is the only glimpse they will have of their isolated neighbour, which remains as much of an enigma to them as to the rest of the world.3 Beyond the Yanbian region there are many other Korean communities in the prc, especially in northern China, and including Beijing, where Korean restaurants are popular. The Korean connection is also important for China’s growing commercial and cultural links with South Korea. Until the 1980s, China’s links with Korea were almost entirely to North Korea. Beijing had supported Pyongyang in the Korean War (1950–53) against South Korea and the u.s.-led United Nations forces, partly because 180

Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities

of pressure from Stalin’s Moscow but also because of its own historical, and to some extent emotional, ties with the Korean Workers’ Party, with which the ccp had close links as far back as the 1920s. In the 1930s Korean guerrillas outnumbered their Chinese counterparts in the resistance to the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, and Kim Il-sung was a member of the ccp.4 Once China began to open up its economy in the 1980s, trade with the more prosperous South Korea became a much higher priority. Many thousands of students from South Korea now study at universities in Beijing, including the two most prestigious, Beijing University and Tsinghwa (Qinghua) University. There are almost no students from North Korea, which cannot afford to send its students to China. Wudaokou, the area of Beijing around the metro station of the same name and close to the two main universities, is home to an established Korean community serving these students and commercial visitors. Restaurants and guest houses have prominent signs in Korean, and Korean food is served. In the main bookshops of Beijing, including one of the bestknown – the largest branch of Xinhua Bookstore on Wangfujing, the main shopping street of central Beijing – the number of Koreanlanguage textbooks has increased out of all proportion since the 1990s. Chinese students have taken to studying Korean as an alternative to Japanese or the ever-popular English. The language that is taught in these textbooks is not the heavily politicized language of Pyongyang, which uses only the Hangul Korean script, but the language of Seoul and South Korea, which is also written using Hangul but as part of a mixed script that includes some Chinese characters. ‘Gangnam style’ appeared in Chinese youth culture long before it achieved fame in the West. South Korean popular music and fashions have supplemented if not displaced ‘Cantopop’ (music with lyrics in Cantonese from Hong Kong) and Taiwan dress styles among young Chinese.5 These fashions are fickle and are also subject to political constraints. As China’s relations with South Korea came under stress in late 2016 and early 2017, the Beijing government indicated its displeasure at the popularity of South Korean television soap operas, and the strictures in the official press are likely to have at least a temporary impact on similar cultural imports. It is too early to say how this will affect the indigenous Korean community in the prc.

181

LESSER DRAGONS

Jews in China Since the late nineteenth century there have been well-established communities of Jews in Harbin, which is in the northeast of China close to the Russian border, and in Shanghai. Some of the founding members of this community arrived in China to take advantage of the commercial opportunities offered by the opening of treaty ports in China after the British victory in the Opium War of 1839–42 and the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway across what was then known as Manchuria. Jews in these communities were primarily of Russian or Eastern European origin, and many were refugees from the Russian pogroms of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries or the October Revolution of 1917. Even more migrated to China from Germany and Central Europe during the Nazi persecution of the 1930s and 1940s. One particular group in Hong Kong has close connections with the long-established Jewish community of India, which flourished during the British Raj. The deeper roots of this group lie in migrations of Jewish businesses from Iraq and Iran, and it also benefited from refugees who left the mainland after 1949.6 The community of Jews that has attracted most international interest is the much older one in Kaifeng, an important city in Henan Province. This community was originally established by Jews from the Middle East and South Asia, regions that are now part of the countries of Iran, Yemen, Afghanistan or India. It pre-dates the other communities by hundreds of years and existed during the Song dynasty (tenth to thirteenth centuries) and possibly as early as the Tang dynasty, which preceded the Song. It is likely that other communities of similar antiquity existed, but no evidence of these has survived to the present day. Kaifeng had a synagogue – the only one of any antiquity that can be attested to in China with any confidence – but it fell into disuse in the nineteenth century and only parts of the original building can now be identified. It was widely assumed that the Jewish community in Kaifeng had died out by the 1850s and that it had become completely assimilated. It is unlikely that it would have been assimilated into the mainstream Han majority, because, apart from all other considerations, of the prohibition on consuming pork, which it still observed. Ironically, in light of the strained relations between Jews and Muslims in many parts of the world, it is more likely that some 182

Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities

declining Jewish communities were absorbed into the society of the Chinese-speaking Muslim Hui, among whom abstention from eating pork was of course the norm. Pious Hui men usually wear a white cap, but there is a category of Hui Muslims known as the ‘bluecapped Hui’, and some scholars believe that they are the descendants of these Jews. There is no universal agreement on this, particularly among Jews, and the history of the Jews of China and the fate of the community in Kaifeng remain controversial. In spite of the assumption that the community had died out, many families in Kaifeng claim Jewish ancestry. They have retained family memories of a Jewish identity although, in many cases, they have very little knowledge of Jewish scripture, traditions or culture. Jews are not a recognized official minority in China, but some of the Jews of Kaifeng are petitioning for that to be rectified.7 As is the case with other far-flung communities that claim to have Jewish origins, notably the Beta Israel of Ethiopia (often referred to as Falasha) and the Bene Israel of India, the Jewish identity of the Kaifeng community has been disputed vigorously both in Israel and more widely among world Jewry. Nevertheless the discovery of this group deep in central China has created a revival of interest by Western scholars in the Jewish legacy of Kaifeng. This curiosity has been encouraged by the local authorities in the hope that tourists from the West will be attracted to the city, and streets around the site of the synagogue have been given signs that include their names in Hebrew. To what extent these families in Kaifeng are ‘genuinely’ Jewish is the proper concern of historians of Judaism and scholars in related fields. In this context the judgement of Daniel J. Elazar, the founder of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, arrived at after a visit to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2014, is instructive: Of those communities, only Kaifeng Jewry flourished sufficiently to survive for a millennium, preserving some traces of their Jewishness until their synagogue was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1840s and the last of them assimilated. The only remnants of the community today are a knowledge of the site of the synagogue, upon which another building now stands; a stele from the Middle Ages with inscriptions of major events in the history of the community carved into it, but no longer 183

LESSER DRAGONS

legible; and a practice, still preserved by some, of avoiding the eating of pork. The surviving records and artifacts of the community have long since been transferred to Britain or the United States. I myself have seen one of the community’s two surviving Torah scrolls in the Hebrew Union College library in Cincinnati. There are substantial records of the community’s existence, compiled or written by Europeans, since the Kaifeng Jews were discovered by the Jesuits in the sixteenth century.8

Elazar accepts the standard accounts of the history of the establishment and the decline of the community in Kaifeng, although he also argues that their decline in the nineteenth century can be blamed partly on their failure to respond to overtures from more recently arrived Jews in Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shanghai, to bring them out of isolation and closer to the majority of world Jewry. The Kaifeng community appear to have treated these newcomers as foreigners rather than fellow Jews, and that is suggestive of the degree of integration of Kaifeng Jews into mainstream Chinese society, at the cost of their Jewish identity (even though they maintained some Jewish traditions). Whether the Kaifeng community are ‘genuinely’ Jewish or not depends on which authority is accepted. According to their own traditions they are, and this has been supported by the local authorities, who are conscious of the potential economic benefits from tourism. This has not been approved so far by the Chinese central government, which, as we have seen, does not classify Jews among the 55 official minorities. Neither has this view received the endorsement of religious bodies that adjudicate on who is and who is not a Jew, normally the Beth Din or a rabbinical court. Broadly speaking, this is the position that Elazar takes. It cannot be maintained with any certainty that those Chinese in Kaifeng today who claim Jewish descent are entitled to do so. At the same time, as a result of their new contacts with Western Jewry, there has been a positive revival of local interest in the question of their Jewish heritage. Two of the senior members of the community are seeking to establish a museum of Chinese Jewish history in Kaifeng. Since there are virtually no Jewish artefacts or documents remaining in the city, even if they are successful they will have to rely on facsimiles of the originals that are now spread around the world.9 184

Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities

Non-Tibetans in Tibet The majority of the population of Tibet speak a Tibetan language, but that is not the case for all. Even Tibetan itself can be sub­divided into subgroups or dialects. The Tibetan language specialist Nicolas Tournadre has identified eight major dialect groups, including Ü-Tsang, which is the closest to Standard Tibetan.10 There are approximately 6.2 million Tibetans in China, but of those some 230,000 do not speak one of these versions of Tibetan as their first or best language. The preliminary results of research by the anthropologist Gerald Roche have identified 39 non-Tibetan languages in the Tibetan-speaking area. Some of these are close to Tibetan, notably the languages of the Qiang family; others belong to the Mongolic language family, such as Monguor, and there are some languages close to or mixed with Chinese, including that spoken by the ­resident community of Hui Muslim traders.11 There are also in Tibet speakers of Nakhi or Naxi languages, which are normally encountered much further south, in Yunnan.12 This is yet another reminder of the complexity and diversity of the ethnic and linguistic composition of the Chinese nation.

185

11 Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

T

he island of Taiwan is part of China, but it is also detached: not only is it physically separated by the Taiwan Straits, but it differs from the mainland in many ways and has a separate history. It was the only part of China that was colonized by Japan, although much of the mainland was occupied during the Second World War. Beijing takes the view that although Taiwan is temporarily outside the control of the motherland, it will one day return, perhaps under an arrangement similar to those made for Hong Kong and Macao, which were colonies of Britain and Portugal respectively until the end of the twentieth century. This is not a view shared by most Taiwanese. Taiwan and other countries that recognize its government as sovereign refer to the island as the Republic of China (in contrast to the People’s Republic of China on the mainland). Many Taiwanese, particularly members and supporters of the Nationalist Party, the Guomindang and its ‘pan-blue’ allies, consider it to be the legitimate continuation of the regime led by Chiang Kai-shek that was defeated by the armed forces of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 at the end of a five-year civil war. Followers of the Democratic Progressive Party (dpp) and its allies in the opposition ‘pan-green’ coalition – which is in power at the time of writing – reject the OneChina policy to which the Guomindang still adheres, and lobby for international recognition of the fact that Taiwan is a completely independent state. ‘Pan-blue’ and ‘pan-green’ are the names given to the rival coalitions around the Guomindang and the Democratic Progressive Party, respectively. Taiwan’s legal status may be disputed, but it is de facto independent and has been since the 1940s. Promoted for decades as 186

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

the ‘free’ capitalist alternative to Communist China, and supported financially and politically by the United States of America, it has to some extent fallen below the radar since mainland China opened to business, investment and tourism from 1978. After Beijing was admitted to the single Chinese seat at the United Nations in 1971, at the expense of the Nationalist regime in Taipei, Taiwan felt marginalized and sought political alliances with a variety of states, most of which had little economic power or political influence. Panama, one of those states, switched its allegiance to Beijing in June 2017. One of the reasons that Taiwan is different is that, unlike the mainland – part of which was occupied by the Japanese for less than a decade after 1937 – the island was a full colony of Japan from 1895 until the end of the Second World War. The influences of Japan and Japanese culture are still detectable on the island, and, in spite of the colonial past, many Taiwanese look to Japan for inspiration and support; that is not the case on the mainland.1 One astonishing example of this attitude was a reference in August 2015 by former president Lee Teng-hui to Japan as the ‘motherland’, rather than China, which was deeply offensive to many Chinese in Taiwan as well as on the mainland. Lee (from a Hakka family in northern Taiwan) had been president of the Republic of China on Taiwan and chairman of the Guomindang, but he had also attended a Japanese university before the Second World War and had served briefly in the Japanese military. His brother died during the war, serving with the Japanese navy in the Philippines.2 Taiwanese people may have historical familial, cultural and linguistic ties to the Chinese of the mainland, but during the colonial period practical politics meant that many looked to Japan. After the end of the Second World War the nationalist government of the Guomindang retreated from the mainland and relocated to Taiwan, where it operated as a government independent of the prc. During the Cold War, and particularly after the beginning of the Korean War in 1950, the prc was the enemy, the United States was seen as the protector of Taiwan and Japan was an ally; considerations of realpolitik became at least as important as historical ties or ethnic loyalties.

187

LESSER DRAGONS

Ethnic questions in Taiwan There are similarities between ethnic-minority issues in Taiwan and those on the Chinese mainland, but there are also significant differences, which reflect the geographical location of the island as well as its distinctive history. Taiwan was a frontier province of imperial China, created towards the end of the Manchu empire, and, as a maritime frontier, it was and is the only region in which there has been a significant overlap between the cultures of China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. The oldest minority groups in Taiwan are related to the population of these Southeast Asian nations and are known as yuanzhumin, ‘Aborigines’ (there are no linguistic or cultural connections with Aboriginal Australians). Traditionally these earliest inhabitants were organized in a network of tribes; some tribal consciousness remains, but there has been a process of assimilation and it is accepted that some, if not most, of the historical tribes are extinct. A museum dedicated to the cultures of these tribes has been established in the capital of Taiwan, Taipei, to preserve the memory of this history and to encourage respect for the culture and tradition of the Aboriginal people. The Taiwanese Han people The Han people of Taiwan are in the majority and there are divisions within this ethnic group, but, for a mixture of historical and political reasons, the ethnic mix is not the same as among the Han on the mainland. There is a clear distinction in the minds of Taiwanese people between those Han communities that were settled on the island before the nationalist Guomindang fled there after their defeat in the civil war of 1946–9 and those who came from the mainland with or following the Guomindang. The usual cut-off point is 1949, but advance guards of Nationalist troops and administrators had already transferred to Taiwan by 1947. The difference between the ‘mainlanders’ and the original Taiwan Chinese is therefore historical, but it is also linguistic and cultural. Most of the antecedents of the Taiwanese Han Chinese emigrated in significant numbers from the mainland, especially from Fujian Province, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; they brought with them the culture of that maritime province and also 188

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

the southern dialect of Fujian Chinese that is known in Chinese as Minnan (Southern Fujianese, or Hokkien in the Fujianese pronunciation). This language is called Taiwanese in Taiwan and it is not easily understood by speakers of Mandarin, which was the language of the Guomindang elite who fled to the island in the 1940s. There is thus a marked division between ‘native Taiwanese’ families, who speak the local version of Southern Fujianese, and the descendants of Mandarin-speaking ‘mainlanders’, who are considered to be newcomers and interlopers by the ‘native Taiwanese’, even though they have been on the island since the middle of the twentieth century. The mainlanders originated in a variety of Chinese provinces, where they were typically representatives of the governing Guomindang, and that is why they are speakers of Mandarin – the language of government – rather than of Hokkien. When they arrived in Taiwan they argued that, in spite of their defeat by the Communist Party, they remained the legitimate government of the whole of China, and as such established themselves as the ruling elite, something that much of the existing Taiwanese population came to resent. Even though there has been intermarriage and assimilation, there are still distinct differences in culture and attitude between the two communities, beyond the differences in language and even extending to political affiliation. These are not seen as ‘ethnic’ differences, since all concerned are officially Han Chinese. In addition there are the Hakka, who are also Han Chinese but Han from a different linguistic and cultural background. The linguistic divide between Mandarin and Taiwanese is not as unambiguous as this explanation might suggest, since all Taiwanese have, at least theoretically, been educated in Mandarin. As on the mainland, this has resulted in a degree of bilingualism in which either Southern Fujian (Taiwanese) or Hakka is spoken at home and locally, and Mandarin officially, although often with accent and vocabulary influenced by the other language. This division between ‘mainlanders’ and Taiwanese and the concomitant antipathy are not just of ethnographic interest. They are an important component of the political divisions between the rival political camps. The Guomindang elite based themselves in the north of Taiwan, in the former Japanese administrative capital of Taipei, and ruled Taiwan as a one-party state from 1949 to 1986. Their main opponents, members of the coalition based on the dpp, came to the 189

LESSER DRAGONS

fore as an opposition grouping and then a government party in the 1990s after the Guomindang had finally permitted the establishment of other political parties. The dpp is supported largely, but not exclusively, by native Taiwanese, particularly those who live in the south of the island. These divisions have led to differences in relations with the mainland. Guomindang politicians, in spite of their party’s history of conflict with – and defeat by – the ccp, are in broad agreement with the Beijing government that there can be only one China, and that it must include the mainland and Taiwan; precisely how this would be achieved has never been agreed by either side. The dpp and allied parties favour Taiwan declaring its formal de jure independence from China, rather than just accepting the de facto independence that has existed since 1949. To declare independence in this way would risk the wrath of the Beijing government and could provoke unspecified reprisals: the ccp has threatened that it is prepared to reclaim the island by military force if necessary. Aboriginal culture: The first Taiwanese The term ‘aborigine’ has often been used in a pejorative sense, but it is the usual translation of what the Chinese refer to as yuanzhumin, literally ‘original inhabitants’. As the Latin roots of the English name suggest, these were simply the people who inhabited Taiwan ‘from the beginning’, or at least long before the migrations of Hokkien and Mandarin speakers from the Chinese mainland. The indigenous people are part of the wider Austronesian family, and their culture and languages are related to different ethnic groups that live in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Madagascar and the Pacific Ocean territories of Micronesia and Polynesia. They are also related to some ethnic-minority communities that still live in parts of mainland Southeast Asia, but are not part of the Han Chinese population, whom they encountered as invaders and colonizers. Indigenous Taiwanese began to identify themselves collectively as yuanzhumin in the 1990s, but many also retain the historical consciousness of membership of individual tribes or nations. In the classification of ethnic minorities used in the prc – which of course claims the right to rule Taiwan – they are all categorized as Gaoshan (High Mountain) people, and in most accounts no distinction is made among the different tribal cultures.3 190

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

After the colonization of Taiwan by Chinese from Fujian, little notice was taken of the history and culture of the Aborigines, although they did attract the attention of Western scholars and missionaries. The interaction of the Aborigines with Chinese settlers or Japanese colonizers was rarely noteworthy unless there was conflict over land, in which case the confrontation was often violent. The solution of the Japanese colonial government to such outbreaks of hostility was to place Aboriginal communities in reservations, sometimes surrounded by electric fences, to isolate them from their Han neighbours, a practice that Protestant missionaries, intent on evangelism, found particularly offensive.4 After the defeat on the mainland of the Guomindang nationalists at the end of the civil war in 1949, the priorities of the administration established by the Guomindang in Taiwan were defence against the military threat from the Communists on the mainland; the maintenance of their alliance with the United States of America; and post-war social and economic reconstruction. Minority affairs were not a major concern. The Museum of Formosan Aborigines The attitude towards minorities changed fundamentally after the end of martial law in Taiwan in 1986 and the lifting of the ban on opposition political parties. Taiwan experienced a period of social, political and cultural liberalization in the 1990s and moved towards a democratic multi-party system. One symbol of the new climate of opinion is the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines in Taipei, which was officially opened in 1994. It is an ethnological museum that aims to combine research into indigenous cultures with the preservation and elucidation of antiquities relating to the Aborigines and the promotion of mutual understanding among ethnic groups. The basis for its exhibitions is a private collection that was put together over many years by a prominent local businessman, Lin Ch’ing-fu (C. F. Safe Lin). Lin had a particular interest in the art and artefacts of the Paiwan tribe, currently Taiwan’s second largest Aboriginal ethnic group, whose traditional lands are in the far south of the island. As a result of this special interest, Paiwan artefacts dominate the displays, although the museum is broadening its coverage to include other tribal cultures. The museum building 191

LESSER DRAGONS

is based on the architecture of a traditional Aboriginal longhouse, paved with the ‘iron-coloured slate’ that was favoured by Paiwan builders. In common with the other tribes, the Paiwan community benefited from the new wave of interest in Aboriginal cultures in the 1990s and became involved in various social movements to improve the economic and cultural status of their people.5 The four floors of the museum introduce the culture of the Aborigines in a sensitive approach that is informed by contemporary ethnological and anthropological research and has also involved various Aboriginal communities. Floor 1, ‘People and the Natural Environment’, offers a general introduction to the various indigenous groups in Taiwan that speak Austronesian languages, their geographical distribution and their relationship to the island’s maritime and mountain geography and environment. A film shows the Pacific migrations that were instrumental in the creation of communities in Taiwan, but makes claims for Taiwan as the origin of all these Pacific peoples, for which there is no substantial evidence. Floor 2, ‘Livelihoods, Utensils and Dwellings’, is arranged around models of traditional housing and presents displays on crafts including pottery, wickerwork, house-building and musical instruments. The main social and economic activities of the Aborigines – fishing, hunting and agriculture – are depicted through artefacts and film. Floor 3, ‘Clothing, Decoration and Culture’, focuses on textiles, embroidery and weaving in their social context. Tattooing, festivals and song and dance are also represented. ‘Beliefs and Rituals’ are covered by displays in the basement of the museum, and the role played by animism, the worship of ancestral spirits and headhunting in the mental universe of the Aborigines is explained in displays that surround a valuable divination pot of the Paiwan tribe. Dancing and other exhibitions are staged by Aboriginal groups regularly in a park opposite the museum. The location of the museum is politically symbolic: it is in a prominent position in central Taipei, close to the flagship National Palace Museum but on the opposite side of the road. This is in striking contrast to the situation that prevailed in the decades before the 1990s, during which Aborigines were either ignored or exploited.6

192

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

Democratization and the Aborigines Taiwan, which had been under martial law and one-party rule – by the Guomindang – since 1945, came under pressure to democratize in the 1980s; in 1986, for the first time, opposition parties could register and contest elections. Thomas Huang Ta-chou had been appointed mayor of Taipei by the Guomindang in 1990, but after 1994, as a result of further political reform, mayors were elected directly and Huang was defeated by the dpp candidate, Chen Shuibian, who would become president in 2000. Among Chen’s notable political gestures was the renaming of roads in Taipei. One important thoroughfare, Chieh-shou ( Jieshou) Road, which means ‘a long life to Chiang Kai-shek’ and links the Presidential Palace to the headquarters of the Guomindang, was renamed Ketagalan Boulevard in honour of the tribe that historically was the most prominent Aboriginal community in the Taipei region. The language of the Ketagalan is now believed to be extinct, and there is no agreement on whether a distinct tribe of that name still exists. Nevertheless, a Ketagalan Culture Centre was established in November 2002 by the Indigenous People’s Commission of the Taipei City Government. The centre, which is on Chungshan Road near the Beitou Hot Springs Park, perpetuates the name of the tribe, but its exhibits cover the whole range of Aboriginal groups, with particular emphasis on the Pingpu, the Plains Aborigines of northern Taiwan, who have also lost their original languages and have effectively been assimilated into Han Chinese culture.7 Sun Moon Lake and the Thao people Sun Moon Lake in the mountains of central Taiwan is the largest lake on the island. Swirling mists produce constantly changing moods reminiscent of the effects sought by traditional Chinese landscape painters, and the scenery that surrounds the lake makes it a popular tourist destination, particularly for honeymooning couples. The lake is divided by a tiny island called Lalu; the part of the lake to the west of the island is said to be shaped like the crescent moon, and the eastern part is held to represent a circle like the sun. This does not stand up to even the most cursory inspection of the contemporary topography of Sun Moon Lake, but it must be acknowledged that its shape has changed over the centuries. 193

LESSER DRAGONS

Sun Moon Lake is an example of the commercialization of Aboriginal culture in Taiwan, and for this reason it is often dismissed as merely an artificial representation of the life and culture of the Aborigines. However, it is still the traditional territory of the Thao tribe and the home of their people, who, however much they are assimilated into the mainstream culture of Taiwan, still identify themselves as Thao. The legends of the Thao people relate that their ancestors stumbled across Sun Moon Lake after chasing a white deer through the mountains and forests for days (the deer is commemorated with a marble statue on Lalu Island). The whole tribe was moved to this area because of the potential for fishing, hunting game and farming, rather than for the beauty of the landscape. One of the earliest names for the region was Sarisen, but it is now part of Yuchih, a district of Nantou County. These name changes are a reminder that during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911) the Thao had to compete not only with other Aboriginal groups but also with Han Chinese settlers, who had arrived as part of the wave of migration from Fujian on the Chinese mainland. At the end of the nineteenth century they also had to contend with the Japanese who colonized Taiwan. The event that had the greatest impact on the Thao people in this period was the determination of the Japanese colonial authorities to divert water from the nearby Jhuoshuei (Zhuoshui) River into the lake for the generation of hydroelectric power. This raised the water level in the lake, altered its contours and was possibly responsible for concealing the original sun and moon shapes. Under Japanese rule modern roads were also built, to give access to the power stations built during the 1920s and 1930s. While the immediate effect of these developments on traditional ways of life was negative, in the long term they have facilitated the expansion of modern tourism and provided work for local people. After the Second World War temples and pagodas around the lake were either built or renovated, and these have proved to be major tourist attractions, as is the lake itself. The Thao are the smallest of the officially recognized Aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, and in the early twenty-first century possibly amount to only a few hundred people; their Austronesian Thao language has virtually died out, although there may still be a handful of elderly Thao who can speak it. The Thao people have adapted to the demands of tourism and to some extent have been able to preserve 194

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

their traditions, which they market to non-Aboriginal Taiwanese and foreign visitors. These traditions include handicrafts, cuisine and song and dance. Traditional Thao festivals mark the changes in both the agricultural and hunting seasons, and some of these – such as the harvest festival, which is combined with a Sun Moon Lake Carnival – have been reinvented as part of the tourist industry. A cherry-blossom-watching festival owes more to the Japanese occupation than either the Thao or Taiwan Chinese traditions. The continuity of Thao tradition can be illustrated by the practice of creating and maintaining an ‘ancestor basket’, which is passed down through the generations within a family and contains clothes worn by that family’s ancestors. These clothes are brought out on ritual occasions and play a central role in the Thao rituals of ancestor worship. The Thao and other local people have benefited from the produce of Sun Moon Lake, including local fish and shrimps, which figure prominently in a hybrid cuisine – it is probably unrealistic to think of a residual Thao cuisine – that restaurants and hotels offer to tourists. An additional cultural layer is provided by the Assam tea that is cultivated in the surrounding mountains. It was brought from British India by the Japanese colonists in the early twentieth century and proved particularly suitable for cultivation in the Yuchih district, now part of Nantou County. One of the menu items offered to tourists in the Sun Moon Lake region is an Assam Tea Banquet. Also in Yuchih is the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village, an amusement park with an Aboriginal theme, established in 1986. The cultural side of the park is a series of nine ‘villages’, each representing an Aboriginal tribe and constructed on the basis of research carried out by anthropologists in the 1930s and 1940s – during the Japanese occupation. Many of the reconstructed buildings are based on photographs taken by a Japanese scholar, Chijiiwa Suketarō (1897–1991), a specialist in the native architecture of Taiwan during the Meiji period. Chijiiwa travelled among the Aboriginal tribes between 1930 and 1947 taking thousands of photographs of the people and their houses. After his country’s defeat at the end of the Second World War, he was not able to transfer his collection to Japan, and the photographs were kept in Taiwan by his friend the artist Yen Shui-long. Chijiiwa was the author of a standard book on Aboriginal architecture that was published in Japanese in 1960. 195

LESSER DRAGONS

The design of the park and the type of activity available to visitors are remarkably similar to those of the Chinese Ethnic Cultural Park in Beijing: living history experienced through traditional crafts, folk dances, traditional instrumental music and related performances, and tribal cuisines. Local people with an Aboriginal background are employed for these activities, and a training scheme provides courses and employment for young Aborigines, who also take part in performances. The park clearly has an educational and cultural role, and its management is to some extent sensitive to criticism of the way in which amusements are used to attract visitors. Much of the park, however, is devoted to amusements of the Disneyland variety, and for many visitors it is essentially a somewhat garish theme park in which Aboriginal culture is part of the amusement rather than something to be respected or taken seriously.8 The Hakka of Taiwan Hakka people were part of the wave of migration from Fujian and other coastal regions of the Chinese mainland that crossed the Taiwan Straits from the eighteenth century onwards. The majority of Han migrants were not Hakka, and spoke that variety of Southern Fujian (Hokkien) Chinese that is known on the island today as Taiwanese. The Taiwan Hakka, whose language is closer to northern forms of Chinese, were often treated as people of a lower status than either the original Fujian migrants or the Mandarin-speaking ­mainlanders who came over with the Guomindang of Chiang Kai-shek after their defeat by the Communists. The Hakka suffered discrimination, but their strong work ethic encouraged enterprise and they were not necessarily impoverished. However, their language and culture were undervalued and held in low esteem in comparison with those of the other Han migrants, and this neglect was not ­remedied until the Hakka revival of the early twenty-first century.9 Hakka resurgence in Taiwan Although the Hakka people of Taiwan, in common with those on the mainland, are grouped with the Han, it is also acknowledged that their language and culture are significantly different. Hakkas attach considerable importance to this distinct identity. Although 196

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

influential and wealthy individuals have emerged from the Hakka community, there have long been complaints of marginalization and discrimination. Since the 1990s, and especially with the growing influence of the dpp, the government of Taiwan has expended great efforts to counter prejudice against the Hakka and to remedy the neglect of their culture. Taiwanese Hakka has been formally recognized as one of the national languages of Taiwan, and, at the time of writing, radio and television stations broadcast programmes in the Hakka language, whereas previously the language was rarely heard over the airwaves. Among these broadcasts are programmes on Formosa Hakka fm 93.7, which broadcasts from Taipei and Taichung and has greatly enhanced the status of the Hakka language. In the Zhongzheng District of Taipei, the city’s Hakka Affairs Commission has created a Hakka Cultural Park that ‘features many characteristics of Hakka villages and has six major themes: culture, nature, education, technology, industry, and agriculture’. It opened in 2013 and offers a Hakka Library and Video Centre and a quarterly journal on Hakka culture, and volunteer guides take visitors round the exhibitions. Online Hakka language courses are provided over the Hakka radio network, with supplementary classroom contact available at the Taipei Hakka Cultural College.10 Beipu and Hakka culture Although Hakka people can be found throughout the whole of the island of Taiwan, there are concentrated communities in certain areas that have as a result developed a distinctively Hakka flavour. The small town of Beipu, in Hsinchu County in north-central Taiwan, is a popular destination for Taiwanese people, who are encouraged to travel there to experience Hakka culture. Beipu is in the Greater Da’ai region, which also includes the towns of Emai and Baoshan and Beipu is home to the greatest concentration of Hakkas in the north of Taiwan. In 2014 Beipu had a population of almost 10,000, of whom 98 percent were Hakka. It retains many of the features of a nineteenth-century Hakka village, is well known throughout Taiwan as a centre of Hakka culture, and attracts tourists from all over the island and abroad. Life in the village revolves around the traditional Beipu Zihtien (Citian) Temple, which is devoted to the main gods worshipped 197

LESSER DRAGONS

by the Hakka of southern China: Guanyin (the boddhisattva Avalokitesvara), Mazu (the goddess of the sea) and the Sanguan Dadi (Three Great Emperor Officials); some sources also include the Sanshan Guowang (Three Mountain Kings), and these last two sets of deities belong to the Daoist pantheon. Hakka religion is, not surprisingly, part of the wider belief system of the Han Chinese, which has traditionally embraced Buddhism, Daoism and local ­deities in addition to an adherence to Confucianism, about which there swirls a debate as to whether it should be considered a religious or merely an ethical system. Local people in Beipu associated with the temple confirm that it also embraces the cult of Mazu, who is also venerated in Hong Kong and along the southern China coast. The Citian Temple is built in the classic style of southern Chinese temples and shares its design with many of the Mazu temples of Taiwan and Hong Kong, especially those on Lamma and the other smaller islands of Hong Kong. The construction is elaborate and the decoration lavish, reflecting the importance to the community of the temple, which was dedicated to Guanyin when it was built in 1835 during a conflict with local Aborigines. In addition to its religious function, the temple is also used as a community centre, and local meetings, sports events and performances also take place within its precincts.11 The town developed in the nineteenth century as Hakka people moved inland from the crowded coastal villages in which they had initially settled. This second migration led to clashes with the original inhabitants, the Saisiat Aborigines, whom the Hakka defeated and forced to retreat into the nearby mountains. The town of Beipu that the Hakka created was constructed to ensure successful defence against attacks by these Aborigines. It was built with sturdy walls, lookout points and the famous Dingdong Bridge, which has stone slabs that move to sound an eponymous warning if an intruder steps on them. Beipu prospered during the Japanese occupation, since there was coal to be mined nearby; the town developed a wild frontier culture with a profusion of bars, restaurants, hotels and brothels to serve the miners. After the mines closed in the late twentieth century, young people moved away in search of work and the town’s population declined. Beipu was also the location of the first armed uprising against the Japanese occupation. On 14 November 1907 a 198

Taiwan: Another China, Another Model

group of Hakka insurgents seized weapons in the town and killed 57 Japanese officers, men and members of their families. In the ensuing reprisals 100 Hakka men and boys were massacred in the nearby village of Neidaping, leaving the survivors without anyone to provide for them. Hakka writers complain that not only was the massacre never investigated but also the Beipu Uprising has been omitted from histories of Taiwan, together with many other aspects of Hakka history. Beipu’s revival has been assisted by the tourist industry. The town has preserved the labyrinthine street layout that was intended to confuse and deter marauding Aborigines. Many of the original buildings remain; some of the houses are covered in a mixture of cow manure, husks of rice and clay, which is the traditional insulation against the winter cold. The central area has evolved into the main tourist area and is designated Beipu Ancient Street (Beipu laojie); it contains shops, tea houses and restaurants catering for the visitors – mostly Taiwanese from other parts of the island – offering Hakka snacks, meals and tea. The local speciality is ‘pounded tea’ (leicha), a traditional Hakka beverage in which herbs, mung beans, sesame seeds, nuts, grains and flavourings are crushed together with tea leaves using a pestle and mortar. The resulting powder is made into a tea, although the consistency is more that of a soup or thin porridge. What was originally a low-cost food in times of poverty is now taken as a tonic or part of a vegetarian diet, and cafés that serve leicha are a speciality of the village. The Hakka in Taiwan take particular pride in their culture, including their cuisine: Hakka fare includes much of the repertoire of the well-known Han Chinese cuisine, but with a higher proportion of baked, braised and stewed dishes.12

199

12 Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

A

lthough the official policy of the People’s Republic of China is to treat ethnic-minority people as equal and equally valued components of the wider community of China, many nonHan people complain, with considerable justification, that they are patronized, subjected to negative stereotypes, discriminated against in education and employment, and marginalized. To counter this argument, even educated and broad-minded Han people often argue that the minorities are treated well; some maintain that they receive preferential treatment in comparison with the majority Han population, although in general the evidence does not support this. Others point to the fact that minorities are given many concessions, in particular that they benefit from positive discrimination in admission to higher education, often being admitted with lower examination results, and that they were exempted from the strictest interpretations of the one-child rule. These concessions are indisputable, but the situation is complex and varies from group to group and region to region; it also depends to a large extent on whether the minorities live in urban or rural areas and on the political situation at any given time. Conflict and ethnic conflict The prc has experienced internal conflict on many occasions since its foundation at the end of the civil war in 1949. Many of these conflicts have manifested themselves as demonstrations and outbreaks of collective violence, and since the launch of the reform and opening programme in 1978 this type of conflict has been reported 200

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

more frequently in the official press. These disturbances are officially designated as ‘mass incidents’ if they involve more than 500 people, and ‘mass incidents’ of this nature number tens of thousands each year. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences put the total for 2006 at 90,000, and some scholars have suggested that by 2010 the number had risen to 180,000.1 There are analysts who feel that these numbers are exaggerated, but local conflicts are very common. They typically occur in rural areas, and most involve disputes over the requisition of land by the local government when there are plans to develop village land, usually land that is close to a town. Such disputes may be over the right of the authorities to confiscate the land, or the level of compensation that the original owners are paid. The principal actors in these dramas are usually villagers, the local government and the police, and there are frequent allegations of corrupt relationships between the police and developers. Disputes that result in violence do not necessarily involve inter-ethnic clashes, but some conflicts are either primarily between ethnic groups or wider disputes in which there is an ethnic component. For example, when violent disorder broke out in Henan Province between Hui and Han villages in 2004, the fact that the dispute involved Muslim and non-Muslim communities was played down in the Chinese press, indicating the politically sensitive nature of ethnic conflict in the prc.2 The Wenchuan earthquake that affected parts of Sichuan in 2008 was a major natural disaster that may have cost the lives of as many as 80,000 people. Coverage by critical writers inside and outside China focused on the speed of the response to the catastrophe, the efficacy of the relief effort, and the poor quality of schools and houses, which caused many to collapse and almost certainly resulted in unnecessary deaths and injuries. The fact that the communities affected were in deprived areas on the borders of the Tibetan region and that most were made up of Qiang minority people was hardly reported at all.3 The conflict in Tibet is widely reported outside China and the ethnic tension behind the growing violence in Xinjiang is becoming better known, but the problems of smaller ethnic groups, such as those in central China and on the Tibetan frontier, are less familiar to outsiders and even to the majority of the Chinese population. They are, however, of grave concern to central government officials, who believe (justifiably or not) that the current level of conflict in regions 201

LESSER DRAGONS

such as Xinjiang and Tibet could be a serious threat to the long-term stability of the prc, and that maintaining stability in other ethnically divided areas is the government’s highest priority. The authorities do not like to concede that there are still acute problems in relations with ethnic minorities, and these are frequently under-reported in the Chinese media; if they are reported, the ethnic aspect is played down as much as possible. The reason for downplaying such ethnic conflict is that the ccp always aims to emphasize positive results; it minimizes or ignores references to negative outcomes and rarely admits mistakes publicly. Its policies on minority issues are exemplified by slogans such as ‘the great unity of the nationalities’ (minzu da tuanjie), which is also a phrase in common use, especially by people in minority areas when communicating with officials or outsiders. The government of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, which ruled China between 2002 and 2012, strove to promote a vision of consensus and the ideal of a ‘harmonious society’ (hexie shehui) in which the vast majority of the population would be middle class. This is a rather strange theoretical position for a party that was originally formed on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, and that aspiration is oddly similar to the realities of wealthier neighbouring Asian societies, notably Japan. During that administration it was possible to view minority policies in that context, especially the extent to which harmony and consensus might permit the ­expression of cultural differences by non-Han people. Western Development, nation-building and ethnicity The Western Development Programme (Xibu da kaifa) was a millennium project designed to tackle the increasing income and development gap between the heavily industrialized urban economies of eastern and southern China and the underdeveloped and deprived western provinces, in which many of China’s ethnic minorities live. The programme began under the overall supervision of Premier Zhu Rongji, who had been Deng Xiaoping’s choice to modernize the Chinese economy and was the most highly respected economic manager in the contemporary Chinese government. Western Development was aimed at strengthening what is effectively the ongoing nation-building project of the ccp by addressing the economic base rather than the cultural and ethnic superstructure, 202

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

in the Marxist terms used by the ccp. The assumption – and it is usually an unspoken assumption – is that if the western region of China as a whole could be developed and brought up to an economic level equivalent, or nearly equivalent, to that of the east and the southeast, the problems of social unrest and ethnic separatism would either disappear or become insignificant. The programme itself was launched in 2000 with the creation of a ‘leading group’ to manage the project led by Zhu. It concentrated almost entirely on the economic benefits of integrating the underdeveloped west and the developed east, on the basis of another assumption – that the development would benefit all citizens of China. In fact, there is considerable evidence that the benefits have been far greater for the east, and that those living in the west are aware of that and resent it. In discussions of the plan, only passing mention was made of the different and often competing ethnic popu­ lations in western China. Moreover, the very definition of China’s western regions that was employed in the plan, and which includes the relatively prosperous provinces of Sichuan and Shaanxi and the highly developed megacity of Chongqing, suggests an attempt to dilute and diminish ethic and cultural differences by subsuming them into a wider economic model. The programme has been criticized for underplaying the particular problems of the border regions of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, where there are not only great ethnic differences but also real or potential movements of cultural and ethnic nationalism. It must be acknowledged that these were not ignored completely: two of the major infrastructure projects associated with the Western Development Programme, the well-publicized Qinghai–Tibet (Qingzang) railway and the lower­ profile equivalent rail links being built in southern Xinjiang, were designed to overcome the economic and social isolation of those regions. Whether or not they achieve that aim remains in question. To deal with the ethnic problems of the western regions, the state has relied since 1949 on the tried-and-tested system of creating autonomous regions, prefectures, counties and banners, modelled on similar political structures in the Soviet Union dating back to the 1920s and 1930s. It can be argued that these arrangements have been remarkably successful from the point of view of the central government in Beijing. All the border regions that are governed as autonomous regions have remained within the prc since 1949; the 203

LESSER DRAGONS

revolts in Tibet in 1959 and the insurgency in Xinjiang since 1980 have to date been contained, even if they have not been defeated; and Inner Mongolian nationalism remains relatively ineffective. In the autonomous regions this system has resulted in the creation of political elites that include many influential figures from the ethnic minorities. The members of these elites are almost always sub­ ordinate to more senior, and predominantly Han Chinese, cadres, but they have been educated and trained by the ccp and owe their careers to the party. These regional elites have managed the difficult relations between the frontier territories and Beijing with some success, and have kept themselves in power. However, the autonomous regions were created in the early phase of state-building, during an era characterized by a tightly controlled political structure and a centralized and planned economy that was subject to rigid state planning. It is not at all clear whether they will continue to meet the challenges of an economy that is opening up, and government policies that encourage the creation of a new private sector with the emergence of a new urban middle class. Beijing-trained senior ethnic-minority cadres could come under considerable pressure to choose between loyalty to the ccp and allegiance to their own communities. The success or failure of the Western Development Programme will depend on whether it can manage the growing ethnic tension that is becoming apparent as the economy of the west develops and its people enjoy increasing contact with both the rest of China and neighbouring countries. The plan has had limited success in the economic development of the western regions: the gdp of these frontier territories has undoubtedly increased, but so has that of the eastern seaboard, and the gap between the two has not narrowed as much as was hoped. The original Western Development Programme did not address the ethnic issues directly, but the deployment of resources under the programme has had an impact on ethnic relations and the selective allocation of these resources has been used as a mechanism to control ethnic tension. The Western Development Programme has had only limited success in improving the economy of China’s western regions. On 9 December 2016 the State Council issued a ‘poverty alleviation plan’, as part of the national Thirteenth Five Year Plan to run from 2016 to 2020. The Chinese cabinet called for ‘deeper and closer 204

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

collaboration between provinces from the developed east and still-developing west of China, in an effort to bridge the regional development gap and meet the government’s target of eliminating poverty by 2020’. It emphasized the need for the wealthier eastern provinces to assist in the development of the western areas, with which many of them are formally twinned, and to channel funding to them. The Western Development Programme was not mentioned by name in the Global Times report on the State Council directive, but the document is a clear indication that hopes for the success of the earlier initiative had not been realized.4 Regional autonomy and ethnicity: The White Paper of 2005 Although most official statements on the Western Development Programme have ignored or played down the ethnic dimension of regional issues, these issues were addressed directly in ‘Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China’, a White Paper issued by the Information Office of the State Council on 28 February 2005.5 The White Paper made it clear that the government was still planning to rely on the existing structures of regional autonomy to manage ethnic relations, and as an authoritative and wide-ranging policy statement, it is worth examining in some detail. The document reiterated the standard argument that, of the 56 ethnic groups identified in China, the 55 other than the Han are ‘relatively small, so they are customarily referred to as “ethnic minorities”’. It quoted the fifth national census, carried out in 2000, in which the total population of the 55 ethnic-minority groups was recorded as 104.49 million, 8.41 per cent of the total population of the prc. Regional autonomy, it goes on to say, is ‘critical to enhancing the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among different ethnic groups, to upholding national unification, and to accelerating the development of places where regional autonomy is practised and promoting their progress’. Interestingly, it proceeds to discuss the history of ‘customary rule’ by non-Han leaders over their own communities during the imperial period, and specifically mentions the system in Xinjiang under which local begs (wealthy and powerful leaders of Uyghur communities) were responsible for the government of their own districts. The document also praises Hui and Inner Mongolian resistance to attempts by the invading Japanese in the 205

LESSER DRAGONS

1930s to persuade them to establish separate regimes, while castigat­ ing the ‘separatists’ of Eastern Turkestan, Tibet and Manchukuo, thus clearly defining those who are inside and those who are outside the project of national unity represented by the ccp and the prc. The White Paper acknowledges that, even after more than half a century of rule by the ccp, ‘the level of economic and social development in these [ethnic-minority] regions is relatively backward,’ and the introductory section concludes by arguing that: Regional autonomy for ethnic minorities enables them to bring into play their regional advantages and promote exchanges and cooperation between minority areas and other areas and consequently quickens the pace of modernisation both in the minority areas and the country as a whole and helps achieve the common development of all regions and prosperity for all ethnic groups.

Although this reads as if the task had already been accomplished, it remains largely an aspiration in many of the minority regions. In the fourth section of the White Paper, the development of ethnic autonomous areas is linked explicitly with the Western Development Programme: To accelerate the development of China’s western regions and ethnic autonomous areas, the Chinese government launched a grand strategy for the development of western China in 2000, which covers five autonomous regions, 27 autonomous prefectures and 83 of the 120 autonomous counties (banners) [‘banners’ being a translation of the Mongolian term khoshun, which is used for the lowest-level administrative subdivisions in Inner Mongolia]. In addition three other autonomous prefectures are allowed to enjoy the preferential policies the state has adopted for the western regions.

This reinforces the impression that the development of the economies of minority areas and the promotion of prosperity for all ethnic groups are not only the priorities for the state but also the ultimate answer to problems of ethnicity. The White Paper then lists a series of ten key measures designed to achieve these objectives: 206

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

1) Speeding up development in ethnic-minority areas. This gives no more than a broad-brush statement of general policy, which merely repeats the underlying principle that economic development is the answer to ethnic problems. The Western Development strategy is the most significant example of this. 2) Infrastructure projects. A number of specific projects were included in the Western Development Programme. Among the most notable are the West–East Gas Pipeline; the West–East Power Transmission Project; the Qinghai–Tibet railway; and other railways, including the Southern Xinjiang line. Projects in Tibet, and transport projects in general, were singled out in the White Paper for special emphasis. 3) Financial support for autonomous areas. Subsidies and special funding for minority areas had been in place since 1955 and were maintained after the financial reforms of 1994. Additional financial support was made available to minority areas in 1995, but further subsidies were clearly necessary, and this was raised again in the State Council document on poverty alleviation that was released on 9 December 2016. 4) Environmental protection measures. Environmental protection was one of the major political concerns of Wen Jiabao during his term as head of the government from 2003 to 2013. Measures to protect the environment are regarded as relatively uncontentious, since protecting the patrimony of China is deemed a patriotic activity. The frequent conflicts between the demands of environmental protection and economic development, for example the clashes involving Inner Mongolian herders and mining companies, were not addressed in this White Paper. 5) Educational projects. Universal nine-year compulsory education remains an aspiration rather than reality for many poorer communities in the ethnic autonomous areas. To achieve this key target is the responsibility of the Compulsory Education Project for Impoverished Areas. The White Paper highlighted the special provisions that had been introduced to increase the number of ethnic-minority students in universities and colleges. Positive discrimination, including the acceptance of lower entrance requirements for students from non-Han backgrounds, has assisted them in entering higher education, although it has also generated r­ esentment among the Han. 207

LESSER DRAGONS

6) Poverty alleviation. The desperate need for action on poverty in the ethnic-minority regions is indicated by the decision of the state to establish the Food and Clothing Fund for Impoverished Ethnic Minority Areas in 1990 and the seven-year ‘programme for delivering 80 million people from poverty’ in 1994. A new scheme associated with the Western Development Programme was initiated in 2000: the ‘More Prosperous Frontiers and Better-off People’ programme, designed to address the problems of poor infrastructure and food and clothing supplies in the impoverished minority regions. The new initiative, announced by the State Council on 9 December 2016 and mentioned above, is indicative of the limited success of the earlier schemes and the need for further action. 7) Social welfare. According to the White Paper, the state had already invested rmb1.37 billion (£160 million) in public health and related projects in the minority areas. Radio and television coverage was also extended to these regions as electricity became available. 8) External relations. Wider access to trade, both with foreign states across the international borders and between neighbouring counties within China, was essential for improving the economic position of minorities. The White Paper envisioned that this access would be encouraged by the decentralization of decision-making to local enterprises. 9) Twinning. The White Paper noted that, under the Western Development Programme, developing regions of China had been twinned with more developed regions in the east. For example, the Xinjiang city of Kashgar was twinned with the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in Guangdong Province.6 Twinning is not an entirely new phenomenon, and there are examples of similar arrangements that date back to the late 1970s, so this constitutes another example of the government reverting to tried-and-tested policies. 10) Preferential fiscal policies. Finally, the White Paper noted that preferential policies on loans and taxation for ethnic-minority businesses had been introduced in June 1997. The official conclusion in this key government document on the performance of the autonomous regions is that the ‘system and practice of China’s regional ethnic autonomy have been immensely successful.’ The White Paper rehearsed a wide range of statistics to demonstrate that the autonomous areas had enjoyed rapid economic growth; living standards, as measured by per capita 208

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

net income and housing conditions, had improved, as had the infrastructure in minority regions. Traditional cultures had also been protected and promoted, it claimed, and this assertion was supported by details such as the number of books that had been published in ethnic-minority languages, the creation of specialist computer software for use with these languages, and the establishment of research institutes specializing in the art, literature and other cultural activities of the minorities. The level of education in the minority areas was also said to have been raised significantly, with increased enrolment by ethnic-minority students in schools and colleges; health services had similarly been improved. Foreign trade and tourism were also said to be at an all-time high in the minority areas. The evidence adduced is impressive, and it is clear from observations on the ground made by the author over a period of some 30 years that many improvements have been made in the infrastructure of the western regions, the most obvious being the construction of road and rail links, often through the most difficult terrain, and the development of facilities for transporting water to the arid zones. However, it is by no means clear to what extent minority commun­ ities have particularly benefited from all these improvements. In many cases it is Han migrants to the regions, or Han commun­ ities living in other parts of China, that have benefited most from investment and employment opportunities. The statistics cited in the White Paper have all been produced by official bodies rather than independent studies, and it is interesting that the issue of ethnic-­minority culture is at the very end of the White Paper. This leaves the impression that culture, which in its broadest sense is what defines ethnic groups, has been added as an afterthought in a ­document that focuses almost entirely on economic progress.7 The role of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission The task of managing relations among ethnic groups in China is shared by a broad range of party and government institutions at different levels, but one institution at the highest level of central government, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (seac, Guojia minzu shiwu weiyuanhui), has major responsibilities in this field. In the words of the Chinese government, 209

LESSER DRAGONS

The State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the People’s Republic of China is one of the departments of the State Council. The State Ethnic Affairs Commission is responsible for the implementation of the policies of the ccp and theories on nationality research and national education. It also supervises the implementation – and monitors the performance – of regional national autonomy systems and the handling of matters related to the protection of rights and interests of minority nationalities.8

The seac operates directly under the State Council, the body that carries out many of the functions that would be the responsibility of a cabinet in Western parliamentary governments. It is thus an organ of government rather than of the ccp, to which it is subordinate, and it has the authority to implement state policy within the terms set by the party. Its foundation is dated to 22 October 1949, and it received its current title in 1954 at the National People’s Congress during the relatively tolerant period known as New Democracy. It was abolished in June 1970 during the Cultural Revolution, when support for ethnic-minority concerns was labelled reactionary because it ran counter to Mao’s thinking, but was restored in 1978 at the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s reform programme. Although its political powers are limited, the seac is important because of its advisory role in policy formulation and implementation, and its control of a wide range of educational, research and publishing activities and minority-related international relations. It also has direct control of a number of influential institutions. These include Minzu University (Central Nationalities University) in Beijing, which is the leading higher-education body dealing with ethnic-minority affairs; five regional universities; cadre­ training colleges; a publishing house, the Nationalities Press; the Nationalities Song and Dance troupe; the Nationalities Museum in Beijing (including the Culture Park); and a newspaper. This provides the seac with both comprehensive oversight and a great measure of control over all public activities in the field of ethnicity and nationalities throughout China. It cannot direct policy towards ethnic-minority areas, but it can deploy its expertise to influence the ccp and the government.9

210

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

Wang Zhengwei and the seac The appointment in March 2013 of Wang Zhengwei as director and Communist Party secretary of the seac met with a lukewarm reception from critics both inside and outside China. Wang, who succeeded the promoted Yang Jing (who, in spite of his Chinesesounding name, was originally from Inner Mongolia and of Mongol heritage), is an ethnic Hui Muslim from Tongxin, in the centre of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Wang also serves as deputy chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the advisory body that has provided a voice for non-party and minority interests since 1949 but which has little direct influence on government policy. Critics argued that although Wang, as a Hui, has some special insight into the problems of the Hui, the Uyghurs and other minorities, particularly Muslim groups, his real political influence is very limited. It is certainly the case that the focus of the seac’s brief is on education and propaganda, and it has relatively little direct influence on policy, above all policy towards those regions where there are the most problematic minority disputes. For example, government policy on Tibet is managed by the United Front Work Department of the Communist Party Central Committee, and the insurgency in Xinjiang is dealt with directly by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, also a top-level Communist Party group, which has control over the entire internal security apparatus of China, including the police. As with all political bodies in China, these party organizations outrank their equivalents in the government. At the time of writing, Wang also held senior positions (at the level of deputy chairman or the equivalent) on both of these bodies, and was a member of the ccp’s Central Committee, so he was not without personal influence over these complex matters.10 Wang, writing in Qiushi, the official bimonthly journal of the Communist Party Central Committee, in July 2015, set out the position of the seac and the ccp on the role of minorities in the context of the new ‘One Belt, One Road’ strategy that emerged from President Xi Jinping’s visit to Central Asia in September and October 2013. Wang’s article led the issue and must therefore have been regarded as particularly significant by the Central Committee. He argued that, although it was essential to thwart attempts by extremists to infiltrate these regions, China should make particular 211

LESSER DRAGONS

efforts to use the linguistic and cultural connections that its ethnic minorities in its western regions have with neighbouring states. These links should be treated as assets in improving economic relations with states across the borders, rather than as threats, and would contribute to the development of China’s impoverished border areas. He named various border towns and cities, including Manjuur (Manzhouli) and Erenhot (Erlianhaote) in Inner Mongolia, Dongxing in Guangxi, and Kashgar and Khorgas in Xinjiang, all of which had the potential to become focal points for economic development. The tone of the article was an interesting acknowledgement that many of China’s 55 officially recognized minority peoples, whether from sizeable communities such as Tibetans and Mongols or smaller groups such as the Evenki of the far north, suffer in desperate poverty. This lack of economic development is acknowledged by some in government circles as the main cause of unrest in Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia – or, at least, it is the only one that they are prepared to concede. Wang Zhengwei, as head of the seac, argued that it was high time to promote the economic benefits to be gained by China from its minorities and the benefits that could also accrue to those minorities and the regions in which they live. He drew attention to the fact that eight foreign countries on the borders of China are the home of ethnic groups that also have a significant presence in China, but pointed out that cultural links much further afield could also be exploited. In Xinjiang, Ningxia and other areas there were, he pointed out, many Muslims with religious and cultural ties to Arab countries; in Tibet, Yunnan and other border areas there are also Buddhists who should find it easy to forge cultural links with Buddhists on the Indochina peninsula. None of this thinking is entirely new, and much of it builds on the idea of the Western Development Programme to enhance the living standards of the people in China’s far west, which, as we have seen, has had limited success since its launch in 2000 in alleviating the poverty of ethnic minorities. What is interesting about Wang’s article is that, in contrast to many official pronouncements on ethnic affairs, he is extremely positive in arguing that minority commun­ ities should not be seen primarily as a threat to the unity of China; they could bring great benefits for the economic prosperity and political stability of the nation as a whole.11 212

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

‘OpinionsonStrengtheningandImprovingEthnicWorkinNewSituations’ On 22 December 2014 a new paper dealing with minority ethnic policies, ‘Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Ethnic Work in New Situations’, was published jointly by the Central Committee and the State Council. This double imprimatur indicates that it is highly authoritative and has the support of senior figures in both the Communist Party and the government. According to the official news agency, Xinhua, In a document released on Monday, the central government promised to cultivate and appoint more officials from minority groups and ensure they are given ‘full trust’. The document – ‘Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Ethnic Work in New Situations’ – gives special attention to the cultivation of intellectuals in ethnically diverse regions, especially those from minority backgrounds.12

This seemingly enlightened move was incongruous in view of the draconian and vindictive sentencing the previous September of Ilham Tohti, the most prominent Uyghur intellectual working within the prc system, to life imprisonment and the confiscation of his assets for activities purportedly connected with ‘separatism’ but essentially referring to the independent website that he had established to discuss Xinjiang’s problems and possible solutions. Seven of his students, who had worked with him on the website, were imprisoned for shorter terms. This new high-level paper on strengthening and improving ethnic work also insisted on the importance of promoting ‘understanding among different ethnic groups and the cultural identity of the Chinese nation’, and this provides a key to some of the contradictory positions in which the Xi Jinping administration finds itself. Understanding among ethnic groups is important, but the cultural identity of the ‘Chinese nation’, which in practice means the Handominated culture of the ccp, is paramount. The document also called on ethnic-minority officials to ensure that they had a good command of Standard Chinese, the national language; it also strongly advised officials from a Han background to study the languages of the areas to which they had been assigned, 213

LESSER DRAGONS

rather than assuming that they would be able to operate entirely through the medium of Chinese. This is far from being a new idea – it was advocated many times, typically in the early 1950s, just before the Cultural Revolution, and in the 1980s – but it has generally been honoured more in the breach than in the observance. For example, several textbooks have been published in Xinjiang over the years to assist cadres in learning the Uyghur language, which is part of the Turkic family and completely unfamiliar to Chinese speakers. Some of these books are useful and one, Meizhou yijuhua (A Sentence a Week), was published in the 1980s in conjunction with a television series. It presented practical dialogues on everyday situations and was noteworthy in avoiding the unsophisticated political slogans that marred similar, earlier works. Other textbooks on the Uyghur language that have subsequently appeared in the bookshops of Xinjiang are stiffly formal and emphasize language that would be used by Han cadres giving orders to Uyghur subordinates; they offer little in the way of the background information on Uyghur life and culture that an enlightened official would require. They are remin­iscent of books on Hindustani or other South Asian languages produced for British civilian officials and military officers in India, many of them distinguished by their emphasis on the use of the verb in the imperative mood. The policy document also envisaged the development of a body of bilingual teachers who would be able to teach Standard Chinese to ethnic-minority students while ‘respecting the local tongue’. Many of the best-educated members of ethnic-minority communities are already bilingual in Chinese and their own language, but bilingual education is often viewed as threatening by non-Han communities. Many see it as a stealthy attempt to replace local languages with Chinese, rather than an attempt to achieve a genuinely bilingual community. This is understandable, since the drive towards bilingualism is one-sided and there is no real incentive for Han Chinese officials to become bilingual in a minority language, although some do. The document concludes with a reaffirmation of the only established long-term ccp strategy for resolving tension in ethnic­-minority areas: economic development. The assumption of party leaders, and intellectuals in the most influential think tanks, con­ tinues to be that investment in infrastructure and development and the inevitable prosperity that will follow will eventually eradicate 214

Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict

ethnic tension and even ethnic differences. Experience and the ­evidence presented above suggest that this is at best wishful thinking. Tourism and minorities One aspect of the economic development of minority regions that has been emphasized by official publications is tourism. Minorities, and especially their national dress, songs, dances and cuisine, feature prominently in publicity and propaganda about the regions in which they live, usually as an illustration of the beneficial effects of state policy. Non-Han communities are increasingly seen as a magnet for tourists, both Chinese and international, and their customs and ceremonies have been adapted – some would say corrupted – to appeal to visitors in search of the exotic. This benefits the state and also provides a means by which members of minority groups can earn extra income, but it does so at a cost. This is a dilemma that is far from peculiar to China. In North America a tourist industry has grown up around the American Indian cultures that had been virtually obliterated by the end of the nineteenth century, but have enjoyed a revival as more attention has been paid to these peoples and the precarious position of their societies. The manufacture and sale of souvenirs and the staging of traditional dance performances in Native American communities or reservations often presents ‘stereotyped and ultimately degrading images’ of the peoples, who are able to generate an income ‘as long as they conform to reassuring white stereotypes of the primitive’.13 The same criticism can be made of parallel developments in China: the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park that was introduced at the beginning of this book is just one glaring example. In Xinjiang it is possible for foreign or Chinese tourists to ride with Kazakhs in traditional dress and listen to elaborately staged performances of the Twelve Muqam – formal rhythmic and melodic sequences of classical Uyghur music – while in complete ignorance of the conflict between many of the Uyghurs and the Chinese state. In Yinchuan, the local government has established a Hui tea house where a trad­ itional local spiced tea, Eight Treasure Tea (babao gaiwancha), is drunk to the accompaniment of music and songs. These are provided by young women dressed in diaphanous and floating robes that under normal circumstances are never seen in Ningxia and have 215

LESSER DRAGONS

the appearance of costumes in an Arabian Nights fantasy film. This epitomizes the debasement of minority cultures in which the minorities themselves are obliged to collude for economic and political reasons; as with the parallel developments in North America, there is a danger that these ersatz versions of minority cultural activities will be confused with the originals.

216

Conclusion: Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Xi Jinping

E

ven in the relatively open culture of the post-Mao reform period, there has been great reluctance to discuss publicly the serious problems in ethnic relations that have arisen in Tibet and Xinjiang and that are increasingly apparent in Inner Mongolia. The state-controlled media presents the official analysis, which, especially under the dogmatic and intolerant administration of Xi Jinping, is expected to be followed unquestioningly. Nevertheless, there has been for some years a realization by more open-minded Chinese academic specialists and policymakers that ethnic conflict is likely to worsen as market forces and increased mobility facilitate greater communication and competition among ethnic groups, and that current policies are inadequate to deal with them. James Leibold, writing in 2013, pointed to the willingness of those Chinese intellectuals who were involved in ethnic-minority affairs to consider a new range of solutions, discarding the old policies (which were effectively derivative of those devised in the Soviet Union in the Stalin period) and ushering in a ‘second generation’, a radical new direction of political thinking on minority affairs. Although the range of ideas put forward by this ‘second generation’ was wide, there was particular interest in adopting a version of what they understood as the famous ‘melting-pot’ approach of the United States and implementing policy measures that would reduce the emphasis on ethnic identity, to which great importance is attached and which is marked on the identity documents of all citizens of China.1 The work of the sociologist Ma Rong of Beijing University is central to this new thinking. Ma, who is of Hui (Muslim Chinese) origin, 217

LESSER DRAGONS

was a student of Fei Xiaotong and, like Fei, has also studied abroad, in his case in the United States. Ma’s approach is broad-minded and liberal in the Chinese context, but to a large extent it coincides with the underlying orthodox thinking of enhancing integration and encouraging movement towards a pan-Chinese identity. One of the underlying concepts of his approach is the depoliticization of ethnicity, and this has been promoted as a new theoretical approach to the study of ethnic questions for more than a decade. It is an approach that has aroused great interest, not only in the Chinese academic community, but also in government departments that deal with minority affairs. Much of Ma’s thinking involves the transformation of the language with which ethnic issues are discussed: this is a positive contribution, since it helps to move discussion away from the highly politicized and outdated concept of ‘minority nationalities’, which for decades has restricted and stultified debate and has not yielded any fresh approaches. In itself, however, it does not produce new policy solutions, and it is unlikely to impress thinkers from the ethnic-minority communities, who will perceive it as just another way of repressing the aspirations of their people. Ma is far from a lone voice, and a school of thought has grown up around his views, but this thinking has also attracted fierce opposition from those within the Chinese policy establishment who retain an attachment to the ‘minority nationalities’ approach, in the belief that it has worked and that to abandon it risks allowing the rise of destructive ethnic nationalism.2 The discourse on future ethnic policy associated with Ma Rong emerged during the period when Hu Jintao was president and ccp general secretary and Wen Jiabao was premier. It was a time when the expression of a degree of independent thought was permitted within the ccp and the government, even on occasion from the premier. The administration of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, which succeeded Hu and Wen when the new government was formally ratified by the National People’s Congress held in March 2013, faced challenges of increasing unpredictability in the global economic environment and potential domestic instability. The Chinese economy continued to expand, although more slowly than at the height of its growth spurt in the early years of the twenty-first century, when an increase in gdp of 10 per cent a year was beginning to be regarded as the norm. 218

Conclusion: Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Xi Jinping

After the rise to power of Xi Jinping in 2012, it became increasingly clear that even the limited open-mindedness of the Hu and Wen period would no longer be tolerated. Xi has attempted to impose an ideological straitjacket on the entire national discourse, particularly on contentious subjects: there is no room for dissent or deviation from the government’s rigid political position. Unconventional analyses and open discussion have been ruled out, and the imprisonment of the noted economist and Central Nationalities University professor Ilham Tohti for running a website to discuss alternative ways of resolving the conflict in Xinjiang is the clearest evidence for this. Chinese society has changed radically in character from the politically unsophisticated Mao era when uniformity and equality (however notional or superficial) were the rule. Part of the challenge faced by any government of China in these circumstances is the management of conflict, including ethnic conflict. Whether the lesser dragons of the minorities will combine to work with the greater dragon of the Han majority, or whether they will assert themselves in ways that continue old conflicts or create new ones, will be an important determinant of China’s future stability and a measure of the success of the administration of Xi and Li. At the time of writing, the summer of 2017, the political climate has effectively imposed a freeze on the public discussion of any alternative approaches to minority issues. That will not prevent specialists such as Ma Rong from thinking or writing, but it is likely to inhibit them from publishing their views, and a major change may be required in the political atmosphere before policy alternatives can once again be aired publicly. A deeper problem, however, is that the ideas associated with Ma and his school are not new. They may be expressed in different terms, but they are really a reiteration of the old concept of a Zhongguoren pan-Chinese identity that has been part of the state-building ideology of the ccp since 1949, and which before that underpinned the thinking of the elites of the republican period. These ideas, like the older version, will continue to find favour with the Han majority but not among the minorities, particularly since they are frequently associated with reducing or abandoning such preferential treatment as ethnic-minority groups have enjoyed. The policies of the ccp and the representation of ethnic minorities in the official Chinese media exhibit a disquieting detachment 219

LESSER DRAGONS

from the lives of non-Han people. Not all ethnic minorities live in a permanent state of tension with the authorities or the state, and neither do they all suffer direct discrimination every day, but for many if not most there is a constant perception that they are treated as second-class citizens. For some, genuine oppression is an everyday reality. The daily lives of the minorities in southern China do not usually feature in the headlines of the international press, and their experiences are in many cases no better or worse than those of their Han neighbours. It is in the troubled regions of the Inner Asian borderlands – Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia – that ethnic relations are frequently characterized by religio-political antagonism and from time to time by direct conflict with other communities or with the authorities. Reports of such conflicts provide insights that are not otherwise readily available, and these frontier disputes are considered by both the Chinese authorities and the international community to be of great significance. Little has changed for minority communities in northern and western China during the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Independent, objective and balanced reports on these regions can be difficult to obtain, and in order to construct the most accurate portrayal possible, it is necessary to use information provided by official sources as well as material from groups supporting dissident causes, even though the data obtained is often difficult to reconcile. Much of minority China remains unreported in the Western media and many non-Han people live peaceful and uneventful lives, even as others endure privations and severe repression. The minorities are here to stay. They are unlikely to be absorbed into the Han majority in the near future, in spite of the wishes of some Han people that this should happen and the fears of some minority peoples that they are in danger of losing their languages, their cultures and their identities. Neither will the conflicts that have bedevilled the frontier regions fade away. The Chinese state will continue to suppress dissent; minority groups will continue to resist. Some activists will continue to insist on their right to independence; the Chinese state will never willingly agree. Minorities will struggle to have their voices heard; the Chinese state will attempt to suppress any dissent and will continue to censor news of organized oppos­ ition or even discussions of which it does not approve. Minority 220

Conclusion: Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Xi Jinping

groups and the state may modify their policies and their tactics, but neither will abandon their fundamental position. A successful accommodation between minority activists and the Chinese state is unlikely, but there will be periods of relative calm and episodes of great but probably localized violence. What is certain is that the destiny of the minorities is inextricably intertwined with the political culture of the Chinese state, and under Xi Jinping there is no evidence of any softening of its stance towards ethnic minorities.

221

China’s National Minorities (shaoshu minzu) Name of minority group

Pinyin name with tones

2010 population

Han Zhuang Hui Manchu Uyghur Hmong Yi Tujia Tibetan Mongol Dong Bouyei Yao Bai Korean Hani Li Kazak Dai She Lisu Dongxiang Gelao Lahu Wa Sui Naxi Qiang Tu

Hàn Zú Zhuàng Zú Huí Zú Mǎn Zú Wéiwú’ěr Zú Miáo Zú Yí Zú Tǔjiā Zú Zàng Zú Měnggǔ Zú Dòng Zú Bùyī Zú Yáo Zú Bái Zú Cháoxiǎn Zú Hāní Zú Lí Zú Hāsàkè Zú Dǎi Zú Shē Zú Lìsù Zú Dōngxiāng Zú Gēlǎo Zú Lāhù Zú Wǎ Zú Shuǐ Zú Nàxī Zú Qiāng Zú Tǔ Zú

1,220,844,520 16,926,381 10,586,087 10,387,958 10,069,346 9,426,007 8,714,393 8,353,912 6,282,187 5,981,840 2,879,974 2,870,034 2,796,003 1,933,510 1,830,929 1,660,932 1,463,064 1,462,588 1,261,311 708,651 702,839 621,500 550,746 485,966 429,709 411,847 326,295 309,576 289,565

222

Name of minority group

Pinyin name with tones

Mulao Xibe Kirgiz Jingpo Daur Salar Blang Maonan Tajik Pumi Achang Nu Ewenki Gin Jino Deang Bonan Russ Yugur Uzbek Monba Oroqen Derung Hezhen Gaoshan Lhoba Tatar unclassified

Mùlǎo Zú Xībó Zú Kē’ěrkèzī Zú Jǐngpō Zú Dáwò’ěr Zú Sālā Zú Bùlǎng Zú Máonán Zú Tǎjíkè Zú Pǔmǐ Zú Āchāng Zú Nù Zú Èwēnkè Zú Jīng Zú Jīnuò Zú Dé’áng Zú Bǎo’ān Zú Éluósī Zú Yùgù Zú Wūzībiékè Zú Ménbā Zú Èlúnchūn Zú Dúlóng Zú Hèzhé Zú Gāoshān Zú Luòbā Zú Tǎtǎ’ěr Zú Wèi Shìbié Mínzú

2010 population

216,257 190,481 186,708 147,828 131,992 130,607 119,639 101,192 51,069 42,861 39,555 37,523 30,875 28,199 23,143 20,556 20,074 15,393 14,378 10,569 10,561 8,659 6,930 5,354 4,009 3,682 3,556 640,101

Source: People’s Republic of China 2010 Census, www.stats.gov.cn 223

References

Introduction: Dragons, Majorities and Minorities 1 Zhu Weizheng, Chongdu jindai lishi (Rereading Modern History) (Shanghai, 2010), p. 134. 2 E.T.C. Werner, A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (New York, 1961), pp. 285–97. 3 Kaare Grønbech and John R. Krueger, Introduction to Classical (Literary) Mongolian (Wiesbaden, 1955), pp. 102–6. 4 ‘China to Favor Minority Officials in Ethnically Diverse Regions’, Xinhua News Agency, 22 December 2014. 5 Pamela Kyle Crossley, Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World (Princeton, nj, 1990), pp. 47–73. 6 Chalmers Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Stanford, ca, 1962), pp. 1–30, and throughout. 7 Michael Dillon, China: A Modern History (London, 2010), pp. 355–69. 8 These observations are based on interviews and informal conversations in China about minority affairs over the past 35 years. 9 Sunil Janah, The Tribals of India (Calcutta, 1993), p. 15. 10 David Ownby, Falungong and the Future of China (Oxford and New York, 2008), p. ix and throughout. 11 Emily Honig, ‘Native Place and the Making of Chinese Ethnicity’, in Remapping China: Fissures in Historical Terrain, ed. Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, Jonathan N. Lipmann and Randall Stross (Stanford, ca, 1996), pp. 143–55. 12 There are many technical studies of dna testing and it is difficult for a non-specialist to assess their validity. One recent example that focuses on the northern Han, as distinct from the southern Han, is Yongbin Zhao et al., ‘Ancient dna Reveals that the Genetic Structure of the Northern Han Chinese Was Shaped Prior to 3,000 Years Ago’, PLoS One, x/5 (2015), e0125676, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Studies of liumin, variously translated as ‘vagabonds’, ‘migrants’ and ‘refugees’, include Lu Deyang, Liumin shi (Shanghai, 1997); Jiang Weihua and Sun Hongtao, Zhongguo liumin shi (gudai juan) (Hefei, 2001); and Chi Zihua, Zhongguo jindai liumin (Hangzhou, 1997). 13 Fei Xiaotong, Towards a People’s Anthropology (Beijing, 1981), pp. 53–7; 225

LESSER DRAGONS



E. Yitai, ‘Jinian Fei Xiaotong xiansheng tansheng yibai zhounian’ (Commemorating the Centenary of the Birth of Mr Fei Xiaotong), www.dem-league.org.cn, 18 February 2015; Fei Xiaotong, ‘Plurality and Unity in the Configuration of the Chinese People’, Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 15 and 17 November 1988.

1: Evolution of Ethnic Classification and Policies

1 Zhang Binglin, Qiushu (Book of Compulsion) (Shenyang, 1994), pp. 295–7; Kai-wing Chow, Routledge Curzon Encyclopedia of Confucianism (London, 2003), pp. 796–8. 2 Sun Yat-sen, ‘Lecture on Race and Population’, 27 January 1924, in Leonard S. Hsű, Sun Yat-sen: His Political and Social Ideals (Los Angeles, ca, 1933), pp. 168–9. 3 Huang Guangxue, ed., Dangdai Zhongguo de minzu gongzuo (Beijing, 1993), 2 vols, pp. 66–71, vol. i, pp. 470–74, vol. ii; Fei Xiaotong, Towards a People’s Anthropology (Beijing, 1981), pp. 53–7. 4 Huang, Dangdai Zhongguo de minzu gongzuo, pp. 470–74. 5 Fei, Towards a People’s Anthropology, pp. 60–77. 6 Huang, Dangdai Zhongguo de minzu gongzuo, pp. 102–11. 7 Ke Fan, ‘Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Socialist China’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, xxxix/12 (2016), pp. 2091–107; Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi, ‘Blurring Boundaries and Negotiating Subjectivies: The Uyghurized Han of Southern Xinjiang, China’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, xxxix/12 (2016), pp. 2187–204. 8 Huang Guangxue and Lianzhu Shi, eds, Zhongguo de minzu shibie (Ethnic Identification in China) (Beijing, 2005), p. 162, cited in Ke, ‘Representation’. 9 Huang, Dangdai Zhongguo de minzu gongzuo, pp. 124–45, 474–7. 10 Baba Phuntsok Wangyal, Witness to Tibet’s History (New Delhi, 2007), pp. 27–37, 38–44. 11 Author interviews with mayor and ccp secretary in Jingyuan, 26 October 2001. 12 Mi Xingang, ‘Ningixa Islamic Financial Centre’, www.china.org.cn, 19 December 2012; Arno Maierbrugger, ‘Hong Kong, Ningxia to Emerge as China’s Islamic Finance Centres’, Gulf Times, 12 May 2015.

2: Multicultural Beijing Past and Present: Lama Temple and Chinese Ethnic Culture Park 1 Susan Naquin, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley, ca, 2000), pp. 493–4; Isaac Taylor Headland, Court Life in China (New York, 1909), p. 338. 2 Liu Yanjiang and Du Dianwen, eds, Yonghe Gong: Famous Temple in Beijing (Beijing, 1995), p. 4. 3 ‘Beijing Lama Temple Donates Buddha Statue to Mongolia’, China Tibet Online, 16 June 2014. 4 Author’s interview with senior lama at the Yonghegong, October 226

References



2000; Yi Yuzheng, Yonghegong (Beijing, 1995); Liu and Du, Yonghe Gong, pp. 1–60; Wang Shu, ed., Lamasery of Harmony and Peace (Beijing, 2002); Tarab Tulku, A Brief History of Academic Degrees in Buddhist Philosophy (Copenhagen, 2000), pp. 18–24; Li Yao, ‘Lamas Dance with the “Devil” at Beijing Temple’, China Daily, 12 March 2013; Sechin Jagchid and Paul Hyer, Mongolia’s Culture and Society (Boulder, co, 1979), pp. 126–30, 242, 378; Jan Fontein, The Dancing Demons of Mongolia (Amsterdam, 1999), pp. 38–45. 5 ‘Chinese Ethnic Culture Park (China Ethnic Museum)’, Travel China Guide, www.travelchinaguide.com (accessed August 2017). The official website in Chinese is www.emuseum.org.cn. 6 Ibid. 7 Author’s visits to the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, 2009. 8 Native American (and in Canada, First Nations) is the current accepted term, but the older name persists, not least in the Museums of the American Indian in Washington, dc, and New York.

3: Hakkas: A Han Majority 1 Myron L. Cohen, ‘The Hakka or “Guest People”: Dialect as a Sociocultural Variable in Southeastern China’, Ethnohistory, xv/3 (1968), pp. 237–92. 2 G. William Skinner, ‘Introduction’, in Sow-Theng Leong, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin and their Neighbours, ed. Tim Wright (Stanford, ca, 1997), pp. 1–18. 3 Barend J. ter Haar, ‘A New Interpretation of the Yao Charters’, in New Developments in Asian Studies: An Introduction, ed. Paul van der Velde and Alex McKay (London, 2011), pp. 12–13. 4 Leong, Migration and Ethnicity, pp. 40–68. 5 Ibid.; Cohen, ‘The Hakka’, pp. 237–92. 6 Leong, Migration and Ethnicity, p. 34; Ke Fan, ‘Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Socialist China’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, xxxix/12 (2016), pp. 2091–107; Ke Fan, ‘Ethnic Configuration and State-making: A Fujian Case’, Modern Asian Studies, xlvi/4 (2012), pp. 915–45. 7 Jonathan Spence, God’s Chinese Son (New York, 1996), is a reliable and readable account of Hong Xiuquan and the Taiping. 8 Xinhua News Agency, 17 October 2010. 9 Leong, Migration and Ethnicity, pp. 76–9. 10 Mary S. Erbaugh, ‘The Secret History of the Hakkas: The Chinese Revolution as a Hakka Enterprise’, China Quarterly, 132 (December 1992), pp. 937–68. 11 Michael Dillon, Deng Xiaoping: The Man who Made Modern China (London, 2014), pp. 53–4, 235–7.

4: Hui Muslims and their Neighbours in Northwest China 1 Michael Dillon, China’s Muslim Hui Community: Migrations, Settlements and Sects (Richmond, va, 1999), pp. 174–6. 227

LESSER DRAGONS

2 Chen Dasheng, ed., Quanzhou Yisilanjiao shike (Islamic Inscriptions from Quanzhou) (Fuzhou, 1984). 3 Michael Dillon, ‘Twentieth-century Qur’an Translations in the Hui Muslim Community of China: A Social History’, in The Qur’an and its Readers Worldwide: Contemporary Commentaries and Translations, ed. Suha Taji-Farouki (Oxford, 2016), pp. 533–65. 4 Dillon, China’s Muslim Hui Community, pp. 174–6. 5 Information obtained by the author on visits to these institutions at various times between 1988 and 2001. 6 Mu Qian, ‘Arabic Language Opens Doors for Chinese’, China Daily, 8 May 2013. 7 Guangming Daily, 22 December 2014. 8 Wu Jianwei, Zhongguo qingzhen zonglan (Survey of Mosques in China) (Yinchuan, 1995), pp. 1–13. 9 See www.china.org.cn, 22 April 2015.

5: Xinjiang and the Uyghurs 1 0000221 Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, Central Committee Document No. 7: Record of the Meeting of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Maintenance of Stability in Xinjiang (original title in Uyghur), 19 March 1996. 2 Michael Dillon, Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Far Northwest (London and New York, 2009), pp. 3–7. 3 Xinjiang Weiwuer Zizhiqu renmin zhengfu waishi bangongshi (Foreign Affairs Office of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region People’s Government), Xinjiang gailan (Survey of Xinjiang) (Urumqi, 1988). 4 The other autonomous regions are Tibet (1965), Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui (1958), all in the northwest and north of China, and Guangxi Zhuang (1958), in the southwest. There are also autonomous prefectures and counties within these regions and in Chinese provinces where there are concentrations of ethnic minority groups. 5 bbc Monitoring, 28 August 1998. Author’s visits to kariz sites in eastern Xinjiang, 1991 and 1998. 6 bbc Monitoring, 5 August 1997. 7 Michael Dillon, ‘Religion, Repression and Traditional Uyghur Culture in Southern Xinjiang: Kashgar and Khotan’, Central Asian Affairs, ii (2015), pp. 246–63, and observations by the author in the summer of 2010. 8 Alexandre Papas, Soufisme et politique entre Chine, Tibet et Turkestan (Paris, 2005). 9 Wang Wenheng, Xinjiang zong jiao wenti yanjiu (Studies on Religion in Xinjiang) (Urumqi, 1993), pp. 93–5. These figures appear to reflect only the registered and officially sanctioned mosques and other bodies. 10 Reyila Dawuti (Rayila Dawud), Weiwuerzu mazha wenhua yanjiu (Studies of Uyghur Mazar Culture) (Urumqi, 2001). 228

References

11 Thierry Zarcone, ‘Le Culte des saints au Xinjiang (de 1949 à nos jours)’, Journal of the History of Sufism, iii (2001), pp. 133–72. 12 Dillon, Xinjiang, pp. 56–9. 13 Yining is the Chinese name and Ghulja the Uyghur name for the city that lies in the Yili (Ili) region. 14 The Chinese authorities initially suppressed information about these disturbances, although details leaked out through émigré publications and the monitoring of local broadcast and print media by the bbc and Foreign Broadcast Information Service (fbis). In-depth accounts, heavily slanted towards the perspective of the Chinese government, were later published in Xu Yuqi and Chen Yishan, ed., Xinjiang fandui minzu fenliezhuyi douzheng shihua (Narrative History of the Struggle against Separatism in Xinjiang) (Urumqi, 1999), and Ma Dazheng, Guojia liyi gaoyu yiqie: Xinjiang wending wenti de guancha yu sikao (The Interests of the Nation are above Everything: Observations and Reflections on the Stability of Xinjiang) (Urumqi, 2003). See also two studies by Michael Dillon, Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Far Northwest (London, 2004) and ‘Uyghur Separatism and Nationalism in Xinjiang’, in Conflict, Terrorism and the Media in Asia, ed. Benjamin Cole (London, 2006), pp. 98–116. 15 Wang, Xinjiang zong jiao, pp. 91–2. 16 Some of the information used in this section has been provided in confidence and on the condition of anonymity. The author is particularly grateful for the assistance of those informants who had first-hand experience of the disturbances. 17 Reuters via bbc News, 6 March 2009. 18 Agence France-Press (Beijing and Tokyo), 5 July 2009; Times of India, 5 July 2009. 19 Information from Uyghur eyewitnesses who must remain anonymous. 20 bbc News, 18 July 2011; South China Morning Post, 18, 19, 20 and 21 July 2011; Global Times, Xinhua, 19 and 31 July 2011. 21 South China Morning Post, 1 November 2013; Radio Free Asia, 27 November 2013. 22 Radio Free Asia, 6 November 2013. 23 South China Morning Post, 3 November 2013; Radio Free Asia, 4 November 2013. 24 South China Morning Post, 17 November 2013; Radio Free Asia, 16, 20 and 22 November 2013. 25 China Daily, 24 March 2015. 26 Radio Free Asia, 25 September and 3 October 2014; South China Morning Post, 26 September 2014. 27 South China Morning Post, 23 September 2014. 28 Guardian (via Associated Press, Beijing), 21 November 2014. 29 Radio Free Asia, 27 March and 1 July 2015; bbc News, 9 July 2015; South China Morning Post, 10 July 2015; Global Times, 11 July 2015. 30 Dillon, ‘Uyghur Separatism’, p. 111. 31 Radio Free Asia, 13 July 2015. 32 Home Office, ‘Proscribed Terrorist Organisations’, 29 September 2017, www.gov.uk. 229

LESSER DRAGONS

33 For further information about conflict pre-1957, with reference to additional sources, see Michael Dillon, Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Far Northwest (London, 2004), pp. 51–5. 34 Radio Free Asia, 5 and 19 August, 13 June, 16 August, 18, 19 and 27 September, 24 October and 14 December 2016; South China Morning Post, 16 August and 12 October 2016. 35 Dahewang (Great River Web), website of the Henan Provincial Government, from Chen’s home province, 29 August 2016, http:// news.dahe.cn; ‘Monasteries Placed under New Controls’, Radio Free Asia, 16 March 2012; ‘Passports Taken, More Police . . . New Party Boss Chen Quanguo Acts to Tame Xinjiang with Methods Used in Tibet’, South China Morning Post, 12 December 2016; ‘Party Boss Chen Quanguo Replicating his Tibet Policy in Xinjiang’, Tibetan Review, 13 December 2016. 36 South China Morning Post, 12 December 2016; Radio Free Asia, 1 and 8 June 2017. 37 ‘Xinjiang Authorities Confiscate “Extremist” Qurans from Uyghur Muslims’, Radio Free Asia, 25 May 2017; ‘Muslim Uyghurs in China Fined, Sent to “Study Classes” for Observing Ramadan’, Radio Free Asia, 14 June 2017; ‘China Bans Uyghur Language in Xinjiang Schools’, Radio Free Asia, 28 July 2017.

6: Mongols of Inner Mongolia 1 Charles Bawden, The Modern History of Mongolia (London, 1968), pp. 1–39 and throughout; Baabar (B. Batbayar), History of Mongolia: From World Power to Soviet Satellite, ed. C. Kaplonski (Cambridge, 1999). 2 Colin Mackerras, China’s Minorities: Integration and Modernization in the Twentieth Century (Oxford and Hong Kong, 1994), pp. 76–7, 121–2. 3 Nicholas Poppe, Grammar of Written Mongolian (Wiesbaden, 1991), pp. 1–7; Jacques Legrand, Parlons Mongol (Paris, 1997), pp. 29–30, 47–53; author’s interview with Mongolian language specialists, Göttingen, September 2014. 4 Observations by the author during a visit to Alxa in October 2001; www.alsm.gov.cn. 5 Mackerras, China’s Minorities, pp. 163–4; Colin Mackerras, China’s Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation (London, 2003), pp. 46–7. 6 South China Morning Post, 2 April 2005. The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre is an émigré organization based in the usa. 7 South China Morning Post, 7 June 2011; author’s personal observations in Inner Mongolia in October and November 2001 confirm this analysis. 8 Michael Dillon, ‘Unrest in Inner Mongolia May 2011: Implications for Central Government Policy on Ethnic Minority Areas and the Career of Hu Chunhua’, briefing paper commissioned by Europe China Research and Advice Network (ecran) for European External Action Service, June 2011. 230

References

9 South China Morning Post, 26 May 2011. 10 South China Morning Post, 29 May 2011. 11 Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre, website, 30 May and 4 June 2011. 12 South China Morning Post, 31 May 2011. 13 South China Morning Post, 31 May 2011; bbc News, 30 May 2011; Global Times, 4 June 2011. 14 South China Morning Post, 9 June 2011; Global Times, 9 June 2011. 15 South China Morning Post, 31 May 2011; Xinhua (New China News Agency), 3 June 2011. 16 South China Morning Post, 2 June 2011. 17 Interviews by the author in Mongolia and Kazakhstan, 1990 and 1994. 18 Ulan Bator Post, 9 June 2011. 19 Xinhua, 9 June 2011; People’s Daily, 16 June 2011. 20 South China Morning Post, 3 June 2011. 21 Gao Tian, ed., Zhonggong di liudai (Chinese Communist Party: The Sixth Generation) (Hong Kong, 2010). 22 Ibid., pp. 14–16. Hu Yaobang, Hu Keshi and Hu Qili are other prominent politicians with a cyl background. 23 Ibid., pp. 47–50. 24 Radio Free Asia, 4 April 2012, 12 and 18 April, 13 June, 19 and 28 July, 12 August, 28 October, 23 November and 5 December 2016; South China Morning Post, 15 October 2016. ‘Two Ethnic Mongolians in Hospital after Clashes with Han Chinese Migrants’, Radio Free Asia, 9 June 2017.

7: Tibet and the Tibetans 1 For a balanced account of the relationship between Tibet and China, avoiding many of the partisan oversimplifications, see Dawa Norbu, China’s Tibet Policy (Richmond, va, 2001). Patrick French, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land (London, 2003), is a perceptive account of the relationship between Westerners and the Tibetan cause. 2 Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (Berkeley, ca, 1989), pp. 44–88; see also Patrick French, Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer (London, 1994). 3 Norbu, China’s Tibet Policy, p. 97. 4 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet; Melvyn C. Goldstein, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley, ca, 1997). 5 Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet since 1947 (London, 1999), pp. 163–211. 6 Ibid., pp. 314–47. 7 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, pp. 61–75. 8 Shakya, The Dragon, pp. 381–2. 9 Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, pp. 79–83. 10 Ibid., pp. 100–11. 231

LESSER DRAGONS

11 Robbie Barnett (for Tibet Information Network), Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head: Tightening Control in Tibet, 1994–1995 (New York, 1996), pp. 1–5, 6–12. 12 South China Morning Post, 29 June 2000. 13 Press Trust of India, New Delhi, 11 October 2000. 14 Author’s interview with Tibetan Buddhist nun, London, May 2006. 15 Financial Times, 9 January 2000; bbc News, 8 January 2000. 16 Agence France-Presse, 27 August 2000. 17 South China Morning Post, 30 September 2000. 18 Dawa Norbu, Red Star over Tibet (London, 1974). 19 Interview with Tibetan Buddhist nun. 20 Phayul.com, New Delhi, 17 March 2011. 21 Free Tibet, 10 July 2015; Radio Free Asia, 10 July 2015. 22 bbc News, 18 November 2011; Voice of America, 15 April 2015. 23 ‘Tibetan Self-immolator was Husband, Father of Three’, Radio Free Asia, 9 December 2016; ‘Tibetan Monk Sets Himself Ablaze in Qinghai in 150th Self-immolation’, Radio Free Asia, 19 May 2017. 24 Sophie Richardson, ‘China Poised to Repeat Tibet Mistakes: Abusive Policies Planned for Uyghur Region’, Human Rights Watch, 20 January 2017; www.Tibet.cn, 13 January 2016; ‘China: No End to Tibet Surveillance Program’, Human Rights Watch, 18 January 2016. 25 Dahewang (Great River Web), website of the Henan Provincial Government, from Chen’s home province, 29 August 2016, http:// news.dahe.cn; ‘Monasteries Placed under New Controls’, Radio Free Asia, 16 March 2012; ‘Passports Taken, More Police . . . New Party Boss Chen Quanguo Acts to Tame Xinjiang with Methods Used in Tibet’, South China Morning Post, 12 December 2016; ‘Party Boss Chen Quanguo Replicating his Tibet Policy in Xinjiang’, Tibetan Review, 13 December 2016. 26 ‘Larung Gar: China “Destroys Buildings” at Tibetan Buddhist Academy’, bbc News, 22 July 2016; ‘China Slaps Ban on New Students at Larung Gar Tibetan Academy’, Radio Free Asia, 9 December 2016; ‘Expelled Larung Gar Nuns Held in Camp in Kardze’, Radio Free Asia, 12 December 2016; ‘Destruction at Larung Gar Greater than Earlier Reported’, Radio Free Asia, 22 June 1917. 27 ‘China Publishes “Verified Living Buddha” List’, bbc News, 18 January 2016; ‘Training Course for New Living Buddhas Held’, Global Times, 6 November 2016.

8: Minorities of the Southwest: Yunnan Province 1 People’s Daily, 22 February 2001. 2 R. Elliott Kendall, Beyond the Clouds: The Story of Samuel Pollard of Southwest China (London, 1948), pp. 26, 71–82, 83–95. 3 Hsiao-t’ung Fei and Chih-I Chang (Fei Xiaotong and Zhang Zhiyi), Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan (London, 1948), pp. 9, 145, 215–16, 284. 4 Radio Free Asia, 16 October 2013. 5 Viet Chung, ‘National Minorities and Nationality Policy in the drv’, 232

References

Vietnamese Studies, xv (1968), pp. 1–23; Thanh Ha, ‘The Languages of National Minorities and the Creation or Improvement of their Scripts’, Vietnamese Studies, xv (1968), p. 135. 6 Cai Hua, A Society without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China (New York, 2001), pp. 35–7; Fu Ba, Naxi ren (The Naxi People) (Chengdu, 1993). 7 Wang Jianping, unpublished article; private information given to the author by an Islamic specialist from Kunming who wishes to remain anonymous.

9: Manchus: The Renaissance of an Ethnic Group 1 P. T. Etherton and H. Hessell Tiltman, Manchuria: The Cockpit of Asia (London, 1932); Owen Lattimore, Manchuria: Cradle of Conflict (New York, 1932). 2 Gertrude Roth Li, Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents (Honolulu, 2000), pp. 13–30; Guan Jialu and Tong Yonggong, Jianming Manwen wenfa (Simple Manchu Grammar) (Shenyang, 2002), pp. 1–4. 3 Lattimore, Manchuria, pp. 63–2, 72–3. 4 Jin Ning, Sibe-English Conversations (Wiesbaden, 1993), pp. vii–xi; Li, Manchu, p. 15; personal communication from doctor and Xibe language activist in Karamay, 2007. 5 Lao She, Teahouse (Beijing, 1999) pp. 86, 90. 6 Li Zhiting, ‘Xin Qing shi: Xin diguozhuyi shixue biaoben’ (New Qing History: A Specimen of New Imperialism), Zhongguo shehui kexuebao (Chinese Social Sciences), 728 (20 April 2015).

10: Minor Minorities and Disputed Identities 1 David Holm, ‘The Old Zhuang Script’, in The Tai-Kadai Languages, ed. Anthony Diller, Jerry Edmondson and Yongxian Luo (London and New York, 2008). 2 Fan Yumei, ‘Tuzu zongjiao xinyang shulüe’ (Brief Account of the Religious Beliefs of the Tu Minority), Shijie zong jiao yanjiu (Studies in World Religions), i (1997), pp. 138–46; Gerald Roche and C. K. Stuart, ‘Mapping the Monguor’, Asian Highlands Perspective, xxxvi (2015). I am extremely grateful to Gerald Roche for making details of this invaluable collection of articles available to me. 3 ‘Bucking Economic Slowdown, Chinese Border Cities See North Korea Sightseeing Boost’, Global Times, 6 November 2016. 4 Bruce Cumings, ‘A Murderous History of Korea’, London Review of Books, 18 May 2017, pp. 17–18. 5 Observations by the author, Beijing, 2009. 6 Jonathan Goldstein, ed., The Jews of China, vol. i: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (Armonk, ny, 1999), pp. 187–215. 7 Ibid., pp. 3–120. 8 Daniel J. Elazar, ‘Are There Really Jews in China?: An Update’, Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, 23 December 2014. 233

LESSER DRAGONS

9 Ibid. 10 See Nicolas Tournadre and Sangda Dorje, Manual of Standard Tibetan: Language and Civilisation (Ithaca, ny, 2003), pp. 25–32, and Nicolas Tournadre, ‘The Tibetic Languages and their Classification’, in TransHimalayan Linguistics: Historical and Descriptive Linguistics of the Himalayan Area, ed. Thomas Owen-Smith and Nathan Hill (Berlin, 2013). 11 Gerald Roche, ‘The Vitality of Tibet’s Minority Languages in the Twenty-first Century’, Multiethnic, xxxv (2014), pp. 24–30. 12 Ibid.

11: Taiwan: Another China, Another Model 1 For a brief account of the history of Taiwan since the Second World War, see Michael Dillon, China: A Modern History (London, 2010), pp. 390–97. 2 South China Morning Post, 21 August 2015. 3 Zheng Yuanqing, ed., Taiwan yuanzhumin wenhua (Taiwan’s Indigenous Culture: The Struggle for Renaissance), 3 vols (Taipei, 1994). 4 Murray A. Rubinstein, ‘The Presbyterian Church in the Formation of Taiwan’s Democratic Society, 1945–2004’, in Religious Organizations and Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia, ed. Tun-jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown (London, 2015), pp. 113–14. 5 Gary Marvin Davison and Barbara E. Reed, Culture and Customs of Taiwan (Westport, 1998), pp. 117–18. 6 Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines: Love Our Land, Cherish Our Cultures (Taipei, n.d.). Observations during a visit by the author to the museum in 2010. 7 ‘Ketagalan Cultural Centre’, explanatory leaflet published by the Indigenous People’s Commission, Taipei City Government; visit by the author, 2010. 8 Observations during a visit by the author, 2010; www.nine.com.tw. 9 Myron L. Cohen, ‘The Hakka or “Guest People”: Dialect as a Sociocultural Variable in Southeastern China’, Ethnohistory, xv/3 (Summer 1968), pp. 237–92. 10 See Taipei Hakka Affairs Commission website, http://english.hac. taipei.gov.tw. 11 Huang Chenchun, Mazu de gushi (The Story of Mazu) (Taipei, 2005). Visit by the author to Beipu and interviews with temple staff, 2010. 12 William C. Pao, ‘Beipu Offers Glimpse into Hard-fought Hakka Way of Life’, China Post, 23 August 2004; Yang Ching-ting, ‘Time to Recall the Beipu Uprising’, Taipei Times, 28 November 2007; observations by the author in Beipu, 2010.

12: Ethnic-minority Policies: Unity and Conflict 1 Michael Dillon, Contemporary China – An Introduction (London, 2009), pp. 37–9, for more details. 2 Joseph Kahn, ‘Ethnic Clashes Erupt in China, Leaving 150 Dead’, New York Times, 31 October 2004; bbc News Online, 1 November 2004. 234

References

3 Nanfang zhoumo (Southern Weekend), a newspaper known for its willingness to confront controversial subjects, published detailed and critical accounts on the anniversary of the earthquake in its issues of 7 and 14 May 2009. 4 Jihyeon Jeong, ‘Ethnic Minorities in China’s Western Development Plan’, Journal of International and Area Studies, xxii/1 (2015), pp. 1–18; Yang Sheng, ‘China to Push Eastern Regions to Help Poorer West’, Global Times (Beijing), 9 December 2016. 5 State Council Information Office, White Paper, ‘Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China’, 28 February 2005. 6 Sheng, ‘China to Push Eastern Regions to Help Poorer West’. 7 The author was present at a formal ceremony to celebrate the twinning of Kashgar and Shenzhen at the Chinibagh Hotel, Kashgar, in June 2010. 8 See ‘The State Ethnic Affairs Commission’, prc State Council, 20 August 2014, http://english.gov.cn. 9 See www.seac.gov.cn. 10 South China Morning Post, 20 March 2013. 11 Wang Zhengwei, ‘Minzu diqu yao zai fuwu “yidai yilu” zhanlüe daju zhong dayou zuowei’ (Minority Areas Must Have a Significant Role in Serving the ‘One Belt One Road’ Strategy), Qiushi, iv (2015), pp. 3–5. 12 Xinhua News Agency, 22 December 2014. 13 David Murray, Modern Indians: Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, baas Pamphlets in American Studies viii (London, 1982), p. 38.

Conclusion: Ethnic Minorities in the Age of Xi Jinping 1 James Leibold, Ethnic Policy in China: Is Reform Inevitable?, Policy Studies lxviii (Honolulu, hi, 2013), pp. xi–xii. 2 Lizhong Xie, Depoliticization of Ethnic Questions in China (Beijing, 2014); Leibold, Ethnic Policy, pp. 13–22.

235

Further Reading

Baabar (B. Batbayar), History of Mongolia: From World Power to Soviet Satellite (Cambridge, 1999) Barnett, Robert (for Tibet Information Network), Cutting Off the Serpent’s Head: Tightening Control in Tibet, 1994–1995 (New York, 1996) — —, Lhasa: Streets with Memories (New York, 2006) — —, ed., Resistance and Reform in Tibet (Bloomington, in, 1994) — —, and Ronald Schwartz, eds, Tibetan Modernities: Notes from the Field (Leiden, 2008) Bawden, Charles, The Modern History of Mongolia (London, 1968) ‘Beijing Lama Temple Donates Buddha Statue to Mongolia’, China Tibet Online, 16 June 2014, www.vtibet.com/en Bovingdon, Gardner, Autonomy in Xinjiang: Han Nationalist Imperatives and Uyghur Discontent (Washington, dc, 2004) — —, The Uyghurs (New York, 2010) ‘Bucking Economic Slowdown Chinese Border Cities see North Korea Sightseeing Boost’, Global Times, 6 November 2016 Cai Hua, A Society without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China (New York, 2001) Chi Zihua, Zhongguo jindai liumin (Modern Migration in China) (Hangzhou, 1997) ‘China to Favor Minority Officials in Ethnically Diverse Regions’, Xinhua News Agency, 22 December 2014 Chow, Kai-wing, Encyclopedia of Confucianism (London, 2003) Chung, Viet, ‘National Minorities and Nationality Policy in the drv’, Vietnamese Studies, 15 (1968), pp. 3–23 Cohen, Myron L., ‘The Hakka or “Guest People”: Dialect as a Sociocultural Variable in Southeastern China’, Ethnohistory, xv/3 (1968), pp. 237–92 Conze, Edward, Buddhist Scriptures (London, 1979) Crossley, Pamela Kyle, Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World (Princeton, nj, 1990) — —, A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (Berkeley, ca, 1999) Davison, Gary Marvin, and Barbara E. Reed, Culture and Customs of Taiwan (Westport, ct, 1998) 237

LESSER DRAGONS

Dillon, Michael, China’s Muslims (Oxford and Hong Kong, 1996) — —, China’s Muslim Hui Community: Migrations, Settlements and Sects (London, 1999) — —, Religious Minorities in China (London, 2001) — —, ‘Islam in China’, in Encyclopaedia of Religion, 2nd edn (New York, 2004) — —, ‘Separatist Movements in Xinjiang’, in Terrorism, Conflict and the Media in Asia, ed. Benjamin Cole (London, 2006) — —, Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Far Northwest (London, 2009) — —, China: A Modern History (London, 2010) — —, ‘Unrest in Inner Mongolia May 2011: Implications for Central Government Policy on Ethnic Minority Areas and the Career of Hu Chunhua’, briefing paper commissioned by Europe China Research and Advice Network for European External Action Service (London, 2011) — —, Deng Xiaoping: The Man who Made Modern China (London, 2014) — —, Xinjiang and the Expansion of Chinese Communist Power: Kashgar in the Twentieth Century (London, 2014) — —, ‘Religion, Repression and Traditional Uyghur Culture in Southern Xinjiang: Kashgar and Khotan’, Central Asian Affairs, 2 (2015), pp. 246–63 — —, ‘Twentieth Century Qur’an Translations in the Hui Muslim Community of China: A Social History’, in The Qur’an and its Readers Worldwide: Contemporary Commentaries and Translations, ed. Suha Taji-Farouki (Oxford, 2016) — —, ed., Islam in China: Key Papers (Folkestone, 2009) — —, ed., Chinese Minorities at Home and Abroad (London and New York, 2017) Dondog, Shaman Byampadorj, Reflections of a Mongolian Shaman (Kathmandu, 2014) E Yitai, ‘Jinian Fei Xiaotong xiansheng tansheng yibai zhounian’ (Commemorating the Centenary of the Birth of Mr Fei Xiaotong), 18 February 2015, www.dem-league.org.cn Elazar, Daniel J., ‘Are There Really Jews in China?: An Update’, Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs, 23 December 2014, www.jcpa.org Erbaugh, Mary S., ‘The Secret History of the Hakkas: The Chinese Revolution as a Hakka Enterprise’, China Quarterly, 132 (1992), pp. 937–68 Etherton, P. T., and H. Hessell Tiltman, Manchuria: The Cockpit of Asia (London, 1932) Fan Yumei, ‘Tuzu zongjiao xinyang shulüe’ (Brief Account of the Religious Beliefs of the Tu Minority), Shijie zong jiao yanjiu (Studies in World Religions), 1 (1997), pp. 138–46 Fei Xiaotong, Towards a People’s Anthropology (Beijing, 1981) — —, ‘Plurality and Unity in the Configuration of the Chinese People’, Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 15 and 17 November 1988, www.tannerlectures.utah.edu Fei, Hsiao-t’ung (Fei Xiaotong) and Chih-I Chang, Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan (London, 1948) 238

Further Reading

Fontein, Jan, The Dancing Demons of Mongolia (Amsterdam, 1999) Fu Ba, Naxi ren (The Naxi People) (Chengdu, 1993) Gao Tian, ed., Zhong Gong Diliudai (Chinese Communist Party: The Sixth Generation) (Hong Kong, 2010) Goldstein, Melvyn C., A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (Berkeley, ca, 1989) — —, The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet and the Dalai Lama (Berkeley, ca, 1997) Grønbech, Kaare, and John R. Krueger, Introduction to Classical (Literary) Mongolian (Wiesbaden, 1955) Guan Jialu, and Tong Yonggong, Jianming Manwen wenfa (Simple Manchu Grammar) (Shenyang, 2002) Ha, Thanh, ‘The Languages of National Minorities and the Creation or Improvement of their Scripts’, Vietnamese Studies, 15 (1968), pp. 122–36 Headland, Isaac Taylor, Court Life in China (New York, 1909) Hillman, Ben, and Gray Tuttle, eds, Ethnic Conflict and Protest in Tibet and Xinjiang: Unrest in China’s West (New York, 2016) Holm, David, ‘The Old Zhuang Script’, in The Tai-Kadai Languages, ed. Anthony Diller, Jerry Edmondson and Yongxian Luo (London and New York, 2008) Honig, Emily, ‘Native Place and the Making of Chinese Ethnicity’, in Remapping China: Fissures in Historical Terrain, ed. Gail Hershatter, Emily Honig, Jonathan N. Lipmann and Randall Stross (Stanford, ca, 1996) Hsű, Leonard S., Sun Yat-sen: His Political and Social Ideals (Los Angeles, ca, 1933) Huang Chenchun, Mazu de gushi (The Story of Mazu) (Taipei, 2005) Huang Guangxue, ed., Dangdai Zhongguo de minzu gongzuo (Work with Ethnic Minorities in Contemporary China) (Beijing, 1993) — —, and Lianzhu Shi, eds, Zhongguo de minzu shibie (Ethnic Identification in China) (Beijing, 2005) Jagchid, Sechin, and Paul Hyer, Mongolia’s Culture and Society (Boulder, co, 1979) Janah, Sunil, The Tribals of India (Calcutta, 1993) Jeong, Jihyeon, ‘Ethnic Minorities in China’s Western Development Plan’, Journal of International and Area Studies, xxii/1 (2015), pp. 1–18 Jiang Weihua and Sun Hongtao, Zhongguo liumin shi (gudai juan) (History of Migration in China: Antiquity) (Hefei, 2001) Jin Ning, Sibe-English Conversations (Wiesbaden, 1993) Jin Yijiu, ed., Islam (Leiden and Boston, ma, 2017) Johnson, Chalmers, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Stanford, ca, 1962) Joniak-Lüthi, Agnieszka, ‘Blurring Boundaries and Negotiating Subjectivities: The Uyghurized Han of Southern Xinjiang, China’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, xxxix/12 (2016), pp. 2187–204 Ke Fan, ‘Ethnic Configuration and State-making: A Fujian Case’, Modern Asian Studies, xlvi/4 (2012), pp. 915–45 ——, ‘Representation of Ethnic Minorities in Socialist China’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, xxxix/12 (2016), pp. 2091–107 239

LESSER DRAGONS

Kendall, R. Elliott, Beyond the Clouds: The Story of Samuel Pollard of Southwest China (London, 1948) Lao She, Teahouse (Beijing, 1999) Lattimore, Owen, Manchuria: Cradle of Conflict (New York, 1932) Legrand, Jacques, Parlons Mongol (Paris, 1997) Leibold, James, Ethnic Policy in China: Is Reform Inevitable? (Honolulu, hi, 2013) Leong, Sow-Theng, Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin and their Neighbours, ed. Tim Wright (Stanford, ca, 1997) Li, Gertraude Roth, Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents (Honolulu, hi, 2000) Li Yao, ‘Lamas Dance with the “Devil” at Beijing Temple’, China Daily, 12 March 2013 Li Zhiting, ‘Xin Qing shi: Xin diguozhuyi shixue biaoben’ (New Qing History: A Specimen of New Imperialism), Zhongguo shehui kexuebao (China Social Science), 20 April 2015 Liu Yanjiang and Du Dianwen, eds, Yonghegong: Famous Temple in Beijing (Beijing, 1995) Lu Deyang, Liumin shi (History of Migration) (Shanghai, 1997) Mackerras, Colin, China’s Minorities: Integration and Modernisation in the 20th Century (Oxford and Hong Kong, 1994) — —, China’s Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation (London, 2003) Maierbrugger, Arno, ‘Hong Kong, Ningxia to Emerge as China’s Islamic Finance Centres’, Gulf Times, 12 May 2015 Mi Xingang, ‘Ningxa Islamic Financial Centre’, www.china.org.cn, 19 December 2012 Millward, James A., Eurasian Crossroads: A History of Xinjiang (London, 2007) Murray, David, Modern Indians: Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, British Association for American Studies Pamphlets in American Studies 8 (London, 1982) Naquin, Susan, Peking: Temples and City Life, 1400–1900 (Berkeley, ca, 2000) Netton, Ian Richard, A Popular Dictionary of Islam (London, 1992) Norbu, Dawa, China’s Tibet Policy (Richmond, va, 2001) — —, Red Star Over Tibet (London, 1974) Pao, William C., ‘Beipu Offers Glimpse into Hard-fought Hakka Way of Life’, China Post, 23 August 2004 Poppe, Nicholas, Grammar of Written Mongolian (Wiesbaden, 1991) Roche, Gerald, ‘The Vitality of Tibet’s Minority Languages in the Twentyfirst Century’, Multiethnic, 35 (2014), pp. 24–30 — —, and C. K. Stuart, eds, ‘Mapping the Monguor’, Asian Highlands Perspective, xxxvi (2015), pp. 276–330 Rubinstein, Murray A., ‘The Presbyterian Church in the Formation of Taiwan’s Democratic Society 1945–2004’, in Religious Organizations ­ unand Democratization: Case Studies from Contemporary Asia, ed. T jen Cheng and Deborah A. Brown (London, 2015), pp. 113–14 Shakya, Tsering, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet since 1947 (London, 1999) 240

Further Reading

Spence, Jonathan, God’s Chinese Son (New York, 1996) Starr, S. Frederick, ed., Xinjiang: China’s Muslim Borderland (Armonk, ny, 2004) State Council Information Office, White Paper, ‘Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities in China’ (Beijing, 2005) Tarab Tulku, A Brief History of Academic Degrees in Buddhist Philosophy (Copenhagen, 2000) Ter Haar, Barend J., ‘A New Interpretation of the Yao Charters’, in New Developments in Asian Studies: An Introduction, ed. Paul van der Velde and Alex McKay (London, 2011) Thurgood, Graham, and Randy J. Lapolla, eds, The Sino-Tibetan Languages (London, 2007) Tournadre, Nicolas, ‘The Tibetic Languages and their Classification’, in Trans-Himalayan Linguistics: Historical and Descriptive Linguistics of the Himalayan Area, ed. Thomas Owen-Smith and Nathan Hill (Berlin, 2013) — —, and Sangda Dorje, Manual of Standard Tibetan: Language and Civilisation (Ithaca, ny, 2003) Wang Shu, ed., Lamasery of Harmony and Peace (Beijing, 2002) Wang Zhengwei, ‘Minzu diqu yao zai fuwu “yidai yilu” zhanlüe daju zhong dayou zuowei’ (Minority Areas Must Have a Significant Role in Serving the ‘One Belt One Road’ Strategy), Qiushi, 4 (2015), pp. 3–5 Wangyal, Baba Phuntsok, Witness to Tibet’s History (New Delhi, 2007) Werner, E.T.C., A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology (New York, 1961) Wu Jianwei, Zhongguo qingzhen zonglan (Survey of Mosques in China) (Yinchuan, 1995) Yang Ching-ting, ‘Time to Recall the Beipu Uprising’, Taipei Times, 28 November 2007 Yang Sheng, ‘China to Push Eastern Regions to Help Poorer West’, Global Times, 9 December 2016 Yi Yuzheng, Yonghegong (Beijing, 1995) Zhang Binglin, Qiushu (The Book of Compulsion) (Shenyang, 2004) Zhao, Yongbin, et al., ‘Ancient dna Reveals that the Genetic Structure of the Northern Han Chinese Was Shaped Prior to 3,000 Years Ago’, PLoS One, x/5 (2015), e0125676, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov Zheng Yuanqing, ed., Taiwan yuanzhumin wenhua (Taiwan’s Indigenous Cultures: The Struggle for Renaissance) (Taipei, 1994) Zhu Weizheng, Chongdu jindai lishi (Rereading Modern History) (Shanghai, 2010) — —, Rereading Modern Chinese History, trans. Michael Dillon (Leiden and Boston, ma, 2015)

241

Acknowledgements

My initial research on the Hui Muslims and the Uyghurs of Xinjiang was made possible through academic exchanges arranged by the British Academy in London and the Chinese Academy of Social Science (cass) in Beijing between 1988 and 2001. Members of staff of the British Academy and numerous colleagues in the Beijing offices of cass have provided practical and academic support over the years. I am also grateful to academic colleagues in local branches of the Academy of Social Sciences and universities in Yinchuan (Ningxia), Lanzhou (Gansu) and Urumqi (Xinjiang) for sharing their work and insights with me and accompanying me during some of my fieldwork expeditions, especially Wang Yongliang and Ma Ping in Ningxia. My later research in Xinjiang was carried out independently, and I am indebted to the many private individuals who have assisted me in Urumqi, Turfan, Kashgar, Khotan and Ghulja and among the Uyghur diaspora in Europe, Asia and North America. Because of the complex and precarious political situation in Xinjiang it is essential that they remain anonymous for the present. My interest in Mongolia and the Mongols began with lectures on the history of China given by Owen Lattimore (1900–1989) to undergraduates who were following the course in Chinese Studies that he established in 1963 at the University of Leeds, after his contract at Johns Hopkins University was revoked as a result of the McCarthy hearings. Lattimore’s writings on the Mongols and on other peoples of Inner Asia remain classic texts, combining a profound knowledge of the region and its languages and cultures with sympathy for its people and an approach to the politics of the region that was sceptical while refusing to succumb to the crude anti-Communism of the time. For Tibet I have relied on the work of Melvyn Goldstein, especially because of the wide range of sources in both Tibetan and Chinese on which it is based. The writings of Robbie Barnett have been helpful, as have those of Tsering Shakya, who perhaps reflects more closely the religio-political attitudes of the Tibetan community in Tibet and in exile. I am, however, particularly grateful to have had the opportunity of discussing Tibetan issues with Dawa Norbu during his time as a Visiting Fellow at Durham University, and to have been able to assist in the editing of his book China’s Tibet Policy (Richmond, 2001). His untimely death in New Delhi in 2006 robbed the Tibetan cause of a powerful, realistic and fiercely independent supporter. 243

LESSER DRAGONS

Over the years I have benefited from the comments and criticism of a number of Xinjiang specialists, especially during conferences at the University of California Berkeley, the University of Toronto, Harvard University, the University of Copenhagen, George Washington University, the Université Libre de Bruxelles and, in the United Kingdom, the universities of Leeds, Cambridge and Newcastle and the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House. There are too many individuals to list, but mention should be made of the ‘Xinjiang 13’, who have been prevented from carrying out further research in China, solely as a result of contributing to a sound and balanced collection of scholarly chapters on the region. In Beijing I am grateful to Steven Dong and the Institute of Global Journalism at Tsinghwa (Qinghua) University for the invitation to be a Visiting Professor in 2009, and to his postgraduate students for introductions at the Beijing Ethnic Culture Park. In Taipei in 2001 I was able to consult research publications on the languages, culture and history of the Aborigines of Taiwan in the library of Academia Sinica. On later visits to Taiwan, Nicholas and Ariel Dillon introduced me to the Aboriginal Thao community of Sun Moon Lake and the Hakka village of Beipu, and provided invaluable background information on Taiwan and its minorities. I was fortunate to make my first visit to what was still the Mongolian People’s Republic in October 1990, to attend the inaugural meeting of the Mongolian Association of Sinologists, just as the Soviet Union was collapsing and Mongolia’s drive to build a modern democracy and a developed economy was beginning. I am grateful to H. Ayurzana of the Mongolian Association of Sinologists, First Deputy Prime Minister Ganbold and Deputy Prime Minister Purevdorj for their hospitality at the State Guest House during this visit and for informative discussions on relations between Mongolia and China. My most recent visit to Mongolia was in September 2016. I have carried out fieldwork among Mongolian communities in China, both in Inner Mongolia, which is home to far more Mongols than is Mongolia, and in the northwest of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. I have previously written about Mongolia and its relations with China in China: A Modern History and on the Mongols of Inner Mongolia in Religious Minorities in China for the Minority Rights Group and in ‘Unrest in Inner Mongolia May 2011’, a briefing paper for the European External Action Service, and I have drawn on these publications. I have also been able to consult papers on contemporary and historical Inner Mongolian culture presented by Mongolian and European scholars at a conference at the Niedersächsiche Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen in 2015, organized by the librarian Dr Johannes Reckel, himself a considerable scholar of matters Mongolian. I am grateful to Wang Jianping, who made available his unpublished papers on the Hui Muslims of Yunnan, and for many discussions about the Hui during his extended visit to Durham; to Gerald Roche for details of his research on the Monguor (Tu) people and non-Tibetic languages in Tibetan areas; and to Fan Ke for information about his own studies of the Hakka and other groups in Fujian. I am also happy to acknowledge Fan Ke; Chow Bing Ngeow and Hailong Ma; Aziz Burkhanov and Yu-Wen Chen; Barry 244

Acknowledgements

Sautman and Yan Hairong; and Xiaowei Zang and Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi for their informative and innovative contributions to the special China issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies that I edited in October 2016. These studies have contributed greatly to the international debate on China’s minorities. My observations on parallels between the minority question in China and that in India were greatly enhanced by discussions with staff and students at Jahwaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi in 2012, and I am grateful to Mahesh Debata for the opportunity to lecture to them and to Professor Srikanth Kondapalli and his colleagues at jnu for their hospitality. I am also grateful for the constructive comments made by anonymous reviewers and for the patience and attention of Ben Hayes and Michael Leaman at Reaktion Books.

245

Index

Aborigines 190 and democratization 193 in Taiwan 188, 191–2 in Yunnan 160 Academy of Social Sciences 26, 201 Account of Ten Days at Yangzhou 168 Afaq Khwaja (Afak Khoja) 96 Afghanistan 103 Aisin Gioro clan 168, 170 Aisin Gioro Pu Yi 174 Akto County 107 Aladdin 45 al-Qaeda 112 Altai 96 Alxa (Alāshàn) League 122–3 Anglo-Chinese Convention 1938 138 Anti-Rightist Campaign 34–5 Arabic language 72–3, 75–7 Qur’anic 73 architecture, Xinjiang 95 Army of the Green Standard 173 Assam tea 195 Austroasiatic languages 56 autonomous regions 18, 41, 92, 120, 143, 204 counties 41 prefectures 41, 156 Bai people 156, 222 banners 118, 122, 206 Eight Manchu 168

Naiman 131 Zaruud 131 baojia system 115 Baren 100 batik 158 Bayanhot 122 beards 73 Beijing 21, 45–58 Temple Regulation Committee 50 Beipu 197–9 Japanese occupation 198–9 Bene Israel 183 Beta Israel 183 bilingual education 23 bingtuan 98 blue-capped Hui 183 bomb attacks, Urumqi 101 Bön religion 137, 179 borders 17, 139, 145, 156, 158, 161, 178–9, 201–2, 208, 212 Buddhism 48–9, 51–3, 56, 137 Tibetan 122, 144, 152 Bulang 55 Burma 55, 164 camels 123 Cantonese 20 Central Institute for Nationalities 36 Central Nationalities University 35–6, 109, 210 Central Plains 24 Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission 107, 211 247

LESSER DRAGONS

Chahar 119, 121 Chamdo 140 Chang’an 76, 223 Chen Quanguo, 114, 152–3 Chen Shuibian 193 Chiang Kai-shek 16, 65 China Institute of Arabian Studies 82 China Proper 12, 16 China’s Current Policy in Tibet 147 Chinatowns 24 Chinese Academy of Social Science 26, 201 Chinese Communist Party 13 Chinese Ethnic Culture Park (Zhonghua minzu yuan) 54–8, 196, 215 Chinese Ethnic Museum (Zhonghua minzu bowuguan) 54 Chinese Islamic Academy, Beijing 102 Chinese Islamic Association 85, 101 Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) 10 Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (cppcc) 34, 41–2, 85, 146, 211 Chinese script 20 Chinese spoken language 20 Chinese Tibet (Zhongguo Xizang) 135 Chongqing 203 Chu Bo 130 Ci’an 174 Cixi 30, 174 collectivization 141 colonialism 57–8 colonization of Taiwan, Japanese 194 Communist Youth League (cyl) 129 confiscation of passports 116 convenience police posts 115, 152 Cultural Palace of Nationalities 38 Cultural Revolution 13, 74, 85, 120 in Tibet 143–4 Dai people 55, 57, 156 Dalai Lama 47, 136–7, 139, 141, 145–6, 149, 152 Thirteenth (1876–1933) 138–9

Dali 156 De Wang 119 Democratic Progressive Party (dpp) 186 democratization and Aborigines 193 Deng Xiaoping 40, 65 and Hakka 67–9 devil dance 52 Dharamsala 136, 143 Dingdong Bridge 198 dna testing 25 Document no. 7 90, 101 Dodo 168 Dong Hill Tribes 11 Dongxing 212 doppa 94 double-linked household management system 115, 152 Dowager Empress see Cixi dragons 9 dragon boats 10, 11 dragon kings 10 Dragon Throne 9 Drepung monastery 145 Du Wenxiu 78 dyarchy 29 Eastern Turkestan 92 Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement (etim) 107, 112 Eastern Turkestan People’s Revolutionary Party 99, 101 Eastern Turkestan Republic 96 Turkic Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan 96 economic and social development 42–4 economic reform, Xinjiang 103 education projects, ethnic-minority areas 207 Eight Manchu Banners 168 Elazar, Daniel J. 183 Emperor, Yellow 10 Empress Dowager see Cixi, Ci’an environmental protection, ethnicminority areas 207 Erenhot (Erlianhaode) 212 ethnic classification 28–44

248

Index

ethnic conflict 200–202 ethnic-minority areas 207–8 ethnic-minority policies 200–216 ethnic nationalism 103 ethnicity, depoliticization of 218 Federally Administered Tribal Areas (fata), Pakistan 103, 111, 112 Fei Xiaotong 27, 35, 36–8, 159–60 financial support, in ethnicminority areas 207 foot-binding 59–60 Foreign Languages College 81 Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village 195–6 Fu Ying 31 Fujian 63, 67 Gangnam style 181 Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture 151 Gansu Province 70–89, 135, 151, 178 Gaoshan (High Mountain) 190 Gedimu Islam 79 Gelugpa School of Tibetan Buddhism 47, 97, 179 Ger 123 Ghulja (Yining) 16, 100, 101 Go West Policy (Xibu da kaifa) 103 Great Han chauvinism 37, 40 Great Leap Forward 13, 85 great unity of nationalities (minzu da tuanjie) 19, 41, 131, 202 Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region 177–8 Guanyin 198 Guizhou 157 Guma County (Pishan) 114 Guomindang 186 Hada 124, 132 Hakka 59–69 Cultural Park 197 Deng Xiaoping and 67–9 in Taiwan 196 language 189, 197 migration 60

resurgence 196 women 62, 66 Han Chinese 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 24 settlers in Mongolia 118–19 Taiwanese 188 Han dynasty 24 Hanafi school of jurisprudence 78 Harbin 182 harmonious society (hexie shehui) 202 Henan Province 201 higher education 80 Highlands 28 hijab 74, 102 Hizb-al-Islami al-Turkistani 112 Hmong 11 Hoa 162 Hohhot University for Nationalities 126 Hokkien 189, 190 Hong Xiuquan 65 Hu Chunhua 129–31, 135 Hu Jintao 14, 129, 202, 218 Hu Yaobang 18, 40, 66, 144 Hui 17, 23, 29, 70–89, 116, 183 blue-capped 183 merchants 135 muslims 70–89, 183 schools 79–80 Hunan 157 Ili region 96, 172 imam 79 Imperial Japanese Army 32 India 19 Indonesia 111, 158 infrastructure projects, ethnicminority areas 207 Inner Mongolia, resistance 124–8 Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region 117–33, 118, 119–20 Institute for Nationality Studies 26 Islam 42 Islamic and secular higher education 80 Islamic caliphate 78 Islamic Development Bank 73, 80

249

LESSER DRAGONS

Lao She 173 Larung Gar 153–4 Lattimore, Owen 171 Le Keqiang 218 Lee Kuan Yew 65, 69 Lee Teng-hui 66, 187 Lhasa 135, 140, 141 Li Keqiang 129 Li Shaoxian 82 Li Siguang 31 Li Zhi 105 Li Zhiting 175 Lin Ch’ing-fu 191 Liu Geping 34 Living Buddhas 154 local nationalism 39–40 Lolo 159 Luntai County 108 Luo Xianglin 66

Jahriyya 73, 84, 98 Japan 16, 119, 167, 186–7 colonization of Taiwan 194 occupation of Beipu 198–9 Jehol 119 Jews in China 182–4 Jhuoshuei (Zhuoshui) River 194 jiapu 30–31 jihadists 107, 110, 112 and refugees 110–11 Jilin Province 180 Jin dynasty (1115–1234) 60 Jingyuan County 42, 73, 84 Jokhang Temple 55, 152 Jurchen (Nüzhen) tribes 170 Kaifeng 182–4 Kalgan (Zhangjiakuo) 119 Kangde Emperor 174 Karakash (Moyu) 106 Karghalik 93 kariz 93 Karmapa (Red Hat sect of Buddhism) 137 Lama 147 Kashgar 16, 82, 93, 95–6, 100, 106, 208, 212 Kazakhs 92 Ketagalan 193 Khalkha Mongol 120 Kham 54, 138 Khamba 54 Khotan 93, 100, 106, 114 rising 98 Khufiyya 84, 98 knives 95 Korea 179–81 Korean language 46, 180–81 Korean War 180 Korean Workers’ Party 181 Kunming Railway Station 108 Kyrgyzstan 103

Ma Bohua 165 Ma Rong 217–18 Ma Shaomei 165 Ma Ying-jeou 66 Malinowski, Bronislaw 27, 160 Manchus 12, 15, 30, 117, 121, 137–8, 167 elite 172–4 language 169–71 military garrisons 172–3 Manchukuo (Manzhouguo) 119, 167 Manchuria 16, 117, 167 Mandarin 20–21 Mandarin Chinese 24, 155, 189, 190 Manjuur (Manzhouli) 212 Manzhouguo 119, 167 Mao Zedong Memorial Museum 154 Maoist era 39–41 Maralbashi County 108 mazars 97–8 Mazu 198 Meizhou yijuhua (A Sentence a Week) 214 Meng Jianzhu 107 Mergen, death of 125 Miao (Hmong) 11, 57, 156–9 rebellion 157 water-splashing festival 57

laghman (lamian) 94 Lama Buddhism 122, 169 Lama Temple (Yonghegong) 46–53 land reform 141 Lang Lang 174 Lao language 178 250

Index

Nationalities Song and Dance Group 210 Nationalities University, Hohhot 126 nationalities work 38 Naxi 163–4 languages 185 New Democracy 35, 50 New Qing History 174–6 Ngai (Ngái) 162 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region 42, 43, 70–89, 122 Ningxia Islamic Academy (Ningxia yisilanjiao jingxueyuan) 80 Ningxia Muslim International Language School 81 Ningxia University 74 Niohuru clan 174 Norbu, Dawa 139 North Korea 179, 180 Northeast (Dongbei) 167 No-su 159 Nur Bekri 104 Nurhaci 170

migration 25, 28, 42, 60–62 Ming dynasty 29, 63, 77 mining 125 Minnan (Southern Fujianese) 189 minority policy 39–41 minzu da tuanjie see great unity of nationalities Minzu University of China 35–6, 109, 210 monasteries, Tibet 153 Mongol invasion 76–7 Mongolia 16, 52–3, 117, 118–19, 128 Han Chinese settlers 126 Mongolia University for Nationalities 126 Mongolian language 120, 126, 170, 178 script 121 Mongolian People’s Republic (mpr) 117, 119, 124 Mongols 31, 117–33 Monguor or Tu 117, 178–9 Mon-Khmer 56 Morgan, Lewis H. 27 mosques 82, 97–8, 116 Nanguan (South Gate) 87 Xiguan (West Gate) 87 Museum of Formosan Aborigines 191–2 Muslims 29, 70–89 Muslim rebels 78

One Belt, One Road 99, 211 one child policy 43 ‘Opinions on Strengthening and Improving Ethnic Work in New Situations’ 213–15 Outer Mongolia 117 see also Mongolia Overseas Chinese 162

Na 163 Naga 56 Nagwa County 150 Nahing 163 Naiman Banner 131 Najiahu 72 Nanguan (South Gate) Mosque 87 Nantou County 194 Naqshbandi 73, 84, 96, 98 NaRu 163 national humiliation 18 National Language 21 national minorities 13, 19 National Palace Museum 192 nationalism 15 Nationalities Museum, Beijing 210 Nationalities Press 210

Paiwan tribe 191–2 Pakistan, tribal areas 103, 111–12 Pamir Tajiks 83 Pan-Blue coalition 186 Panchen Lama 47–8, 142, 145 eleventh 145–7 pan-Chinese identity 218 Pan-Green coalition 186 Panthay Rebellion 164 Paracel and Spratly Islands 14 passports, confiscation of 116, 152 Pengmin 63–4 People’s Armed Police 151 People’s Congresses 38 People’s Liberation Army (pla) 165 251

LESSER DRAGONS

Shanghai 182 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation 107 Shaoguan 104 She 63–4 Shenzhen 208 Shia Islam 83 Shigatse 141 Shirokogorov, Sergei 27 Sibe (Xibo) people 172 Sichuan 135, 201 Silk Road 99 Singapore 68 sinicization 174 Social Darwinism 31 Song (Soong) family 65 Song dynasty 182 sons of the dragon 12, 13 South Korea 180 Southeast Asia 155, 156 Southern Mongolia 118, 121, 124 Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre 125 Southern Song dynasty 60 Soviet Union 18, 26, 33, 37, 124, 203 Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) 10 Standard Chinese 213–14 State Administration for Religious Affairs (sara) 85, 101 State Council 208, 210 State Ethnic Affairs Commission 209–10 Strike Hard Campaign 100 Sufism 83 Sufism, Naqshbandi 96 Suiyuan 119 Sun Moon Lake 193 Sun Yat-sen 13, 32–3, 65 Sun Yat-sen University 120 Sunni Muslims 71, 78

People’s Republic of China 186 Persian language 72, 75–7 Phuntsok Wangyal 40 Pollard, Samuel 158–9 poverty alleviation 208 Putonghua 20, 155, 158 qadi judges 102 Qiang 201 Qiang language family 185 Qianlong emperor 15, 171 Qing dynasty 15, 17, 29, 77, 118–19, 167–71, 194 Mongolia 118–19 Qinghai 135, 148–9, 179 Qinghai-Tibet-(Qingzang) railway 148–9, 293 Qiushi 211 Qu Yuan 11 Quanzhou 76 Qur’an 73, 77, 101–2 Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 27 Ramadan 115–16 Redfield, Robert 160 Refugees, jihadist links 110–11 regional autonomy, White Paper on (2005) 205 religion and minorities 22 Religious Affairs bureau 85 Religious education 79 Republic of China 32–3, 186 resistance, Tibetan monks and nuns 145 Revolution of 1911 30, 172 riots, Urumqi, July 2009 104–6 Roche, Gerald 185 Sanguan Dadi (Three Great Emperor Officials) 198 Sanshan Guowang (Three Mountain Kings) 198 self-immolation 149 separatism 155 Seriqbuya 108 Seventeen Point Agreement 136, 141, 142, 144 Shadian incident 164 Shamanism 137, 169

Tai languages 178 Taipei 191, 192, 197 Taiping Rebellion 59, 62, 64 Taiwan 186–99 Aborigines 188 Han 188 language 189 252

Index

tourism 43, 180, 184, 199, 215–16 in Yunnan 160 Tournadre, Nicolas 185 tribute system 136 Tujia Autonomous County 129 Tulkus 154 Turkestan Islamic Party (tip) 112 Turkey 110 Turkic Islamic Republic of Eastern Turkestan 96 Twelve Muqam 215 twinning of ethnic-minority areas 208

Tang dynasty 24, 182 Tarbagahtai 96 Tarim Basin 92 Tartars 33 Teahouse (Chaguan) 173 territorial integrity 17 terrorism 111–14 Thai 178 Thailand 110 Thao people 193–6 Three Districts Revolution 96 Tian’anmen Square 41 jeep attack 107 Tianshan (Mountains of Heaven) 92 Tibet 16, 21–2, 40, 54–5, 134–54, 201–2 Autonomous Region 114, 135, 143 Tibet and China under Manchus 137–8 Chinese (Zhongguo Xizang) 135 government in exile 147 incorporated into the People’s Republic of China, 140–42 independence 134 independence after 1911 138–40 insurgency 1959 142–3 monasteries 153 non-Tibetans in 185 old 135 peaceful liberation (heping jiefang) 140 resistance by monks and nuns 145 revolt 142 self-immolation 149–51 Tibetan Buddhism 47, 122, 144, 152, 179 Tibetan language 40, 135, 144, 185 Tohti, Ilham 108, 109–10, 213 Tongliao 126 Tongxin 73, 87 Arabic Language School 80 Girls’ Hui Middle School 79 Hui Middle Schools (Number 1 and 2) 80

Ulaanbaatar 53 Ulanfu 120 United Front Work Department 211 United Nations 140 University of the Toilers of the East 120 urban and rural minorities 22 Urumqi bomb attacks 101 riots, July 2009 104–6 Uyghurs 16, 90–116 food 94 language 91, 93–5, 214 marginalization 99 veils 74 Vietnamese Boat People 162 Vladivostok 180 Wa 55–6 Wahhabi 98 Wakhi language 71 Wang Daiyu 88 Wang Lequan 105 Wang Xiuchu 168 Wang Zhengwei 211–12 warlords 16 water-splashing festival 57 Wen Jiabao 128, 202, 218 Wenchuan earthquake 201 Western Development Programme (Xibu da kaifa) 103, 202–5, 212 women, Hakka 62 Wudaokou district 46, 181 253

LESSER DRAGONS

Xi Jinping 14, 115, 213, 217–21 Xia Kangnong 35 Xi’an 76 Xiguan (West Gate) Mosque 87 Xikang 35 Xilingol 125, 132 Xilingol League 125 Xilinhot 127 Xinjiang 16, 22, 90–116, 201–2 architecture 95 borders 91 economic reform 103 People’s Congress 104 Production and Construction Corps 98 Terrorism 111–14 Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang weiwu’er zizhiqu) 91 Xinjiang time 91 Xishuangbanna 156 Xu Xuzeng 66 Yakub Beg 96 Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture 180 Yanbian University 180 Yang Jing 211 Yangzhou massacre 168 Yanji 180 Yao 158 Yarkand 93 Ye Jianying 65

Yellow Emperor 10, 30 ‘yellow race’ 31 Yemen 76 Yengi Aymak 107 Yihewani (Ikhwani) 84 Yinchuan 87, 215 Yining 93, 100 Yongzheng Emperor 47 Younghusband, Sir Francis 138 Yuan dynasty 29 Yuchih 194, 195 Yunnan Province 55, 78, 155–66 Hui 164–6 tourism 160 Zaruud Banner 131 Zhang Binglin 30–32 Zhang Chunxian 114 Zhang Dejiang 180 Zhang Xiumei 157 Zhang Zhiyi 159 Zhao Erfeng 138 Zhao Ziyang 18 Zhongguo Musilin (Chinese Muslim) 88 Zhongguoren, pan-Chinese identity 13, 218 Zhou Enlai 50 Zhu De 65 Zhu Rongji 202–3 Zhuang 177–8 Zhuang language 178 Zhungar Basin 92

254