The key to understanding and interpreting ethnic relations in contemporary China

For years people have referred to this legacy in terms of the ‘minzu issue’. Minzu is the Chinese word that is used to translate the Marxist concept of ‘nationality group’, as developed in Marxist theories of nationalism by Stalin and his contemporaries. Minzu therefore refers to the majority Han as well as the Mongols, Tibetans, Uygurs, Kazaks, Koreans and other minority groups with different cultural characteristics in China.
Despite these non-Chinese origins of the word minzu, there is ironically much confusion in the West about how to translate this term into English. The English term ‘nationality’ is often used, even by Chinese authorities in their English translations of Marxist ‘Classics’. However, the term ‘nationality’ in the West refers to people’s citizenship of a country or nation-state. Western scholars or politicians who support the independence movements of Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minority groups in China often refer to them as ‘nations’. Western scholars more inclined towards the Chinese government tend to use the terms ‘ethnic groups’ or ‘ethnic minorities’, placing these groups on a similar footing as African Americans, Asians, or Hispanics in contemporary US society. The confusion between these three English terms (nation, nationality and ethnic group) has led some Western scholars to suggest that simply the Chinese transliteration should be used (ie. minzu) rather than attempting a translation, given that none of the English words conveys the correct meaning (see Harrell, 2001: 39). Nonetheless, the confusion provides useful insights into the theoretical sources of ‘minzu issues’ in today’s China.

In Western scholarship, it is well recognized that concepts related to modern forms of nationalism only became prevalent during the 17th and 18th centuries in Western Europe (see Hobsbawm, 1990: 14-20). During the process of building states from kingdoms and empires, many groups with different languages, cultural traditions and historical memories gradually identified themselves with a specific ‘nation’ and became absorbed into the emerging nation-states. These nation-states then became the predominant form of political entity in Europe and the unit of state sovereignty in international legal systems. While many factors influenced these processes in each case, as argued by Anderson (1983), the reasons that some groups were included or excluded depended to a certain extent on various internal and external factors along with people’s ‘imagined communities’.
These concepts of ‘nation’ and ‘nation-state’ spread from Western Europe across the world during the colonialist and imperialist periods, particularly from the 18th-20th centuries. Most newly-independent states, such as India, followed a similar, though not identical ‘nation-building’ process following decolonization, as did Eastern European countries at the beginning of the 20th century. The nation-building processes nonetheless differed in the West and East. As argued by Anthony Smith (1991: 11), western countries were characterized by a ‘civic model of nationalism’ whereas Eastern Europe and Asia drew more from an ‘ethnic concept of the nation’. In the latter, those groups that maintained different cultural characteristics were transformed into minority groups within the modern political structures of the new countries and were called ‘racial’ or ‘ethnic’ groups.

In the case of China, the Qing Empire had tried hard to turn its traditional multi-tribal empire into a modern form of ‘nation-state’, similar to the Tsarist Russian Empire. This was continued under the Republic of China, established in 1911, which was called a ‘republic of five groups’. Sun Yat-sen announced that ‘nationalism in China is based on the state,’ and in his oath of Presidency of the Republic, he called for ‘unifying the territories of the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui (Xinjiang) and Tibetans as a state, and unifying the Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui (Muslim) and Tibetans as one people, that is the unification of the Chinese nation’. In this way, he tried to establish the country as a modern form of ‘nation-state’ (republic) based on an invented notion of a ‘Chinese nation’ that included the non-Han inhabitants of the imperial hinterlands. After his death, Chiang Kaishek and the KMT government followed this framework of ‘Chinese nation’ and denied the Mongols, Manchu, Tibetans, Uyghurs and other groups the status of ‘nations’.

In this respect, the approach of the Chinese Communist Part (CCP), which defeated the KMT in 1949, was different. The CCP adopted the framework and definition of minzu (nation/nationality) from Stalin. In the 1930s, Stalin and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union organized a campaign of ‘nationality recognition (identification)’ and over one hundred ‘nationalities’ were recognized. Their members received an official ‘nationality status’ and ‘republics’ were established for the large ‘nationalities’, which resulted in a politicization of ethnicity. According to the Constitution of the Union, all of these republics had a right to become independent sovereign nations. This framework was a key factor in the collapse of the USSR when the political climate changed.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) followed a similar path, basing its policies towards minority groups on Stalinist theory. In the 1950s, the government also launched a campaign of ‘nationality recognition (identification)’ and recognized 56 ‘nationalities’ based on Stalin’s definitional criteria (common territory, language, economic mode, and psychological nature manifested in a common culture). A variety of ‘autonomous areas’ were also established in places where various ‘nationalities’ were concentrated, which together make up 64 percent of Chinese territory. The only difference between the Soviet and Chinese model is that the constitution of the PRC does not offer the right of political separation to its ‘nationalities’ and China is not a union of republics but one republic that practices ‘regional autonomy’ for minority ‘nationalities’. This has resulted in a double-level structure of nation-building; an upper level composed of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua Minzu) and a local level of 56 ‘nationalities’ (minzu).

The Chinese government has also issued many policies in favor of minorities. For example, in the practice of family planning programmes, minority members can have two children per couple while the Han are only allowed to have one. Minority students can receive additional points in examinations (in Inner Mongolia) or enjoy quotas (in Xinjiang) for university admission. Top positions in the local administration of autonomous areas are only offered to minority cadres. And minority residents usually receive more financial subsidies in welfare programmes. However, these policies have often politicized group identities while at the same time created tensions given that the Han majority often feels discriminated against.
Similar to the Russian case, group consciousness and boundaries in China have become stronger and wider under the political and social systems since the 1950s. Particularly since the break up of the Soviet Union and its various republics seceded, it is natural that nationalism and requests for independence emerged among the minority minzu in China, especially for those with large populations and distinct languages and territories, such as Tibetans and Uyghurs. This is key to understanding and interpreting the ‘minzu problem’ in contemporary China.

Nonetheless, there are several factors that have had positive impacts on the stability of ethnic relations in China over the past six decades. First is the predominance of the Han majority; the Han consisted of 94 percent of the total population in 1953 and 91 percent in 2005. Second, the Han regions are much more economically and socially advanced, providing products and incomes to support the nation. Third, the central government has introduced many favorable policies towards minorities and provided huge financial subsidies to autonomous regions (eg. the central government provided about 28 billion yuan to the Tibet Autonomous Region in 2008). Fourth, many members of minority groups have co-existed with the Han for centuries and have been assimilated.

Other factors which used to play a role in keeping the country together are now changing. For example, the communist revolutions in both the USSR and the PRC brought with them many benefits to the poor people of both majority and minority groups: land reform programmes gave land and cattle to poor farmers and herdsmen and poor workers became the ‘leading class’ in urban areas. Hence, these common people supported the Communist Party and its policies, including its policies in nationality affairs. The Communist ideology, as expressed by charismatic revolutionary leaders, became a theoretical tie binding the worker-farmer classes together under the leadership of the Communist Party. As these leaders died, their ideological influence gradually vanished. The system of planned economy and division of production among autonomous areas was also weakened when it was replaced with the market economy.

Furthermore, although the theory of ‘nationality’ and the system of regional autonomy based on this theory still dominates in China, there are many gaps between the theory and daily practice. In many autonomous areas the Han constitutes a majority (eg. 79.2 percent of the population in Inner Mongolia, 65.4 percent in Ningxia and 61.6 percent in Guangxi). Han also constitute a significant part of population in Xinjiang (40.6 percent vs. 46.1 percent Uyghurs). In this sense, the Tibet Autonomous Region represents a very special case with a small Han population (6.1 percent). In contrast, minority populations only consist of 12-15 percent of the total population in many autonomous counties around the country.

Where the minority forms the ‘leading group’ in an autonomous area and has issued policies and regulations in favour of this group, the Han majority often feel discriminated against, leading to conflict. Moreover, the leading group might consider the autonomous area as its own territory and make efforts to prevent in-migration of other groups and to keep control of natural resources under its own management. This again causes reactions from other groups and the central government.

The ‘nationality’ quota system for official appointments in the government also leads to a variety of contradictions that undermine legitimacy. On the one hand, it helps some minority candidates achieve positions they are not really qualified for, resulting in a reduction in the efficiency of administration. On the other hand, although top administrative positions in autonomous areas are only open to ‘natives’ of the minority group, the Han usually occupy the position of Party Secretary, which is where the real authority lies. Also, the same policy prevents the minorities from competing for higher positions within provincial or central governments because the allocation of such positions among groups is designated according to their population sizes. While the minorities feel this lack of ‘real’ autonomy, the central government considers this power structure to be a basic guarantor of unification, which explains why the Chinese Communist Party has been very cautious about reforming this political system.
Similarly, despite efforts to provide a dual education system for minorities, minorities often end up facing severe disadvantages in the job market because of their lower average education levels, their inferior linguistic abilities in Chinese language, or because of cultural differences.

When a group has been officially recognized by the central government, foreign authorities, and the elites of the group, and when this group has its own ‘territory’ in the form of a republic or autonomous region, the desire to become an independent nation through the ‘right of self-determination’ emerges, supported by both nationalist theories in the West and the Marxist theory of ‘nationality’. This is a key ideological-political source of separatism among minority ‘nationalities’ in China today. In this sense, the Soviet model followed by the PRC can be called a strategy of ‘politicization’ of minority groups. This model turns traditional minority ‘tribal states’ into modern ‘nations/nationalities’ and turns the country into a ‘union of many nations/nationalities’. The problem and danger of nationalist separation was therefore actually created, at least in part, by the authorities of the USSR and China themselves in the process of ‘nation-building’.

Based on this opinion, I suggested rethinking the strategy of ‘nation-building’ in China practiced since the 1950s (Ma 2007). The ‘culturisation’ strategy towards minority groups in the US and India might be a better alternative for China in the future. I believe that only when minority ‘nationalities’ in China are transformed into ‘ethnic groups’, the ‘minzu’ issue and ethnic tension can decline. While this challenge to the ‘orthodox’ Marxist minzu theory has been heavily criticized in China, the freedom of academic discussions in China needs to be improved to enable us to face reality and provide a more scientific base for policy-making.

In the meantime, the policies in favor of minorities should continue, but the target of these policies should be gradually switched from ‘all members of minority groups’ to all residents of ‘poor areas’, then to ‘all individual citizens who need the help’. Similarly, the administrative structure of autonomous areas should be maintained for a period of time but the sense of a ‘nationality’s territory’ should be reduced gradually. The dual system of schools in autonomous areas should continue, while various kinds of bilingual education facilities should be offered to all members of minority groups. The situation of ethnic stratification in Chinese society should be systematically studied and the government should establish programmes to help minority members who are disadvantaged in terms of language or other skills.

In general, the future of the ‘minzu issue’ and ethnic relations in China largely depends on the direction of government strategy. Of course, it will also be related to the level of economic development and to cautious political reform in China.

Rong Ma is Professor of Sociology at Peking University, China. His major research fields are ethnic relations, nationalism, rural development, education, sociology of environment, Tibetan studies, cultural studies.

References:
Anderson, Benedict (1983) Imagined Communities, London: Verso.
Harrell, Stevan (2001) Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwestern China, Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Hobsbawm, E. J. (1990) Nations and nationalism since 1780, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ma, Rong (2007) ‘A New Perspective in Guiding Ethnic Relations in the Twenty-first century: “De-politicization” of Ethnicity in China’, Asian Ethnicity 8 (3): 199-218.
Smith, Anthony (1991) National Identity, Reno: University of Nevada press.