[Feature: How to Perceive China] Masahiro Hoshino: How to Perceive China's Ethnic Minority Issues

2021/08/05

In Chinese history, which has seen repeated dynasty changes between different ethnic groups, the political and social fluctuations that occurred in the approximately 100 years since the fall of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the birth of the Republic of China in 1912 have been a process of absolutizing the political power of the Han Chinese as the majority. The driving force behind this great upheaval is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding on July 1, 2021.

Since its founding in 1921, the CCP has wavered on how to govern ethnic minority regions—whether to adopt a federal system recognizing the right to self-determination or a system granting autonomy under a centralized government—depending on its relationship with the Kuomintang and the development of the Second Sino-Japanese War. After the war ended and the CCP emerged victorious in the civil war against the Kuomintang, it prioritized external security and decided on a policy of governing ethnic minority regions under a centralized system, establishing the People's Republic of China as a non-federal state.

After the founding of the nation, the CCP's ethnic policy was integrated into the political system as the System of Regional Ethnic Autonomy. Ethnic minority regions were reorganized into ethnic autonomous areas such as autonomous regions, autonomous prefectures, and autonomous counties according to their administrative level, and ethnic minority people living in these areas were granted a certain degree of autonomy and preferential treatment.

However, residents of ethnic autonomous areas included not only ethnic minorities but also many Han Chinese, though the population ratios varied by region. Consequently, the CCP presented two principles that are difficult to reconcile: preferential treatment for ethnic minorities and equality for all ethnic groups.

During the Mao Zedong era, when equality was pursued, preferential measures for ethnic minorities did not function effectively. For example, in Tibet, where the introduction of the System of Regional Ethnic Autonomy had been postponed due to its political, social, and cultural specificities, socialization proceeded rapidly. After the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in March 1959, Tibet was incorporated into the System of Regional Ethnic Autonomy as the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1965.

In the 1980s, when the Reform and Opening-up began, reflecting on the Mao era led to legal guarantees for preferential measures for ethnic minorities, and ethnic minority individuals were appointed as leaders of ethnic autonomous areas. However, since legal rules do not apply to CCP organizations, the post of CCP Secretary, who holds actual power, is held by Han Chinese in major ethnic autonomous areas. In China under an authoritarian regime, ethnic minorities are placed under a dual rule: the one-party system of the CCP and the monopoly of political power by the Han Chinese. This hollowed-out form of ethnic autonomy has led to the provocation of ethnic unrest.

Even after the Xi Jinping administration started in November 2012, ethnic issues occurred frequently. Incidents related to Uyghurs, such as the October 2013 Tiananmen Square vehicle attack and the March 2014 Kunming railway station attack in Yunnan Province, occurred even outside the autonomous region. What particularly shocked the Xi Jinping administration was the explosion at Urumqi South Railway Station on April 30, 2014, which was the final day of Xi Jinping's visit to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In response to the frequent occurrence of such incidents, the government further strengthened control over ethnic minorities, such as by launching the "Special Action to Crack Down on Violent Terrorist Activities with Xinjiang as the Main Battlefield" on May 23, 2014.

The background of the CCP's hardline ethnic minority policy is also related to structural reasons surrounding ethnic minorities. First, China's ethnic minority issues have a structure directly linked to external security. The total area of ethnic autonomous regions accounts for 64% of China's land area and includes most of its land borders. China is adjacent to neighboring countries through ethnic autonomous regions such as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tibet Autonomous Region, and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and is placed in an environment where it must formulate ethnic minority policies from the perspective of how to ensure national integration. Second, to stabilize ethnic autonomous regions where the influx of the Han population is progressing, preventing the dissatisfaction of Han residents from exploding has become a more important political task than the dissatisfaction of ethnic minority people. In the July 2009 Urumqi riots, after the Uyghurs rioted, the Han Chinese carried out even larger-scale counter-demonstrations. It is extremely rare for inter-ethnic conflict to manifest so clearly. If preferential measures to resolve the dissatisfaction of ethnic minorities face backlash from the Han Chinese, it could undermine the CCP's governing capacity. However, even if the police or military are mobilized to suppress ethnic minorities, the structure is such that critical voices are unlikely to arise from the Han Chinese, who make up 90% of the total population.

In recent years, a debate has emerged over whether to maintain the current ethnic minority policy centered on the System of Regional Ethnic Autonomy. Proponents of policy change argue that although boundaries between ethnic groups in China have historically been ambiguous and flexible, current ethnic policies excessively emphasize differences between groups, which works against forming a national-level consciousness such as the commonality of the Chinese nation. While the ethnic policy has not been officially changed at this point, the institutional reforms of the Party and State in March 2018 placed both the State Ethnic Affairs Commission and the State Administration for Religious Affairs—both deeply involved with ethnic minorities—under the umbrella of the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee. Furthermore, in December 2020, a Han Chinese leader was appointed as the Director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, a post that had been held by ethnic minority leaders for nearly 70 years.

In this way, China's ethnic minority policy is undergoing a de facto shift from a policy of respecting the individuality of each ethnic group to one that promotes the integration and fusion of all ethnic groups more than ever before.

China's ethnic minority issues have previously attracted global attention as individual human rights issues, such as the Tibet issue before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. However, the recent level of intense interest and condemnation from the international community regarding China's ethnic minority issues and policies is unprecedented.

The catalyst for this was the operation of "Vocational Education and Training Centers" in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. This name is based on China's official view, which explains that the purpose of these facilities is to remove the soil in which frequent "terrorism" and religious extremism spread, improve knowledge levels to promote employment and increase income, and thereby stabilize Xinjiang.

Based on the current stage of ethnic minority policy discussed so far, the Uyghur issue symbolized by the "Vocational Education and Training Centers" can be said to be a problem that was bound to happen. In China, when issues involving ethnic minorities such as Uyghurs occur, there is a tendency to perceive them as security issues related to national integration. Regarding the Uyghur issue, which is particularly related to Islam, the government has strengthened control over religious leaders and places of religious activity, believing that religious issues lie at the root. China takes the position that what is recognized domestically is not "freedom of religion" but "freedom to believe in a religion," and that religious doctrines must be subordinate to national rules. They believed that by strictly managing religious activities such as Islam, which easily form communities across borders, they could suppress the radicalization of Uyghur society and the occurrence of "terrorism." However, when they began to perceive that young people and women, whose participation in religious activities is relatively low, were highly involved in ethnic incidents, they likely judged that managing religious activities alone was insufficient for maintaining public order. For China, the establishment of "Vocational Education and Training Centers" is a highly political policy aimed at stabilizing Xinjiang by directly incorporating young people and women.

Regarding these facilities, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has reported that nearly one million Uyghurs are being forcibly detained, and parts of internal Chinese government documents allegedly obtained by the New York Times and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) have been made public. Although it is reported that the operation of these facilities has already ceased, countries like the United States have strongly condemned China's policies as "genocide" and imposed sanctions on Chinese companies and government agencies involved in the Uyghur issue.

International global companies operating in Xinjiang have also faced strong criticism for profiting from the forced labor of ethnic minorities. While some of these companies have moved to review their relationships with related suppliers, if we recall that the essence of the Uyghur issue lies in protecting the culture and enriching the lives of the Uyghur people, it is necessary not just to cut ties with suppliers but to move toward ensuring appropriate employment for the Uyghur people. Furthermore, this awareness needs to be shared not only by companies in Xinjiang but by all individuals and companies conducting economic activities in China.

The ethnic autonomous regions spreading across China's periphery are areas extremely rich in diversity from all perspectives, including lifestyle, religion, language, and values. How China faces this diverse society can be seen as a litmus test for how China intends to behave in the international community.

In an essay I published exactly ten years ago in 2011, I concluded: "China's ethnic issues have a structure linked to the transformation of the regional order in East Asia. As a member of East Asia, Japan must face the political challenges arising from China's ethnic issues while considering a desirable future vision for the region" (Ryosei Kokubun, ed., "China Now," Iwanami Shinsho). This conclusion, through the analysis of the Tibet and Uyghur issues, advocated the necessity for Japan to face China's ethnic minority issues not just within the framework of individual issues like human rights, but from the perspective of larger global structural changes. It seems that now is exactly the time to provide an answer to the challenge of how to perceive China's ethnic minority issues.