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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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 Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 10:25 am Post subject: China is now an empire in denial |
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/414f6e50-6fd4-11de-b835-00144feabdc0.html
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When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, it suddenly became obvious that the USSR had never been a proper country. It was a multinational empire held together by force. Might we one day say the same of China?
Of course, any such suggestion is greeted with rage in Beijing. Chinese politicians are modern-minded pragmatists when it comes to economic management. But they revert to Maoist language when questions of territorial integrity are touched upon. Supporters of Taiwanese independence are �splittists�. The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, has been described as a �monster with a human face and an animal�s heart�. The Muslim Uighurs who rioted violently last week were denounced as the tools of sinister foreign forces.
According to David Shambaugh, an academic, the main lesson that the Chinese drew from studying the collapse of the USSR was to avoid �dogmatic ideology, entrenched elites, dormant party organisations, and a stagnant economy�.
It is an impressive list. But it misses out one obvious thing. The Soviet Union ultimately fell apart because of pressure from its different nationalities. In 1991, the USSR split up into its constituent republics.
Of course, the parallels are not exact. Ethnic Russians made up just over half the population of the USSR. The Han Chinese are over 92 per cent of the population of China. Yet Tibet and Xinjiang are exceptions. Some 90 per cent of the population of Tibet are still ethnic Tibetans. The Uighurs make up just under half the population of Xinjiang. Neither area is comfortably integrated into the rest of the country � to put it mildly. Last week�s riots in Xinjiang led to the deaths of more than 180 people, the bloodiest known civil disturbance in China since Tiananmen Square in 1989. There were also serious disturbances in Tibet just before last year�s Olympics.
In a country of more than 1.3bn people, the 2.6m in Tibet and the 20m in Xinjiang sound insignificant. But together they account for about a third of China�s land mass � and for a large proportion of its inadequate reserves of oil and gas. Just as the Russians fear Chinese influence over Siberia, so the Chinese fear that Muslim Xinjiang could drift off into Central Asia.
Han Chinese immigrants suffered badly in the race riots that convulsed Xinjiang. But China�s emotional and affronted reaction to the upheavals in Xinjiang is typical of an empire under challenge. With the British in Ireland, the Portuguese in Africa and many others besides, the refrain was always that the locals were ungrateful for all the benefits that had been showered upon them.
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China is especially ill-equipped to understand ethnic nationalism within its borders because many government officials simply do not accept, or even grasp, the idea of �self-determination�. Years of official propaganda about the need to reunify the motherland, and the disastrous historical consequences of a divided China, means that these attitudes are very widely shared. I once met a Chinese dissident who was strongly opposed to Communist party rule. But when I suggested that perhaps Taiwan should be allowed to be independent, if that was what its people wanted, his liberalism disappeared. That was unthinkable, I was assured. Taiwan was an inalienable part of China.
Yet the idea that Tibet and Xinjiang could aspire to be separate nations is by no means absurd. China insists that both areas have been an inseparable part of the motherland for centuries. However, they both experienced periods of independence in the 20th century. There was a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang, which was extinguished by the arrival of the Chinese People�s Liberation Army in 1949. Tibet experienced de facto independence between 1912 and 1949.
As things stand, the break-up of China looks very unlikely. Over the long term, a steady flow of Han immigrants into Xinjiang and Tibet should weaken separatist tendencies. The Dalai Lama, Tibet�s spiritual leader, is not even calling for independence. Some Uighurs may be more militant � but they lack leadership and the international sympathy that bolsters the Tibetan cause.
The Mikhail Gorbachev years and the loss of the Soviet empire in eastern Europe created a degree of political turmoil inside the USSR that does not exist in contemporary China. The Chinese state is much more economically successful, more confident and more willing to shed blood to keep the country together.
Violent repression of separatism can be very effective for a while. But it risks creating the grievances that keep independence movements alive across the generations.
For the moment activists campaigning for Xinjiang or Tibet look forlorn and defeated. That is often the fate of champions of obscure and oppressed peoples. The Baltic and Ukrainian exiles who kept their countries� aspirations alive during the Soviet era seemed quaint and unthreatening for decades. They were the archetypal champions of lost causes. Until, one day, they won. |
Mutli-ethnic states with extreme historical grievances can only survive in peace in an open democracy (and even then perhaps not) in my opinion. China has a very difficult road ahead but I believe the CCP will go to almost any lengths necessary to maintain territorial integrity. And that should frighten any independence minded Tibetan or Uighur. |
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Komichi
Joined: 19 Jul 2006
Location: Piano Street, Seoul
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| Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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| I don't see the Han administration ceding any power, or collapsing any time soon either. The Uighur will most likely be pushed out, one way or another. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:15 pm Post subject: |
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None of the historical parallels provided are appropriate to China's situation.
China's other minorities are so docile and pacified with relation to the Han (and vice versa) that they might as well be considered fully assimilated. Han boys and girls dress up in parades at schools and represent the other fifty-five ethnic minorities.
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In a country of more than 1.3bn people, the 2.6m in Tibet and the 20m in Xinjiang sound insignificant. But together they account for about a third of China�s land mass � and for a large proportion of its inadequate reserves of oil and gas. |
The point about the land mass is rather inane. Most of Xinjiang and Xizang (Tibet) are desert. The Uighers and Tibetans benefit as little from their vast tracts of economically barren wastes as did the Paiute people of what is now Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. And there are far more Han who will inundate the West in the next thirty years. The best historical comparison is that of pacification of the North Americans, a pacification which was NOT accomplished through just bargaining or any sort of recognition on the US's part of Wilsonian self-determination.
The article provides all the facts necessary to arrive at the correct conclusion, but decides to conclude that China is an Empire in trouble. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:19 pm Post subject: |
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| it will eventually have to discover the wonderful world of federalism. But that would also require some form of democracy. Fat chance of that happening anytime soon. |
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