The clashes between the Uighurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang this month left at least 197 people dead and more than 1,600 wounded. The rioting was Xinjiang’s worst ethnic unrest in decades. It not only shook China, but also brought international attention to the problems faced by China’s ethnic minority groups, including Uighurs and Tibetans.
Chinese officialdom cannot see anything wrong with the government’s minority policies and its treatment of minority groups. The official view is that development among the minorities living in Xinjiang is harmonious and calm, therefore it cannot be the cause of the unrest in the region. Chinese officials blame the unrest on exiled separatists and say that it was well planned and co-ordinated to take place at more than 50 locations across the regional capital, Urumqi. They claim that the problems have been incited by foreign forces, whether last year’s riots in Tibetan areas or this year’s unrest in Xinjiang.
These “forces” have not been identified, but any foreign country, organization, media outlet or individual seen as being prejudiced against China in some way is a possible accomplice. International respect for the Dalai Lama is seen by Beijing as an attempt to strengthen the Tibetan spiritual leader’s prestige and as support for a plot to bring about Tibetan independence. When Forbes magazine listed Rebiya Kadeer, who was Xinjiang’s richest person but was forced into exile in 2005, as one of China’s 10 richest people, Beijing saw this as an attempt to increase her prestige among Uighurs and as a way to oppose Chinese rule and encourage an East Turkestan independence movement.
By externalizing an internal problem, China has not only played down the inappropriate nature of its ethnic minority policies, but has also absolved itself of any responsibility for mishandling the riots by directing the focus of blame away from Beijing. More important, the Chinese authorities have expanded the ethnic minority problem and turned it into an issue of international prejudice. By using nationalism to manipulate the issue and create feelings of insecurity and rising international pressure among the Chinese, the government gains public sympathy and strengthens national unity.
This is China’s standard approach and it usually works. However, redirecting ethnic sentiment also changes the essence of the problem and diminishes domestic criticism of failed policies, political corruption, social injustice and human rights violations. This in turn means that the real, underlying problems are not resolved. This way of handling things will only suppress the current unrest. The result is that the next spark may well set off yet another wave of ethnic unrest.
The unrest in Xinjiang will not be enough to cause China to feel insecure or make the Chinese leadership nervous. Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) once served as Chinese Communist Party secretary in Tibet and thus has firsthand experience in dealing with minority issues. The riots will instead boost the government’s authority as it suppresses unrest.
Another result will be that dissatisfaction with the current economic situation will be redirected toward a new target for nationalist sentiment. Thus the regional problems in Xinjiang will provide an unexpected advantage for the Chinese leadership.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs