I think you’re assuming that the reason Beijing’s most developed cities are located on the East is because of some kind of inborn Han characteristic. I think it’s more a question of geography. As you know, China has put its capitals in the East or South East since the Eastern Zhou Dynasty because that was the safest, most fertile part of China, and also nearest to trade routes and therefore cultural development. Even when its capitals was invaded, there were at least dynasties created, like the Yuan and Qing. In the West and Northwest they had to deal with the Xiongnu, the Khitans, etc., who didn’t build empires so much as raze the scraps.

Anyway, after you’ve had China’s heart in the East for so long, of course it’s going to be more developed, the problem is that existing development sets a precedent for future development staying where it originated instead of radiating across the country. My experience in Xi’an, for example, was that the large population of Hui and the other minorities seemed integrated into the community through a better ability to enjoy China’s development.

I’m flattered that you see China as learning from the West’s successes (although I’d argue that the Western world has learned plenty from China through the years, too) it’s also important to remember that America has had racial tensions, race riots, etc. in the past. The integration of Africans into mainstream society after they had been slaves was a source of major contention for many years after they had been nominally given all the rights of whites. It’s still a tense situation, sometimes. I’m not an expert on that field, but there’s plenty that has gone wrong in inter-Western race relations that could be illustrative to China, in terms of what mistakes China could learn from the West making.

However, one thing I think that America did do well in this regard was to first focus on getting African-Americans to be ABLE to enjoy the rights they were given through protecting their ability to exercise those rights, and only extending affirmative action until a more stable baseline was established. There’s something about giving minorities extra rights in some regards when they already lack so much as far as general equality that really seems to have a damaging effect, and polarizes people like it is in Xinjiang. Each side sees itself as being marginalized, and in a sense, they’re both right.

the author is invited to Xinjiang streets and physical action sells more bucks than lip service, doesn’t it.

We also shouldn’t feel too tempted to describe the violence as either wholly blamed on the Uyghurs or Han Chinese. Like most situations in life, I believe it’s a mix of the two. Having spent a year in China, and as I’m able to speak Chinese, I can say that I’m not very impressed with the condition of ethnic minorities within the country, but I don’t blame the CCP for all of that.

Chinese people usually reference the fact that ethnic minorities are given a bonus to their college entrance exams, are allowed to have more than one kid, etc., but I think to dwell on these superficial advantages misses the fact that in many ways, minorities are still second-class citizens.

A lot of this is simply geographical, they come from the parts of China that are nearest to other countries and tend to stay close to the border, but as the most developed parts of China are on the Eastern Seaboard (or close to it) minorities tend to miss out on the benefits of China’s economic expansion. It is also hard for them, there are 55 ethnic groups in China, but the Han make up for more than 90% of the population, and a culture as homogenous as China’s tends to draw sharp lines between who is “one of us” and who isn’t.

Allowing minorities a higher birth rate doesn’t make them more accepted, it just creates more second-class citizens. And giving them a bonus to their college entrance exams not only ignores the educational gap leading up to college but also causes them to be seen as “spoiled” or privileged by their classmates or future employers, who are unwilling to really listen to the problems faced because they assume that affirmative action has healed all wounds.

China doesn’t want to let Xinjiang declare independence, because China would lose face, because there are natural resources in Xinjiang, because they would lose a buffer-zone between Beijing and the non-Chinese world, but also because it would set a precedent for separatism in Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and in a sense, Taiwan. But China has undeniably supported mass movements of Han Chinese people to dilute (or integrate, depending on your perspective) populations of ethnic minorities who have different identities and different personal alliances than the CCP’s “One Nation, One Family” principle advocates.

In any case, I think the long-term solution is to try and spread China’s rapid economic improvements a little more in the poorer areas, so that they do not feel so marginalized.

I think we are in much closer agreement here than you do. Han Chinese resentment to affirmative action policies is in line with the resentment of majority populations across cultures (USA, Western Europe, India, etc.).

I wouldn’t say, however, that such efforts are totally ineffective. China’s attempts to give minority groups representation in local government are admirable, particularly since the Han chauvinism of the Cultural Revolution, when non-Han cadre members were purged heavily.

That said, I agree with you that the efforts of the Chinese government, both in its ham-handed attempts to “help” ethnic minorities and in its Han-dominated economic ventures, have been poorly managed. I also agree that most in the West know little about China’s frontier, particularly when it is framed as Muslim terrorists vs. China.

If the Han Chinese don’t have a beef with the government and its policies towards them (e.g. fear of being accused as “Han Chauvinist” which has no clear definition in China, rejection of Han Chinese having a distinct heritage and image, One Child Policy only applying to Han Chinese, unnatural education disadvantages…), there wouldn’t BE conflict with the other minorities.

There wouldn’t be the issue of “Uighur pickpockets” in every city. There wouldn’t be the Man from Wuhan who dipped a Uighur pickpocket’s head into a vat of boiling oil and chopped the Uighur’s 7 comrades with a cleaver in the middle of morning market on March 8, 2007(http://www.tianya.cn/publicforum/content/free/1/1049148.shtml).

This resentment doesn’t come without the HANS THINKING that THEY are the third-class citizens, seeing the Uighurs getting off scot-free every time. Except that since these are “internal matters”, the West doesn’t get to hear about it.

Nobody is the winner. They are ALL third-class citizens.

The HAN think it’s too much and spoiling the minorities while completely removing their rights of ethnic survival (by killing off their next generation)…

While the ethnic minorities see the “benefits” as merely more clauses to control their natural livelihood and merely facades to control them even further.

Just to reiterate my (and Dr. Yi’s) 2 cents.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/06/uighurs/index.html