Seeking truth from facts

The International Campaign for Tibet highlighted an interesting Xinhua editorial earlier this week in a post on their blog. The Xinhua article was about "mass incidents" in China, specifically one at a steel mill in Jilin province, and criticized the government for saying that the reason for these incidents was that those who rose up against the authorities "don't know the truth." This editorial says that if this is the real cause of anti-government actions, then simply telling the citizens involved "the truth" should be sufficient to stop them from striking out against officialdom. Now, Xinhua is of course talking about the kind of localized protests and anti-government violence that occurs all over China every day (some 90,000 times a year, apparently), but ICT's Stewart Watters makes the point that:

One of the challenges that Tibetans and their supporters face is to reach a point where commentators like Huang Guan or Chinese officials or ordinary Chinese citizens can begin to draw parallels between their own mistrust of the way the government characterizes and responds to mass incidents, and the factors that lie behind the Tibetan mistrust of Beijing.

Good point!

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Uighurstan Power Plays

The NYT has an excellent piece today on how the hardline policies in Xinjiang relate to the bigger picture political jockeying within China's leadership.  The profile of the notorious Wang Lequan, which also notes his relationship to his protege and equal in nastiness Zhang Qingli - the hardline party secretary in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, is some quality reportage of the kind that is often sorely lacking when it comes to China.  I hope that everyone in the Obama Administration reads this article, as it exposes a number of important currents in Chinese political thought about how to manage the restive minority nationalities.  To whit: 

- Whereas in most other countries, the fact that Xinjiang exploded into violence in the first place would normally be held against Wang and Zhang, their harsh response and their reputation for toughness (which arguably is a leading factor in the initial violence!) will probably result in their continued promotion up the ladder.

- Wang and his ilk are among a minority who believe that inter-ethnic conflict, rather than economic slowdown, has the most potential to upset the Communist Party's apple cart.  This viewpoint may be self-serving, given his position, and is definitely shaped by the fact that he has spent the past 15 years cracking-heads in Uighurland.  Unfortunately, having recognized inter-ethnic conflict as a problem, he has come to the conclusion that the way to resolve the problem is to be as harsh as possible on one hand while maximizing assimilationist policies on the other.

- Hu Jintao, who comes across on the international stage as Mr. Smooth - a polished, modern leader, is thoroughly linked up with this mentality of repression and chauvinism.  He is probably one of its strongest proponents in the system.  

And so it goes.  US and European policymakers continue to pretend that they are dealing with a modern, normal nation, while China continues to act like a 19th century colonial power.  And we are surprised when the mask slips and the true ugliness peeks out from behind the 21st century veneer.

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Uncle Zhou in Uighurstan

Uh oh.  It looks like the regime is getting serious, now that Hu Jintao has apparently sent the thuggish Zhou Yongkang to Urumqi to "direct safety work" in the restive region.  (Original article in Chinese here.)  So what is Zhou up to?  Let's take a gander at a completely spontaneous moment, as dutifully chronicled those crack journalists over at Xinhua:

“Hai-er-ni-sha-han, a 66 year-old Uighur woman who had been struck in the head with a brick while riding on a public bus, is currently receiving medical treatment. Zhou Yong-kang visited her bedside, and leant over to carefully examine her wounds. He expressed his personal sympathies to her. Hai-er-ni-sha-han said that she has confident in the party and the government, believes that the malevolent goals of villains will not succeed, and that ‘our lives will be sure to improve.’ Zhou Yong-kang said to her: ‘You have indeed spoken well. What you said represents the common aspirations of the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang.’”

Awwwww.  How sweet.  And who exactly is Uncle Zhou and why has he been thrust into this role of healing the ethnic divide?  Well - he just happens to have recently been promoted after serving a five year term as minister of "public security."  Before that, he was the party secretary in Sichuan province, where he launched a major crackdown on Tibetan "splittists" that was marked by the first execution of a Tibetan for a political crime in recent memory.  That crackdown apparently was key to his promotion to the national stage, since beating up on troublesome ethnics has long been a proven path to the top echelons of the Peoples Republic (see e.g. Hu Jintao).  

And who is China's propaganda machine trying to fool with this outpouring of concern from on high?  The domestic audience, of course.  Much as I love the early socialist prose style of this article, it is interesting how the Chinese people can readily believe this garbage when they generally take for granted that Xinhua is only giving them half the truth.  I blame a combination of latent Han chauvinism and, perversely (or not, since I am generally a conservative who opposes such things), the government's showy affirmative action program for minorities, which provides them a number of "advantages" (as long as they are willing to subsume themselves into the Chinese system).  This affirmative action program has convinced many Han that most minorities are either idiots who can't get by without a boost from the state, degenerates who get away with murder because of an official policy of leniency in criminal matters (although this official lenience certainly doesn't carry over to "political" matters), or lazy ingrates who should be thankful for the beneficence of the Chinese (read: Han) state.  

So much for harmonious society...

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Neo-colonialism with Chinese characteristics

The NYT has an essay by an anthropologist who discusses the colonialist mindset of China's rulers (and, sadly, many Han Chinese) toward the Tibetans and Uighurs.  In describing how they see these minority groups, he says: 

For them, all minorities are fully — and only — Chinese citizens, and therefore must be loyal to the government and grateful for its largesse. There will never be much gratitude unless China’s leaders grant these groups real regional autonomy, guarantee freedom of religion, curb Han Chinese migration and stop their insulting rhetoric about underdeveloped minorities in need of help. But they won’t. So the unrest and discontent — at times exploding into the violence of the past few days — are bound to continue.

He also does a good job of explaining the difference between ethnic "nationalities" such as Tibetans and Uighurs, vice the 50+ other minority groups in China - i.e. Hui, Zhang, etc. - a distinction that is frequently obscured by both Chinese leaders and others in making comparisons to ethnic politics in other countries, as well as comparisons among ethnic groups within China.  

I am looking at a copy of Ross Terrill's "The New Chinese Empire", which has been waiting for me to read it for some time.  I think I'll start today...

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Seriously?!? Are these people crazy or just evil?

More on the violence in Uighur-land from an AP story:

Meanwhile, for much of the afternoon, a mob of 1,000 mostly young Han Chinese holding cleavers and clubs and chanting "Defend the Country" tore through streets trying to get to a Uighur neighborhood until they were repulsed by police firing tear gas.

Panic and anger bubbled up amid the suspicion in Urumqi (pronounced uh-ROOM-chee). In some neighborhoods, Han Chinese — China's majority ethnic group — armed themselves with pieces of lumber and shovels to defend themselves. People bought up bottled water out of fear, as one resident said, that "the Uighurs might poison the water."

The outbursts happened despite swarms of paramilitary and riot police enforcing a dragnet that state media said led to the arrest more than 1,400 participants in Sunday's riot, the worst ethnic violence in the often tense region in decades.

Trying to control the message, the government has slowed mobile phone and Internet services, blocked Twitter — whose servers are overseas — and censored Chinese social networking and news sites and accused Uighurs living in exile of inciting Sunday's riot. State media coverage, however, carried graphic footage and pictures of the unrest _showing mainly Han Chinese victims and stoking the anger.

The Chinese also said that the riots were stirred up by Rebiya Kadeer, a Uighur exile who is a leader of her people because the regime put her in jail for having the nerve to complain about the horrible situation of the Uighur people.  She had the nerve to do this precisely because, call her crazy, the Chinese had annointed her as a model Uighur due to her business success, and made her one of their ethnic show ponies.  When she actually thought that this gave her some grounds to present evidence of the grievances of her people to the Chinese leadership, they threw her in jail and nearly killed her.  To this day, her children are in jail because they are her children.  

So, is the Chinese regime out of their minds or are they really this cynical?  Is stoking ethnic hatred to maintain your own legitimacy the behavior of a responsible government?  Let's think about a few lessons from history...hmmm....

A few facts: 

- The initial incident that sparked all this was an attack on a group of Uighur men in a coastal Chinese town.  A mob of Han Chinese attacked and beat 6 Uighurs who were accused of raping a Chinese woman.  What does this remind you of? (here's a hint: Emmit Till; here's another: Adolf Hitler)

- Han Chinese outnumber ethnic Uighurs 2-to-1 in Urumqi, and control the political, security and economic infrastructure of the city, region and country.  

- The Chinese government strictly controls all telecommunications into and out of Uighur-land.  Rebiya Kadeer lives in Washington, DC and is a 60+ year old woman with a cellphone.  Yet, according to the Chinese regime, she orchestrated these protests.   

- Last year, the Chinese government claimed that the Dalai Lama's "clique" in India orchestrated protests in Tibet.

Conclusion a reasonable person would reach if given the facts: either the Chinese government is not as on top of things as they claim to be in Tibet and Uighur-land, or maybe they are not being truthful in blaming the Dalai Lama and Rebiya Kadeer when these miserable, put-upon people decide they have had enough and just can't take it anymore.

Conclusion that most Chinese people reach because they only hear what the government wants them to: Uighurs and Tibetans are ungrateful little snots who are trying to destroy China.  But please don't take it upon yourself to beat the crap out of them - that is our job.

AGH!!!!!

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