Linking Latitudes Conference 15-18 April 2001
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Perspectives:
Contemporary Issues in China I. Introduction MULTICULTURALISM While multiculturalism has contributed to a reexamination of the role and place of aboriginal populations, Asian immigrants and other migrant communities within Australian and American society, I would argue that the central ideas behind this concept--that is the recognition that all societies are comprised of ethnically and culturally diverse yet socially valuable communities--often appears to get lost when we talk about the "outside world." This is particularly the case with the way we look at China. DECONSTRUCTING CHINA II. CHINA’S OFFICIAL ETHNIC GROUPS Ethnic and cultural identity in China, much like every thing else in China, exists on two levels: an official state level and an unofficial popular level. First lets turn our attention to the official discourse on ethnic identity in China. According to the current Chinese administration, China is a "unitary, multiethnic nation-state," which is comprised of 56 officially recognized nationalities or minzu in China. You are undoubtedly familiar with many of these nationalities: THE HAN MAJORITY THE NATIONAL MINORITIES STATE ASSIGNED NATIONAL IDENTITYOne of the points I want to stress to you this morning is that in the official discourse on ethnic identity in China, the State exercises near absolute authority in assigning categories of national identity. Unlike in many democratic societies, in China, it is the State who assigns categories of ethnic identity. In China, one’s "nationality" is designated at birth by the State based upon the nationality of one’s parents. Each Chinese citizen holds an "identity card" or shenfenzheng, which in addition to stating one’s name, occupation, and address also clearly identifies one’s "nationality." In short, I want to suggest to you that in China, it is the STATE and not the individual that determines ethnic identity. [Add comparison with West] Historical Background on CCP Minority Policy While Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Party argued that all inhabitants of China comprised a single, homogenous Chinese race, Mao and the Chinese Communists stressed the importance of recognizing that the Mongols, Tibetan, Manchu, Hui and other peoples were distinct ethnic minorities; and thus, should be afforded special allowances and privileges in recognition of their oppressed status. The problem was that intellectuals within the Communist Party could not agree upon exactly how many ethnic minorities there were in China: some contented that there were only five while others argued that there were at least 12 distinct ethnic groups if not more. ETHNIC IDENTIFICATION CAMPAIGN The State began by asking those groups within Chinese society that considered themselves distinct ethnic minorities to formally petition the state for recognition. Yet, Mao and the new regime in Beijing were utterly shocked by the results, to say the least. By 1955, a staggering 400 different groups had registered names for themselves and applied for recognition--200 alone in the province of Yunnan. Mao and his fellow revolutionaries were willing to accept that China was a multiethnic nation-state, yet they had no intention of recognizing the existence of 400 distinct ethnic minorities. [One can only image the logistical problems this would create. Take for example the poor scholar assigned the task of coming up with enough different colored symbols to draw a map like this showing China’s ethnic distribution or the expansion necessary to include all 400 groups in Shanghai Muesums wonderful national minority exhibit.] Thus, the State dispatched teams of researchers out into the frontier to scientifically classify the Chinese people. While they were armed with Joseph Stalin’s rather narrow and unscientific definition of nationality as those people sharing a common language, territory, economic life and culture, the resulting process was highly political. After two years of research and careful consideration, the powerful State Ethnic Affairs Commission of the Central Government formally declared in 1957 that the PRC was comprised of 55 nationalities. What happen to the other 350 odd groups that had petitioned the State for recognition? Well, most of these groups were collapsed into large umbrella-like minority groups while others were denied ethnic minority status all together and labeled as part of the Han majority. As would be expected, not everyone was happy with their assigned ethnic category or even their name. In the years that followed, hundreds of disgruntled minority communities petitioned the State for reconsideration. Yet, besides the 11,000 Jiruo people of Yunnan who were officially recognized as a minority nationality in 1979, no additional groups have been added since the 1957 pronouncement. THE HUI While the "Hui" ethynomn dates back to the 11th century AD, in the past the term was a religious rather than an ethnic designation. Prior to the Communist revolution, the term was used to refer to all those people living within China that either practice Islam or claimed to be descendents of the Arab and Persian traders who first arrived in China during the Tang dynasty. Following the founding of the PRC in 1949, the State officially recognized--or more appropriately invented--10 Muslim nationalities in China. In creating these new national groupings--such as the Uigurs, the Kazaks, Uzbeks and Tartars--language served as the dominate marker of difference. While each of these communities were practitioners of Islam, there also spoke distinct languages upon which they could be distinguished. Yet, language alone was not sufficient to categorize all the Muslims living in China. There were literally millions of Chinese Muslims who spoke the same language, shared the same customs and were physically indistinguishable from the Han people among whom they lived. The Party officials in Beijing solved this problem by created a miscellaneous umbrella category for all these "assimilated Muslims" using the traditional ethnonym of "Hui." Diversity of the Hui Language: Linguistically, the Hui speak a wide variety of languages depending upon where they live: in Tibet they speak Tibetan while in Mongolia they speak Mongolian, while the vast majority of them speak Mandarin. Thus, what, you ask, binds the Hui together as a single ethnic group? I would suggest that it is State recognition of them as a distinct ethnic group. Where the Hui were once Muslims interacting as co-religionists, the State identified, institutionalized and in short, invented, a new nationality with both cultural and political implications. Yet, over the last 40 years, it can be argued that the State’s label of Hui nationality (and those of other ethnic groups invented by the Communist state during the 1950s) have taken on a life of their own, becoming very meaning categories of identity in China. CHINESE NATIONAL MINORITY POLICY Cultural Revolution For some minorities the Cultural Revolution simply required them to blending in revolutionary society by donning a Mao suit and studying the political prescripts of Mao’s Little Red Book. Yet, for many others, it meant their forced assimilation into Han society. Minority languages, religions, and cultural taboos were condemned as "backward", and an attempt was made to abolish them official. These "ethnic characteristics" were labeled as part of the "Four Olds" (old thinking, old culture, old morality and old customs) and as such were prime targets for "smashing" by Mao’s Red Guard youths. Only Chinese was to be spoken in public, while traditional minority holidays and festivals were forbidden; minority communities were prohibited from practicing their religion openly, and minority officials were replaced by more "revolutionary advanced" Han cadres, while minority schools and institutions were forced to shut their doors. Finally, animal husbandry, through which many national minorities earned a living, was condemned as backward--forcing many minorities to destroy their pastures, plant grain and become farmers. Post-Mao Reforms As a result, Deng introduced a series of affirmative action policies aimed at aiding China’s economically backward minorities in developing their communities. These policies stressed the important of recognizing the "special characteristics" of China’s minority people and affording them "preferential treatment" so that they could quickly improve their social and economic standing. The most important of these "affirmative action policies" were in the area of family planning, education, politics, the economic development: - In the realm of Family Planning most minority communities were granted exception from the State’s "one child policy" or special allowance for having extra children. - In the Educational realm the State established special minority training academies and schools where instruction was given in the local language while the minorities were also afforded lower entrance standards for admission into institutes of higher education. - In the Political realm the State has created quotas for minority political representation at all levels of government from the local county government to the NPC in Beijing. - Finally, in the realm of the Economy, broader decisions making power and special economic incentives have been introduced to help develop minority regions. Last year the Chinese government announced an aggressive campaign to develop its poor Western regions. It devised preferential lending and investment policies in a bid to pull in hesitant foreign investors. The State is also proposing massive state subsidies in the hope of building 35,000 kilometers of new roads and 4,000 kilometers of new railway over the next decade--including a controversial railway linking Tibet with the rest of China. These new policies and the general opening up of Chinese society have resulted in a flowering of ethnic identity in China. The Mao suits have been moth balled in favor of colorful ethnic costumes as minorities not only celebrate their cultural heritage but also attempt to attract tourist dollars. Rise in China Minority Population Take for example, the Manchus population. Since the Chinese state introduced a new law allowing children of mix-Han-minority parentage to choose their ethnic identity, the Manchu population has skyrocketed from 4.2 million in 1982 to 9.8 million in 1990 (a rate of 128% increase, making the Manchus, who were until recently though to be nearly assimilated, the fastest growing ethnic group in China during the 1980s). This obviously reflects not only a renewed pride in Manchu identity in China but also the appeal of these new affirmative action policies in China. As a result of these policies, the national minority population in China increased 35% during the 1980s from 67 million to 91 million. The majority of this rather remarkable increase can be explained as "category-shifting" and not necessary increased birth rates. In sum, on an official level, the Chinese state is the sole arbitrator of categories of national identity. Yet, for every single ethnic group that the State recognizes as legitimate, there are scores of additional ethnic groups that it attempts to downplay or even erase from the official discourse. III. SUB-ETHNIC IDENTITY Ethnic identities are not entirely absent outside of the official discourse on national identity in China. In fact, many of the people classified as members of the Han majority live very "ethnic lives" in China. On the popular level, I would argue, there exists another layer of cultural and ethnic diversity in China. Stop for a moment and ponder the fact that according to the Chinese government 92% of China’s 1.3 billion people (that is roughly 1 billion people or 1/5 of the world’s population) belong to a single ethnic group: the so-called "Han Chinese." Common sense defies the possibility that 1 billion people could possible share a single language, culture, religion--and most importantly for defining ethnic identity--think of themselves as a single, ethnically and culturally homogenous people. Creating Han Identity It was not until around the turn of the century that Sun Yat-sen and other Chinese revolutionaries popularized the idea that the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Manchu Qing dynasty were "Han Chinese" distinct from the ruling Manchu people who they wished to overthrow. It is not at all surprising that Dr. Sun should turn to the use of the all-embracing idea of the Han as a national group. Sun Yat-sen was Cantonese and raised as an overseas Chinese in Hawaii. In Sun’s era, and still today, there exists a strong suspicion among northern Chinese of the Cantonese, who are seen as trouble-makers whose loyalties often lie more with the outside world than with China. Dr. Sun found an ingenious way to rise above this deeply embedded north-south ethnocentrism. The use and perhaps the invention of the term "Han minzu" or Han nationality was a brilliant attempt to mobilize other non-Cantonese, especially northern Mandarin speakers, and powerful Zhejiang and Shanghainese merchants, into one overarching national group against the Manchu and other foreigners threatening China. Yet, despite Sun’s success in overthrowing the Manchu Qing dynasty in 1911 and the popularization of the ethnic category of "Han" under both the Republican and Communist governments that followed, the Han Chinese continue on a popular level to identify themselves and others within their ethnic group according to a wide-spectrum of "sub-ethnic" categories. In particular, I want to suggest to you three specific types of sub-ethnic identity which exists among the Han majority in China today: Linguistic and Cultural Sub-groups: The first type of sub-ethnic identity belongs to those groups that are defined largely along linguistic and cultural lines. Linguistic Diversity Generally speaking, the Han people can be divided into eight major linguistic groups with Mandarin, Shanghainese, Cantonese and Fukienese being the largest and most widely recognized. Despite the fact that one finds as much linguistic diversity among these languages as exists among the Romance languages, they have been classified by the Chinese State as "dialects" rather than "languages." In China, linguistic difference only serves as a marker of nationality among the officially recognized ethnic minorities and not among the majority Han Chinese. [Pause of a joke: What is the difference between a language and a dialect? A military and a navy]. While these dialects were forbidden to be spoken in public during the Cultural Revolution and other times of political upheaval in China, regional dialects have flourished since Deng Xiaoping’s reforms. As a result, in Shanghai today, one hears about as much Mandarin as they do English. Anyone educated in Shanghai after 1949 can speak Mandarin fluently, but it remains their second-language and certainly not their language of choice. Cultural Diversity Each of these linguistic groups are also associated with specific behavioral stereotypes which are deeply rooted in the popular imagination of the Chinese people. The Mandarin speakers of the north are generally consider to be friendly, submissive and orderly; the Sichuanese are viewed as hot-tempered (due, no doubt, to the over abundance of chili peppers in their food); the Cantonese are considered shrewd, clannish, open to new ideas and often impulsive, stubborn and unyielding, while the Shanghainese are characterized as pragmatic, crafty and faddish in their love of all things new. Economic sub-groups: Shanghai is home to one of China’s largest stigmatized ethnic groups, the so-called "Subei" people. In Shanghai, most of the socially undesirable jobs--such as garbage and night soil collectors, taxi-cab drivers, prostitutes, and hairdressers--are natives of the poorest rural areas of northern Jiangsu provinces and have migrated to Shanghai over the last 100 years in search of new economic opportunities. In her fine study of these people, American scholar Emily Honig found that although they are officially recognized as "Han," the Subei people have been stigmatized for such a long time that they have begun to think of themselves and act as a distinct ethnic group. The Tanka or so-called "boat people" of southern China are another example of an class defined sub-ethnic group. If anyone here has been to one of the outlining islands of HK or its port town Aberdeen, you have inevitably seen the Tanka living in their floating communities. While the origins of the Tanka people are unclear, it appears that they were originally a group of disposed farmers who decided during the late Ming or early Qing dynasty to take to the water in order to eke out a meager existence hawking goods from small sampans or by operating floating restaurants, barber shops, or prostitution and opium dens. While many of the more than 3 million pre-revolution Tanka people have been resettled on land by the PRC government during the last 40 years, there are still some 50,000 boat-people in Hong Kong today. Religious subgroups Kaifeng Jews Yet, due to a combination of factors, the families gradually assimilated into Chinese society and stop practicing Judaism. Yet, with China’s opening to the world in the 1980’s, the international Jewish community sparked a renewed interests among some of the descendants of these Jews in Kaifeng. [Insert story from my visit to Kaifeng] And for a variety of reasons--some economic and other no doubt personal--it sparked a revival of the Kaifeng Jewish community. Today, there are around 1000 families in Kaifeng that claim Jewish ancestry and are trying to revive the Jewish religion in China. The Kaifeng Jews have also petitioned the State for formal recognition as a national minority in China. While their efforts have remained unsuccessful, they continue to register their nationality as Jewish (or Youtai) on all official documents. Hakka Driven out of Henan by a series of ecological disasters around 300 AD, the Hakka gradually migrated southward until they reached Guangdong and Fujian provinces in the South of China around the 12th century. There they began to farm the marginalized land left barren by their Cantonese and the Fukianese neighbors, and became known as the "Guest families" or "Hakka" as distinguished from the "Native Families" or "Punti." What is perhaps most interesting about the Hakka is their disproportional representation among the famous people in Chinese history and contemporary politics.
Yet, Hakka communities in Taiwan and the States and not the Hakka communities within China are driving much of this discussion about and pride in Hakka identity. [One group the "Taiwanese Hakka Association of American" organizes yearly conferences on Hakka identity, publishes a monthly magazine and maintains a popular website.] Yet, despite this strong international recognition of Hakka identity, in China they are still official label as members of the Han ethnic minority. And I challenge you to find anyone in China who is willing to admits that the great Deng Xiaoping is anything other than a proud member of the glorious Han nationality. IV. CONCLUSION In conclusion, ethnicity in China, as elsewhere in the world, is an intensely political process: it represents a complex and on-going dialogue between popular self-perception (I am proud to be a Hakka), the stigmatized designation of others (You are a filthy Subei person) and, most importantly in China, State definitions (You are both Han Chinese). Yet, few can deny the fact, that underneath the shroud of national homogeneity in China, there exists a colorful and rich cultural and ethnic mosaic. |