Organizers: Keng-Fong Pang, National University of Malaysia
Chair: Keng-Fong Pang, National University of Malaysia
Discussants: Colin Mackerras, Griffith University, Australia; Aniwar Abilimiti,
Xinjiang University
What is the relationship between the center and the locality in the interpretation and implementation of minority nationality policies? What is the nature of actual social relations between and among the minorities and the majority in specific localities? Examining minority conditions in China in the 1990s from two different angles, part one of these back-to-back panels focuses on different perspectives on the variability in the interpretation and implementation of actual policies which affect minority lives.
Melvyn Goldstein not only makes a historical analysis of continuity and changes in minority policies directed at "political Tibet," but also engages us in considering important differences in policies directed at "ethnographic Tibet"-ethnic Tibetan populations living elsewhere in China. From a linguistic perspective, Arienne Dwyer examines the power of the Chinese state in defining the status of minority language. Using specific data from different cases, she discusses the implications of variability in policy implementation on minority languages and cultures. Examining multiple levels of discourses generated by the implementation of minority policies in the Yunnan region, Sydney White explores the cultural politics of identity among the Naxi and contrasts the experiences of Naxi town and village residents. Finally, Barry Sautman provides a political and legal perspective on minority policies by examining the specific preferential benefits as a means of achieving "affirmative action" in China, bringing China's efforts into comparative international purview and analysis. Aniwar Abilimiti and Colin Mackerras, author of a new book on Chinese minority policies, will complement these presentations as discussants.
Continuity and Change in China's Minority Policies Toward Tibet: 1949-1996
Melvyn C. Goldstein, Case Western Reserve University
Since the creation of the PRC, China's political and socio-cultural policies toward Tibetans have varied with respect to period and locality. This representation examines the major components of that policy as played out in "political Tibet" (today's Tibet Autonomous Region) and secondarily as it emerged in "ethnographic Tibet" (the ethnic Tibetan areas of Sichuan, Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan).
Five major periods will be examined, including (1) the initial contact period that culminated with the signing in May 1951 of the 17 point agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet; (2) the critical eight-year period when China and Tibet tried to operationalize the terms of that agreement (1951-1959); (3) the period from the abortive Tibetan uprising and flight of the Dalai Lama to exile in 1959 through the assimilationist period of the Cultural Revolution (1959-1978); (4) the re-emergence of an ethnically sensitive Chinese policy under the leadership of Hu Yaobang (1978-87); and (5) the post-1987 period that is characterized by civil disturbances in Tibet and Beijing's shift away from the policy of conciliation towards Tibetan ethnic aspirations.
Special attention is given to the relationship between the center and locality in the implementation of policy, the internal and external forces precipitating the various policy transformations, particularly the relevance of the policies of the Dalai Lama, and the resonance of earlier events for the present Sino-Tibetan conflict.
The Texture of Tongues: Languages and Power in China
Arienne M. Dwyer, University of Washington
The way speakers and nations use language reflects the power relationships of a society. Languages are inherently dynamic, interactive, and multi-layered. Nation-states are stabilizing and isolating to preserve territorial integrity. Multilingual nation-states seek to preserve territorial boundaries in part by delimiting hierarchical boundaries between their languages.
Mandarin, canonized as the standard language, stands at the pinnacle of a metalinguistic hierarchy which mirrors the vertical basis of power in China today. State language policies establish official minority languages (and Chinese "dialects") under the arching umbrella of the Chinese state; yet their domain, or horizontal scope, is strictly constrained through prescriptive standardization. The dynamic change and variation of spoken languages is reduced to a single text.
This paper explores the tension between this codifying imperative of the Chinese state and the dynamic force of speakers. First I survey Chinese language policy in theory and practice, then focus on the expressions of power through language use. These include:
(1) Meting out official orthographies to some groups, not others;
(2) Constructing a "literary standard" for grammars of unwritten minority languages;
(3) Sponsoring contrastive grammars (based on Mandarin) and discouraging comparative research;
(4) According minority-language-like status to Chinese "dialects" (Min, Yue, etc.).
The destabilizing potential of a state without such a metalinguistic hierarchy is compared to the challenge of the Internet to the Chinese telecommunications system. This illustrates the interaction of language, speaker perceptions, and the Chinese state. It is a re-examination of assumptions about the purportedly static texture of language in a multilingual society.
Between Da Han Zhuyi and Minzu Zhuyi: PRC Policies and the Politics of Identity
in the Lijiang Naxi People's Autonomous County
Sydney D. White, Temple University
Since 1949, both the Chinese state and Chinese popular culture have played particularly powerful roles in shaping the everyday categories of cultural distinction for the Naxi of northwest Yunnan's Lijiang basin. An examination of Naxi constructions of "history" is used as a starting point for understanding contemporary Naxi subjectivities and how they are informed by state policies as well as the discourses and practices which the policies have generated. The basic contours of basin Naxi identities are then traced through an exploration of the key statuses which shape their subjectivities, contrasting the experiences of town residents with those of village residents. In many ways, ethnicity in and of itself is not much more of an issue for the Naxi of the Lijiang basin than regional identity is for Han residents of other parts of Chinese society. However, for the basin Naxi as a people who have been greatly influenced by Han Chinese culture, ethnicity is distinguished from regional identity by virtue of the fact that "minority nationality" status is the creation of specific policies of the Chinese socialist state, and is inextricably linked to a specific set of discourses and practices in P.R.C. society. The paper concludes with an examination of the multiplex and situationally variable discourses which Naxi draw upon in talking about and negotiating their ethnic identity-both with respect to the Han and with respect to the other minority peoples who reside in or adjacent to the Lijiang basin.
The Impact of "Affirmative Action" on Han-Minority Relations in the
PRC: The Case of Xinjiang
Barry Sautman, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
In the present "reform" era, the PRC central and local governments have intensified their efforts to achieve "affirmative action" for ethnic minorities. Preferential policies are implemented, to varying extents, in family planning, university admission, the hiring and promotion of workers and cadres, and the financing and taxation of businesses as well as regional infrastructural supports.
China's affirmative action directly affects about 100 million minority people. Its broad scope and obvious advantage, in recent years, animated millions of people and scores of "ethnies" to seek official minority status. At the same time, some benefits have proved to be more apparent than real to particular strata within minority communities, while the gap between the mainly inland minority "autonomies" and the overwhelmingly Han coastal areas grows apace.
This paper considers the contradiction between the aims of the reform project and the goals of affirmative action. It assesses the impact of positive discrimination on Han-minority relations in terms of the political stability of the minority areas. It also examines China's preferential policies as a case that disconfirms the claims of Thomas Sowell, Myron Weiner, and other scholars that affirmative action has everywhere failed to produce substantive equity while inhibiting economic efficiency and creating inter-ethnic tensions.