The post-Cold War world is wracked by ethnic conflict, with the number and intensity of disputes increasing. While each conflict has its own causes and range of possible solutions, scholars are increasingly focused on autonomy as a generalizable approach to ethnic peace. A number of states in Asia, Europe and the Americas now practice forms of autonomy, while other states are planning to initiate ethnic or regional autonomies in order to ameliorate conflict.

China has the world’s most extensive system of ethnic autonomy. It has existed for more than a half century and provides a modicum of special political, legislative and economic rights to nearly 100 million territorially-concentrated minority people. The degree of autonomy varies according to subject matter (higher as regards cultural and economic than political and security matters) and degree of political stability (less subject to central intervention where Chinese sovereignty is not disputed).

Three papers in the proposed panel will examine China’s system of ethnic regional autonomy, with case studies of Tibet, Xinjiang and Guangxi. Each paper will consider the utility of the extant system from the standpoint of the Chinese state and the people of the pertinent minority areas, as well as the discourse of PRC ethnic autonomy that has involved the state, scholars and (in the case of Tibet and Xinjiang) émigré separatists. A fourth paper will consider the relationship between the special administrative autonomy practiced in Hong Kong and Macau and China’s ethnic regional autonomy. All the papers will draw lessons from the Chinese experience for the application of autonomy elsewhere, especially in Asia.

Barry Sautman, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Western scholars often dismiss PRC ethnic regional autonomy as "fake" because Party leaders in Beijing make all decisions important to China’s minority areas. This view is held to especially apply to Tibet, where local leaders are cast as politically impotent or mere transmission belts of a central Party policy that focuses on crushing Tibetan resistance. For their part, Tibetan exile leaders now claim to eschew the goal of independence in favor of "genuine autonomy" for Tibet. China’s leaders retort that Tibetans already have autonomy and are "masters in their own house."

This paper first looks at how the Chinese state defines autonomy for the minority areas in general and Tibet in particular. Second, it examines the critique of PRC ethnic autonomy and attempts to discern what Tibetan exiles have in mind when they speak of "genuine autonomy." Finally, the paper discusses ethnic autonomy in international law and practice by adumbrating scholarly conceptualizations of ethnic autonomy and comparing the experiences of China and other states.

The essay concludes that ethnic autonomy in China generally and in Tibet specifically is "genuine" in three senses: it largely comports with minimum requirements under international law and practice, it allows for significant decision making by local leaders in some areas of immediate importance to minorities and it provides "genuine" benefits to minorities that they would not have in its absence. "Genuine autonomy," it will be argued, should not be confused with a "high degree of autonomy" ŕ la Hong Kong. At the same time, the current regime of ethnic regional autonomy in China is generally inadequate to either ameliorate separatism or provide the full range of compensatory advantages needed to diminish the growing economic and social gap between the minority and Han areas.

Katherine E. Palmer, Furman University

In the late 1950s, as the Chinese Communist Party battled to repress grassroots ethnic insurgency in Xinjiang and Tibet, a very different struggle was occurring in southwest China. Centrally dispatched cadres were struggling to convince non-Han speakers in western Guangxi that they were members of the Zhuang nationality. Despite official government reports that the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GZAR) was established in response to the "overwhelming demand of the Zhuang people," unpublished sources confirm that many Zhuang preferred to be considered Han and made no demands for autonomy. Why then did the CCP grant the Zhuang regional autonomy and how have the Zhuang fared politically, economically, and culturally under the regional autonomy system?

Most Western scholars contend that the Zhuang were granted autonomy primarily to justify a similar policy for the more contentious minorities in northwestern China rather than to improve the welfare of the Zhuang. Based on extensive fieldwork in the GZAR, this study argues instead that the CCP’s minority policy was originally developed in northwestern China and only then awkwardly imposed in southwest China. The CCP officially recognized the Zhuang in an effort to integrate the diverse peoples of Guangxi and to improve their economic and political opportunities. Over the past fifty years, the policy has simultaneously increased Zhuang integration into a unified nation-state while leading party-trained Zhuang elite to make greater demands for preferential treatment for the Zhuang. While minority policy clearly remains problematic in China’s northwest, overall it has been a success in Guangxi.

Gardner Bovingdon, Cornell University

The CCP proposed the system of regional autonomies within the framework of a centralized state, in conscious distinction to the Soviet model of federated republics. Through this expedient, the Party sought to negotiate between "national" security concerns and the politico-cultural aspirations of groups such as Uyghurs and Tibetans. This paper will address the theory and practice of autonomy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region since its establishment. Using texts and interviews gathered during fieldwork in Xinjiang, the paper will argue that, after several decades in which it was a dead letter, autonomy has acquired new political moment in the 1990s, as China finds itself increasingly subject to international norms and scrutiny.

Shiu-hing Lo, Hong Kong University

The question of autonomy of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) and the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) can be analyzed from a policy perspective. Different policies in the HKSAR and MSAR have varying degrees of autonomy. In the HKSAR and MSAR, policies concerning the appointment of senior civil servants, immigration and political reform have a relatively low degree of autonomy. However, economic policies and livelihood issues tend to enjoy a relatively high degree of autonomy in the HKSAR and MSAR. The Hong Kong and Macau model of "one country, two systems" demonstrates that the central government in Beijing is de facto implementing a federal system in the two SARs.

The most significant political implication of the autonomy of the HKSAR and MSAR for China is that a de facto federal system can be experimented with in regions like Tibet and Taiwan, where the extent of autonomy is different from Hong Kong and Macau. Factors contributing to varying degrees of autonomy include: (1) the bottom line, security and sovereignty concerns of Beijing; (2) the strength of the SAR’s economy; (3) the strength of the SAR’s civil society; (4) the extent of the SAR’s democratization; (5) the identity of the SAR residents; and (6) the capacity of the SAR government to administer its internal matters.

As long as the HKSAR and MSAR satisfy the bottom line and security concerns of Beijing, both places can enjoy a relatively high degree of autonomy in many policy areas. The strength of the HKSAR’s economy and civil society contributes to its autonomy. In the MSAR, the relatively weak economy and civil society combines with a weak government capacity to control crime, leading to a limited degree of autonomy. Taiwan’s economic strength, unique civil society, faster pace of democratization, and separatist identity produce autonomy that would be far greater than Hong Kong and Macau. On the contrary, Tibet’s relatively weak economy and civil society would probably limit the degree of autonomy it could enjoy.