June 2008 
Year 14    No.132
Global Minorities
China


Lost horizons

Protection of ethnic culture in China

BY LI DAN

Abstract

There are totally 56 minority groups in China, the main group of which is the Han nationality. However, the number of 56 ethnic groups doesn’t cover all the ethnic groups in China, such as the Jewish who settled in Kaifeng, Henan. Foreigners who have adopted Chinese nationality are also not included.

On the mainland, China has a population of 12.9533 billion; the Han nationality has a population of 11.5940 billion, accounting for 91.59 per cent of the total population; other minority groups have a population of 1.0643 billion, accounting for 8.41 per cent of the total population.

Most of China’s minority groups are mainly distributed in provinces and autonomous regions that are economically underdeveloped, such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Sichuan. By the end of 2004 there were five ethnic autonomous regions, 30 ethnic autonomous cities and 119 ethnic autonomous counties, accounting for 64 per cent of China’s land area.

Because of the relatively small population of minority groups, and their being economically underdeveloped, they settled to mix with the Han nationality. What’s more, under the influence of the leftist revolutionary ideas during the 1960s-1970s and the policy of “taking economic construction as the central task” after opening up as well as other factors, the cultures of Chinese minority groups are dying out. Even though, from the 1980s onwards, talking about nationalities was no longer taboo and a growing number of individuals and NGOs joined to protect ethnic cultures along with the Chinese government which also began to pay attention to the protection of ethnic cultures.

Why ethnic cultures are dying out

1. Mixed settlement of minority groups: Eighty per cent of the Han nationality is an agricultural population. Because of its high population density and fast population growth the growth of population in turn causes decrease of per capita arable land and thus a lower income.

From the early 20th century, peasants of the Han nationality began to migrate to Manchuria which is now the Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces. Manchuria is the home of Manchurians. To protect their homeland and prevent immigrants, a Qing emperor had established a domestic borderline called “Liu Tiao Bian”. Any person who privately crossed this borderline would be executed. But during the late Qing dynasty, the then emperor decided to do away with the borderline that prohibited immigrants so as to prevent Russian occupation of Manchuria which was then sparsely populated. The result was an influx of a large number of the Han population into Manchuria. In 1840 Manchuria had a population of three million, circa 1910 the number was 18 million while in the year 2000 it had a population of 110 million. Since the Han nationality has an absolute population advantage over Manchurians there are now less then 100 elders in Manchuria who can speak the Manchu language.

Such spontaneous migration is inevitable. Take Henan province, for example. Henan has a population of more than one billion but a land area as large as France, planting non-economic crops. The per capita arable land is less than two mu (one mu = 667 square metres) and the income, less than 1,000 yuan per year (one USD = seven yuan). At the same time, there is a vast amount of arable land in minority regions such as Xinjiang. Although migration is under restrictions of the household registration system, due to the collapse of the planned economy system the household registration system is no longer actually binding.

2. Impact of Communism and the Cultural Revolution: After the new China was founded in 1949, it adopted Marxism as the guidance ideology for its ethnic work and cultures. We emphasised social classification while neglecting the characteristics of each minority group. We only thought about the difference between the ruling class and the ruled class, stressed the integration of workers and farmers, but paid no attention to the unique cultures of each minority group.

For example, the then premier, Zhou Enlai, who was regarded as the most open-minded official at the time, made the following observation on the restoration of the Manchu language: “Now that we have the same languages between Manchu and Han, it is more easy for cooperation. Do our Manchu compatriots request resuming the Manchu language? I don’t think so. Because it means three or four million people will learn the Manchu language from the beginning. Isn’t this too troublesome? Does the Han language absorb some of the Manchu language? I think it does. The Han language absorbs many words from the Manchu language and this makes the Han language enriched” (August 4, 1957, ‘Several issues on China’s national policy’, Selected Works of Zhou Enlai, United Front Selection, p. 371, People’s Publishing House, December 1984).

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), everyone was taken up with the “Class struggle as the key outline” and national policies and the regional ethnic autonomy system established by the government could not be implemented. What’s more, the religious beliefs and traditional cultures of minority groups were regarded as superstition and feudal dross during the Red Guard movement breaking down the “Four Olds” (old ideologies, old cultures, old customs and old habits) and had been heavily destroyed.

3. Lack of economic development in ethnic minority areas: Most ethnic minority areas are central and western provinces which are economically underdeveloped. For example, in 2007, the per capita GDP in Beijing was 56,044 yuan while it was 12,000 yuan in Tibet, which includes the growing income from tourism after the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. As a result of the lag in economic development, more and more minorities go elsewhere for education and jobs and inevitably begin to learn Chinese, which in turn reduces learning of their own languages. Take Chabuchaer Xibo autonomous county, for example. During the 1980s all six grades of the primary schools there taught the Xibo language but now Xibo language teaching has been reduced to a three-year curriculum.

4. Policy of “Taking economic construction as the central task”: Since the reforms and opening up in the 1980s, the policy of “taking economic construction as the central task” affected not only government investment and administration but also affected public perceptions. All cultures that have nothing to do with economic development are regarded as not useful. And some cultures that could be commercialised have been distorted and destroyed as a result of overcommercialisation. Few people pay attention to the loss of their own ethnic cultures, not even the Han nationality – the largest minority group in China.

5. Impact of political factors: Because of the harm that the Cultural Revolution brought to minority groups as well as the economic development gap between the Han nationality and minority groups in border areas some of them voiced a demand for independence from China. Though it is a dream that is difficult to achieve, the independence movement of some minority groups has become a politically sensitive issue.

6. Lack of multi-ethnic education: Although in China there are 56 minority groups living in the same country, they lack mutual understanding. In Han areas, history textbooks say little about the history of minority groups. Tibetans, Mongolians and Manchurians are occasionally mentioned because they had large-scale wars with the Han nationality. Minority groups living in Han areas, such as the Manchu, find it totally impossible to learn their own history through school education, not to mention national identity. Though there are 10 million Manchurians, very few of them have national consciousness. At the same time, it is difficult for the Han nationality to understand and respect the history and cultures of minority groups. They think of cultural laggards, violence and poverty when referring to minority groups.

7. Difficulties in NGO registration in China: NGO registration in China requires sponsorship from a superior government unit. Furthermore, according to the law, there can only be one NGO at a place in the same area. Therefore most NGOs cannot be officially registered with the civil affairs bureau of China but can only be registered as a commercial enterprise. So these NGOs cannot obtain tax-free status, domestic and international funds or the public’s trust.

Positive factors in protecting ethnic cultures

1. Government against ethnic discrimination: In the early 20th century, as social Darwinism and nationalism were prevalent, minority groups suffered serious discrimination. After the new China was founded in 1949, the government promulgated laws officially prohibiting ethnic discrimination and ethnic discrimination had been eliminated.

Take the Manchu, for example. When the Qing emperor handed over governmental power in 1912, Manchurians became unemployed because of discrimination. They dared not identify themselves as Manchurian and even changed their names. Another landmark event took place on February 18, 1956 when the state council brought out a notice stating that “in order to promote solidarity among all ethnic groups, all levels of governmental agencies, schools, enterprises, various democratic parties, people’s organisations, cannot use the words ‘Manchu’s Qing’ in any documents, books, newspapers and journals except when citing from historical documents that are inconvenient to modify.”

2. Rise of ethnic cultural websites: In 2001 there was only one website on Manchu culture in China but there are hundreds of websites, BBS (bulletin board systems) and blogs now. Other ethnic cultural websites have also experienced a rapid growth in the past few years. These websites make ethnic cultural protection low cost, widespread, social-participatory work.

3. Actual needs of the government: Because minority groups are mainly distributed in border areas the protection of ethnic cultures is in accordance with needs of national security. For example, most of the important diplomatic treaties of the Qing dynasty are written in the Manchu language. So, following Premier Zhou Enlai’s instructions, in 1961 the Central University for Nationalities set up a Manchu language class aiming to train professional translators in the Manchu language.

In short, in China, the protection of ethnic cultures is still in the embryonic stage which is progressing slowly. But we are seeing an increasing demise of ethnic cultures. If we cannot find an effective way to encourage more people to join in the protection of ethnic cultures, most minority groups will lose their own cultures this century. n

(Li Dan is with the Beijing Orchid Manchu Culture Project. Paper presented to the Global Minorities Meet, New Delhi, March 6-9, 2008.)

Notes

 1 National Bureau of Statistics, the Fifth National Census Notice 2000, available at: http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjgb/rkpcgb/qgrkpcgb/t20020331_15434.htm

 2 Xinhua News, March 9, 2007, available at:

http://news.xinhuanet.com/society/2007-03/09/content_5823857.htm

 3 Xinhua News, January 23, 2008, available at: http://www3.xinhuanet.com/chinanews/2008-01/23/content_12298226.htm

 4 Manchu’s Qing is a derogatory term for Manchurian.


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