Welmer

The vast territory of China encompasses many different lifestyles, cultures, nations and even races. Even within the prevailing Han ethnic group there are differences at least as important as those between the various Romance countries of Europe. The lowland farmers of the Yellow River basin are distinct from those of the Yangtze, who are different from those of Fujian, and Canton and so on. The Mongols, Turks and Koreans of the north and west speak languages unrelated to Chinese and maintain a distinct identity. If one looks at an ethnic or linguistic map of China, there are fairly large contiguous sections representing the Han majority and its subsets, Turks, Mongols, Tibetans and then smaller areas that look like paint splattered across sections of the map representing the small minorities such as the Manchu and Miao.

The reality in China is very different from what one might gather from looking at these maps. Boundaries are not so clear, and the many intersections between different cultures are neither neat nor well-defined. Here in America, we tend to assume that populated areas are all accessible, and only empty widerness is off-limits to the casual traveler. If one flies over our country, all inhabited areas are seen to be neatly linked by roads, and it can be safely assumed that where transportation infrastructure is lacking there are no people. However, if one flies over China, except for the infertile deserts and the very highest peaks and plains of the Himalayas, it can be guaranteed that there are people below. In arid, mountainous central China or the rugged, moist coastal south one can observe terraced hills and other signs of agriculture from above, but very few roads. Even the vast plains are mainly crossed only by rail or dirt roads, and getting from town to the train station often requires a gruelling days-long bus ride over terrible roads. Despite the massive population of China and the existence of people in practically every fertile nook of the country, most of China’s people live in a state of isolation that very few Americans can relate to.

The static nature of most of China’s population, which has only begun to change as a huge contingent of migrant laborers has congregated in major cities, makes estimates of the true extent of linguistic and ethnic diversity very difficult and throws doubt on their accuracy. In much of the country, the dialects are so numerous and divergent that one need only travel a short distance to find people speaking an entirely distinct tongue even within the solid areas on linguistic maps. In these places the educated officials serve as intermediaries between the locals and all others, and can accrue great power through their status as interlocutors. As one moves further from China’s center, this cultural and linguistic diversity grows even more extreme, and infrastructure even more primitive.

China’s ancient and excellent administrative system, which spread across so much of East Asia, has evolved to accommodate the realities of the extraordinarily complex empire it has managed for so many years. The unwieldy Chinese writing system is often described as a barrier to foreign invasion, but its most important function has been to culturally unite a people who speak so many different languages. One can read Chinese characters in all Han dialects, so that a native of Beijing could read a letter written by a native of Xiamen even though the two couldn’t understand each other’s speech. A phonetic alphabet could never serve that purpose in such a linguistically diverse country. However, this unifying characteristic of the Chinese language is not as effective with non-Han cultures, particularly those with their own scripts and a tradition of literacy. Although primitive, illiterate tribes can be assimilated through intermarriage and long-term exposure to Chinese culture, and many Chinese considered Han today are descendants of such people, this is not practical with distinct cultures such as the Tibetans, Uygurs and Mongols, so a different approach was needed.

Historically, when China has been strong it has asserted itself through control of territory on the periphery of the Han-dominated heartland, which comprises less than half of modern China’s territory, but contains the vast majority of its population. Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Manchuria and some traditionally Korean territory are currently under Chinese control, but this doesn’t mean these places are properly China or Chinese. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this soft form of imperialism has been the status quo many times throughout the history of the Chinese empire, including during non-Han dynasties such as the Mongol Yuan and Manchu Qing, so it isn’t necessarily attributable to Chinese chauvinism, but rather to a system of frontier management that kept the peace. Because the traditional assimilate and intermarry strategy did not work with these advanced and frequently aggressive frontier cultures, the Chinese central government maintained control over them through garrisons stationed at key strategic locations, often at great expense. Although the relationship between these subject societies and the empire has been traditionally described as “tributary,” the tribute was more of a symbolic than onerous burden, and frequently the net balance of trade and taxes favored the subject peoples. This was the compensation that frontier cultures received for submission to the Chinese empire, whereas the troops in the garrisons were the threat that hung over any potentially restive population.

Although first the ROC, and then the PRC, officially declared the end of dynasticism and empire, thousands of years of culture and tradition are hard to erase. Following the epic failures of the Mao era, China has slowly returned to its historical methods of governance and has even begun to revisit its ancient, underlying philosophies. For the frontier cultures, this is not necessarily a bad thing, because the Han expansion of the Mao era has begun to ebb. However, a different kind of Han dominance has emerged: economic hegemony. During the Cultural Revolution Chinese were sent to the far corners of the country to work the land. Manchuria, which was sparsely inhabited only a hundred years ago, has seen its population explode as Chinese settled there after World War II to work in industry, and then during the Cultural Revolution to farm. However, recently, as population controls have loosened, many Han Chinese have begun to return to their native provinces or to migrate to cities in the prosperous coastal region. There is no longer an imperative to settle outside the Han sphere of influence, so population replacement of non-Han cultures is not as much of a threat as it was previously.

With modernization and prosperity in the Han heartland, a greater disparity between Han and non-Han cultures has emerged. The Chinese in places such as Urumqi and Lhasa are not interested in displacing the local farmers, whose income and land are negligible assets to Han entrepreneurs, but they are perfectly willing to exploit any business opportunities. These businesses could be in tourism, resource extraction construction, government contract jobs or any number of money-making opportunities. With their access to larger amounts of capital and government connections, Han Chinese are willing and able to shove natives out of the way and squeeze every drop they can from local economies. That the official language is Mandarin and the ruling culture Han provides yet another administrative advantage to Han economic migrants. Faced with this, members of frontier cultures cannot compete in modern, profit-driven China, and have been economically marginalized.

While the traditional methods of governance in frontier provinces have been restored to some extent, the economic realities of modern China have tipped the balance that existed centuries ago under the tributary system so that the benefit to local populations has been erased while the punitive elements remain in place. This is the real source of the current conflict in Tibet, where protesters targeted Han-owned businesses in a very clear statement of anger about their economic marginalization. There are religious overtones, but Tibet is a theocracy, so that is unavoidable. However, people in the West seem largely to miss the point about the unrest, which is that Han economic dominance is the largest factor in Tibetans’ discontent. The same problem exists in Xinjiang, and it threatens to become a more serious problem for the Chinese government in coming years. For China, there is a bit of a dilemma here, in that there are no painless solutions. One measure the Chinese could take would be to grant more autonomy to autonomous provinces, allowing them to make their own languages officially dominant, as Quebec has done in Canada, but that would tend to diminish Beijing’s political control. Another solution could be to clamp down on the cultures and try to assimilate them, but that would be a very painful process with no guarantee of success that would be sure to provoke more serious resistance and unrest, and Beijing’s image abroad would be significantly tarnished, giving it less leverage over Taiwan and its immediate neighbors to the east.

What we may be seeing in Tibet is a turn in the age-old cycle of Chinese expansion and contraction. Large, complex systems such as the Chinese Empire are awesome in their size and power, but they, too, have their limits. Seen from an historical perspective, the PRC is another dynasty, like the Tang or Ming, and one wonders how, without a spiritually galvanizing leader such as Mao Zedong at its head, it can maintain expansionist momentum. As the Chinese people give up the idealistic zeal that led armies of peasants to consolidate the country under their red flag, the masses will inevitably fall back toward the comfortable center, turning their efforts toward profit and pleasure while the barbarians on the outskirts of the empire grow ever bolder and more assertive.