Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
10CHENGDU35
2010-02-05 03:58:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Chengdu
Cable title:  

SW CHINA: MINORITIES DISCUSS PRC MINORITY POLICY

Tags:  PHUM PGOV SOCI CH 
pdf how-to read a cable
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RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 4477
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000035 

SIPDIS

STATE FOR DRL, EAP/CM

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2/5/2020
TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: SW CHINA: MINORITIES DISCUSS PRC MINORITY POLICY

REF: A) 09 CHENGDU 31; B) FBS20100106816009; C) CHENGDU 14; D) 09 CHENGDU 315;
E)FBS20100203453231; F) 08 CHENGDU 55; G)08 CHENGDU 188

CHENGDU 00000035 001.2 OF 003


CLASSIFIED BY: David E. Brown, Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General Chengdu, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000035

SIPDIS

STATE FOR DRL, EAP/CM

E.O. 12958: DECL: 2/5/2020
TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: SW CHINA: MINORITIES DISCUSS PRC MINORITY POLICY

REF: A) 09 CHENGDU 31; B) FBS20100106816009; C) CHENGDU 14; D) 09 CHENGDU 315;
E)FBS20100203453231; F) 08 CHENGDU 55; G)08 CHENGDU 188

CHENGDU 00000035 001.2 OF 003


CLASSIFIED BY: David E. Brown, Consul General, U.S. Consulate
General Chengdu, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)

1. (C) Summary: Retired Tibetan Communist leader Yangling Dorje
and three ethnic minority professors at Chengdu's Southwest
Nationalities University -- a Miao, a Korean, and a Tibetan --
recently discussed their frustrations with PRC minority policy
in two separate meetings with Congen Chengdu. An ethnic Miao
anthropologist said that the 56 nationalities of China were
defined based on both PRC politics and ethnic research; the
dominant Han ethnic group is a modern nationalist 19th century
creation. An ethnic Korean professor deplored the depiction of
support to minority areas as assistance -- the PRC is sixty
years old and heretofore most money has been invested in Han
areas. Prominent retired Tibetan official Yangling Dorje
discussed with Consul General serious problems in the
implementation of Communist Party policies in Tibetan areas of
China. Some officials who are not patriotic or are mostly
concerned with their own interests are too quick to suppress
honest criticisms and so make ethnic relations much worse, he
said. Comparing the perspectives of Chinese minorities helps
put into focus two problems that they share: Han ethnic
chauvinism and the arbitrary exercise of official power. End
Summary.



Three Professors Discuss PRC Minorities Policy

-------------- -




2. (SBU) Three ethnic minority professors (two of them vice
deans) from Chengdu's Southwest Minorities University, a Miao
(Hmong,) a Korean, and a Tibetan, critiqued Chinese minorities
policy in a discussion with a Chinese businessman and Congenoff
at a Chengdu restaurant. The professors explained that their
university is directly under the Department of Ethnic and
Religious Affairs, unlike the Western Nationalities University
near Xi'an, which is under the government of the Tibetan
Autonomous Region. (Note: The Chinese term "minzu" can be
translated as nationality or ethnicity. However, since the

definition of minzu in China depends on an uncertain mix of
politics and ethnic backgrounds, some foreign scholars prefer to
simply transliterate the Chinese term. The number of minzu is
set at the arbitrary number of 56. Some scholars say this
divides some groups and clumps together others. For example,
the 12 distinct native peoples of Taiwan, who are collectively
deemed to be the Taiwan Mountain People minzu. End Note.)




3. (SBU) The three professors found much common ground, seeing
-- over the 60 years of the PRC -- Han chauvinism, systemic
neglect of minority issues, and much greater public investment
in majority Han areas than in the minority areas that constitute
more than half of the country's territory. The professors noted
that many people have difficulty distinguishing China from the
dominant Han ethnicity; this was particularly true during the
rule of President Jiang Zemin, who promoted the idea of a common
all-encompassing Zhonghua minzu -- "China ethnic group."




4. (C) The Korean professor said that the trumpeting of aid to
minority areas is all wrong -- it is only right to invest in
these areas, it shouldn't be made out to be a gift to minority
people. He wondered what could be the relationship of
minorities to the government when they send "troops to occupy
our areas." The most outspoken of the three, he noted a great
change in the mentalities of students they have seen, with
students born in the 1990s being quite different from those born
in the 1980s. [Note: Chinese often comment on the 80's
generation and the 90's generation and how these generations
both differ in being more assertive and thinking more
independently than people born during the extreme repression of
pre-1978 China. End note] He hopes that this mentality change in
the general population will carry over into the Chinese
leadership as new generations rise to the leadership of the
Chinese Communist Party. The Korean professor hoped that one
day China could be a federation of highly autonomous provinces,
each "like Hong Kong."




5. (SBU) The Miao professor, who is both an anthropology
professor and vice dean, noted that the "Han" ethnicity is a
recent conception that arose in the late 19th century to rally
opposition to the Manchu led Qing Dynasty. He recommended an
article by a Taiwan academic at Taipei's Academica Sinica on
this subject. (Note: The Miao professor told Congenoff on
another occasion that he was frustrated by cultural erosion

CHENGDU 00000035 002.2 OF 003


caused by the control of Miao culture by outsiders, specifically
by changes in the nature and timing of traditional festivals for
the sake of tourism development. See Ref A. End Note.)



Group Rights vs. Individual Rights

--------------




6. (SBU) The three academics asked Congenoff to discuss U.S.
minorities policy. Congenoff discussed the Civil Rights
movement in which groups of people struggled to realize their
individual rights, as well as the special legal status of
American Indians, which involved group rights based on
unextinguished tribal sovereignty and treaties between Indian
tribes and the USG. The academics were intrigued with the two
different approaches to minority rights -- individual-rights
based and group-rights based. They speculated that an
individual-rights-based approach might be more successful than
the current group-rights-based system in protecting the legal
rights of minority people in China today.



Sichuan Tibetologists Criticize PRC Nationalities Policy

-------------- --------------




7. (U) Yangling Dorje, an ethnic Tibetan who had been vice
governor of both the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Sichuan
Province, was among many academics who severely criticized
government policy at a December 19, 2009 meeting of the Sichuan
Tibetology Research Society (Ref B). Dorje argued that the
government policy of separating politics and religion from
education and health care (enshrined in a slogan called the
"Three Separations") is seriously mistaken and unworkable.
Monks and nuns are citizens of China and they have political
rights, he said. Telling them to stay out of politics is to say
that it is wrong for them to exercise their political rights.
Monasteries have historically been the centers of Tibetan
education and health care: to try to keep them out of these
areas is to completely misunderstand Tibetan culture, he argued.





8. (U) Dorje added that all monasteries should not be condemned
because some monks support separatism, any more than a Chinese
city should shut down the entire transportation department
because a certain official takes bribes.



Dorje: Proper Implementation is the Key

--------------




9. (SBU) In a meeting with Consul General (septel) on February
3, Dorje said that while the Communist Party has a wise general
policy, but the details and the implementation are sometimes
poor. He said that well meaning disagreements with officials
should be resolved in a friendly and cooperative manner while
enemies of the people are to be suppressed under China's system
of the people's democratic dictatorship. While Hu Jintao is
well meaning, some of the people under him are affected by their
personal or group interests. Some are not patriotic enough or
do not think enough about the interests of all the people. He
mentioned that the local government in Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan
had closed down a school run by a monastery to the great
unhappiness of local people under the "Three Separates" policy
(which includes separation of religion from education and
medical care). Dorje said he had intervened with the Sichuan
Province Communist Party Committee, and the school was
eventually re-opened.




10. (SBU) The Fifth Working Conference convened by China's top
leaders in January called for a greater stress on improving
living conditions of Tibetans and reducing the gaps in
investment between the different Tibetan areas. Dorje said
implementation of the conclusions of the Fifth Working
Conference will be key. If the guidelines of the recent
three-day Fifth Working Conference on Tibet were implemented,

CHENGDU 00000035 003.2 OF 003


this would be the most important event for Tibetans since the
month-long Second Working Conference on Tibet convened by Hu
Yaobang in the mid-1980s, he felt. Dorje added that the Tibet
Working Conference focused on the Tibetan Autonomous Region
(TAR),not Tibetan areas of China generally. (Note: The TAR is
referred to as "Xizang" in Chinese, often translated in PRC
publications as simply Tibet, while another word, "Zangqu"
refers to all ethnic Tibetan areas of China. End Note.) While
the Tibet Working Conference continued to focus on the TAR, the
issue of other Tibetan areas came up because the gap in
development between the TAR and the other Tibetan areas has
become too large. 80 years old and retired, Dorje did not
attend the conference, but has many contacts who did. (Note:
Refs B and C contain similar critiques of PRC Tibetan policy by
an ethnic Tibetan academic, which appeared as conference notes
on a Chinese language Tibetan culture website in Gansu Province.
End Note.)



PRC Press Carries Yangling Dorje's Praise for Party Policy

-------------- --------------




11. (SBU) In January an article appeared in the PRC press in
which Yangling Dorje is quoted as giving high praising to PRC
policy in minority areas. (Comment: Apparently another serious
misrepresentation by the TAR Party propaganda department, which
also made a false report on Chengdu CG's visit with the TAR Vice
Governor in October 2009. See ref D. End Comment.)



Comment: PRC Minorities Share Many Dissatisfactions

-------------- --------------




12. (C) The discussion with the professors illustrates the point
that PRC minorities have many of the same grievances. For
example, compare what well-known Uighur professor Ilham Tohti of
the Central Minorities University in Beijing says about Uighur
grievances and the complaints of other minorities. Uighur
grievances are at bottom much like those of Tibetans. What
Tibetan intellectuals discuss is very similar to Ilham Tohti's
discussion of Uighur complaints: problems of the Tibetan areas
of China: language, education, getting respect from the dominant
ethnic Han, and getting a decent job in competition with
migrants from the outside (Ref E). They are all there.




13. (C) Racism is the elephant in the room. In China, the group
marker isn't color, but rather ethnic identity and culture, and
it is much easier to "pass" as a member of the dominant group in
China than in a country where color is the group marker.
Nonetheless, the assertions of inferiority and superiority based
on these group markers are also strong. Although Mao Zedong in
his writings sometimes decried Han chauvinism, very few
non-minority Chinese today see this systemic problem. Instead,
they blame minority dissatisfactions and protests on the evil
plots of "outside agitators" who are disturbing otherwise happy
and content minority peoples. Academics at the Sichuan
Tibetology Conference made brave critiques of the problems that
PRC policy and Han attitudes towards minorities are creating.
Preferring to ignore how policy failures have frustrated
minority people, Chinese officials don't like to hear Mao
Zedong's dictum "A single spark can light a prairie fire" in
this context as an explanation for outbursts of anger by
Tibetans and other minorities(Ref F and G).
BROWN