"On Changing China's Ethnic Policy"

137 Responses to "On Changing China's Ethnic Policy"

1. CnInDC on December 16, 2009 at 12:28

   @Kaiser: “My question is, what are some of the most effective strategies for engaging (Han) people constructively, to avoid getting their hackles up, and to get them to want to change their attitudes and behaviors? ”

   - The most effective strategies is to put your feet into their shoes then rethink your objectives. If the objective is to honeypot the Chinese into whatever you want them to do, you won’t succeed.

   - Practice what you preach. In this sense, the most convincing US ethnic policy would be to return large amount of valuable land to the natives. On the individual scale, at least turn yourself into an influential activist in your own country before bugging us.

   - On the other hand, if your well-intended advice is not adopted, don’t work up the pressure because 1) that not what a friend would do and 2) it easily exposes you of your true color.

2. davesgonechina on December 16, 2009 at 12:55

   @Profiriy: I forgot about Afanti. Good point. I guess I was imagining a slightly more human-y, less claymation-y character that seems a bit more, yknow, like an actual person and not Bugs Bunny.

   “Similarly I think it’s up to Uyghurs to somehow tear down the statusque image of cute but untamed Uyghurs with a self-crafted depiction that’s three dimensional.”

   I think we’re in agreement about this, we’re just throwing out different suggestions of how to get there. In my experience, too many things put Han people on the defensive, but hey, that’s the deal. Hence my belief that debating whether we should call it “racism,” “Han chauvinism” or “douchebaggery” is beside the point. Rather than arguing over labels, people should be talking about specific behavior and images - let them label it whatever they want. I personally feel all three labels above are relevant but I don’t care.

   I think the first step is empathy. Han audiences need to empathize (not necessarily agree) with Uyghur grievances, and vice versa, on an individual level. Changing the stories told in the media helps.

3. 

   Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 13:25

   @CninDC

   The fundamental problem with your attempts to shoehorn a precise equivalence between discrimination against Uyghurs and discrimination by Uyghurs against Han (or even insinuate that the Uyghurs are somehow worse) is that you’re completely ignoring the circumstances regarding the distribution of political power in Xinjiang. I’ve seen this multiple times but it really is just a straw man to assume that a critical analysis of the social situation of the Uyghurs somehow justifies bad behavior on the part of the Uyghurs - from spitting in nan to beating up Han kids to murderous riots that leave hundreds dead and injured. You tell us that we should get off our “moral high ground” but your argument is simply to artificially place our arguments in a “moral low ground” that it’s not. Discussing the origins of a social problem does not equal justifying it. Discussing the deep and complex roots behind 9/11, snaking all the way back to questionable US activity in Afghanistan during the war with the Soviets, in no way justifies flying an airplane into a civilian building.

   Let’s make this abundantly clear. A Uyghur killing a Han person is bad. A Uyghur robbing a Han person is bad. A Uyghur beating up a Han person is bad. A Uyghur spitting in a Han person’s food is bad. Are you happy? Similarly, if a black person grows up in the ghetto, is utterly disenchanted by a life without opportunities, joins a gang, and kills someone, that’s bad too. But we can still try to scrutinize and identify what kind of societal and cultural circumstances it produced in the first place.

   The question “What about Uyghur discrimination against Han?” would be a legitimate question to place alongside a discussion of Han discrimination against Uyghur if and only if political power were distributed evenly. It’s not. Policy-making and ultimate decisions about how Uyghurs live their lives religiously, educationally, and even privately in family life are in the hands of a non-representative Party structure that is predominately Han and by no shortcoming but simply by virtue of *not* being Uyghur can never empathize with specifically Uyghur viewpoints such as those regarding religion, education, language, etc. I can say that the overwhelming feeling of being utterly disenfranchised and politically powerless will lead to enormous feelings of resentment that occasionally erupts into violence without saying such violence is legitimate or warranted - explaining a phenomenon does not equal sanctioning it. That being said, only by explaining a problem and searching for its sources can it be solved. One thing I think is the *wrong* direction to go is for Han Chinese to make a one-to-one correlation between one’s Uyghurness and some sort of personal threat - that would be wrong the same way a Uyghur guy beating up a Han person because that Han person somehow represents all Han people. NEITHER side should be racist; however, it’s the Han Chinese and the primarily Han policy-making bodies that ultimately have the power to remove the source of the grievances - or aggravate them, as the case may be. Thus, I focus on the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law and whether or not it’s being implemented - you say that ethnic policy is being executed badly and so should be removed; I say ethnic policy isn’t being executed at all so how can we even know what it does. I refer you once more to the text of the REAL. It’s all there.

   I don’t get your reference to a Shanghai person calling an outsider a country bumpkin. If we’re comparing this to Xinjiang and a Shanghai person refuses to give someone a *job* because he’s from backwater Anhui, um, yes, that is discrimination, what is your point? I’m against that too. I’m talking about discrimination in Xinjiang because 1) that’s my research topic and 2) that’s what the original post is about. Just because the topic of discussion is about Xinjiang doesn’t mean I contrarywise *approve* of discrimination elsewhere - again, this is the “expanding the argument then attacking it” technique I pointed above. I saw on ChinaSmack a few months ago an utterly shocking video of some people going onto a bus in Heilongjiang or something and then beating the shit out of the bus driver when she made some snide comment. It turns out those dudes were from another province, I think, but they were all Han. Was the comment the bus driver lady made discriminatory? Sure. Did she deserve getting beat up? Absolutely not. I know I’m repeating myself but we really need to get over this idea that explaining or advocating something somehow justifies unacceptable behavior by the Uyghurs or in other parts of China. I’m not playing that game.

   Practice what you preach. In this sense, the most convincing US ethnic policy would be to return large amount of valuable land to the natives. On the individual scale, at least turn yourself into an influential activist in your own country before bugging us.

   The precise DIFFERENCE between the United States in China is that in the US you actually are *permitted* to “become an influential activist.” It’s a constitutionally protected right. Am I mad about the treatment of American Indians? Absolutely. Am I doing something about it? I support activists but I’m not donating money or marching on the streets, because, come on now, you can’t be an activist about everything you’re mad about and I have a personal interest in Xinjiang having lived there and studied the language. The difference is, even if I’m upset and ashamed about the state of American Indians I *know* that there are activists, scholars, tribal leaders, etc., etc., etc. who can visit middle schools and give lectures about the trail of tears, who can pool money together and put up a monument to massacred Indians in the Central Park, who can petition their Senator for more funding for Navajo language education. In fact, if a Chinese, PRC citizen is pissed off about how Americans treated the Native Americans then THEY are welcome to come to our country and teach courses on it and write books in it and preach on the street corner about it. How about that? We totally welcome that. China, you are welcome to “bug us.” While the US’ human rights report on China is censored, blocked, banned in China, China’s human rights report on the US (there is one) is accessible to any and every American who wants to look at it. Go ahead! In fact, I’m sure members of the American Communist Party thing it’s a great source! Yeah, we have a Communist Party! Apparently you’re in DC for some reason. You should know.

   What about China? Can the Uyghurs express any sort of discontent in any way shape or form? No. Can any scholar from anywhere in the world of any race do any research of any form that deviates from the Party line of happy grateful Uyghurs? No. So yes, I’m bugging “you,” whoever you mean by “us.”

   And from just a pure facts standpoint, the tribal reservations operate on their own laws. You commit a crime on a reservation, you get judged by traditional tribal gathering. We are practicing what I preach. There is one important observation: the damage is done; the Indians have been robbed and wronged, but unfortunately, we can’t go back in time. But I don’t even know why I’m explaining this, the “what about the US’ grievances” always falls flat on its face because it’s implying that for some reason China is entitled to being held to 18th century standards. Sorry, China - regardless of how low your GDP per capita is or how many illiterate rural peasants you have, YOU joined the WTO, YOU signed the Universal Declaration of Human Righst, YOU guaranteed Ethnic Autonomy in your Constitution. So that’s the standard I’m going to hold you by - not what a colonizing Western power did 200 years ago.

4. 

   Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 13:42

   @Kaiser’s new topic and @davesgonechina

   I’ve thought about this a lot. A while ago I dropped any semblance of trying to be an “objective academic” about this situation and just fully embraced the fact that I am and want to be a sort of activist over this situation - but nonetheless I (try to) shy from being a shrill hack who repeats talking points - I hope despite losing temper or the occasional cuss word my comments in aggregate are more than just chanted slogans.

   The conclusion I’ve come to I’ve already talked about above: I really, really, really think this has to start with the Uyghurs. I may sound like I’m contradicting myself - in the response above to CninDC I pointed out that the ball is in the Han Chinese government’s court in terms of initiating/enacting policy changes to improve the situation. I think it is - and the first move must be made by Han Chinese when it comes to making concrete changes - just like ultimately in the 1950s it was a predominately white government who signed into law the Civil Rights Act that provided a legal framework for racial equality in the US. However, in the US, the political action on behalf of the white majority was initiated by a cultural grassroots movement by the black minority - the Civil Rights movement. And so this is really what I’m antsy about: I think Uyghurs need to formulate a non-volatile group consciousness and involve themselves in cultural and political forms of expression that Han can enjoy *and* that they fully own. Think, for example, of jazz music. It’s awesome music that white people found they could enjoy. At the dawn of jazz music, blacks owned it - it was there and it didn’t originate from any white “magic negro” prompting. The change of consciousness and the empathy that dave is referring to comes from cultural transactions like that - turning “that black guy might rob me” to “that black guy is making some really interesting music that defies my expectations and I can really get into.” I dream of a Uyghur Harlem Renaissance, a Uyghur Civil Rights movement - and the Uyghurs have both the artistic history/potential and the political consciousness to do both. But again - the system in place reflexively crushes both of these in a heartbeat. So I don’t know. As far as my role as a Westerner is concerned, I occasionaly think about cool things like being a teacher in a poor Uyghur school and teaching literature or art to Uyghurs… but I’m conflicted as that makes me think “white man’s burden” (even though I’m not white) and anyway, the authorities would never let anyone do that. Most teaching positions are in cities, anyway. I’m studying Xinjiang and Uyghurs right now in the academe and I hope that I can one day publish material that raises awareness in different quarters about the Uyghurs - but honestly, “what we can do” is really limited, and frankly, the only thing that launches me into these blog comments is anger at people talking about Uyghurs without really having gotten to know them.

   Those are my thoughts. Let me tell you guys one thing, though, among the communities of activists and scholars who deal with Xinjiang issues, many can’t help but conclude that this is really a hopeless tinderbox situation. That may be the case. Pah.

5. 

   Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 13:48

   Regarding the potential for a Uyghur Civil Rights movement, let me give you a striking example.

   So we look at Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as a powerful piece of literature that raised consciousness about race issues and providing a blueprint for blacks to assume of sense of self-dignity in a prejudiced environment. Great piece of work.

   About five years ago, a Uyghur author named Nurmemet Yasin wrote a short story that featured a wild pigeon who gets captured, put into a cage, and is stuck with a bunch of other pigeons who are defeated and lifeless after having gotten used to life in the cage. Make no bones about it it was an obvious allegory to Han policy in Xinjiang. This awesome, artistic expression in the spirit of Maya Angelou gets crushed in 2005 when Yasin gets sentenced to ten years in prison for “inciting splittism.” This is a story about a pigeon, we’re talking about, not an Al-Qaeda instruction manual on how to build a bomb belt. This is the the system I’m referring to when I say there’s little hope for a Uyghur rights movement.

6. 

   Kaiser on December 16, 2009 at 14:44

   @CnInDC - Okay, I’ll agree to leave aside any references to anything outside of China and speak strictly about the situation as I understand it in Xinjiang. But I’ll expect that you do the same, and not point immediately at the grotesquely unfair treatment of Native Americans in past centuries to support your argument.

   I think you misunderstand where I’m coming from. I’m probably, at an emotional level at least, far more close to your thinking on this than you imagine. I’m among the many observers of what happened on 7/5 who believed at the time, and still do, that much the west’s reaction — through professional media and through private commentators writing online — was callously unsympathetic to the Han who were being murdered in the streets, and cast the story far too simplistically as “colonized” people rising up against their oppressive colonial masters. I think many in the western media and academy were too quick to write off outside organization by Rebiya Kadeer and her organization.

   I also understand how the perception of unfair coverage, and the criticism that the Han side seems to come in for so often by westerners writing in forums like these, would make one extremely defensive. My own instinct is to be very defensive. But you seem reasonable. Surely you would be willing to admit that what happened in July is evidence enough that there are deep-rooted problems that need to be addressed, and that some of those problems lie with Han attitudes toward Uyghurs predating the events of 7/5, with PRC institutions (or if not the institutions themselves, then with their implementation), just as we’d like people who lay blame entirely at the feet of the CCP or with Han Chinese to recognize that there are Uyghur attitudes toward Han, rooted perhaps in religious traditions, perhaps in equally reprehensible ethnic chauvinism, that should be acknowledged.

   No one here is trying to deny that Han attitudes toward Uyghurs in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China took a strongly negative turn after 7/5, and no one thinks that discrimination and ethnically-based hatred only runs one way. I’ve had some pretty scary run-ins with Uyghur people in Beijing, even before the troubles in 1997. My point is that there’s plenty of blame to go around. I just want to see Han recognize that the outburst of violence in July didn’t come out of absolutely nowhere, that there was a context of inter-ethnic relations that made the situation in Shaoguan so potentially explosive, and that if the Party and everyday Han Chinese people don’t come to recognize that conditions need to be improved, it’s only a matter of time before another incident sets off more violence.

   Porfiriy, that last bit about holding China to modern standards and not cutting China slack for its developmental state, it’s a neat rhetorical device and I’m sure it was morally satisfying to type that out. But surely deep down do you really mean it? Do you honestly don’t think that — given the sheer enormity of the country, the rickety nature of so many of its institutions, the long-stifled and only now just embryonic nature of its modern jurisprudence and other parts of its judicio-political culture, and a preposterously long litany of other things that China’s holding together with tape and wire hangers, the vast number of balls in the air — insisting that China not be exempt is sensible? Or that (were your ideas writ large to be adopted as our diplomatic approach) subjecting China to this kind of continual browbeating, pointing out the superiority of the constitutional protections we in fact enjoy as Americans, is going to help bring people around? Irrespective of whether China signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, surely you know that that statement is the culmination of a value system that’s been in development since classical antiquity, and that it’s the distinct cultural product of the West. I happen to find its ideals to be incredibly noble, as do many Chinese people without a bit of “the West” in their cultural makeup, but for those ideals to really penetrate a political culture? Takes a whole lot longer than just what, 30 years of reform and opening.

7. davesgonechina on December 16, 2009 at 17:30

   @Kaiser: “that last bit about holding China to modern standards and not cutting China slack for its developmental state, it’s a neat rhetorical device and I’m sure it was morally satisfying to type that out. But surely deep down do you really mean it?… Or that (were your ideas writ large to be adopted as our diplomatic approach) subjecting China to this kind of continual browbeating, pointing out the superiority of the constitutional protections we in fact enjoy as Americans, is going to help bring people around?”

   Porfiriy seems to have thrown in the WTO and UDHR late in the game, and he left himself vulnerable to a counterpoint about the (question of) assimilation of Western values, browbeating, etc. But I’d roll it back a few thousand comments ago to when we were only talking about the PRC constitution and holding the Chinese government accountable to that. Can we all just drop the international treaties for a moment? Yes, China signed them, but this isn’t the same as a purely indigenous declaration of principles like the constitution. I’m not a fan of browbeating, but surely Kaiser, you wouldn’t extend the same argument to holding the government’s feet to the fire over following its own laws?

8. 

   Kaiser on December 16, 2009 at 17:37

   @Davesgonechina Sure, there’s a difference when it’s China’s own constitution we’re talking about, and a thousand comments ago I was also agreeing that implementation of the laws as written would be a fair sight better that what we’ve got now. I think that’s a perfectly fair line of attack: All we’re saying re ethnic policy is do what you say you’re going to do.

9. 

   Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 18:12

   Kaiser and Dave, do you guys really think the distinction between the PRC Constitution and the UDHR is really that big? I usually trot out the UDHR and the WTO when I get the similarly canned argument about the American Indians - Dave, if you observe me dropping it this late in the game it’s specifically in response to CninDC’s equally sardonic “whydontcha give the Indians back their land” comment. It really gets my eyes rolling down the hill to hear the old Native Americans/Hawaiians/Alaskans argument and whenever I hear that I think a trusty reminder that participation in the, yes, “Western” moral order is something that China consented to - in our time - thus rendering a comparison to 18th century American simply invalid.

   That’s one key point I want to make about the UDHR. I honestly don’t think it’s Western values browbeating. Yes, we can agree that the UDHR is the culmination of a long train of thought that extends way back to the Magna Carta even. Yes, we can agree that the PRC is an absolutely complicated whirlwind of history and politics and culture that we can simply cram into the sparkling Western moral order. But in spite of all this, this is what China consented to. This is what China ratified, what China agreed to for the WTO, and honestly I do not feel a strong enough “patronizing Western guy” feeling to think that the leaders of China - who are extremely smart, let’s not get this wrong - didn’t understand what was on the paper in front of them when they signed it. That being said, is it not fair to say that it ceases to become Western values browbeating once the nation legally accepts the standard uncoerced? As we’ve seen just recently, China usually has no qualms *not* signing/ratifying/participating in an international agreement that it has disagreements with. Complicated histories, convoluted value systems - but when you sign the dotted line, you sign the dotted line. Just as China’s own “special circumstances” violate the letter of the UDHR and should be held accountable for it anyway, in my opinion, similarly the United States invasion of Iraq was fueled by a distinctly American exceptionalism and a “mission from God” attitude that postulated that we were the only ones who could deal with that insane maniac Sadam - the neoconservative movement that propelled is into Iraq with the full consent of much of the American population is a very cultural and complicated thing - but be that as it may, even as an American I am grateful that the other countries of the world have held America accountable to the agreements *it* has signed (including the UDHR) and stood up against atrocities like the bombing of civilians, gitmo, and secret CIA prisons.

   In addition to seeing both the UDHR and the PRC Constitution as documents the Chinese government has consented to, when we get down to the letter of it are the UDHR and the Constitution really that different? When we’re talking about the Uyghur problem here: freedom of religion? In both documents. Freedom of expression/assembly? In both documents. Access to information? In both documents. Freedom from arbitrary detention? In both documents. Given these similarities, and given that both of these documents were “ratified” by the people in the form of the NPC, either both of them are Western moral systems not relevant to the Chinese system, or both of them can be used as standards.

   When we’re talking about ways to see societal problems in China get solved, including the ethnic problems, in the past the hope was that by inviting China to participate more in the global system the country would be more compelled to adhere to international standards - that motivated everything from the US’ rapid resumption of normal diplomatic relations after 89, the almost no-strings-attached granting of PNTR status, the acceptance of China into the WTO, and the 2008 Olympics. Unfortunately, it looks like this principle has been turned on its head and financially speaking China is so important to all of us that we can’t *not* give China what it wants (and this is not a scary China argument - for starters, this was a situation of our own doing as Americans who love to spend spend spend). On one hand, the Kissinger in me knows that just because *granting* China respect and privileges on the world stage isn’t working doesn’t mean that *denying* them will work any better (I’m sure Kaiser will agree - embarrassing or denying China on the world stage will make it worse), HOWEVER, the Jimmy Carter in me says that by losing sight of these standards we’re making these noble values no better than a fart in a hurricane (and in some senses, they’re already about that useful). Again, it’s a tough start, but I think that if as a nation China’s consented to it then I can “stick it to ‘em,” so to speak.

   Boy, Kissinger and Carter. Those were two great minds to compare myself to, eh? Where’s George Washington when you need him.

10. CnInDC on December 16, 2009 at 21:58

    @Kaiser: “I just want to see Han recognize that the outburst of violence in July didn’t come out of absolutely nowhere… and that if the Party and everyday Han Chinese people don’t come to recognize that conditions need to be improved, it’s only a matter of time before another incident sets off more violence.”

    I agree, that’s exactly where all these discussions among Chinese on eliminating certain ethnic policies are coming from. The only disagreement I can think of is that most Chinese discussions are about how to enable ethnic co-existance and co-habitation even though the measures may sounds counter-intuitive and unethical (e.g., Ma Rong’s talk) while the western rhetoric like @Porfiriy’s are about moral standards and political correctness through which deeper ethnic gaps can be created. After seeing the Halem Renaissance he/she wants a Uygher Renaissance. How nice! Still, no amount of AA and Renaissance can change the fact that a rowhouse in the Baltimore ghetto is worth less than 1/50 than that in Bethesda only 50 miles away, and the shooting incidents are several hundreds times higher.

11. 

    C. Custer on December 16, 2009 at 22:20

    @ CninDC: True, but what’s your point? There are black people who live in Bethesda, too. Yes, Baltimore is mostly a crime-ridden slum (anyone else re-watching The Wire right now?), but I don’t think it’s evidence that the entirety of Western morality is invalid. There’s a lot more to the issue of crime and poverty in Baltimore (or any US city) than that.

12. 

    Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 22:24

    Right, CninDC! Because reducing the massive social changes brought about by the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement, the contributions these movements have brought to American art and culture, the foundational work for paving the way towards a black supreme court justice, a black secretary of state, and a black president, to a single neighborhood in Baltimore, even though there are white neighborhoods with bad crime, Muslim neighborhoods with bad crime, and Chinese neighborhoods with bad crime makes total sense!

    Oh wow, look at this! Asian street gangs! Oh wow, a poor, Chinese immigrants tied up 13 people and shot them in the back of the head in triad related violence! Haha, I guess all those 4 thousand years of Chinese culture from Confucius to the reform and opening was just a sack of bullshit.

    Seriously, what an elitist douche.

13. 

    Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 22:32

    Wow, I guess the millions lifted out of poverty by the CCP didn’t stop this Chinese man from cutting a guy’s head off. Obviously it was because he was Chinese.

    Oh, and what about this dude? The brightest China has to offer! A Beijinger who made it to a US school! Surely to bring the education back home to strengthen the motherland. Oops! Well, I guess all Chinese are irredeemable psychopaths who stab people.

    I mean seriously, Gang Lu, what’s up with that?

    What in the bloody hell does a neighborhood in baltimore have to do with the social consequences of the harlem renaissance and the civil rights movement?

14. 

    Porfiriy on December 16, 2009 at 22:35

    Charles, he’s not trying to prove the entirety of Western morality is invalid, he’s trying to prove that even though there was a Harlem renaissance and a civil rights movement black people are slumdogs who wallow in self-pity.

15. 

    Kaiser on December 17, 2009 at 00:08

    @Porfiry I think you’re drawing a false dichotomy between the Kissinger and the Carter approaches, between real politic and the principle-driven foreign policy. It’s possible to remain committed to the advancement of values while at the same time being realistic about the limits of change, about the time that change often requires. In fact I think that anyone who really cares about seeing those values put into practice — who cares more about making progress than about their own moral purity and the satisfaction of uncompromising commitment — is actually obliged to adopt a pragmatic approach. It doesn’t entail abandonment of the values in question. Inflexibility just alienates.

    When people get married — in the Anglophone West, and increasingly in Asia too — they take vows. Yes, one would be justified in holding one’s partner to those vows, taken as they were aloud before all your assembled friends and family and (if that’s your thing) under “the eyes of God.” If your partner’s not honoring the vows, you can recite them to him or her in strident or threatening tones, insisting they live up to their promise. I somehow doubt that ever works, though, toward the end of saving the marriage and getting the partner to actually honor the vows. What people really do when they want a marriage to last, of course, involves that slow, taxing, sometimes tedious and often tearful work. Lots of unpacking of emotional baggage, lots of putting up with (often very serious) imperfections.

    I’d love to somehow enlist you as another marriage counselor, and get you to give up the role you seem to prefer playing, whatever that is — American legal counsel to the Uyghur spouse in an unhappy marriage, arranged centuries ago, to a Han Chinese?

    By the way, you make a good point that what’s in the Chinese constitution does in fact conform to the UDHR in many ways. More lip-service wedding vows that I know, and you know, China’s has not remotely lived up to and might not be capable of living up to any time soon. Still, the fact that China took those vows suggests they set at least some store by them…

    And in your last couple of comments, c’mon, the acerbic tone and the sarcasm may be very clever, but it’s just not helping to change anyone’s mind.

16. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 01:54

    Well, Kaiser, I guess I’m frustrating you a bit, with that bit about who “really cares” about putting values into practice and the “satisfaction” of having uncompromising values. Granted, I know I’m not the most diplomatic person, but rest assured, I’m not throwing myself into these discussions just for the smug satisfaction of arguing with someone - if anything, these kind of things are bad for me and bad for my temper. No, just as your special vantage point as a Chinese American who has experienced both worlds gives you a special credibility when it comes to bridging the divide, my deeply personal experience with and among Uyghurs has instilled in me a part of that firey discontent many Uyghurs bear.

    Let me make something clear about my understanding of how debate and the marketplace of ideas works in my mind - I like to see a lot of things I’m involved in, from blog comment debates to actual research, as part of an aggregate effort. I don’t take it upon myself to write about every single aspect of my academic speciality for example: I can produce content on, say, Uyghur masculinity and I can rest assured that I am but one part of an academic content producing community that is covering the other bases, of, say, Uyghur terrorism, Uyghur dance, Uyghur employment, etc. My understanding of opinion exchange on the Internet is simple. Rather seeing each and every person as an isolated ambassador, I understand discussion to be an aggregate phenomenon. That being said, I feel like there’s a role for the impassioned speaker and I think there’s a role for the coolheaded bridge-builder. The *aggregate* of these two specific examples (there are many, of course) is far more powerful I think than two worked up, impassioned people or two smooth-talking soothers.

    That being said, I see your Kaiserian spirit at practice here, and I definitely give mega props for practicing what you preach. You keep your cool and manuever smoothly from one perspective to another and that’s great. It’s just like you mentioned in your speech. However, as powerful as that approach may be, I think when we look at internet discussion as an aggregate social phenomenon, it’s certainly not the only emotional timbre that should be permitted in discussion - in jest, I invite you to imagine for a moment if *everyone* were as skillful as diplomatically navigating the treachourous waters of Internet “arguing” as you are. In a comment full of Kaisers, the exchange would be a chain of “I see your point there - but we also need to consider this.”

    With the rise of the Internet we’ve adopted the term “trolling” and it’s become such an icon of Internet culture that now it’s reflexively used when someone takes a teeny step out of the entirely platonic, ice cold Sophoclean debates on the steps of an Athens temple. But I honestly have to disagree. You can be *worked up* and still make a point (or even make the point better). You can be *sarcastic* and still make a legitimate point (or even make the point better).

    I’m going to be a jackass by invoking the name of Jonathan Swift: obviously, I’m no Jonathan Swift, for sure. However, sarcasm has its place, and temper has its place. And when CNinDC says in *all* seriousness that some Baltimore neighborhood with scary black people absolutely *nullifies* the social impact of the Harlem Renaissance, that’s an unscrutinized, reflexive observation that was delivered so poorly that it, indeed, can be mocked. I’m sorry. I’m going to say it. That was a *stupid* observation - just as stupid as when my Southern dad comes home from the post office and says “Ugh, that employee was an asshole” if he dealt with a jaded white employee and says “Ugh, that black employee was an asshole” if he dealt with a jaded black employee. And make no bones about it, if I say something that’s wrong but reasonable, correct me nicely. But if I say something outright stupid, by God, call me out on it. I definitely think:

    Still, no amount of AA and Renaissance can change the fact that a rowhouse in the Baltimore ghetto is worth less than 1/50 than that in Bethesda only 50 miles away, and the shooting incidents are several hundreds times higher.

    Falls under the latter and I think that by pointing out how similarly ridiculous the rather disturbing phenomenon of Chinese American/Canadian snapping inexplicably and gruesomely killing someone says far less about Chinese people as a whole than it does about the *context* of that Chinese person is valid - just like understanding the “ghetto” of Baltimore requires a deeper understanding of the historical and social context of that neighborhood, of African Americans in the US - not a half-assed “Welp, they’re black” quip like cnindc’s.

    As for the marriage analogy - I’m sorry, but I just can’t buy it. Not only are international relations way more expansive than the relationship between two people, but even the marriage analogy itself is too narrow in the way that you use it. What if your spouse likes to smoke in bed but doesn’t give a damn when you talk to him or her about it? What if your spouse beats the living shit out of you every day? What if your spouse woos all your friends by being Mr. Charming but turns into a domineering control freak when you close the front door? Different scenarios require different approaches - and sometimes it takes a friendly knock on the door and a “did you know…?” style spiel, and sometimes it takes chaining your arms together and walking into the spray of a firehouse singing “we shall overcome,” and sometimes it takes dressing up in your leather man thong and running into the middle of a “God hates fags” protest and making out with your boyfriend. Frankly, this apathetic and lackadaisical “Uyghurs are lazy” approach is the crux of the Uyghur problem - Han in China don’t empathize with the Uyghurs not because Han people are super mean or hateful, but because they think the Uyghurs deserve it and subsequently don’t give a rats ass. Apathy and indifference is not something you can diplomacy your way into action. When the problem is not actively hateful worldviews, but rather unscrutinized, taken-for-granted worldviews (and I classify han racism/chauvinism/indifference/objectification/whatever as the latter) then something has to force you to *rethink* what you’ve already thought through in the past (and hence now take for granted).

    In regards to America’s bad behavior or China’s bad behavior I often here people use the “well, it’s just some moralistic document” or “lip service wedding vows” as it were but I really have to put my foot down and say that relations between nation-states have to be regulated by *some* sort of agreed upon written standard otherwise the only thing left to fall back on is: “Oh well, this person is Chinese, so we can expect him to do this or that because of his *culturei*” or “This person is an Israeli Jew, and since all jews are like so and so, let’s offer him his.” We need standards, otherwise we’ll all just succumb to the evolutionary installed algorithms in our brain that reduce different people to inaccurate archetypes. On one hand, I can understand China’s unique culture, but on the other hand I have trouble saying - oh, China can ignore the UDHR because they’re China with their special history and background. First of all, I don’t understand where that stops: oops, we invaded Iraq! We’re America, fuck yeah, and we like to go in and save the mother fucking day, yeah, will you forgive us? Secondly, if you don’t like what’s on the paper, then don’t consent to it. Sure, the US didn’t sign the Kyoto protocol, and we were super jackasses for it. But at least we didn’t sign it and then flagrantly violate it while pretending we’re complying with contrived white papers. I really don’t think that Chinese culture is so super unique and exceptional that as individuals and as a country they have special permission to sign document that says “DO. NOT. DO. X.” and then go and do X and say “Woops! I’m Chinese!” It just doesn’t sit right with me.

17. CnInDC on December 17, 2009 at 07:30

    @C. Custer: “but what’s your point?”

    The point is “that even though there was a Harlem renaissance and a civil rights movement”, the racial gap in the US was not reducing in the past several decades, refer to http://www.aera.net/uploadedfiles/journals_and_publications/journals/educational_researcher/3101/3101_lee.pdf and numerous others.

    I can’t say how sad I was when looking at those boarded up streets and when getting email/cell phone alerts about gunshots and muggings just a few stones throw away from where I was.

    Similar things are happening in Xinjiang and Xizang. AA’s positive effects have faded away over time, ghettos are forming. Now AA is not only being taken for granted but also only benefiting the small number of elite minorities. At the same time it deepens the mutual distrust between ethnic groups. Some policy shake-ups are needed. Old ghettos and strongholds, both symbolic and concrete, must be diluted, uprooted, destroyed and rebuilt. There’s no point just repaint the street-facing walls then wish they would somehow revive themselves or just go away.

18. CnInDC on December 17, 2009 at 07:34

    @Porfiriy,

    Have you walked in those Baltimore neighborhoods at 11PM? I have. Almost every night for many months. So I don’t particularly need advice on how to respond to anyone walking towards me at that hour, lest a lecture on discrimination/racism.

    Also, here’s from your own beloved President Obama: African Americans needed to take more responsibility for their lives and families (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/15/nation/na-campaign15). If you don’t slap a big R on him I can’t take seriously what you said about discrimination and racism.

19. CnInDC on December 17, 2009 at 07:41

    @Porfiriy,

    I’m having a hard time differentiate your words from that of Todd Stern: “… It’s the wrong way to look at this. We absolutely recognize our historical role in … But the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I categorically reject that.” You should know this puts you in a very negative light to the others, right?

    And from all you’ve written here, it’s quite clear to me that you’ve already shot your arrow to hold Chinese government and Chinese people responsible for whatever bad happened in Xinjiang and all you need now is to draw a target around wherever it falls, e.g., prove the Chinese are deeply racists via psychological tests, actively promote or even create a non-existing Uygher Renaissance so you can draw parallels with the American civil rights movement. If you put your researcher’s hat on top of your activist’s hat to promote an agenda, that hardly helps you to see things through an objective point of view. Bad research I’d say at least. That partially explains why time and again the sinologists get China wrong.

20. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 07:50

    Again, the chorus of responses to your observations continually seems to be, “What’s your point?” How can anything I said be construed to imply that Balitmore is somehow *not* dangerous? The sound of the *whoosh* going over your head is audible; the point was that the presence of predominately black neighborhoods in no way, shape, or form diminishes or nullifies the contributions of the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights movement. And then you have the gall to send me a link on President Obama like you’re some clever Gus.

    Re: the link on president Obama: “What’s your point?” You’re displaying a fascinating ability to lose the thread of a debate to serve whatever pre-existing opinion you have on “race” and “responsibility.” The Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement I refer to were where African Americans took more responsibility for their lives and families. So Obama encourages that, fine. If some Chinese American scoffs at the cultural achievements of blacks just because he has to veer around downtown Baltimore, that’s arrogance. You’re not saying, “blacks, take more responsibility.” You’re saying, “Harlem renaissance, hah! And you’re still in the slums.” Which is really a dumb observation since the number of Chinese people living on far less than the poorest ghetto family in the PRC probably is equal to several times the entire population of America. Should I conclude that there’s some sort of flaw in Chinese culture? Or should I conclude that there’s a complex context where cultural, historical, political, and societal factors meet to produce the situation they live in? Honestly, I prefer the latter approach; you in your wholesale dismissal of black culture movements, apparently embrace the former.

    The irony is that you’re disinterested “model minority” vantage point actually bears quite uncanny resemblance to the attitudes of the British as the opened up China and scoffed at the pathetic Chinaman who despite millenia of “culture” and civilization couldn’t “take responsibility” and put down the opium pipe. Oh my, the Boxer Rebellion - look at those violent Chinese, going on murderous rampage just because they think we’re oppressing and exploiting them when *actually* we’re just going in and showing them what proper civilization looks like. Oh, let’s ignore the fact that the Chinese people rose to global prominence only after embracing a narrative that the colonialist yolk had to be overthrown; but now that that’s done and done when the Uyghurs express similar discontent as the disenfranchised and impoverished Qing-era Boxer and see national pride in only distinguishing themselves from what they view as a foreign oppressor; boo-hoo poor Uyghurs. That’s a double standard if I ever saw one.

21. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 08:01

    Oh, clever quote, but you’re comparing apples and oranges. First of all, I’m a member of an immigrant family that crossed the Pacific *just like you* and made good for yourself so if you want to pin the guilt and the responsibility on the annihilation of the American Indians which resulted from the application of a system and mindset I am no way advocating in this discussion, you’re going to have to somehow link my actual country of origin to the Amerinidian massacre.

    Secondly, holding a national discussion about the wrongs of a nation’s past among the youth of today (you don’t even know how old I am and where I was placed generationally in the education system’s gradual embracing of more critical, revisionist views on American history) IS a sense of guilt, culpability and reparations, and a merited one, at that. If you’re an individual who sympathizes with popular mainland sentiments, then why do you all get your panties in a wad over the Japanese education system’s utter neglect of the atrocities of the China Invasion and the Nanjing Massacre? Because it’s so shameless as it denies any sense of culpability or guilt? Again with the double standard. As an American citizen I have explored with the guidance of teachers provided to me by the *state* the wrongs and ills of our history. Using those lessons I try as a voter and an activist to participate in the system to do my part in opposing what I perceive to be the ills of my day - a participation that you have no inkling about because I’m talking to you on an internet site. The negative light you’re seeing me in is less about what I’m saying or who I am vis-a-vis the ills of American history and has much more to do with YOU shooting YOUR arrow at me then finding yourself scrambling to draw a “cookie cutter Western moralist” target around it.

    Regarding research, Xinjiang, and the oh-so-cliche 不客观不客观 baaaaaaaaawling, if objectivtive viewpoints are what you want then open up the god damn country for research so that an academic consensus can be made between *biased* Western scholars, *biased* Chinese scholars, and scholars of different or no motivations from all over the world. If Xinjiang is a harmonious wonderland, open it up to scrutiny rather than insecurely locking it up and suggesting that there is something to be concerned about regarding ANYONE other than the rubber-stamped sociologist from the Chinese Academy of Social Scientist might conclude. Maybe sinologists get it “wrong” time and time again (and that’s an unsupported, sweeping bs statement) because the country is so intellectual insecure it bars any and all opportunities for any scholars to gather even the plain, raw data to start working with.

22. CnInDC on December 17, 2009 at 08:08

    Somehow I hit a nerve…

23. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 08:25

    CninDC, did you even *read* the sociological study you linked or did you just google “ethnic gap” and throw the first PDF written by an Asian American our way? I actually read the freaking study and I’m really gape-jawed here because it really shows how much of a unthorough, cherry-picking thinker you are.

    First of all, the article states that the education gap between blacks/hispanics and whites decreased RAPIDLY in the 1970s and the 1980s - which just so happen to be the decades following the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT I keep on referring to and you keep on flippantly dismissing. Secondly, the article discusses concern over the *tapering off and stabilizing* of the educational gap - *none* of this lines up with your implied “gap is widening” characterization.

    The racial and ethnic achievement gaps narrowed
    at the basic skills level in the 1970s and early 1980s but
    grew at the advanced skills level in the late 1980s and the 1990s.
    The recent increases in the achievement gaps may be viewed as
    relatively small when compared to the magnitude of the past decreases.

    Secondly, the study argues that there is a complex concoction of multiple variables that must be analyzed to understand the slight stabilization and widening of the gap in recent years. The point of this study is to say that the American social project to encourage an equally distributed respect for education started by the civil rights project is not complete, the absolute opposite of what you’re implying: that it somehow failed.

    Thirdly, the point of the paper is that conventional explanations for the education gap are not sufficient statistically to explain it. Observer, here, the interest in your part to “scientifically” prove some sort of educational laziness on behalf of blacks. This researcher is saying that’s invalid and that other explanations must be sought out.

    One controversial explanation for the Black-White achievement
    gap is that peer culture among Black students is more oppositional
    to achievement (see Ferguson, 2001). Following this line
    of reasoning, one could argue that minority youth culture
    changed in a way that made Black and Hispanic students perform
    at lower levels. Statistics do not seem to support this hypothesis,
    as they showed that, similar to their White peers, both
    Black and Hispanic students tended to fare better over time in
    terms of their readiness and motivation for learning, sense of
    safety at school, exposure to violence, and drug usage.

    The aim of this paper is to prove that single-factor variables cannot be used to understand recent trends in the educational gap. This is a call for greater and more nuanced research into the issue. It has nothing to do with your “political talking points” style of contrived racial explanations for education.

    The racial and ethnic achievement gap trends highlighted in
    this article can be further examined through multidisciplinary and
    multilevel perspectives. Scholars with different disciplinary expertise
    may explore possible causes for and influences on the patterns
    and engage in analysis of related broader policy issues such
    as immigration, desegregation, funding equalization, standardsbased
    education reform, and high-stakes testing.

    For Christ’s sake read the freaking studies before you moralistically lob them at us.

24. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 08:28

    You know what? I have no problem admitting that sloppy thinking “hits” my nerves. It sure does. It surely does.

25. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 08:59

    Re: the academic research of Jaekyung Lee:

    Much of his work focuses on whether or not the standards-based reform of the no No Child Left Behind act brought about significant improvements in racial and socioeconomic gaps. Lee particularly questions Bush’s rationale to eliminate the “soft racism” of low expectations by make the incentives structure of the NCLB pay no heed to race and focus on measurable achievements of particular educational institutions rather than focusing on helping on the basis of race or socioeconomic status - a rationale that falls in line with your “eliminate AA” proposal (which I also disagree with because beyond lumping a few points onto a gaokao score no “AA” is really being implemented to begin with). However, Lee criticizes the NCLB as ineffective from an objectively measurable standpoint, particularly because the NCLB *ignores* race and socioeconomic status leading schools that are segregated, poor, or both to continue to flounder because they structurally were incapable of meeting the NCLB standards to begin with.

    The general thrust of Lee’s work is actually the exact opposite of the agenda you sourced him to support. Really, it’s just sloppy thinking.

    -Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of NCLB on the Gaps: An In-Depth Look into National and State Reading and Math Outcome Trends
    -The Impact of Accountability on Racial and Socioeconomic Equity: Considering Both School Resources and Achievement Outcomes

26. CnInDC on December 17, 2009 at 10:50

    It’s getting really uninteresting when you attack your own straw man and at the same time dump your emotional baggage on others. I see repetitively the tendency of your research attitude leaning towards winning an argument than searching for reasoning and knowledge. Whatever, not my problem.

27. 

    s on December 17, 2009 at 11:08

    but now that that’s done and done when the Uyghurs express similar discontent as the disenfranchised and impoverished Qing-era Boxer

    Uighurs are the foreigners in Xinjiang, if you actually believe they’re related to the Uighur of 500-700 AD.

    Even then they came several hundred years late.

28. 

    Porfiriy on December 17, 2009 at 12:59

    It’s getting really uninteresting when you attack your own straw man and at the same time dump your emotional baggage on others.

    Sure, I’ll pretend that made any sense.

    I see repetitively the tendency of your research attitude leaning towards winning an argument than searching for reasoning and knowledge.

    That’s funny from someone who sourced a sociological study without even bothering to see that it actually contradicted what was saying. What, nothing to say about the fact that I read and understood the study whereas you didn’t? I found two other Lee studies and read them as well. You want to place yourself as the model for “searching for reasoning and knowledge” and call me out for using “emotional baggage?” What, no nonsensical gibberish statement (I mean witty quip) to somehow compensate that you looked like a total dolt for pointing to the Lee article?

    What a joke. A joke. Go wallow in your uninformed worldviews. I don’t debate with people like you to convince you of anything because you are unconvinceable. The only reason I keep coming back is so any who stops by here is absolutely clear how empty and nonsensical your ideas are; even your, blundering face saving attempt at retreat - “attack your own straw man” - does make any sense.

29. 

    C. Custer on December 17, 2009 at 21:21

    You guys done? Quit bickering, or I’m closing the comments on this one.

30. 

    s on December 25, 2009 at 01:48

    my deeply personal experience with and among Uyghurs has instilled in me a part of that firey discontent many Uyghurs bear.

    Your deeply personal experience with “Uyghurs” doesn’t change the fact that they’re invaders who are not native to a single inch of China.

    In the days of old, Western/Northern Xinjiang were roamed by Qiangic peoples, with the East either empty or changing hands between Mongols, (real) Turks and Chinese.

    The “Uighur” of today are not the Uighur of old, who were predominantly Northeast Asian.

    Are Mexicans Spaniards? No.

31. 

    s on December 25, 2009 at 01:49

    And I forgot Southern Xinjiang, i.e Kunlun, which was inhabited essentially by Tibetans.

32. 

    Porfiriy on December 25, 2009 at 05:21

    What a dumb observation. It displays a complete understanding of the meaning and the malleability of ethonyms and instead illustrates rehashed Communist propaganda as the intellectual source; Stalinist ethnic classifications and Confucian “rectification of names” which posits that if the “group” has a different “name” they must have been completely different peoples. Your cherrypicking historical runover disregards the fact that groups of people change name and exchange populations, beliefs, and conceptual identities with neighbors when we’re looking at a timeframe of hundreds of years. The categories “Northeast Asian”, “real Turks,” and “Chinese” didn’t even exist before the past few centuries and its purely moronic Communist ideology (oh I’ve read the works of Li Sheng) that naively think you can extrapolate modern ethnic terms to the past. You have no idea what the ethnic composition of the Turk, Tujue, 突厥 or whatever were. You can’t freaking run a DNA test on them.

    Furthermore all these observations are rendered absolutely moot in light of the legal framework created by and consented to by the CCP when setting up the local government in XUAR. The people in Xinjiang before the 1940s could’ve been Scottish for all I care. Doesn’t mean spit in light of what’s on the paper.

33. 

    s on December 27, 2009 at 05:51

    You have no idea what the ethnic composition of the Turk, Tujue, 突厥 or whatever were. You can’t freaking run a DNA test on them.

    Uh yes, you can. You can find Y-DNA and mtDNA from ancient remains, and those related to the cultural nexus of various Turkic confederations were overwhelmingly Northeast Asians.

    The Uighur of today are 52% Caucasoid, which means they are totally foreign to East Asia. The Uighur of old intermarried with Iranic speakers and perhaps some Tocharians. They still have no right to Xinjiang- even if you do count the earliest Uighur as their direct ancestors.

    Furthermore all these observations are rendered absolutely moot in light of the legal framework created by and consented to by the CCP when setting up the local government in XUAR. The people in Xinjiang before the 1940s could’ve been Scottish for all I care. Doesn’t mean spit in light of what’s on the paper.

    Then change the laws. Any law giving illegals and foreigners, who killed millions upon millions to alter the demographics of Xinjiang, is an evil law. If the CCP is ever going to progress or be taken seriously, they can’t simply dismiss history and cling on to Soviet thinking. It was, after all, the Russians who came up with the silly idea of arbitrarily naming Uzbek Sarts into “Uighur”. That “ethnic group” had more or less been dead for hundreds of years before Stalinists “revived” it.

34. 

    Porfiriy on December 27, 2009 at 07:32

    Hm, okay, please link me to a study of the DNA of “Turk” remains.

    Caucasoid is a completely obsolete and outdated category. The conditions for what constitutes a “caucasoid” are arbitrary and lead to categorizations that have no biological or cultural basis. The three broad classifications of humans, caucasoid, mongoloid, and negroid were developed by Europeans in the 19th century and are still used today in the PRC because they stupidly adopted Marxist evolutionary terminology and the social sciences today are in such a straightjacket that they’re stagnant and obsolete. 52% “Cacuasoid” is a bs, bunk science statement that has no meaning whatsoever. A valid observational statement about the overall genetic composition of Uyghurs is that their genome uniquely bears similarities to samples taken from humans located in the arbitrarily defined political units known as “countries” in Europe as well as similarities to samples taken from humans located in the arbitrarily defined geographic region known as “East Asia.” Genomes don’t give a flipping shit about nation states or three farcical categories such as “negroid” which meaninglessly places Australian aborigines and African Bantus into the same category. Your observations are not only effortless cookie-cutting copy pasta from Communist propaganda, it’s also outright wrong. However, it illustrates quite well that you’re incapable of thinking on your own!

    Any law giving illegals and foreigners, who killed millions upon millions to alter the demographics of Xinjiang, is an evil law.

    Again more meaingless nonsense. Are you saying the “Uyghurs” of the Uyghur confederation (because you think that just because two things have the same name they must be the same thing) were foreigners who murdered millions when coming into the Tarim basin in the 10th century? Even if that’s true, that’s total BS chain of thinking that can be taken all the way back to the dawn of mankind when the first humans “invaded” the area and killed the animals to whom the the land “rightly belonged” to. Asking who historically “owns” the land and who murderously invaded it is simply naive and wrong thinking. After all, the (omg, non-imperialist, non-expasionist! of course!) Qing dynasty conducted an absolutely brutal, planned, and systematic genocide of the Zunghars in the 19th century. The land doesn’t “belong” historically to anyone - the idea that a certain parcel of land is entitled to -anyone- is in fact a new concept that didn’t exist before the concept of the nation state, and this is just more Communist propaganda idiocy that retroactively and ineffectually applies modern concepts to the past where they’re not even relevant. Both Uyghur and Chinese “historical” claims to “Xinjiang” (a geographical unit that was fabricated with no basis to either geography or ethnicity in the 19th century) fall flat. Period. Just as you can delegitimize Uyghur claims to the area by pointing out the origins of the ethonym Uyghur and making completely invalid and spurious comparisons to the Turks, the Uyghur empire, and the Xiongnu, and whatever, you could just as easily delegitimize Chinese claims by pointing to the invasion executed by the Qing, the essentially subordinate relationship the Sui and Tang had to the Uyghurs, the huge periods of time where the Chinese empire had literally no political control in the area, etc.

    I am no activist calling for a separate Uyghur nation. The political reality is that the PRC has sovereignty over the area, and I believe that can’t be changed. However, it’s also a political reality that the Uyghurs are a people who subscribe to a common identity (regardless of where that term came from), that the Constitution and the REAL ascribe certain rights to those citizens that are not being adhered to, that PRC by doing so is violating it’s own lays and international agreements it willingly consented to, and even if narrow minded zombies like yourself wanted to CHANGE the law there’s no way to do that in the current authoritarian system except to go out and whine and scream like both the UYGHURS and the HAN of Urumqi did. So if you want to “change the laws,” then go out to the local xinfang office and start asking for it.

35. 

    s on December 27, 2009 at 11:30

    ABSOLUTELY NO CURSING AT OTHERS. S, I have warned you a million times to make your points in a civil manner. You have repeatedly failed to do so. Your comments are no longer welcome here, and will be deleted as soon as I see them from now on.

36. 

    Porfiriy on December 27, 2009 at 23:34

    Note, first of all, you conveniently sidestepping the need to post a research study on DNA analysis of the Tujue.

    The Uyghur of old, not so much- excavations from Siberia and Northern Mongolia have produced remains with predominantly Northeast Asian markers. Any “European” in their genome is the product of foreign invasion- and thus invalidates them to any claim of any land in East Asia. That’s beside the point anyhow- they are definitely not native to Xinjiang.

    Again, modern categories poorly and retroactively applied to to the past. You put quotes on “European” but you could just as easily put quotes around “Northeast Asian markers.” You also seemed to completely miss the point I made about historical and biological claims to any area fall flat. You also seemed to completely ignore my counterpoint that both trying legitimize or delegitimize historical claims to the area fall flat because the concept “native” is flawed and NO ONE is native to Xinjiang since Xinjiang was EMPTY at the dawn of mankind and the oldest biological remains found there bear no physiological resemblance to either modern-day Uyghurs or Han Chinese.

    blah blah blah blah blah, Communist propaganda!

    Shut the fuck up. If you can’t refute the argument then that’s that, don’t bring in your typical nonsense of “you’re brainwashed because you don’t agree with me!”. It almost amazes me that some people parrot such stupid lines and yet expect to be taken seriously.

    Woah, someone is hasty and defensive! Actually, you are copy and pasting communist propaganda and shouting “shut the fuck up” like a whiny baby doesn’t cancel out the fact that this is a valid objection and indeed refutation. It’s not just a rehashed talking point in this situation. You stick to a straw man attack to delegitimize historical Uyghur claims to the area when I’m not even talking about historical claims but rather modern day political realities. You recycle ethnic categories such as Caucasoid and Mongoloid which are absolutely obsolete and are not used in the social sciences pretty much anywhere in the world except CHINA where the sciences are a propagandistic tool that sticks to outdated ontologies to justify its poorly reasoned policies. Your discussion of Xinjiang history is riddled with spurious and poorly supported analogies linking modern day “Uyghurs” to the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Empire when that’s not even being discussed here and making such linkages is absolutely invalid and requires a belief that names are the only defining criteria to identify ethnic groups.

    I’m not baselessly saying you’re spouting communist propaganda, I’m saying that and PROVING it. Your convuluted, naive, and spaghetti like logic is not only invalid but it’s invalid in exactly the same way the Communists spin the official history of Xinjiang in documents such as the white paper on Xinjiang and the official history of Xinjiang written by Li Sheng. Your views on Xinjiang, history, biology, and ethnicity are *exactly* in line with the views of the government of China, which are both views held NO WHERE else in the world and views that are plain wrong.

    So yes. You are applying no neurons here and simply copy pastaing Communist propaganda. Haha. What whiney irrelevant outburst do you have now, child?

    Enough with that trash, I was not raised in China and I have never been a student in a classroom anywhere in the PRC.

    Yeah, but your a sad, roid-raging, and laughably insecure Chinese America/Brit/Whatever who has to resort to Chinese propaganda because it’s the only perspective on this issue in the entire world that can stroke your ego and take the sting off your “harmed feelings.” “Shut the fuck up!” Baaaaaaaw.

    Nope. Work on your reading comprehension.

    No, work on your writing, you disabled dolt.

    The fake Uighur (who sometimes laughably claim the Uighur of the confederation as their ancestors) invaded in the 19th century- slaughtering millions during a Muslim revolt. That is how the demographics of Xinjiang came to be the way they are, millions flooded in from Central Asia with the support of Tsarist Russia.

    This is just pure bullshit. I have take back my accusations of you copypastaing communist propoganda because the communists aren’t idiotic enough to make this claim. There were Muslim revolts in the 19th century, sure. This is not, however, when the Turkic-speaking Muslims ENTERED the region. No one claims this. Not Western academia, not the communists. I’d like to see you cite a source to back up this stupendously outrageous claim.

    Nice try. The Manchus sent Khalkhas to exterminate the Oirats. Manchus sending Mongols to kill Mongols. It has nothing to do with the West’s pathetic little game of trying to instill “Han guilt” in people who have nothing to feel guilty about.

    The Qing dynasty is precisely what the government day relies on to justify the boundaries of the Chinese nation-state. The government in its white papers and propaganda points specifically to the Qing dynasty to justify the inclusion of areas such as Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan into the modern day political body. The government approved and many-times-translated tome on Xinjiang history written by Li Sheng actually celebrates the Qing dynasty’s actions in the area as “reunification.” I’m not playing the “Han guilt” card, the Chinese government is the one celebrating the Qing invasion of Xinjiang and using it as its precedent so it doesn’t matter a god damn flip if it was Manchu’s (true) sending Khalkhas (false) to kill Oirats (partially true). If you actually bothered to read my comments then attacking, with humorous vigour, a straw man that has nothing to do with what I’m saying, my concern is with the legal and political realities of modern times.

    Except the part where it tears up the West’s whole sob story about how the “Native Uighurs” are being “displaced in their own homelands” by “evil foreign Hans”. That’s the cudgel you’d happily beat every “evil Han” over the head with repeatedly until they caved to “minority policies” (no doubt intended to benefit white people) foisted upon them by groups of historically illiterate Western progressives who are running out of trendy pet causes.

    Haha, looks like someone forgot to take their prozac. Again, I mock: baaaaaaaw. I wipe a tear from my eye. First of all, I’m not even saying the “native uyghurs” are being “displaced in their own homelands.” The core of my argument has been the legal framework surrounding circumstances in Xinjiang. And as for the “foisted upon them by… Western progressives” trope - which ironically is itself a sob story (baaaaaaw) - that’s bullshit. The PRC constitution and the REAL were written by the Communist government. No Western liberal hippie was breathing down their neck when they wrote it. That was their own thing. So I’m holding them to their own standards, is all.

    You’re making some idiotic claims so you’re going to have to back them up with some sources - and you’ve already ignored one area where a source was needed. So you’re really on thin ice. haha. You’re the one departing from the standard and accepted history of the region, not me.

    Hope you don’t have a wife and kids. If you do, I’m sure they live in utter terror seeing you’re a hyper-insecure, self-victimizing rage zombie.

37. 

    C. Custer on December 28, 2009 at 09:32

    This has gotten way out of hand, and is no longer productive. S is banned, and this comment thread is now closed.

    Porfiriy: Your comments herein have also been inappropriately ad hominem. Consider yourself warned.