American hypocrisy undermines our advocacy for ethnic minorities in China
U.S. politicians criticize China for adopting American assimilationism but also criticize Americans who question American assimilationism
U.S. politicians say it is wrong for Chinese Communist leaders to dictate to ethnic minorities how they should act and conform. But they also push domestic policies that dictate to racial minorities how they should act and conform. Is this morally inconsistent? Yes. Is it counter-productive? Yes too.
China’s policymakers have instituted a so-called “second generation ethnic policy.” Under this framework, authorities are dismantling previous PRC structures of regional and local autonomy and replacing them with policies aimed at eroding ethnic minorities’ language and identity. The goal of these policies is “ethnic fusion” (minzu ronghe, 民族融合), a term that “connotes the adoption of Han customs, institutions, and language by other ethnic groups.” A synonym is “assimilation.” Or as we were taught in American schools, the “melting pot.”
Interestingly, the United States was a model for China’s policy shift. A decade and a half ago, Chinese scholars analyzed the long-standing ethnic autonomy system in the PRC, which gave legal rights (on paper) for ethnic minorities, and concluded it failed to pacify Tibetans and Uyghurs, who had recently engaged in major protests. Their conclusion was that assimilation, which they saw as successful in the United States, India and Brazil, was the way to go. And official policy followed suit.
As implemented under Xi Jinping, this assimilationist approach has been adjacent if not synonymous to "sinicization” polices, which refers to efforts to coopt religions, cultures, and education not only to justify the policies of the ruling Communist Party, but also to coerce minorities into conformity with the majority Han.
Sinicization and majoritarian social control of ethnic minorities is manifested in the end of Mongolian language instruction in Southern (Inner) Mongolia, creation of colonial boarding schools for Tibetan children and, most gravely, the concentration camps and forced labor of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, which has been labeled as crimes against humanity and genocide.
U.S. lawmakers have responded to this assimilationist push with outrage and action. Policy and bipartisan legislation followed, including the landmark Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. You might conclude that there was a consensus in Washington to stand up for the agency of ethnic/racial minorities. But you would be wrong.
Likewise, in the United State there has been questioning of long-standing assumptions about assimilation – the notion that racial tension will go away when racial minorities have adopted (or forced to conform to) the cultural norms of the White majority.
Building on previous generations of reformers and activists, modern lines of research and advocacy reject the notion that racism can be waved away by “color-blind” thinking because of the structural racism embedded in our political economy. Such analysis is represented by the interdisciplinary academic field of critical race theory, the contributors to the 1619 Project, and works such as Ibram Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning. The George Floyd racial justice protests forced a reckoning for Americans with (yet more) evidence of institutional racism.
And yet this reckoning faces a backlash from conservative and reactionary politicians reflexively siding with the institutions within which such racism had implanted itself. Summarily rejecting the notion of structural racism, they turned “CRT,” “DEI” and “woke” into virtue-signaling slogans in defense of racial hierarchy.
And they have gone further. Using the power of state, politicians in Tallahassee, Austin, Montgomery and elsewhere have acted to stop policies designed to address structural racism and even prevent the teaching of history other than that meets the approval of the ethnic majority.
In loud echoes of the way Communist Party officials attack policies they don’t like as “hurting the feelings of the Chinese people,” these reactionary politicians attack anti-racism policies by saying they make White people uncomfortable or “shamed because of their race.” Yet more evidence of an ideological convergence.
So, what we have are American conservatives who simultaneously criticize the CCP for adopting American-style “ethnic fusion” of assimilation under Han majoritarianism and also criticize fellow Americans who reject American-style “ethnic fusion” of assimilation under White majoritarianism.
Does this make sense? Not logically. Or intellectually. But it might if your politics is defined by the things you oppose, like ChiComs and the woke mob.
My point is this: the effectiveness of U.S. advocacy for the rights of ethnic minorities (Uyghurs, Tibetans and Southern Mongolians) in China will be hindered if the leaders and people of China, and the rest of the world, see the American position as politically-motivated rather than morally-based. And it will lack a moral basis as long as U.S. politicians act like CCP officials by denying agency to ethnic/racial minorities in order to perpetuate majoritarian hierarchies.