n this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Yan Sun, Professor of Chinese politics at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY, to discuss the origins of the ethnic divisions in China and their contemporary effects. Yan addresses the imperial administrative system and the historical incorporation of non-core peoples into it. Furthermore, she discusses the complexities of the Uighur, Tibetan, and Mongol claims to autonomy and the role of ethnic elites in their rise. Finally, she explains the role of ethnic assimilation and China’s territorial claims in the central government’s view of the war on Ukraine and how Western media often portrays China as a monolith without delving into the nuances of Chinese society and domestic politics.

Transcript:

John Torpey  00:01

China has ongoing regional conflicts with two portions of its national territory: Muslim-dominated Xinjiang and Buddhist-oriented Tibet. What are the likely outcomes of these conflicts between the core Chinese territory and these peripheral regions? What are ethnic politics in China like more generally, and how do these relate to the historic origins of contemporary China? Welcome to International Horizons, a podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We are fortunate to have with us today Yan Sun, professor of political science at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is author of the recent book From Empire to Nation-State: Ethnic Politics in China, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2020. Yan Sun is also the author of two other books, Corruption and Market in Contemporary China, published by Cornell University Press, and The Chinese Reassessment of Socialism by Princeton, as well as many scholarly articles on China’s ethnic politics, political corruption, China and Russia’s post-socialist transformation, and corruption in China, India, and Russia. She has also written articles on China’s ethnic politics in the New York Times.  So thank you very much for joining us today.

Yan Sun  01:43

Thank you for inviting me.

John Torpey  01:44

Great, great to have you finally; we’ve been talking about doing this for a long time. And finally, it’s happening. So I’m very happy about that. So as I’ve just mentioned, in the introduction, you’ve written a book about ethnic politics in China that focuses basically on these peripheral regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, which everybody pays attention to in international affairs and laws [as they] were sort of conflict points for the Chinese regime. And you show in the book that despite their separation tendencies, they’re not likely to escape Chinese control. And you argue that this has to do with the pattern of Chinese state building over the centuries. And I wonder if you could explain that to our listeners. How is this different? You kind of compare it to two other empires, the Soviet Empire and the Ottoman. And I wonder if you could explain to people how these three cases of empires have developed and what the implications of that are for contemporary Chinese regional ethnic politics.

Yan Sun  02:49

Yeah, okay. Yeah, historically what is now the territorial span of China was ruled by three tiers or in three tiers. Of course, the dynasty has varied across centuries. But mostly when China was united, that is having both the frontier regions and the core regions when they were together, they were brought in the three tiers. So first, there was the central place, or the core of China now, and now it’s mainly the Han regions, but historically [it was] basically a fusion of lots of incorporation of frontier people into the core of China. And these central plains were ruled directly by the Imperial Court, which basically means registration for tax purposes, and military recruitment. So next here, we have the so-called inner peripheral regions. They were geographically and culturally close to China, at least agrarian. So they shared some values, and they were indirectly ruled. And dynasties and emperors granted conferred titles to local peoples. So nominally make them part of the imperial system.

Yan Sun  04:10

But they were taxed partially. And they were sometimes recruited for military purposes. And over time, they have been incorporated into the official bureaucracy, even though usually the local shiftings would serve those titles. And then finally, we have the outer peripheries, which I would call China’s Eurasian frontiers. We had four of them, and Tibet and Xinjiang [were among them]. Tibet faces West Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India. And Xinjiang faces right now, of course, historically, as Central Asia, and Russia. And then we have Manchuria, facing Mongolia and Russia, Siberia. And also of course, Mongolia, which actually included or used to include Outer Mongolia, also an Outer Mongolia is directly bordered by Russia. So all of those four Eurasian frontiers, two of them actually conquered China. And therefore, they became assimilated and also incorporated into China. So they are no longer so-called provinces in terms of incorporating that stimulation. But the other two because they were more remote, culturally, religiously, and also geographically, it’s Tibet and Xinjiang. So therefore, they have remained restive for those purposes culturally and politically, they had always been incorporated into the Chinese dynasty, and now the Chinese political system overall.

Yan Sun  05:59

Overall, even during those minority dynasties, the minority dynasty always expanded to China’s territory. Chinese territory expanded by osmosis. So nowadays, we will talk about aggressiveness, and so on and so forth. It’s important to make the distinction that Russia expanded by outward expansion. And this would be one difference between the traditional Chinese Empire and a Russian one. And the Chinese emperor, overall, was still very contiguous, connected to your territories, in forms of incorporation of frontier borders. And usually, it’s always because of the frontier regions, nomadic groups raided the agrarian regions for harvest and for food. Unlike Russia, their pattern was one of outward expansion. That’s why their empire’s history was much more expensive. And therefore, historically, also kind of in contemporary times, it is much harder to control in the regime and assimilate in for the central authorities.

Yan Sun  07:10

The same, I will say, went for the Ottoman Empire; [it expanded] all the way to Europe. That left a lot of autonomists locally, which means, at the time of nationalism and the war, it was much easier for the autonomous communities to agitate for ethnonationalism, nationhood, and statehood. Of course, that came along with a lot of bloodshed in the case of the Ottoman empire. In Russia’s case, Russia solved the problem by creating the USSR, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, fifteen republics granting each of them self-determination; this was a way to incorporate them. Canada has some of the same things like they follow the Soviet model of ethno-federalism and the credit so-called autonomous system.

Yan Sun  08:13

So historically, China had a much stronger tradition of local elite ties to central authorities. And China was historically quite good at using those so-called hegemonic strategies to maintain control over the frontier regions. So by his hegemony, first of all, we have those intermarriage strategies, like bringing in princesses from frontier regions to intermarry. They became cousins and uncles. And that was one form of ties. Another tie was comforting in imperial titles to the local chieftains. Historically, China had soft power, because it had a more functioning bureaucracy, and also a more advanced economy. So it was quite an attraction to surrounding communities. So it was prestigious for them to be conferred those titles, to give them more legitimacy as local rulers. Another hegemonic strategy for minority regions was called tribute and trade. They had to make a huge tribute trip, sometimes annual, sometimes several years depending on where you are. And in return, the imperial government actually gave them more, far more in tributes in gifts. That was also an honor. And trade of course was always necessary between the frontier regions that needed food and tea and the core regions that needed horses, sometimes very ironic to fight the frontier regions.

Yan Sun  09:51

Horses were advanced forms of transportation and weapons. So finally the education of local elites in the Chinese classics: they were also invited to take the civil service exams, so that they would be educated in Chinese Confucian values, Confucian language. And this also promoted stability and identity with the system. I always say that this was also one difference between the Chinese Empire and the Russian and Ottoman empires. Because of the Chinese system, the Chinese dynasty had a very strong base of imperial exam systems. And once even the frontier minority elites and their children were required to actually be educated in those classics and sometimes take the exams in order to have to govern their local territories. That was a very effective method of incorporation, and also, identity enhancement with central authorities. So I talked about the history. Yeah, pretty much the history of it.

John Torpey  11:03

Yeah, no, that’s fascinating. And one of the things that struck me in reading the book was this notion of Terry Martens that I had once read a long time ago, but forgot about, namely, this affirmative action empire in the Soviet Union. Where they were basically there were these different portions of the Soviet Union that usually were followed by the name -stan. And they were sort of governed by titular nationalities who are representatives or so-called representatives of titular nationalities, and then those all sort of broke away as the Soviet Union dissolved. And despite the fact that China had followed the Soviet Union after the revolution succeeded in 1949, you know, you basically are arguing that China didn’t follow the Soviet Union so much in that respect. So maybe you could just clarify that for those who are more familiar with what happened in the Soviet Union.

Yan Sun  12:11

Yeah, so China at first did embrace the Soviet concept: self-determination, solidarity with the proletariat and giving quality and liberation to all ethnic groups. But then, upon coming into power, the CCP changed their mind and looked at Chinese history and said, “you know, these folks were closer to us. And these frontiers had historical ties to us.” So they were somewhat different from the Soviet Union. Therefore, they removed that self-determination concept, but they still follow the institutional format of titular autonomies; which is demarcating these territories and naming them up to the majority-minority, the core minority of that region later on, of course. Nowadays, there are arguments that those keeping their naming help enhance their identities. And exactly, the Soviet Republics broke apart along those geographic alliances.

Yan Sun  13:12

But about the affirmative action empire. So historically, China had diverse indirect rules. What the Soviet type federalism did was to create, on the one hand, centralization: have a uniform political system across all those regions instituted as the Communist Party. So the Communist Party had power of personnel and appointment, so that basically an ideology, which basically exerted centralized or uniform control over all the regions. At the same time at the state level, the party built an affirmative action empire that became the substance of this autonomy. So if you talk about what kind of autonomy they had, not political autonomy of making decisions, but the substantive autonomy of having affirmative action in every aspect. So that they, actually, in the Soviet Union – those Republics too in China’s frontier regions as well – those affirmative action programs created a corps of cadres, middle class, elites/local elites. [That was] a double edged sword, by promoting ethnic mobilization, and those elites became the voices of independence. They were educated, they had ethnic identity, they had resources, they knew how to use those resources. At the same time, before that, before the breakdown the Soviet Union, also in China, those affirmative action programs helped to, I will say, sort of build their support by the support base for the party, especially in the early days when most ethnic masses were poor, impoverished, and actually appreciated the so called liberation of the party.

John Torpey  15:15

Very interesting. So again, when I was reading your book, the last thing I was really expecting to read about was identity politics in China. That was kind of a surprise. And I’ve only recently learned these things. That’s some of what you’re now touching on about the place of affirmative action in China. But you talk about there being a kind of tension between the party’s universalism and sort of invocation based, basically, of course, class struggle vis-a-vis this more, I guess, recent development partially sponsored by the party, of the kind of identity politics and an ethnic politics. So I wonder if you could talk about that issue, the sort of tension between universalism and ethnic or identity politics and how that plays out in China? And how does this affirmative action system work? You’ve just described it to some extent, but ended obviously playing a significant role in creating regional elites of certain kinds. But I wonder if you could talk about this tension between these two ideals, if you like.

Yan Sun  16:28

Yeah, all empires, historical or contemporary, must rely on the interplay of universalism and also some recognition of local identities in order to maintain some stability, to maintain empires, because empire means rule over diverse groups and peoples and territories. You have to use universalism to unify them, but also you have to acknowledge identities in order to give them some recognition of autonomy. So during the Mao years, the Communist Party came to power and what helped them with minority groups, incorporation of minority groups, was the social class universalism. And the two regimes before the republican regimes failed, precisely for that reason, that they had the strategy, the traditional strategy of making coalition with elites. But when those elites became very repressive and economically exploitative, that lost the ethnic masses, not just local elites, but also Guomindang and the republican regimes. So, the Communist Party’s social class solidarity appealed a lot to these minority groups and that served as the base to rally and incorporate these frontier regions. In return, of course, they received this geographic autonomy and affirmative action. And in return as sort of material evidence, you can say, for the parties be liberal in the role of social class, solidarity wisdom.

Yan Sun  18:29

But that also went very interestingly. During the Mao days, it was okay to condemn the Dalai Lama as the super exploitative aristocracy. You could condemn those High Lamas, highly praised Lamas, and also Mullahs and Imams as these people who use up land and tax people heavily. But then the culture of looting also went excessive in destroying religious institutions, monasteries and temples, and even ordinary people were quite affected during the Cultural Revolution. So as a way to compensate for the radical excesses of the Cultural Revolution, by the way, ethnic schools were also closed and prayers were not allowed at first. They were left alone, but during the Cultural Revolution it went extreme.

Yan Sun  19:29

So after the end of the Cultural Revolution, Mao stayed. The project tried to compensate by restoring religion, restoring, rehabilitating all the ethnic elites. And only in two regions, the west of regions, Tibet and Xinjiang, were the elites, all of them, rehabilitated. Whether or not they’ve staged military rebellions, coups against the government, it did not matter. In other minority regions, these kinds of elites were sent back to their home. But in Tibet and Uyghurs, they recognized how important they were. All of them were rehabilitated, given high ranks, and their children were placed in top schools. And materially, their losses and properties were compensated for.

Yan Sun  20:18

So suddenly, the masses or the ethnic groups in those regions became very confused: weren’t these people bad people before, but now they were good people, right? And weren’t we supposed to be more secular? And now, these people were restored as respected. So that became the basis for new identity politics. Because before, there was inter-ethnic solidarity, but now it has become intra-ethnic solidarity. And the differences between the Han group and the minority groups became heightened, because the problems of the co-existence of the Cultural Revolution was blamed on Han people and Han government rather than [affirming that] all of China, all people in China suffered. That was the beginning of state instituted identity politics. Of course, followed by also a lot of increase in all kinds of affirmative action programs to give substance to the identity politics.

Yan Sun  21:29

I would say the most serious, but consequential of them, was the dual legal standards, instituted in the early 80s. By the fewer legal standards, minority countries or minority regions basically enjoyed looser application of law. So if regions had conventions, like “blood for blood,” “if you kill me, I have to kill you, if you kill a member of my tribe, I have to kill a member of your tribe, that’s fine.” And in some autonomous minority regions, the rapist was not at fault. But the raped was at fault, because you know, you provoked the problem. So those conventions were given recognition, and would not be charged sometimes because of the dual legal standards. And dual legal standards are also [condemned] nowadays, [as the] Chinese public criticize that void. Again, indulging, not just identity, but also behaviors that do not always align with the prevailing legal system of the country.

John Torpey  22:47

Fascinating. So maybe you could talk about the ethnic composition of China. I think most of us who are not very knowledgeable about China, other than these two regions that we’ve been talking about Xinjiang and Tibet, [we assume] that the rest of the population is sort of Han. But that’s clearly not the case. So maybe you could just explain a little bit where these different groups are distributed around the Chinese territory and how much that makes a difference in terms of their impact.

Yan Sun  23:20

Yeah, because historically, I think everywhere, we did not have clear borders, but only frontiers demarcated mainly by natural geographic markers like rivers and mountains and valleys. And the borders and frontiers [were] fluid. And people came to intermarry across borders and traded across borders. So when the Communist Party came in the 1950s, they staged a huge massive campaign to classify or group them. So officially now, there are 55 minority groups, but if you allow them to self-identify – they did try to get people to self-identify – and that came to hundreds and hundreds of groups. So finally [they] had to classify by language, narrowed that down to 55 groups.

Yan Sun  24:10

Again, four Eurasian frontier groups: The Mongols, Manchus, Uyghurs and Tibetans [are] among the top 10. The Uyghyrs and Manchus are over 10 million people, the Tibetan 6 million, and the Mongols 5 million. But again, Outer Mongolia was snatched basically under Soviet sponsorship for their great areas. So those were mainly nomadic peoples and therefore also much harder to sort of incorporate, except the Mongols and Manchus (they conquered China they were already there and entirely assimilated). So the rest of them were mostly in the inner peripheries adjacent to China’s core. They were in the hills and mountains, in South West China from where I am actually from. And some near northeastern regions. There are other Muslim popular populations called Hui. They were descendants of Silk Road’s and Mongolia’s Gengis Khan’s conquests. He brought in a lot of mercenaries who are Central Asian soldiers. So they brought in Islam. And those soldiers and officers married locals and became the dominant Islamic population mostly in China’s western frontiers. Somewhat east of Xinjiang, [and also] west of the rest of China.

Yan Sun  25:53

So the impact on ethnic politics, with this kind of diversity, is that the inner peripheral groups are more incorporated here because they were just close by, they were more incorporated culturally. But the frontier group, [they are] unlike America’s case of dispersed, geographically dispersed or mingled, intermingled. Now in China’s case, the Tibetans and Uyghurs especially, are very concentrated, they occupy the so-called, “core ethnic regions” meaning where the majority local majorities. So they speak the same language, share the same religion, and they [have more] ethnic cohesion. So therefore, they have retained their ascriptive features, meaning what you’re born with. For them, many physical features, also religion and language. And therefore, that was a more challenging task for China’s job of nation building.

John Torpey  27:05

All right. It’s all much more complicated than we’re, I think, led to believe by the media, for those of us who are mostly relying on that for an understanding of what’s going on in China.

Yan Sun  27:19

With the market economy, the market economy allows free flow of migration, of economy, looking for near impoverished people everywhere, looking for opportunities. So a lot of Han people, on their own, move to Xinjiang and Tibet, because there are a lot of state-sponsored construction, infrastructure projects; these are more reliable seasonals and a lot seek those jobs. And also Tibetans and Uyghurs who moved to Han cities, to sell their specialty products and sell their specialty food like above center. So for those two groups, especially because of their scripted features, they have a much harder time adapting. So this kind of migration, intermingling sometimes seems to hurt more than help. Because it makes them realize more the otherness of the Han Chinese before they were in their own regions. By now suddenly they were thrown in the open. And in Xinjiang, and Tibet too, the Han people, who are not familiar with the local culture, and are bringing their arrogance and ignorance have also created a lot of cultural conflict, especially when it comes to economic competition.

John Torpey  28:42

Got it. So all very fascinating. But as we come towards the close, I can’t help but ask a question about China’s posture relative to the Ukraine war. There was this announcement not long before the war that China and Russia had this partnership, or friendship, or whatever, it was exactly without limits. And there’s recently been considerable talk about the Chinese possibly supplying the Russians with weapons, although they haven’t done that, at least officially so far. So how do you see China’s interests in this conflict? And what do you think they’re likely to do in the coming months? As you know, there’s talk of a stalemate. There’s talk of possibly signaling that we need to move towards negotiations, although that’s not necessarily something that Ukrainians are prepared to do. So I’m just curious how you would see the Chinese you know, relationship to this whole conflict.

Yan Sun  29:47

Yeah, it certainly has created a lot of paradoxes and dilemmas for China. Of course, China’s huge and because it’s authoritarian, we tend to see it as a monolith. But if we make a distinction between the leadership and China as a people or China as a country, as a nation, then there are different interests. But of course, in authoritarian systems, very often the interests of the leadership become the interests of the country. And those leaders’ interests can actually be contrary to the country’s interests. This is very unfortunate, especially when you have very strong leadership who emotionally probably identifies as sympathizers with some other strong leaderships in the neighboring authoritarian country. But even the leadership should recognize that Russia doesn’t have a record of being on good terms with all of its neighbors, China included.

Yan Sun  30:54

And China likes to complain about unequal treaties imposed by Western countries. And it neglects to mention that Russia had also imposed their share of unequal treaties on China. If we count China’s territory now, you can say that a third of China’s current territory, the size, had been lost to Russia because of unequal treaties. So they talk about Hong Kong, getting back Hong Kong and Taiwan. And there are a lot of Chinese citizens, educated ones, who say, “How come you don’t say getting back those territories from Siberia, from Russia.” And, of course, nobody mentions Outer Mongolia, but Outer Mongolia was also snatched away very much like how Russia did in Crimea by a so-called engineered referendum.

Yan Sun  31:48

So again, there are different separate interests between the country and the leadership. And the leadership’s interest has been, of course, in a sort of armored coalition with a fellow anti-Western leadership as some kind of a combined counterweight to Western countries. And this would be part of both countries, making the dream of national rejuvenation, making Russia great again, making China great again, when I combine strings. But the Chinese leadership, as I think it was, itself kept in the dark, at first, about Russia’s move. It was taken by surprise and put into very awkward situations because it’s not in China’s interest to see this a frontal attack on the concept of sovereignty, which China always uses its claim over Taiwan.

Yan Sun  32:52

But when you see that your comrade, this partner, attacks the concept of sovereignty so blatantly. So it has put China in an awkward place and very hard in terms of principle to defend Russia. So it had to rely on some anti-Western rhetoric that this invasion was provoked by Western move to encircle Russia, which China feels sympathy for, because China also feels itself has been encircled by America and America’s allies.

Yan Sun  33:37

So in that sense, I think the leadership feels this supportive impulse for Russia. But other than Russia as a counterweight to the West, to the US, if it’s weakened. Leadership doesn’t see it as in China’s interest. Other than that, I don’t see how the Ukraine war actually serves China’s interest because a rejuvenated Russia and aggressive Russia isn’t actually in China’s interest. [There is this] think tank guru. What’s his name? He’s very popular in China, Putin’s top think tank person. And his views are actually very startling. He wanted to take back. They have irredentist claims not only over former Soviet republics, but also over Chinese territories, like Manchuria, bordering Siberia, like Xinjiang itself.

Yan Sun  34:49

And China has had several wars actually during the Cold War with Russia over Chinese-Soviet borders. So it’s very interesting that the Chinese leadership, in their ignorance, eagerness to balance against the West, has forgotten about this. Historically, they know the kind of role that Russia has played in snatching away Chinese territories. So again, other than the Ukraine war has been a distraction for the West for the US. So that has taken a lot of strategic attention to focus on Europe, away from Asia that benefited China. And also China has increased trade with Russia. But other than that, I don’t see much actual benefit for China with this war or increased relationship with Russia.

John Torpey  35:57

Right. Well, we’re basically out of time. But those are very useful, I think, considerations for us to take into account as we think about the future of the American-Chinese relationship and of course, the future of the Ukraine war. But in any case, that’s it for today’s episode. I want to thank Yan Sun for sharing her insights about politics and contemporary China and on the Chinese posture towards the Ukraine war. Look for us on the New Books Network, and remember to subscribe and rate International Horizons on Spotify and Apple podcasts. I want to thank Oswaldo Mena Aguilar for his technical assistance as well as to acknowledge Duncan Mackay for sharing his song International Horizons as the theme music for the show. This is John Torpey, saying thanks for joining us and we look forward to having you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.