This week on Sinica, in a show recorded at the University of Pittsburgh, I speak with Benno Weiner, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, about how China's policy toward its minority nationalities (or minzu) have shifted from their older, Soviet-inspired form to the policies of assimilation we now see.
2:29 – How the so-called second-generation minzu policy evolved, and its shift away from the first-generation policy
17:15 – China’s language policy, comparisons to other historical cases, and the difficulty in striking a balance between language autonomy and the state interest of economic equality
25:26 – Debating the assumption of Uyghur forced labor
28:20 – How the minzu policy shift is driven by economic and political stability concerns
30:07 – The limited ability of minzus to make themselves heard
32:01 – The difficulty of advocacy in the face of accusations of U.S. hypocrisy
37:30 – Han guilt as a galvanizing idea
40:21 – Whether the shift in minzu policy is reversible, and the effect of external pressure
43:46 – Why Xinjiang has received greater global attention than other places
45:50 – How future historians may view minzu policy under Xi Jinping
Paying It Forward: Guldana Salimjan, at the University of Toronto
Recommendations:
Benno: The Red Wind Howls by Tsering Döndrup, translated by Christopher Peacock
Kaiser: The Six: The Untold Story of the Titanic’s Chinese Survivors by Steven Schwankert
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