Why Xi Jinping’s muscular approach in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong will backfire

The clamping down on the rights of those living in China’s periphery is not unprecedented, but the resurgence of these policies may make tensions even more intractable, instead of leading to long-lasting stability

Allen Carlson

Published: 4:00am, 24 Nov 2020

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A narrative has taken root around the world that China under President Xi Jinping is making an unprecedented move to strip away the rights previously granted to those living on the country’s periphery. Such a story is wrong.

Not because the Chinese leader isn’t clamping down on this population. He is. But, rather, it lacks proper historical perspective. For while Beijing has long pledged to protect China’s border regions, autonomy for those who call such places home has never been more than a false promise.

Yet, over time, within the walls of such an empty fortress, Chinese policies have varied.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) a harshly assimilationist line dominated. Monasteries and mosques were torn down throughout the country, including in Tibet and Xinjiang. Religious practices were effectively banned. Tibetans could not openly express their Buddhist faith. And Uygurs’ faith in Islam was also closeted in fear of it being labelled anti-revolutionary.

While Hong Kong was beyond China’s control at this juncture, it also did not escape unscathed.

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Following Mao’s death in 1976, Beijing began to govern with a softer hand. In Tibetan regions, monastic institutions were rebuilt. Muslims in Xinjiang (and the rest of China) were once again given wide berth to observe Ramadan and to take part in the haj. A compromise was also reached with the British regarding the resumption of Chinese sovereignty over Hong Kong beginning on July 1, 1997.

In response to unrest in both Tibet and Xinjiang, and the emergence of a democracy movement in Hong Kong, such a moderate approach slipped significantly over the course of the 1990s. Tibetan monks were more closely monitored than before, as were imams in Xinjiang. And in Hong Kong, while the “one country, two systems” formula appeared robust, concerns about encroachments on the Basic Law were growing.

However, until Xi rose to power a decade ago, such a hardening of Chinese policy never went so far as to raise questions about the implicit promise Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping had made in the early 1980s: as long as those in the periphery demonstrated sufficient patriotism and loyalty to China, they would be permitted to enjoy a modicum of self-rule.

What has changed under Xi is that his China jettisoned even the pretence of sticking to the terms of such a lopsided deal. Lip-service autonomy has persisted, but, more than at any point since the Cultural Revolution, it has been overshadowed by a wave of bluntly assimilationist rhetoric and policy.

In Tibet, Buddhism has been roughly shoved in the direction of Sinicisation, making it more Chinese, and more beholden to the Chinese state. A premium has been placed on Chinese language instruction, effectively forcing Tibetan to at best second-class status within schools. And even those pushing for moderate reforms, such as Tashi Wangchuk, have been rounded up and jailed.

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In Xinjiang, Uygurs have been herded into camps whose official justification is re-education, but, which are clearly designed to transform, even de-Islamify, the region.

Surveillance measures, while always strong, have also become even more invasive and pervasive. And here, too, even moderates, such as Rahile Dawut, have been detained and disappeared.

In Hong Kong, the foundations of the Basic Law were called into question by the summer passage of new national security legislation. Expressing even the mildest forms of dissent is now seen as carrying the risk of detention.

Making Islam invisible on the streets of China

Pro-democracy legislators have been expelled from the Legislative Council, with all other such legislators resigning in solidarity. Some democracy activists have already fled the city in fear of being arrested if they remained.

Even in Inner Mongolia, a hardening of language policy has unfolded with the apparent intent of limiting the teaching of Mongolian in favour of Chinese. This move so displeased many there that the region saw its first widespread protests against Beijing in decades. A movement that, not surprisingly, elicited a harsh Chinese response.

Mongolians protest against the plan to teach certain subjects at school only in Mandarin in the Chinese province of Inner Mongolia, at Sukhbaatar Square in Ulan Bator on September 15. Photo: AFP

This sharp turn (and resistance to it) is not new. It simply resurrects older, harsher currents in Chinese policy, even as it still falls short of the extremes of the Cultural Revolution.

But it also constitutes a sweeping erasure of the residual vestiges of the somewhat more liberal approach to governing that Deng had permitted, and that Chinese leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao did not overtly undermine.

It poses a growing challenge to those living in Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong, who are increasingly being confronted with the need to make a dire choice: allow Xi to continue implementing his policies, which are clearly intended, in his own words, to squeeze all in China together like so many seeds in a pomegranate, or resist such moves and risk retribution and even more restrictions.

Such a dilemma has led many to conclude that the very survival of that which makes them distinct from the rest of Xi’s China is in imminent danger. Given such desperation, it is highly unlikely that Beijing’s increasingly muscular approach will create long-lasting stability.

While the asymmetries in power in China’s periphery will allow Xi to reinforce his control, such moves are also further eroding the legitimacy of Chinese rule in the eyes of many living in these places. Thus, they are making tensions even more intractable, and future conflict all but inevitable.

Allen Carlson is an associate professor in Cornell University’s Government Department

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