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