Xinjiang’s ‘fourteenth ethnicity’ leave family language and culture for China’s opportunities
- Two men educated under the min kao han system tell of the benefits and pitfalls of being schooled in Mandarin rather than their Uygur and Kazakh languages
- Both say they are aware of systemic discrimination and re-education camps described by Beijing as anti-terrorism measures
“The min kao min are much better at Kazakh language than us,” Nurzhan said.
“When I was young, min kao han and min kao min would make fun of each other … we would call them rednecks and they would tell us that we are not respecting their culture and forgetting where we are from,” he said.
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The Uygurs, Turkic Muslims who were one of the first ethnic groups to settle in Xinjiang, are the largest in the region, with over 12 million people. Then come the Han Chinese who make up over 90 per cent of China’s population overall and comprise an estimated 9 million of Xinjiang’s population, followed by the Kazakhs (1.6 million), the second largest Muslim ethnic minority in Xinjiang and the third largest of all groups.
However, to ethnic minorities educated in their own native language, Kazakhs such as Nurzhan, who was taught in Mandarin at school, belong to an ethnicity of their own, one that has become increasingly favoured by the Chinese party-state – Xinjiang’s “fourteenth ethnicity”.
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While the origins of this term are not clear, it is a phrase also common among Xinjiang Uygurs, according to Erkin*, a Uygur living in eastern China who was educated in the min kao han system.
“Fourteenth ethnicity” is not just tied to better fluency in Mandarin, but also to culture and religion. Those of Xinjiang’s “fourteenth ethnicity” are educated and raised alongside Han Chinese, as well as generally being more secular and more in favour of Chinese government policies.
Exact numbers in this unofficial category are not known, but their size is considerable, which is why Uygurs from developed cities with a large Han population, such as Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi, have a boisterous drinking culture, said young Uygur Erkin. Islam forbids the consumption of alcohol.
Kazakh Nurzhan said he noticed a “generational gap” with his mother on matters of religion and culture. Arguments between the two break out if Nurzhan says he is not Muslim.
“I’m not a religious person, I just follow some eating habits. I don’t eat pork but I don’t need food to be halal,” he said.
Several min kao han Uygurs joined the fray. Dilraba Dilmurat, one of China’s richest actresses, cut ties with Adidas in response to the backlash. Uygur rappers Aire and Nawukere, respectively the winner and runner-up in the 2018 Rap of China television show, posted statements in support of Xinjiang cotton on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. These three Uygur celebrities are all millennials who rarely use the Uygur language in public.
Nurzhan – who is now a teacher in northern Xinjiang – said he heard that Xinjiang’s min kao min system would end next year. While the South China Morning Post has not been able to verify this, Timothy Grose, a professor of China Studies at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, said he too had been told about such a development.
Grose, who has written a book and several peer-reviewed articles on educational policies towards ethnic minorities, said the phasing out of the min kao min system had been a long time in the making.
“In the early 2000s, there was this expansion of Mandarin education … so the number of students that were educated in their native languages became fewer and fewer,” he said.
“In fact, the original goal of the Party was by 2016 everyone in Xinjiang would have been educated in a so-called ‘Mode 3 Bilingualism’, all Chinese in every class except the minority language taught as a subject.”
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According to Grose, there have been delays in implementing these targets, especially in southern Xinjiang, which is less ethnically diverse and developed than the north. The result is that local cadres were now hurriedly expanding Mandarin-language education, starting as early as the first year of junior school.
Ma Haiyun, an associate professor of history at Frostburg State University in Maryland, said the min kao han system was not solely forcible assimilation nor was it natural integration, but a mix of both.
“Nobody forces anyone to choose min kao han but objectively it’s obvious that this system brings more economic benefits, from job opportunities to the network you build, the interest there has a much stronger pull than the min kao min many poor ethnic minorities attend,” he said.
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Ma attended the Minzu University in Beijing, China’s top further education institution designated for ethnic minorities. He recalls that all his Uygur, Tibetan and Mongolian classmates were min kao han, as min kao min ethnic minorities could only pursue further education in small, highly specialised academies dedicated to the study of ethnic minorities.
“Min kao han are indeed different from min kao min. They usually see themselves as being quite modern, secular,” said Ma, who is a Hui, a Muslim ethnic minority in China.
It’s not clear that greater fluency in Mandarin fosters greater loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, according to experts. Grose said that from his experience, family background was the determining factor rather than schooling.
“When the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959, there was a group of Tibetans that were very happy because suddenly there were open spots in the local government, so they can shout traitor, separatist, and all manner of patriotic slogans but what needs to be noticed is that these Han-ified elites and officials are in an intense battle for resources and interests,” he said.
Both Nurzhan and Erkin come from families with Party members. For young Kazakh Nurzhan, the main reason behind his support for the Communist Party lies in China’s long-held policy of affirmative action, which offers a range of bonus points for ethnic minorities taking the national university entrance examination, or gaokao.
“The reason I could go to a top university is because of the CCP and China’s policy to support minorities in the gaokao. I got 50 bonus points” he said.
“This is the main reason why I am pro-CCP and trying my best to become a member,” he added.
Li Xing, a professor of international relations at Aalborg University in Denmark, said other affirmative action policies were important in cultivating ethnic minorities’ loyalty to the Party.
Li said he has been to many high schools in southern China to promote exchanges with Danish schools and that every high school he visited had a high quota for Xinjiang students, all of whom received free tuition.
“All the big cities in southern China have to accept students from Xinjiang’s poor districts,” he said.
“Of course, there is another objective, that’s teaching them to be civilised, to integrate, the political elements are definitely in there. It’s not just about helping these kids, it’s about cultivating their ideology.”
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Grose said the policy of schools nationwide taking in tens of thousands of Xinjiang students primarily targeted Uygurs, with Kazakhs being the second-largest demographic. While these students were technically encouraged to learn their native language, in practice this rarely happened, he said.
“Of the 60-plus [Uygur students] I spoke to, no one was given extra time to study [their ethnicity’s language] or given material to study, and even if they wanted to, the curriculum was so intense that there was no time to study any additional subjects,” Grose said.
An aspiring official in Xinjiang’s regional government, Nurzhan said preserving ethnic minority culture and language was not the duty of the government but the family. For the young Kazakh, teaching poorer, less educated Kazakhs in Xinjiang opened his eyes to the urgency of economic development over minority culture protection.
“A lot of parents, they talk to me and say ‘please take my child’s phone away, I can’t control them at all, they will lie on their bed and play on their phones all day’. They are trying so hard to make a living, they start work early and come back late, so they have no time to talk with their children, they are struggling,” he said.
Many of Nurzhan’s students help their parents tend their cattle or work odd jobs in restaurants. Nurzhan recalls seeing one of his students working part-time at a ski resort immediately before taking his university entrance examination.
“I tell them ‘I’m from a small city, I’m from a small town, like you, so the reason I push you so hard to study is because I got the bonus for the gaokao, I want to copy and paste this onto you, I want you to get this opportunity’,” he said.
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Nurzhan does not deny the existence of re-education camps in Xinjiang, noting that his uncle, a meat salesman, was taken away for three months. He said that although his uncle was not traumatised by the experience, Xinjiang’s counterterrorism policies were evident, even within patriotic households such as his.
“My parents will hold parties, and when they talk with their sisters and brothers, they will talk in a very low voice because they are afraid. The fear exists,” he said.
“How can they guarantee a life without concern, without worrying about getting caught?”
Grose said he personally knew patriotic members of ethnic minorities who had nevertheless been caught up in China’s forceful policies against counterterrorism and extremism.
But even for those who aren’t, discrimination is still palpable. Young Uygur Erkin, who now has a stable and well paid job at a large Chinese company, said he and his family avoided talking about politics. He has no complaints about his education or the work environment, which is mostly made up of Han Chinese.
However, he is frustrated by official checks on Uygurs when they take high-speed railways or stay in hotels. A regular traveller for business, he has been through countless police checks triggered by the ethnic label printed on his Chinese identity card.
“Sometimes they take photos of your luggage but sometimes they just look at a photocopy of your ID in the hotel reception and go,” he said, adding that he was nervous about travelling for pleasure out of fear it would be seen as suspicious by the Chinese authorities.
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Nurzhan said he too was affected by this policy but said it had become much less strict than in the past. Moreover, he emphasised that these rules were the price to pay for Xinjiang’s persistent terrorism problem.
“Has China not tried other methods? Of course it has, but why has it chosen this path? It’s because the other methods didn’t work that the government adopted such aggressive, such proactive measures.”
Erkin, however, disagreed, noting that the Chinese government’s use of technology – from facial recognition to extensive data collection – meant physical checks had become an unnecessary, and humiliating, procedure.
“I am not a terrorist, the government could just use AI [artificial intelligence] to see that I’m a good citizen. All this could be done in an office, [and there’s] no need to call the police.”
*Names have been changed to protect identities
