October 20, 1999	atimes.com

China Wary of ethnic strife, Beijing looks to minorities By Antoaneta Bezlova BEIJING - If there was something that overshadowed China's celebrations of its October 1 anniversary of Communist rule, it was the fear that future ethnic tensions might threaten the hard-won, fragile unity of the multi-national empire the Communist Party pulled together in the past 50 years. With the Kosovo crisis just over and war raging between Chechnya and Russia, China's communist leaders struck a cautious note amid the celebrations and admitted that safeguarding national integrity would present major challenges in the 21st century. ''Looking around the globe, we will find that many regional conflicts and wars are related to the poor handling of ethnic issues and to foreign intervention in ethnic disputes,'' said President and party chief Jiang Zemin in a speech just hours before the beginning of the anniversary celebrations. ''Problems occur in all places where ethnic issues are not correctly handled,'' Jiang said, warning that in China ''without the stability of ethnic minority regions, there will not be national stability''. Despite the widely-pronounced success of China's ethnic minorities policy, Beijing fears the new millennium might feature a replay of the past when the Middle Kingdom was torn apart by civil wars and ethnic conflicts. There are good reasons to worry. The rise of ethnic conflicts globally has only added impetus to the persistent ethnic strife in China's most untamed regions, Tibet and Xinjiang. Muslim unrest has been growing in Xinjiang following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the last Muslims living under communist rule, Uigurs in Xinjiang today are regarded with a lot of sympathy by the rest of Islamic world. Unrest in Tibet has stubbornly resisted efforts by the government to stamp it out since the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile in 1959. His government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, has been getting support from a growing ''Tibet lobby'' throughout the world. How to safeguard the unity of the country dominated the workings of Chinese leadership even on the eve of National Day. The State Council, China's cabinet, issued a White Paper on National Minorities Policy while a high-profile conference on ethnic issues was held in the Great Hall of the People. Speeches made by President Jiang and Premier Zhu Rongji were given broad publicity in the state-sanctioned media. ''We saw a kind of religious nationalism dominating this year's celebrations of the 50th anniversary,'' said Dru Gladney, a leading scholar on China's Central Asian and Muslim minorities at the Asia-Pacific Center in Hawaii. Unifying the country was the dream of the father of Chinese nation, Sun Yat-sen, who led a revolution to topple the last imperial dynasty in 1911. He foresaw the motherland as a thriving republic of five nationalities - the Chinese Han, Manchus, Mongols, Muslim Hui and Tibetans. Communist leaders of new China extended this to include 56 nationalities, with Chinese Han still the majority. Today, the Han make up the overwhelming bulk of the world's most populous nation of 1.2 billion people. The new White Paper on National Minorities proudly states that all ethnic groups in China ''enjoy equality, unity and mutual assistance''. But half a century after the Communists came to power, many of the 108 million minority people still live in conditions resembling the pre-1949 era. They lack water and sanitation, cannot afford health care or higher education and do not have the wealth or the connections to prosper in a society with a growing disparity of income, where money and power are the only values that count. Being a minority person in China means ''being subaltern or minor in education, health and economic development'', Gladney asserted. ''In a way, the backwardness and diversity of minority groups serve to reassert the homogeneity and advance of the Chinese Han.'' Yet simmering ethnic conflicts throughout the world are sounding alarm bells for Chinese leadership. Aware of brewing discontent within its own borders, Beijing is drawing a ''minority blueprint'' for the new millennium which is designed to counter resentment by pouring money into developing the economy of ethnic areas. ''Speeding up the development of ethnic minority regions is not only a crucial economic issue, but also a crucial political issue,'' Jiang said. ''From now until 2010, our major goals are to upgrade the living standard of ethnic minority people, reinforce ethnic unity and safeguard national integrity.'' For his part, Zhu promised that the government will invest money in building new roads, railways, communication and power networks to link the impoverished interior of the country, where most minorities live, with the outside world. He pledged investment also in agriculture, business and social development of the minority areas. ''The government does see the economic development as a panacea to cure all the problems with ethnic minorities,'' commented Gladney. But while promising the carrot, Chinese leaders did not forget to wave the stick. Jiang vowed to crush unpatriotic religious and separatist activities in ethnic minority regions and warned western governments not to stir up trouble. ''We firmly oppose separatism in the guise of religious activities. No religion should have the power to override the constitution and laws,'' Jiang said. (Inter Press Service)

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