The Great Western Development: or, Is it the Hanization of China?
Elizabeth. A. E. Garbrah-Aidoo, Ph. D.
Reinhardt College
Department of Political Science
Prepared for presentation at the 20th World Congress of the International Political
Science Association. Fukuoka, Japan. July 9-13, 2006.
Dr. Elizabeth A. E. Garbrah-Aidoo
Assistant Professor of Political Science
The Great Western Development or Is It the Hanization of China?1
by
Dr. Elizabeth A. E. Garbrah-Aidoo
Assistant Professor of Political Science
Reinhardt College
Waleska, GA 30183
ABSTRACT
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded in October 1, 1949 and since then,
has gone through many fundamental impressive changes, such as the needed Cultural
Revolution (1949-1979) and the present day “democratic” and market reforms. China,
with a population of about 1.3 billion people (22% of the world population) has, in the
past 50 years, gone through an accelerated phase of development that has awed the global
communities, especially the United States of America and the economically developed
European countries, commonly referred to as the “West”. The trade surplus of China in
2005 alone was $102 billion and the Three Gorges Hydro-electric Project being built in
China’s West will be the largest dam in the world.
In 1999, the “Great Western Development” project in China was initiated under
the leadership of Jiang Zemin. This “Opening Up of the West” was part of the Minority
Policy whereby the quality of life of the Minority Ethnic Nationalities in the western
highlands of China will be improved greatly. Interestingly, the sparsely populated and
relatively pristine west is rich in oil, land, water and culture. The policy makers of the
PRC have been able to build infrastructure (bridges, highways, railroads), colleges and
universities, promote tourism as well as encourage the overpopulated eastern
communities that are dominated by the Han majority (92% of China’s population) to go
west. This latter phenomenon is what I call “Hanization”, and it is a form of colonization
and sinicization that is sprinkled with some colonialism.
This study thus is an attempt to descriptively develop a thesis that there is a shortterm hidden agenda of resource transfer and a long-term goal of acculturation behind the
Great Western Development of China. Questions that will be explored are who migrates
to the west of China and why the government has laws to discourage the migration to the
eastern part of China (e.g. non-citizens of Shanghai and Beijing policies…registration,
squatters, no education and health benefits); and also, to discuss who benefits and who
pays in the Great Western Development.
Key Words:
Cultural Revolution Hanization
Colonization Colonialization
Migration
Policy Making Process
Policy Redesign
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The Great Western Development: or, Is It the Hanization of China?1
Introduction
China’s socio-economic development in the twenty-first century has been hailed as an amazing
feat. It has also been criticized vehemently by some western nations and their media that China
is developing too fast for its own good; that the country is abusing human rights with its onechild policy and restrictions on religious rights; that there is mass land deterioration and
increased pollution; and the disparity between the rich and the poor is widening… just to name
a few (Shen 2004; http://english.epochtimes.com/ 2005).
China calls its large-scale development of Western China as a “century project”. This
miracle has also been summarized by the international media as follows: In May 9, 2005,
Newsweek produced a Special Report entitled “China’s Century.” It included headlines such as
“Does the Future Belong to China? … A new power is emerging in the east”. “How America
should handle unprecedented challenges, threats – and opportunities,” “Last year Wal-Mart
imported $18 billion worth of goods from China. Of Wal-Mart’s 6,000 suppliers, 80% are in
just one country – and it isn’t the United States,” “In 25 years China has moved 300 million
people, [equivalent to the total US population], out of poverty and quadrupled the average
person’s income,” “Aware of the challenges ahead, American students are rushing to learn
Chinese,” “The future Doesn’t Speak French,” and “The [religious] faithful have been coming
out of hiding in China, but they still must tread carefully. The Party reigns supreme, and
alone”.
Another international news magazine, The Economist, had also commented earlier that
“China is indeed getting more unequal as it develops, and public order is a genuine
problem. But these ought to be seen as growing pains – transitional and, with luck,
surmountable. Two aspects of that are a product of the extraodinary level of mobility
that the Chinese workforce has exhibited over the past two decades – the more
remarkable since government policy has often attempted to restrict people’s freedom to
move. One kind has been from interior to coast, so that the privileged growth seen there
is spreading its benefits more widely than might first appear. A second kind, visible
across the whole country, has been what may rank as the most rapid rate of urbanisation
ever recorded. In the past 25 years, according to admittedly highly uncertain UN
figures, the percentage of Chinese living in cities has roughly doubled, to more than
40%. In 19th-century America, to cite another continent–sized country then in the throes
of its own radical transformation, it took twice as long, 50 years, accomplish the same
result (The Economist 2004).
In the Newsweek headline in May 2005, it was also written that “For everything that’s
going up, something has to come down. Whole neighborhoods have been leveled overnight.”
This has been possible because the rule of law in China is different from the US, which
interestingly, the people in the western world, especially America, either refuse to know or
ignorantly fail to understand. Because of the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments to the US
Constitution, the government has the right of expropriation or eminent domain whereby land
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can be seized by the government for public use with just compensation. That is not so in China.
However, the peasants and women acknowlegde that they would not have been able to own
their own land or have the quality education of today if the Mao government, during the
Cultural Revolution, had not seized the property of the wealthy and the educated few and
redistributed them to all. However, the continued redistribution of property (including land) in
the twenty-first century China has brought about the policy of “robbing Peter [the West – the
ultimate losers] to pay Paul [the East – the beneficiaries]”, and that is basically the hidden
agenda of the Great Western Development Project.
The significance of this paper is that none of the literature that praised or criticized the
developments in China has questioned or written about the motives of the political actors and
the bureaucrats in terms of population redistribution. Also, there is practically no literature on
Policy Redesign in Political Science studies. The purpose thus of this paper is to add
information on policy redesign to the Public Policy literature and also, to present logical
propositions of the short-term and long-term hidden agenda that underlies the redesigned
Hanization policy called the Great Western Development (GWD) of China and predict some
outcome that may evolve in the near future. These propositions can be categorized in four
phases as:
Phase One: The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976)
under Mao Zedong’s regime was a necessary policy instrument that laid the foundation for the
“Open Up the West” or the “Go West” policy
Phase Two: The redesigned Hanization policy under Deng Xiaoping (1978-1996) where
market reforms were initiated that helped revitalize the economy while redistributing resources
from the west to the east.
Phase Three: The continued implementation of the redesigned Hanization policy presently
known as the Great Western Development under the regimes of Jiang Zemin (1997-2001) and
Hu Jintao (2002-Present) that accelerated hanization of and resource flow from the west.
Phase Four: The clash of the Minorities and the Majority in the China West: A prediction.
In summary, Hanization is a form of colonization, sinicization and colonialization.
Colonisation (or colonization) as defined in the dictionary, is the act where life forms move
into a distant area where their kind is sparse or not yet existing at all and set up new
settlements in the area. Colonisation is a broader category, encompassing all large-scale
immigrations of an established population to a 'new' location, and expansion of their
civilisation into this area. This process may or may not victimise an indigenous population
depending first on whether there is any indigenous population to victimise
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization). In this case, the victims were the indigenous
minority nationalities in the west of China. Hanization has some elements of, but is not the
same as Colonialism. Colonialism refers to the extension of a nation's (e.g. Britain and
America) sovereignty over territory and people outside its own boundaries, often to facilitate
economic domination over their resources, labor, and markets. Here, the policy makers, who
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are mostly of the Han majority nationality, have effectively settled the Han in the western
region and have managed to have the Han socio-economically control the resources, labor
and markets.
Research Design
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) with about 9.5% annual economic growth
since the past 25 years, a Gross Domestic product (GDP) of US$1.4 trillion (2004), and
inflation rate of 4.1%; and ironically, with an unemployment rate of about 50%, is the focus
of this study. This analysis can be used as a comparative case study of public policy,
migration and immigration patterns, minority policy as well as social and political attitudes.
For this paper, I used census data of China, secondary data from scholars who have
conducted empirical research on the subject, and some personal interviews to explain the
propositions above. Since my visit to China in June 2005 spanned a period of about four
weeks, I was not able to go through the close to impossible bureaucratic process of
requesting permission to do a survey or obtain relevant data. On the other hand, I felt the
response to any survey on how the minority nationalities viewed the Great Western
development may be biased for the respondent’s fear of retribution from party officials.
Fortunately, the seminars were conducted by accomplished Chinese scholars that were doing
similar research on the Great Western Development and thus possessed relevant data. The
group and I were also able to gather other information by resorting to conversations with
students, vendors, tour guides and their friends as well as engagements with ordinary people
through conversations and observation. I feel confident that the responses to the questions
were genuine and sincere. In all, the fifteen (including me) Fulbright-Hays seminar
participants were able to interact with over 200 Chinese from over 20 nationalities (ages 8
years old through 65 years) from the East Coast through the Western regions of the country.
Some of the questions asked were (see Table 1 below for responses):
a. Would you like to live in the US?
b. How do you feel about the Great Development Project?
c. Who are the Chinese?
d. Who do you think is benefiting from the Project?
e. How has it affected your nationality group?
f. What is your opinion about marriage between minorities and the majority group?
Table 1 About Here
In response, almost all the Han (majority nationality group), including university
professors, referred to the minority group as “backward”, “primitive”, and “underdeveloped”.
One professor even made a comment that those minorities from the Sichuan province are
more cultured because they did not have much problem historically assimilating the culture
of Beijing and Shanghai where the majority population and nationality resides2.
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The Han students and professors also describe the minorities as fortunate because
they get scholarships to go to the universities even though most of them do not meet the
minimum qualification for eligibility. Also, they complain that the government lowers the
standards of testing for the minorities so that they can pass the tests to go to the colleges and
the universities and “that is not fair.” In a seminar in 2002 conducted by the Research
Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (REITI), a faculty fellow stated that “minorities are
accorded with even mor favorable treatment. If the acceptance line for those in Beijing is 400
points, those from minority groups can get in with 350 points” (Meng 2002).
These comments are very similar to what the majority population in the US say about
the minority, especially the blacks when it comes to affirmative action. Before the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black Americans were
disenfranchised and denied access to educational and economic opportunities and that was
why the Affirmative Action programs were instituted to help bridge the gap of the “haves”
and the “have nots.” Unfortunately both majority groups in the US as well as China are in
denial and do not even try to think about how their ancestors prepared the way for them at the
expense of the sweat of the minority groups so that they (the majority group) may have better
opportunities to be well educated and acquire the tools that perpetuate their success. This
overview is pertinent to the discussion and analysis of the four propositions as outlined
above.
Proposition (Phase) One: The Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and the Cultural
Revolution (1966-1976)
A good question that behooves scholars to ask is: Were the Great Leap Forward and
the Cultural Revolution necessary? To understand the reason why Mao and the communist
party catalytically embarked on the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution (a
centrally planned and balanced socio-economic growth for all regions) that most western
nations have condemned is to understand the impact of world (especially, European and
American) history on China.
The present-day international system is the product of Western civilization that is
centered in Europe (Asimov 1991). This system was exported about 500 years ago to the rest
of the world, and in particular, the United States of America. However, other historians
remind us that before the Europeans charted the world into sovereign states, there were other
civilizations in Africa, China, Japan, and South America long before the Europeans arrived.
The Europeans tried to push the indigenous cultures aside (e.g. North America) or had them
incorporated (re: Asia and Africa). These western democracies have thus been able to affect
the psyche and attitudes of the general populace that only democracy is the answer to most
societal ills, and that people who are subjected to socialist and communist ideologies are
unhappy, lack freedom, and would like to leave their respective countries if an opportunity is
granted. Undoubtedly, these ancient civilizations ad survived thousands of years without
European and American colonialization so they must have been doing something right. Even
though the cultural traditions of these earlier civilizations have continued to exert influence
on international relations and their political systems, the European de jure as well as de facto
standards that were set that to be cultured or developed means that a nation should be
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“Europeanized” or “Americanized” have done more damage to these societies than for
example, the Cultural Revolution of Mao’s China did to the populace.
The goal of all political systems is the promotion of economic prosperity,
industrialization and stability while attempting to solve the problem of class conflicts. These
conflicts among socioeconomic or class cleavages were what influenced Karl Marx (18181883), the father of socialism, to come up with his theories about class conflict. Karl Marx
analyzing nineteenth century European societies that were going through industrialization,
theorized that class conflict among the working class (proletariat), the middle class
(bourgeoisie), and the upper class develops as a result of capitalist society and politics.
Marx’s analysis actually reflected the conflict and relationship between the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie. Lenin (1870-1924) and Mao (1893-1976) expanded the theory and its
solutions to include peasants and others that did not own property. Even though they (Lenin
and Mao) pushed for a classless society, that ethos had to evolve over time. On the other
hand, the attributes of the socialist and communist systems are congruent with the cultural
goals of most of the less economically developed countries (LEDCs); and that is why they
could embrace the concept that unfortunately, got them caught in the middle of the Cold
War. Subsequently, these LEDCs in Africa, Asia, and Latin America have had their economy
devastated and are currently afflicted with pervasive instability.
In the United States, the very thought of socialism or communism brings “chills”.
Unfortunately, this behavior and belief developed as most negative behaviors do by people
having too much confidence in what they see or hear from the electronic and broadcast media
as well as from politicians whose main goal is to get re-elected by any means necessary. A
good example is McCarthyism of the early 1950s. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R-WI), all
paranoid, held a series of hearings to root out all communists in the Department of State and
other national government agencies as well as in Hollywood film industry. There were wild
charges with no proof and smear campaigns that destroyed the careers of many innocent
people. Unlike the US, many western democracies in Europe, such as France, Italy, and
Germany have powerful Communist parties. Other states that have Communist parties are
Hungary, India, Russia, Japan, Mexico, North Korea, Vietnam, and of course, China. These
communist/socialist states and parties, even though they share a common political ideology
of Marxism-Leninism, are very diverse in how they implement their economic development
policies.
What do these communist states (e.g. China, Cuba, North Korea, and the former
Soviet Union) have in common? All these countries have passed through periods of imperial
rule (internal as well as external) with its inherent feudal system whereby there was a wide
gap between the haves and the have-nots. In China, peasants were treated like slaves, the rich
and the religious leaders came up with rules that inherently abused human rights. The
wealthy took concubines and could molest young girls at will, women had their feet bound
and many could not get access to formal education. For example, the first modern school, the
Lhasa Primary School in Tibet, which is still a predominantly Buddhist region, was
established in 1952.
Subsequently, these nations became communists through war or some form of
revolution; and all of them, especially the leaders, are anti-western. Most of the communist
countries, including the former Soviet Union (USSR) that imploded in 1989, have
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parliaments, call themselves the “People’s Republic” or the “Democratic Republic”; they
have one dominant party which controls policymaking and punish dissent; and follow a
common ideology of Marxism-Leninism with some modifications in some countries like
China, that incorporated Maoism. Communist systems such as China, Cuba and the former
Soviet Union embark on central planning and the state controls most or all the factors of
production; and they have developed the capacity to mobilize the masses effectively. They do
that through institutions they promote such as trade unions, youth organizations, and
professional associations. Communist countries can be said to be the anti-thesis of liberal
democracies and pluralistic societies of the Western World, (Theen and Wilson 1986).
However, as it is proven by the world states in the 21st century, including China and the US,
capitalism and socialism are all ideal constructs and no state exercises these ideologies in
their pure form. China, Russia and the Eastern European countries are all in transition to
market economies, while America and its European counterparts have implemented policies
that are inherently socialist.
To understand the organization of the PRC Communist Party and how successful its
operations have been, it is imperative to outline the critical junctures in modern China’s
Political Development (see Table 2 below). The Republic of China was established on
January 1, 1912 with Dr. Sun Yat-sen as president after over thousand years under the rule of
emperors and warlords (221 B.C. – 1911 A.D.)
Table 2 About Here
It is with this spirit of rooting out imperialism, promoting equality and unity that
motivated Mao’s regime to embark on “civilizing” the west through sinicization policy.
Sinicization is acculturating the ethnic minorities to take on the Chinese/Han culture.
Interestingly the Han people do not have a significant culture3. Theirs is a mixture of
Mongolian, Korean, and finally the European (western) influence on their culture. At present
the Han identify with the western dogma that to be cultured is to act European or American.
China, which is about the size of the United States of America (USA), has a
population of 1.3 billion people, (about four times the US population), of whom are fifty-six
(56) officially recognized nationalities or ethnic groups (see Table 3 for the 55 Minority
Nationalities). The majority nationality, being the Han, make up about 92% of the
population. The Chinese that the world has come to know are of the Han majority. These
roughly 1.1 billion people share the same two millennia experience, the same written
language that is spoken in many dialects of which Mandarin is the official one, are the
majority of the members of the CCP, relatively better educated and live mostly in the eastern
coastal regions of China.
Table 3 About Here
The Western region of China had been the political, economic and cultural center of
China prior to the 10th century. The region as is reflected in the Great Western Development
project is comprised of the provinces and autonomous regions of Xinjian, Tibet, Sichuan,
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Yunnan, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Qinghai, Gansu, Guizhou, Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, and the
municipality of Chongqing. The three perfectures of Hunan, Hubei, and Jilin are also
included in the Öpen Up the West”project (Goodman 2004).
Western China comprises about 71.4% of the total China territory and holds about
fifty percent of its mineral resources. A total of 47 out of the 56 nationalities live in Xinjiang
while 25 nationalities live in Yunnan. The west was also the passageway leading to the
outside world through the Silk Road that linked China with Central and Southern Asia and
Europe. The Xinjian Uyghur Autonomous Region has been the primary region that has been
impacted by the GWD policy of Hanization and economic growth in the twenty-first century.
The region is inhabited by a Turkic (Uyghur) moslem majority, encompasses about a sixth of
China’s territory, and is bordered by Mongolia on the northeast, Russia on the north,
Kazakhstan, Kirghizstan and Tadzhikistan on the west; and Afghanistan, Pakistan and India
on the southwest (Xinjian 2002).
So, why is China prospering under Communism today?
Inflexible totalitarian/communist systems such as the Soviet Union and the Eastern
Europe countries, which expended their capital on politics and armament investment
collapsed and are now being replaced by democracies. The People’s Republic of China
(PRC) learned from the mistakes of other fallen communist states as well as the negative
impact of British and American colonialization on the country, especially in Hong Kong and
Taiwan. For example, China has never forgotten when in the 19th century, Britain acting as
drug dealer flooded the country with drugs and got most of the Chinese addicted to Opium
with the resultant Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860) that got China defeated and
embarrassed globally. For example, Hong Kong, as a British colony until July 1, 1997 , did
not have any say in electing who the British Governor and other top British officials to key
positions even though it was a supposedly a democratic state. Subsequently, China has been
cautious in its dealings with the western nations while at the same time has employed
developmental policy instruments from the western nations, governmental power and public
policy effectively to promote national economic growth.
The Great Western Development (formerly known as the “Go West” or “Open Up the
West”) or the Hanization of China: An Overview.
The Great Western Development of China policy as stated earlier, is in essence, a redesigned policy that was initiated and formulated by Mao in the 1930s. Like all public
policies, the policy making process has gone through the agenda setting, policy formulation
and formation, as well as the policy implementation and evaluation stages (Cobb and Elder
1971, 1972; Apgar and Brown 1987; Baumgartner and Jones 1991, 1993; Dunn 1981; Elmore
1978; Goggin, et al. 1990). In 1978, Deng Xiaoping continued with the policy’s evaluation
and introduced the appropriate reforms that reduced the state control of the economy that
resulted in the revitalization of the Chinese economy. In 1997, Jiang Zemin led with
redesigning the “Go West” policy. The American and European nations with their “free”
press have sung China’s praises about such an economic accomplishment while
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simultaneously, they have naturally formed a de facto China-Watch group to point out and
comment incessantly, the negative aspects and impact of the project.
The GWD policy has been referred to as “soft policy” that entails diffuse decision
making that have resulted in highly diverse agenda and policy instruments (Holbig 2004). In
this paper, the analysis of the multi-agenda policy not only addresses the economic
development and boom of China, but also the policy issues of colonization/Hanization,
urbanization, population control, and redistribution of resources that has called for the
policy’s incremental redesign in the twenty-first century. It also atempts to address the
question of: Who then are the main actors and who benefits and who pays?
The Political Actors and Stakeholders
In China, all policies have to get rubber stamped by the CCP. The party in the late
20th and 21st century has discovered that the nation achieves more with less controls and that
is why in this centrally planned policy, one finds a lot of stakeholders. Even though the
policy decisions are driven by three major hierarchies (the CCP, the government, and the
military), the levels of government precipitate the formation of other multiple and diverse
stakeholders. Not all Chinese belong to the Communist Party (about 20%) and entry into the
party is a form of privilege. The government thus has policies whereby a few number of noncommunists and women are appointed to some key decision making positions in the
universities and the government. There are eight (out of twelve in the nation) ethnic minority
authorities or provincial units in the West (Sichuan, Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjian…), and all these
with their lower level rural and urban center generate a multitude of political actors and
stakeholders. There is the issue network of these regional actors, target minority and Han
nationalities, and academicians (economists, social scientists, geographers, research think
tanks), just to name a few. Since the late twentieth century, the central government had to
embark on a quasi laissez faire approach to economic and political planning and other policy
making that has reaped high political capital to the party and government.
Policy making and Policy Redesign
As I stated earlier, during the imperial phase of China until 1911, there was a vast
difference between the rich and the poor, (Xie 2001). Women did not have any rights to
education, marital matters or the management of the household.3 An exception to women’s
rights of marital affairs and management of the household was practised by the Mosuo
minority group (Yang 2003). There was the inhumane binding of the feet of little girls and
girls forced into marriage with old men resorted to suicide. During the colonialization period
by the Europeans, the British and Americans especially managed to exert influence and seize
control of the nation with their strategy of “divide and conquer”. The British modus
operandum of developing the coastal areas for economic purpose resulted in the coastal
population, that is mainly of the Han majority, getting educated and at the same time
conditioned to look down on those in the interior as “primitive”, “under developed” and
“backward”. As it is with any symbolic speech, the more a person hears a particular word or
phrase referred to him or her, that person over time will tend to believe that it is true. Thus,
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the minorities even up to this date see themselves as inferior to the Han. By the time the
Opium Wars were over in 1860, China has been betrayed and humiliated when the emperor
of the Qing dynasty and his government has to sign the Treaty of Nanking with the British
government. Other countries such as the US, Russia and Japan followed with their treaties
that relegated the Qing government to a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country. Interestingly,
the minority nationalities see the Han as Chinese, but historically, has demonstrated that they
will join the majority to fight any invading force such as the British and the Japanese. Thus
the humiliation is what led to the Revolution in 1911 that was led by Su Yat-sen followed
later by the Civil War that was won by the Communist party that has reigned until now.
In summary, the China Communist Party (CCP) under Mao had the agenda set by
historical triggering factors that effected the adoption of the policy of the promotion of socioeconomic equality for all China. Since the West was considered the most backward territory
of the nation, implementation of the policy begun with the western region. As I stated in my
first proposition or Phase One (1958-1976), the goal was to open up the west through land
redistribution, education and sinicization for the “backward” minority nationalities. This
objective is also congruent with the future’s (1976 up until the present time) two main policy
goals of accelerated economic development and population control. When the western
nations of the world discuss the latter they refer to the one- child policy, the lack of religious
rights, and the failures in the Cultural revolution and not hanization. Again, this “chicken and
egg” goal of the CCP was implemented with a centrally planned technical solution view to
open up the China west (Hardin 1977).
Why the “Go West” or “Opening Up the West” Policy?
In essence, that is what it means exactly…it is a social, urbanization, population
control policy that is official and intentionally planned to move people from the congested
eastern part of China to settle in the sparcely populated western part of China and civilize
them, while at the same time, exploiting the rich resources of the west and transporting them
to the east. This hidden agenda is subliminally expounded in political speeches where the
political actors state the goals of “Going West” as the improvement of ecological conditions,
enhancing infra-structure construction, and developing science and technology (Speech by
Premier Zhu Rongji in Xinjian 2000).
During the period of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural revolution, students
were forced to go and work in the West (mainly Xinjian, Tibet, and Yunnan provinces), and
the students hated it. Some of those who were sent to the west have grown up with a
misconception that the minority nationalities were “primitive”, and “backward”, because they
are not educated or “cultured”in the western tradition. The goal of the political actors
(Communist leaders) and bureaucrats was thus, the assimilation or the acculturalization of
the minorities (“Open Up the West” or “Go West”) into the popular culture (Han) of the
masses. The outcome was disastrous so the policy had to be evaluated and redesigned.
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Proposition (Phase) Two: The redesigned Hanization policy under Deng Xiaoping
(1978-1996)
The main goal of the top policy makers is to maintain the legitimacy of the party and
government through economic development and incentives. They do not have the problem of
electoral incentives of reelection to be captured by special interest groups or voters to
influence policy preferences that the western nations have. As such the same policy such as
the “Go West” policy may be redesigned with consultation and feedback from stakeholders.
For a policy redesign to be viable, there should be an interactive type of policy instruments
that can facilitate communication among the elected officials in the Communist party,
bureaucrats, actors, beneficiaries, as well as the losers. As most bureaucracies are inclined to
do in policy redesign, the name of the policy may be changed even though the goals may be
the same. Subsequently, the policy is now called “the Great Western Development of China”
and the objective of assimilation was supposedly changed to that of integration.
Even though, China was able to accomplish a lot through the implementation of the
Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution policy and programs such as outlawing feet
binding and forced marriages, human worshipping (Buddhism) and the promotion of land
distribution and education for all, the CCP leaders and the bureaucrats perceived that there is
the need for economic development and population control of the masses, especially at the
coastal region. There was the high unemployment rate, congested urban centers with their
accompanying problems of crime and diseases, as well as the problem of the floating
population.
China’s Floating Population
It has been projected that there will be about 450 million surplus workers in China by
2010, and most will be in the eastern regions. There is also the problem of de facto
"unskilled" labor migration, of who mostly are of the “floating” type. This floating
population is made up of those who are involved in mass rural-urban migration, where
workers become migrant workers without job or social protection. Thus these migrant
workers will not have access to health care and their children may not get registered and thus
cannot attend school and/or receive other social benefits such as health care.
In the past, a migrant worker from another province needed only a reference
letter from his residential unit where his or her residence belongs to and an
identification card. But as more migrant workers came to Shenzhen, local
authorities introduced various permit papers, and permit fees have become a
stable source of extra government income. Even the Shenzhen and other
Special Economic Zones required only a border crossing permit. However,
as more migrant workers came to Shenzhen, local authorities introduced
various permit papers. Permit fees paid by migrant workers have become a
stable source of extra income for each administrative and law-enforcement
department of the government (China Labor Watch, 21 June 2002.)
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The Chinese migration policy thus became tied to the Western development project
and centered on the idea of controlling and monitoring “foreigners” (or floating population)
in the big urban areas such as Shanghai and Beijing.
Proposition (Phase) Three: The implementation of the redesigned Hanization policy
presently known as the Great Western Development
The solution to these problems of unemployment, congested and over populated east
coast cities, and the need for resources such as electricity and gas in the east resulted in
further redesign of the policy. The development plans continued to involve all the actors and
policy stakeholders to embark on the policy instrument of encouraging the continued Han
migration to the west. For the Han to leave the urban areas with all the creature comforts, it
was imperative that the government made the west attractive enough for Hanization to be
effective. Luckily for China, oil was discovered in the west as well as the added potential of
the Yanztse river and other needed resources for promoting investments. Tables 4 and 5
demonstrate how the Han population increased dramatically from 1950-2000, and in direct
correlation with the urbanization of the West.
Tables 4 and 5 About here
A cursory look at Tables 4 and 5 reflects the impact of hanization. In 1949, the Han
population in the western region of Xinjian was less than seven percent. The tables
demonstrate how the Han population within 50 years, increased to about 41% of the
population of Xinjian! This increase is highly correlated with the urbanization and resource
exploitation of the west. Hannum and Yu using multivariate analyses of census data in 1998,
concluded that even though education attainment of minorities in Xinjian has increased
significantly in the urban areas, most of the professional/managerial, manufacturing clerical
and sales occupations are manned by the Han while the minorities still dominate the agrarian
industry (Hannum and Yu 1998). Even though the Sichuan Province in the Southwest has the
largest number of minority nationalities in China (the Bai, Bouyei, Dai, Yi, Tibetan, Hui,
Mongolian, Lisu, Manchu, Naxi, Mioa, and Tujai), its roughly 86 million population is
dominated by the Han (95%). Tibet, with its high altitude and harsh climate, has the lowest
percentage (5%) of the Han nationality, but the government has been undertaking
engineering feats in infrastructure such as transportation (railways and roads) that has
encouraged influx of tourists, so it is just a matter of time.
Who Benefits, Who Pays in the Policy Process?
One advantage of the “Open Up the West policy is that some of the students from the
east who were of the Han nationality that went to work in the west during the Cultural
Revolution and its aftermath later became party leaders (e.g. President Hu Jintao, a
hydroelectric engineer by profession, served as party chief in Guizhou and Tibet in the
1980s). While there, these students and party leaders learned about the beauty of the terrain
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and the people as well as the economic potential of the West and that has influenced their
decision and policy making style.
By 1998, the outcome of the Go West project has become so successful and profitable
that the name had to be changed to the “Great Western Economic Development of China.”
The main beneficiaries, the Han, have gained a high level of socio-economic benefits in these
four areas as specified in the stated mission of the government’s Five-Year Development
Plans:
• Constructing Infrastructures (Transportation, energy, water conservancy, airports and
airline industry)
• Promoting Education and Public Affairs
• Adjusting Industrial Structure and Enhancing Agriculture, and
• Protecting [the] Eco-system and Environment.
(Yao Yonglin 2005).
By 2005, the China government had spent about 347 billion Renminbis (RMB) to
develop express highways and roads that covered about 90% of the counties in the west, with
the exception of some counties in Tibet. 99.4 billion RMBs were spent to extend the railway
from the west to the east to about 26,700 kilometers (Yao 2005).
The energy policies covered the development of wind power, gas power, and electric
power from coal and the rivers (e.g. the Three Goreducation has included the usage of
technology, encouraging students to go west and teach (the “draft” or the Chinese type Peace
Corps), and promoting tourism. In old Tibet, there were no schools in modern sense in the
1950s. In those days, the attendance rate of school-age children was less than 2 percent and
the illiteracy rate was as high as 95 percent. Since 1952, when the first modern primary
school was built, there are now over 900 primary schools and by 2003, about 112,330
students enrolled in primary, middle, professional secondary schools and other schools of
higher learning such as colleges and universities.
However, all Chinese citizens are required to study in Mandarin, English and the
local language. To get a job, one must be proficient in Mandarin and English and that has
affected the poor especially those in the rural area. Most of the teachers as well as the heads
of university and college administration as well as business manager are Han. The hidden
agenda here is that over time, the minority nationalities will adapt the han Chinese culture.
This plan has been effective, because some of the educated minorities are breaking tradition.
They prefer to live in the urban areas and even though the one-child policy does not apply to
them, some of the minority “elites”are opting to have only one child; and some are also
intermarrying with the Han. The housing policy has been a disadvantage to the minority
nationalities who have lived communally with all the families, relatives, and even their
livestock, under one roof. The government has embarked on building apartments and single
family units that are disintegrating family bonds.
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The Draft or Peace Corps, Chinese Style
This is also a policy instrument to implement the hanization policy. Since 2003, the
project has attracted more than 30,000 college graduates to voluntarily work in the west
region for one to two years. In many China Dailies, one find many accounts of the positive
effects of going west. Some examples are:
•
“More College Volunteers Work in West China “:
This year's Volunteer for West China project has been launched in Beijing. College
students around the country are encouraged to go to the vast west region and help local
people in fields of education, agriculture and medical treatment… Working with other
volunteers for one year, Liu Yong helped local farmers build a 600-hectare
experimental base for cultivating new rapeseed. Liu Yong says he gained a lot in his
time as a volunteer in the western region. "During the past year, I have used the
knowledge I learned at school into practice and contributed to the west development.
I'm so happy to see that my efforts have brought benefits for local people."
The west volunteer project also serves as a good solution for college graduate
employment. One third of the volunteers decided to continue to work in the west region
after the two year. One of the organizers, Wang Xuefeng, from the Youth League of
China, says the project has promoted the local economy and social development.
Twenty-four-year-old Liu Yong became a volunteer after graduating from university in
central China's Hubei Province two years ago. He went to a rural county in Chongqing
Municipality in southwest China.
The project plans to attract 8,000 college students nationwide this year.
(CRI April 20, 2005)
•
“6,000 Young Volunteers 'Go West'”
Six thousand young volunteers selected from among nearly 43,000-plus college
graduates set out to west China on Sunday to help develop impoverished regions. The
volunteers, the first group of China's Go West Volunteer Program, are assigned to 183
counties in 12 western provinces, autonomous regions as well as central China's Hubei
and Hunan provinces, for volunteer service of one or two years… “As a program which
contributes to the western development strategy, the Go West program will not only
advance socio-economic development in the vast region, but also create more new
employment opportunities for college graduates," said Zhou Qiang, first secretary of
Secretariat of the CYLC Central Committee. (Xinhua News Agency September 1,
2003)
•
“Volunteer Teachers in West China Grateful to Enriched Life Practice”
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College students are experiencing exciting voluntary teaching in west China, while the
mass volunteer plan set up to serve the under-developed western areas is gradually
spreading across the entire country.
Zhang Xiao and his five schoolmates, all graduates of the prestigious Nanjing University
of east China's Jiangsu Province, have just fulfilled a four-month voluntary teaching stint
in Ili Radio and Television University (IRTU) of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region…. (http://china.org.cn/ 2006)
Outcome of the Economic Development.
There has been policy success in significant areas of the Great Western Economic
Development such as promoting economic development and population control. Specifically,
China has been able to balance growth with structural changes in the areas of foreign
investment initiatives; admission to WTO in 2001; moving from agrarian to manufacturing,
service and electronic industries; embarking on capitalist policies such as privatization and
other market reforms; creating employment opportunities especially for the Han majority
through incentive provision to encourage them to go west; and promoting overall fiscal and
political stability (www.chinacenter.et 2005).
However, every success has its byproduct of failures and new challenges. The Han
Chinese are getting educated faster than the minority nationalities in the West. This has
resulted in growing inequalities and urbanization problems that is leading to the Phase Four
of the clash of the ethnic minorities and the Han majority.
Phase Four: The clash of the Minorities and the Majority in the China West: A
prediction; or, What is yet to come?
The minorities are getting educated. They are aware of the resources they possess (oil, raw
materials, expansive land…) and some are not satisfied with the influx of the Han into their
region. For example, between 1950 and 1970 Xinjiang was mostly inhabited by the Uygur
Turkic moslems. By 2006, the Han makes the majority of its capital, Urumqi). Also, most of
the top positions (presidents of the universities and colleges, managers of government owned
shops and enterprises, and even some of the top positions in the Islamic conference) are
occupied by the Han. The culture of the minority nationalities has become an economic
commodity. Litzinger (2004) writes that between 1995 and 1999, the total number of tourists
in the Yunnan province alone grew from 17 million to 28 million, a 16% annual growth rate
In north-west Yunnan from 1991 to 1999, foreign tourists increased from 28,100 to 238,381
and domestic tourists increased about tenfold from 1,080,000 to 10,130,000!
This increasing disempowerment of ethnic minority populations is a dormant volcano
that is about to erupt in the very near future. Signs of these had already occurred in the 1940s
when the Uyghurs in Xinjian made a bid for an independent state, East Turkestan. Since
1991, there has been sporadic violence in Xinjian and the region is earmarked as a separatist,
terrorist, and religious extremism breeding ground by both the Chinese and the United States
governments.
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Conclusion
In this paper, I made several propositions that the short-term and long-term hidden
agenda behind the Great Western Development of China is the transfer of rich resources such
as oil from the west to the non-human resource hungry east coast of china; and at the same
time “hanize” the west while preaching the policy of equality and unity for all. This strategic
policy manipulation has been successful. However, it may backfire in the future when the
educated minority nationalities gain access to the policy making process and demand their
legitimate rights and a return to their ancestral culture. Since I did not have the opportunity to
conduct formal face-to-face interviews with public officials or do a random survey of how
the minority nationalities felt about the Hanization of their provinces, I hope the propositions
in this paper will serve as the basis for further empirical research.
All in all, the story of China of the twenty-first century is analogous to the old nursery
rhyme: ” There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't
know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread. She whipped them all
soundly, and sent them to bed.” Fortunately this old woman called China with about 1.3
billion children that constitute almost a fourth of the world’s population, does know what to
do.
Notes
1
In June 2005, twelve other professors, two public school teachers and I visited China for
seminars on the Impact of the Great Western Development on the Minority nationalities in
the western part of China. This study is thus a product of what I learned from the seminars by
Chinese professors and research fellows in universities at Beijing, the Xinjian province,
Chengdu, Kunming, the Yunnan province, and Shanghai. Primary data was also collected
from discussions with hotel personnel, students, people in the street, and tour guides. I would
like to thank Dr. Yao (Beijing) and Dr. Penny Prime (Kennesaw State University) for
providing me with a copies of their PowerPoint presentations and data on “The West
Development of China” and “China’s Economic reform and performance” respectively.
2
During a performance, an accomplished Naxi musician in Lijian referred to the Han as a
people who have lost their culture (June 2005).
3
The exception to the lack of the rights of women can be found in the customary matriarchal
minority ethnic nationality of the Mosuls. (Yang Erche Namu. Leaving Mother Lake: A
Girlhood at the Edge of the World. Boston: Little, Brown. 2003)
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Biographical note
Dr. Elizabeth Garbrah-Aidoo is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at
Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia.
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Table 1: An Informal Attitudinal Survey
QUESTION
RESPONSE
COMMENTS
a. Would you like to live in
the US?
No, but would like to visit
b. How do you feel about
the Great Development It is impressive
Project?
c. Who are the Chinese?
Most peopole have not thought
of that question before
The minorities referred to
themselves as “I am Uygur”or
Naxi or Miao and did not see
themselves as Chinese. They
referred to the Han as the
“Chinese”2
The Han
e. How has it affected your
nationality group?
Mixed
The
Han
students
and
professors stipulated that the
minorities are benefiting more.
Examples they gave are the
lowering of standards for them
to pass test and free tuition.
1. Most of the elderly minority
group asserted that they would
not have had the opportunity
to own land or educate their
children if it was not for Mao.
2. Most of the minorities felt
that the new development is
displacing their families and
breaking traditional ties
f. What is your opinion
about marriage between
minorities and the majority
group?
Mixed
The minorities did not mind
inter-marrying
among
themselves, but they frowned
upon marriages between a Han
and a minority, especially
those in the Xinjian province.
d. Who do you think is
benefiting from the Project? Mixed
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Table 2: Critical Junctures in Modern China’s Political Development
YEAR(S)
EVENT
Revolution led by Su Yat-Sen overthrows 2,000-year old imperial system. Republic of
1911
China established.
Sun Yat-sen founds the Nationalist (Guamindang) Party to oppose warlords who have
1912
seized power in the new republic.
1921
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) founded
Civil War between the Nationalists (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and the Communists
1927
begin
1934
Mao Zedong made leader of the CCP
1937
Japan invades China…start of World War II
Chinese Communists win the civil war and establish the People’s Republic of China
1949
Great Leap Forward to accelerate economic development and propel the country into
true communism…flopped and claimed over 20 million lives mostly in the rural areas
1958-1960
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Mao Zedong Thought; a version of MarxismLeninism)…campaign of mass mobilization and utopian idealism with violent
1966-1976
methods…
Mao Zedong dies. “Gang of Four”, led by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, arrested…ended the
1976
Cultural Revolution.
New leader – Deng Xiaoping… Reforms: reduced state control of the economy,
1978
encouraged private enterprise… helped revitalize Chinese economy up to the present.
1989
Tianamen Square massacre
1997
Deng Xiaoping dies. New powerful leader – Jiang Zemin. China admitted to WTO
2002- Present Hu Jintao succeeds Jiang as head of CCP and President of PRC.
Source:Kesselman, Mark, Joel Krieger et al., 2004. Introduction to Comparative Politics.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.
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Table 3: Ethnic Minorities in China
Achang
Ewenki
Korean
Naxi
Tatar
Bai
Gaoshan
Lahu
Nu
Tibetan
Blang
Gelo
Lhoba
Oroqen
Tu
Bonan
Hani
Li
Ozbek
Tujia
Bouyei
Hezhe
Lisu
Pumi
Uygur
Dai
Hui
Manchu
Qiang
Va
Daur
Jing
Maonan
Russian
Xibe
De'ang
Jingpo
Miao
Salar
Yao
Dong
Jino
Moinba
She
Yi
Dongxiang
Kazak
Mongolian
Shui
Yugur
Drung
Kirgiz
Mulam
Tajik
Zhuang
Source: China National Bureau of Statistics. http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/index.htm April 21, 2006
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Table 4: Hanization
PROVINCE
(Total
HAN
PopulationPOPULATION
2000)
(%)
1990
Xinjian (19.25
million Y2000)
Tibet
(0.6 million)
Sichuan (86.4
million)
Yunnan (42.9)
The West
(364.5 million)
China
(1.3 billion)
HAN
POPULATION
(%)
2000
MINORITY
POPULATION
(%)
1990
37.68
40.6
62.32
04.0
05.0
96.0
56.4 (Uygur: 46
Other: 13.4)
Tibetans: (94.1
Other: 0.9)
95.0
95.0
05.0
05.0
67.0
66.6
33.0
33.4
-
78.3
-
21.7
92.0
92.0
08.0
08.0
MINORITY
POPULATION
(%)
2000
Sources: Population census Office, National Bureau of Statistics of the PRC. Major Figures
on 2000 Population Census of China. 1 June 2001, p.30; and China Statistical Yearbook.
2002 (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji chubanshe 2002)
Reinhardt College
Waleska, GA 30183
25
770 720-9103
[email protected]
Dr. Elizabeth A. E. Garbrah-Aidoo
Assistant Professor of Political Science
TABLE 5: ETHNIC COMPOSITION: XINJIAN 1949-2000
PERCENTAGE
TOTAL
PERCENTAGE MINORITY
YEAR
POPULATION HAN
NATIONALITIES
1949
1952
1957
1962
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
2000
4,333,400
4,651,700
5,580,100
6,989,700
9,765,800
11,545,300
12,832,400
13,611,400
14,987,200
19,250,000
6.72
7.01
14.72
29.72
39.54
41.60
41.38
39.30
37.68
40.60
93.28
92.99
85.28
70.28
60.46
58.40
58.62
60.70
62.32
59.40
Sources: Xinjian Uygur Autonomous Region Statistical Bureau (1949-1990); and the
National Bureau of Statistics of the PRC. Major Figures on 2000 Population Census of
China.
Reinhardt College
Waleska, GA 30183
26
770 720-9103
[email protected]