China Only Wants Its Ethnic Minorities to Exist in Theme Parks
James Griffiths, 6 September 2013
It’s difficult to think of a more disorientating experience than being part of an ethnic minority in China. The government there often goes out of its way to celebrate its 56 registered ethnic groups, but tends to do so in a very clumsy way – for example, when ethnic minority performers are trotted out for New Year galas to sing about how great it is being Chinese, despite the fact the Chinese government systematically persecutes and represses them every other day of the year. It’s a bit like the British government flying in a dance troupe of Northern Irish Catholics for St George’s Day and getting them to Morris Dance in Union Flag suits.
In some ways, China’s awkward approach to dealing with the smaller sections of its society is understandable – 55 of those ethnic groups combined are still massively outnumbered by the Han Chinese citizens, who make up over 90 percent of the population. In civil society, that homogeneity is even more pronounced; only four non-Han citizens have been members of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CPC) since 1949, and no members of the Standing Committee – the CPC’s cabinet and China’s de facto ruling body – have ever been drawn from an ethnic minority.
Statistics like these have created plenty of tension between the Han majority and other ethnic groups, nowhere more so than in Tibet and Xinjiang – the most westerly regions of the country and the only places where the Han Chinese aren’t the dominant ethnic group. Tibetans and Uyghurs (the Turkic Muslim majority in Xinjiang) have their own distinct cultures and languages and neither group are ethnically very Chinese. In fact, some Uyghurs look so much like white Europeans that they’re able to make a decent living playing British or American bad guys in Chinese movies.
Another issue is that the CPC make uneasy imperialists. Unlike the British, who controlled Tibet for a time during the 20th century and didn’t care about gun-butting anyone who got in their way, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) want to reclaim the western areas of the country while also remaining liked, which seems like a difficult task for a government to set itself. One of the results of this juggling act is a place Splendid China, a sort of propagandist theme park just outside of Hong Kong whose advertising slogan could be “come and look at these dancing ethnics”.
I visited Splendid China to see how China presents its ethnic minorities to the world in 2013. But first, it’s probably wise to look at two contrasting narratives about what’s been happening in Tibet and Xinjiang since the 1950s – both of which, confusingly, possess some degree of truth.
The View from China
You would never have expected it, but the CPC see a Han presence in Tibet and Xinjiang as a wholly positive situation. In a confusing clash of ideas, the party views the western provinces as integral and indivisible parts of China, but is also actively pursuing a policy of Sinicisation (making it more like China, essentially), as if forcing a region to adopt foreign customs will somehow help them come round to the idea of completely changing their lifestyle.
That attitude can obviously smack of cultural chauvinism, especially when Han Chinese citizens talk of a need to develop the “backward” Chinese Wild West – reminiscent of European imperialists talking about the need to save the African from himself and maybe pick up a couple of diamonds while they were busy improving Africa. That said, the Sinicisation project has drastically improved the quality of life for most people in Xinjiang and Tibet. Life expectancy in pre-1951 Tibet was a paltry 36 years, it’s now over 65. Things in Xinjiang were considerably better, but Chinese efforts in the region have already improved a number of the things that people usually include when quantifying what constitutes a high quality of life.
In 2010 alone, the Chinese government invested over 11 billion yuan (£1.1 billion) in improving infrastructure and schooling in Xinjiang. In fact, so much money is spent on improving the areas that many Han Chinese resent what they see as an unfair advantage for the ethnic minority groups. Life is considerably tougher for rural Chinese peasants than those in Tibet or Xinjiang, but nobody in China is going to start listening to them any time soon.
The View from Tibet and Xinjiang
The dominant narrative in the western provinces – put forward by the Dalai Lama and his celebrity mates, Richard Gere and Steven Seagal – is that the PRC are invaders and colonisers. And that accusation seems perfectly understandable considering the PRC are consistently trying to repress both Buddhist and Islamic religious expression in the region, as well as deliberately replacing local languages with Mandarin Chinese.
Political repression is pervasive and undeniable, and uprisings and rioting towards the end of the last decade in both Tibet and Xinjiang only led to tighter restrictions. Among Tibetans, this has led to over 100 horrifying self-immolation protests since 2009, the vast majority of them resulting in death. Despite the government’s much vaunted drive to improve ethnic minority representation in political bodies like the People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), those who truly exercise power are almost exclusively Han Chinese, with most officials in the western region not even able to speak Tibetan or Uyghur.
Most Tibetan and Uyghur exile groups classify the government’s attempts at Sinicisation as cultural imperialism, a gradual form of assimilation that’s snuffing out those regions’ unique culture and history.
Splendid China: The Propaganda Theme Park for Sinicisation
These two narratives become especially problematic when mainstream Chinese society tries to celebrate those at its fringes. In the week before Chinese New Year, I visited Splendid China – a place that might have been Mao’s vision of Disneyland. The park’s stated mission is to condense “the Chinese history, culture, places of interest, folk arts and customs” into one easily accessible destination in Shenzhen, about an hour from Hong Kong. And that includes little areas set out for the western provinces.
Despite my reservations about visiting Splendid China, I had a surprisingly good time. The three genuinely incredible shows (or “ethnic cultural performances”) fused ballet, Chinese opera and acrobatics, and all the park employees – mostly recruited from ethnic minority regions – seemed enthusiastic. Maybe that’s not surprising given they live in a city like Shenzhen, where pay is considerably higher than in the Chinese interior.
Sure, the premise of the park is kind of racist in a patronising, Little Black Sambo sort of way, but there are worse ways to make a living in China (assembling iPods, being paid fuck all to make shoes for 16 hours a day). If it wasn’t for the Tibetan, Uyghur and, arguably, Mongolian sections, you could just dismiss the park as some mostly harmless, slightly culturally insensitive fun.
Unsurprisingly, the curators of Splendid China’s Tibetan and Uyghur villages have decided to omit any of the political and ethnic strife that the real-life inhabitants of those areas experience every day. You almost wouldn’t guess anything was up from visiting the China Ethnic Museum in Beijing, or from watching the snappily-titled “China Central Song and Dance Ensemble of Ethnic Groups”, who are regularly trotted out for Chinese festival galas and broadcasts around the country.
There are also miniaturised Tibetan and Uyghur monuments dotted around the place, their real counterparts predating modern China by several hundred years, and smiley performers happy to show off their “quaint” local customs. Buddhism and Islam are conveniently played down in favour of colourful outfits, yaks and butter churning.
On the surface, this might not seem so problematic, but looked at through the viewfinder of political and cultural repression in Tibet and Xinjiang, it starts to seem a little more sinister. Kate Saunders, Communications Director at the International Campaign for Tibet, told me that Splendid China is an example of the Chinese authorities’ attempts to “commodify and market Tibetan culture”, while at the same time stamping down “almost any expression of Tibetan identity and culture” not officially sanctioned by the CPC.
Saunders continued, telling me that the Chinese authorities “seek to dominate representations of Tibetan culture in order to assert ownership of Tibet”. A good example of how bizarre this official narrative can get is the video of Peng Liyuan, wife of CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping, singing the “Laundry Song”, a propaganda classic about how the People’s Liberation Army “saved” Tibetans from the unspeakable horrors of self-governance.
Alim Seytoff, Director of the Uyghur Human Rights Project, put it more bluntly: “[Splendid China] is for propaganda purposes only. The whole idea of the park is to fool both domestic and foreign visitors that Uyghurs, as an exotic minority with a colourful culture, live happily ever after under CPC rule.” According to Mr Seytoff, China’s “Han-chauvinistic policies towards the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups are destructive of multi-ethnicism and multiculturalism”.
While I might not word it so strongly, Chinese propaganda about Tibet and Xinjiang – be it in theme park form, or spouted by a CPC official – can often seem more than a little bit creepy. The Chinese government is doing some good things in the country’s western provinces, but altruistic imperialism is still imperialism.
Self-immolation and political repression may lead to much hand wringing in Washington and London, but from Beijing, the Sinicisation project is working; Tibet is on course to be a majority Han province in the near future. When that happens, can those who would argue for the Tibetans’ right to self-determination really deny it to their Han neighbours, even if they choose to remain part of China?
It seems like the only place the Chinese government want their ethnic minorities to exist are as relics in their theme parks.