此文分析了中国的民族矛盾及历史原因，对中国历史有些似是而非的认识。此文竟然在今天的WSJ上发表，来头不小。
文章说建立唐人街的海外华人，多数祖籍中国南方，自称“唐人”，以示与北方汉人的区别，以“唐民族主义”对抗“汉民族主义”，并且进一步预测中国因贫富分配不均将引起南北”唐汉“之争。
"The
next decade may see the resurgence of Tang nationalism in southern
China in opposition to northern Han nationalism, especially as economic
wealth in the south eclipses that of the north."
作者简介
http://www.pomona.edu/pbi/drugladney.shtml
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203547904574279952210843672.html
若因注册不上看不见,原文如下
China’s Ethnic Fault Lines
Rising tensions and resistance to Beijing’s control challenge China’s ‘harmonious’ society
The myth of a monolithic China was shattered this past week. Running barely beneath the surface of what the government has sought to portray as a “harmonious” society, the fracture created by the Urumqi and Lhasa riots threatens to shake the country.
Foreigners and the Chinese themselves typically picture China’s population as a vast Han majority with a sprinkling of exotic minorities living along the country’s borders. This understates China’s tremendous cultural, geographic, and linguistic diversity—in particular the important cultural differences within the Han population. Across the country, China is experiencing a resurgence of local ethnicity and culture, most notably among southerners such as the Cantonese and Hakka, who are now classified as Han.
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Reuters
Uighur protesters in Urumqi this week
Cultural and linguistic cleavages could worsen in a China weakened by internal strife, an economic downturn, uneven growth, or a struggle over future political succession. The initial brawl between workers in a Guangdong toy factory, which left at least two Uighur dead on June 25, prompted the mass unrest in Xinjiang on July 5 that ended with 156 dead, thousands injured and 1,500 arrested, with ongoing violence spreading throughout the region.
China is also concerned about the “Kosovo effect,” accusing its Muslim and other ethnic minorities of seeking outside international (read Western) support for separatist goals. But ethnic problems in President Hu Jintao’s China go far deeper than the “official” minorities. Sichuanese, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Hunanese are avidly advocating increased cultural nationalism and resistance to Beijing central control. Ethnic strife did not dismantle the former Soviet Union, but it did come apart along boundaries defined in large part by ethnic and national difference.
The unprecedented early departure of President Hu from the G-8 meetings in Italy to attend to the ethnic problems in Xinjiang is an indication of the seriousness with which China regards this issue. The National Day celebrations scheduled for October 2009 seek to highlight 60 years of the “harmonious” leadership of the Communist Party in China, and like the 2008 Olympics, its enormous success. The rioting threatens to derail these celebrations.
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Reuters
Yi children at school
Officially, China is made up of 56 nationalities: one majority nationality, the Han, and 55 minority groups. The 2000 census revealed a total official minority population of nearly 104 million, or approximately 9% of the total population. The peoples identified as Han comprise 91% of the population, from Beijing in the north to Canton in the south, and include the Hakka, Fujianese, Cantonese and others. These Han are thought to be united by a common history, culture and written language; differences in language, dress, diet and customs are regarded as minor. An active, state-sponsored program assists the official minority cultures and promotes their economic development (with mixed results).
Sun Yat-Sen, leader of the republican movement that toppled the last imperial dynasty of China (the Qing) in 1911, promoted the idea that there were “Five Peoples of China”—the majority Han being one and the others being the Manchus, Mongolian, Tibetan and Hui (a term that included all Muslims in China, now divided into Uighurs, Kazakhs, Hui etc.). Sun was a Cantonese, educated in Hawaii, who wanted both to unite the Han and to mobilize them and all other non-Manchu groups in China (including Mongols, Tibetans and Muslims) into a modern, multi-ethnic nationalist movement against the Manchu Qing state and foreign imperialists. This expanded policy with the recognition of a total 55 official minority nationalities, also helped the Communists’ long-term goal of forging a united Chinese nation.
Cultural diversity within the Han has not been officially recognized because of a deep (and well-founded) fear of the country breaking up into feuding kingdoms, as happened in the 1910s and 1920s. China has historically been divided along north-south lines, into Five Kingdoms, Warring States or local satrapies, as often as it has been united. Indeed, China as it currently exists, including large pieces of territory occupied by Mongols, Turkic peoples, Tibetans, etc., is three times as large as it was under the last Chinese dynasty, the Ming, which fell in 1644. A strong, centralizing government (whether of foreign or internal origin) has often tried to impose ritualistic, linguistic, economic and political uniformity throughout its borders.
The supposedly homogenous Han speak eight mutually unintelligible languages (Mandarin, Wu, Yue, Xiang, Hakka, Gan, Southern Min and Northern Min). Even these subgroups show marked linguistic and cultural diversity. In the Yue language family, for example, Cantonese speakers are barely intelligible to Taishan speakers, and the Southern Min dialects of Quanzhou, Changzhou and Xiamen are equally difficult to communicate across. The Chinese linguist Y. R. Chao has shown that the mutual unintelligibility of, say, Cantonese and Mandarin is as great as that of Dutch and English or French and Italian. Mandarin was imposed as the national language early in the 20th century and has become the lingua franca, but, like Swahili in Africa, it must often be learned in school and is rarely used in everyday life across much of China.
The country’s policy toward minorities involves official recognition, limited autonomy and unofficial efforts at control. Although totaling only 9% of the population, they are concentrated in resource-rich areas spanning nearly 60% of the country’s landmass and exceed 90% of the population in counties and villages along many border areas of Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan. Xinjiang occupies one-sixth of China’s landmass, with Tibet the second-largest province.
Reuters
An ethnic Naxi elder performs traditional music in Lijiang, Yunnan province.
Surprisingly, it has now become popular, especially in Beijing, for people to “come out” as Manchus or other ethnic groups. While the Han population grew 10% from 1982 to 1990, the minority population grew 35% overall—from 67 million to 91 million. The Manchus, long thought to have been assimilated into the Han majority, added three autonomous districts and increased their population by 128% from 4.3 million to 9.8 million. The population of the Gelao people in Guizhou shot up an incredible 714% in just eight years. These rates reflect more than a high birthrate; they indicate “category-shifting,” as people redefine their nationality from Han to minority or from one minority to another. In inter-ethnic marriages, parents can decide the nationality of their children, and the children themselves can choose their nationality at age 18.
Why is it still popular to be “officially” ethnic in today’s China? This is an interesting question given the riots in Xinjiang recently and in Tibet last year, not to mention the generally negative reporting in the Western press about minority discrimination in China. By the mid-1980s, it had become clear that those groups identified as official minorities were beginning to receive real benefits from the implementation of several affirmative action programs. The most significant privileges included permission to have more children (except in urban areas, minorities are generally not bound by the one-child policy), pay fewer taxes, obtain better (albeit Mandarin Chinese) education for their children, have greater access to public office, speak and learn their native languages, worship and practice their religion (often including practices such as shamanism that are still banned among the Han) and express their cultural differences through the arts and popular culture.
Indeed, one might even say it has become popular to be ‘ethnic’ in today’s China. Mongolian hot pot, Muslim noodle and Korean barbecue restaurants proliferate in every city, while minority clothing, artistic motifs and cultural styles adorn Chinese private homes. In Beijing, one of the most popular restaurants is the Tibetan chain Makye-ame. There, the nouveau riche of Beijing eat exotic foods such as yak kabobs served by beautiful waitresses in Tibetan clothing during Tibetan music and dance performances. With the dramatic economic explosion in South China, southerners and others have begun to assert cultural and political differences. Whereas comedians used to make fun of southern ways and accents, southerners (especially Shanghainese) now scorn northerners for their lack of sophistication and business acumen. As any Mandarin-speaking Beijing resident will tell you, bargaining for vegetables or cellular telephones in Guangzhou or Shanghai markets is becoming more difficult for them due to growing pride in the local languages: Non-native speakers always pay a higher price. Rising self-awareness among the Cantonese is paralleled by the reassertion of identity among the Hakka, the southern Fujianese Min, the Swatow and other peoples now empowered by economic success and embittered by age-old restraints from the north.
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Reuters
Tibetan monks walk to a prayer meeting near Tongren, Qinghai province.
Interestingly, most of these southern groups traditionally regarded themselves not as Han but as Tang, descendants of the great Tang dynasty (618-907 A.D.) and its southern bases. Most Chinatowns in North America, Europe and Southeast Asia are inhabited by descendants of Chinese immigrants from the mainly Tang areas of southern China. The next decade may see the resurgence of Tang nationalism in southern China in opposition to northern Han nationalism, especially as economic wealth in the south eclipses that of the north. Some have postulated that the heavy coverage by the state-sponsored media of the riots in Xinjiang, as opposed to the news blackout in Tibet, was a deliberate effort to stimulate Han Chinese nationalism and antiminority ethnic sentiment, in an effort to bring the majority population together during a period of economic and social instability.
China’s very economic vitality has the potential to fuel ethnic and linguistic division, rather than further integrating the country. As southern and coastal areas get richer, much of central, northern and northwestern China hasn’t kept up, increasing competition and contributing to age-old resentments across ethnic, linguistic and cultural lines. Uneven distribution of wealth has fueled deep resentment in the poorer, often ethnic regions of China.
The result of all these changes is that China is becoming increasingly de-centered. This is a fearsome prospect for those holding the reins in Beijing and perhaps was a factor in the decisions to crack down on the June 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, keep a tight rein on the Olympics and respond swiftly and harshly to riots in Tibet and Xinjiang. Last year the government admitted to more than 100,000 “mass incidents” of civil unrest.
A China weakened by internal strife, inflation, uneven economic growth or the struggle for political succession could become further divided along cultural and linguistic lines. China’s threats will most likely come from civil unrest, and perhaps internal ethnic unrest from within the so-called Han majority. We should recall that it was a southerner, born and educated abroad, who led the revolution that ended China’s last dynasty. When that empire fell, competing warlords—often supported by foreign powers—fought for turf.
—Dru Gladney is president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College. |
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发表于 2009-7-14 23:30:52