China Enters A Period Of Eruptions

By Hugo Restall

The rioting by Uighurs in Xinjiang's capital Urumqi in early July has put the spotlight back on China's handling of its ethnic minority regions. Coming just over a year after a similar outburst in Lhasa, the incident shows that hardline policies designed to suppress dissent have fostered bitter resentment that periodically erupts. However, it would be a mistake to interpret this as a sign that China's control over Tibet and Xinjiang are unraveling. Rather the incidents should be put into a broader context of rising tensions within the broader society.

Certainly Tibet and Xinjiang pose their own unique challenges. The seeds of the current unrest were planted in the mid-1990s, when government strategy toward the restive regions shifted to a more hardline approach. That has shut off avenues for the expression of discontent, bottling up tensions until they explode.

Despite the obvious costs of this policy, Beijing apparently regards them as worth paying to maintain a tight grip on its sensitive border areas, which are regarded as vital national interests. From its perspective, the policies may even be regarded as a success, since the migration of Han Chinese into the sparsely populated regions enhances government control over the longer term, regardless of the friction it may create.

However, seen in the context of the wider Chinese society, the upsurge in unrest raises some worrying questions for Beijing. Despite the strictest possible control, the spread of information and rights consciousness has encouraged Uighurs and Tibetans to take to the streets in spontaneous demonstrations, and violent repression has stoked further unrest. This mirrors events taking place elsewhere in China, where potent fault lines within society are bursting into the open, despite the government's best efforts to enforce a "harmonious society."

This suggests that China may be entering a period similar to that in the late 1980s, when demonstrations began to break out over a variety of issues. As during that period, the Chinese economy is under stress, with rising expectations running up against the reality of limited opportunities. Add in anger about corruption and abuse of power by local officials and the stage is set for what are euphemistically known as "mass incidents." While the government may be able to manage localized riots, there is a danger of a repeat of 1989, should an event provide the impetus for the formation of a wider national protest movement.

The proximate cause of the rioting in Urumqi on July 5 happened thousands of miles away in Guangdong province. At a toy factory in Shaoguan, Han Chinese attacked young Uighur workers after rumors spread that they had raped several women. The state media reported that two Uighurs were killed, but graphic pictures and rumors of a higher death toll spread quickly over the Internet to Xinjiang. Complaining that the authorities were not doing enough to protect their compatriots, Uighurs took to the streets of Urumqi in an initially peaceful protest. Although the details are murky and the truth may never be known, the incident turned violent quickly after confrontations with the police.

Unrest in Xinjiang has recurred regularly over the past few decades, but several aspects of the recent chain of events represent new developments. First, the spread of information through informal channels quickly polarized both Uighur and Han communities. Paradoxically, this seems to have been encouraged by the government's strict control over the official media. Because Chinese netizens do not trust the media they are more inclined to believe reports passed along the electronic grapevine.

Moreover, even though the state has extensive mechanisms to censor online communications, it has never been able to develop the "surge capacity" to stop the flow of information during a crisis. This also tends to make the system more unstable, as people discontented over other issues latch on to the issue of the moment.

The fact that the unrest began in Urumqi, a majority Han city, also is significant. The Uighur heartland lies to the southwest, and past unrest has been situated there. In particular, the ongoing demolition of the old city of Kashgar, the cultural capital of the Uighurs, might have been expected to provide the spark for protests. So the fact that the violence erupted in the capital suggests that efforts to pacify the indigenous population may actually be spreading discontent.

The broader issues in Xinjiang include discrimination against Uighurs in religion, education and employment. As part of a campaign against "the three evil forces" -- terrorism, religious extremism and separatism -- the government has taken drastic action against all forms of dissent. Muslims were forbidden to fast during Ramadan last year, and education is now in Chinese, marginalizing the use of the Uighur language. Government job advertisements often specify that applicants must be Han Chinese.

The hardline policies are largely the work of Wang Lequan, the current Communist Party secretary for Xinjiang. It's significant that Mr. Wang's protege, Zhang Qingli, is now in charge of Tibet. The two men emphasize the development of the security services and reliance on politically reliable Han officials in order to govern. Previous initiatives that respected local culture and promoted localized government have been reversed.

For Xinjiang, a key concern of the Uighurs is the flood of Han Chinese immigration. Unlike in Tibet, Hans tend to settle down in rural areas of Xinjiang, competing directly with indigenous people for resources. During the Mao era, a quasimilitary organization, the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, better known as the Bingtuan, was established using government subsidies to pursue the goals of settling Han migrants, stabilizing the border region and developing the economy.

About 2.5 million people, or one in seven Xinjiang residents, is affiliated with the Bingtuan, which has helped push the Han percentage of the population to 41% from only 6% in 1953. The Bingtuan continues to spread settlements deep into the Uighur heartland, enjoying preferential access to irrigation and other scarce resources. In recent years, the government has also used Xinjiang as the destination for relocation projects in other provinces.

The tragedy in all this is that the relatively small Uighur population could so easily have been integrated into national life. They practice a moderate form of Islam, and while a small minority have become enamored of terrorist groups, by and large al Qaeda holds little attraction. They are also highly entrepreneurial, as might be expected given their homeland sits on the ancient Silk Road trading route. Uighurs were among the first to embrace Deng Xiaoping's reforms, prospering by setting up small businesses and moving around the country trading.

But in recent years, Uighurs have run up against official discrimination and mistrust. Licenses and other documents like passports are tightly controlled. Uighurs who grow rich and prominent independent from the Communist Party sooner or later run into difficulties. A prime example is former businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer, who now lives in exile in Washington, D.C. and is head of the Uighur World Congress.

Beijing has sought to blame the violence on orchestration by Ms. Kadeer and other overseas groups. But the reality is that China has little to fear from overseas groups, which are small and marginalized. Beijing has also forged strong ties with its Central Asian neighbors, so that it would be impossible for any separatist group to operate along the border.

Given that the hardline policies seem to be backfiring, some observers naturally ask why Beijing refuses to alter course. Yet this may be the wrong question. As Xinjiang expert and Human Rights Watch research Nicholas Bequelin explains, "From the perspective of traditional Chinese statecraft, Xinjiang is a huge success. Never before has China had such strong control over the region." He notes that government officials have accepted the fact that there is a price to be paid in terms of periodic unrest, and have made thorough preparations for dealing with it.

What may give Chinese leaders pause, however, is the possibility that unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang will have a contagion effect on the rest of China. When information flows were easier to control, violence in far-off Xinjiang had little impact on China proper. Today, by contrast, the Xinjiang violence dominates the consciousness of the whole country.

That's because propaganda authorities are now under pressure to be proactive about reporting incidents in order to pre-empt the spread of rumors. Even then, as we saw recently, this coverage itself may not be accurate and may not be effective in reassuring the population. And in any case, the net effect may be to undermine confidence in the government's ability to maintain law and order. It also tends to inflame Han nationalism, which as with anti-U.S. and anti-Japanese protests in the past can quickly spin out of control.

The Xinjiang violence may be a harbinger of what China can expect as the global economic crisis continues to bite. While the macroeconomic statistics suggest China has been relatively insulated by massive government spending and new loans from the state-owned banks, on the ground the picture is more mixed. Privately owned export-oriented factories have closed, the fresh credit has tended to go into speculative investments and infrastructure spending takes time to ramp up. The net effect may be to actually exacerbate tensions, as the poor struggle to find jobs while the rich and politically well-connected have access to government contracts and easy credit.

Several recent incidents suggest that society is becoming more volatile. Most dramatically, rioters fought a pitched battle with police in Shishou, Hubei province, in late June after the suspicious death of the chef in a hotel with connections to the mayor. As is often the case in these incidents, the extent of the violence can be attributed largely to mishandling of the initial protest by local officials.

But it is not hard to conceive of circumstances that could lead to a wider protest movement. For instance, the scandal over melamine-contaminated milk powder last year was handled relatively well by the central government, with punishments handed down to those responsible and compensation paid to the victims. But were such an incident to implicate the family of top leaders, or the government fail to resolve it expeditiously, the same mechanism that spread protests from Guangdong to Xinjiang could come into play.

As the government increases its involvement in the economy through stimulus measures, there is an increased risk that corruption will again become a source of public anger. This would parallel to some extent the late 1980s, when a dual pricing system allowed Party officials in state enterprises to profit by buying commodities at state prices and then selling them on the open market. Today the mechanisms are different, such as the "land grabs" in which officials take plots from farmers and urban residents with minimal compensation and sell them on to real estate developers. The huge sums of government money being spent means that the scale of the corruption could soon become much larger.

Another parallel to the 1980s is the increasing activism of intellectuals after decades of being silenced and coopted by the Party. Legal professionals and academics are pushing forward the idea of institutionalized rights for the ordinary citizen against abuses of power by Party officials, a movement known as "Weiquan."

The movement for political change today differs from the 1980s, however, in its emphasis on bottom-up activism, using a combination of the courts, media and other channels to put pressure on local officialdom. The recently published memoir of the late Party Secretary General Zhao Ziyang highlights how the liberal wing of the Party that once pushed for political reform was eliminated after 1989. After that, he noted, the Party elite became increasingly enmeshed in the business world, creating vested interests that seek to preserve the Party's monopoly on power.

How this shift will affect social stability remains to be seen. On the one hand, the split within the Party in 1989 was one of the key contributing factors to the protest movement gaining momentum and the ensuing crackdown. Today the Party leadership is relatively united at least on policy issues -- competition is largely between competing patronage networks. The main intra-Party conflict is between the center and the regions, as local officials seek to cover up their misdeeds at the risk of spreading instability.

In other ways, the current situation could prove more volatile. As the Xinjiang experience shows, when dissatisfaction reaches the point where people no longer feel they have much to lose, even a massive security force cannot deter violence. Tensions may be highest in the minority areas, but the feeling of marginalization and victimization by Party officials is the same. "As a barometer, it shows that China is not harmonious," Mr. Bequelin concludes.

---

Mr. Restall is the editor of the REVIEW