- The Open Road In Western Xinjiang
There were three points that particularly stood out for me when reading Rob Gifford’s China Road atop train, bus and dormitory bunks while travelling around Xinjiang this summer, and which led me to a surprising conclusion. The first point was the reality of the historical context that present day Chinese governance finds itself placed within. That ever since the first Emperor, Qin Shi Huang, created a unified China; a centralised, autocratic form of governance has been required to keep the whole thing together.
The second point that stood out, was that the tributary system, and the sense of control it meant to Chinese officialdom, really did mean that the European led pressure to turn a civilization into a Nation State, with the need to delineate borders and protect them, would lead the Chinese government to naturally see the Tibetan plateau, the Xinjiang land mass and the outer reaches of Inner Mongolia as Chinese, and necessarily so.
Third, that it is a Han Chinese government, and not any of the minority groups, that leads this contemporary, unified Chinese State. And that this same government is doing its best to Hanify this huge country, to the extent that a majority Han population does or will exist at least down to the size of major urban centres, with the consequences this may have for political reform.
Taking these points together we get all the contradictions and paradoxes of present day China, as well as reasons behind the contrasting predictions of what future China will be. I might as well throw in my own two cents worth, as I try and work out a little for myself what is bound up inside these fluid, or not so fluid borders that I am living within.
So, back to point one. Gifford outlined the context of contemporary Chinese government being one with its roots clearly lying in the rule of the First Emperor:
‘Qin Shi Huang had set a very important precedent, which has survived to this day: that China should be united. It has fallen apart many times between then and now, but each time, someone has said, ‘China must be reunified’, and set about doing so… The fact that this set-up has not changed, or been able to change, in two thousand years must also have huge implications for the question, Can China ever change its political system?’ (Gifford 2007: 109-10)
This point I will return to, but first to Gifford’s classification of China as not simply a country, as we have all grown up classifying it, but as a continent or an Empire, with Beijing more comparable to the Rome of 2000 years ago, than the one that stands today: one capital amongst many European centres. China is a vast landmass with a multitude of peoples, languages, cuisines and customs being integrated and bound together:
‘[Qin Shi Huang] created a ‘country’ that needed a strong man at the top in order to hold it together, and that the requirement precluded any constraints on his power… The only times when intellectual comment and discussion were possible were when China was not unified (such as during the Warring States period before Emperor Qin, or during the 1920’s and 1930’s, after the failed 1912 Revolution). At all other times, including now, intellectual orthodoxy has been enforced.’ (Gifford 2007: 110)
This gives us an interesting context from which to consider the China of today and tomorrow, and it probably isn’t one where many peoples’ hopes for universal suffrage seem particularly likely. It is not difficult to identify the centralised, winner takes all form of autocratic governance operating in China today. It would have only taken a few glances West, from Xi’an that is, over the last year or so to have seen the very real need for a forceful form of harmonizing governance.
What was interesting to me though in Gifford’s book was his noting of the state of China, pre- the marauding Europeans, with its sense of supremacy, fluctuating borders and cap doffing system of tributes. And that it clearly, to the Chinese mind, encompassed a sense of control, even ownership, over the outlying regions, even without the need for regular or prolonged conquering.
A civilisation, paradoxically evolving into a Nation State, would it seems to me do its best to sweep up the peoples and resources it considered its own. This throws a spanner in the works of simplistic devolutionary debates or claims to autonomy based on cultural heritage and historical land rights. It doesn’t disclaim them but it does offer food for contextual thought. Though, one thing that stood out before this reading and remains after it, is that this is a unity in diversity but it is also a unity that is not going away any time soon.
Now, the interesting aspect for me amongst all this is that we have a contemporary Han patriarch in the shape of the Communist Party, with a strength of rule we can all too easily see, and that has engaged in a widespread process of Hanification; the Hanifying of large swathes of land previously dwelt upon by China’s minority peoples. Consequently, it seems to me that if issues of legitimacy raise their head in a wider national context, not just in minority regions, then there is scope for the development of democracy to counter issues of legitimacy, wherever they may rise. This could be allowed in contemporary China, unlike any other period in Chinese history, because the Han population would dominate electoral proceedings and assuage questions of security, autonomy and devolution. Even if such questions were to rise, they would not gain enough support for any meaningful consequence.
This is not a perspective that sees a happy ending for those claiming cultural and historical land rights and autonomy but could, with a sort of sardonic irony, lead to greater political reforms elsewhere within Chinese society. This would simply be on the basis that there would be a clear Han majority in all constituencies from the province to major urban centres. Plus, it might also be noted that it wouldn’t seem likely to be anything other than a one party system, with individuals within the party responsible to their electorate and then forming alliances within the system itself.
Who knows? But, just may be, this contemporary context, a legacy of historical tributes, a process of Hanification and a reality of integrated global governmental systems and laws, with ever opening sources of interest, information and exchange might just be a slow trigger for a Chinese system of governance not quite seen before. This is all probably a bit too hopeful on one level and it does treat the unity of China as a given, but at least there may be a context opening, other than one that is associated with more pain and suffering, where evolution may be possible and where voices that aren’t heard now, are. Who knows?
Tags: China Road, Chinese Unification, Democracy, Hanification, One-Party System, Qin Shi Huang, Rob Gifford, Universal Suffrage, Xinjiang
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