Opinions about this article

[Ncao]

I would like to hear opinions about this article, especially from those who lives or had lived in southern China. http://www.ndu.edu/inss/symposia/pacific2000/gladneypaper.htm

How true or false is this article? The Cantonese I know are proud to be Chinese and can never imagine separation. Although there are some that are not really fond of northerners, same could be said about some northerners opinion about Cantonese and other southern Chinese. Regional prejudices exist in every country.

[ala]

It's not just regional prejudices. There are valid cultural differences between different Han areas of China, as varied as that between European states, even bedtime stories and fairy tales are different in different parts of Han China. The difference is larger than a simple northern vs. southern. The southern regions themselves are very varied. It's a mistake to try to undermine, ignore, crush these differences in the name of national unity. These differences give China more diversity, give meaning to our name Hua 华; no one likes to be part of a giant anonymous monocultural identity. This is why the Han Chinese themselves have also lately been very interested in the 55 other minorities in China. Many Han Chinese today are frustrated by the common feeling that the entire 1.1 billion Han gets a bad name when a few does something ugly and bad, and when a Han Chinese does something great, people downplay it by saying that the ethnicity is so large that they are exceptions. The Han Chinese classification in reality is like the "White" ethnicity in the United States, it's not on the same level as Korean or Japanese.

Tibetan tourism is very popular amongst Westerners because of its uniqueness within China. Japan has the lowest foreign tourism amongst industrialized nations (Japan gets same amount of foreign tourists as Poland). China has never been as monolithic as Japan, so why try to be like the Japanese in pretending to be? It's masochistic.

Personally, I think the future for China lies in federalizing on the model of the United States. It is the most efficient way of governing a country as large and varied as China, and most culturally protective while ensuring territorial integrity.

China during the Zhou, Han, Tang Dynasties was a federation of fairly autonomous states as well. Best years in Chinese history.

[Ncao]

Ala, you have alot good points and I agree with alot of them. But I like to clarify about the term "white" in the U.S. White isn't an ethnicity,it's an generic name for the Caucasian race.Although China has 56 different ethnicitie(nationalties)but most(with exception of Uighurs and Kazaks)belong belong to the Mongoloid race.

[ala]

My point in saying Han is like the White non-Hispanic classification in the United States in that that is the generic class. If you do not consider yourself Hispanic or anything else, you are naturally White. In China, if you don't see yourself as a minority, then you are Han. Boundaries between race and ethnicity is not very clear, because both for the most part are human constructs.

Traditionally in America there is a clear distinction between Hispanic White and non-Hispanic White.

The American ethnicity/race classification system is very imperfect.

It is the following:

White, non-Hispanic

White, Hispanic

Black, non-Hispanic

Black, Hispanic

Asian

American Indian / Alaska Native

Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

Sometimes we also see a shorter version:

White

Black

Hispanic / Latino

Asian / Pacific Islander

American Indian

For the first time in Census 2000, I believe they separated out the Hispanic Origin question from race. But a lot of surveys today still separate Hispanic White from non-Hispanic White.

Not all Asians are mongoloid. South Asians, Iranians, Afghans and many people from SE Asia are not mongoloid. And American Indian and Alaska Native are actually mongoloid. So you can't really say the American system is actually based on race. Race is an imperfect, pseudo-science concept anyway.

[WilsonFong]

just finished reading the article, and although i don't think i have anything substantial to say i did find that the article did make me think about some things regarding ethnicity, identity and china.

- i never understood how so many people in china could be so nationalistic and proud of their identity. with a population of over one billion and a diaspora that outnumbers many nation-states, being chinese seems like such a non-exclusive identity (i.e. not very special)

- another thing is that the chinese people that i've spoken to seem to have no problem with monoculturalism, and that they see it as the only path towards unity in china. i had one chinese friend who told me that he expects the entire han population to forget all their dialects and know only putonghua in about 50 years, and he said that that would be a good thing.

- i found the part about ethnic minorities reclaiming their identities and "ethnic chic" to be pretty interesting, but to what extent is this an actual defense against the cultural assimilation of non-han and southerners? or is this just another case of "narcissism of small differences" used for financial gain and to make themselves feel like they're unique, similar to how there are a few white americans refer to themselves as native americans, when they barely have any native ancestry at all?

ala,

technically asians are not all mongoloid, but i believe "asian" is also a term for "east asian" (chinese, japanese, korean) in the united states. in england "asian" usually refers to south asian (indian, pakistani, bangladeshi)

as for federalization, do you think there's a real possibility? although i also think that would be a good path for china to take, every chinese person i've ever talked to about this believes that any from of decentralization will eventually break the country apart into warring factions competing for power over others.

[Ncao]

I agee with Wilson, federation is a nice idea but would it work? The U.S. and China are completely 2 different countries with way different history. I totally agree with the article when it compare China with the Holy Roman Empire,that's what China really is different countries formed together.But I wonder if the break up of China would really be that bad?

[atitarev]

US worked very hard by promoting national prides on disintegrating the Soviet Union and succeeded, will the Chinese fall in the same trap? Hopefully not. I hear more often that all Chinese feel belonging together than otherwise. Creating a federation was beginning of an end to the integrity of Russia - in the tzarist Russia - there was no govenment in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, etc. Lenin has created them, it was easy to collapse Russia - the governments of Ukraine and Belarus just declared they wanted to secede and got Yeltsin as an accomplice.

China will be strong united. I am sure there will be opportunities to develop cultures inside China when the Communist government reduces its pressure or when you get a different type of government.

[Ncao]

If there was some kind of federation I would't model it after the U.S, but suggest something like E.U.

[ala]

US model of federalism is more stable and balanced/fair than European model.

Federation will work because the idea of China splitting is becoming more and more ridiculous for most Chinese to imagine, so federalism does not mean that China will dissolve into warring factions, but rather it will create economic competitors (this is already obvious between say Yangtze Delta and Pearl Delta), which is good for the nation as a whole.

Federation allows for more regional responsibility, and less centralized blame. This is good for Chinese stability in the long run. If things go bad, it's more likely the local government's fault than the federal government's fault. Right now, if things go bad, the communist government could topple COMPLETELY within a year. See Qing Empire and Republic of China examples of near instant collapses because of too much centralization.

[wushijiao]

Good article. Thanks Ncao.

I think that this article was written around 1998, yes/no? Therefore, China has had almost a decade of social stability since it was written. With each year that passes, I think the odds of national disintegration go down dramatically.

But ethnic problems in Jiang Zemin's China go far deeper than the "official" minorities. Sichuanese, Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Hunanese cafes are avidly advocating increased cultural nationalism and resistance to Beijing central control. As the European Union experiences difficulties in building a common European alliance across these linguistic, cultural, and political boundaries, we should not imagine China to be less concerned about its persistent multi-culturalism.

I really don’t see how you can compare the EU to China. Almost no Italian feels “European” before she feels “Italian”. In China, in contrast, I think almost every Han person, at least, identifies himself as Chinese, first and foremost.

Although presented as a unified culture--an idea also accepted by many Western researchers--Han peoples differ in many ways, most obviously in their languages. The supposedly homogenous Han speak eight mutually unintelligible languages (Mandarin, Wu, Yue, Xiang, Hakka, Gan, Southern Min, and Northern Min).

Personally, I think this is less and less important. It seems to me that in order to have a “language” you must:

1) Have consciousness in the people that they share their language with other people (outside of their own town).

2) Have some sort of standardization

Linguists tend to group dialects/languages in China based on mutual intelligibility. But I doubt the usefulness of that. Almost every person I know who speaks some sort of a dialect tells me that it is “place话”. If two people who speak, say, Xiang, but are just barely able to communicate using Xiang because they are on the border of mutual intelligibility, I’d bet good money they’d switch to Putonghua. As time goes on, as Putonghua usage becomes more ingrained, and as people continue to fail to realize that they share possible “languages/dialects”, I think this will help unification, at the expense of cultural diversity. Likewise, China is also urbanizing, which also strengthens the role of Putonghua.

As ridiculous as it may seem, I’d bet that in hindsight historians might see that pop culture TV shows like 超级女声 played quite an important role in solidifying national unity. In rural communities, people tended to identify themselves partly based on village, clan (氏), and even form of speech. But with urbanization, the power of these bonds is wounded. In the US, for white people at least, people tend to identify themselves based on what they like to do- NASCAR fan, football fan, emocore/indy scene person, like to fish, into the Goth scene, like to mountain bike….etc. In urban China, which is getting more prosperous and able to afford leisure activities on a daily basis, I wonder if people will start to identify themselves more based on hobbies and interests, and less based on ethnic and linguistic lines.

In any case, I agree with ala that a federal system would be a good idea for China. But for that to happen, a strong legal system is needed. So, it seems kind of like a long-run goal.

[atitarev]

I really don’t see how you can compare the EU to China. Almost no Italian feels “European” before she feels “Italian”. In China, in contrast, I think almost every Han person, at least, identifies himself as Chinese, first and foremost.

I agree 100% - a federation is a beginning of separate countries, unless a federation was created from separate countries. Autonomous regions are the first candidates for separate countries.

You are what you feel. Germans and Austrians speak they same language but they feel they belong to different people (and countries), Chinese speak differently, maybe mutually unintelligible dialects but they feel they belong to Han people.

[Ncao]

i had one chinese friend who told me that he expects the entire han population to forget all their dialects and know only putonghua in about 50 years, and he said that that would be a good thing.

Was he a northerner? I find northerners are the ones that are more willing to give up dialects.

[WilsonFong]

Was he a northerner? I find northerners are the ones that are more willing to give up dialects.

yeah, he's from zhengzhou

[Quest]

危言耸听，一派胡言。

[wushijiao]

The diversity in China isn't going to tear the country apart. But, it does challenge marketers. Here's an article about that:

For merchants, and therefore for advertisers, there are many Chinas, perhaps as many as there are countries in Europe, specialists say. To succeed in China, advertisers need to take into account wide regional variations in language, temperament, income, culture, climate, diet, demographics and history, they say.

"The idea that the population labeled 'Han Chinese' is homogenous is a nationalist myth," Human Rights in China said in a 2002 report. "Within this category there is enormous cultural and linguistic diversity."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/15/business/chiads16.php