East of Mecca

Block Entry # 5 - Reflection on Justin Rudelson’s, William Jankowiak’s and Dru Gladney’s articles

Comments on “Strike Hard, Maximum Pressure” Policy of the Chinese government – it is indeed a daunting task to solve the social and political problem in Xinjiang. Using violence to treat the Uyghurs definitely does not help the current situation. The more the Chinese state suppresses the Uyghurs, the more they want to separate from the Chinese. I agree with Gladney that Chinese government feels insecure in the fear that if the state exercises soft policy too much, the Uyghurs will be able to turn against the state. The thing is that if China allows one ethnic minority to become independent, which I think it is unlikely to happen, all other 55 minorities will ask for the same, and that’s certainly not what China wants.

Right now, China’s top priority is economic development of the country. While we should applaud China’s economic success during the last 10 years, the government’s human rights record remains poor. If China wants to become a strong and powerful country, the Chinese government needs to work very hard on “democracy”, which entails freedom of speech, freedom of press, human rights issues etc. This not only refers to its treatment to the ethnic minorities, but also to the Han Chinese (1989 Tiananmen Square incident is an example).

In my opinion, China is still far from being a powerful nation. Democracy is a universal value. Although western countries and some human rights organizations constantly put pressure on China to improve human rights, nothing has changed so far. The reality is that China is such a huge market that other countries want to do business and maintain a good relationship with China.

On another note, in Gladney’s article, he mentioned the Hui receive special consideration on their exams for entrance to middle school, high school and college. I find this kind of odd as it does pose the issue of fairness. Perhaps this is a Chinese policy to try to improve the Hui's education level. I read somewhere that in Chongqing and I’m not sure how reliable the source is, there were about 30 Han students forged identities as ethnic minorities in the college entrance exam in order to get admitted and that goes to show the weakness of this policy.