30 December 2022, NIICE Commentary 8463
Anirudh Krishnan

In the contemporary world, ethnic issues are the most prominent problems in many multi-ethnic countries. China is no exception, with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) comprising 56 state-recognized nationality groups (ethnic groups), of which the ethnic Hans account for 91.1 percent of the total population. The remaining 55 nationalities (8.8 percent) are classified as national or ethnic minorities. Numbering almost 105 million, these ethnic minorities are scattered across China. After observing such diversity, Fei Xiaotong provided the concept of ‘duoyuanyiti’ [pluralistic unity] and composed the vital notion of ‘Zhonghua Minzu’ (Chinese nation).

Evolution of China’s Ethnic Policy

Since 1949, PRC’s ethnic governance policy has revolved around three interlinked policy pillars:

  1. The identification and classification of ethnic groups
  2. System of regional ethnic autonomy
  3. Series of preferential minority-treatment policies

The 1954 Constitution provided a legal basis for regional autonomy and preferential minority policies, however, during the Cultural Revolution all three pillars were destroyed. Radical and forced assimilation policies were favored, and minority cultures and traditions were attacked vigorously by communist institutions. All research on minority groups with regards to their culture, language and customs were to be abandoned, and as June Dreyer in his article “China’s Minority People” on ethnic research studies noted that, “they were castigated as ‘bourgeois scientific objectivism’”.  The impact of the Cultural Revolution was so dire that even the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), post Mao regime, had to admit to its failings. After Mao’s death, the radical policies of the far-left were removed and there was a strive within the CCP to return to pluralism and re-install the three pillars.

In this regard, China’s Law on Regional National Autonomy 1984 is the most far-reaching piece of legislation between the CCP and national minorities. This is the basic law for the implementation of the system of regional national autonomy prescribed in the Constitution and formulated as per the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China. The regional autonomy law was further amended in 2001 to include various preferential and developmental programs.

Institutional Tools for Ethnic Governance

To understand ethnic governance in China, it is imperative to lay out the unique parallel Party-state structure of the PRC. The administrative structure in PRC is a vertical hierarchy, top-down from the Provincial level- Prefectural level- County level- Township level. During the era of reforms under Deng Xiaoping, power between the state and the party fluctuated but post-Deng this changed. By Mid 2000s and especially under Xi Jinping, there arose a need to pioneer a new model of social governance.

Within the party-state bureaucratic structure, exists the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) under the State Council and United Front Works Department (UFWD) under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The SEAC was established in 1949, on paper leads the ethnic policy in design and implementation. It has the responsibility to implement state laws, most vital being the 1984 Law on Regional National Autonomy. UFWD which comes under CCP’s control was largely institutionalized by Mao and is instrumental in CCP’s objective to ‘co-opt’ those outside the party sphere and induce them toward the interests of CCP. Since its inception, the role, and powers of SEAC have always varied. During the founding era, with the three pillars guiding the ethnic policy, the SEAC thrived as a valuable institution playing the leading role in implementing regional autonomy. However, during the cultural revolution just like how the three pillars were eradicated, SEAC was also terminated from 1968-1971. It was only during the reform era of the 80s, when SEAC was reinstated and was granted the autonomy to create local offices, which in turn oversaw the implementation of ethnic policies from provincial to prefectural level. Before the early 2000s, both UFWD and SEAC had similar bureaucratic statuses and often collaborated on ethnic issues. But this notion changed post-2000s. At the national level, CCP began to expand UFWD by increasing the status of political leaders of UFWD, and at local levels, CCP began establishing United Front organs at the grass-root level. This change accelerated partly due to the Lhasa ‘uprisings’ in 2008 and with the increasing perception of the party’s loss of control over the grassroots.

Organization Restructuring of UFWD

UFWD has been expanding its scope of operations since the 2000s and particularly under Xi Jinping. The first visible institutional reform on UFWD was by increasing its presence at township levels of administration. Ethnic policy implementation is now directly through UFWD local offices at the township level and SEAC has been limited. SEAC local branches are absent at the township level and this does not allow it the authority to supervise policy execution according to its designed purposes. The second institutional reform is related to the addition of Tibet and Xinjiang Bureaus within the UFWD, which has increased the authority of the UFWD on ethnic issues in China. Finally, the third and most important institutional reform was undertaken by Xi Jinping, relating to the absorption of the State ethnic affairs commission and State administration of religion under the command of UFWD. Since 2018 a full-time UFWD commissioner; and heads of local villages are employed as informants for the UFWD office. This means that SEAC has virtually lost all powers at local level policymaking at the hands of the CCP’s UFWD. Another big change after the 2018 absorption of SEAC to UFWD, was that a Han Chinese was named director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission for the first time since 1954. These reforms, especially as undertaken by Xi, indicate that China today is indulging in an assimilation policy through propaganda by bureaucratic means. Both UFWD and SEAC, have ideological differences in their implementation of ethnic policy.  It can be referred to as ‘Zonghua identity’ vs ‘Ethnic identity,’ where UFWD favors national unity over ethnic diversity and enhances the CCP’s control and leadership over non-CCP members in ethnic minority areas. This was not the case with SEAC, which is mandated to protect autonomous rights and promote the interests of ethnic minority populations.

Conclusion

On 22nd July 2022 The People’s Daily ran a report on the role of the United Front Work Department (UFWD) in promoting the ‘Sinicization’ of religion in China. This report further substantiated that establishing the control of CCP was important rather than protecting ethnic diversity. In his speech at the Tanner Lecture, Professor Fei Xiaotong proposed a framework of “a pluralist-unity structure of the Chinese nation.” This was adhered to in the 3 pillars of ethnic policy in 1947, and soon SEAC was established which was to implement such policies. But the vision of ‘pluralism’ is being eroded and is being replaced by a much darker notion of ‘Han chauvinism.’ National unity is the ultimate pursuit of the CCP, thus the importance of UFWD has attained even more prominence under Xi. The mission of UFWD eventually is to strengthen CCP leadership and co-opt the ethnic minorities into the so-called ‘Grand Chinese nation.’

Anirudh Krishnan is affiliated to the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India.