The substance of a story I reported in April, that partly earned me a cuff on the ears by the Foreign Ministry, is slowly filling out.
It involves the large-scale relocation of Tibetan herdsmen and their families to new settlements.
The latest account comes from Xinhua, the state news agency. It says 61,899 Tibetan herdsmen will be moved by the end of this year from an ecologically vulnerable river basin in Qinghai province that is the source of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers. The province, immediately to the north of the Tibetan autonomous region, has built 35 resettlement communities, and plans to build 51 more.
By the year 2010, 100,000 herdsmen and their families will have been moved, the report says, adding:
“To move the herdsmen from pasture lands they have inhabited for generations is not easy,” said Deni, head of a community in Darlag County of Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Golog. “But due to erosion and desertification, more and more people are realizing the benefits of resettling.”
“The government has done a lot to persuade those who are truly reluctant to move. The relocation is in line with the will of the herdsmen, not by force,” he said, noting many herdsmen felt easier after seeing the school, hospital, and the facilities in the community.
My earlier story said Tibet had relocated up to 10 percent of its population, around 250,000 herdsmen, into “socialist villages,” in a move to improve their living conditions but also without much real consultation or input from the herders themselves.
While Qinghai is not Tibet, it is home to a large ethnic Tibetan population.
Xinhua is doing its utmost to present the herder relocations as voluntary. Here is an earlier story, dated June 20, that also carries a denial that any of the relocations are forced or under pressure. Is this true? Many of these nomads have been living for centuries as roaming herders. So the relocations are not only a physical move but also a dramatic change in lifestyle for them. This BBC story raises some of these questions.
PRC should have a lot to learn from US history in matters like this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Removal
Keith
Posted by: KeithTan | October 03, 2007 at 01:59 AM
If this is such a positive thing, then why did Tim get a "la er duo" from Beijing? The Han have been at this game long before the US existed, this is nothing new. This is also happening in E. Turkestan as Uyghurs are "encouraged" to find jobs outside of their native homeland to dilute and thus pacify the population.
http://www.kansascity.com/158/story/96790.html
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 03, 2007 at 03:44 AM
La er duo? Nh, seriously, have you really been to the PRC? Is that supposed to be Chinese or does it sound like Chinese to you?
What? Uighurs are being encouraged to find jobs outside Xinjiang? Really? How come I don't see that many Uighurs outside Xinjiang? In terms of the number of Uighurs in Xinjiang in the past 10 years or so, do we see a positive (increase) or negative (decrease) change?
Today, most Native Americans speak English while most Tibetans, Uighurs speak Tibetan or Uighur. That's a testament to the PRC's inability to learn from the Americans in terms of "voluntary assimilation". Shame on the PRC.
Posted by: Pffefer | October 03, 2007 at 04:00 PM
Tim is on pretty firm ground here.
Human Rights Watch published a 79-page long report on forced resettlement recently:
http://china.hrw.org/press/news_release/china_tibetan_herders_livelihood_in_jeopardy
Excerpt:
"It is clear that the government faces serious environmental problems in western China, and that poverty remains significantly higher in that region. But the causes of these problems and the validity of official measures taken to address them remain highly questionable, such as the government’s enthusiasm for large infrastructure development projects in areas supposedly in need of environmental protection. A study in 2006 by Chinese scholars concluded that, “If we cannot find an effective method for solving these problems, then the disputes over grassland brought by the worsening of the environment may redouble, and could severely influence the social and political stability of Qinghai and even of the entire Northwest regions.”
I fail to see why the genocide of other people (including American indians) is an argument for continuing rather than stopping these practices.
Posted by: Icepick | October 03, 2007 at 07:20 PM
"I fail to see why the genocide of other people (including American indians) is an argument for continuing rather than stopping these practices"
Because Beijing likes to use others' past wrongs to justify its current wrongs as "steps in development".
pfeffer, you are unaware of "ear pulling" and its implications? You are truly the old man in the bar. Do Tim's blog a favor and exit stage right.
And Tibetans and Uyghurs are taught mandarin in school, they can only learn their native language from their parents.
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 03, 2007 at 07:24 PM
China is forcibly re-locating Tibetan nomads off their traditional land w/o adequate compensation & w/o giving them the skills to live w/o being herdsmen, as they & their forefathers have done for generations? China says it's for their own good. The Nazis said re-locating Jews to camps were for their own good. The Serbs said re-locating Muslims out of Bosnia were for their own good. It's just the people being re-located never agree.
Posted by: Wangchuk | October 04, 2007 at 10:53 AM
Past wrongs? What is the US government doing to preserve the Native American cultures other than rounding them up and putting them into the so-called reservations?
Nh, don't keep embarrassing yourself and do yourself a favor: Go ask the Chinese, I mean those Chinese in your local Chinatown if "La Er Duo" means anything to them. Boy, your Chinese really sucks.
If every Tibetan and Uighur is learning only Mandarin, how come most of them don't speak Mandarin?
Posted by: Pffefer | October 04, 2007 at 04:47 PM
pfeffer:
Since don't you pay attention to much, you probably don't know that Native American tribes have state level status in the eyes of the federal gov't. That includes interstate commerce, regulating land use, taxes, etc.
As for "ear pulling", apparently you don't understand it can mean control or punishment. Get out from behind the bar.
Tibetan and Uyghur may learn Mandarin in school, but use their native language everyday, like learning a foreign language in school and mandarin is a foreign language to them.
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 04, 2007 at 11:37 PM
Nh, I asked "what is the US government doing to preserve the Native American CULTURES"? Giveingthem tax breaks etc. preserves their cultures?
Pulling one's (children', actually) ears is no serious punishment at all and please, the Chinese don't call that "La Er Duo", that's your "Englese". It's called "Jiu Er Duo". Kiddo, you seriously need to "good good study, day day up".
Chinese middle school and high school kids don't speak English because English is taught as a subject, along with Chinese, math, history etc, it is just a small part of their curriculum. If the Tibetans and Uighurs are forced to learn Mandarin and everything is taught in Mandarin (math, physics etc.)only, they would have mastered the language already. The fact that most Tibetans and Uighurs, young and old, don't speak any Mandarin at all is worth a thousand words.
Posted by: Pffefer | October 06, 2007 at 01:16 PM
"Nh, I asked "what is the US government doing to preserve the Native American CULTURES"? Giveingthem tax breaks etc. preserves their cultures?"
The natives have their land, money, autonomy and they have kept their language over the past 300 years. As part of state-level autonomy they also get to set up their OWN SCHOOL SYSTEMS.
Most Tibetans are Uyghurs are also shephards with minimal schooling at home, thus the lack of mandarin.
"Pulling one's (children', actually) ears "
There is also ear-pulling between adults. Study more good betterer, pfeffer.
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 06, 2007 at 01:44 PM
Native American school systems? Are lessons taught in English or Native American languages?
Most Tibetans and Uighurs don't speak Mandarin because they don't go to school? OK, most Korean Chinese (chosunjok) go to school, almost everybody, yet the overwhelming majority of Chosunjok speak Korean. Why?
Maybe you can show us a picture of an adult's ears being pulled?
This is China, man, not Chinatown, USA or Fu Manchu's "China".
Posted by: Pffefer | October 06, 2007 at 02:29 PM
In the USA most Native Americans can no longer speak anything but English. They have their own laws, their own governments, local tax systems, schools and so forth, and are independent political entities somewhat akin to states. But if they wanted to, they could introduce classes in their native tongue (as some have), provided it does not mean sub-par education, without interference from the federal government.
I have to add a qualifier to Pffefer's last post. A good friend of mine is a Korean-American with relatives in China, and from what they say, almost all young Korean-Chinese (in their 30s, 20s and down) living in NE China exclusively speak Mandarin.
When she visited her relatives in China she was surprised that she, a Korean-American, spoke better Korean than they did. She instead spoke to them in English. From what they told her, Korean-Chinese are taught Mandarin in school, and are discouraged from speaking Korean, especially in public functions (even when the audience is Korean-Chinese). The official line of course, is different.
Posted by: youhanguopengyou | October 06, 2007 at 09:36 PM
"From what they told her, Korean-Chinese are taught Mandarin in school, and are discouraged from speaking Korean, especially in public functions (even when the audience is Korean-Chinese)."
Could not be further from the truth. Read the following piece from the prominent Russian Korea scholar Andrei Lankov:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IH16Ad01.html
Posted by: Pffefer | October 07, 2007 at 01:38 PM
pfeffer:
The title of your academic source says it all, and apparently you didn't read page two of the article. It seems you don't really get into things in-depth, do you?
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 07, 2007 at 03:40 PM
It's so painful what I read here.
Even if I knew it, having spent a semester last year on that huge grazeland that is the plateau, even if I have seen the less yak at pasture, the less ba (black tents) the less horses.
My heart is bleeding as I know how tibetans cannot deal with chinese customs and habits. They will lose their culture, totally, dying on the borders of the deserted highways inside the uglyest cement barracks or riding cheap motorbikes very often after got drunk and desperate.
Posted by: Alexandra Steiglitz | October 08, 2007 at 10:03 AM
From page two:
"Local Korean schools are being closed for the lack of students, and Korean parents are increasingly unwilling to send their children to the ethnic schools. Until a decade ago, more or less every Korean family chose to educate their children at a Korean school, but this is not the case anymore. The number of children enrolled in Korean schools in 2000 was merely 45.2% of the 1996 level. In the 1990-2000 period, 4,200 Korean teachers, or some 53% of the total, left their jobs because of school closures. This does not mean Koreans are more poorly educated - on the contrary, the past two decades have witnessed a great education boom. But their education is increasingly conducted in Mandarin, not Korean.
Contrary to what many China-bashers want to believe, this process is not a result of some deliberate discrimination or the cunning policies of Beijing. No doubt some Chinese policy planners might feel a bit of relief when they see how a potentially "separatist" area is losing its explosive potential, but it seems they have done nothing to speed up such development. Rather, Koreans are becoming the victims of their own social success.
In the past, the aspirations of the average ethnic Korean was to graduate from a high school, settle down in his or her local village, and become a good farmer who could afford to have rice on the table for every meal. Now, success is increasingly associated with a university degree. However, the university education is in Mandarin, as are the entrance exams. Korean parents know that Chinese-language schooling gives their children better educational advantages.
This process is easy to see even without statistics. It is clear that a large proportion of younger people speak Korean, but it is also clear that many youngsters do not feel too comfortable when communicating in their parents' tongue, and are happy to switch back to Mandarin at the first opportunity. It was instructive to see two Korean families who sat next to me on a train: the youngsters, in their 20s, spoke Korean to the parents but preferred Mandarin among themselves. "
What about it? Compared to ethnic Koreans in Russia who took Russian names, who hardly speak Korean and Native Americans in the US (Glenn Marshal anybody?), the Chosunjok are not bad at all.
Posted by: Pffefer | October 08, 2007 at 04:49 PM
Pffefer, no where did I write of some government conspiracy to subjugate the Koreans or "sinify" them.
You, with your knee-jerk anti-Western, China is automatically right reaction, filled in the rest of the story with your hogwash. It seems that you do that quite often, you simply fill in the rest of the story to suit your agenda.
My friend's Korean-Chinese relatives live in Beijing, although they have relatives who live in Heilongjiang. They attend a school where they are a minority, and are not allowed to speak Korean. They hide their ethnicity from other students because others make fun of them, and they get no help from the administration. This problem of racism isn't unique to China, but since this is a China-related site, it bears mentioning.
They feel that it is not useful to speak or learn to speak Korean, even as a second-language. According to them, they are NOT allowed to speak it at their regular school (in Beijing), let alone acknowledge that they are ethnic Korean, due to the prejudice they face. For them not learning Korean is a complex issue; learning Mandarin is far more important, but issues such as racism, but overt and subtle, factor into the equation.
Of course I expect you to now follow my post with a "relevant" comparison to Native American genocide in the 18th century, Russian ethnic cleansing in the 20th century, or America's imperial ambitions in the 19th century, or a comparison to racism in some other place, in some other time, entirely unrelated to China, in this, a blog about China.
Posted by: youhanguopengyou | October 08, 2007 at 09:56 PM
Incidentally, Golog has been an ethnically Tibetan area for a long, long time. Qinghai is what outsiders started calling it recently. From what I hear, very few Chinese have moved into that region so far. Basically, it really is part of Tibet.
Posted by: Otto Kerner | October 08, 2007 at 11:11 PM
Otto, you are exactly right, what is now central China all the way to Xian was Tibetan territory. Chinese dynasties used to defend Tibet against Mongols, Turks, etc due to religious ties to Tibet, then just assumed Tibetan territory under heavenly mandate.
Pfeffer, you left out the previous paragraphs:
. These people were usually attracted by the opportunities to do business without dealing with a language barrier, but some of them began to preach the nationalist gospel as well. Their work was made much easier by the fact that South Korea came to be seen not as a land of destitution but one of prosperity and opportunity. South Korean nationalists love to
stress that the lands of Yanbian once were part of the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo that lasted 700 years, from 57 BC to AD 668. Koguryo is presented by them - as well as many other Koreans outside of the area - as the most successful of the three ancient Korean kingdoms.
Therefore, Chinese authorities are on guard against this nationalist fervor and ensure that a Korean-language education does not mean an education in the spirit of Korean nationalism. At the Korean schools, children study exactly the same curriculum as their peers in the Chinese-language schools. Their textbooks are exact translations of the Chinese textbooks used at the same levels.
"We are a minority group of China, China is our country, so there is no need to study Korean history or literature," one ethnic Korean told me. "When they teach national history at our schools, it means the history of China, and China only."
As a result of this policy, the younger generations of Koreans are increasingly out of touch with their Korean heritage. Ko Kyong-su, a professor at Yanbian university, himself an ethnic Korean, remarked: "Nowadays, the Korean youngsters here do not learn about Ch'unhyang and Hong Kil-dong [characters from Korean classical novels] until they enter college, and only then if they chose to specialize in Korean studies."
To what extent does this dualistic policy of support and restrictions work? This is a somewhat difficult question, but it seems that the overwhelming majority of the local Koreans indeed see themselves as "hyphenated Chinese", not as proud overseas citizens of either Korean state. Their loyalties are, in most cases, firmly with Beijing.
Still, it is clear that the ongoing nationalist propaganda produces some response. A number of times my Korean conversation partners inquired whether I had seen the Koguryo remains, and once a woman in her early 30s, a fellow traveler on a train from Yanji to Shenyang, said nostalgically, "Two thousand years ago this used to be Korean land. We were so big then!"
This is not exactly a feeling that Chinese authorities would like to nurture, so it comes as no surprise that in official publications, Koguryo is mentioned as a "minority regime" that once existed as a part of multi-ethnic but unified Chinese nation. This nation, according to Beijing propagandists and court historians, existed since time immemorial.
In spite of all those problems and potential challenges, until recently Yanbian prefecture could be seen as a poster case for China's "nationality politics". Indeed, unlike the situation in Russia, Japan or the United States - three other major countries with sizable ethnic-Korean communities - the Korean-Chinese have remained fluent in their ancestors' language, though they overwhelmingly belong to the third or even fourth generation of immigrants. They are also quite socially successful. If measured by such indicators as life-expectancy and infant-mortality rates, Koreans are the second-most-prosperous ethnic group in China. Their educational achievements are also well above average.
However, nowadays things are not that rosy - at least if judged from Korean nationalist perspectives. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the ethnic Korean population of Yanbian began to shrink, with its share dropping to 36.3% in 2000 (from 60.2% in 1953), and is still falling.
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 08, 2007 at 11:43 PM
Otto, Qinghai is beeing invaded by low cost workers coming from afar. The harsh conditions have limited the Han immigration until yesterday but the benefits given by the Gov have pushed the poor chinese to leave their families in the lowlands to reach the 4.000/5.000mt height of the plateau.
China is building roads up there and not only roads.
Posted by: Alexandra Steiglitz | October 09, 2007 at 02:02 PM
Nh, do you have no shame?
"You, with your knee-jerk anti-Western, China is automatically right reaction, filled in the rest of the story with your hogwash. It seems that you do that quite often, you simply fill in the rest of the story to suit your agenda."
Replace "western" with "China" and you will find that this paragraph actually depicts you really well. Despite your hatred toward China and everything Chinese, yet you are refusing to leave and shamelessly asking others to boycott China. How pathetic is that?
"My friend's Korean-Chinese relatives live in Beijing, although they have relatives who live in Heilongjiang. They attend a school where they are a minority, and are not allowed to speak Korean. They hide their ethnicity from other students because others make fun of them, and they get no help from the administration. This problem of racism isn't unique to China, but since this is a China-related site, it bears mentioning.
They feel that it is not useful to speak or learn to speak Korean, even as a second-language. According to them, they are NOT allowed to speak it at their regular school (in Beijing), let alone acknowledge that they are ethnic Korean, due to the prejudice they face. For them not learning Korean is a complex issue; learning Mandarin is far more important, but issues such as racism, but overt and subtle, factor into the equation."
What school is it? I find it extremely hard to believe that people are not allowed to speak a language that they prefer. Of course, if you are in a Mandarin-speaking school, you are not allowed to speak anything but Mandarin during class, isn't that natural? During breaks you should be able to speak whatever language you want, and however you want.
Of course there is discrimination and racism in China. But I don’t think this is racism though: It is practical to learn to speak Mandarin in this case to get ahead, just like you need to learn English in the US if you want to land a decent job and career. There is nothing wrong with it.
Posted by: Pffefer | October 09, 2007 at 04:28 PM
Otto, what is your defintion of "Chinese", may I ask?
Posted by: Pffefer | October 09, 2007 at 04:35 PM
pfeffer, China has repeated this pattern in much of what is now China. What do you think happened to all of those "minority groups" in southern China? They all used to be nation states with their own language, now they make trinkets.
And now that you face multi-pronged opposition I enjoy watching you flail at the wind.
"Despite your hatred toward China and everything Chinese, yet you are refusing to leave and shamelessly asking others to boycott China. How pathetic is that?"
Who said hatred? Shanghaiist will reveal more of my master plan soon enough, just had a little interview with them. I will stay and rally for the cause and there is nothing your old barfly butt can do about it. Now go chew on some sunflower seeds.
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 10, 2007 at 01:14 AM
If you are CIA, I can't understand why all of a sudden you guys decided to Iraqify China, because that IS what you're proposing. Oh, all of a sudden I do. Russia is working against its demographic decline, but just doesn't have the culture to fix its birthrate. Europe is in demographic decline, and the Muslim world in West Asia is a sideshow, a massive distraction. India has a similar political system and a similar ideological system, thus being pliable. Basically, if you iraqify China, it's Pax Americana for another century. And really, is that so much of a bad thing?
A multipolar world is not completely desirable. Nations and states will be forever jockeying for power, and gunshots will be fired in anger. In an increasingly nuclear world, this is a really bad thing. Besides, for the countries closest to the center, life is really not all that bad. With the upper three quartiles, life is fairly decent, especially when compared to the countries in the periphery.
So what arguments can I make for Chinese civilization? For myself, the country of my parents is enough. The musical voices that accompanied my infancy is enough. A Chinese tragedy on one of Murdoch's television channels is moving enough. But what can I say to you, who has nothing of these sensitivities?
Posted by: Inst | October 10, 2007 at 05:22 AM
And what argument can I make against Chinese civilization:
5000 years and this current junkyard is all you have to show for it?
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | October 10, 2007 at 01:50 PM