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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 CHENGDU 000035 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR DRL, EAP/CM 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  2/5/2020 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV SOCI CH
SUBJECT: SW CHINA: MINORITIES DISCUSS PRC MINORITY POLICY 
 
REF: A) 09 CHENGDU 31; B) FBS20100106816009; C) CHENGDU 14; D) 09 CHENGDU 315; 
E)FBS20100203453231; F) 08 CHENGDU 55; G)08 CHENGDU 188 
 
CHENGDU 00000035  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: David E. Brown, Consul General, U.S. Consulate 
General Chengdu, Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
¶1. (C) Summary:  Retired Tibetan Communist leader Yangling Dorje 
and three ethnic minority professors at Chengdu's Southwest 
Nationalities University -- a Miao, a Korean, and a Tibetan -- 
recently discussed their frustrations with PRC minority policy 
in two separate meetings with Congen Chengdu.  An ethnic Miao 
anthropologist said that the 56 nationalities of China were 
defined based on both PRC politics and ethnic research; the 
dominant Han ethnic group is a modern nationalist 19th century 
creation.  An ethnic Korean professor deplored the depiction of 
support to minority areas as assistance -- the PRC is sixty 
years old and heretofore most money has been invested in Han 
areas.  Prominent retired Tibetan official Yangling Dorje 
discussed with Consul General serious problems in the 
implementation of Communist Party policies in Tibetan areas of 
China.  Some officials who are not patriotic or are mostly 
concerned with their own interests are too quick to suppress 
honest criticisms and so make ethnic relations much worse, he 
said.  Comparing the perspectives of Chinese minorities helps 
put into focus two problems that they share: Han ethnic 
chauvinism and the arbitrary exercise of official power.  End 
Summary. 
 
 
 
Three Professors Discuss PRC Minorities Policy 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
 
 
¶2. (SBU) Three ethnic minority professors (two of them vice 
deans) from Chengdu's Southwest Minorities University, a Miao 
(Hmong,) a Korean, and a Tibetan, critiqued Chinese minorities 
policy in a discussion with a Chinese businessman and Congenoff 
at a Chengdu restaurant.  The professors explained that their 
university is directly under the Department of Ethnic and 
Religious Affairs, unlike the Western Nationalities University 
near Xi'an, which is under the government of the Tibetan 
Autonomous Region.  (Note: The Chinese term "minzu" can be 
translated as nationality or ethnicity.  However, since the 
definition of minzu in China depends on an uncertain mix of 
politics and ethnic backgrounds, some foreign scholars prefer to 
simply transliterate the Chinese term.  The number of minzu is 
set at the arbitrary number of 56.  Some scholars say this 
divides some groups and clumps together others.  For example, 
the 12 distinct native peoples of Taiwan, who are collectively 
deemed to be the Taiwan Mountain People minzu.  End Note.) 
 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) The three professors found much common ground, seeing 
-- over the 60 years of the PRC -- Han chauvinism, systemic 
neglect of minority issues, and much greater public investment 
in majority Han areas than in the minority areas that constitute 
more than half of the country's territory.  The professors noted 
that many people have difficulty distinguishing China from the 
dominant Han ethnicity; this was particularly true during the 
rule of President Jiang Zemin, who promoted the idea of a common 
all-encompassing Zhonghua minzu -- "China ethnic group." 
 
 
 
¶4. (C) The Korean professor said that the trumpeting of aid to 
minority areas is all wrong -- it is only right to invest in 
these areas, it shouldn't be made out to be a gift to minority 
people.  He wondered what could be the relationship of 
minorities to the government when they send "troops to occupy 
our areas."  The most outspoken of the three, he noted a great 
change in the mentalities of students they have seen, with 
students born in the 1990s being quite different from those born 
in the 1980s. [Note: Chinese often comment on the 80's 
generation and the 90's generation and how these generations 
both differ in being more assertive and thinking more 
independently than people born during the extreme repression of 
pre-1978 China. End note] He hopes that this mentality change in 
the general population will carry over into the Chinese 
leadership as new generations rise to the leadership of the 
Chinese Communist Party.  The Korean professor hoped that one 
day China could be a federation of highly autonomous provinces, 
each "like Hong Kong." 
 
 
 
¶5. (SBU) The Miao professor, who is both an anthropology 
professor and vice dean, noted that the "Han" ethnicity is a 
recent conception that arose in the late 19th century to rally 
opposition to the Manchu led Qing Dynasty.  He recommended an 
article by a Taiwan academic at Taipei's Academica Sinica on 
this subject.  (Note: The Miao professor told Congenoff on 
another occasion that he was frustrated by cultural erosion 
 
CHENGDU 00000035  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
caused by the control of Miao culture by outsiders, specifically 
by changes in the nature and timing of traditional festivals for 
the sake of tourism development.  See Ref A.  End Note.) 
 
 
 
Group Rights vs. Individual Rights 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) The three academics asked Congenoff to discuss U.S. 
minorities policy.  Congenoff discussed the Civil Rights 
movement in which groups of people struggled to realize their 
individual rights, as well as the special legal status of 
American Indians, which involved group rights based on 
unextinguished tribal sovereignty and treaties between Indian 
tribes and the USG.  The academics were intrigued with the two 
different approaches to minority rights -- individual-rights 
based and group-rights based.  They speculated that an 
individual-rights-based approach might be more successful than 
the current group-rights-based system in protecting the legal 
rights of minority people in China today. 
 
 
 
Sichuan Tibetologists Criticize PRC Nationalities Policy 
 
--------------------------------------------- ----------- 
 
 
 
¶7. (U) Yangling Dorje, an ethnic Tibetan who had been vice 
governor of both the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Sichuan 
Province, was among many academics who severely criticized 
government policy at a December 19, 2009 meeting of the Sichuan 
Tibetology Research Society (Ref B).  Dorje argued that the 
government policy of separating politics and religion from 
education and health care (enshrined in a slogan called the 
"Three Separations") is seriously mistaken and unworkable. 
Monks and nuns are citizens of China and they have political 
rights, he said.  Telling them to stay out of politics is to say 
that it is wrong for them to exercise their political rights. 
Monasteries have historically been the centers of Tibetan 
education and health care: to try to keep them out of these 
areas is to completely misunderstand Tibetan culture, he argued. 
 
 
 
 
¶8. (U) Dorje added that all monasteries should not be condemned 
because some monks support separatism, any more than a Chinese 
city should shut down the entire transportation department 
because a certain official takes bribes. 
 
 
 
Dorje: Proper Implementation is the Key 
 
-------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶9. (SBU) In a meeting with Consul General (septel) on February 
3, Dorje said that while the Communist Party has a wise general 
policy, but the details and the implementation are sometimes 
poor.  He said that well meaning disagreements with officials 
should be resolved in a friendly and cooperative manner while 
enemies of the people are to be suppressed under China's system 
of the people's democratic dictatorship.  While Hu Jintao is 
well meaning, some of the people under him are affected by their 
personal or group interests.  Some are not patriotic enough or 
do not think enough about the interests of all the people.  He 
mentioned that the local government in Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan 
had closed down a school run by a monastery to the great 
unhappiness of local people under the "Three Separates" policy 
(which includes separation of religion from education and 
medical care).  Dorje said he had intervened with the Sichuan 
Province Communist Party Committee, and the school was 
eventually re-opened. 
 
 
 
¶10. (SBU) The Fifth Working Conference convened by China's top 
leaders in January called for a greater stress on improving 
living conditions of Tibetans and reducing the gaps in 
investment between the different Tibetan areas.  Dorje said 
implementation of the conclusions of the Fifth Working 
Conference will be key.  If the guidelines of the recent 
three-day Fifth Working Conference on Tibet were implemented, 
 
CHENGDU 00000035  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
this would be the most important event for Tibetans since the 
month-long Second Working Conference on Tibet convened by Hu 
Yaobang in the mid-1980s, he felt.  Dorje added that the Tibet 
Working Conference focused on the Tibetan Autonomous Region 
(TAR), not Tibetan areas of China generally.  (Note: The TAR is 
referred to as "Xizang" in Chinese, often translated in PRC 
publications as simply Tibet, while another word, "Zangqu" 
refers to all ethnic Tibetan areas of China.  End Note.)  While 
the Tibet Working Conference continued to focus on the TAR, the 
issue of other Tibetan areas came up because the gap in 
development between the TAR and the other Tibetan areas has 
become too large.  80 years old and retired, Dorje did not 
attend the conference, but has many contacts who did.  (Note: 
Refs B and C contain similar critiques of PRC Tibetan policy by 
an ethnic Tibetan academic, which appeared as conference notes 
on a Chinese language Tibetan culture website in Gansu Province. 
 End Note.) 
 
 
 
PRC Press Carries Yangling Dorje's Praise for Party Policy 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------- 
 
 
 
¶11. (SBU)  In January an article appeared in the PRC press in 
which Yangling Dorje is quoted as giving high praising to PRC 
policy in minority areas.  (Comment: Apparently another serious 
misrepresentation by the TAR Party propaganda department, which 
also made a false report on Chengdu CG's visit with the TAR Vice 
Governor in October 2009.  See ref D.  End Comment.) 
 
 
 
Comment: PRC Minorities Share Many Dissatisfactions 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
 
 
¶12. (C) The discussion with the professors illustrates the point 
that PRC minorities have many of the same grievances.  For 
example, compare what well-known Uighur professor Ilham Tohti of 
the Central Minorities University in Beijing says about Uighur 
grievances and the complaints of other minorities.  Uighur 
grievances are at bottom much like those of Tibetans.  What 
Tibetan intellectuals discuss is very similar to Ilham Tohti's 
discussion of Uighur complaints: problems of the Tibetan areas 
of China: language, education, getting respect from the dominant 
ethnic Han, and getting a decent job in competition with 
migrants from the outside (Ref E).  They are all there. 
 
 
 
¶13. (C) Racism is the elephant in the room.  In China, the group 
marker isn't color, but rather ethnic identity and culture, and 
it is much easier to "pass" as a member of the dominant group in 
China than in a country where color is the group marker. 
Nonetheless, the assertions of inferiority and superiority based 
on these group markers are also strong.  Although Mao Zedong in 
his writings sometimes decried Han chauvinism, very few 
non-minority Chinese today see this systemic problem.  Instead, 
they blame minority dissatisfactions and protests on the evil 
plots of "outside agitators" who are disturbing otherwise happy 
and content minority peoples.  Academics at the Sichuan 
Tibetology Conference made brave critiques of the problems that 
PRC policy and Han attitudes towards minorities are creating. 
Preferring to ignore how policy failures have frustrated 
minority people, Chinese officials don't like to hear Mao 
Zedong's dictum "A single spark can light a prairie fire" in 
this context as an explanation for outbursts of anger by 
Tibetans and other minorities(Ref F and G). 
BROWN