Derbyshire: Give Uighurs a country

[Azrael]

[Torchwood]

10 million of them against 1.4 billion violently nationalistic Han, unconstrained by any inhibitions about how they treat colonial subjects?

Sorry, long odds.

[Tinker]

[Torchwood]

[AzariLoveIran]

[Ibrahim]

The modern policy towards these ethnic minorities is to protect and promote them, and trot them out for exhibits and specials on Chinese diversity. The ability of these groups (Uighurs, Miao, Hakka, Inner Mongolians, etc) to gain or maintain any kind of independence has been made completely impossible by previous generations of Han immigration into their traditional territories. So the only concern now is keeping them relatively quiet and retaining some scraps of their identity for anthropological or marketing reasons. All in all this is more humane treatment than many subsumed or conquered ethnic group have received (e.g. Native Americans, African pagans).

The exception here is Tibet, which has enough of a coherent identity to still make nationalism plausible, though this too may pass in a generation or two. The eventual death of the present (and very charismatic) Dalai Lama will be a massive blow, and Han immigration and modernization continues.


The attitudes of the average Han Chinese towards all of these minority groups is extremely racist, based on my own observations of the treatment of Uighur and Tibetan migrants in major Cantonese cities. In this case the government has a much more civilized policy than the average Chinese citizen would vote for (if they could vote).

[Ibrahim]

One more anecdotal note to that: %100 of the people I've talked to or read books or articles by who have spent time among the Uighurs say they are the nicest people in the world, bar none.

[Azrael]

I hope that the Chicoms and/or Han Chinese racists don't destroy evidence of pre-Han settlement of Uighurstan. I bet some have considered it.

I've personally experienced Han racism. My uncle married a woman whose parents were from China. His father in law was quite racist. I love my aunt and my cousins, but that old racist made my skin crawl. It turned my stomach that people said hardly a word about him, however he behaved. Very politically correct, and cowardly.