SJS5-The Roots of China's Ethnic Conflicts

SJS5-The Roots of China's Ethnic Conflicts

Source: Sun, Yan. "The Roots of China's Ethnic Conflicts." Current History, vol. 113, no. 764, Sept. 2014, pp. 231-37.

Author: Yan Sun works at the City University of New York as a professor of political science. Her studies focus mainly on the domestic, political, and ethnic politics of China. She has written two books about corruption and socialism in China and she has been published in many scholarly journals as well. 

Summary: China is undergoing many ethnic tensions and clashes which is a result of a combination of sticks and carrots, sticks being limited autonomy and carrots being excessive ethnic prerogatives in this case. Xinjiang is a secular state, yet the revival of private madrassas led to exceedingly violent backlashes and restrictions. Wahhabism spread in Xinjiang and resulted in stricter government religious policies because of the violence that came along with the new religion. The frustrations emerging in the Uighur society also escalated into one of the worst ethnic rioting in the history of the People's Republic of China with 197 people dead. Issues in the economy and migration also resulted in many violent clashes between groups of people. However, there are promising signs that the violence is dwindling; China is beginning to understand the basis of their ethnic problems and the flaws in their ethnic policies. Policies are now being made or amended in China to create interethnic peace and equality in minority and majority groups.

Analysis: Yan Sun did a great job explaining the various types of violent clashes within China in an organized fashion. She begins the article with background information and presents questions that she will address throughout the rest of the piece. She then breaks down each backlash into categories and gives thorough information about individual topics. Sun stays consistently unbiased throughout the piece, though she sometimes favors the side of China and shows it as the group that deserves the most sympathy.