This week on Sinica, in a show recorded at the University of Pittsburgh, I speak with Benno Weiner, Associate Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University, about how China's policy toward its minority nationalities (or minzu) have shifted from their older, Soviet-inspired form to the policies of assimilation we now see.

2:29 – How the so-called second-generation minzu policy evolved, and its shift away from the first-generation policy

17:15 – China’s language policy, comparisons to other historical cases, and the difficulty in striking a balance between language autonomy and the state interest of economic equality

25:26 – Debating the assumption of Uyghur forced labor 

28:20 – How the minzu policy shift is driven by economic and political stability concerns 

30:07 – The limited ability of minzus to make themselves heard

32:01 – The difficulty of advocacy in the face of accusations of U.S. hypocrisy 

37:30 – Han guilt as a galvanizing idea 

40:21 – Whether the shift in minzu policy is reversible, and the effect of external pressure 

43:46 – Why Xinjiang has received greater global attention than other places 

45:50 – How future historians may view minzu policy under Xi Jinping

Paying It Forward: Guldana Salimjan, at the University of Toronto 

Recommendations:

Benno: The Red Wind Howls by Tsering Döndrup, translated by Christopher Peacock

Kaiser: The Six: The Untold Story of the Titanic’s Chinese Survivors by Steven Schwankert

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