Racism, religion and governmentality in China the Muslim rebellion in the 19th century Yuehua Dong Field of study: Religion in Peace and Conflict Level: Master Credits: 30 credits Thesis Defense: Spring 2016 Supervisor: Mattias Gardell Department of Theology Uppsala University 1 Abstract: This thesis consists of historical narratives on Muslim rebellion (1864-1877) in Xinjiang together with several parts of theoretical applications on racial-culturalism, nationalism, governmentality and further discussion on colonialism in the 19th century of China. By taking this 14 years’ historical event as a prototype, with analysis on historical archives, thesis has explored lots of issues which reflect ethnic conflicts on religion, racial-culturalism and governmentality on Xinjiang. With discourse analysis as leading method in analyzing original archives, this thesis depicts racial notions as “shengfan (raw barbarian)”, “shufan (cooked barbarian)” as core opinions in rulers’ political colonial view, hence formed Chinese unification and national identity and even influenced on governmentality in Xinjiang in Qing dynasty. And this vigilance of Qing rulers came from a mixed political consideration which combined islamophobia with frontier security issues. The results of the analysis indicate that there are three features from the events within the empiric materials’ analysis: there was strong evidence to present Qing rulers’ political discourse on ethnocentric view also with racial cultural superiority; the formation of Chinese nationalism was changed with enlarging territory; defects in Qing’s governmentality in Xinjiang became a blasting fuse which led to rebellion. By this researching conclusion, this paper provides more inspirations and indications on perspectives like cultural differences, Qing’s governmentality, frontier security and unification thought in rulers since ancient times. These will give more clues to understand ongoing conflict in modern China. Keyword: racial culturalism, nationalism, governmentality, ethnocentric 2 1. Background introduction and topic framing............................................................................ 5 1.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 5 1.2. Historical events as research scope .............................................................................. 5 1.2.1. Selected events in history as researching subjects ............................................. 5 1.2.2. Historical meanings of these events ..................................................................... 6 1.3. Themes of the research, questions and structure ....................................................... 8 1.3.1. Themes and meanings of the research ................................................................ 8 1.3.2. Researching questions are as below: ................................................................... 8 1.4. Relevance and potential limitation of the study ......................................................... 9 1.4.1. Relevance ............................................................................................................... 9 1.4.2. Delimitation and Theoretical frame .................................................................. 10 2. Method selection and literature review ................................................................................... 12 2.1. Methods and materials resources .............................................................................. 12 2.1.1. Discourse analysis on materials—realities of the rebellion............................. 12 2.1.2. Fictional interviews based on related figures ................................................... 12 2.2. Literature review on the previous studies................................................................. 15 3. Uprising and rebellion in Tongzhi times ................................................................................. 17 3.1. Narrating the core of events ....................................................................................... 17 3.1.1. Time to revenge—Discourse analysis on events ............................................... 17 3.1.2. Factors from China which lead to the revolt .................................................... 17 3.1.3. Situation before uprisings in Xinjiang .............................................................. 20 3.2. Discussion on interviews ............................................................................................. 24 3.2.1. Problematic situation as background ............................................................... 24 3.2.2. The uprising and rebellion ................................................................................. 25 3.2.3. Hesitation of reconquering ................................................................................. 26 4. Analysis on historical events .................................................................................................... 27 4.1. Racism and violence in China in the 19th century .................................................... 27 4.1.1. Cultural violence triangle in Xinjiang .............................................................. 27 4.1.2. Perceptions on racial issues and Qing rule ....................................................... 27 4.2. Ethnic groups’ leaders in gambling game with the royal power ............................ 30 3 4.3. Racism in administration of the Qing government .................................................. 31 4.3.1. Segregation policy in Qing rule in Xinjiang ..................................................... 31 4.3.2. Segregation on administration in Xinjiang ...................................................... 32 4.3.3. Cultural segregation—the key racial discrimination ...................................... 34 4.4. Discussion on segregation policy in Xinjiang ........................................................... 36 4.5. Nationalism and National identity ............................................................................. 39 4.5.1. The changing borders with changing Chinese national identity .................... 39 4.5.2. The concept of “China” ...................................................................................... 42 4.5.3. Discussion on Qing dynasty’s national identification ...................................... 47 4.6. Governmentality in Xinjiang in the 19th century ..................................................... 52 4.6.1. Beg system and Segregation policy in Qing rule .............................................. 52 4.6.2. Muslim state and its ruling structure--a mutant form of governmentality ... 55 4.6.3. The discussion on nationalism in governmentality .......................................... 56 4.6.4. The Qing government’s ruling structure in Xinjiang ..................................... 61 4.7. Further discussion on colonialism and nationalism in Xinjiang............................. 63 5. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................. 67 4 1. Background introduction and topic framing 1.1. Introduction Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region in the northwest of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and shares borders with eight countries. It is also bordered, to the south, by Tibet. It is a home to a number of ethnic groups including the Uyghur, Han, Kazakhs, Tajiks, Hui, Kyrgyz, and Mongols. More than a dozen autonomous prefectures and counties for minorities are in Xinjiang. It has a documented history of at least 2,500 years and with a succession of peoples (tribes) and empires has taken control over all or parts of this territory. Several civilizations of Asia came across here and left long-lasting marks on the history of this area. Hence these brought a variety of changes on politics, social patterns, and cultures to this region. Before the 21st century, all or part of the region has been ruled or controlled by various states. The Chinese part of central Asia, that is the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous region, is divided into two unequal parts by Tianshan range: eastern Xinjiang which is mostly desert; and Zhungharia1, which is a grassland steppe in the plains and mountain valleys. Around the mid-19th century, there were only one to two million people lived in this region2. 1.2. Historical events as research scope 1.2.1. Selected events in history as researching subjects After careful observations and considerations, I decide to build up my thesis’s study with scope on an earlier historical period in the 19th century, basically from 1864-1877, the events I select to researching theme are: The Muslim rebellion (1864-1877) in northwest of China and Qing government’s reconquest of Xinjiang (1876–1878). This special period started with an enormous political upheaval that quickly swept the whole 1 Note: also can be spelled as “Zungharia” 2 Note: Under the Qing Dynasty China, its territory covered 10 per cent of the Earth’s land area and became one of the largest empires in history. (Map resource: https://year9historyjoestewart.wordpress.com/2014/09/12/the-physical-features-and- geographic/) 5 Xinjiang in 1864. And this revolt led to the establishment of an independent Muslim state ruled by Yaqub Beg3. This independent state ended up with Yaqub Beg’s death and the Qing government's conquest in 1877. This state