ACCOMMODATION, ASSIMILATION, and REGIME LEGITIMACY: the CCP POLICIES TOWARD ITS MINORITIES SINCE 1949 by JUN TAEK KWON (Under Th
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ACCOMMODATION, ASSIMILATION, AND REGIME LEGITIMACY: THE CCP POLICIES TOWARD ITS MINORITIES SINCE 1949 by JUN TAEK KWON (Under the Direction of Han S. Park) ABSTRACT This study intends to explore a fundamental question about the relationship between the state and minority nationalities by studying the Chinese case: national integration. This study documents the evolution of the minority policies of China since 1949. What it observes is that minority policies in China has alternated between accommodation and assimilation aimed at achieving the goal of national integration. This study proposes regime legitimacy as an independent variable in an effort to provide a convincing explanation to the question of the minority policy alternation. As the paradigm of political development advanced by Han S. Park proposes, political development of China can be examined by being broken into three stages: regime formation (1949-1957), political integration (1958-1976), and resource expansion (1978 to the present). The basis of regime legitimacy in China subsequently has shifted as the political system undergoes a transition through these three stages: performance basis (1949-1957), ideology basis (1958-1976), and the return of performance basis (1978 to the present). Based on the above observation, this study concludes that the CCP’s minority policies have evolved within the larger context of political development that has taken place in the last six decades. And more specifically, the CCP’s minority policies have been directly linked to its strategies to establish and cultivate regime legitimacy. When performance basis is predominantly pursued to generate regime legitimacy, national differences are accommodated. When an ideology basis is massively utilized to cultivate regime legitimacy, the CCP radically promotes assimilation of minorities into the majority for national convergence. INDEX WORDS: Ethnic Minority, Accommodation, Assimilation, Integration, Performance-based Legitimacy, Ideology-based Legitimacy ACCOMMODATION, ASSIMILATION, AND REGIME LEGITIMACY: THE CCP POLICIES TOWARD ITS MINORITIES SINCE 1949 by JUN TAEK KWON FORB, Chungbuk National University, Korea, 1995 M.A., Cornell University, 2004 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2011 © 2011 JUN TAEK KWON All Rights Reserved ACCOMMADATION, ASSIMILATION, AND REGIME LEGITIMACY: THE CCP POLICIES TOWARD ITS MINORITIES SINCE 1949 by JUN TAEK KWON Major Professor: Han S. Park Committee: Paul-Henri Gurian Brock Tessman Douglas Stinnett Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2011 DEDICATION To my parents iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my appreciation to my major professor, Dr. Han Park for his unequaled guidance and support, and to the rest of my committee, Dr. Paul-Henri Gurian, Dr. Brock Tessman, and Dr. Douglas Stinnett, without whose input this dissertation would not have been possible. I must also give thanks to my wife, Misook, for her unending patience and support. Last but not least, there are no words to express how grateful I am to my friend, Dwight Wilson. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................1 Minorities Question ...................................................................................................2 Purpose of the Study ..................................................................................................7 Contribution of the Study ..........................................................................................9 Organization of the Study ........................................................................................11 2 MINORITY NATIONALITIES ..................................................................................13 Identification of Minority Nationalities ..................................................................13 Importance of Minority Nationalities ......................................................................19 3 MINORITY POLICIES IN CHINA ............................................................................31 Assimilation and Accommodation ..........................................................................32 Accommodation between 1949 and 1957 ...............................................................40 Assimilation between 1958 and 1976 .....................................................................54 Accommodation between 1978 to the present ........................................................73 4 REGIME LEGITIMACY……....................................................................................91 Lack of Explanation in the Existing Literature……………………………...........91 vi Bases of Regime Legitimacy………..………………….........................................99 Human Needs and Political Development……………………………………….107 Ideology Basis and Assimilation ...........................................................................113 Performance Basis and Accommodation ..............................................................123 5 PROSPECT…………………………………………………………………………131 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................137 vii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: China’s Five Provincial-level Ethnic Autonomous Regions...........................................28 Table 2: Ethnic Minorities: Population and Distributions……………………………………29-30 Table 3: Minority and Han Population in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang (1947-1976)………….71 Table 4: Stages of Political Change and Minority Approach in China…………………………109 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Population of Ethnic Minorities .....................................................................................27 ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 8 Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. 9 “Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. 10 Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country .” 11 So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread ; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites 13 and worked them ruthlessly. 14 They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly. 15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah, 16 “When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, let her live.” Exodus 1: 8-16 Political science is the study of power, political power to be exact. Political power can be defined as “authoritative coercion,” which is usually monopolized by a government. Thus, the boundaries of the discipline of political science should include the question of who has political power and how it can and should be exercised in a given society. In this regard, the role of students of political science is to monitor whether the political power is properly used in areas which need it, and whether it is inappropriately utilized in areas which don’t need it. Political scientists, then, have the mission to advise policy makers on the virtuous principles under which the political power should be exercised for people in a given society. Ethnic politics is about how the political power of a government is employed toward its minority nationalities. 1 This study explores some fundamental questions about state-minority 1 Nationality still remains one of the most controversial subjects in social science. Theory of nationality formation or nationality identity is an enormous topic and well beyond this study. Thus, this study intends 1 relations by studying the case of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter referred to as China). It is written with two different audiences in mind: those who are interested in Chinese studies, and those who are interested in ethnic studies with special care given to practical solutions to the problems of how a state (usually controlled by the majority of the population) and its minorities manage to coexist peacefully. Ethnic problems involving tensions and conflicts between the majority and minority nationalities within a country are world-wide political issues. Virtually all states are multi- national states and thus have nationality problems. Not only do the problems of ethnic minorities cause social unrest and instability, but also they have the potential to cause bloody conflicts. In recent years, these minority problems are becoming more exacerbated by the rise in many parts of the world of ethno-nationalism which is defined here as “a political principle,