China's Ethnic Divisions

On Thursday, there was a train station bombing in China's Xinjiang region, which is overwhelmingly Uighur and Muslim. This region of China, which has undergone incredible economic growth in recent years, but instead of championing The State's economic planning, infrastructure, and growth potential in the midst of global economic insecurity, the region has become emblematic of the ethnic divisions within the expansive Chinese land holdings. This attack comes on the heels of the knife attack in December. Brian Spegele, the reporter and writer of the article, both intentionally and unintentionally, notes a number if things that conveniently apply to our class material for Intro to International Relations: First, it was a terrorist attack. Terrorism, being a "weapon of the weak," seems to be the only option for abused ethnic and religious minorities in China, many of whom have been subjected to state tyranny for a century. China has incredible regional power and the central government is far too large for regional states to fight within the federal framework; as a result, extragovernmental activity is the only source of activism -- also the terrorism is much more effective in striking fear into President Xi and the Communist Party. The nature of Uighur dissent is much different than the Tibetan protest. Second, the bombing is emblematic of ethnic division. Huntington's tentative borders between cultures -- in this case Muslim-Buddhist -- show to be very effective when seeing this event specifically. Though the bombing can mostly be attributed to the Communist Party intrusion, it is no consequence that this region sits on the major cultural border. President Xi recently visited the region to celebrate the opening of a new railway system and promote cultural unity, but the visit was propagandized by the state media as pictures of Xi and local leaders happily observing the new infrastructure -- it is a farce. Huntington jokingly wrote that the it is unprecedented to be half Christian, half Buddhist or Half Slovak, half Muslim. This affects growth potential. The United States, for all its 20th century social problems, was religiously unified and arguably culturally homogeneous during its economic boom. China, on the other hand, is extremely divided with radically different cultures in the west with a central government that suppresses the minorities on the fringes of their borders. The regions are very rich with natural resources -- oil, minerals, etc. -- but China, unlike European nations in Africa, is building infrastructure and increasing investment to subsidize peace as the Party capitalizes on the local resources. This upsets the cultural order, and people go to desperate measures to combat this invasion. American foreign policy can easily be categorized as overreach, but the invasion of other nations and cultures occurs far from the American populace. China has this same issue within their borders, strikingly close to home. Mitch Wood