I wrote something about the possibilities for increased immigration and expanded multicultralization (yes, I’m making it a verb) in China. I even submitted it to a journal, which today told me they would not publish it. Without time to work on it further, I am going to post it here. It is a bit long, ca. 2000 words. I will tuck the bulk of it below the fold.
During the Olympics the world went to China. And when Games ended the athletes, the spectators and the media all packed up and went back home; the world left China. If China’s economy continues its dynamic growth, however, a new question may arise: what happens when the world wants to stay in China permanently? How will China accommodate the globalization of its multiculturalism?
With its 56 officially recognized ethnic minorities, China has long been a multicultural society. But the demographic dominance of the Han majority, which includes its own linguistic and cultural diversities, has largely marginalized the other groups. Zhuang and Yi and Miao and other peoples must find their niches in a political-cultural space controlled by Han Chinese. Some, most notably those separatists among Tibetans and Uighurs, resist integration into Chinese society. Yet most, the vast majority of ethnic minority people, take what little cultural autonomy they can get and struggle to fit themselves into dizzying economic and social changes defined by the Han leaders in Beijing.
For Han people, then, domestic multiculturalism is largely a matter of ethnic minorities accommodating themselves to the ascendant Chinese civilization.
China has, of course, historically had to adjust to the impositions and attractions of foreign, and especially Western, culture. But those transformations have been understood in terms of outside and inside: new cultural practices and ideas flow in from without and are adapted to the unique circumstances within. Mao Zedong was said to have “sinified” Marxism, just as we might say today that avant-garde art and architecture and hip-hop have taken on “Chinese characteristics.” Although China has changed extensively in the past fifty years, as cultural expressions of “Chinese-ness” have expanded, there remains a fundamental interior racial identity. It is commonsense to virtually all PRC citizens that a Zhuang person is “Chinese” and that a Caucasian person or a Black person is not.
China, in this sense, however much it has been transformed by foreign culture, simply looks different than the West, at least in the eyes of most Chinese. The inside is distinguishable from the outside.
What happens, however, when immigration begins to change China from within, to change its color?
Even though the official stance of the PRC government is multicultural – i.e. inclusion in the Chinese nation is not restricted to any particular ethnic group – and there is a process for foreigners, without reference to race, to become naturalized PRC citizens, the overwhelming cultural expectation places whites and blacks outside of the category of “Chinese.” History and politics actually narrow the field even further: most Chinese would be uncomfortable with the idea of a Japanese person becoming Chinese. Popular notions of race and blood trump legal and bureaucratic procedures.
And that is the rub. In the past three decades, as China’s economy has boomed, people from all over the world, from all races and ethnicities, have traveled there searching for a piece of the action. The numbers of foreigners living in East coast Chinese cities has grown dramatically. PRC laws have changed to accommodate the inflow: a “Green Card” system has been developed to allow foreigners to reside in China for an unlimited period of time and move across its borders without visas. Intermarriages between Chinese and foreigners are increasing. With more and more foreigners staying in China for longer and longer periods of time, it is inevitable that the numbers of non-Chinese people seeking naturalized Chinese citizenship will grow. But will they really be accepted as Chinese?
The widening and deepening of multiculturalism would be a new challenge for China, working from the inside out, as the foreign becomes the domestic and the domestic diversifies beyond all historical recognition.
Look at the experience of the United States, the United Kingdom and other Western nations. Forty years ago, Enoch Powell delivered his infamous “rivers of blood” speech, in which he inveighed against the inclusion of non-whites into the British mainstream. He was an embarrassment to his Conservative colleagues then (he was sacked from the Shadow Cabinet the day after the speech) but today his memory is merely a pathetic anachronism. A stroll through contemporary London reveals an dazzling array of cultural variation, without the violence and breakdown of which Powell warned. Yes, there remains a vestigial racism in all advanced industrial societies, but immigration born of globalization has produced genuinely multicultural societies that are accepted as such by the majority of citizens.
In the US, the presidential candidacy of Barak Obama, and his acceptance among Hispanic and other ethnic communities, while perhaps not heralding a complete transition to a post-racial age, signifies the normalization of multiculturalism.
China is not the same as Europe and the United States, and it experiences globalization in its own unique manner, but there are forces that press in the direction of increased immigration and multiculturalism there.
Most notably, in the realm of economic innovation, the creation and development of new ideas and products that will set global standards and define world consumption patterns, China must open itself to the widest array of human talent. Indeed, China, if it truly desires global economic leadership, must welcome and support creative people from all over the world. This is happening to a degree, with the Green Card program, but to become even more creatively competitive,China must stand ready to absorb the best minds permanently. It will have to accept culturally and socially, not just legally, those foreigners who want to become Chinese as Chinese, whatever their race of national origin.
The expansion of a multi-racial, multicultural creative class, in and of itself, will not pose too great a challenge to Chinese identity. The numbers are too small. The relatively few newly hyphenated nationals – American-Chinese, African-Chinese, Hispanic-Chinese – might function like existing ethnic minority groups. Greater racial diversity would change the nature of Chinese-ness in novel ways, but the demographic dominance of Han Chinese would remain.
Something along the lines of soft power, however, would push the transformations further. Global leadership is bolstered by cultural attractiveness. And this is not simply a matter of feel good psychology. A country that is globally popular and admired has an edge in the marketing of its ideas and images and technologies. Soft power appeal can become hard economic gain, not to mention effective political capital. The PRC government knows this, which is why they worked so hard to impress the world with the Olympics. In addition, they have invested heavily in establishing more than 200 Confucius Institutes, which teach Chinese language and culture, in about 36 different countries. The global dissemination of Mandarin proficiency and cultural understanding serves the political and economic interests of the Chinese state. Foreigners who are drawn to China culturally will be more likely to want to buy Chinese merchandise and consume Chinese creations. Sinophiles will also want to travel to China, spending millions of tourist dollars and euros and yen.
If Chinese multiculturalism does not deepen, if whites and blacks and other racial and ethnic groups cannot become Chinese, China will discourage the very people it has invited to understand its language and culture; and in the process it will be limiting the global market for its cultural products and undermining its world-wide political influence.
Success in the global economy requires both innovation and attractiveness, the former to help produce new technologies and products, and the latter to encourage the consumption of those same products and technologies. The key to both is openness to immigration and naturalization, the possibility for non-Chinese to become Chinese. But people will want to become Chinese, with all of the economic and political advantages that would then accrue to China, only if Chinese society accepts them. A broader multiculturalism would seem, then, to be the wisest way forward.
There are, of course, countervailing forces.
Economically, immigration has always involved unskilled and semi-skilled labor. In the US and Europe, many newcomers have escaped from difficult circumstances, and have had little in the way of education and training. They thus take menial jobs that established citizens shun and, in the best cases, work hard and succeed in making a better economic life for their families. Indeed, these “huddled masses” have added critical density to the pressure for multiculturalization in the West. The expansion of the definition of “American-ness” and “British-ness” has historically been driven as much, if not more, from the bottom up as it has come from the top down.
By contrast, in China there is really no need nor very much opportunity for unskilled immigrants. There is plenty of low cost labor to go around, even if wages are being bid up in the Pearl River delta. While there may be a real necessity for creative symbolic analysts from abroad, there is no pressure to encourage an inflow of ordinary workers. Quite to the contrary, current unemployment and underemployment problems in China actively work against an increase in immigration. Thus, the numbers of those likely to demand greater Chinese multiculturalism will be relatively small compared to the experience of the US and Europe.
Politically, too, immigration to America and Britain are distinct from the Chinese experience. The legacy of colonialism fuels the movement into Britain by South Asians and West Indians and Africans and other people. In the US the ideology of being an “immigrant country” guarantees a strong political voice for those pressing to maintain relatively open borders. And, it should be noted, the expectation of political freedom in mature democratic states is a draw for refugees.
None of these conditions apply in quite the same manner to China. Instead of a former colonial empire, there is global Chinese diaspora. In its original phase, families left China generations ago and likely experienced racial discrimination in the West. Although they have assimilated into American and other societies, the rise of China now can create an alluring possibility of historical return. For more recent arrivals, movement between cultures has become a commonplace reality. Yet, however disorienting this might be for some individuals, it does not raise a challenge of racial redefinition of Chinese-ness.
We should not assume, however, that the authoritarian nature of the PRC state will necessarily repulse immigrants. Trading off freedom for stability is not simply an “Asian value.” Especially for the rich and talented, stable property rights, which are gradually taking shape in the PRC, may well prove more attractive than the apparent inefficiencies of democracy.
On balance, then, it would appear that globalization will encourage an increase in immigration and subsequent racial multiculturalization in the PRC in the coming decades. These processes, however, due to unique economic and political conditions, are unlikely to be as extensive as they have been in the US and Europe in the past several decades. China will face an historically unprecedented cultural change from within, but that change will exist within the continuing demographic dominance of Han Chinese.
To anticipate a bit further we might ask: how will China deal with the pressure to expand the racial and cultural definition of Chinese-ness?
There is the possibility that, in the manner of Enoch Powell, a virulent racial nationalism will reject the widening of Chinese multiculturalism. Tensions with the West bring out a racialized discourse on all sides. Defining “Chinese” as a “yellow” race, descended from the Yellow Emperor, would seem to prohibit the possibility of an Afro-Chinese or White Chinese. This might happen but it is far from inevitable that it would be all that happens or that it effectively obstructs the expansion of Chinese multiculturalism.
Chinese history and philosophy are capacious enough to include cultural resources useful to the encouragement of an ever-widening understanding of Chinese-ness. Various dynasties have absorbed significant foreign influence, transforming “barbarians” into Chinese. The Qing and the Yuan were ruled, respectively, by Manchurians and Mongols. In both cases, the outsiders became insiders, in a mutually interactive process: the foreigners learned to adapt to Chinese culture and Chinese culture was enriched and expanded in return. Perhaps the best historical precedent for multicultural tolerance, however, is the Tang Dynasty, ruled by Chinese but welcoming of Western influences, an apogee of cultural production and expression. Beijing of the twenty-first century may have much to learn from Xi’an of the seventh century.
Philosophically, Confucianism, although often associated with a certain Chinese exclusiveness, has a universal quality to it, at least as it is expressed in The Analects and Mencius. The central value of Humanity (ren) is not delimited by ethnicity or race. It is an ethical practice that anyone can pursue and accomplish. If you act humanely, you are humane, regardless of national or social status. To those who might want to reject a multi-racial China, Confucius might reply, as he does in Analects 12.2: “…never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself…” A contemporary corollary might be: if you do not want to be excluded from the benefits of a dynamic, globalize China, do not exclude others who are culturally unlike yourself.
China, then, has the indigenous resources to adapt to a multi-racial multiculturalism. Global dynamics are pushing in that direction. What will be required is an open-minded and generous cultural leadership.
Only a fool would go to a place where they are made to have to struggle for their own human rights and happiness - fuck all those ethnicities that do that to other ethnicities!