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In February 2021, Asian Ethnicity formed a new team of editors-in-chief, led by Ian G. Baird, professor of geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Matthew W. King, associate professor of religi...

The Chinese nation is conceived as a unified state composed of 56 ethnic groups, the majority Han and 55 state-recognized ethnic minorities. In theory they are all equal, though in practice the immense population and other dominance of the Han makes that impossible (in 2010, the ethnic minorities made up only 8.41% of China’s total). There is a political system of limited autonomy in the places where the ethnic minorities are concentrated, the five main ones being equivalent in status to provinces. These are the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The chapter analyses reasons why the scientific revolution that has so profoundly affected the modern world developed in Europe, not in China, which before the sixteenth century boasted a far more highly developed level of scientific knowledge than was the case in Europe. It proceeds from the work of the great British scientist Joseph Needham (1900–1995), who masterminded the multi-volume Science and Civilisation in China series. The reasons for the difference between Europe and China include material factors such as the physical environment. However, this chapter focuses more on the philosophical and cultural factors, including negative factors in China such as Confucian bureaucratism. It argues that comparative science is a topic of the utmost importance for global history.

This paper analyses how the situation in China’s most northwestern province-level unit Xinjiang has affected China’s overall foreign relations since disturbances in its capital Urumqi in July 2009. Xinjiang’s most populous ethnic group is the mostly-Muslim Uighurs. The paper assumes a framework that puts a high priority on China’s facing west. Though no more important than the eastward-looking foreign policy that has dominated Western analysis, the paper sees China’s facing west perspective as deserving more attention than it has received. Russia and Central Asian countries have been positive about China’s economic aims in the region. However, friction has increased with China’s rise, Chinese authorities tending to blame Xinjiang’s disturbances on Islamism in Central Asia. China resents the USA for giving asylum to Rebiya Kadeer, president of the anti-China World Uyghur Congress. In 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed the idea of a “New Silk Road” in Central Asia for peaceful economic development. China has long espoused the “Silk Road” idea, developing its own “Silk Road Economic Belt.” Damaged due to the 2009 riots, the China-Turkey relationship has improved because of various visits and agreements since 2010. The paper balances the dominantly economic Silk Road concept against Islamist terrorism. It argues that the aims of the Silk Road and Silk Road Economic Belt are sensible and practical, with positive economic relations the main trend. However, although the Central Asian “zone of conflict” is a lesser trend, tensions are serious and long term, especially those caused by Islamism and Islamist terrorism.

This paper analyzes China’s impact on Australia-U.S. relations from 1949 to 1996, including how far Australia’s China policy followed the American lead. The conclusion: American influence was dominant, but Australia’s own initiative was enough to belie the suggestion that it was no more than a blind follower.

Several major disturbances in Xinjiang in China’s northwest in 2013 have further exacerbated the already tense ethnic relations between the Han Chinese and the main minority in Xinjiang, the Uighurs, who are Turkic and Muslim. The Chinese state blames terrorism but most Western journalists remain sceptical. This article argues that terrorism is indeed a real threat, but the Chinese state tends to overreact to disturbances, exacerbating the problems. China’s response has included befriending countries further west, including Turkey. The outlook is not good for ethnic harmony, but the region is likely to develop economically and the prospects for independence or quasi-independence from China are very poor.

This paper takes up the study of Tibet in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Tibet studies are defined through scholars working in universities in the specified countries/regions who have published works in which the Tibetans and the Tibetan areas of China are focal. The methodology is to analyse selected published works on Tibet as well as to interview selected scholars. The paper attempts to draw some characteristics of Tibet studies in the regions or countries specified, defined according to factors such as discipline, priority of language, area of interest, approach or political stand. It reaches no grand conclusions, but finds that the spectrum of Tibet studies in the places considered is fairly wide and, though not comparable with several other countries, the value is quite high in terms of quantity and quality.

This paper aims to be a personal and limited view of how tourism has affected the musical performing arts in China in the first decade of the twenty-first century. As a personal interpretation, it is based largely on experience, but supplemented by websites, statements and some Chinese and English-language scholarly studies. The musical performing arts focused on include various styles of indigenous musical theater (xiqu 戯 曲), especially Kunqu 崑曲 and Jingju 京劇, and a variety of minority performance traditions. Chinese tourism has itself increased enormously in recent years. Not only are more people visiting China, but more Chinese are travelling within their own country and abroad. 1 Increasing numbers of sites and objects have been opened to tourists and even deliberately exposed to “the tourist gaze” (Urry 2002) in order to make them more widely known and to make money. Among these tourist sites and objects are many that are cultural in one way or another, such as historical and/or religious buildings, ethnic villages, and live performances. Especially relevant for this paper is the fact that Chinese tourist companies have specifically 1 According to official figures (cited by Ryan and Gu 2009: 6), inbound tourist numbers rose from 17,833,100 in 1984 to 132 million in 2007, while over the same years domestic tourist numbers increased from 240 million to 1.61 billion. Inbound tourists in both years include those from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. The figures for both inbound and domestic tourists have risen consistently year after year, apart from a slight downturn in 2003 because of the SARS crisis. Over the same years, the total receipts from inbound tourists multiplied by nearly 35 times, while income from domestic tourists expanded nearly 100 times (Ryan and Gu 2009: 6).

Commemorating the centenary of the spoken drama's introduction into China in 1907, the essay takes up several major themes in Chinese theatre over the last hundred years, such as its political and social implications and the tension between foreign and indigenous influences. The essay argues that drama in China during these years can be viewed largely as a microcosm of history, with politics having more impact on drama than the other way around. It also argues that change outweighs continuity, with foreign influences being stronger than indigenous and becoming more so, despite the persistence of nationalism. This article is the text of the Asian Theatre Journal Lecture , given in New Orleans on 27 July 2007 as part of the Association for Asian Performance Conference, itself part of the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Conference.

Purpose – The paper aims to discover the role of the middle classes in the development of the ethnic minorities of China, given the importance of the middle classes in international economic development in the modern age.Design/methodology/approach – The paper offers a definition of the “middle classes”, including both the economic and political aspects. It looks at these classes among the ethnic minorities of China through fieldwork and printed statistics and materials.Findings – The ethnic minorities were 8.41 per cent of the total population of China, according to the 2000 census. The paper finds that there are emerging middle classes among the ethnic minorities, especially some of them, including the Uygurs and Koreans of China. These middle classes are centres of entrepreneurship among the ethnic minorities, promoting development and modernization, but also intensifying inequalities. Their role is mainly economic, but also political; for example, there is some material on the Chinese Communist Party ...

The aim of this chapter is to analyze and explain Australian attitudes and responses towards China’s rise. Although this rise has been going on for some time now, it has accelerated in the twenty-first century, and that is the period that forms the object of responses in this chapter. As for the responses themselves, they date mainly from since 2005, a year when positive images of China appear to have reached their height. The end time is the beginning of 2013, when the writing of the chapter was completed.

Harold Tanner's study of the state of criminal justice in the People's Republic of China in the 1980s is a valuable contribution to the field of Chinese law and justice studies and is in many respects an outstanding accomplishment. Over the last decade or so, an increasingly accessible supply of Chinese legal, criminological, and public security-related documents has enabled scholars outside China in the field of criminal justice studies to obtain a much clearer view of the criminal justice situation in the PRC in the post-1978 period. Tanner's analysis is probably the most comprehensive western study on Chinese criminal justice, and the main strength of the work lies in his attention to detail.

The Making of a Musical Canon in Chinese Central Asia: The Uyghur Twelve Muqam, by Rachel Harris. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. xviii + 157 pp., + CD. £27.50 (hardcover). This book is essentially a musicological, historical and social analysis of the Twelve Muqam, the series of suites that many Uyghurs regard as the acme of their traditional cultural achievements. Its central research question is how and when these suites entered the national musical canon of the Uyghurs, a Turkic people most of whom live in Xinjiang in northwest China. Rachel Harris is developing a fine reputation for her work on the past and present music and culture of Xinjiang, and especially the Uyghurs. She has already published a book on the music and culture of the Xibes of northern Xinjiang, and several book chapters and scholarly articles on Uyghur music. This book will certainly add to her reputation. The coverage is thorough and scholarly. It gives great insight into the suites and to Uyghur music in general. As Harris rightly points out, there are many traditions of this music, situated in a variety of Xinjiang's localities. There are also muqam traditions in other parts of Central Asia, as far as Iran. However, along with scholars like Nathan Light and James Millward, Harris is clear about the lack of significant Chinese influence on this tradition. In its documentation, the book is excellent. It includes references to sources in Uyghur, English, Chinese and French. It is based on extensive and high-quality fieldwork, as well as a good deal of personal experience in the field of Uyghur music. For instance, the author not only knows numerous musicians well but also can play the dutar, the two-string long-necked lute, which is the most widespread of Uyghur musical instruments. Unfortunately, I have not had the pleasure of hearing her play, but I can say that her passion, deep musical understanding and close experience show through in her writing. The book also has quite a few pictures and musical texts. These add to its scholarly value, the pictures being well produced and showing themes and people that add to the interest of the text. One of the central issues of this topic is Uyghur cultural survival. Harris' descriptions of her own fieldwork and experiences suggest to me that, though local traditions are weakening, the twelve Uygur muqam are very much alive. The extensive Han immigration has not diluted this significantly, and a few of the most important contributors to understanding of the muqam are themselves Han. One often hears how the Chinese are destroying Uyghur culture, but there is no evidence for it in this book. There is a good deal of information and insight about the main performers of the muqam. One of them is Abdulla Majnun, on whom there is a whole chapter as well as numerous references in other chapters. He comes through not only as a brilliant musician but as an extremely colourful character, who has succeeded in annoying colleagues by his boorishness when drunk but is universally acknowledged for his brilliance as a performer and his work in maintaining and developing the tradition. …

This paper discusses some aspects of the performing arts of the Tibetans and attempts to analyze how they have fared within the context of an extremely large and modernizing state, where since the late 1970s modernization has been accompanied by a contrary revival of traditions. It argues that performing arts traditions remain powerful among the Tibetans and takes issue with the frequently heard notion that Tibetan culture is being destroyed. It contends, however, that the acceleration of modernization in the coming decades could weaken the tradition in Tibetan culture by affecting its link with the society which feeds it. But what is likely to develop is a changed Tibetan culture, with more place given to those features we know as modernity. On the other hand, the traditions are most unlikely to die out in the foreseeable future. The topical focus of the article is on the performing arts, especially the related forms of drama, balladry and dance. The period of focus is that since the early 1980s, and especially the 1990s.

This chapter takes up some of the main genres of modern Chinese culture that come under the general heading of music and performing arts. The traditional forms include traditional theatre ( xiqu ); traditional dance; folk songs ( min'ge ); narrative singing ( shuochang or quyi ); and traditional instrumental music ( qiyue ). Modern forms include the modern spoken play called the huaju ; several other forms that were influenced greatly by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), such as opera ( geju , literally 'song drama') and 'dance drama' ( wuju ); and music introduced from outside China, especially the West. Some attention will be given to how the main forms have developed since the early years of the twentieth century, and to how these forms interacted with the society and the politics of the day. The chapter will adopt a basically, though not entirely, chronological structure. However, it will make no attempt at a consolidated discussion of all these genres. Rather, it will use examples from them to illustrate important themes. Since the early years of the twentieth century, three in some ways related themes have dominated China's music and performing arts. These are: how to reform or preserve them to maintain their popularity and relevance; the ability of the performing arts to change society; and the dichotomy between Chinese traditional and Western or Soviet forms. Some new genres have emerged under Western influence, but they have not simply followed the original models exactly. Although many traditions persist into the twenty-first century, no previous century has witnessed more thorough-going change in China's music and performing arts than the twentieth century.

Telling Chinese History: A Selection of Essays, by Frederic E. Wakeman, Jr., selected and edited by Lea H. Wakeman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. xx + 453 pp. US$60.00/£35.00 (hardcover), US$24.95/£14.95 (paperback). This book is a collection of articles by the distinguished historian Frederic E. Wakeman (1937-2006) on various aspects of Chinese history. As the articles selected here show, his work is characterized by its attention to theory, its deep interpretations of certain periods of Chinese history, and its emphasis on human details. Wakeman was widely learned in the history not only of China but of other countries as well, and his comparative observations added to and deepened his interpretations. This book was compiled after Wakeman' s death by his wife Lea. It consists of five parts, representing emphases in Wakeman's work. These are 1) China in the context of world history; 2) the Ming-Qing period; 3) Shanghai in the Republic period; 4) the historiography of Chinese history; and 5) modernity and the state. The themes of the earlier parts tend to relate to earlier periods. The chapters are from various sources, ranging from scholarly journals like Journal of Asian Studies to chapters in well-known books and to book reviews. In addition, there is an interpretative introduction to Wakeman's work in general, and to this book in particular, by S. N. Eisenstadt, himself a distinguished historian of China. Major themes taken up in the book include early relations between the West and China, ideology, bureaucracy and change. The arguments presented are not all consistent throughout the book, but that is defensible, as this is a republication of particular major articles. Wakeman's writing style is always interesting, and I found this book at times quite difficult to put down. For example, the chapter entitled "Romantics, Stoics and Martyrs in Seventeenth-Century China" includes many personal, even intimate, details about historical figures and links their experiences to the broad sweep of the history that saw the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing. Although Wakeman certainly had interests in the big picture of Chinese history, the common themes that recur throughout this book are comparatively few. One is the power of the state linked with the issue of essential change. One chapter is entitled "Models of Historical Change: The Chinese State and Society 1839-1989" and was originally published in 1991. Wakeman discusses four models of the state, beginning with Karl Wittfogel's "oriental despotism", and analyzes the development of police power in China. His conclusion is that the state has increased its power over society, with the People's Republic having the largest extent of power, and takes this as indicative of a gathering momentum of change in China. …

Review(s) of: Reins of Liberation: an Entangled History of Mongolian Independence, Chinese Territoriality, and Great Power Hegemony, 1911-1950, by Xiaoyuan Liu. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2006. xxxii + 474 pp. US$65.00 (Hardcover).

This book is a detailed examination of reform in the writing of minority languages under the PRC, including the adaptation of languages to scripts never before used to write them. Considering how closely language is related to culture and society, this entails a good deal of treatment of issues such as PRC politics, external influences, such as from the Soviet Union and the West, the impact of modernization and factors like education and religion. Of course, there is quite a bit about China's spoken minority languages as well.The book is generally well written, though there are places where the language becomes dense and difficult to follow. The source material for the book is four summers of fieldwork in China's minority areas (1997–2000) and a vast amount of printed material. The list of references takes up no less than 40 pages (pp. 407–446). All items are in Chinese or English. The author makes judicious use of this array of material to mould his own viewpoints on specific issues.My only real problem with this book as a work of scholarship is the lack of clarity in the aims and central argument. The introduction gives extensive historical background on China's ethnic relations and policies, including in the PRC. It also forecasts the topics of the individual chapters, concluding with the author's hope that China's experiences in multilingualism will “facilitate the maintenance and development of minority languages in the world community” (p. 35). The conclusion summarizes answers to some of the crucial questions the book tackles, and again returns to the hope that the Chinese experience will be of use to the world as a whole.