A Han vs. Minorities Dual Structure of Chinese Society

Abstract

In academic studies of social and discourse relating to social contradictions in contemporary China, most attention has been focussed on the vs. rural (1) Poverty alleviation in rural areas and the issues of rural migrant labourers in cities, which have become the focus of government's policy-making and social concern in recent decades, are being discussed under the institutionalised framework of this structure. The residential registration system, implemented countrywide in the 1950s, divided Chinese citizens into two distinct of rural and urban residents. The system instituted differential treatment to rural and urban residents in the provision of housing, medical care, education, employment and other welfare benefits. This social gained traction when was initially a centralised planned economy. Since the economic reform and opening up that resulted in an influx of hundreds of millions of rural people into the cities as well as a huge population movement between rural and urban areas, the question of breaking through the social to ensure that rural residents enjoy equal treatment becomes imperative. Many Chinese sociologists, economists, demographers and political scientists are using this analytical framework to examine the access to justice, the residential registration system reform, abolishing inequalities between urban and rural residents, and China's new urbanisation model. This article discusses a different dual structure of segmentation within the Chinese society--the systemic institutionalised separation between and citizens in various spheres. I maintain that this type of group differentiation, which is prevalent and does exist objectively, has simultaneously divided the Chinese society into two dimensions, thus not only disrupting the building of the Chinese national identity, but causing social contradictions, conflicts of interest, lack of cultural understanding and even inciting national separatism. THE DUAL SEPARATION OF HAN AND ETHNIC MINORITIES: A HISTORICAL REVIEW Among China's various ethnic groups, the people, who originally lived in the central plains region and since moved beyond and increased in population over the past 2,000 years, constitute the main ethnic group of China. According to China's 2010 census, the population is 1.226 billion, accounting for 91.5 per cent of the total Chinese population. The mainly live in the central and coastal regions with a very high population density while major minority live in the western part of China, which is geographically made up of mainly deserts, grassland, mountains and plateaus at around 3,000 to 4,000 metres above sea level. The geographic distribution of the various ethnic forms the spatial pattern of the Han vs minorities system. The Qing dynasty (1644-1911) established by the Manchu group was the last multi-ethnic dynasty in Chinese history. It was weakened by a series of Western imperialist invasions (starting with the 1840 Opium War) and internal rebellion. Serious social crises and the introduction of Western ideologies of race and caused the Chinese people to make significant adjustments to their identity. Towards the end of the Qing dynasty, the revolutionary parties (e.g., Xin Zhong Hui)--which embraced nationalism but with racist tendencies--promoted the radical slogan of expelling the barbarian Manchu, restoring China (Quchu Dalu, Huifu Zhonghua). (2) After the 1911 Revolution, Sun Yat-sen proposed the founding of a republic of five groups (wuzhu gonghe), advocating the [of] the homelands of Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui (Muslims) and Tibetan into one country, joining the various of Han, Manchu, Mongol, Hui and Tibetan into one nation, and it is called national unification. (3) He was clearly announcing that all ethnic under the Qing dynasty should be unified as the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu) in the nation-building process of China, which would re-establish as the modern form of nation-state. …