China’s ethnic minority and neoliberal developmental citizenship: Yanbian Koreans in perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines the changing nature of ethnic minority citizenship under China’s pragmatist developmental transition. Our analytical focus is placed on Yanbian Koreans in the Northeast region of the country. In the socialist period, Yanbian’s Korean Chinese population developed a form of socialist ideological citizenship, but it had to be refashioned into a complex set of developmental requirements and opportunities under post-socialist reform and globalization. The nominally communist regime, on the one hand, strengthened its politico-ideological control over society and, on the other hand, liberalized the economic system. As to Chaoxianzu (Korean Chinese), among other minority nationalities, the party-state has emphasized their national (Chinese) identity, whilst, at the same time, endeavouring to use the Korean ethnicity for transnational developmental linkages with South Korea. This situation has required Yanbian Koreans to negotiate the complementary and conflicting relationships between (post-)socialist citizenship, ethno-local developmental citizenship, and neoliberal compatriotic citizenship with South Korea.