by AllanF on Mon Jul 06, 2009 9:59 pm
Just been reading about this on the Times website (UK). I get sick of the comments people leave, from both sides. On the western side, you get people shouting "Commie bastards and kick them out of the UN veto" etc. Then on the other side you get people saying "The west is the 'wire-puller' in this and they want to keep China down just as they did in the 100 years humiliation!" Please STFU all of you!
1st The government had to intervene as ANY government in the world would. You simply can not let people run around killing others etc.
2nd The use of gunfire was only heard so nothing conclusive can be draw from that, were the soldiers shooting into the air to warn people or were they shoot at people? At the time of posting i have not read any information to the contrary. In fact there is little to no information about how people died at all. (This secrecy is of course one of the reason why certain section of the west are so quick to condemn, if we don't know we can suspect the worst).
3rd The west has nothing to do with this just as it had nothing to do with the riots in Tibet last year. The riots are the product of a strategic plan of Han migration into these areas in order to ensure the "one country one people" view. However, if the immigrant workers are seen by the indigenous people to be economically more successful than themselves, there will ALWAYS be trouble. History has proved this time and time again. Sometimes to obvious answer is also the right one. Furthermore the indigenous people of Urumqi are now in the minority a double whammy!
These riots and the inevitable backlash from both sides, (dam you CCP, 100 years humiliation) stem from a combination of economics and nationalism. In terms of nationalism the majority of the Han will instantly state we are all Chinese and always were and always will be, however in places like Xinjiang and Tibet (or Xizang) this idea that they are Chinese is very grey. The relationship between Han and Uigir, Han and Tibetan has always been very uneasy. All sides view the other with distrust. This is the inevitable result of nationalism's focus upon definition - "we" are "us" because we are not like "them" - and so encouragement to exclusion and antagonism. This applies to groups both within the state, where "the other" is seen as both inferior and as a threat, and to other states with different ethnic and cultural traditions.
The CCP exploit existing senses of nationalism to disguise the fact that they mismanage and oppress the country. They use nationalism as an irrational base of support for irrational policies. The people would do more to question their regimes if their minds were not clouded by emotionally-charged feelings of nationalism.
This brings us on to the 100 years humiliation, i know this is still hammered into kids at schools here and again it serves a purpose. One to form a unity and pride in the Chinese people and their civilization (nationalism) but also and more importantly to cement a suspicion of foreigners or more exactly the west, who's political ideals are in conflict to that of the CCP. So any reporting of such incidents is automatically viewed from the perspective that the West has an agenda to repress China. For me this is probably one of the major stumbling blocks to China being THE world power instead of one of the top powers. As the only thing suspicion and mistrust will bring is more of the same from the other groups/countries.