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.
UPDATE: A commenter, darts, raises an interesting question about how the sex imbalance in China's demography might affect this question. I respond here: Can a Black Woman be Chinese?
The Useless Tree 
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