A Land of Contrasts ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Sinicisation
November 27, 2023 11:42 PM Subscribe
How China is tearing down Islam [ungated; viz. cf.] - "Thousands of mosques have been altered or destroyed as Beijing's suppression of Islamic culture spreads."[1,2]
China's Remote Deserts Are Hiding an Energy Revolution [ungated] - "Nations will be urged at COP28 to triple renewable energy capacity this decade. The world's top polluter is already on track, propelled by President Xi Jinping's strategy to use remote regions to host vast green projects."[3]
--Rumi
--Mencius
China's Remote Deserts Are Hiding an Energy Revolution [ungated] - "Nations will be urged at COP28 to triple renewable energy capacity this decade. The world's top polluter is already on track, propelled by President Xi Jinping's strategy to use remote regions to host vast green projects."[3]
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Ignore those that make you fearful and sad.
I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.
Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Inside you there's an artist you don't know about.
This is the essence of all sciences - that you should know who you will be when the Day of Reckoning arrives.[4]
Is there not [also] a heart of humanity and righteousness originally existing in man? The way in which he loses his originally good mind is like the way in which the trees are hewed down with axes and hatchets. As trees are cut down day after day, can a mountain retain its beauty? To be sure, the days and nights do the healing, and there is the nourishing air of the calm morning which keeps him normal in his likes and dislikes. But the effect is slight, and is disturbed and destroyed by what he does during the day. When there is repeated disturbance, the restorative influence of the night will not be sufficient to preserve it, man becomes not much different from the beast.
Najiaying Mosque in Yunnan has had its dome removed despite protests against the changes “The mood is very despondent,” says Ruslan Yusupov, a Cornell University fellow who did fieldwork in Gejiu, Yunnan province, where authorities have started demolishing the dome of the Shadian Grand Mosque — one of the largest mosques in China. “People feel that the government is slowly decreasing the difference between the way it handles Uyghurs and the way it handles [other] Chinese Muslims.”
“But many think it will not come to the camps,” he adds.
I worked in China just before this all started, in the late nineties up through twenty years ago. Right around then they started bulldozing and cracking down on Muslim neighborhoods in Beijing. I know that I saw the nineties as an optimistic time not least because I was young and carefree myself, but so much more seemed to be possible or even likely. It was an exciting time to be in China because economic growth was making people's lives materially better every day and many of the down sides were at least evenly spread out or no worse than what had come before. We used to eat at the Xinjiang restaurants near campus all the time, my bike guy was a Xinjiang guy who came in seasonally to fix bikes, there were lots of students from Xinjiang, my friends went to Xinjiang in the long holidays - I honestly was young and callow and often uninformed so I don't really have too much more there but at the time, as with so much, it seemed like things were getting better. It really seemed like it was going to be possible to maintain meaningful elements of socialism while still growing and creating more relaxation and room in society, and now it feels like we have neither - many of the truly leveling features have been removed but lots of high tech authoritarianism has been added.
A document from the religious affairs bureau in Changge outlines why children should not participate in religion In many areas, officials have told current and retired civil servants that their benefits will be taken away if they worship more than a few times per year, according to Hui human rights campaigner Ma Ju.
This is not the future that I was promised or that I hoped for. Man, things are dark right now.
posted by Frowner at 4:45 AM on November 28, 2023 [17 favorites]
“But many think it will not come to the camps,” he adds.
I worked in China just before this all started, in the late nineties up through twenty years ago. Right around then they started bulldozing and cracking down on Muslim neighborhoods in Beijing. I know that I saw the nineties as an optimistic time not least because I was young and carefree myself, but so much more seemed to be possible or even likely. It was an exciting time to be in China because economic growth was making people's lives materially better every day and many of the down sides were at least evenly spread out or no worse than what had come before. We used to eat at the Xinjiang restaurants near campus all the time, my bike guy was a Xinjiang guy who came in seasonally to fix bikes, there were lots of students from Xinjiang, my friends went to Xinjiang in the long holidays - I honestly was young and callow and often uninformed so I don't really have too much more there but at the time, as with so much, it seemed like things were getting better. It really seemed like it was going to be possible to maintain meaningful elements of socialism while still growing and creating more relaxation and room in society, and now it feels like we have neither - many of the truly leveling features have been removed but lots of high tech authoritarianism has been added.
A document from the religious affairs bureau in Changge outlines why children should not participate in religion In many areas, officials have told current and retired civil servants that their benefits will be taken away if they worship more than a few times per year, according to Hui human rights campaigner Ma Ju.
This is not the future that I was promised or that I hoped for. Man, things are dark right now.
posted by Frowner at 4:45 AM on November 28, 2023 [17 favorites]
Religions have a resiliency and can summon passions that no secular government can match. Best to keep them on a short leash if you can't tame them...
posted by jim in austin at 7:28 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 7:28 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
I was in Yinchuan in Ningxia a number of different times for work between around 2010 and 2018. (Ningxia is an Autonomous Region of the Hui people - so has a pretty sizable Muslim minority.) At the time, the Hui were seen as the "good" Muslims in China, so most of the restaurants were serving halal food, and a lot of buildings had arabic as well as Chinese on them. I was aware of what was going on in Xinjiang at the same time, but the treatment of the Hui in Ningxia was completely different.
However, I've pictures of a mosque or two from my last trip in 2018 which now look completely different. I ended up looking this one up on Baidu Maps, and the minarets and dome are completely gone, and there is no longer even any indication that is a mosque.
posted by scorbet at 7:35 AM on November 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
However, I've pictures of a mosque or two from my last trip in 2018 which now look completely different. I ended up looking this one up on Baidu Maps, and the minarets and dome are completely gone, and there is no longer even any indication that is a mosque.
posted by scorbet at 7:35 AM on November 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
A government that seeks to control the thoughts and minds of the people governed, does so in proportion to its own existential insecurity. By “government”, I refer to any ruling body, anywhere.
posted by njohnson23 at 7:58 AM on November 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by njohnson23 at 7:58 AM on November 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
China has long used "combating terrorism" as an excuse to engage in systematic discrimination of Muslims in the country but, other than just parroting a widespread "all Muslims are terrorists" trope, has Islamist/Jihadist terrorism actually been a major issue in China? I have heard of literally no such incidents, but it's also very possible that my media consumption doesn't contain sources that would report on such things.
Is there any grain of truth to the excuse or is it entirely fabricated bullshit?
In either case, I think it's atrocious and a clear human rights issue, but is there some real incident to which the Chinese government can point as justification to then further the propaganda campaign such that non-Muslim Chinese are willing to accept it as at least partially true?
posted by asnider at 9:50 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is there any grain of truth to the excuse or is it entirely fabricated bullshit?
In either case, I think it's atrocious and a clear human rights issue, but is there some real incident to which the Chinese government can point as justification to then further the propaganda campaign such that non-Muslim Chinese are willing to accept it as at least partially true?
posted by asnider at 9:50 AM on November 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Eastern Asia has always been wise to stifle the spread of the Abrahamic traditions.
I don't disagree. Best to stick with the violence and intolerance you know.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:20 AM on November 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't disagree. Best to stick with the violence and intolerance you know.
posted by elkevelvet at 10:20 AM on November 28, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's fascinating how this bleeds over into Chinese narrative media. Last year's breakout xianxia drama Love Between Fairy and Devil very clearly modelled cultural aspects of the "Moon tribe" (villains at first, revealed as the oppressed victims of the very Han-coded Heaven/Fairy Realm faction) as Islamic, including the architecture and veiled women, as well as clothing evoking various Silk Road cultures and "barbaric" rituals and traditions. This kind of coding to various extent is common for the villains in Chinese fantasy media, slowly replacing the previous Manchu-coding. (Love... actually is one of the less glaring, seeing as the Han-coded heroine takes a deep dive into the Islamic-coded culture and learns how misunderstood they are.)
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:44 AM on November 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 10:44 AM on November 28, 2023 [8 favorites]
has Islamist/Jihadist terrorism actually been a major issue in China
Xinjiang conflict 2007-present.
posted by Klipspringer at 11:26 AM on November 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
Xinjiang conflict 2007-present.
posted by Klipspringer at 11:26 AM on November 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
has Islamist/Jihadist terrorism actually been a major issue in China
There was widespread violence in Xinjiang and some other parts of the country (notably Kunming and Beijing) before the major crackdown began around 2016/17, but it's debatable how much of this was Islamist/Jihadist as China insists (with gestures towards foreign influence, echoes of US War on Terror etc) and how much was Uyghur separatist groups or even just non-political violence by Uyghurs being repackaged as terror.
Independent experts largely agree that the group China blamed for most of the terrorism, ETIM, does not now and may never have had the capacity or influence Beijing claimed. It lumped together unrelated attacks and incidents as ETIM led or inspired in part to justify crackdown that followed, and borrowed a lot from US response to Al Qaeda and later ISIS.
posted by usr2047 at 5:18 PM on November 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
There was widespread violence in Xinjiang and some other parts of the country (notably Kunming and Beijing) before the major crackdown began around 2016/17, but it's debatable how much of this was Islamist/Jihadist as China insists (with gestures towards foreign influence, echoes of US War on Terror etc) and how much was Uyghur separatist groups or even just non-political violence by Uyghurs being repackaged as terror.
Independent experts largely agree that the group China blamed for most of the terrorism, ETIM, does not now and may never have had the capacity or influence Beijing claimed. It lumped together unrelated attacks and incidents as ETIM led or inspired in part to justify crackdown that followed, and borrowed a lot from US response to Al Qaeda and later ISIS.
posted by usr2047 at 5:18 PM on November 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
This kind of coding to various extent is common for the villains in Chinese fantasy media, slowly replacing the previous Manchu-coding.
In part, if I recall correctly, was seeded by The Legend of the Condor Heroes, which was seminal in modern Chinese fiction tropes, though that was more a response by a HK/Cantonese writer (Jinrong) to the Cultural Revolution in PRC, but it is interesting but unsurprising that upon transmission to the mainland how the Mongol stereotypes persisted but Manchu/Northern ones gets elided even as a strong censorship grip is maintained on all these imperial fantasies.
It's been quite something to observe how now even the Hui are endangered, considering the reassurances I got from friends and acquaintances over the years.
posted by cendawanita at 5:59 PM on November 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
In part, if I recall correctly, was seeded by The Legend of the Condor Heroes, which was seminal in modern Chinese fiction tropes, though that was more a response by a HK/Cantonese writer (Jinrong) to the Cultural Revolution in PRC, but it is interesting but unsurprising that upon transmission to the mainland how the Mongol stereotypes persisted but Manchu/Northern ones gets elided even as a strong censorship grip is maintained on all these imperial fantasies.
It's been quite something to observe how now even the Hui are endangered, considering the reassurances I got from friends and acquaintances over the years.
posted by cendawanita at 5:59 PM on November 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
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posted by Katjusa Roquette at 2:59 AM on November 28, 2023 [3 favorites]