The Case of the Missing Indigene: Current Discussions of Ethnic Policy Reform in China

The last few years have seen a vigorous public policy debate emerge over a “second-generation” ethnic policy (di'erdai minzu zhengce) which, if implemented, would constitute a major revision of ethnic politics in China. This lecture first explores the main positions in the ongoing policy discussion, then goes on to argue that, rather than comparing China's non-Han peoples to minority immigrant populations in the industrialized democracies, a better comparison is to indigenous peoples.

The last few years have seen a vigorous public policy debate emerge over a “second-generation” ethnic policy (di’erdai minzu zhengce) which, if implemented, would constitute a major revision of ethnic politics in China. Despite the fact that nationalities policy is a notoriously sensitive subject within China, the debate is happening openly in newspapers, academic journals and on the Internet. The prominence accorded to anthropological theory and international comparison is a second notable feature of the debate. This lecture first explores the main positions in the ongoing policy discussion, then goes on to argue that, rather than comparing China’s non-Han peoples to minority immigrant populations in the industrialized democracies, a better comparison is to indigenous peoples. It then considers why this perspective is completely missing from the present debate.

Mark Elliott is the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Department of History at Harvard University, and Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. A leading figure in what is sometimes called the “New Qing History,” he is the author of two books, "The Manchu Way: The Eight Banners and Ethnic Identity in Late Imperial China" (Stanford, 2001), and "Emperor Qianlong: Son of Heaven, Man of the World" (Longman, 2009), along with numerous articles. Apart from Qing history and Manchu studies, Elliott’s research and teaching interests focus on the long relationship between the Chinese heartland and the peoples living in the northern frontier.