A great nervousness, coupled with this age-old complex of superiority renders the situation in China extremely unstable, not to say explosive. This explains President Hu Jintaos obsession with “™stability.
That is not all: “We all know that on account of our national superiority, during the thriving and prosperous Tang Dynasty, our civilization was at the peak of the world. We were the center of the world civilization, and no other civilization in the world was comparable to ours. Later on, because of our complacency, narrow-mindedness, and the self-enclosure of our own country, we were surpassed by Western civilization, and the center of the world shifted to the West.”
He asked the audience of Chinese Generals: “Will the center of the world civilization shift back to China?”
In another speech, the same General affirmed: “Marxism pointed out that violence is the midwife for the birth of the new society. Therefore war is the midwife for the birth of China’s century.”11
This attitude is not new in China, as pointed out by General Chi himself: “According to the research conducted by most Chinese scholars, the Chinese are different from other races on earth. We did not originate in Africa. Instead, we originated independently in the land of China. Therefore, we can rightfully assert that we are the product of cultural roots of more than a million years, civilization and progress of more than ten thousand years, an ancient nation of five thousand years, and a single Chinese entity of two thousand years.”
Historically it is debatable if Tibet, Xinjiang or Inner Mongolia were parts of the Chinese ‘entity’ before the middle of the 20th century.
Condescending attitude: The Great Han Chauvinism
This condescending attitude is not reserved for Western nations or India, but is also prevalent in Beijing’s rapport with China’s ‘nationalities’12. Since the time of the Nationalist Revolution, it has been known by non-Hans in China, as the Great Han Chauvinism.
The Chinese media may poke fun of India: “Proud of its “˜advanced political system, India feels superior to China. However, it faces a disappointing domestic situation which is unstable compared with Chinas”, but the Indian democratic process is a security valve16 which does not exist in the Middle Kingdom.
Bapa Phuntsok Wangyal, the first Tibetan Communist who was instrumental in bringing the PLA into Tibet in 1950 and who, during his long years in solitary confinement studied the intricacies of Marxist theory, realized that Han Chauvinism “is one of the most serious hindrances to our nation’s current work on nationality relations.”13
He explained to several generations of Chinese leaders, including Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Zyiang and Hu Jintao that: “In socialist states, the majority nationality does not (or should not) oppress the minority nationalities. All should be equal, and there should be complete unity and cooperation among nationalities.”
His conclusion is that most of the problems faced by China today are due to the Great Han Chauvinism. According to the Chinese Constitution, the Central Government in Beijing should guarantee equality amongst nationalities14. The tension and instability in ‘ethnic’ areas is created by the fact that the reality is different.
The superior attitude of the Han leadership, whether it is towards their own ‘nationalities’ or vis-à-vis their neighbors (like India) has the same patterns: intolerance, condescension and the need to dominate others.
In a different context, Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche, the Tibetan Prime Minister, recently told us15: “The [Chinese] leadership has become very arrogant, very proud. If you compare with Mao Zedong’s or Deng Xiaoping’s period, there was then some kind of human behavior. … Today, they are proud, arrogant and they have cut themselves from the reality, from the people. It is a sign of the forthcoming fall. Look at the Mahabharata or the Ramayana, before falling down, Ravana becomes so arrogant and self-confident, it is the sign that he is soon going to fall.”
The arrogance seems to have proportionately increased with the impotence of major players in Beijing to impose their own personal views like Mao or Deng did.
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