CHINA’S WILD WEST - Wildlife Conservation in China: Preserving the Habitat of China's Wild West - page 24

a trend that, though considerably muted since the reforms of 1978, continues to this day. It is
not necessary for me to reiterate the examples here, nor do I wish to take issue with the general
conclusion that interethnic relations have been characterized by what might be described
as Han chauvinism at best or racism at worst. That said, relatively little of the literature on
this topic takes an even-handed approach. Whereas the Chinese literature is dripping with
political correctness, there is sometimes a tendency for the Western literature to overstate the
situation in the reverse direction. While it would clearly be insensitive to downplay damage
that has been done, I believe many Western observers have underestimated the resiliency of
many of these cultures, particularly the pastoral cultures of China's grasslands.
Clearly much has been lost, and all might well be lost within a few decades if the most
progressive Chinese policies are not continued or, better yet, improved upon. But the claims
that only in other countries can one find “pure” Tibetans, Mongols, Kazaks, or Kyrgyz,
or that within China one finds only hollow shells or representations for tourists of these
people—and that therefore Chinese policy and/or assimilation with Han has been uniquely
destructive of traditional pastoral cultures—seem to me simply untrue. One sometimes hears
the claim that Chinese policy toward the ethnic groups in its west was less enlightened than
Soviet policy of similar eras, and indeed, the 1990s saw the breaking free of the five Central
Asian republics with the demise of the Soviet Union, whereas Chinese leadership gives no
indication whatever that a similar breakup would be countenanced in China.
However, at least for language and religion—two elements that appear crucial to the mean-
ing of culture—Tibetans, Mongols, and Turkic-speaking pastoralists have arguably fared
better under continuing Chinese domination than under the recently ended Soviet domina-
tion. Although never fully integrated into the Soviet Union, independent Mongolia has long
since lost its traditional written script; Mongolian in Ulaan Baatar is now written entirely in
Cyrillic. To find readers of traditional Mongolian, one needs to search in China. And while
Buddhism among Chinese Mongols has suffered under the PRC's limited view of religious
freedom, it has been relegated to relatively minor status in nominally independent Mongolia
(although a revival may have recently begun). Volumes have been written on the destruction
of Tibetan monasteries and the continuing intolerance within the Chinese government of
the full expression of Buddhism among Tibetans. That said, the central place of incarnate
lamas in the hearts of Tibetan pastoralists, often in the person of a particularly well-respected
local living Buddha, remains strong. Given the implacable opposition of Chinese leaders to
allowing resurrection of a feudal theocracy, Buddhism will probably never again dominate
Tibet in the way it did from the seventh century until 1959. But the religion has not died out,
nor does it seem likely to in the foreseeable future. 14
Similarly, there is no question that standard Mandarin is the lingua franca of all of China;
pastoralists who cannot read it, not to mention speak and understand it, are at a huge disad-
vantage as soon as they leave their family encampment. And the rather half-hearted efforts to
legitimize minority languages on government office signs, propaganda billboards, and store-
fronts in nominally autonomous areas are seen by non-native speakers of Chinese—correctly,
I believe—as superficial and symbolic. But the Kazak, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Tibetan, and
Yugur languages remain alive and surprisingly well in the mouths and ears of pastoralists
(as does Uygur throughout southwestern Xinjiang); indeed, they have probably survived the