P.J.
0
Will this be a solution to Caste Divide Indian Society ?
China reveals plan for ethnic mixing
Parts of China’s troubled northwest region of Xinjiang have begun offering cash to interethnic couples as part of a drive to assimilate the culturally distinct Uighur minority.
Qiemo County, part of the 460,000km2 Bayinguoleng autonomous Mongolian prefecture, announced the policy late last month, calling it a “big celebratory gift package” for couples in which one member is an ethnic minority and the other is Han Chinese.
The package includes annual cash payments of 10,000 yuan (US$1,630) for interethnic couples during the first five years of their marriage, as well as housing, healthcare and education subsidies, according to a statement on the Qiemo County Government Web site.
“Ethnic groups are different only in that we have different languages and different customs, but we have the same blue sky above our heads, the same fertile ground beneath our feet, and the same love in our hearts,” Qiongkule Township committee deputy secretary Yasen Nasier told journalists during the announcement on Aug. 25.
“I believe that intermarriage between ethnic groups is a foundation of Chinese culture, and will strengthen the concrete expression of exchange, association and mingling of all ethnic groups,” Nasier said.
A county official confirmed the policy when reached by telephone.
“This is meant to promote ethnic unity — that’s the main thing,” the official said.
Xinjiang is China’s largest province, a vast sweep of mountains, forests and deserts bordering seven central and south Asian countries, including Afghanistan and India. Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group, make up the region’s plurality. When Chinese Communist Party (CCP) troops took control of Xinjiang in 1949, Han Chinese only made up 6 percent of its total population. Today they make up nearly half.
While ethnic intermarriage is fairly common across China, it is rare between Uighurs and Han Chinese, underscoring the groups’ deep-rooted cultural, religious and linguistic differences. The region’s cities are often clearly divided along ethnic lines, with Han residents frequenting separate shops and restaurants from their Uighur counterparts.
The region has seen a sharp rise in violent incidents in recent years, including attacks on police stations and government offices, and increasingly, terror attacks in major urban centers. In late May, an attack at a crowded market in the region’s capital city, Urumqi, killed 31 people and injured dozens. A month later, nearly 100 people were killed and 215 arrested when knife-wielding mobs rampaged through Shache, a county in Xinjiang’s arid southwest, marking the region’s worst clash in five years.
State media reports consistently blame the violence on Muslim fundamentalists, terrorists and “separatists,” and point to economic growth and preferential ethnic policies as evidence of good regional governance.
Yet the region’s 8 million Uighurs complain that the economic growth has mainly benefited the Han Chinese, and that local authorities place severe restrictions on their religious and cultural freedom, including bans on veils, beards and worship at non-state-sanctioned mosques.
Qiemo’s interethnic marriage policy “seems of a piece with general assumptions about Chinese policy in the region, in the sense that the party appears to believe that material incentives can overcome or mediate most political, economic and social problems,” said Michael Clarke, an expert on Xinjiang at Griffith University in Australia.
China reveals plan for ethnic mixing - Taipei Times
China reveals plan for ethnic mixing
Parts of China’s troubled northwest region of Xinjiang have begun offering cash to interethnic couples as part of a drive to assimilate the culturally distinct Uighur minority.
Qiemo County, part of the 460,000km2 Bayinguoleng autonomous Mongolian prefecture, announced the policy late last month, calling it a “big celebratory gift package” for couples in which one member is an ethnic minority and the other is Han Chinese.
The package includes annual cash payments of 10,000 yuan (US$1,630) for interethnic couples during the first five years of their marriage, as well as housing, healthcare and education subsidies, according to a statement on the Qiemo County Government Web site.
“Ethnic groups are different only in that we have different languages and different customs, but we have the same blue sky above our heads, the same fertile ground beneath our feet, and the same love in our hearts,” Qiongkule Township committee deputy secretary Yasen Nasier told journalists during the announcement on Aug. 25.
“I believe that intermarriage between ethnic groups is a foundation of Chinese culture, and will strengthen the concrete expression of exchange, association and mingling of all ethnic groups,” Nasier said.
A county official confirmed the policy when reached by telephone.
“This is meant to promote ethnic unity — that’s the main thing,” the official said.
Xinjiang is China’s largest province, a vast sweep of mountains, forests and deserts bordering seven central and south Asian countries, including Afghanistan and India. Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking, predominantly Muslim ethnic group, make up the region’s plurality. When Chinese Communist Party (CCP) troops took control of Xinjiang in 1949, Han Chinese only made up 6 percent of its total population. Today they make up nearly half.
While ethnic intermarriage is fairly common across China, it is rare between Uighurs and Han Chinese, underscoring the groups’ deep-rooted cultural, religious and linguistic differences. The region’s cities are often clearly divided along ethnic lines, with Han residents frequenting separate shops and restaurants from their Uighur counterparts.
The region has seen a sharp rise in violent incidents in recent years, including attacks on police stations and government offices, and increasingly, terror attacks in major urban centers. In late May, an attack at a crowded market in the region’s capital city, Urumqi, killed 31 people and injured dozens. A month later, nearly 100 people were killed and 215 arrested when knife-wielding mobs rampaged through Shache, a county in Xinjiang’s arid southwest, marking the region’s worst clash in five years.
State media reports consistently blame the violence on Muslim fundamentalists, terrorists and “separatists,” and point to economic growth and preferential ethnic policies as evidence of good regional governance.
Yet the region’s 8 million Uighurs complain that the economic growth has mainly benefited the Han Chinese, and that local authorities place severe restrictions on their religious and cultural freedom, including bans on veils, beards and worship at non-state-sanctioned mosques.
Qiemo’s interethnic marriage policy “seems of a piece with general assumptions about Chinese policy in the region, in the sense that the party appears to believe that material incentives can overcome or mediate most political, economic and social problems,” said Michael Clarke, an expert on Xinjiang at Griffith University in Australia.
China reveals plan for ethnic mixing - Taipei Times
