Because the audience is American the author quotes scholars talking about colonialism and the model of the American “melting pot.” Obviously, China’s actions `have been to be understood in an early modern and ancient context.
China’s revanchist sentiments toward territories in its northeast derives from the Amur Annexation of the 1850s, where Russia acquired further territory in an unequal treaty. But, the original border to the north was only established in 1689 with the Treaty of Nerchinsk between the Manchus and Russia. In other words, much of China today as a political-territorial entity has relatively shallow historical roots and derives from the Manchu Empire, which itself is often depicted as alien by Chinese nationalists. The Chinese nation-state has reappropriated the Manchu patrimony and erased its origins in cultural memory.
To me, it is clear that the difficulties of integration and assimilation having to do with several of the peoples mentioned in the WSJ piece is due to the fact that the Peoples’ Republic of China inherited the multiethnic Manchu Empire. The Manchu relationship with the Tibetans and Mongols was close, with the Mongols often serving as imperial auxiliaries (there was a tradition of intermarriage between the descendants of Genghis Khan’s younger brother, Khasr, and the Manchu elite lineages), and the Tibetans providing the Manchus ideological legitimacy in the same manner that they did earlier to various Mongol groups. These relationships are outside of, and parallel, to early modern Chinese history, by which I refer to the Imperial Chinese tradition which Manchu rulers such as Kangxi Emperor so perfectly exemplified within China proper.
One has to bracket the relationships between the Han Chinese with peripheral groups that have some level of ethno-territorial integrity (e.g., Tibetans, Uighurs, Mongols), and those minorities which have been resident with China proper (e.g., the Hui and the Zhuang). The Chinese have never had a history of assimilating Tibetans and Uighurs on the frontiers because these territories are relatively new acquisitions (Han and Tang dynasty control of parts of Xinjiang were always very tenuous and short-lived). The Tibetan autonomous zone was under Chinese rule only when China was ruled by foreign dynasties with pro-Tibetan cultural policies, the Mongol Yuan and the Manchus.
In contrast, China has a long history of assimilating minorities to various extents within Han dominated territory. Han Chinese north of the Yangzi clearly have West Eurasian ancestry. My own belief is that this is mostly assimilation of pastoralists, whether Turkic or Mongol, as these groups both exhibit West Eurasian ancestry (the Tang dynasty had partial Xianbei origins).
There are other aspects of the article which I think hint and allude to these deeper and more ancient dynamics. Rodney Stark in One True God: Historical Consequences of Monotheism reports an empirical instance of assimilation in China proper. The wives of the last prominent Jews of Kaifeng in the 18th century were raising pigs in their front yards. It was a clear instance of assimilation into Han culture. Stark argues that the integration of Jewish elites into the Chinese bureaucracy bled away leaders who might have allowed the community to maintain its integrity.
Though most of the Kaifeng Jews (who were probably descended from Persian Jews) became Han, some of them became Hui. That is, Muslims who speak the local Han dialect and besides religion are not so different from the Han. Why did the Hui persist while the Jews did not? The key here is clearly numbers, as the Hui were never as isolated from other Muslims, and there were always enough of them that many cities had zones allocated to their habitation. But even the Hui were subject to assimilative pressures, and many Han today have Hui ancestry. Because of the Chinese fixation on paternal lineage, there are clans who know that their direct paternal ancestor was a Persian Muslim, even though in all ways the clan members are Han Chinese.
As a stylized fact, the traditional Confucian understanding of being civilized was predicated on cultural orientations and rituals, not descent. This means that the path toward assimilation was relatively easy for those amenable to participating in the proper rites and speaking the Chinese language. If you read the WSJ piece it is hard not to come away with the idea that the aim of the PRC is simply to integrate ethnic minorities into being Han through the Chinese language, abandonment of excessive ties to exclusive religion, and intermarriage.
For obvious reasons, the piece focuses on the assimilation of ethnic and religious minorities. But the PRC has also been engaging in a major drive to make it so that all citizens of the PRC, including dialect-speaking Han, are fluent in Standard Mandarin. Today the figure is around 80%. Within a generation, it is likely to be well above 90%. This is not surprising or exceptional. All Germans can now speak Standard German, but there was a time when many spoke only regional dialects.
92% of the population of the PRC was Han in the 2010 Census. This was probably an underestimate. Nearly all of the “Manchu” (0.75%) were culturally Han and identified as Manchu to obtain benefits that accrue to ethnic minorities. Peter Brown in The Rise of Western Christendom argues that it was after the switch to Arabic that Islamicization occurred at a much faster pace in the Fertile Crescent. When Uighur and Mongol parents protest that their children are learning Mandarin Chinese as their first language, their fears are well-founded.
My overall comment here is that China has to be understood on its own terms. The imposition of external categories and interpretative frameworks can illuminate some elements, but quite often it obscures and muddies. The leadership of China may justify its policies on modern grouds (e.g., “we are developing them economically…”), but it is hard for me not to see echoes of previous civilizing drives, whereby ethnic minorities became Chinese (part of this entailed edicts which imposed outmarriage!).
Excellent article.
Recently watched a talk by LKY and interesting contrast with the Singaporean appraoch to building national identity with the CCP:
https://youtu.be/_KrKdj50mPk?t=6380
Razib: Han Chinese north of the Yangzi clearly have West Eurasian ancestry.
Re; West Eurasian input into Northern Han, judging by the province level samples in Davidski’s Global 25, and the distances of Han from provinces to West Eurasian samples, and just looking at the Matrix plots of distances between them, the provinces of Henan, Shanxi and the HGDP Han_NChina set seem to stand out a bit more in having a decreased distance to West Eurasia (more so than Eastern China north of Yangtze). This is low level but looks like there. Should be rechecked by formal methods though of course!
Visually: https://imgur.com/a/YSwjiJ2
My own belief is that this is mostly assimilation of pastoralists, whether Turkic or Mongol, as these groups both exhibit West Eurasian ancestry (the Tang dynasty had partial Xianbei origins).
Yes probably, although:
When I use Global25 data again and reprocess into a PCA, there is a cline of populations which appears to leading to the (very subtle) admixture in Henan, Shanxi and the HGDP Han_NChina.
Now this cline is made up of the populations Salar, Dongxiang, Dungen, and Bonan (and to some extent Yugar).
But this cline doesn’t appear to be connecting or largely pointing much towards the Eastern Eurasian end of the Inner Asian and Siberian clines of Turkic speaking populations which are intermediate West Eurasia and North Eastern Mongolic/Turkic speaking populations. This is a cline which roughly goes Yaghnobi Tajik->other Tajik->Turkmen->Karalpak->Kazakh->Kirghiz->Mongolian, though has more northern and southern variance, with Siberia populations forming a more northern variant than the cline which cuts through the steppes.
Instead the cline seems to point either more directly towards the various Tajik populations in Global 25, or to Uyghur, or Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
It is hard to tell though and does depend on gauging the “starting point”.
(See: https://imgur.com/a/YXaPgNY)
鲜卑=锡伯族=西伯利亚（东北亚）
xianbei ethnicity = xibo ethnicity = siberia ethnicity (northeast asia).
xianbei painting exhibit prominent cheekbone ethnic feature which is still true in xibo and mongol people. Interestingly xiongnu statues also exhibit prominent cheekbone resembling today’s xibo people.
Why were Hui Muslims so prominent during early Ming? I have been reading about it and half the generals and court officials seems to be Muslim, including the famous Zheng He.
Few more questions if someone could answer them-
Was there such a large scale migration of Central Asians/Persians to China during the Yuan period?
What percentage of population do you think was Muslim during the 14th and 15th century?
Furthermore was there a chance that the Ming might have formally converted to Islam and does that mean the broader Chinese population would have become Muslim as well(Classical Confucian culture becomes to Muslim China what Greco-Romans were to Christian Europe).
Why were Hui Muslims so prominent during early Ming? I have been reading about it and half the generals and court officials seems to be Muslim, including the famous Zheng He.
the mongols brought a lot of muslims to serve them. additionally, being a soldier is an acceptable prestigious profession for muslims, but not han chinese, so they were always overrepresented.
What percentage of population do you think was Muslim during the 14th and 15th century?
i doubt it was more than a few percent max.
Furthermore was there a chance that the Ming might have formally converted to Islam and does that mean the broader Chinese population would have become Muslim as well(Classical Confucian culture becomes to Muslim China what Greco-Romans were to Christian Europe).
muslims don’t eat pork. and the chinese already had a complex ideological system of legitmacy. so no. the chinese assimilated their conquerors, not the other way around.
https://youtu.be/hFKcnbqL2Tc
This Chinese documentary series explain the origin of Mongol and XianBei. Xianbei emperor during northern Wei dynasty linked to a palace cave in siberia. The cave was rediscovered in Northern Manchuria. Ancient Chinese characters carved by Xianbei officials in cave were to worship ancestor palace. Basically Mongol and Xianbei were from the same ancestor originated in northern manchuria. New genetic evidence indicates that northern Han, manchu, japanese, some mongol share the same ancestor origin in Manchuria or Siberia.
@ Razib
“muslims don’t eat pork. and the chinese already had a complex ideological system of legitmacy. so no. the chinese assimilated their conquerors, not the other way around.”
You think something like India might be the high-water mark for a long-term Muslim rule in China? No more than 10-15% of the population becoming Islamicized? Or you think China would be even less?
Thank you Razib
@Mick
If you include Pakistan and Bangaladesh as part of the historical India then 1/3rd of the subcontinent was Islamicized. However China would have been probably less Muslim. All the Hui seem to have traditional Chinese names in contrast to Indian Muslims adopting Arab, Persian and Turkic names. It seems the Chinese identity was stronger than Indian/Hindu identity. Also many of the Ming “Muslims” easily reverted back to Chinese culture. Zheng He for instance worshipped the Sea Goddesss during his voyages.
@Harry Jecs,
True, but core Hindu Gangetic/North India experienced much less conversion than the Pak and BD border regions, even though I believe most of the major Muslim polities were in fact centered in what is now northern India than in modern Pak or BD. Maybe a similar situation would have occurred in a Muslim dominated China, with core Chinese territories remaining overwhelming non-Muslim but peripheral places like Manchuria, Inner Mongolia, etc becoming heavily Islamicized?
i think the % muslim would be way lower than in south asia. reasons
1) distance. south asia kept getting muslim immigrants (soldiers) down until the 18th century in a continuous wave. china is too far to receive lots of these continuously. basically a large group of elite indian muslims always remained ‘foreign’ until fall of mughals due to constant migration
2) the chinese confucian ideology is probably more robust than decentralized hinduism. harder to ‘pick off’ the edges
3) the liminal groups, manchus and mongols, more likely to become muslim. some mongols did become muslim, and some were muslim (oirat) before turning to buddhism. but, % wise they are a very very small proportion. in contrast, south asia is multiethnic
@IC
How Mongols and Chinese came to share a partial common ancestry is probably not something you want to highlight as a Han nationalist.
Throwing in Japanese is even more absurd.
Re; alternate history potential for Islamicization of China, I agree it seems sensible to suggest baseline of Islam spread in China harder bcos of distance… OTOH, on the other side of the case you get all kinds of weird, fervant religious revivals in China often due to crisis (Heavenly Kingdom) and similarly Confucian Korea is about 30% Christian today. A lot of stuff could happen if historical randomness put a competent, enduring dynasty of Muslim religion in power for a few generations. As we find today, religious (faith, belief) traditions can be fast, unpredictable, and what seems enduring be not really.
Razib: The link to the Peter Brown book in its cover pic is mal-formed:
http://https//www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1118301269/geneexpressio-20
Should be:
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1118301269/geneexpressio-20
Islamicization of China was never very unlikely. If China was in the proximity of Middle East, it probably went the other way.
The appeal of Islam is in its Sharia law. Essentially it says we will hump your women but don’t even dare to look at our women.
It is also a philosophically very shallow religion, much like other middle eastern religions of Semitic origin – Judaism, early Christianity etc. It teaches simple, moral good behaviors, very beligerantly enforced.
The rise of Christianity is tied to the alms activities of early Christians. But Islam lacks it.
So Islam is not a religion that can easily benefit from missionary or proselytizing activies.
The spread of Islam is, most of time, tied to military conquests in some form or another.
It is highly unlikely that any in the middle east would have conquered china, even Tamer Lame would have been a kind of joke if he came to the east as he boasted. The battle of Talas River was a kind of draw. No one knew who won for years. But it wrested away Turkic tribes from Tang’s influence. Arabs did not conquer Central Asia.
It is easy to think that by looking at Mughal conquest of India and Opium war, the east was always a militarily weak easy piece of cake. But they have different reasons that I will not go further into.
The wars and battles in the east always involved far more combatants.
The Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 brought 200,000 men intially.
That is a huge number by western standards especially for a moderately sized country like Japan and it was by sea.
Until East Asia was overwhelmed by insurmoutable technological superiority of the Europeans(and that came pretty late actually), the east always held the advantage in logistics and organization, sometimes in military technology.
@Matt
>Razib: “Han Chinese north of the Yangzi clearly have West Eurasian ancestry.”
>Re; West Eurasian input into Northern Han, judging by the province level samples in Davidski’s Global 25, and the distances of Han from provinces to West Eurasian samples, and just looking at the Matrix plots of distances between them, the provinces of Henan, Shanxi and the HGDP Han_NChina set seem to stand out a bit more in having a decreased distance to West Eurasia (more so than Eastern China north of Yangtze). This is low level but looks like there. Should be rechecked by formal methods though of course!
I think Razib’s statement is because the G25 Han_Sichuan and Han_Shanghai samples have some low-level West Eurasian-like signal. I don’t think the G25 Han Chinese subpopulations are the most precise proxy for regional autosomal structure within China proper, especially since G25 doesn’t include many provinces.
I think Razib’s statement is because the G25 Han_Sichuan and Han_Shanghai samples have some low-level West Eurasian-like signal. I don’t think the G25 Han Chinese subpopulations are the most precise proxy for regional autosomal structure within China proper, especially since G25 doesn’t include many provinces.
you can read the papers put out by charleston chiang or the chinese groups. the pattern is consistent. i also looked at PCA and the 1000 genomes north chinese are all shifted.
eastasianman, your comment is dumb. i was hoping you weren’t a midwit. i kind of agree with a lot of it. but it’s still stupid.
OTOH, on the other side of the case you get all kinds of weird, fervant religious revivals in China often due to crisis (Heavenly Kingdom) and similarly Confucian Korea is about 30% Christian today.
korea has some historical contingency. korean nationalism was supported by christians early on, and the USA was a bulwark for south korea and they were pro-american. also, the joson dynasty had destroyed institutional buddhism to a great extent, so koreans didn’t really have much of an organized religion.
i think christianity is much more likely in china than islam for the reasons most ppl give: islam is orthopraxic. christianity has more flexibility custom wise.
“you can read the papers put out by charleston chiang or the chinese groups. the pattern is consistent. i also looked at PCA and the 1000 genomes north chinese are all shifted.”
Sichuan Han and Shanghai Han aren’t really “north chinese” in an autosomal sense. Although Shanghai Han are closer to Northern Han than Sichuan Han are.