Crass Injustice and Inhumanity Continues in China

Anyone who takes a brief glance at the paper has probably seen the coverage of the Chinese Government crackdown on Uighurs in Xinjiang province, bringing the already tense relations between the Uighur ethnic minorities in China and the Han majority to a fever pitch. In the wake of all of this unrest, twitter and blogger have been banned, joining youtube on the Great Firewall of China's black list. I leave for Harbin, China in 21 days and a handful of hours meaning these posts will be my final opportunities to easily access blogger and write a post that is somewhat subversive in the paranoiac eyes of Beijing and it's keepers in the government.

Human rights have never been the strong suit of the PRC but these recent events in Xinjiang surely bring tears to the eyes of even the most hardened Republicans who would rather toss human rights issues to the side in order to continue to pursue persistent economic dialogue with the CCP. What some fail to recognize is that the human rights violations in these parts seem to go hand in hand with Han racism toward its ethnic minorities, particularly Uighur Muslims, which the Han Chinese often believe are synonymous with Anti-China separatists. But what we have seen in Xinjiang are really just race riots that the Chinese government has manipulated to project to the international community that the government is cracking down on Uighur separatists and their subversive protests. Race riots between the majority and disenfranchised minority or mass arrests and persecutions of the disenfranchised minority. Neither reflect well on the PRC but as they have seen, there are many in the US who are able to look the other way in order to maintain a working relationship between the two countries that promotes any kind of economic partnership.

So, perhaps rather than insisting on a dialogue in terms of human rights with China, the US needs to look at its own legacy of racism and apply that in how it helps the PRC to come to terms with its ethnic makeup and allow for a rapproachment between its 54 minority nationalities and the Han majority nationality.

Here is a piece in the New York Times about how the PRC can learn from the US and its history of race riots.

Site Modifications - The Unofficial Remix

Ok, I think I've done my fair share of site modifications posts but this is becoming more of an ongoing personal struggle to find the most aesthetically pleasing blog layout possible. I guess I'll have to do some more research this week and see what all those other popular bloggers, such as Twins #1 and #2 on twinsontwins.blogspot.com, are doing. Anyways, as you can see I've changed the background again and I'm feeling this one a lot more than last week's background. This is actually a lighter version of the original blog background so I think I may go with this one, as it reflects some of our earlier characteristics but remixed.

In other news, I have a 15-20 page term paper due in my seminar class, U.S.-China Relations: Background, Issues, Outlook. Normally I wouldn't mention school work as this blog is, in a sense, my haven from school, but I am proud of the topic I just came up with and the proposal that I just sent to everyone in my class as well as my professor, Robert Sutter. Robert Sutter, I might add, is also one of the greatest minds in terms of Chinese-U.S. relations. He worked at the C.I.A. and Library of Congress for 40+ years and yet he is the most humble and dynamic professor I've had here at Georgetown.

Here is my proposal:
I have chosen to focus my term paper on the relationship that China has with it’s special administrative and autonomous regions and the implications that it has for the future of the PRC-ROC relationship. This includes a survey of Beijing’s policy toward Tibet, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. I hope to be able to identify trends that characterize the relationship between these regions and Beijing as well as any measures that Beijing has taken in responding to any special circumstances that have emerged from time to time in these places. From there I hope that I can find a parallel in the trends in which Beijing and Taipei have interacted and measures that Beijing has taken toward Taiwan and, in light of the current situation that each of these regions are in, what it means for what may be the future situation of Taiwan, as well as US relations with China and Taiwan. The biggest problem I foresee is lack of information on the Chinese side about the measures it has taken in dealing with unrest in these regions. Also, the topic is somewhat broad and I am have to focus more on a specific trend within each relationship and how it ties into the relationship that China has with Taiwan.

Possible Sources:
CRS Reports
Hong Kong: Ten Years After the Handover
Tibet: Problems, Prospects, and U.S. Policy
China’s Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region: Developments and U.S. Interests
Taiwan-U.S. Relations: Developments and Policy Implications
Uyghur Muslim Ethnic Separatism in Xinjiang, China → Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies
Texts From Class
Other Scholarly Publications

update 1:01 pm: President Barack Obama to be on the front page of Washingtonian Magazine...shirtless!