Democratization and China's Ethnic Minorities?

Abstract

The chapter sets China's ethnic minorities within the framework of democracy, focusing on the years since 1989. It argues that the trend is towards democracy among most of China's 55 ethnic minorities and that this is not against the interests or wishes of the Chinese state. However, where the state sees liberal democratic trends pushed from outside China apparently against the interests of China's unity, it will react vigorously and ruthlessly. Examples of ethnic minorities where this anti-democratic trend is visible are the Tibetans and the Uygurs, the latter a Muslim and Turkic ethnic group focused in China's northwest.