The call of Mao or money? Han Chinese settlers on China's south-western borders

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 158, 1999, Pages 394-413

  Hansen, Mette Halskov ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ETHNIC MINORITY; FRONTIER REGION; POPULATION MIGRATION; RESETTLEMENT POLICY;

ARTICLE; CHINA; CULTURAL FACTOR; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; ETHNIC GROUP; ETHNOLOGY; GOVERNMENT; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MIGRATION; MINORITY GROUP; MINORITY HEALTH; POLICY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; RURAL POPULATION; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIOECONOMICS;

CHINA; CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS; ETHNIC GROUPS; GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MINORITY GROUPS; MINORITY HEALTH; PUBLIC POLICY; RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY; RURAL POPULATION; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS;

EID: 0032870644     PISSN: 00094439     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Huang Tianming, Bianjing xiao ge (Song of Dawn at the Borders) (Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe, 1965), p. 1.
2. The research presented in this article is to a large extent based on fieldwork carried out in 1996-97. About 100 Han Chinese migrants participated in one or more interviews. For suggestions and comments on previous versions of this article I especially thank Frank Pieke and Koen Wellens. I am grateful to the Danish Council for Development Research for providing the necessary financial support for the fieldwork.
3. Elisabeth Croll and Huang Ping, "Migration for and against agriculture in eight Chinese villages," The China Quarterly, No. 149 (March 1997), pp. 128-29. A large number of other reports and investigations on various aspects of these migrants have been published in and outside China, and the social consequences of these migrations are often debated in Chinese media. See for instance, Frank N. Pieke and Hein Mallee (eds.), Chinese Migrants and European Chinese: Perspectives on Internal and International Migration (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998); Ma Xia and Wang Weizhi (eds.), Migration and Urbanization in China (Beijing: New World Press, 1993).
4. Elisabeth Croll and Huang Ping, "Migration for and against agriculture in eight Chinese villages," The China Quarterly, No. 149 (March 1997), pp. 128-29. A large number of other reports and investigations on various aspects of these migrants have been published in and outside China, and the social consequences of these migrations are often debated in Chinese media. See for instance, Frank N. Pieke and Hein Mallee (eds.), Chinese Migrants and European Chinese: Perspectives on Internal and International Migration (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998); Ma Xia and Wang Weizhi (eds.), Migration and Urbanization in China (Beijing: New World Press, 1993).
5. Elisabeth Croll and Huang Ping, "Migration for and against agriculture in eight Chinese villages," The China Quarterly, No. 149 (March 1997), pp. 128-29. A large number of other reports and investigations on various aspects of these migrants have been published in and outside China, and the social consequences of these migrations are often debated in Chinese media. See for instance, Frank N. Pieke and Hein Mallee (eds.), Chinese Migrants and European Chinese: Perspectives on Internal and International Migration (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1998); Ma Xia and Wang Weizhi (eds.), Migration and Urbanization in China (Beijing: New World Press, 1993).
6. For instance; Huang Yasheng, "China's cadre transfer policy toward Tibet in the 1980s," Modern China Vol. 21 No. 2 (April 1995), pp. 184-204, Graham E.Clarke, "The movement of population to the west of China: Tibet and Qinghai," in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds. ), Migration: The Asian Experience (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994); Ma Rong, "Han and Tibetan residential patterns in Lhasa," The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 814-836; Yuan Qingli, "Population changes in the Xinjiang Yugur Autonomous Region (1949-1984)," in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1990), pp. 49-73; Ma Rong, "Economic patterns, migration, and ethnic relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China," in Calvin Goldschneider (ed.), Population, Ethnicity and Nation-building (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "Wo guo Zangzu zizhi diqu de Hanzu renkou" ("The Han Chinese population in our country's Tibetan Autonomous Region"), in Beijing daxue shehuixue renleixue yanjiu suo and Zhongguo Zangxu yanjiu zhongxin (eds.), Xizang shehui fazhan yanjiu (Research of Tibet's Social Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangzu chubanshe, 1997).
7. For instance; Huang Yasheng, "China's cadre transfer policy toward Tibet in the 1980s," Modern China Vol. 21 No. 2 (April 1995), pp. 184-204, Graham E.Clarke, "The movement of population to the west of China: Tibet and Qinghai," in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds. ), Migration: The Asian Experience (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994); Ma Rong, "Han and Tibetan residential patterns in Lhasa," The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 814-836; Yuan Qingli, "Population changes in the Xinjiang Yugur Autonomous Region (1949-1984)," in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1990), pp. 49-73; Ma Rong, "Economic patterns, migration, and ethnic relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China," in Calvin Goldschneider (ed.), Population, Ethnicity and Nation-building (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "Wo guo Zangzu zizhi diqu de Hanzu renkou" ("The Han Chinese population in our country's Tibetan Autonomous Region"), in Beijing daxue shehuixue renleixue yanjiu suo and Zhongguo Zangxu yanjiu zhongxin (eds.), Xizang shehui fazhan yanjiu (Research of Tibet's Social Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangzu chubanshe, 1997).
8. For instance; Huang Yasheng, "China's cadre transfer policy toward Tibet in the 1980s," Modern China Vol. 21 No. 2 (April 1995), pp. 184-204, Graham E.Clarke, "The movement of population to the west of China: Tibet and Qinghai," in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds. ), Migration: The Asian Experience (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994); Ma Rong, "Han and Tibetan residential patterns in Lhasa," The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 814-836; Yuan Qingli, "Population changes in the Xinjiang Yugur Autonomous Region (1949-1984)," in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1990), pp. 49-73; Ma Rong, "Economic patterns, migration, and ethnic relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China," in Calvin Goldschneider (ed.), Population, Ethnicity and Nation-building (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "Wo guo Zangzu zizhi diqu de Hanzu renkou" ("The Han Chinese population in our country's Tibetan Autonomous Region"), in Beijing daxue shehuixue renleixue yanjiu suo and Zhongguo Zangxu yanjiu zhongxin (eds.), Xizang shehui fazhan yanjiu (Research of Tibet's Social Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangzu chubanshe, 1997).
9. For instance; Huang Yasheng, "China's cadre transfer policy toward Tibet in the 1980s," Modern China Vol. 21 No. 2 (April 1995), pp. 184-204, Graham E.Clarke, "The movement of population to the west of China: Tibet and Qinghai," in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds. ), Migration: The Asian Experience (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994); Ma Rong, "Han and Tibetan residential patterns in Lhasa," The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 814-836; Yuan Qingli, "Population changes in the Xinjiang Yugur Autonomous Region (1949-1984)," in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1990), pp. 49-73; Ma Rong, "Economic patterns, migration, and ethnic relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China," in Calvin Goldschneider (ed.), Population, Ethnicity and Nation-building (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "Wo guo Zangzu zizhi diqu de Hanzu renkou" ("The Han Chinese population in our country's Tibetan Autonomous Region"), in Beijing daxue shehuixue renleixue yanjiu suo and Zhongguo Zangxu yanjiu zhongxin (eds.), Xizang shehui fazhan yanjiu (Research of Tibet's Social Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangzu chubanshe, 1997).
10. For instance; Huang Yasheng, "China's cadre transfer policy toward Tibet in the 1980s," Modern China Vol. 21 No. 2 (April 1995), pp. 184-204, Graham E.Clarke, "The movement of population to the west of China: Tibet and Qinghai," in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds. ), Migration: The Asian Experience (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994); Ma Rong, "Han and Tibetan residential patterns in Lhasa," The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 814-836; Yuan Qingli, "Population changes in the Xinjiang Yugur Autonomous Region (1949-1984)," in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1990), pp. 49-73; Ma Rong, "Economic patterns, migration, and ethnic relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China," in Calvin Goldschneider (ed.), Population, Ethnicity and Nation-building (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "Wo guo Zangzu zizhi diqu de Hanzu renkou" ("The Han Chinese population in our country's Tibetan Autonomous Region"), in Beijing daxue shehuixue renleixue yanjiu suo and Zhongguo Zangxu yanjiu zhongxin (eds.), Xizang shehui fazhan yanjiu (Research of Tibet's Social Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangzu chubanshe, 1997).
11. For instance; Huang Yasheng, "China's cadre transfer policy toward Tibet in the 1980s," Modern China Vol. 21 No. 2 (April 1995), pp. 184-204, Graham E.Clarke, "The movement of population to the west of China: Tibet and Qinghai," in Judith M. Brown and Rosemary Foot (eds. ), Migration: The Asian Experience (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994); Ma Rong, "Han and Tibetan residential patterns in Lhasa," The China Quarterly, No. 128 (December 1991), pp. 814-836; Yuan Qingli, "Population changes in the Xinjiang Yugur Autonomous Region (1949-1984)," in Central Asian Survey, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1990), pp. 49-73; Ma Rong, "Economic patterns, migration, and ethnic relationships in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China," in Calvin Goldschneider (ed.), Population, Ethnicity and Nation-building (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995); Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "Wo guo Zangzu zizhi diqu de Hanzu renkou" ("The Han Chinese population in our country's Tibetan Autonomous Region"), in Beijing daxue shehuixue renleixue yanjiu suo and Zhongguo Zangxu yanjiu zhongxin (eds.), Xizang shehui fazhan yanjiu (Research of Tibet's Social Development) (Beijing: Zhongguo Zangzu chubanshe, 1997).
12. See for instance Ma Rong and Pan Naigu, "The Han Chinese population."
13. The most important exception being Burton Pasternak and Janet W. Salaff, Cowboys and Cultivators: The Chinese of Inner Mongolia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). Recent fieldwork-based studies of ethnic minorities in China include for instance: Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996); Cai Hua, Une société sans père ni mari. Les Na de Chine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People,s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, forthcoming); Stevan Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).
14. The most important exception being Burton Pasternak and Janet W. Salaff, Cowboys and Cultivators: The Chinese of Inner Mongolia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). Recent fieldwork-based studies of ethnic minorities in China include for instance: Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996); Cai Hua, Une société sans père ni mari. Les Na de Chine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People,s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, forthcoming); Stevan Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).
15. The most important exception being Burton Pasternak and Janet W. Salaff, Cowboys and Cultivators: The Chinese of Inner Mongolia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). Recent fieldwork-based studies of ethnic minorities in China include for instance: Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996); Cai Hua, Une société sans père ni mari. Les Na de Chine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People,s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, forthcoming); Stevan Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).
16. The most important exception being Burton Pasternak and Janet W. Salaff, Cowboys and Cultivators: The Chinese of Inner Mongolia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). Recent fieldwork-based studies of ethnic minorities in China include for instance: Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996); Cai Hua, Une société sans père ni mari. Les Na de Chine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People,s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, forthcoming); Stevan Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).
17. The most important exception being Burton Pasternak and Janet W. Salaff, Cowboys and Cultivators: The Chinese of Inner Mongolia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). Recent fieldwork-based studies of ethnic minorities in China include for instance: Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996); Cai Hua, Une société sans père ni mari. Les Na de Chine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People,s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, forthcoming); Stevan Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).
18. The most important exception being Burton Pasternak and Janet W. Salaff, Cowboys and Cultivators: The Chinese of Inner Mongolia (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). Recent fieldwork-based studies of ethnic minorities in China include for instance: Melissa J. Brown (ed.), Negotiating Ethnicities in China and Taiwan (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1996); Cai Hua, Une société sans père ni mari. Les Na de Chine (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1997); Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People,s Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991); Mette Halskov Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese: Minority Education and Ethnic Identity in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1999, forthcoming); Stevan Harrell (ed.), Cultural Encounters on China's Ethnic Frontiers (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).
19. The Chinese term bianjing diqu, "border regions," is used to describe the vast areas reaching towards the borders of China and historically largely inhabited by non-Han peoples.
20. Concerning colonization of consciousness, for instance through the rationalization of identities in China, see Dru C. Gladney, "Salman Rushdie in China. Religion, ethnicity and state definition in the People's Republic," in Charles F. Keyes, Laurel Kendall and Helen Hardacre (eds.), Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994). See also Koen Wellens, "What's in a name? The Premi in Southwest China and the consequences of defining ethnic identity," in Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1998), pp. 17-34.
21. Concerning colonization of consciousness, for instance through the rationalization of identities in China, see Dru C. Gladney, "Salman Rushdie in China. Religion, ethnicity and state definition in the People's Republic," in Charles F. Keyes, Laurel Kendall and Helen Hardacre (eds.), Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994). See also Koen Wellens, "What's in a name? The Premi in Southwest China and the consequences of defining ethnic identity," in Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 4, No. 1 (1998), pp. 17-34.
22. Hsieh Shih-Chung, "Ethnic-political adaptation and ethnic change of the Sipsong Panna Dai: an ethnohistorical analysis," Ph.D. dissertation, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1989, p. 60.
23. Hou Zourong, "Li Foyi xiansheng qi ren qi shi" ("Mr Li Foyi, the man and his deeds"), in The Commission for Editing Historical Material (ed.), Jinghong wenshi ziliao (Jinghong, 1995), p. 81.
24. Ibid. p. 75.
25. Ibid. p. 75.
26. The local government is trying to promote tourism and in 1996 more than 1.5 million tourists (most of them Chinese) visited Sipsong Panna.
27. Li Debin, Shi Fang and Gao Lin, Jindai Zhongguo yimin shiyao (The Essentials in the History of Migration in Modern China) (Harbin: Harbin chubanshe, 1994), p. 364.
28. Information from unpublished reports on the local population from the government's local statistical department.
29. All these data are from an unpublished local report.
30. Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and its Forms of Knowledge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), p. 4.
31. Ibid. p. 5.
32. This term is normally used to distinguish them from cadres in the state farms (nongchang ganbu).
33. Later the farms were reorganized from army farms to state farms administered independently from the army and from the local government. To avoid confusion I use the term state farm throughout the paper.
34. Land Reclamation Department, "Zhigong duiwu ("The team of workers"), unpublished draft, 1997.
35. Figure from the end of 1995 from unpublished statistics from the Prefecture Statistical Department.
36. Workers from Qidong, Liling and Qiyang were also sent to the districts of Simao, Honghe, Dehong and Lincang, all in the province of Yunnan. Equally, 60,000 other Hunanese peasants were recruited to go to the province of Xinjiang to work in state farms (Li Debin et al., The Essentials in the History of Migration, p. 377).
37. See Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese.
38. Sipsong Panna Land Reclamation Department, Banna qing (The Situation in Panna). (Yunnan: Jinghong, 1990) p. 54-55.
39. Land Reclamation Department, "The team of workers," p. 21. In 1993 there were only 1, 170 of the educated youth left as employees in units under the Land Reclamation Department.
40. These are indeed among the poorest areas of Yunnan and many individual migrants, Han and Biyo (Hanizu) especially, come from there. Also in the 1950s and 1960s the government recruited workers for the state farms in Mojiang.
41. Peasant migrant from Qidong.
42. See also Mette Thunoe's study of international Chinese migration in which she argues for the use of Pierre Bourdieu's notion of the habitus for going beyond mere strategic economic calculation when trying to understand patterns of migrations: Mette Thunoe, "Moving stones from China to Europe: the dynamics of emigration from Zhejiang to Europe," unpublished paper, 1996, p. 20.
43. By wenhua this interviewee did clearly not mean "education," but something broader than that. He had explicitly explained how the "cultural level" (wenhua shuiping) of the Hunan people in general was high even in areas where many only went to school for a very short time.
44. Concerning the influence of the content of state education on perceptions of "minorities" and "majority" see Hansen, Lessons in Being Chinese.
45. James Clifford, "Diasporas," Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992), p. 310. For interesting literature concerning the Chinese diaspora and transnationalism see especially Aihwa Ong and Donald Nonini (eds.), Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism (New York: Routledge, 1997).
46. James Clifford, "Diasporas," Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1992), p. 310. For interesting literature concerning the Chinese diaspora and transnationalism see especially Aihwa Ong and Donald Nonini (eds.), Ungrounded Empires: The Cultural Politics of Modern Chinese Transnationalism (New York: Routledge, 1997).
47. In spite of the fact that the head of the government and the head of the local Communist Party are officially equals in terms of power, everybody agrees that the highest actual power is with the head of the Party, and this position has always been occupied by a male Han Chinese as in most minority areas.
48. There are several hundred small travel agencies in Jinghong and many of them are run by Han from the second generation.
49. Even so, Chinese scholars writing about the peasants and workers who went to work in the state farms also mostly use the term yimin. See Lu Li and Wang Xiuyin, "Cong wo guo wushi niandai you zuzhi de yimin kenhuang tanxi yimin gonggu wenti" ("An exploration and analysis of the stability of the migrants organized to open up wasteland in our country during the 1950s"), Renkou yanjiu, No. 4 (1986), pp. 28-31. Sometimes the term kenmin, people claiming wasteland, is used to describe that kind of migration organized by governments since the time of the Qing Dynasty. See Li Debin et al., The Essentials in the History of Migration.
50. Even so, Chinese scholars writing about the peasants and workers who went to work in the state farms also mostly use the term yimin. See Lu Li and Wang Xiuyin, "Cong wo guo wushi niandai you zuzhi de yimin kenhuang tanxi yimin gonggu wenti" ("An exploration and analysis of the stability of the migrants organized to open up wasteland in our country during the 1950s"), Renkou yanjiu, No. 4 (1986), pp. 28-31. Sometimes the term kenmin, people claiming wasteland, is used to describe that kind of migration organized by governments since the time of the Qing Dynasty. See Li Debin et al., The Essentials in the History of Migration.
51. Also people transferred to new job positions in India were, according to Myron Weiner's study, reluctant to use the word migrant about themselves because it had "lower-class overtones." Myron Weiner, Sons of the Soil: Migration and Ethnic Conflict in India (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 41.