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Paved with Good Intentions

Since 2004, academics concerned about a prospective fracturing of China’s territory have advanced proposals to phase out ethnic regional autonomy, preferential policies, and other minority rights. Riots in Lhasa, Tibet, in 2008 and Urumqi, Xinjiang, in 2009 gave greater impetus to the proposals, as they moved from academic to wider circles and complaints about preferential policies in criminal justice, family planning, and school admissions grew, with even state recognition of minorities challenged. Yet many minority and some Han intellectuals continue to see the proposals as deleterious to interethnic and minority–state relations and arguments for them based on practices in the United States and India have lacked persuasive power. The state has reacted to this discourse by reemphasizing existing policies, but it has also brought about a “subtle shift” in ethnic policies since 2010, albeit not the shift that proponents of curbing minority rights have sought.