Continuing our series on ‘the politics of education on China’s periphery’, in this episode Ed and Gairan interview Yan Fei, who co-authored a paper for the Comparative Education special issue (60.1) on ‘shifting state policies and the curricular portrayal of China’s minority nationalities’. Dr. Yan has researched the changing depiction of non-Han groups in China’s history textbooks during the entirety of the period of Communist rule, since 1949. In this latest work, co-authored with Edward Vickers, he brings this story up-to-date by examining developments during the Xi Jinping era since 2012.
We begin our discussion by reviewing the earlier history of the curricular treatment of China’s non-Han ‘minorities’. One issue that emerges is the persistent salience of ‘class struggle’ and historical materialism in framing narratives of ‘minority’ history in the late 20th century, even after narratives of the broader Chinese past had begun to embrace (Han) ‘tradition’ and rehabilitate elite ‘patriots’ from China’s past. This reflects a longstanding CCP strategy of emphasising the economic and developmental benefits that ‘minorities’ have enjoyed as a result of Communist rule, and contrasting these with the ‘bad old days’ of pre-revolutionary rule by ‘ethnic’ elites.
However, as is also discussed in our interview with James Leibold and Tenjin Dorjee (Series Two, Episode Three), since the early 2000s there has been a significant shift in official policy on the teaching and portrayal of ‘minority’ cultures and languages. Unrest in Tibet in 2008 and Xinjiang in 2009 fuelled anxiety over the loyalty of Tibetans and Uyghurs, and caused many Han officials and scholars to question a belief that economic development would gradually reconcile such groups to Chinese rule. This is the context for a tightening of various aspects of ‘minority’ policy, including the treatment of non-Han groups in the school curriculum.
2017 witnessed a major restructuring of the school curriculum and of the curriculum development process itself, reversing a process of decentralisation (albeit tentative and limited) that had been launched in 2001-2. This involved recentralising production of textbooks under the auspices of the People’s Education Press (PEP) in Beijing, as well as a significant tightening of the censorship process. PEP now publishes the history textbooks used in schools throughout China (with the exception of Hong Kong).
One question that arises here is the effectiveness of schooling and school textbooks in shaping popular understanding of the past, especially in an era of pervasive digital technology and widespread use of social media (especially amongst the young). Dr. Yan suggests that more research is needed into such matters. But in China, the extent of CCP control over social media and the internet means that information available through these sources may not significantly diverge from what is presented in school textbooks or public museums. If anything, social media discourse will tend to exaggerate or magnify nationalistic messages that are expressed more blandly in textbooks and other official sources. At the same time, the relationship between official historical and popular discourse is not simply one-way; to effectively shape or manipulate mainstream opinion (at least amongst educated, Han urbanites), the Party may need to work with the grain of folk memory.
Although the Xi era has witnessed significant changes in curricular content and the curriculum development process, has there been a real rupture with what came before? Fei suggests that what we have seen under Xi in many respects represents an intensification of trends already underway before 2012. He explains the talk (dating back to just before Xi’s accession to the leadership) of a need for a ‘second generation ethnic policy’. In the aftermath of the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang, a number of Chinese commentators on ‘ethnic’ matters argued that the established, Soviet-inspired approach to the ‘nationalities question’ was part of the problem. Rather than encouraging identification with sub-national ‘minorities’, as the old approach was seen as doing, some scholars proposed an emphasis on inculcating a singular ‘national’ identity above all. As Fei notes, while the CCP regime has never explicitly endorsed such calls for a ‘second generation minorities policy’, in practice most of the reforms introduced over the past decade have followed the line proposed by advocates of this shift.
In his PhD dissertation, Fei identified certain topics or periods in Chinese history as especially important or useful for tracking shifting official attitudes towards minorities - for example, the portrayal of the famous Song dynasty general Yue Fei (and his debated status as a ‘National Hero’); and the portrayal of Mongol and Manchu rule in China during the Yuan and Qing dynasties. Changes to the treatment of these periods or issues in the most recent editions of display an intensification of two trends: an emphasis on a teleology of ever-closer ‘national’ unity; and a celebration of traditional Chinese (i.e. Han) culture, stressing the way that non-Han conquest dynasties were transformed (i.e. tamed) by Han influence. Fei also notes a significant change to the narrative of the Qing conquest of Xinjiang in the 18th century, which is portrayed not as a ‘conquest’ at all, but as a response by the central government to ‘rebellion’ on the part of the Uyghurs.
Such changes to the historical narrative taught in Chinese secondary schools may not be immediately noticeable to many students or even their teachers, since the stories of China’s ‘minorities’ occupy a relatively peripheral place in the broader national story. They are deeply felt on the part of ‘minority’ students and communities, in the context of wider efforts to suppress their cultures and languages (discussed in our next episode on Tibetan boarding schools). At the same time, by reinforcing Han chauvinism and nationalist pride in ‘excellent traditional Chinese culture’, recent curricular changes make it more difficult for Han students to understand the situation and sentiments of their ‘minority’ compatriots. This, Fei suggests, is likely to exacerbate Han-‘minority’ tensions in contemporary China.
Suggested readings:
- Yan Fei and Edward Vickers. 2023. ‘Balancing unity and diversity? Shifting state policies and the curricular portrayal of China’s minority nationalities’, Comparative Education, 60 (1), DOI: 10.1080/03050068.2023.2213139
- Yan Fei and Edward Vickers. 2019. ‘Portraying “minorities” in Chinese history textbooks of the 1990s and 2000s: the advance and retreat of ethnocultural inclusivity’, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 39:2, 190-208, DOI: 10.1080/02188791.2019.1621800
