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Abstract
Through an analysis of popular posts Tibetans shared over the social media application WeChat in 2013 and 2014 and offline discussions about them, this paper shows how Tibetans living in and traveling through Xining City practiced and performed their ethnic identity in the face of perceived harassment. Through their viral posts, they created a cyber-community that contributed to Tibetan ethnic group formation when Tibetans interpreted their ethnic identity as the basis for unjust treatment by the Chinese state and private Han individuals. In online posts the Han are portrayed as harassing Tibetans after terror attacks across China, violating minzu rights, denigrating Tibetan culture and territory, and denying Tibetans equal footing as modern compatriots. Social media are changing the ‘representational politics’ of Tibetan ethnicity, altering participation in the representation of the Tibetan ethnic group. Still, online discourse remains subject to constraints; private offline discussions remain important fora of opinion exchange.
Keywords:
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the participants of UCLA’s Program on Central Asia for their suggestions on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank James Leibold and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful feedback; their comments substantially improved the manuscript. I would also like to thank all of my interlocutors in Xining, who made this article possible. This research is related to dissertation research I conducted while supported by the Fulbright-Hays Program.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 See Bovingdon, The Uyghurs, 7–9.
2 See Yeh, ‘Blazing Pelts and Burning Passions: Nationalism, Cultural Politics, and Spectacular Decommodification in Tibet’ for the former; and Kehoe, ‘I am Tibetan? An exploration of online identity constructions among Tibetans in China’ for the latter.
3 Leibold, ‘Performing Ethnocultural Identity.’
4 Brubaker and Cooper, ‘Beyond “Identity”,’ 4.
5 For a discussion of psychological, or virtual, boundary making, see Migdal, ‘Mental Maps and Virtual Checkpoints: Struggles to Construct and Maintain State and Social Boundaries.’
6 In my experience, this social media platform was by far the most popular in Qinghai and Gansu during the period September 2013–December 2014. It is called WeChat (Ch. Weixin, Tib. skad ‘phrin). WeChat’s parent company, Tencent reported that the platform had around 400 million active users in mid-2014 (Danova 2014). Other popular social media sites, such as the microblogs Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, are more publically oriented and accessible.
7 There are also closed groups and subscriptions where information can be shared in even smaller groups or through one-way dissemination from a personage to his or her followers. All of the information shared in this paper, however, traveled through the main friend circle interface. In the English language version of the app, friend circle is translated as ‘moments,’ which less accurately describes how it functions.
8 Permanent meaning either owning housing or paying rent for housing in Xining versus sojourning there; for example, staying with family or at a hotel.
9 de Seta and Proksell, ‘The Aesthetics of Zipai.’
10 Billé, Sinophobia.
11 Bovingdon, The Uyghurs, 95; and Scott, Domination and Arts of Resistance.
12 Perry, ‘A New Rights Consciousness?’
13 This was most obvious because of the large number of Tibet-related websites that are blocked within China, and the frequent disruption of popular software such as Gmail. The Chinese government has a record of restricting access to foreign websites that discuss Tibet and foreign run social media sites. See Zittrain and Edelman, ‘Internet Filtering in China.’ I found that online censorship and the anti-rumor drive launched in 2013 are public knowledge.
14 Since 1995 the Chinese government has translated minzu into English as ethnicity instead of nationality. In regular use, minzu connotes many of the same ideas as the English word ethnicity, but the 56 official minzu of China also have institutional support, constitutional protection, and ‘autonomous’ territories. I will translate the term as ethnicity when I talk about discrimination and translate the term as nationality when speaking of legal implications and official definitions.
15 Xinhua, ‘Violent Terrorist Attack’ and The Associated Press, ‘China Executes 3 Kunming Knife.’
16 Jacobs, ‘In China’s Far West, a City Struggles to Move On,’ Xinhua, ‘Xinjiang Ürümqi Terror Case Cracked – Four Suspects Killed and One Suspect.’
17 Guo and Luo, ‘Representatives from all of Qinghai’s Religions Censure the Kunming Terrorist Attack.’
18 Further contributing to a climate of fear, in June, a small explosive was set off in a trash can at Xining’s airport. See Huang, ‘One Injured as Explosion.’
19 The term ‘Xinjiang people’ likely refers to historically restive Xinjiang ethnic minorities that include but exceed the Uighurs, such as the Kazakhs and Hui. Xinjiang Hui are understood as more radicalized than their co-ethnics in Ningxia, Gansu, or elsewhere in China. As James Leibold has indicated, the term Xinjiang people has also been promoted as a pan-ethnic regional identity with positive connotations, Leibold, ‘Performing Ethnocultural Identity,’ 282.
20 Wang, ‘Uncovering the Fascinating Chinese’; and Wang, ‘On Special Police Forces.’
21 For more on the Xi’s Mass Line, see Heberer, ‘China in 2013,’ 117–119.
22 Bulag, Mongols at China’s Edge.
23 Copy and print shops are commonly visited places in western China, where people copy or alter important documents and have books and readings printed and bound. Unsurprisingly, Tibetans often want to copy texts in Tibetan. Because it is often unclear to Tibetan illiterate authorities what is printed in Tibetan, fears sometimes arise that subversive texts are being mass-produced and disseminated.
24 At the turn of the 20th century, the influential modernist thinker Liang Qichao was a proponent of a single Zhonghua nationality that would build on China’s supposed powers of assimilation to construct a new post-Imperial Chinese nation. Liang’s thinking was affected by America’s purported melting pot culture. In the ‘Manifesto of the Nationalist Party’ Sun Yat-sen promoted racially assimilating diverse groups into the Han and creating a Zhonghua national order. The communists also appropriated the category of Zhonghua, but tailored it to fit the demands of both Marxist thought and the construction of a unified nation-state. Leibold, Reconfiguring Chinese Nationalism, 34–35, 43, 152.
25 Dikötter, The Discourse of Race, 191–192.
26 Zhou was a key figure in the strengthening of the ‘preserving stability’ (Ch. weiwen) policy under Hu Jintao; see Feng, ‘Preserving Stability and Rights’ Weiwen extends to mass incidents and online policing.
27 Ma, ‘Some Questions Concerning Nationalities’; and Ma, ‘New Perspective Guiding Ethnic Relations.’
28 According to James Leibold, these ideas have gained considerable traction in recent years: ‘Through prolific scholarship, years of persistent advocacy, and a legion of students and supporters, Ma Rong’s once-eccentric views now permeate much of contemporary Sinophone discourse on ethnic relations and policy.’ Leibold, Ethnic Policy in China, 14.
29 Ma, ‘Ethnic Relations | Ma Rong,’ np.
30 Wang, ‘Wang Dahao.’
31 Leibold, Ethnic Policy in China, 27–28.
32 Tashi and Tso, ‘Tibetan Students Denied Permission.’
33 An increasing number of such movies and serials are being produced, not to mention other programs that feature characters with international aspirations and experiences. Titles of programs based around the topic of studying abroad include: ‘My Own Private Germany,’ ‘Wait for me in Sydney,’ ‘Little Study Abroad Students,’ and ‘Seven Hour Time Difference.’ The characters are overwhelmingly Han.
34 Bulag, Mongols at China’s Edge, 173.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Andrew Grant
Andrew Grant received a Ph.D. in political geography from UCLA in 2016. He is currently a Lecturer in the UCLA Department of Geography. The title of his dissertation was ‘Belonging and Ethnicity in China’s West: Urbanizing Minorities in Xining City on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau.’
Author’s postal address: Department of Geography, 1255 Bunche Hall, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.