Punk rocker and Eurasia Group analyst Damien
Ma moonlights as a blogger for The
Atlantic website. He’s being uncommonly productive there recently, what with
the Chinese Party Congress in progress. He’s made it so far to the pageantry
of the first day. There, he writes:
“For every
major Communist Party occasion, most of all the congress, several set pieces
must be present: podium wrapped in flowers, minorities in their ethnic garb,
sprinkling of female delegates, sleeping octogenarians, and bored leaders. The
congress' opening ceremony did not disappoint on any of these fronts.”
And neither did the rest of his post. But what’s this about “minorities in their ethnic garb”? Ah, there
it is. But don’t the Han people have their own “ethnic garb”? I ask Damien,
and it appears that the Han don’t need to be represented because they’re not a
minority. Wait, didn’t the British Empire used to trot out overseas subjects in
the ceremonial dress of their origin on festive occasions?
China may recognize 56 ethnic groups, but
the Han are obviously more equal than the others. And you can be sure that
Beijing is not consulting the other 55 in dealing with their Diaoyu question.
It’s also funny how the financial crisis
has made the world all but forget Tibetans and the Uighurs and whomever else
that may be refusing to submit, but that’s another story.
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