If you haven’t visited some of the more rural and remote parts of China you may not have noticed but the economic juggernaut is a multicultural society. While the country is 90+ % Han Chinese there are huge swaths of the country that are home to ethnic minorities like the Hmong, Uyghur, Tibetan and Mongols to name a few. China recognizes 55 ethnic groups within it’s borders.

If you didn’t know that China had so many ethnic groups living in the country you can hardly be blamed as it’s not exactly a celebrated part of the national identity. China actively promotes assimilation of ethnic minority groups and in recent years this policy has been exemplified in Tibet where the completion of the Qingzang railway to Lhasa caps off years of policies that have left the Tibetan population a minority group within what was previously their own country.

I don’t mean to sound self righteous or lecture on Tibetan self determination. I do support the cause, it’s just not the point I’m trying to get across right now. As a Canadian I’m lucky enough to see multiculturalism in another incarnation where the assimilation into Canadian culture is encourage but at the same time the cultures we come from are celebrated and shared. I’ve also read of the dangers of multicultural policies that have left groups of minorities on the fringes of society leading to alienation and social unrest in places like Denmark and France.

Maybe it’s a fear of embracing differences or losing control of natural resource rich areas that minorities in China inhabit but their policies towards minority groups and responses to demonstrations are far from measured. The crackdown on demonstrators in Urumqi yesterday showed no thought of diplomacy or tact. Much like the response to the Tibetan demonstrations last year it was knee jerk reactions to seemingly legitimate protests.  The march towards progress seems to also necessitate undermining the culture of minority groups like in Kashgar a famous stop along the Silk Road where 85% of the old city largely populated by Uyghur’s is slated to be demolished in the next few years.

I have visited Urumqi and Tibetan villages in China where there is a simmering frustration where minority groups feel squeezed out of the places and culture that they have grown up in by people viewed as foreigners. I don’t think there is an easy fix to the problem that China has been slowly creating over the years. Through sheer might of population minorities in China are likely to continue to lose their distinctiveness and be pushed further to the fringes with the veil of economic growth covering the heart of a social experiment to create a unified and uniethnic country.

This seems a sad loss in diversity and a failure to capitalize on the opportunity for tourist dollars and more importantly a chance to use their own people to build connections in the region by promoting ethnic diversity. China is home to people of decent from Korea, minority groups in Vietnam, Pakistan, Afghanistan and could build significant bridges with India and the West with adjustments to policies on Tibet. The heavy handed approach to managing minority groups within China is a failure on all fronts and even if successful in the years to come will lead to a China that is whole but less than it’s parts.