Documents / FOIA release
This Central Intelligence Agency conference report, dated October 1995, contains the proceedings of a conference on ethnic conflict held 30 September to 1 October 1993. The CIA's Geographic Resources Division sponsored it. Academic geographers, anthropologists and US Government officials presented papers on ethnic and territorial conflict in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and South Asia. They also discussed what these conflicts mean for US policy. The document contains no UFO material.
“Nevers”25 pages
C00123268 historical power lines are noted in Frank Dikotter's The "Official" Minority Nationalities and Ethnic recent book, The Discourse of Race in Modern China. Separatism China is a multinational, multiethnic nation with During the Qing, interethnic conflicts (fenlei xiedou) 55 "official" minority nationality groups, identified or "armed battles to separate types (lei)," became mainly in the 1950s, that now total more than 92 mil- comnon between Han and Muslims; Hakka (a minor- lion in population (see Dreyer 1976). This includes ity group of southeast China) and Hoklo (Hokkien- 10 Muslim nationalities-with a total population of at tonese). Ethnic feuandstrove to "clearPthe boundaries" - least 20 million-located primarily on China's bor- by ejecting exogenous groups from their respective ders with Russia and the new mainly Muslim Central territories. Such ethnic clashes could be extremely Asian States. In the south, there are nearly 12 million violent: a major conflict between the Hakka and Punti Austro-Malay-speaking Zhuang people on the Viet- in 1856-67 took a toll of 100,000 victims. The nam border and more than 24 separate minority reformers' interpretation of racial war was based on groups in Yunnan Province alone, where cross-border lineage feuds. This vision was sustained by the relations with Burma, Cambodia, and Thailand have semantic similarity between' zu as lineage and zu as increased dramatically in the past few years. The state race. "Race," as will be demonstrated in the next has assigned levels of minority autonomous adminis- chapter, would create nationhood. On the basis of tration. There are five autonomous regions, scores of internal conflicts between lineages, the reformers autonomous districts, and hundreds of autonomous constructed a representation'of external conflicts counties and villages. Autonomous here primarily between races (Dikbtter, 1992: 70-71). means that there is more local control over the admin- istration of such things as resources, taxes, birth plan- In an articulated hierarchy of escalating opposition, ning, education, and legal jurisdiction. It does not interlineage conflicts became the model for anti- mean that control is in minority hands. Although most foreignism-"us" against "them," our race against minority regions and districts have minority govern- theirs. It is this awareness of internal conflict, lineage, ment leaders, the Communist Party in all these areas is ethnic, and racial difference that drives a deep-seated dominated by the Han majority, reflecting China's anxiety about the possibility of China breaking up. active watch over these so-called autonomous areas. The Chinese, in my opinion, never take China for granted, culturally, politically, or otherwise. This is The recent detonation of two bombs in a Kashgar because most Chinese are all too aware of how easily Hotel in southern Xinjiang that killed at least six peo- and naturally China could break into its constituent ple convinced Beijing that its fears were well founded parts. It was widely believed for a short period follow- regarding Uighur separatism and the increasing influ- ing the Tiananmen crackdown that the Beijing-based ence from the newly independent Turkic states on its forces were more loyal to their city's residents and borders. The longstanding struggles of Tibetan inde- would refuse to obey the command, while other pendence movements are also well documented (see armies, such as the Wuhan-based military district, Goldstein 1990). This supports the 1970s prediction were loyal to Deng Xiao-ping. At one point, heavy by Victor Louis, understood to be a Soviet intelligence gunfire was widely reported to be heard on the out- operative, who wrote in The Coming Decline of the skirts of the city. It was thought to be between the var- Chinese Empire that China would fall apart due to the ious military forces converging on the city. These "national aspirations of the Manchu, Mongols, deep-seated fears reflected a concern that China was Uighurs, Tibetans, and other non-Chinese peoples" on the verge of spiraling into a civil disunion reminis- (cited in Friedman 1993: 270). cent of the warlord era, when local militarists com- manded personal armies and built up cultural, linguistic, and regional political power bases. I1l
Not linked to a story yet.
FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 205 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.