Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland addresses the House of Commons on June 6, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Written by: Justin J. Lee, Trinity College, University of Toronto

The parallels between Louis St. Laurent’s 1947 speech on “The Foundations of Canadian Policy in World Affairs” (often known as the Gray Lecture) and Chrystia Freeland’s 2017 address in the House of Commons on the priorities of Global Affairs Canada make it seem that history repeats itself. St. Laurent, who at the time served as Secretary of State for External Affairs and later as Prime Minister, used the Gray Lecture to codify the principles that would guide Canada’s international relations through the post-war international order. Presently, at a time when countries like the United States are retreating from their international commitments, Freeland, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, calls for the renewal and strengthening of the post-war multilateral order. In fact, the minister signalled that Canada would take a greater role in the world by identifying the fight against climate change and the promotion of the rights of women and girls among the “new shared human imperatives.” Later in 2018, during her acceptance speech for the Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine’s diplomat of the year award, the minister focused on defending the idea of the rules-based international order. The justification and expansion of Canada’s international priorities in Freeland’s speeches indicate that the government recognizes that major geopolitical changes have occurred since 1947. Given such changes, it is interesting to consider whether Freeland’s parliamentary address and Washington speech are useful guides for present day foreign relations in the same way that the Gray Lecture was during the “golden era” of Canadian foreign relations. While the minister’s speeches contain a familiar message that Canadians have long supported, they demonstrate an unawareness of how to manage a strained relationship with the United States and deal with the changes that took place in the rest of the world.

The Gray Lecture came at a time of significant international change. The reordering of the world order in the period following the end of the Second World War neatly divided the East and the West by geography and ideology. It was, in retrospect, a predictable world in which there was a broad consensus at home and abroad that an international system of rules was required to avoid the conditions that led to war. St. Laurent did not propose any radical departures from the direction that the world was already headed towards. Instead, he formally committed Canada to upholding the rule of law in international affairs and declared the country’s “willingness to accept international responsibilities.” The Canadian government had the ability to act on its responsibilities because its ideological position aligned with that of the hegemonic United States. At the time, the US was willing to enforce a rules-based international order and has for decades been a reliable political, economic, and military ally. Despite occasional disagreements that arose between successive Canadian and American governments, the two countries maintained cooperation and served as a model for neighbor states. It is perhaps because of the long history of the strong Canada-US alliance that it was easy to forget the importance of having a partner in the White House. Today, Canadians are reminded of the importance of having a friendly, or at the very least, functional relationship with the US. In the past, the strategic, geographical, and economic interests the two countries shared made it necessary and possible to resolve matters despite differences in foreign policy. For example, although Canada refused to officially support US efforts in wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the neighboring countries maintained a robust relationship. This was in part because the conditions that allowed for the Gray Lecture to be effective remained in place for much of the latter half of the twentieth century. However, in just the past few years, the world has experienced major geopolitical changes. To that end, it is worth considering if the principles introduced by St. Laurent 70 years ago are still relevant today. With the world currently divided along complex axes, and with the American abandonment of the established international order, the minister’s idyllic message on the upholding of the rules-based international order seems outdated.

In an alternative universe, if perhaps anyone other than Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, Freeland’s message would have likely been useful in guiding relations with the US. However, a speech heralding integrity, facts, and the rule of law is at odds with a president who is known to be impulsive and unreliable. The absence of a cooperative partner in the White House particularly jeopardizes the all-important economic relationship that Canada has with the United States. Trump’s infamous jab toward Freeland during the long and tense NAFTA re-negotiation worried Canadians as it indicated that the traditionally strong relationship between the countries appeared to be at serious risk. It is worth noting that disagreements between Ottawa and Washington are not new and that tensions have risen to a boiling point in the past. The Nixon shock in 1971 that dismantled the Bretton Woods system alarmed Canadians and led to the idea of the Third Option, which were a set of policies meant to lessen the US economic and cultural influence on Canada. Despite the initial reaction, the Third Option did not materialize as designed and relations between the two countries normalized. The skilled foreign service officials of both Canada and the US have been recognized for steering the countries through contentious times and maintaining continental unity. It is therefore especially worrying that the US State Department has been commandeered and significantly downsized by Trump. Though it is true that previous American administrations have had intermittent relationships with the foreign service bureaucracy, they have not been liable for events like Trump’s exodus of officials that are vital to the preservation of the Canada-US alliance. But though it is clear that the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated, the NAFTA renegotiations eventually produced the USMCA. Canadians were relieved to know that an agreement that did not fundamentally compromise Canadian interests was reached. That said, future outcomes for Canada in the face of the current US administration remain uncertain. Petitions made by Freeland in her speeches have clearly been ignored. Therefore, the inclusion of practical approaches to dealing with the strained relationship with the US would have made the minister’s speeches more effective.

Louis St. Laurent inspired generations of Canadians to take greater responsibility in world affairs. Since 1947, Canada has been an active and influential member of the international institutions it has helped to create and regularly identifies with. It got what it wanted—a seat at the table—but can it bear the burden of defending decades-old international principles when the rest of the world does not share its views? In the years after the end of WWII, once Western Europe had rebuilt itself, and the world was being shaped by the powerful effects of globalization, the saliency of the Gray Lecture diminished. There is a recognition of this fact in Chrystia Freeland’s 2018 speech in Washington. The references to the assaults on liberal democracies, due on one hand to the hollowed middle class and stagnating wages, and authoritarianism on the other, make it clear that it is increasingly difficult to fervently stand for a rules-based international order. Still, repeating the plea from almost exactly one year prior, the minister doubles down on the insistence that the United States and Canada must “reform and renew the rules-based international order” that the countries have built together. However noble Canada’s intentions are, it is difficult to preach on the rule of law when it remains involved, without remorse, in a 15 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia—a country denounced for its record on human rights by Freeland herself, Canadian legislators, and human rights groups. Canada’s desire to expand its foreign policy has entangled the country in a web of competing interests that has required it to compromise on its stances. When Freeland rebuked Saudi Arabia for the jailing of dissidents in August 2018, Canada’s ambassador, Dennis Horak, was declared persona non grata—a status shared by Freeland in Russia. As explained by Lawrence Herman in The Globe and Mail, the severed relationship with Saudi Arabia presents a serious issue for Canadian foreign policy, because since Canada has had no political relationship with Iran since 2012, it is now “frozen out of the two most influential nations in the Middle East, seriously weakening its entire regional policy.” Even more concerning is its recently damaged relationship with China following its decision to detain the Chinese tech executive, Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US government for violating sanctions against Iran. Canada has found itself playing a dangerous game of diplomatic chicken with a hostile China without the support of the United States. Quoted in the National Post, Robert Bothwell highlights the tough reality of being a middle power by noting that Canada, having no “serious allies” has “never been this alone.” Canada contradicts its rule of law rhetoric as it remains involved in the Saudi arms deal and contradicts itself again as it applies US laws in Canada by carrying out an extradition request on the basis of sanctions violations though it has no sanctions of its own against Iran. The government’s recent actions show that it is not following its own guide to foreign relations.

So, in this unfamiliar world, what is Canada to do? The country’s relations with the US and the world were also imperfect after 1947. Can it therefore hope that things will get better over time? Sitting idly by however, seems naïve and hazardous as the challenges the country face are ones it has never encountered before. The framers of the new playbook for Canadian foreign relations need to balance the country’s national and international interests like St. Laurent had done so when he was mindful of the domestic concern of national unity while declaring a new role for Canada in the world. In 2019, the international concern of an unstable world order should be front of mind. The noticeable differences in the two speeches made by Freeland are evidence of the Canadian government’s recognition of today’s grim reality. Absent from the Washington speech are mentions of the environment and the rights of women. Instead, the speech returns focus to the familiar message of defending the rules-based international order. In comparing the two statements made by Freeland, it can be concluded that each one is not a guide to Canadian foreign relations per se, but rather iterations of the government’s developing ideas on how to position itself in today’s world.

Written by Jang Hawon, Peking University

Introduction

As the number of foreign residents in Japan continues to grow, scholars of Japanese society are devoting increasing attention to the ways in which foreign communities interact with the Japanese state and society. The Korean community is one of the oldest and the largest foreign communities in Japan. Commonly called the Zainichi Koreans, they are a special case related to a specific Japanese historical period. As past colonial subjects living in the former imperial metropole, they have been treated as unwelcome legacies of Japan’s wartime imperial ambitions. Compounding influences such as the ubiquitous notions of a homogeneous Japanese national identity and indivisible links between Japanese nationality and ethnicity have been successful in marginalizing Zainichi Koreans.^[1] Furthermore, as foreigners increasingly visit Japan and the country accordingly attempts to transform into a multicultural state, the importance of Zainichi Koreans is being blurred under the name of internationalization and diversity.

This paper covers a wide range of topics pertaining to the everyday lives of Koreans in Japan. Subjects include the history of Korean colonial displacement and postcolonial division during the Cold War; legal status of Koreans in Japan; their self-representation and unstable identities. At the same time, this paper includes an introduction to the Zainichi dobo no seikatsu o kangaeru kai [在日同胞の生活を考える会], a grassroots community created in response to the changing identity of the Zainichi Korean community.

Korean residents in Japan

In June 2017, there were 484,627 registered foreigners in Japan with South or North Korean nationality. They accounted for 19.6 percent of the total of 2,471,458 foreigners registered in Japan. The Chinese (including Taiwanese) were the largest ethnic minority and accounted for 31 percent of all registered foreigners, followed by Koreans with 19.6 percent and Filipinos with 10.2 percent.^[2] However, according to Fukuoka, twenty years ago there were 657,159 registered foreigners in Japan with North or South Korean nationality.^[3] They accounted for 46.4 percent of the total of 1,415,136 foreigners registered in Japan. While the large number of so-called “newcomer” migrants from Asia and Latin America has reduced the Korean percentage in the non-Japanese population, Koreans by then remained as the biggest ethnic minority in the land. The Chinese were second with 16.6 percent of the registered total, followed by the Brazilians with 14. 3 percent. The Korean community in Japan had a huge significance in Japanese society as the major ethnic minority, which continues to this day.

Koreans in Japan are commonly called “Zainichi.” In a broad definition, the term covers Koreans who came to Japan before the Japanese colonial era, Koreans who moved to Japan during the colonial period and their descendants, and Koreans who chose to move to Japan, mostly after 1965 when South Korea and Japan established diplomatic relations. However, the term usually refers to those who came over to Japan during its colonial rule over Korea, and their descendants. The aforementioned figure of 484,627 includes Korean newcomers who moved to Japan for causes such as business, study, and marriage. A true figure of the Zainichi population would probably be around 330,000, counting those who registered as “special permanent residents” through the Japanese Ministry of Justice. This category includes Koreans who moved, voluntarily or forcibly, to Japan during the colonial period and settled permanently, as well as any of their descendants that have not naturalized.^[4]

In the twenty-first century, commonly hailed as the era of internationalization, the large number of Koreans living in Japan may strike as natural. However, the Zainichi Koreans represent a special case for the Japanese society, since they have been a huge ethnic minority in Japan since World War Ⅱ. To understand them better, it is necessary to review their history.

Why so many Koreans left in Japan?

Koreans moved to Japan since the early years of Japanese colonial rule. A small number of Korean workers and street vendors settled in Japan following the Japan-Korea treaty of 1876 that opened up Korea.^[5] After Japan’s formal annexation of Korea in 1910, labor migration increased. The national census of 1920 recorded approximately 40,000 Koreans in Japan, the number increasing to 420,000 in 1930 and approximately 1,240,000 in 1940.^[6] Japan faced a labor shortage with the outbreak of the Pacific War in 1941, so Koreans were brought to construction and production sites in Japan and elsewhere. These were mostly men, but many women were also taken as workers, in some cases as forced sexual slavery for the army.^[7] By the time the war ended, the number of Koreans in Japan was approximately two million.^[8] The majority of those who had been forcibly brought to Japan were repatriated upon the war’s end, while those who had more or less settled in Japan stayed. The latter were estimated to be about 590,000 persons in 1948.^[9] In many cases they had been living in Japan for ten to twenty years and their immediate families were living in Japan, not Korea. They had neither land nor housing in Korea. Returning to Korea would mean restarting their lives from zero, while in Japan they would experience racist contempt and systematic discrimination, such as being paid lower wages than their Japanese workmates. As a result, when the war came to an end, many Zainichi Korean must have seen continued residence in Japan as the lesser of two evils.^[10] Besides, their hope to return was further shattered as their homeland was partitioned between the Soviet-occupied north and the U.S.-occupied south, and as the subsequent Korean War (1950-53) consolidated this division.

Legal status

In 1945, when the Allied occupation of Japan started, Koreans in Japan were liberated people. However, the Japanese government made them subject to the Alien Registration Law of 1947. By 1952, when the occupation ended, Koreans in Japan were a stateless people with few civil rights and extreme insecurity of residential status. The San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1952 guaranteed Korea’s independence from Japan. However, the treaty and Japanese post-independence policy simultaneously deprived Koreans residents in Japan of Japanese citizenship.^[11] Koreans in Japan received a renewable visa-like status and were subjected to tight surveillance. They were required to be fingerprinted and to carry a registration certificate at all times. They also faced the possibility of deportation to North or South Korea.^[12] The 1965 South Korea-Japan normalization of diplomatic relations enabled Koreans in Japan to obtain the right of permanent residence under the condition that they apply for South Korean nationality. This arrangement restricted expatriate political power relations between Mindan and Chongryon: faced with this choice, many Korean residents, including some who had previously supported North Korea, applied for South Korean nationality. The approximately 250,000 out of 640,000 Koreans in Japan who remained stateless in 1974 had no civil status or overseas travel document until the early 1980s.^[13]

The 1980s and early 1990s saw a change in the level of legal protection and the range of citizenship rights enjoyed by permanent resident aliens. In 1979 the Japanese government ratified the two International Covenants on Human Rights, and the UN Refugee Convention in 1981. In order to comply with these conventions, which require equal treatment of nationals and non-citizens in terms of social citizenship rights, the Japanese government had to revise existing laws.^[14] By the mid-1980s, resident aliens gained social rights including access to public sector housing and housing loans, child care allowances, the national pension plan, and the national health care plan.^[15] Permanent residency was given to stateless Zainich Koreans in 1982. In 1992, all Korean permanent residents in Japan, regardless of whether they gained residence under terms stipulated in 1965 or 1982, were unified under the category “special permanent resident.”^[16]

Nationality and politics

Nowadays, people often hear news of famine and socioeconomic stagnation in North Korea, while the DPRK claims to be a nuclear power.^[17]  International society is intensifying its pressure on the North Korean regime. Given the situation, it may come as a surprise to many to learn that there are Koreans in Japan who identity the North as their homeland. The Zainichi Korean population includes both nationals of North and South Korea. However, nationality has less to do with their geographical place of origin than with their political allegiance. Nearly all Zainichi families hail from South Korea, mainly from the provinces of Gyeongsang-do, Jeolla-do, and Jeju island. However, in the first two decades after the partition of Korea, these Koreans overwhelmingly supported the government of North Korea.^[18] This sport ups to do with the influence from the Korean peninsula as well as the situation in Japan. To begin with, the South Korean government did little to facilitate repatriation for Koreans who had remained in Japan, while the North Korean government acknowledged that Koreans in Japan were North Korean nationals and encouraged their repatriation to the north.^[19] In 1958, North Korean premier Kim Il Sung officially stated that the North Korean state would welcome the repatriation of Koreans from Japan.^[20] He repeated the same statement in January 1959, referring to repatriation as the “sacred right and humanitarian need” of Koreans in Japan “to come back to the bosom of their own fatherland, in search of a decent living.”^[21] In 1957, the North Korean government started to send education funds to Korean schools in Japan. This financial assistance was taken as proof of North Korean economic prosperity. The experience of poverty, racism and cruel working conditions in Japan cultivated a strong working-class identity among Zainichi Koreans. Moreover, at the time Koreans in Japan shared a heightened sense of patriotic zeal in the form of postcolonial nationalism. Many looked toward the north rather than the south as an embodiment of national independence. To them, the record of anti-Japanese guerrilla battles claimed by Kim Il Sung rendered Kim more legitimacy as a national leader than the background of U.S.-educated and U.S.-backed southern President Syngman Rhee. As of early 1955, Japanese police authorities estimated that about 90 percent of Koreans in Japan supported North Korea.^[22] In 1955, North Koreans outnumbered South Koreans by a ratio of 3:1 in the Zainichi population.

However, with the balance of power on the Korean peninsula shifted in favor of the South, the Japanese and South Korean governments steadily strengthened the inducements to claim South Korean nationality, and as a result, a growing number of Zainichi Koreans switched allegiance from the North to the South. By 1969, South Koreans became a majority in the Zainichi population, and by 1992 the ratio was 7:2 in favor of ROK nationality.^[23] (Nomura 1996: 266-7).

Mindan and Chongryun

Following the end of the Korean war, the Korean community in Japan saw the emergence of two ethnic organizations: the South Korea-supportive Korean Residents Union in Japan (abbreviated as Mindan) and the North Korea-supportive General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (called Chongryun). The differences are ideological but also politically motivated, reflecting much of the division on homeland peninsula. Antagonism based on difference between ideology and perception of the Zainichi situation has existed between Mindan and Chongryun ever since Mindan’s inception. This acrimonious division is often described as ‘the thirty-eighth parallel’ in Japan, demonstrating how state-based ideologies and geopolitics often influence overseas diaspora communities.^[24]

Chongryun has upheld safeguarding the honor of North Korea, the homeland, as its organizing principle. It insists it is lawful in all its activities in Japan. The repatriation zeal has to be seen in conjunction with Chongryun’s goal of unifying all Koreans in Japan, as well as its self-definition as a Japan-based North Korean organization working for the prosperity of homeland and its people. It has not been an organization of Koreans in Japan operating with an eye to their future well-being in Japan. Chongryun has constructed a nationwide organizational web extending to every Japanese prefecture. It built more than 150 Korean schools including nursery schools, primary, middle, and high schools, a college, and a graduate school for which North Korean funds were provided, while Korean families in Japan paid on their own to support their ethnic schools. The education system was crucial in creating a pedagogical mechanism for reproducing a discourse and ideology which uphold North Korea as the authentic homeland and Kim Il Sung as the national leadere for Koreans in Japan.^[25]r Furthermore, Chongryun actively carried out the repatriation of Koreans in Japan to North Korea. From 1959 to 1984, a total of 93,339 Koreans in Japan went to North Korea through such repatriation.^[26]

However, these days Chongryun cannot exercise much political leverage. Due to the problem of abductions and the development of nuclear weapons, Japanese public opinion regarding North Korea has become extremely negative.^[27] With the international society imposing strong sanctions on North Korea, Japan is pressuring Chongryun to not send money to North Korea. Nevertheless, Chongryun is still in touch with North Korea and supports its proclaimed homeland unconditionally.

Mindan has gained momentum since the establishment of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Japan in 1965. Since then, many Zainichi Koreans acquired South Korean nationality. According the the agreement, only those of South Korean nationality could apply for permanent residence from the Japanese government. Mindan has been contributing to the life of Zainichi Koreans, helping them acquire permanent residence in Japan and protecting their rights. Nevertheless, it has represented the position of the South Korean government and has not always reflected the will of all Zainichi Koreans.

Change in Zainichi Identity

Cambridge Dictionary defines identity as who a person is, or the qualities of a person or group that make them different from others.^[28] According to Fukuoka, “Japanese conventional wisdom has tended to divide the Zainichi Korean population roughly along the following lines: first generation, resentful of Japan and nostalgic for the motherland; second generation, disheartened by experiences of discrimination and poverty, and determined to establish the foundations for a successful life in Japan; third generation, well enough adjusted to Japanese society to get by without too many problems.”^[29] As Fukuoka notes, there has been generational changes in the Zainichi Korean community as well as in how they are perceived by the Japanese and Zainichi themselves. For a few decades since 1945, the identity of Zainichi Koreans was a collective one based on the members’ common experience of colonial history and resistance to Japan. The main discourse was their simultaneous desires to dissimilate from and assimilate into Japanese society.^[30] Chongryun and Mindan denigrated naturalization as an act of betrayal to the homeland and the Korean ethnic nation (minzoku). Underlying the Japanese state’s naturalization policy as well as the resident Korean organizations’ betrayal discourse was the discourse of equating nationality and ethnicity.^[31] In a word, a Zainichi’s identity was dependent on their choice between their Korean ethnicity and Japanese society.

However, as mentioned before, the Zainichi Korean community experienced great changes over time. Collective identity is neither fixed nor innate, but rather emerges through the interactions among various members of that identity. The salience of any given collective identity affects mobilization, trajectory, and even the impacts of social movements.”^[32] The idea of a “third way,” first articulated in a 1979 discussion between Japanese scholar Iinuma Jiro and second-generation Korean Kim Dong-myung, began to be celebrated as a guiding principle for second- and third-generation resident Koreans.^[33] Kim argued that unlike first-generation Koreans, who wanted to go back to their homeland, Japan-born Koreans had stronger attachments to Japan, its culture and its people. For Japan-born Koreans, a third way, or “zainichi” (“residing in Japan”), was a way of life and not a temporary condition; in that sense, they were different from first-generation Koreans. This realization was a breakthrough for Japan-born resident Koreans who had hitherto been pressured to choose between naturalization or a return to their homeland.^[34] Another debate in 1985 between two Japan-born second-generation Koreans elucidated what Zainichi could mean. In an article in Kikan sanzenri, Kang Sang-jung, a college professor, argued that the term meant an attachment to the Korean homeland and a critique of the Japanese nation-state. The other debater was Yang Tae-ho, a member of Mintoren, a grass-roots movement created by young Zainichi Koreans to combat ethnic discrimination by encouraging a multicultural and positive approach to integration of Koreans into Japanese society.^[35] Yang argued that “Zainichi” implied a civil rights effort to achieve “co-living” with the Japanese majority.^[36] The meaning of Zainichi has therefore become even more diverse as third- and fourth- generation Koreans have begun to express themselves.^[37]

Figure 1.

Source: Japan’s Ministry of Justice

This shift in the identity of zainichi Koreans can be traced in naturalization trends as well. As can be seen in Figure 1, greater numbers of Zainichi Koreans began to seek naturalization after 1991. In part, this was because they were beginning to redefine ethnicity as separate from nationality, allowing them to retain their Korean identity even after naturalization. Naturalization was no longer an act of betrayal but rather an option available for individual, free choice. This development, coupled with the rise of a multiculturalist movement in Japan, set the stage for the emergence of a new option for  Koreans in Japan: “Korean Japanese,” that is, Japanese nationals who identifies themselves as ethnically Korean.^[38]

Figure 2.

^{[39] Source: Hirajiri Hideki (1989). Zainichi Chōsenjin no Seikatsu Sekai. Tōkyō : Kōbundō.}

Considering this diversification of identities, Harajiri attempted to categorize Zainichi Koreans based on their identities in the mid-1980s.^[40] The third- and fourth- generations of Zainichi Koreans, however, have lived in diverse environments and thus resist categorization into a collective identity. To explain this diversity in identity, Fukuoka additionally argues that the identity of young Zainichi Koreans are “given” based on two main elements. One set is their Japanese experience, growing up in a Japanese society, using Japanese as their mother tongue, and naturally acquiring Japanese culture. Aspects of their lives such as ways of thinking, emotions, values and lifestyles, have much in common with those of the Japanese people around them. This set of elements may be called the “assimilated self.”  Yet however deeply these people may be submerged in Japanese society, a second set of elements, based on their ethnic Korean inheritance, will always be present. The strength of ethnic awareness varies greatly according to each individual’s living environment: the degree to which ethnic culture is maintained within the household; whether or not one has attended a Korean school; and degree of involvement with ethnic organizations or groups. In ways of thinking, emotions, values and lifestyles, Zainichi Koreans also stand out from the surrounding Japanese population. This distinctive character is referred to as the “differentiated self.”^[41].

Regardless of these diverse ways of identification, Sonia Ryang, a leading scholar on Koreans in Japan, correctly warns against these attempts to categorize different Zainichi identities, characterizing them as fragmented and failing to take their “collective concerns” into account.^[42] In other words, she hopes that researchers pay attention to the change in Zainichi Korean identity, while at the same time never forget the commonly shared Zainichi experience in Japan as a ethnic minority.

It is impossible to grasp an absolute standard for the identity of Koreans in Japan. Nevertheless, the author feels that the identity of Zainichi is changing from a collective identity to an individual identity. The colonial period victim-oriented collective identity cannot serve a variety of individual identities. The old collective identity does not match the new individual identity anymore. Therefore, Zainichi Korean community is experiencing a period of confused identity.

“在日同胞の生活を考える会”: An Organization with a new vision for the Zainichi Koreans

The shifting identities of Zainichi Koreans have also affected the ways in which they affiliate with Zainichi Korean organizations. While Zainichi Koreans used to belong to one of the two representative organizations, Mindan or Chongryun, Fukuoka argues that in recent years Zainichi Koreans have increasingly left both organizations, sometimes in favor of new groupings that do not always reflect mainland Korean politics.^[43]

 “在日同胞の生活を考える会” (Zainichi doho no seikatsu o kangaeru kai [The Group Caring for the Life of Zainichi Koreans], hereafter referred to as Kangaeru Kai) is a sociocultural movement and grassroots community focusing on the life of Zainichi Koreans. The Kangaeru Kai differs from the peninsula-oriented political ethnic groups Mindan and Chongryun, and pursues a better daily life for Zainichi Koreans.

In 1980, a memorial ceremony was held in Japan for the Gwangju Incident, a violent government repression of civilian demonstrations for Korea’s democratic reform in the southwestern city of Gwangju that yielded hundreds of casualties.^[44] Zainichi Koreans, regardless of North or South Korean nationality, gathered together to express their respect for the victims. The gathering prompted some of the ceremony participants to think about what really matters for the life of Zainichi Koreans, which served as a momentum for the establishment of the Kangaeru Kai in 1983. On of these participants included Kim Gyu-Il, an ex-Chongryun member who used to actively advocate Zainichi repatriation to North Korea. However, when he heard that returned Zainichi Koreans were suffering in North Korea, he began to question Chongryun and was subsequently pushed out. Kim emphasized the life of the Zainichi themselves, and although Mr. Kim has passed away, there are people who continue to carry out his will. Though not large, it is a practical community trying to help Zainichi Koreans in their daily lives in aspects including employment, marriage, education, and social networking. The group often holds sessions to study the objective history of Zainichi Koreans, countering the ideological education of Chongryun. Recently, the group has been trying to publish a history book based on the Kim Gyu-Il’s view of history. This work has a significant meaning for the Zainichi Koreans.

This paper interviewed a number of Kangaeru Kai members to better understand the organization and their thoughts on Zainichi Koreans. While most would think Zainichi Koreans were forcibly taken to Japan and feel sorry about their situation, Chul-Hae Lee, a member of Kangaeru Kai, says that he has never met a Zainichi Korean who claims that his or her ancestors were brought to Japan by force. Instead, most of them came to Japan for work or better life. Just like how people today immigrate to developed countries for better working or living standards, Zainichi Koreans came to Japan for the same reasons. From this point of view, Zainichi Koreans are not victims but pioneers. Lee argues that the Korean diaspora has spread across the world, in China, Russia, the U.S. and so on. What is more, just as North Korea is ethnically Korean but has its own features, the Korean race has diversity in it, and Zainichi Koreans are the prime example of this diversity. They belong to the Korean race but at the same time are also Japanese citizens. Their existence is positive and future-oriented, and they deserve a better life in Japan.

The Kangaeru Kai members not only offer a new starting point for Zainichi identity but also highlight the importance of historical lessons. For instance, as Tessa Morris-Suzuki argues in her book “Exodus to North Korea Revisited,” they believe the repatriation of Zainichi Koreans to North Korea was a political consensus of the North Korea government and Japanese government.^[45] What North Korea wanted was the labor force and technology that Zainichi would bring with them, while Japan was trying to eliminate an ethnic minority in Japan. Misled by political interests, most of Zainichi Koreans who returned to North Korea didn’t enjoy a better life. The case of returned Zainichi Koreans highlight the need for Zainichi Koreans to develop self-awareness and be responsible for themselves.

In sum, Kangaeru Kai is emphasizing the importance of the individual daily lives of each Zainichi Korean. It offers an alternative for the complicated identity of the whole Zainichi Korean community. Their viewpoint may become a major force in the Zainichi Korean community.

Conclusion

Marginalized in Japan and viewed as foreigners in Korea, Koreans in Japan have fragmented identities. Since the lives of Zainich Koreans vary according to their environments and experiences, it is difficult to categorize their identity as a singular, collective identity. Over time, with generational change and improvement of living conditions in Japan, Zainichi Koreans have endeavored for better lives in Japan. Regardless, discrimination still affects their daily lives both visibly and invisibly. Japan should pay attention to Zainichi Koreans, one of the largest ethnic group in Japan, for the purpose of promoting a more mature multicultural society. As for the Korean peninsula, Koreans, including the author himself, should strive to better understand their compatriots and their situation, as people sharing the same ethnic identity. Further research is needed to study the changes in the Zainichi Korean community and how the Zainichi are accepted in the Korean peninsula and Japanese society. However, what is most important is the well-being of Zainichi Koreans. The author sincerely hopes that Zainichi Korean will have confidence in themselves and live happy lives.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank the following people for their assistance, comments, advice, inspiration and encouragement: Hirakawa Sachiko, Michael Cucek, Nakabayashi Mieko, Kim Young-Hua, Lee Chul-Hae and other members of 在日同胞の生活を考える会,, Choi Si-Young, and many others who helped me.

Endnotes

^[1] David Chapman, Zainichi Korean Identity and Ethnicity (New York: Routledge, 2008), 2.

^[2] Data from Japanese Ministry of Justice.

^[3] Yasunori Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000), 21.

^[4] Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan, 284.

^[5] Keizo Yamawaki 山脇啓造E, Kindainihon to gaikokujinrodosha 近代日本と外国人労働者 [The Modern Japan and Foreign Workers] (Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 1994).

^[6] Morita Yoshio 森田芳夫, “Senzen ni okeru zainichi chosenjin no jinkotokei” 戦前における在日朝鮮人の人口統計 [Prewar Demography of Koreans in Japan], Chosen gakuho 朝鮮学報 48 (1968): 66. Quoted in Sonia Ryang, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), PAGE NUMBER.

^[7] Yun Jong-ok, Chosenjinjosei ga mita “ianfumondai” 朝鮮人女性が見た”慰安婦問題” [The “Comfort Women Issue” Seen by Korean Women] (Tokyo: Sainichi shobo, 1992). Quoted in Ryang, Sonia: Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

^[8] Morita Yoshio. 1996. Suji ga kataru zainichi kankokuchosenjin no rekishi 数字が語る在日韓国・朝鮮人の歴史 [The History of Resident Koreans Illustrated by Statistics] (Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 1996), 156-7. Quoted in Sonia Ryang, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), PAGE NUMBER.

^[9] Edward Wagner, The Korean Minority in Japan: 1904-1950 (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1951), 95.

^[10] Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan, 10.

^[11] Chikakao Kawashiwazaki, “The Politics of Legal status: The Equation of Nationality with Ethnonational Identity,” 2000, in Sonia Ryang, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (London: Routledge, 2005),

^[12] Sonia Ryang, Koreans in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 4.

^[13] Lee ChangSoo, “The Legal Status of Koreans in Japan,” in Changsoo Lee and George De Vos (eds.), Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 144-5.

^[14] Onuma Yasuaki, 1992. “Interplay Between Human Rights Activities and Legal Standards of Human Rights: A Case Study on the Korean Minority in Japan.” Cornell International Law Journal 25 (1992): 520-1.

^[15] Ogawa Masaaki. “Zainichi gaikokujin no shakaihosho hoseijo no jokyo” 在日外国人の社会保障法制上の状況 [The Legal Status of Resident Aliens in the Social Security System], Horitsu jiho 法律時報 57, no. 5 (1985): 47.

^[16] Ryang, Koreans in Japan, 53 note 10.

^[17] North Korea New Year’s message, 2018

^[18] Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan, PAGE NUMBER.

^[19] Ryang, Koreans in Japan, 33.

^[20] Ibid., 34.

^[21] Ibid.

^[22] Hiroyama Shibaaki. 1995. “Minsen no kaisen to chosensoren no keisei nitsuite” [Dissolution of Minjon and Emergence of Chongryun], Koan joho 22: 10. Quoted in Ryang, Sonia: Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

^[23] S. Nomura, Korian Sekai no Tabi コリアン世界の旅 [A Journey Round the Korean World] (Tokyo: Kodan-sha, 1996), quoted in Fukuoka Yasunori, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan (Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000), ORIGINAL PAGE NUMBER.

^[24] Lee Yu-hwan, Nihon no naka no sanjuhachidosen 日本の中の三十八度戦 [The thirty-eighth parallel in Japan] (Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 1980). Quoted in David Chapman: Zainichi korean identity and ethnicity (New York: Routledge, 2008), PAGE NUMBER; David Chapman, Zainichi Korean Identity and Ethnicity (New York: Routledge, 2008), 31.

^[25] Ryang, Koreans in Japan, 36.

^[26] Kyoto Shinbun 1994.

^[27] During the 1970’s and 1980’s, a string of incidents occurred involving the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea. The Government of Japan has so far identified seventeen Japanese citizens as victims of North Korean abduction. In September 2002, North Korea admitted that it had abducted Japanese citizens and apologized, while promising to prevent any further recurrences. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan)

^[28] Cambridge University Press. Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary. Cambrige Dictionary Online. Accessed July 27, 2018. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/identity.

^[29] Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan, 43.

^[30] Ibid., PAGE NUMBER.

^[31] Eika Tai, “Between assimilation and transnationalism: the debate on nationality acquisition among Koreans in Japan,” Social Identities 15, no. 5 (2009): 6.

^[32] George Ritzer, “Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology,” NAME OF WEBPAGE, DATE 2007, accessed January 28, 2018. LINK.

^[33] Iinuma, Jiro, 21-86.

^[34] Eika Tai, “Korean Japanese,” Critical Asian Studies 36, no. 3 (2004): 10.

^[35] Fukuoka, Yasunori; Tsujiyama, Yukiko. “MINTOHREN: Young Koreans Against Ethnic Discrimination in Japan”. The Bulletin of Chiba College of Health Science 10, no.2 (1992): 147–62.

^[36] Yang Tae-ho, 146-51; Kang Sang-jung, 174-80.

^[37] Ibid., 11.

^[38] Eika Tai, “Between assimilation and transnationalism,” 12.

^[39] Chosen: It does not mean North Korean nationality. It is a categorical code and Chosen referred to the geographical region of the whole Korean peninsula (Nozaki, Inokuchi, &Kim, 2006), which existed before the division of North and South Korea. Some Zainichi Koreans maintain Chosen nationality for their hope of a unified Korea.

^[40] Hirajiri Hideki, Zainichi Chōsenjin no Seikatsu Sekai (Tokyo: Kobundo, 1989). Quoted in Chung Ok-ja:  Ilbon han’in’ui yeoksa 일본 한인의 역사 [Korean Experience in Japan] (Gwacheon: National Institute of Korean History, 2010), PAGE NUMBER.

^[41] Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan, PAGE NUMBER.

^[42] Ryang, Koreans in Japan, PAGE NUMBER.

^[43] Fukuoka, Lives of Young Koreans in Japan, PAGE NUMBER.

^[44] For more information on the Gwangju Incident, please refer to Sallie Yea, “Rewriting Rebellion and Mapping Memory in South Korea: The (Re)presentation of the 1980 Kwangju Uprising through Mangwol-dong Cemetery,” Urban Studies 39, no. 9 (2002): 1551-72.

^[45] Tessa Morris; Suzuki. 2011. “Exodus to North Korea Revisited: The Repatriation of Ethnic Koreans from Japan.” Korean Journal of Japanese Studies, no.4: 186-203.

Bibliography

Chapman, David. Zainichi Korean Identity and Ethnicity. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Fukuoka, Yasunori.. Lives of Young Koreans in Japan. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000.

——————. Zainichi Kankoku-Chosenjin [Koreans in Japan]. Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 1993.

Yamawaki, Keizo. Kindainihon to gaikokujinrodosha 近代日本と外国人労働者 [The Modern Japan and Foreign Workers]. Tokyo: Akashi shoten, 1994. Quoted in Fukuoka, Yasunori. Lives of Young Koreans in Japan. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000.

Morita Yoshio. 1968. “Senzen ni okeru zainichi chosenjin no jinkotokei” (Prewar Demography of Koreans in Japan), Chosen gakuho 48: 63-77. Quoted in Ryang, Sonia: Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Morita Yoshio. 1996. Suji ga kataru zainichi kankokuchosenjin no rekishi (The History of Resident Koreans Illustrated by Statistics), Tokyo: Akashi shoten. Quoted in Ryang, Sonia: Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Yun Jong-ok. 1992. Chosenjinjosei ga mita “ianfumondai” (The “Comfort Women Issue” Seen by Korean Women), Tokyo: Sainichi shobo. Quoted in Ryang, Sonia: Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Wagner, Edward. 1951. The Korean Minority in Japan: 1904-1950, New York: Institute of Pacific Relations.

Lee, ChangSoo.1981. “The Legal Status of Koreans in Japan,” in Changsoo Lee and George De Vos (eds) Koreans in Japan: Ethnic Conflict and Accommodation, Berkeley: University of California Press.

Chikakao Kawashiwazaki. 2000. “The politics of legal status: the equation of nationality with ethnonational identity” in Sonia Ryang Koreans in Japan: Critical voices from the Margin, London: Routledge.

Nomura, S. 1996. Korian Sekai no Tabi (A Journey Round the Korean World), Tokyo: Kodan-sha. Quoted in Fukuoka Yasunori: Lives of Young Koreans in Japan. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000.

Hiroyama Shibaaki. 1995. “Minsen no kaisen to chosensoren no keisei nit suite” (Dissolution of Minjon and Emergence of Chongryun), Koan joho 22: 5-11. Quoted in Ryang, Sonia: Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London ; New York : RoutledgeCurzon, 2005.

Lee, Yu-hwan. 1980. Nihon no naka no sanjuhachidosen (The thirty-eighth parallel in Japan), Tokyo: Akashi Shoten. Quoted in Chapman, David: Zainichi korean identity and ethnicity. New York: Routledge, 2008.

Hirajiri Hideki. 1989. Zainichi Chōsenjin no Seikatsu Sekai. Tokyo: Kobundo. Quoted in Chung Ok-ja:  일본 한인의 역사 (Korean Experience in Japan), Gwacheon: National Institute of Korean History, 2010.

Ryang, Sonia. 2005. Koreans in Japan: critical voices from the margin, London; New York: RoutledgeCurzon.

Journal Articles:

Sallie Yea. 2002. “Rewriting Rebellion and Mapping Memory in South Korea: The (Re)presentation of the 1980 Kwangju Uprising through Mangwol-dong Cemetery”. Urban Studies 39, no. 9: 1551-72.

Eika Tai. 2004. “Korean Japanese.”, Critical Asian Studies 36, no.3: 355-82.

Eika Tai. 2009. “Between assimilation and transnationalism: the debate on nationality acquisition among Koreans in Japan.” Social Identities 15, no.5: 609-629.

Ogawa Masaaki. 1985. “Zainichi gaikokujin no shakaihosho hoseijo no jokyo.” (The Legal Status of Resident Aliens in the Social Security System) Horitsu jiho 57, no.5: 43-55.

Onuma Yasuaki. 1992. “Interplay Between Human Rights Activities and Legal Standards of Human Rights: A Case Study on the Korean Minority in Japan.” Cornell International Law Journal 25: 515-33.

Kyungsik Suh. 2010. “‘Zainichi’ Who? – The Other Who Cannot Move across Borders.” Trans-Humanities 2, no.1: 129-151.

LEE Hong-jang. 2016. “Towards a New Perspective on Zainichi Korean Identity: A Discursive Analysis on the Historicity of Daburu (Doubles)”. Seoul Journal of Japanese Studies 2, no.1: 57-80.

Chee Choung-Il. 1982. “Japan’s Post-war Mass Denationalization of Korean Minority in

International Law.” The Korean Journal of International Law 27, no.1: 333-364.

Tessa Morris; Suzuki. 2011. “Exodus to North Korea Revisited: The Repatriation of Ethnic Koreans from Japan.” Korean Journal of Japanese Studies, no.4: 186-203.

Fukuoka, Yasunori; Tsujiyama, Yukiko. 1992. Translated by John G. Russell. “MINTOHREN: Young Koreans Against Ethnic Discrimination in Japan”. The Bulletin of Chiba College of Health Science 10, no.2: 147–62.O

在日同胞の生活を考える会. 2017. Interview by author. Tokyo. December 16.

2018. Interview by author. Tokyo. January 20.

Choi Si-Young. 2017. Interview by author. December 20.

在日同胞の生活を考える会. Official website. Accessed January 31, 2018. https://www.zainichi-seikatsu-kangaerukai.com/  

Japanese Ministry of Justice. Accessed December 2, 2017. http://www.moj.go.jp/housei/toukei/toukei_ichiran_touroku.html

The History Museum of J-Koreans. Visited November 17, 2017; December 22, 2017; January 20, 2018. Official website. Accessed January 31, 2018. http://j-koreans.org/kr/index.html

Yang Tae-ho. “Jijitsu toshite no ‘zainichi’” (Zainichi as a fact). Kikan sanzenri, August 1985, 146-51. Kang Sang-jung. “Hoho toshite no ‘zainichi’” (Zaincihi as a method). Kikan sanzenri, November 1985, 174-80.

George Ritzer. 2007. “Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology” Accessed by January 28, 2018.

Kim Dong-myung, interviewed by Iinuma Jiro, “Zainichi Chosenjin no ‘dai san no michi,’” Chosenjin 17, August 1979, reprinted in Iinuma Jiro, Zainichi Kankoku-Chosenjin [Resident Koreans in Japan] (Osaka: Kaifþsha, 1988), 21-86. Iinuma published Chosenjin for Japan-born Koreans to express their opinions freely without pressures from first-generation Koreans.

Image Caption: Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a speech in the Great Hall of the People, outlining his vision for the potential for Chinese leadership in the world at a time when Western powers are wrestling with their attitudes towards globalization.

Introduction

In October 2017, President Xi Jinping addressed the 19^th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in the Great Hall of the People.[I] Every detail – from the Hall’s perfectly symmetrical layout, the orderly proceedings and well-crafted speech, to the unanimous applause – was carefully choreographed aimed at the Chinese masses. But beyond the members of the Congress, President Xi had another audience in mind. In a clear tone, he recommended that other countries draw on “Chinese wisdom” and offered the world a “Chinese approach” to solve pressing global problems.[ii] To this point, however, it was not applause that President Xi received from his global audience. Instead, he had stirred mixed feelings amongst his global crowd. Many took the message as a hint of China’s desire to shed its old form of “low-profile” diplomacy for more ambitious foreign adventures, while others saw it as a prologue to a Sino-centric global order. Whatever the talks and speculations may be, fears and scepticisms dominated. Following China’s unveiling of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, concerns have been raised over Beijing’s plans to rewrite the rules of the global economic order. Elsewhere, ongoing tensions between the United States and China in the South China Sea led many to see both major powers locking in a “Thucydides’ Trap,” a phrase popularised by Harvard Professor Graham T. Allison and commonly refering to the notion that conflict and war inevitably result when a rising power seeks to challenge the established leader of the international order.[iii] Taking a quick glance, it seems that many view the future between China and the global order as far from promising. Rather than stretching its arms out in embrace of a more prosperous China, the global community seems to recoil in fear and suspicion over its growing confidence and ambitions.

Not What You May Think

By contemporary standards, China is seen as a growing revisionist power. By definition, a revisionist power is one that is dissatisfied with the existing international arrangements and seeks changes to expand its power and influence globally. But a revisionist is not the same as a revolutionary. By taking a close-up examination of China’s global disposition and its underlying motivating factors, the global community may discover a different reality: China is not a usurper biding its time to upturn the current global order, but an interested stakeholder in maintaining the existing order, together with its institutions and norms. This essay will explore how the world may be seeing a more familiar China with globalist characteristics far from its reputation as a maverick.

Global Currency, Not Yuan

There is little doubt that China has been the greatest beneficiary of the liberal economic order. Since its ascension into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001, China’s GDP more than tripled in less than a decade.[iv] With this growing economic clout came greater influence, and China wasted no time in making its presence felt in the global economic environment. However, these moves came with repercussions to China’s global image. Since the launching of the Belt and Road infrastructure programme in 2013 and followed by the establishment of the Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2015, concerns have been raised over China’s alleged ambitions to create new economic alternatives to bypass U.S. dominance and global institutions led by liberal democracies.[v] Yet such prophecies of a Chinese economic insurgence are premature and missing the real point. In his writing to the Foreign Affairsmagazine, Evan A. Feigenbaum relates China’s new economic initiatives as a strategy of “portfolio diversification” that reflects a growing Chinese desire – and ability – to complement existing economic arrangements with new, bigger platforms that better reflect its increasing power and status.[vi] While there is no hiding that China is dissatisfied with the inadequacies of current economic infrastructures, a disgruntled China does not necessarily have revolutionary instincts to overturn the existing order.

Conversely, China has not left the global pack at all. It remains the third-largest contributor to AIIB’s closest competitor, the Asian Development Bank (ADB),[vii] and it continues to play an active role in global economic conferences and meetings. On a different note, China’s leadership in regional economic partnerships, such as the AIIB and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), can help create a more concerted and effective Asian response to global problems. For example, in 2016, the ADB estimated that the total funding required for Asia’s infrastructural investment was close to US $1 trillion a year until 2020, of which existing measures could support only 60%.[viii] As such, the formation of the AIIB can be seen as an innovative instrument that applies timely fixes to the economic infrastructure in Asia. At the same time, there is no doubt that a more economically resilient and vibrant Asia can better respond to global problems and manage global demands. Besides, the idea of infrastructural development in Asia is not a Chinese invention. Instead, it was first articulated by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the World Bank, and the ADB at the beginning of this century.[ix] As such, by casting their disapproving glance at an idea that was first articulated by themselves, the United States and world’s attitude towards China’s leading role in Asia’s infrastructural development seems to lack persuasion and consistency. It seems that a fundamental change in how the world recognises China’s global policies and understands its intentions is necessary.

Essentially, a more integrated global market and prosperous trade serve the interest of China’s rapidly expanding economy. Especially at times when China is facing huge economic pressures at home, maintaining a stable and functioning global economy has never been more important for Chinese leaders. In many aspects, the relationship between China and the global economy is mutual: a thriving global economy will help Chinese leaders to both accomplish its economic goals of completing China’s transition to a developed country and as an external stabiliser for internal pressures. As such, it does not seem very wise for Chinese leaders to threaten and compromise a global system where much is at stake for China. For example, the future of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is very much premised upon the state of the global economic order. Paradoxically, China may actually be seen promoting global values more than its own. The world should take comfort that greater economic integration and cooperation are purchased with a global currency, not Yuanalone.

Political Reform in China: The Unexpected Student

On the political front, differences in state ideologies and political systems are long thought to hinder any form of meaningful interactions between China and the global world. Despite China’s impressive economic growth achieved since it carried out modernising reforms in the 1980s under Deng Xiaoping, domestic and political reforms have come at a more modest pace. As such, much of the world remains ambivalent and skeptical about a rising China that supposedly seeks to uphold a rules-based system and values of the global order. However, interactions of political ideas between the Chinese and global systems have been significant and produce more positive results than what many have come to acknowledge. In her essay titled “Autocracy with Democratic Characteristics,” Professor Yuen Yuen Ang suggests that contrary to common criticisms and doubts, the Chinese political system, in fact, has been responsive to democratic norms and reforms. Indeed, over the years, political reforms have gradually transformed the Chinese bureaucracy, and it has become more recognisable through its incorporation of democratic principles, such as meritocracy, accountability and performance management.[x] However, this is not to suggest that the real issues of corruption and accountability have become less relevant or important in the Chinese political context today. Despite its efforts at creating a modern and efficient bureaucracy, there remain powerful vested interests and countervailing socio-political forces that preempt significant and meaningful internal transformations. Nonetheless, what should also be considered is that though political changes might have seemed unsatisfactory based on global standards, the progress made – no matter how incremental it may be – by the Chinese political systems and its adaptability are real. Contrary to mainstream ideas, the Chinese political system presents itself not as a monolithic, rigid structure but as a flexible, “unique hybrid”[xi] that has managed to find a comfortable negotiating space between its own political traditions and cultures and global norms of democratic and institutional practices.

While the model of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” appears to herald the success of the “Chinese way,” the ingenuity of this “Chinese way” is as much derived from unique Chinese strengths as it is from a strong understanding and adaptation of global ideas. Contrary to common belief, global influences do actually balance and shape, if not inspire, Chinese political processes. Of course, as China’s power and influence grows, Chinese leaders may find themselves less inclined to be seen as a student. But this should not come as a surprise. The logic goes that with rising power comes growing confidence in one’s ideas and practices. Nonetheless, the exchange of political ideas between China and the world will continue as Chinese leaders are aware that the strength of its hybrid system lies in an ability to adapt and accommodate different ideas and practices. Rather than standing as a threat to China’s political systems, global systems and institutions actually act as a useful textbook for Chinese leaders to modernise and reform its own political infrastructure. Additionally, it behooves the global community to take greater confidence in its democratic systems and global institutions; only functioning democracy and a strongglobal system will further encourage China to learn and adapt. It is through active engagement and transfers of global democratic norms and practices that more substantial political reforms can manifest in China.

The Geopolitical Picture: The U.S. and China in the South China Sea

Perhaps no other place does one breathe a greater air of tension between the United States and China than in the South China Sea. On 4 October 2018, an American destroyer USS Decaturcame within fifty meters from a Chinese warship near disputed islands in the South China Sea.[xii] Furthermore, the United States Navy is planning to conduct more assertive “freedom of navigation operations” (or FONOPs) in the South China Sea to deter its Chinese counterparts.[xiii] Indeed, China’s growing intransigence in the South China Sea has grabbed many headlines and fanned fears over China’s ambitions to challenge U.S. hegemony. But does this muscular posture necessarily point to Chinese aspirations to challenge U.S. leadership, or indicate Beijing’s willingness to risk war against the United States in a bid for regional hegemony? Both are unlikely.

To put things into perspective, the picture of an Asia-Pacific region devoid of U.S. leadership and the dismantlement of its alliances is unnerving to both regional leaders and Beijing. For decades, the U.S.-led security frameworks and military partnerships have been a cornerstone of the region’s security infrastructure. Through these elaborate systems, the United States has played a central role in shaping multilateral relations and influencing regional dynamics. However, a U.S. military withdrawal would change all that in two significant ways. First, a U.S. pull-out from the region would leave a vacuum that no country, including China, is willing or able to fill. Second, the absence of U.S. leadership could lead to a dismantling of the region’s security infrastructure, which would raise serious security concerns over Japan’s possible remilitarisation[xiv] and escalation of conflicts at the Korean peninsula. In addition, the absence of an integrated security framework can throw the entire region into a state of anarchy, which would then breed uncertainty and insecurity among leaders. In such a tensed and volatile environment, a single episode could spark off a “domino effect” that would prove disastrous for the entire regional infrastructure. And given its geographical proximity and historical antagonisms and legacies involved, both the “Japanese question” and the “Korean question” will deliver many difficulties and pose serious security threats to Beijing. Granted, a strong U.S. military presence and well-functioning alliances may frustrate Chinese leaders who seek to expand its sphere of influence. But the geopolitical situation is far too delicate for us to see it only as a U.S.-China competition. Variables such as regional stability and legacies influence Beijing’s decision-making and foreign policy as well. Thus, Chinese leaders know better than anyone else that living alongside a stable hegemon remains a far better option than a historical throwback to a modern “warring states period” (zhan guo shi daior战国时代). With the themes of unification and peace featuring prominently in both its history and popular culture, the Chinese population are just as dedicated to peace as they are fearful of anarchy and war. Thus, as a matter of rationality, a stable and peaceful order in the region certainly matters more to China than who helms the order.

On the other hand, Chinese military efforts in the region may represent a more defensive mentality than it appears on the surface. Instead of using it as a geopolitical first step to challenge U.S. military systems and the regional power structure they maintain, Chinese military efforts in the South China Sea are more targeted at protecting what Beijing claims as China’s “core interests.”[xv] As ambiguous and debatable these claims can be, talks of Chinese intentions for a military showdown with the United States might have been exaggerated. As Michael Beckley says, “the main threat to U.S. primacy is not China’s rise but geopolitical hyperventilation, which emboldens China and encourages reckless U.S. foreign adventures and domestic underinvestment.”[xvi] Therefore, a better understanding of the various stakes involved in the region can provide us with a more nuanced side of the story. While China is a growing revisionist power aimed to expand its influence and secure vital interests, it is neither a revolutionary power bent on overthrowing the existing global order[xvii] nor a maverick determined to override current rules. The rattling is loud between the United States and China, but their sabers are more than likely to remain well sheathed.

The Middle Kingdom: Trends in Chinese History

An essential but often overlooked factor when it comes to mapping contemporary Chinese global trajectories is China’s own history. Throughout Chinese history, power and destiny were recurring themes that often guided and determined the rise and fall of empires. But, historically, the Chinese population have not come to associate power and destiny with global leadership and expansions. While Chinese empires certainly had expansionist tendencies, these were nevertheless regional and limited in scope. Instead, Chinese empires created what this essay describes as the “Confucian-Tribute system.” In these systems, empires developed their own sphere of influence, marked by their cultural homogeneity and similarity (i.e. Confucianism). Also, foreign populations and cultures were mainly seen as incompatible to a Sinocentric, Confucian order. While Chinese emperors exerted considerable influence in its vicinity, they looked no further to the outside world and remained largely disinterested, if not hostile, to global developments. A prosperous Middle Kingdom uninterrupted by external influences was a far higher priority than the making of a global empire.

However, the problem lies not just with an inability to see from a Chinese historical point of view, but the tendency for many to draw assumptions on the course of modern developments from a Eurocentric perspective.[xviii] From the beginning of the Portuguese Maritime Empire in the 15^thcentury to the Spanish exploration of the Americas, and from the British Colonial Empire to the “Dollar Empire” of the United States, the modern history of empires in the Western world seems to provide a convincing template on the global trajectories of power and expansion. In each case, the rise of a new hegemon alters the balance of power by dissolving the old order and establishing a new one in its image. Predictably, against this background of the Western experience, interpretations and understandings of China’s contemporary rise have not escaped from a trap of “linear developmentalism,”[xix] explained by Anievas and Nisancıoglu in “How the West Came to Rule” as the assumption that “European experience of modernity is a universal stage of development through which all societies must pass.”[xx] However, European – or Western – history is not synonymous with global history. Just as the West takes pride and draws inspiration from its history, it is only as logical that the Chinese people look into its past to appreciate contemporary events and developments. Thus, a starting point to reach a more reasonable understanding of China’s present behaviours and actions is first to recognise the historical developments and cultural forces that have come to shape Chinese identities over time. From its construction of the Great Wall to the teachings of Confucianism and its creation of the Tribute System, it is not difficult for one to realise that on global aspirations and leadership, Chinese history inspires few and justifies little – less to say of arousing ambitions to challenge the liberal global order. Without a convincing reference to its past, it is hard to imagine that the Chinese people would come to endorse a national agenda for global dominance.

So what exactly is the “Chinese solution” that President Xi wants to sell to the world, and how should the world react to a more visible China on global affairs? In their essay to the Foreign Affairs magazine, Campbell and Ely suggest that many have already begun questioning conventional wisdom by arguing that “as a leading beneficiary of this liberal international order… Beijing would have a considerable stake in the order’s preservation and come to see its continuation as essential to China’s progress.”[xxi] Similarly, the ongoing trade wars and rising military rows between the United States and China seem to give ammunition to talks of a return of the “Thucydides Trap” and provide vivid depictions of a defiant China jockeying for power with the “old guards” of the liberal global order. However, underneath this screen of pessimism and fears may lie a different reality. In many respects, the idea that China could be shaped into a more responsible stakeholder through active engagement remains true, if not more so than ever today.

On the issue of trade wars, rhetoric may seem divorced from its empirical reality. For example, according to the S&P Global Market Intelligence, total trade in dollar terms between the United States and China grew 14.3% in August, including an export expansion of 9.8% that exceeded market expectations of 7.8%.[xxii] While it still takes time for an economic equilibrium to be reached and for tariffs to show more measurable effects, the world should also bear in mind that important vested interests and benefits of free trade will continue to act as powerful inertia to a rollback on trade between the world’s two largest economies. In the South China Sea, things are not as bleak as they seem either. Fundamentally, rising tensions between the United States and China in the South China Sea are less sparked by the irreconcilability of vital national interests than a mix of mismanagement of foreign policy and poor communication between Washington and Beijing. In this geopolitical drama, problems are accentuated not by poor actors, but poor scripts. Nonetheless, promising signs are already showing. In a speech made in the Pentagon on 23 September, U.S. Defence Secretary James Mattis told reporters that it is important “to have a relationship with China” and efforts have been made to find a way out of this geopolitical impasse.[xxiii]

While it is necessary for the global community to grasp the gravity of a deteriorating U.S.- China relations on both economic and political fronts and to remain cautious as to how far China would go to follow a rules-based order, we should also not let ourselves down the paths of unwarranted fears and pessimism.Instead, as Michael Beckley suggests, a better alternative is “to maintain deep economic, diplomatic, and cultural ties while taking sensible steps to keep it in check.”[xxiv] In response to China’s growing visibility and influence, the global community should draw strength and inspiration from engagement with China, rather than retreat from fear or suspicion. As a new rising power, China continues to search for its new identity and position in this fast-changing global environment. For that, a positive and welcoming global community can offer the necessary guidance and motivation to encourage China to trade its conservative domestic agenda for a more global one that emphasises on universal values. As Professor Kevin McGahan from the National University of Singapore reminds us, global leaders should appreciate that global norms and values are also actively shaping Chinese identities and influencing its behavior on the global stage.[xxv]

Conclusion

Across the board, the world is witnessing a surge of globalisation driven by a Chinese rhythm. For the very first time, China is expected to overtake Japan to become the second largest contributor to the United Nations (UN) general budget in 2019,[xxvi] and it now boasts more troop contributions to UN peacekeeping missions than any other permanent member of the UN Security Council.[xxvii] Elsewhere, China portrays itself as a champion of global values on multilateralism, globalisation and rules-based systems. For example, in his speech themed “Multilateralism, Shared Peace and Development” to the 73^rdUN General Assembly, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pledged China’s support for the international order and multilateralism.[xxviii] As if China’s position on globalisation and its promotion of global values were not noticeable, U.S. President Trump’s speech at the same UN General Assembly,[xxix] with its recognisable nationalist and “America First” rhetoric, provided a sharp contrast. Interestingly, at a moment when the United States fails to live up to its expectations and threatens to withdraw itself from the very global order that it had painstakingly created, China, on the other hand, seems to defy speculations and preserves the global order instead.

As elaborated earlier in this essay, to understand China’s contemporary foreign policy and global manoeuvers one must first recognize the mutual interests between China and the global world. For China, its leaders need no nudging to see that since the country’s opening up and modernisation in the 1980s, it has benefited from active participation in global institutions and operating within global rules. Conceivably, China recognises that its interests are best protected through the preservation of the current order; otherwise, it risks losing benefits should the order disintegrate. For the global community, it can be beneficial to begin recognising how China’s successful economic transformation and its growing influence in the global community are just as much success of the “Chinese story” as it is part of the “global story.” For, though written in a different language, the text for the global agenda is similar: free trade, multilateralism and globalisation. Thus, a more balanced approach that encourages China to play a greater role in global affairs and with efforts to shape it into a more responsible stakeholder should be adopted. In times when forces of protectionism and nationalism seem to be sweeping fast across the world, China’s complementary brand of multilateralism and globalisation offers welcoming grounds to uphold cherished values of the global order. As such, the world should confidently walk towards a new era of globalisation beckoning with promise, not resignation. Looking ahead, it may not be a maverick that the world is seeing, but a China with global characteristics.

About the Author

Zhou Xizhuang Michael is a second-year undergraduate at the National University of Singapore majoring in Global Studies and specialising in East Asia, Foreign and Public Policy, and the French language. Michael is interested in global governance and international relations and enjoys reading history and literary classics.

Endnotes

[i]Elizabeth C. Economy, “China’s New Revolution: The Reign of Xi Jinping,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2018, 60.

[ii]Ibid., 60.

[iii]Graham T. Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017.

[iv]Permanent Mission of China to the WTO, “China in the WTO: Past, Present and Future,” World Trade Organisation, published on December 2012, accessed September 22, 2018, https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/acc_e/s7lu_e.pdf.

[v]Evan A. Feigenbaum, “China and the World: Dealing With a Reluctant Power,” Foreign Affairs, January/February 2017, 33.

[vi]Ibid., 36

[vii]Ibid., 36

[viii]Ibid., 36

[ix]Ibid., 38

[x]Yijia Jing, Yangyang Cui, and Danyao Li, “The Politics of Performance Measurement in China,” Policy and Society34, no. 1 (2015): 49, accessed August 10, 2018, doi: 10.1016/i.polsoc.2015.02.001;
see also, Andrew Podger (澳大利亚国立大学), and Bo Yan (西安交通大学), “Public Administration in China and Australia: Different Worlds but Similar Challenges (中国和澳大利亚的公共行政管理：不同的世界，相似的挑战),” Australian Journal of Public Administration72, no. 3 (2013): 215-217, https://doi-org.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/10.1111/1467-8500.12023.

Yangyang Cui, and Danyao Li. “The Politics of Performance Measurement in China.” Policy and Society 34, no. 1 (2015): 49-61. Accessed August 10, 2018. doi: 10.1016/i.polsoc.2015.02.001.

[xi]Yuen Yuen Ang, “Autocracy With Chinese Characteristics: Beijing’s Behind-the-Scenes Reforms,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2018, 43.

[xii]“Hot water: Chinese and American warships nearly collide,” The Economist, October 4, 2018, accessed October 4, 2018, https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/10/04/chinese-and-american-warships-nearly-collide.

[xiii]Terry Ng, “US navy plans major show of strength in South China Sea as warning to Beijing,” South China Morning Post, October 4 2018, accessed October 4, 2018. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/2166910/us-navy-plans-major-show-strength-south-china-sea-warning.

[xiv]William J. Crowe Jr., and Alan D. Romberg, “Rethnking Security in the Pacific,” Foreign Affairs, Spring 1991 Issue, accessed September 30, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/1991-03-01/rethinking-security-pacific.

[xv]Edward Wong, “Security Law Suggests a Broadening of China’s ‘Core Interests’,” The New York Times, July 2, 2015, 2015, accessed September 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/world/asia/security-law-suggests-a-broadening-of-chinas-core-interests.html.

[xvi]Michael Beckley, “Stop Obsessing About China: Why Beijing Will Not Imperil U.S. Hegemony,” Foreign Affairs, September 21, 2018, accessed October 2, 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-09-21/stop-obsessing-about-china.

[xvii]“Tortoise v hare: Is China challenging the United States for global leadership?” The Economist, April 1, 2017, accessed October 1, 2018, https://www.economist.com/china/2017/04/01/is-china-challenging-the-united-states-for-global-leadership.

[xviii]Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisancıoglu, How the West Came to Rule: The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism(London, [England]: Pluto Press, 2015), 4.

[xix]Ibid., 5.

[xx]Ibid., 5.

[xxi]Kurt M. Campbell and Ely Ratner, “The China Reckoning: How Beijing Defied American Expectations,” Foreign Affairs, March/April, 2018, 67.

[xxii]Kenneth Rapoza, “Trade War Update: China Trade Unfazed By Trump Tariffs,” Forbes, September 11, 2018, accessed October 2, 2018,https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2018/09/11/trade-war-update-china-trade-unfazed-by-trump-tariffs/#104c276a6b84.

[xxiii]Reuters, “US Defence Secretary James Mattis ‘looking for way ahead’ after China scraps military talks in sanctions protest,” South China Morning Post, September 25, 2018, accessed September 26, 2018, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2165623/us-defence-secretary-james-mattis-looking-way-ahead-after-china.

[xxiv]Michael Beckley, “Stop Obsessing About China,” Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-09-21/stop-obsessing-about-china.

[xxv]Interview with Professor Kevin McGahan, Global Studies Programme, Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore.

[xxvi]King Adriana King, “China set to surpass Japan as No.2 contributor to UN,” Nikkei Asian Review, August 15 2018, accessed September 2, 2018, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-Relations/China-set-to-surpass-Japan-as-No.-2-contributor-to-UN.

[xxvii]Xinhua, “China’s contribution to peacekeeping ‘extremely important,’ says UN peacekeeping chief,” China Daily, July 2, 2017, accessed September 30, 2018, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017-07/02/content_29964537.htm.

[xxviii]“Wang Yi Attends the General Debate of the 73^rdSession of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly and Delivers a Speech,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, September 29, 2018, accessed September 29, 2018, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1601122.shtml.

[xxix]Mythili Sampathkumar and Harriet Angerholm, “Trump UN speech – President laughed at by world leaders as he boasts of achievements amid condemnation of Iran,” The Independent, September 25, 2018, accessed September 25, 2018, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/un-general-assembly-live-updates-trump-speech-security-council-iran-north-korea-syria-russia-china-a8553781.html.

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Image Caption: Demonstrators gather in the city of Mainz at a rally in support of Alternative for Germany, a far-right German political party with populist roots.

On the 24^th of September, 2017, the  Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union parties (CDU/CSU) won 32.9 percent of the total votes in the 2017 German Federal Elections, translating to 246 seats in the Bundestag, the highest among the parties in the German parliament. The election results also provided Angela Merkel her 4^th term as the chancellor of Germany. The federal election may seem favorable for the CDU/CSU, having secured the most number of seats, but analysts agreed that the overall result sent a bad signal for the largest party as a result of an 8.6 percent decrease in votes since the previous election. There was also a decrease in percentage of votes of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Bundestag’s second largest party belonging to a government coalition with the CDU/CSU.

This election also captured the attention of numerous analysts due to the significant increase in popularity of the “Alternative for Germany” (AfD), a far-right German political party that gained 12.6 percent of votes—an equivalent of 94 parliamentary seats. This party, known for its firm stances on globalization, anti-immigration policies, Euroscepticism and Xenophobia gained support among Germans, especially in the Eastern part of the country. Numerous analyses generally attributed this case to the rise of populism, a prominent trend in far right parties across the globe. In Europe, for instance, the Italian far right party “Lega Nord” successfully formed a coalition with another right-wing party called the “Five Star Movement” in the Italian parliament, and recent elections in the Netherlands and Austria showed a surge of vote for far-right parties. In Latin America, economic conditions provided ideas for the people to vote for populist leaders and politicians who they think would address social issues such as poverty and inequality; however, unlike in Europe, their support is usually received by left-wing parties.

The general explanation to this global phenomenon is usually tied to the dissatisfaction of the “common people” on how present political institutions handle social problems. As a result, they would tend to elect a politician that best represents the interest of the common people; leaders that they think have the capacity to restructure the current political system.

Trends in Electoral and Party System

Most research on electoral participation often conclude that there is indeed a decrease in voter participation rates around the world for the past election periods. The research done by Solijonov shows that the global average voter turnout has decreased significantly since the beginning of the 1990s, with Europe having the most dramatic effect.^[1] The World Bank supports this conclusion after analyzing declining election turnout across the world over the last 25 years: the average global voter turnout rate dropped by more than 10%.^[2] Different researchers present various explanations to this phenomenon; for McDonald and Popkin, the institutional structure increases the costs of voters to gather and process the information about which vote, for which candidate, for which office, on which date, etc. such as the case of the United States.^[3] Education is an important factor for Gray and Caul^[4] while Geys found that population and campaign expenditure have a significant impact.^[5]

Some studies also focus on the role of party system in electoral participation, such as Herzinger, who stated that a decrease of voter turnout is due to a present era where traditional parties are still rooted in 19th-century conservatism, liberalism, and socialism, presenting a mismatch between party platforms and voter wishes.^[6] With political representation becoming more individualized rather than collective, party affiliation is being driven more by individual preferences and choices rather than membership in a particular social bloc or organizational collectivity.^[7] This transition from class-based politics to quality-of-life politics is being driven by self-expression, ‘belonging’ and the quality of the physical and social environment. Since the 1970s at least, empirical analysis seemed to provide evidence for the view that slow, but long-term changes were affecting parties and party systems especially in Europe.^[8] These changes were leading not merely to increased abstention and to greater ‘independence’ of the electorate vis-à-vis the established parties, but also to the emergence of new populist parties. By the mid-1980s, the far-right’s intervention in the discourse in brought culture to the center in an environment which was considered ripe for such intervention,^[9] and from then on it has become a regular feature of politics in western democracies since at least the early 1990s.^[10]

Emergence and the Rise of Populism

Most literature on the emergence of populism would agree that populism is a result of people’s distrust and suspicion to the current political system. It is either a symptom of the failure of progressive politics,^[11] or a result of an identity crisis as such, or, increasingly, the result of ‘hyperglobalization.’^[12] In spite of diverse manifestations in the present age of neoliberal globalization, the resurgence of populism is frequently tied to two common sources. First, it is closely linked to growing distrust of the formal institutions that organize social, economic, and political power within individual countries. Second, populist resurgence is commonly tied to discontent with systems of power that appear to preserve and entrench prevailing class structures.^[13] Populists always perceive that political elites who failed to address social problems are running government institutions, and thus they rely on the juxtaposition of virtuous ‘people’ versus corrupt ‘elites’. The immediate explanation is found in the widespread disaffection with politics, growing cynicism toward the established political parties, and rapidly dwindling confidence in the political class’s ability to solve society’s most urgent problems. Thus they present themselves as the main advocates of the concerns of ordinary citizens while promoting a fundamental renewal of the established order.^[14]

While present-day populist movements identify the same structural problem, their perception on numerous social issues varies. The various forms of populism, especially the ones linked to social reformism and promoted through socialist or religious discourses, were threaded with suspicion, especially within economic rationalism of neo-liberal reforms and secular–individualist ideology of civil society.^[15] There is a great number of populists skeptical of the status quo because of its perceived impact to the people, some of them attributed it to the failure of economic neoliberalism, and this form of justification is inherent in left-wing populism usually founded on South America. The perception of failed economic policies preceding the rise of populist leaders is legitimized by distinct integration patterns into the global economy, the strength of labor, and regional dynamics.^[16] The rationalization of the production process as well as the flexibilization of the work force, both consequences of the introduction of new technologies, have split the work force into a number of core industries complete with secure, full-time workplaces and a growing marginalized periphery with insecure, often part-time.^[17] Workers often lack convertible skills necessary to adjust to these new circumstances. Being the main victims of economic dislocations, workers may express their resentment by opting for the only political alternative that openly rejects economic modernization.^[18]

Democracy as a Value of Representation

Democracy, as an instrument of representation, is often described as a system that promotes equality and collectivism. John Stuart Mill argued that a democratic method of making legislation is better than non-democratic methods in three ways: strategically, epistemically, and via the improvement of the characters of democracy.^[19] Strategically speaking, democracy has an advantage because it forces decision-makers to take into account the interests, rights, and opinions of most people in society. Since democracy gives some political power to each, more people are taken into account than under aristocracy or monarchy. Epistemologically, democracy is thought to be the best decision-making method on the grounds that it is generally more reliable in helping participants discover the right decisions. Since democracy brings a lot of people into the process of decision making, it can take advantage of many sources of information and critical assessment of laws and policies. Democratic decision-making tends to be more informed than other forms about the interests of citizens and the causal mechanisms necessary to advance those interests. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Social Contract Theory discussed the idea of general will as a result of an individual’s membership in a group. His central doctrine in politics is that a state can be legitimate only if it is guided by the “general will” of its members, even though each member submits their own personal will and freedom, reaching a balance between the freedom of the individual and the authority of the state.^[20] This balance is necessary because human society has evolved to a point where individuals can no longer supply their needs through their own unaided efforts, but rather must depend on the co-operation of others.

Rousseau first discussed that individuals all have private wills corresponding to their own selfish interests as natural individuals. He then incorporated the idea that each individual, insofar as he or she identifies with the collective as a whole and assumes the identity of citizen, wills the general will of that collective as his or her own, setting aside selfish interest in favor of a set of laws that allow all to coexist under conditions of equal freedom. Lastly, and most problematically, he argued that a person can identify with the corporate will of a subset of the populace as a whole. The general will is therefore both a property of the collective and a result of its deliberations, and also a property of the individual insofar as the individual identifies as a member of the collective.

John Rawls, in his book interpreted citizens based on the idea that they are free and equal and that the society should be fair. Citizens are equal, Rawls says, in virtue of having the capacities to participate in social cooperation over a complete life. Citizens may have greater or lesser skills, talents, and powers “above the line” that cooperation requires, but differences above this line have no bearing on citizens’ equal political status.^[21] Rawls’ conception of society is defined by fairness: social institutions are to be fair to all cooperating members of society, regardless of their race, gender, religion, class of origin, natural talents, reasonable conception of the good life, and so on.

The idea of populist institutional framework without standard rules is fully compatible with the idea of populism as a spectral companion of democratic politics.^[22] Populism results from a paradox at the heart of democracy. An impulse towards universal inclusion is inscribed in the democratic project. Democracy means literally ‘rule by the people’ or ‘the power of the citizens.’^[23]

They admit, however, that voice can be distributed rather asymmetrically, with some voices finding themselves disproportionally amplified, while others are muted and relegated to the periphery of the circles of power. The paradox affecting democracy defined as an all-inclusive community underpinned by strong egalitarian commitments means that exclusion – especially when perceived as largely one-sided and systemic – is a problem that undermines the legitimacy of this form of government in a particularly acute way.^[24] This is in line with the Platonic idea of democracy in “The Republic”^[25] and Thomas Hobbes’s “Leviathan” in that political expertise is undermined by manipulation and mass appeal use to help politicians win office.^[26] The new populism faced by societies today emerged because orthodox democratic alternatives failed and because of the historical resonance of populist appeals in South America. It succeeded, above all, because democracy allows electorates to make their own choices and to hold governments accountable when things go wrong.^[27]

Furthermore, the new radical right does not usually oppose democracy per se (as an idea), although they typically are hostile to representative democracy and the way existing democratic institutions actually work.^[28] The radical right and the radical left in Western Europe also hold fairly moderate positions regarding the ‘establishment.’ Traditionally, extreme right and extreme left parties were opposed to liberal democracy. However, current radical right and left parties are fairly moderate in this respect. Radical parties do not focus so much on the allegedly corrupted system in its entirety but, instead, focus on the political and/or economic elites within that system.^[29]

In a modern democracy the politician must, of course, always be aware of the dangers of trying to ignore strong public opinion. But he must also be aware of the dangers of simply trying to flatter and follow public opinion if he thinks that, at a given moment, the public is acting against its long-term best interests.^[30] In the end, the great virtue of democracy is not that it corresponds to some neat formula of rule but rather that power is vested in the people. It is clear that democratic systems are capable of producing some degree of unpredictability and forcing observers to rethink.^[31]

Multiculturalism and Immigration

While populism in general considers progressive policies as detrimental to the welfare of the people, right-wing populism integrated immigration to the discourse. It has become commonplace to attribute the growing appeal of radical right-wing populism to the recent explosion of hostility towards immigrants in much of western Europe^[32] primarily due to the competition in the labor market. In some aspect far-right populists also attribute immigration to security threats and terrorism after cases of bombing and attacks in Europe increase from the time that there is an influx of migrants from Arab countries. Since the 1980s, fear of immigration and immigrants has increased in Austria and Italy. In Austria, this was precipitated by the fall of the Iron Curtain and the resulting influx of economic refugees from Eastern Europe and political refugees from war-torn ex-Yugoslavia.^[33] The Austrian Freedom Party and the Lega Nord claim that excessive immigration steals employment from locals, reduces wages, and places undue burdens on the welfare state. Fear has also increased with plans to expand the European Union eastwards. As high numbers of European citizens worry about their own personal security, the leaders of the Lega Nord and the Freedom Party link crime with immigration.

From this perspective, the rise of right-wing radicalism represents a response on the part of various groups in society to a rapidly changing world which threatens to destroy a hitherto stable and secure identity. Their reaction has been to reaffirm traditional values, particularly law and order, discipline, and the values of industrial capitalism, while rejecting everything perceived as “alien,” from new technologies and new “postmaterialist” values and lifestyles to the uncertainties and challenges of an integrated European market, to the influx of “foreigners.” The resulting political climate might be best characterized as a politics of resentment which right-wing radical parties have been quick to exploit.^[34]

Right-wing activity can also emerge in response to threat and competition posed by the changing racial composition of a population.^[35] The rise and success of radical right-wing populism in western Europe can thus be interpreted as the result of the increasing social and cultural fragmentation and differentiation of advanced western societies.^[36] Radical right populist parties of exclusion also emphasize that dominant European cultures have the same right to protect their own cultural identity from the so-called ‘invasion’ of other non-European cultures.^[37] Oesch suggests that, compared to economic parameters, cultural impact is more associated to the rise of right-wing populism. He stated that far-right electorates appear more afraid of immigrants’ negative influence on the country’s culture than on the country’s economy.^[38]

Generally, the debates over multiculturalism are so fractured—ranging from questions of how to balance collective rights with individual freedoms, to debates over establishing a framework for equality between groups without sacrificing individual rights within groups—as to short-circuit any possible consensus.^[39] While globalization becomes more dynamic over the past decades, nationalist sentiments also increase in order to cope up with the mobility of people. The inclusion of minorities inside a country often lead to conflict, as small group people demand more recognition of their own identity, nationalists would tend to contradict due to the perceived implications on national unity. While policies on immigration have been consistent in Western societies over some time, the rise on support to far-right movements signal that cultural diversity is a threat to the traditions of people.

Conclusion

In general, the two types of populism vary in terms of understanding the causes of social issues, however both agree that globalization has a great role in the development of these issues. For the left-wing, liberalization of economic policies is being driven by globalization which caused production to increase, and, in order to meet the demands of world market, labor is being replaced by technology to facilitate faster production. For the far-right, globalization increases human mobility, thus making it easier for people to move and migrate.

While populist parties are generally considered as the current ideal solution for the common people, the extreme dependence on this group to solve social issues may receive backlash in the future. Considering that the support of this movement came from are those who are disappointed the current political institutions, a failure to deliver solutions promised by the populists during election periods may implicate the trust and support of the people.

About the Author

Mark Angelo Gajardo is a Bachelor of Public Administration graduate at the National College of Public Administration and Governance of the University of the Philippines. His research interest includes Global Security and International Political Economy, as well as issues on European Politics, Asia-Pacific Security and International Institutions.

Endnotes

^[1]Andrej Solijonov, Voter Turnout Trends around the World (Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2016), 8.

^[2] World Bank Group, World Development Report, 40.

^[3]Michael Mcdonald and Samuel Popkin, “The Myth of the Vanishing Voter,” The American Political Science Review 95, no. 4 (2001): 970, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055400400134.

^[4]Mark Gray and Miki Caul, “Declining Voter Turnout in Advanced Industrial Democracies, 1950 to 1997,” Comparative Political Studies 33, no. 9  (2000): 1790, https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414000033009001.

^[5]Benny Geys, “Explaining voter turnout: A review of aggregate-level research,” Electoral Studies 25, no. 4 (2006): 641-649, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2005.09.002.

^[6]Richard Herzinger, “Power to the Populists,” Foreign Policy 133 (2002): 78, https://doi.org/10.2307/3183561.

^[7]Kenneth Roberts, “Party-Society Linkages and Democratic Representation in Latin America,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies / Revue Canadienne Des études Latino-américaines Et Caraïbes 27, no. 53 (2002): 27, https://doi.org/10.1080/08263663.2002.10816813.

^[8]Jean Blondel, “Party Government, Patronage, and Party Decline in Western Europe,” In Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges, ed. Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero, and Juan J. Linz (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002), 233-256.

^[9]Ferruh Yilmaz, “Right-wing hegemony and immigration: How the populist far-right achieved hegemony through the immigration debate in Europe,” Current Sociology 60, no. 3 (2012): 375, https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392111426192.

^[10]Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist,” Government and Opposition 39, no. 4  (2004): 551, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x.

^[11]Michael Sandel, “Populism, liberalism, and democracy,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 44, no. 4 (2018): 354, https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453718757888.

^[12] Michael Cox, “The Rise of Populism and the Crisis of Globalisation: Brexit, Trump and Beyond,” Irish Studies in International Affairs 28 (2017): 14, https://doi.org/10.3318/isia.2017.28.12.

^[13] Vedi Hadiz and Angelos Chryssogelos,“Populism in world politics: A comparative cross-regional perspective,” International Political Science Review 38, no. 4  (2017): 401, https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512117693908.

^[14]Hans-Georg Betz, “The Two Faces of Radical Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe,” The Review of Politics 55, no. 4 (1993b): 679, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670500018040.

^[15] Juraj Buzalka,“Europeanisation and Post-Peasant Populism in Eastern Europe,”  Europe- Asia Studies 60, no. 5 (2008): 769, https://doi.org/10.1080/09668130802085141

^[16]S. Erdem Aytaç and Ziya Őniş, “Varieties of Populism in a Changing Global Context: The Divergent Paths of Erdoğan and Kirchnerismo,” Comparative Politics 47, no. 1 (2014): 55, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2261178 .

^[17]Hans-Georg Betz, “Politics of Resentment: Right-Wing Radicalism in West Germany,” Comparative Politics 23, no. 1 (1990): 47, https://doi.org/10.2307/422304.

^[18]Daniel Oesch, “Explaining Workers Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Evidence from Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, and Switzerland,” International Political Science Review 29, no. 3  (2008): 351, https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512107088390.

^[19]John Stuart Mill, “That the ideally best Form of Government is Representative Government,” in Considerations on Representative Government, (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991), 45-69.

^[20] Susan Dunn, “Introduction: Rousseau’s Political Triptych,” in The Social Contract and The First and Second Discourses, ed. Susan Dunn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 9-13.

^[21] John Rawls, A theory of justice (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1971), 221-228.

^[22] Benjamin Arditi, “Populism as a Spectre of Democracy: A Response to Canovan,” Political Studies 52, no. 1 (2004): 142. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00468.x.

^[23]Filipe Da Silva and Mónica Vieira, “Populism as a logic of political action,” European Journal of Social Theory (2018): 7. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368431018762540.

^[24] Ibid, 8.

^[25] Plato, “Book 8,” In The Republic, ed. Giovanni Ferrari (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 266-271.

^[26] Thomas Hobbes, “Of Commonwealth,” in Leviathan, ed. John Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 148-159.

^[27] George Philip, “The New Populism, Presidentialism and Market‐Orientated Reform in Spanish South America,” Government and Opposition 33, no. 1 (1998): 97, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.1998.tb00784.x.

^[28] Jens Rydgren, “The Sociology of the Radical Right,” Annual Review of Sociology 33, no. 1 (2007): 243, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131752.

^[29] Matthijs Rooduijn and Tjitske Akkerman, “Flank attacks: Populism and left-right radicalism in Western Europe,” Party Politics 23, no. 3 (2015): 196, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068815596514.

^[30] Bernard Crick, “Populism, politics and democracy,” Democratization 12, no. 5 (2005): 630, https://doi.org/10.1080/13510340500321985.

^[31] Philip, The New Populism, 97.

^[32]Hans-Georg Betz, “The New Politics of Resentment: Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties in Western Europe,” Comparative Politics 25, no. 4 (1993a): 415, https://doi.org/10.2307/422034.

^[33] Andrej Zaslove, “Closing the door? The ideology and impact of radical right populism on immigration policy in Austria and Italy,” Journal of Political Ideologies 9, no. 1 (2004): 101, https://doi.org/10.1080/1356931032000167490.

^[34] Betz, Politics of Resentment, 47.

^[35] Kathleen Blee and Kimberly Creasap, “Conservative and Right-Wing Movements,” Annual Review of Sociology 36 (2010): 276, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102602.

^[36] Betz, The New Politics of Resentment, 424.

^[37] Zaslove, Closing the door?, 103.

^[38] Oesch, Explaining Workers Support, 370.

^[39] Augie Fleras, “Theorizing Multicultural Governances: Making Society Safe from Difference, Safe for Difference,” in The Politics of Multiculturalism Multicultural Governance in Comparative Perspective, ed. Augie Fleras (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 23-54.

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Image Caption: Although many point to the Peace of Westphalia as the starting point for the modern framework relating individual rights with sovereignty in international law,  the narrative is in fact more complicated and may require a more nuanced look at history beyond 17th century Europe.

Introduction

Hersch Lauterpacht, the principal legal architect of crimes against humanity, once said that “the individual human being is the ultimate unit of all law.”^[1] While it has been true throughout history that law governs the behavior of society and thereby regulates what individuals can and cannot do through the imposition of consequences for certain actions, individuals were not, and indeed still are not, the central unit of analysis in international law and relations. The development of human rights as an international legal norm, however, has brought individual rights far closer to the foreground of analysis, increasingly so with respect to questions of humanitarian intervention and sovereignty. Whether or not human rights fundamentally undermine sovereignty has become a central question in contemporary international relations literature.^[2]

How has the shift in emphasis from the protection of collective to individual rights in international law affected modern conceptions of sovereignty and its limits? To answer this question, this paper will trace the development of rights in international relations and the corresponding impact on normative understandings of sovereignty and justified intervention. First, it will discuss the focal shift from collective to individual rights and its reflection within international law. Second, it will examine how the changing structure and unitary focus of rights coincided with and informed the transition from personalized or dynastic to depersonalized or popular sovereignty. Finally, it will identify how these altered conceptions of rights and sovereignty have modified what is considered a legitimately justified intervention. It will apply this perspective by contending that the emergence of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and other international principles which endorse intervention for the protection of citizens, rather than solely to counter state-to-state aggression are a part of a broader normative shift within international relations in which international legal sovereignty is becoming increasingly contingent on individual rather than collective rights.

Between collectivity and individuality

Identifying a transition from collective to individual rights has become a popular explanation for the historical development of human rights. This narrative can occasionally be misleading by implying that recognition of individual rights in international law was perhaps formerly non-existent. Reality is more nuanced. An evaluation of the development of rights through the lenses of collectivism and individualism is better envisioned as movement along a spectrum rather than an emergent dichotomy. The inclusion of individual rights within international law is not a new phenomenon; however, with the transition from dynastic to popular sovereignty, individual rights have attained the greater normative focus and gained more substantial enforceability through the expansion of global governance.

In international relations literature, the narrative of rights and sovereignty often begins at the conclusion of the Thirty Year’s War and the ratification of the Peace of Westphalia. At this time and place, sovereignty was dynastic and, therefore, rights were both determined and guaranteed by the sovereign, and they tended to apply to the collective of the nation-state. This is exemplified in Westphalian provisions on religious rights, which granted the territorial ruler or sovereign, rather than the Holy Roman Empire, the right to choose the religion of their subjects.^[3] However, the preeminence of collective rights was not absolute; the Peace also guaranteed those subjects freedom of conscience and the right to emigrate or practice in neighboring countries.^[4] Importantly, this indicates that “the endorsement of individual rights at Westphalia limited state sovereignty” by restraining the powers it then encompassed.^[5]

In the centuries which followed, marked by religious upheaval as well as the rise of enlightenment ideals, individual rights became a matter of increasing contention in political life across Western Europe and eventually, of import to both the American and French revolutions.

There are countless rhetorical similarities between the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen which are also later shared by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The most prominent of these commonalities is their focus on the individual citizen and description of their rights as intrinsic, inalienable, and fundamentally linked to freedom and security. This concentration on the rights and empowerment of individual citizens seems a byproduct not only of the intellectual climate of this era, but also those who were represented in the ‘rooms where it happened’. It was la troisième état, comprised by the popular majority, that formed the National Assembly which drafted the Declaration on the Rights of Man and the Citizen.^[6] Similarly, the American Declaration of Independence was written by citizens appointed by a Congress.^[7] Each of these events and their respective declarations mark critical moments for the historical transition of the authority to define and enforce rights from dynastic leaders to their citizens. By consequence, individuals became the primary subjects and guarantors of rights.

In a global context, the shift in emphasis from collectivity to individuality in the structuring of rights allowed for the formation of rights that by nature of being centered on individuals rather than states, transcend national borders and apply globally. This is facilitated by the concept of universality, which figured in discussions of rights even significantly predating the advent of human rights. Themes of universalism are present throughout religious texts, including the Ten Commandments of the Abrahamic faiths, as well as ancient legal frameworks including Hammurabi’s Code.^[8] These historic examples among others in fact informed UNESCO respondents and members of the UDHR drafting committee, the Commission on Human Rights.^[9] The development of universal human rights was emblematic of a reconstitution of the international community from focusing on the rights of individual states or nations to developing a global community with shared rights which is inclusive of many more stakeholders such as individuals and organizations. Despite more pessimistic accounts which view human rights principally as a tool of Western states to enforce their desired order, the drafting of the UDHR did in fact draw from a culturally diverse set of sources.^[10] The focus on universality rooted in common humanity coupled with statements on non-discrimination found in Articles 2 and 7^[11] demonstrate some commitment to building an international order with greater diversity, equity, and inclusion through strengthening individuals’ rights at a global level.

Importantly, however, the transition from collective to individual rights and universal principles has not involved an abandonment of collective or group rights in their entirety. This is evidenced by the co-existence of crimes against humanity and genocide within international law.

Crimes against humanity applies to a set of violent acts “when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack,”^[12] whereas genocide requires that the described acts be “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”^[13] As such, crimes against humanity offer more universal and individual-centered protection, while genocide affords group-centered protection. The two work in tandem in that crimes against humanity are sufficiently broad to capture many forms of suffering for any person, while genocide encapsulates a particularly directed form of suffering.

Importantly, these concepts create space for individuals’ rights to be recognized and enforced, independent of belonging to a group as well as by belonging to group, while expanding the definition of a ‘group’ beyond the nation or state. This is critically important given the events of WWII, where under the Nuremberg Laws individuals were systematically deprived of their citizenship and the rights that citizenship ensured.^[14] The statelessness of Jewish peoples rendered their community largely unprotected in a state-centered international legal regime concerned with the preservation of sovereignty and its related principle of non-intervention. The 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness sought to remedy this problem by ensuring the human rights of stateless individuals and the right of every person to a nationality respectively.^[15] Taking up the cause of human rights also offered great powers/former colonizers the opportunity to address issues arising during decolonization such as minority rights and national self-determination, in a manner which did not require specific or binding commitments and was therefore more preferential to their contemporary interests.^[16]

All of this is not to say that prior to the codification of these laws individual protections in international law were non-existent. A tradition of holding individuals accountable at the international level had in fact emerged as is evident in the example of piracy and the Laws of the Sea, which allowed the prosecution of private individuals and entities as early as the 18th century.^[17] The crucial difference here is that these laws were concerned with the protection of private rather than public rights.

Consequently, the development of human rights, crimes against humanity, and genocide are significant because they forefront the public rights and treatment of individuals as a matter of international law. In doing so, questions of sovereignty arise in regards to the enforcement of these principles such as when and by who is intervention acceptable in the case of their violation.

Reconceptualizing sovereignty

In his well-known work, Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy, Stephen Krasner outlines four types of sovereignty: “domestic sovereignty, referring to the organization of public authority within a state and to the level of effective control exercised by those holding authority; interdependence sovereignty, referring to the ability of public authorities to control trans-border movements; international legal sovereignty, referring to the mutual recognition of states or other entities; and Westphalian sovereignty, referring to the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority configurations.”^[18]

Three broad dimensions of sovereignty arise from these definitions: authority, territoriality, and recognition. Authority stands out as the central component, with territoriality and recognition being supportive or legitimating characteristics of authority. Non-interference, another oft-named characteristic, involves not violating the components comprising a state’s authority. For a state, authority is directly linked to the ability to set rights and rules and the capacity to uphold them. Therefore, what is also common throughout each of these potential definitions of sovereignty is that, conceptually, sovereignty is contingent upon the definition and structure of rights within the community to which it applies. As such, the history of rights outlined prior is concurrently a history of sovereignty.

The transitional spectrum to highlight here is the movement from dynastic to popular sovereignty. Under dynastic sovereignty, sovereignty and the authority it denotes is invested in an individual, the ruler, whereas under popular sovereignty this is distributed among the citizens.

The relationship between rights and sovereignty in its popular orientation is most clearly elucidated in the American Declaration of Independence where it proclaims that “…to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…,”^[19] demonstrating the shift of authority from a ruler to the people and their representation in government. This principle is also enshrined in Article 21(3) of the UDHR which affirms individuals’ right to participate in their country’s government, asserting that “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of the government”.^[20]

Such examples clearly demonstrate that the shifts in prominence from collective to individual rights and dynastic to popular sovereignty were mutually substantive processes because the reconstitution of rights is inextricably linked to the reconfiguration of authority.

This idea is particularly interesting in consideration of more modern transitions of sovereignty and the conditions under which authority did and did not transfer. For example, the inability of developing countries to self-govern was used as both a justification for colonization and for the denial of sovereignty at the onset of decolonization precisely because of the linkages between authority and rights. Colonies were viewed as incapable of being sovereign due to being ‘uncivilized’ — lacking in development and in turn, the capacity to ensure rights. This logic also underscores the arguments rooted in natural law which were historically used to deprive indigenous communities of sovereignty and, therefore, land rights.^[21] It also demonstrates how standards pertaining to rights and development are historically part of a criterion for the recognition aspect of sovereignty, particularly in its international legal form, which determines whether or not a state can participate in the prevailing international order.

Fulfillment of rights is also a key measure, however, of authority and sovereignty in a domestic context. The earlier cited paragraph from the Declaration of Independence in fact continues to say “…that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”^[22]

Here, individuals are given the formal legal right to intervene in their state should it fail to uphold their rights, further securing the notion that authority and by extension, sovereignty is contingent on the structure of rights and their fulfillment. With the shifts in emphasis to individual rights and popular sovereignty, individuals have therefore not only become the central subjects and governors of rights and sovereignty, but important figures in justifying domestic or international intervention.

Justifying intervention

Central to the justification of intervention under international law is the criteria by which we evaluate states as threats to international security and in turn, when it is acceptable to contravene the non-interference aspect of sovereignty. I contend that these criteria are determined by the parameters of sovereignty and the rights upon which it rests. As the emphasis within international law has shifted towards individual rights, compliance with human rights has become a central component of this criteria.

Given the basis of international legal sovereignty on recognition, where a state does not comply with human rights or other international norms, it increasingly risks compromising its sovereignty. Perhaps the most significant benchmark for state recognition is acceptance to the UN, so it is unsurprising that commitments to “conformity with the principles of justice and international law”^[23] and “respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms”^[24] feature prominently in Article 1 of the UN Charter as well as throughout the document. The foregrounding of human rights communicates that a state’s access to participation in the prevailing international order, and therefore its international legal sovereignty, has become dependent on its recognition and fulfillment of individual rights. Accordingly, commitments to individual rights are now integral to the norms of engagement set forth by international community for its members.

At a more fundamental level, if a state fails to uphold the rights of its citizens — domestic norms of engagement — it is ultimately undermining its authority, and by extension its sovereignty. This is most true where sovereignty is popular and the state derives authority from the consensual agreement of the public to a Hobbesian social contract in which freedom and power are exchanged for rights and order. In this way, where non-compliance occurs authoritative legitimacy may be weakened both domestically and internationally leading to the erosion of sovereignty and emergence of security threats.

The terms ‘fragile’ or ‘failed’ state are often used to describe such situations, and although these labels only gained traction in recent history through the trend towards measuring state capacity (often using metrics based on human rights-fulfillment) in international organizations such as the OECD or World Bank,^[25] there are numerous historical antecedents for the concept of identifying states which do not meet the standards prescribed by an international order.

Notably, Article CXXXII of the Peace of Westphalia states,

“…he who by his Assistance or Counsel shall contravene this Transaction or Publick Peace, or shall oppose its Execution and the abovesaid Restitution, or who shall have endeavour’d, after the Restitution has been lawfully made, and without exceeding the manner agreed on before, without a lawful Cognizance of the Cause, and without the ordinary Course of Justice, to molest those that have been restor’d, whether Ecclesiasticks or Laymen; he shall incur the Punishment of being an Infringer of the publick Peace, and Sentence given against him according to the Constitutions of the Empire, so that the Restitution and Reparation may have its full effect.”^[26]

This passage is significant for several reasons. First, it describes a state which does not comply with international law as an ‘infringer of the public peace’; this harkens of modern views which consider failed states to be a threat to international security. Second, it affirms that this state should undergo the treaty-prescribed punishment, in this context, intervention. Third, and crucially, however, it mandates that this can only happen in circumstances “without the ordinary Course of Justice” or after other options have been exhausted, a key feature of Just War Theory as well as R2P that later emerge as guiding principles regarding intervention. Furthermore, the following articles  outline a shared responsibility of the treaty’s signatories to enforce its principles through intervention,^[27] an idea bearing considerable likeness to the doctrine of collective security which was integral to the League of Nations Covenant.^[28] Additionally, it suggests an international responsibility to intervene where international legal norms are violated.

The development of these ideas and their incorporation into the normative landscape surrounding intervention has informed attempts to create international legal frameworks which define the conditions under which intervention is accepted and justified. The most recent and prolific among these being the Responsibility to Protect, which was conceived of by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) in 2001 in response to problems related to the international community’s intervention in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo as well its failure to do so in Rwanda. In the ICISS report, R2P involves three elements: the responsibility to prevent — to address the root and direct causes of conflict; the responsibility to react — to respond to situations of ‘compelling human need’ with non-violent coercive measures and military intervention if necessary; and the responsibility to rebuild —  to assist with recovery, reconstruction and reconciliation in order to treat the issues which initially warranted intervention and prevent future crises.^[29]

After several discussions and supplementary reports, the UN committed to the principle of R2P in at the 2005 World Summit meeting. It outlines its commitments in the outcome document of this session which confirms,

“Each individual State has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. This responsibility entails the prevention of such crimes, including their incitement, through appropriate and necessary means.”^[30]

Notably, the resolution did not discuss the responsibility to rebuild, and it is understandable why it may have been considered too contentious to include. A level of pessimism exists concerning the potential enabling effects of this principle and intentions of its supporters; to some, “R2P looks like nothing so much as the return of the civilizing mission and the ‘humanitarian interventions’ of previous centuries.”^[31] This argument is limited, however, by its assumption that intervention would follow the course of previous experiences in which powerful states did undermine the sovereignty and capacity of others to their own benefit under guises like colonialism, specific instances of ‘humanitarian intervention’ (i.e. Iraq War), or even neoliberal development policies.

Dismissing R2P on these grounds is problematic for several reasons. Firstly, in the initial ICISS report, it repeatedly stresses that “prevention is the single most important dimension of the responsibility to protect.”^[32] Francis Deng, the Sudanese UN Ambassador who first conceived of ‘sovereignty as responsibility’, was not focused on military intervention, but rather was concerned with “prevent[ing] the kind of state breakdown that had led to such high levels of internal displacement in some African states” and hindering the use of sovereignty as a shield to deflect intervention.^[33]

Post-conflict reconstruction, as outlined in the responsibility to rebuild,^[34] is essential in order to re-establish human security and prevent conflict from reoccurring. With cognizance of the mutually substantive relationship between capacity, rights, authority, and sovereignty, prevention through reconstruction efforts, where directed towards developing independence via local capacity-building, will strengthen the authority and sovereignty of the state.

Further to this point, if the adoption of the responsibility to protect was truly for the purpose of “enshrining a new approach to sovereignty within the UN itself,”^[35] failing to adequately address prevention and rebuilding inhibits this goal. It causes us to overlook the normative shift in the nature of rights and sovereignty outlined in this paper which demonstrate a change in the rights-defined responsibilities associated with sovereignty and, therefore, the limits of sovereignty itself which dictate when intervention is acceptable.

Lastly, repudiating R2P in this manner does not challenge us to reconsider the meaning of intervention and work towards redefining it to encapsulate more effective practices. R2P and its recommendations are rooted in improving human security as a means of preventing conflict. As an approach centered on human rights, it is congruent with the normatively dominant notions of individual rights-based authority and sovereignty. Given the established relationship between state capacity and human rights compliance,^[36] further studies should be conducted to determine effective and practical forms of increasing human security and independence through local capacity-building. This may even provide insight as to more effective and less exploitative methods of engaging in international development; ones which do not perpetuate global inequalities or disparate power relations among states in the long run. It also encourages us to look beyond military intervention, which has brought the most controversy to the concept of R2P.^[37]

Since it is also recognized that donors to post-conflict reconstruction “are most likely to achieve reconstruction goals in countries where they have the least at stake,”^[38] it also opens new space to consider the role of the UN or other IOs as more neutral arbitrators of this process.

Efforts should also be made to expand the treatment of sovereignty and intervention in international law. The emerging concept of suspended sovereignty^[39] may be useful to typify situations where sovereignty is compromised due to deteriorating authority such as in the case of failed states, and to mandate intervention. Moreover, considering the formation of a jus post bellum^[40] component of international humanitarian law could be a useful elaboration in terms of requiring a commitment to rebuilding in order for an intervention to be legally justified and in answering the question of who bears responsibility to facilitate these efforts.

Given that what constitutes a justified intervention is mainly a legal question constrained by sovereignty, it follows that as international law has become increasingly focused on individual rights, recognition of sovereignty and its limitations within international law has become premised on compliance with these rights. Intervention becoming acceptable where non-compliance occurs. Adopting this logic, there is a responsibility to intervene where the international legal sovereignty of a state is being compromised through the violation of individuals’ rights and equally, the responsibility to rebuild a state’s capacity to uphold its citizens rights in order to strengthen or restore its international legal sovereignty.

Conclusion

Conceptions of sovereignty and its limits have been in flux throughout history and continue to be in the present day. By examining the interconnection between the shifts in emphasis from collective to individual rights and dynastic to popular sovereignty, this paper has sought to demonstrate that sovereignty and its limits are contingent on the structure of rights and proceeding definition of authority within states. It argues that with the growing acceptance and integration of individual rights in international law, legal norms around sovereignty and intervention have too changed, with compliance to international norms such as human rights becoming a part of the criteria for evaluating just intervention.

The focus of this analysis is on the development of sovereignty and rights through historical events pertaining to formation of international law and the order it espouses. As such, it is limited by its concentration on mainly European and North American events and ideas, informed by the distribution of power within the order itself. Moving forward, further research should be conducted on how rights and sovereignty were conceived of in countries or social groupings exterior to the global north, prior to the Peace of Westphalia, and preceding integration to the international system. This is presently a significant gap in scholarship and expanding the literature to fill it would perhaps reduce the Western and democratic bias of analyses allowing us to make assessments that can be more accurately applied to other systems of governance.

As this paper has highlighted, there is considerable room for re-evaluation of the conceptual and practical approaches by which we address the numerous and highly complex challenges in international relations. This is a highly necessary undertaking. As the conditions of the world evolve, so too do its challenges, and therefore, our conceptual apparatuses must account for this by adapting past principles to contemporary concepts in order to provide effective direction. History may rhyme, but it is the responsibility of each generation to ensure that the worst does not repeat.

About the Author

Sarah Ingle (@SarahLMIngle) is a student at Trinity College, University of Toronto in International Relations, Digital Humanities and Political Science and Founder of the Youth Internet Governance Forum in Canada. She is interested in the impacts of digitization and data on governance, human security, and rights in the Internet age.

Endnotes 

^[1] Philippe Sands, East West Street (Place of Publication Not Identified: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2017). 57.

^[2] Daria Jarczewska, “Do Human Rights Challenge State Sovereignty?” E-International Relations, March 15, 2013, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://www.e-ir.info/2013/03/15/do-human-rights-challenge-state-sovereignty/.

^[3] Derek Croxton, “The Peace of Westphalia of 1648 and the Origins of Sovereignty,” The International History Review 21, no. 3 (1999): , doi:10.1080/07075332.1999.9640869., 575.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” Encyclopædia Britannica, December 15, 2017, , accessed March 22, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-the-Rights-of-Man-and-of-the-Citizen.

^[7] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Declaration of Independence,” Encyclopædia Britannica, March 16, 2018, , accessed March 22, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Declaration-of-Independence.

^[8] Micheline Ishay, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient times to the Globalization Era (Berkeley, Califordnia: University of California Press, 2009),19.

^[9] Ibid, 18.

^[10] Micheline Ishay, The History of Human Rights: From Ancient times to the Globalization Era (Berkeley, Califordnia: University of California Press, 2009),19.

^[11]“Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Avalon Project, 1948,, accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/unrights.asp.

^[12] “Crimes Against Humanity,” United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/crimes-against-humanity.html.

^[13] “Genocide,” United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.html.

^[14] Michael Berenbaum, “Nürnberg Laws,” Encyclopædia Britannica, May 03, 2017, , accessed March 22, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nurnberg-Laws.

^[15] United Nations, “UN Conventions on Statelessness,” UNHCR, accessed March 22, 2018, http://www.unhcr.org/un-conventions-on-statelessness.html.

^[16] Mark Mazower, “The Strange Triumph Of Human Rights, 1933-1950,” The Historical Journal 47, no. 2 (2004): , doi:10.1017/s0018246x04003723.

^[17] “Piracy – International Law,” Oxford Bibliographies, May 25, 2016, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199796953/obo-9780199796953-0026.xml.

^[18] Stephen D. Krasner, Sovereignty Organized Hypocrisy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 9.

^[19] “Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776,” Avalon Project, 1776, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/declare.asp.

^[20] Article 21.3,”Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” Avalon Project, 1948,, accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/unrights.asp.

^[21] Edward Keene, Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

^[22] “Declaration of the Rights of Man,” Avalon Project, 1789, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/rightsof.asp.

^[23] Article 1.1, “Charter of the United Nations,” Avalon Project, June 26, 1945, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/unchart.asp.

^[24] Article 1.3, “Charter of the United Nations,” Avalon Project, June 26, 1945, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/unchart.asp.

^[25] Olivier Nay, “International Organisations and the Production of Hegemonic Knowledge: How the World Bank and Theoecdhelped Invent the Fragile State Concept,” Third World Quarterly 35, no. 2 (2014): , doi:10.1080/01436597.2014.878128.

^[26] “Treaty of Westphalia,” Avalon Project, 1648, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/westphal.asp.

^[27] For example, Article CXXIII states,“all Partys in this Transaction shall be oblig’d to defend and protect all and every Article of this Peace against any one”.

“Treaty of Westphalia,” Avalon Project, 1648, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/westphal.asp.

^[28] Article 16 outlines collective security obligations of League members. For example, “Should any Member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13 or 15, it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other Members of the League…”

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/leagcov.asp

^[29] “The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,” Responsibility to Protect, December 2001, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS Report.pdf. XI.

^[30]  United Nations, General Assembly, Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly on 16 September 2005: 60/1. 2005 World Summit Outcome, October 24, 2005, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/generalassembly/docs/globalcompact/A_RES_60_1.pdf. 30.

^[31] Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea (London: Allen Lane, 2012.) 395.

^[32] “The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,” Responsibility to Protect, December 2001, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS Report.pdf. XI.

^[33] Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea (London: Allen Lane, 2012.) 389-391.

^[34] Includes peace building, justice and reconciliation, and development.

“The Responsibility to Protect: Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty,” Responsibility to Protect, December 2001, , accessed March 22, 2018, http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS Report.pdf. 39-45.

^[35] Mark Mazower, Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea (London: Allen Lane, 2012.) 388.

^[36] Wade M. Cole, “Mind the gap: State capacity and the implementation of human rights treaties.” International Organization 69, no. 2 (2015): 405-441.

^[37] “The Lessons of Libya,” The Economist, May 21, 2011, , accessed March 22, 2018, https://www.economist.com/node/18709571.

^[38] Desha Girod, Explaining Post-Conflict Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2015. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387861.001.0001.

^[39] A. Yannis, “The Concept of Suspended Sovereignty in International Law and Its Implications in International Politics,” European Journal of International Law 13, no. 5 (2002): , doi:10.1093/ejil/13.5.1037.

^[40] James Pattison,”Jus Post Bellum and the responsibility to rebuild.” British Journal of Political Science 45, no. 3 (2015): 635.

Peter Hilpold, “Jus Post Bellum and the Responsibility to Rebuild,” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014, , doi:10.2139/ssrn.2443272.

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Girod, Desha. Explaining Post-Conflict Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. Oxford Scholarship Online, 2015. doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199387861.001.0001.

Hilpold, Peter. “Jus Post Bellum and the Responsibility to Rebuild.” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2014. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2443272.

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Keene, Edward. Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Krasner, Stephen D. Sovereignty Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.

Mazower, Mark. “The Strange Triumph Of Human Rights, 1933-1950.” The Historical Journal47, no. 2 (2004): 379-98. doi:10.1017/s0018246x04003723.

Mazower, Mark. Governing the World: The Rise and Fall of an Idea. London: Allen Lane, 2012.

Nay, Olivier. “International Organisations and the Production of Hegemonic Knowledge: How the World Bank and Theoecdhelped Invent the Fragile State Concept.” Third World Quarterly35, no. 2 (2014): 210-31. doi:10.1080/01436597.2014.878128.

Pattison, James. “Jus Post Bellum and the responsibility to rebuild.” British Journal of Political Science 45, no. 3 (2015): 635.

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Image Caption: Xinjiang Uyghur Muslims, unlike Thailand’s Patani Malays, undertook salient ethno-political action only at a time of a high perceived threat to their interests and of a low state capacity for repression.

Introduction

Several states in Asia have enacted constitutional provisions to safeguard the political, social and cultural rights of their ethnic minority groups. Underlying this approach is the recognition that state oppression of ethnic minority groups could spur a violent backlash that may prove detrimental to the territorial integrity of the state.

Concurring with state policymakers, existing studies have affirmed that separatist tendencies grow as state oppression increases. Herein, state oppression would encompass deliberately discriminatory policies that “victimize” ethnic minorities, namely laws curtailing civil liberties and cultural-religious freedom.[1] Political scientist Donald Horowitz, for one, posits that the “virulent, anti-Tamil” nature of Sri Lanka’s 1972 constitution was responsible for creating a “half-generation” of Tamil separatists – contrastingly, the absence of major ethnic riots in Malaysia since 1969 was attributed to the latter’s accommodating institutional design.[2] In a separate analysis of ethnic nationalism, Thanet Aphornsuvan attributes Patani Malay separatism to Thailand’s discriminatory education policies. He then cites policy liberalization and new development projects as reasons why the Patani Malay insurgency declined in the late 1970s. [3]

Interestingly, the aforementioned relationship between state oppression and salient ethno-political action was not observed in Xinjiang, an autonomous region in Western China, despite broadly similar conditions there. Violent uprisings barely occurred during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), which also featured the extensive persecution of Xinjiang’s Uyghur Muslim minority sanctioned by the central government. Instead, violent ethno-political action largely emerged after Deng Xiaoping had formally declared the end of the Cultural Revolution during the 11^th Party Congress (1982) and sought to champion ethnic pluralism.[4] The Xinjiang case, therefore, calls for a more nuanced explanation for ethnic minority movements – what are the primary conditions that drive ethno-political action against the state?

Therein, this paper presents a theoretical framework that identifies the confluence of a high, perceived threat to minority group interests and low state capacity for repression, as the key enabler of salient ethno-political action. The perception of a severe threat – which may exist independently of the “objective” degree of state oppression during the period concerned – enables the politicization of ethnicity.[5] On the other hand, low state capacity for repression reduces the cost of ethno-political mobilization, compelling a violent response against the perceived threat.[6] Structured comparisons of Xinjiang’s Uyghurs and Thailand’s Patani Malays will illustrate the framework’s robustness, affirming that state oppression is neither necessary nor sufficient to engender salient ethno-political action.

The role of state capacity in driving ethno-political action

Developments in both Xinjiang and the Patani region establish the correlation between the extent of state capacity for repression and the salience of ethno-political action. These factors prove to be mutually influencing, inversely proportionate variables. Indeed, one plausible causal explanation is that states with high capacity are more predisposed to withholding the minority group’s access to financial and material resources. More importantly, group awareness that the state has the will and means to crack down on separatist activity increases the cost of collective action, thereby limiting the ease of mobilization.[7]

State capacity shaped by economic imperatives – the Xinjiang case 

Comparing ethno-political action in Xinjiang between 1958 and 2000, one can establish a negative correlation between the state’s capacity for repression and salient ethno-political action. I posit that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) state capacity was higher between 1958 and 1976, when political consolidation was complete. Moreover, the state commanded a battle-hardened People’s Liberation Army (PLA) that had just emerged victorious from both the Chinese Civil War (1946-1949) and the Korean War (1950-1953). More notably, China had demonstrated her willingness to harness such material capacity in 1958, with the swift arrest of nearly 1,500 Uyghur critics of CCP rule.[8]

Conversely, state capacity declined between 1976 and 2000. Some may dispute this assertion, citing China’s tremendous economic growth under Deng Xiaoping’s Open Door Policy, which conceivably provided the financial means to strengthen defence and security capabilities over time. However, I maintain that state capacity had weakened precisely because of China’s economic imperatives post-1976. The pursuit of economic development prompted diplomatic overtures to Muslim-populated states to promote trade and secure oil resources. The growing strategic importance of these states to China’s economic interests, in turn, obliged China to “appropriate” her Muslim population to convince prospective trade partners that Muslim minorities enjoyed religious freedom.[9] In short, China could not afford to repress the Uyghurs.

The high state capacity that characterised the period between 1958 and 1976, most evident from the 1958 mass arrests, effectively removed a substantial pool of potential leaders capable of galvanizing the Uyghurs for ethno-political action. Moreover, the repression of these unarmed individuals signalled the state’s willingness to disproportionately put down local resistance and, by extension, raised the anticipated cost of mobilization.[10]

Consequently, the ’58-’76 period entailed the absence of armed separatist movements, merely an unarmed, “counter-revolutionary organization” that distributed “pro-independence publications.”[11] Furthermore, the Uyghurs had not exploited Han infighting in Xinjiang in the late 1960s to escalate ethno-political action against the Red Guards, who championed ethno-religious persecution during the Cultural Revolution.[12] Uyghurs were conspicuously uninvolved in the 1,300 clashes between the Red Guards and Xinjiang’s Han authorities from 1967 to 1968.[13] Such inaction is remarkable considering how Uyghurs had previously capitalised on sociopolitical instability in 1944 to declare independence, when state capacity was conceivably lower during the Sino-Japanese war.[14] Therein, divergent responses to domestic conditions could attest to the causal significance of state capacity.

Furthermore, lower state capacity during the post-1976 period saw the Chinese state’s “first major confrontation” with the Uyghurs during the Baren Township Uprising of April 1990.[15] Over 300 Uyghurs participated in a three-day uprising that resulted in 70 deaths.[16] The event’s salience is further affirmed by extensive security countermeasures that involved 100,000 armed police patrolling Xinjiang in the immediate aftermath.[17] More notably, the late 1980s also witnessed the rise of militant separatists such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), deemed responsible for some 200 domestic terrorist attacks throughout the 1990s (Xu, Fletcher and Bajoria, 2014). Therein, I further posit a causal relationship between low state capacity stemming from China’s foreign policy objectives, and ethno-political action. Specifically, growing ties and “connecting infrastructure” with Central Asia accorded Uyghurs with access to transnational Islamist networks and resources for separatist activity.[18] The ETIM, for one, allegedly received Al Qaeda funding, trained in Central Asia and established its Afghan headquarters in 1998.[19]

State capacity shaped by the strength of regional ties – the Patani case

Similarly, developments in the Patani region of Thailand underscored a negative correlation between state capacity and the prevalence of salient ethno-political action. Regime instability from 1920 to 1979 prevented the Thai state from harnessing resources to consolidate power over territory – between 1932 and 1971, Thailand saw 12 coups, of which eight had succeeded.[20]

More interestingly, geopolitical circumstances during that period had also limited the government’s policy options. Foremost, Thailand feared that implementing counterinsurgency measures to root out Patani separatists would raise interstate tensions, especially as Patani sympathisers grew prominent in Malaysia in the early 1970s[21]. “Kin-networks” with Malaysia’s Malay-Muslim majority prompted some Malaysians to support Patani separatism on the grounds of perceived religious discrimination by the Thai state.[22]  For example, the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), which governed Kelantan from 1959 to 1977, provided a safe haven to Patani insurgents. PAS had even allowed militant separatists from the Patani United Liberation Organization (PULO) to train on Malaysian soil.[23]

Conversely, state capacity post-1980 had arguably increased. Regime stability had improved – only one successful coup was staged within the period.[24] Moreover, the period from 1981-1992 was marked by a warming of Thai-Malaysian relations. Both parties signed a bilateral agreement to strengthen security cooperation throughout the 1980s, and sustained multilateral engagement via regional institutions such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.[25] Admittedly, these developments had not deterred separatist groups from leveraging on the resources of transnational Islamist networks for insurgency activity. Syrian and Libyan Islamists continued to train the PULO.[26] Nevertheless, I argue that the militant separatists’ capacity for salient ethno-political action relative to state capacity for repression declined overall. Inter-state cooperation had increased the militant separatists’ probability of capture. For one, “coordinated military assaults” to enhance security along the Thai-Malaysian border prevented Patani militants from fleeing to Thailand. One such operation was held in 1983, when Malaysian troops successfully ambushed incoming militants fleeing from the Thai military’s crackdown (Antolik 1990, 61).

Indeed, as the ambush suggests, differences in Thailand’s state capacity had engendered different outcomes. Low state capacity pre-1981 saw violent incidents in Patani reach a record high between 1968 and 1975, following the rise of armed separatist groups such as PULO and Patani National Liberation Front.[27] Prior to the 1960s, rebellions also occurred, including the Dusun Nyor rebellion of 1948, which killed 400 Malay-Muslims and displaced thousands. Triggered by religious leader Haji Sulong’s arrest, the rebellion’s salience is affirmed by its separatist overtures that mirrored Haji Sulong’s earlier campaign for “cultural rights” and eventual independence.[28] Conversely, growing state capacity saw the diminishing prevalence of salient ethno-political action. The efficacy of bilateral cooperation with Malaysia led PULO membership to decline from over 1,500 insurgents in the 1970s to just 500 in the 1980s.[29] The fact that Thailand was not compelled to declare a state of emergency in Patani in the 1980s – but had done so in 1948 – attests to the diminishing salience of ethno-political action as state capacity increased.[30]

The limited explanatory power of state capacity

At this point, one could assert that high state capacity for repression increases the likelihood of ethno-political action, because repression generates “enduring legacies of…  resentment,” potentially introducing a vicious cycle of state-minority violence.[31] Nevertheless, to establish low state capacity as sufficient to drive salient ethno-political action would be unjustifiably deterministic.

For one, salient ethno-political action had not prevailed in Xinjiang between 1949 and 1957, although state capacity for repression was undermined by China’s preoccupation with two large-scale wars and nation-building priorities. On the domestic front, the CCP was engaged in weeding out pro-Kuomintang forces to consolidate power. The killing of over two million Kuomintang insurgents between 1949 and 1952 suggests that the state’s instruments for repression (i.e. the PLA’s five million troops) could not be significantly diverted to repress Uyghur separatism.[32] Indeed, despite the window of opportunity offered by the Chinese Civil War, the Uyghur leadership had not mobilised resistance against CCP authority. Rather, Burhan Shahidi, commander of Kuomintang’s Xinjiang garrison, promptly severed ties with Kuomintang and pledged allegiance to CCP when the People’s Republic of China was founded in May 1949.[33] Even at a communal level, the sporadic rebellions from 1952 to 1954 also lacked a separatist agenda.[34] These events collectively attest to the fact that low state capacity for repression, while necessary, remains insufficient to incentivize salient ethno-political action. State capacity, for one, does not adequately account for the appeal of separatism.

Is state oppression a necessary condition?

Having established that low state capacity for repression alone is unlikely to drive salient ethno-political action, it is worth exploring other necessary conditions that drive ethno-political action. As mentioned in the introduction, several studies seemingly imply that state oppression is one such dimension (Horowitz, 1990; Aphornsuvan, 2007). For example, Singh (2014, par. 6-7) directly attributed the “thriving” Uyghur separatist movement after mid-2000 to “widespread discrimination” practiced by Xinjiang’s economic migrants and authorities. In signalling state intransigence and assent to the discriminatory treatment of minorities, high state oppression conceivably appears sufficient to alienate minorities and increase the appeal of salient ethno-political action.

However, I argue that state oppression is an incomplete, and therefore imprecise, explanation. It fails to explain why not all movements within the same spatial-temporal unit undertake salient ethno-political action. For one, not all Uyghur movements post-1990 harboured separatist agendas – some merely seek policy reform.[35] Moreover, state oppression cannot explain Xinjiang’s situation post-1976, following Deng’s explicit abandonment of Mao’s oppressive policies.

Discontinuing ethno-religious persecution, Deng sought reconciliation with the Uyghurs via two channels.[36] He reinstated mosques and encouraged Han appreciation towards once-suppressed minority customs and languages.[37] Deng also worked to improve socioeconomic conditions, including launching a trade and tourism campaign targeted at Central Asian states to boost Xinjiang’s border trade. Such initiatives expanded the Uyghur middle class, and even produced tycoons like Rebiya Kadeer.[38] Interestingly, Kadeer later became a prominent Uyghur activist despite benefitting from Deng’s economic reforms, and salient ethno-political action had also emerged during that period. By implication, one may deduce that the level of state oppression does not co-vary with the nature of ethno-political action.

The role of perceived threats

In this section, I contend that a high perceived threat to group interests, as opposed to state oppression, is more pivotal in establishing the basis for salient ethno-political action. In that respect, my framework classifies state oppression as one of the various factors that influences the degree of threat perceived. In so doing, I recognise that salient ethno-political action can emerge independently of an increase in state oppression. Synthesising existing theoretical foundations, I argue that a high degree of perceived threat is necessary for ethno-political action because it enables the politicization of ethnic identity, a prerequisite for ethno-political mobilization.[39] Simply put, when members of an ethnic group share a pervasive sense of threat, they develop ethnic consciousness and identify more strongly with one another.[40]

The causal explanation above has been affirmed by the sociologist Manuel Castells, who theorised that the perception of being devalued or threatened compels minorities to build and internalise an “identity for resistance.”[41] In other words, ethnic identity becomes politicised when members of a particular ethnicity feel threatened. I posit that such politicization prevailed amongst several groups within Xinjiang’s Uyghurs and the Patani Malays because both regions are characterised by “plural societies” where ethnic groups co-exist, but seldom interact.[42] The lack of deep understanding and exchange between groups increases their will and capacity to discursively frame ethno-political action as justifiable and necessary. The extensive adoption of such frames, in turn, “strongly affects…incentives for collective action” by functioning as an “empowering doctrine.”[43]

Relative deprivation informs threat perception – the Xinjiang case

Having established theoretical support for my claim, I posit that it was relative deprivation, as opposed to deliberate state oppression, that drove the salient ethno-political action during the Deng Xiaoping era. It must first be recognized that Uyghur identity is characterised by “territorial ethnicity” – Uyghurs historically regard Xinjiang’s territory as central to Uyghur identity.[44] Hence, by inducing massive Han migration that altered Xinjiang’s demographics, Deng’s policies effectively raised the perceived threat to Uyghur identity and, by extension, Uyghur interests.[45] More importantly, while many Uyghurs prospered under Deng’s economic policies that sought to step up trade and industrial development in the region, the reforms also delivered an unintended consequence whereby the Han economic migrants benefitted disproportionately. Xinjiang’s economic progress had generated drastic socioeconomic inequalities between Han and Uyghur inhabitants that the latter could not overlook – whereas border trade grew 350% in 1992, Uyghurs in rural areas constituted 90% of inhabitants in Xinjiang’s most impoverished districts and earned 75% less than city-dwellers.[46]

Indeed, such inequalities had induced relative deprivation amongst the Uyghurs. Substantively, relative deprivation entails an extensive sense of discontent that drives social movements and, by extension, ethno-political action (Gurney and Tierney 1982, 34). Yet, beyond relative deprivation, Xinjiang’s development accentuated the Uyghurs’ perceived threat because the resulting economic inequalities exemplified the reality that Uyghurs were no longer “dang jia guo zu,” literally meaning “master of one’s house.” The fact that socioeconomic developments in Xinjiang underscored salient ethno-political action is evident from how Uyghur rebels, including participants of the Baren Uprising, demanded restrictions on Han migration and economic activity.[47]

Conversely, low perceived threat saw the absence of salient ethno-political action in the ’58-’76 period. Notably, both Western and Chinese sources affirmed that the Uyghurs possessed “undivided loyalty” towards CCP and “total commitment” to socialist ideals during this period.[48] While this claim is possibly exaggerated, Xinjiang’s socio-political climate nevertheless suggests that the Uyghurs regarded CCP rule as benign as opposed to threatening, seeing as cultural-religious freedom was upheld.[49] Moreover, in decrying “Han chauvinism,” Xinjiang’s CCP authorities co-opted prominent leaders in the Uyghur community such as Saifuddin Azizi. [50]

Most importantly, the central government promptly addressed group interests, specifically Uyghur demands for autonomy – Mao even granted Saifuddin’s request to rename Xinjiang “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” in 1955 to acknowledge the Uyghurs’ indigenous claims to territory.[51] To this end, the fact that Uyghurs constituted 74% of Xinjiang’s cadres in 1951 reflects Uyghur support and political involvement. It also disputes the claim that Xinjiang’s autonomous status had been mere tokenism.

Perceived threats to ethno-cultural identity – the Patani case

Similarly, salient ethno-political action had emerged in the Patani region when state policies extensively threaten Patani Malay interests, but subsided when interests were safeguarded. In the ’20-’79 period, The Compulsory Education Act (1921) banned traditional pondok schools from teaching Malay and providing Islamic education.[52] According to anthropologist Richard Bauman, ethno-cultural identity is preserved when it is constantly “reproduced by communicative practice.”[53] By implication, banning the Malay and Islamic education effectively threatens the preservation of Patani Malays’ self-defined identity as “Melayu people.”[54] Meanwhile, the systematic encouragement of Thai-Buddhist migration to the Muslim-populated South since the 1930s aggravated this threat, whereby state financial incentives prompted the migration of 100,000 Thai-Buddhists in the 1960s alone.[55] Such is because Thai leaders consistently spoke of migration as a means to transform minorities into Thai-speaking Buddhists.[56] The high perceived threat is exemplified by the Patani Malays’ 1923 uprising against the Compulsory Education Act, and PULO’s subsequent ability to garner an average attendance of 70,000 for its protests.[57]

Conversely, the decline in salient ethno-political action post-1980 unfolded alongside the decline in perceived threat following Prime Minister Prem Tinasulanonda’s 1980 pacification policy. The policy essentially involved discontinuing the coercive, assimilationist approach of his predecessors, thereby assuring Malay-Muslims of the cultural and religious freedom that was previously under threat.[58] Indeed, while Deng’s promotion of ethnic pluralism did not entirely placate the Uyghurs, the Tinasulanonda administration’s move directly addressed the perceived threat to Melayu identity that had previously incentivized ethno-political action, thereby contributing to the absence of salient ethno-political action during his term.

High perceived threat, low state capacity: A final analysis of Xinjiang

In the final analysis, I shall illustrate how salient ethno-political action ultimately stemmed from a confluence of high, perceived threat to group interests and low state capacity for repression. This framework is best exemplified by the absence of salient ethno-political action in Xinjiang throughout the ‘58-’76 period, despite intensifying religious persecution and political marginalization since the late 1950s. Indeed, Mao was relatively more predisposed to persecuting the Uyghurs in the 1960s leading up to the Sino-Soviet split. Tensions with the Soviet Union had reinforced Mao’s fear of the Uyghurs as a potential fifth column exploited by the Soviets to destabilise China.[59] Such national security concerns prompted the CCP to dismiss 99,000 of its 106,000 non-Han cadres, banned Islam and Uyghur cultural practices, and destroyed thousands of mosques.[60] Notably, by 1966, 70,000 Red Guards were already stationed in Xinjiang.[61] Such practices effectively threatened the interests that Uyghurs had previously articulated and secured from the CCP, specifically that of regional autonomy. However, Uyghurs were not driven to stage separatist movements during this period. Rather than engaging in collective action against the state, 60,000 Uyghurs and Kazaks chose to seek asylum in the Soviet Union in 1962.[62] Thus, developments in Xinjiang during Period 2 could potentially be explained by the theoretical framework at hand.

Conclusion

In summary, I reiterate that salient ethno-political action is more likely to manifest when ethnic minority groups perceive a significant threat to group interests amidst low state capacity for repression. One can, at best, concur that state oppression constitutes one of the factors that would enhance the perceived threat to minority group interests, alongside non-oppressive developments that may threaten minority interests over time e.g. migration. The empirical study of Xinjiang and the Patani region demonstrate that the reversal of oppressive policies do not guarantee the resolution of state-minority conflicts – as affirmed by militant Uyghur separatism and the resurgence of Patani separatism in the early 2000s, the politicization of ethnic identity appears irreversible and may, at best, be suppressed in the short-term by disincentivizing ethno-political action. Indeed, solutions aimed at “modernizing” ethnic communities and their ancestral territory via language policies and economic reform often backfire, for they exacerbate the “second-class” status of minorities and are potentially perceived as threats to ethno-cultural identity. More importantly, consistent repression is unsustainable and similarly counterproductive, as state capacity would inevitably vary across time. Thus, the complexities of ethnic separatism should largely be addressed by genuine, long-standing negotiations that build trust between states and ethno-nationalist groups.

About the Author

Phyllis Ho is a final-year Global Studies undergraduate at the National University of Singapore, specializing in Northeast Asia, public policy and the Spanish language. She is working on a thesis that explores the politics and social policies of China and India, while also seeking to be better-acquainted with Latin American affairs. Phyllis can be reached at phillyho@gmail.com.

Endnotes

[1] Eller, Jack David. Cultural anthropology: global forces, local lives. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016, 33.

[2] Horowitz, Donald. “Ethnic conflict management for policymakers.” In conflict and peacemaking in multiethnic societies, edited by Joseph V. Montville, Lexington Books, 1990, 462-471.

[3] Aphornsuvan, Thanet. “Nation-state and the Muslim identity in the Southern unrest and violence.” In Understanding conflict and approaching peace in Southern Thailand, edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf and Lars Peter Schmidt. 2nd ed. Bangkok: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2006, 123.

[4] Gladney, Dru C. Dislocating China: reflections on Muslims, minorities, and other subaltern subjects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 227.

[5] Connor, W. “Terminological chaos (“a nation is a nation, is a state, is an ethnic group, is a…”).” In Ethnonationalism: the quest for understanding. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993, 101.

[6] Gurr, Ted. “Minorities and nationalists: managing ethno-political conflict in the new century.” In Turbulent peace: the challenge of managing international conflict, edited by Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall. United States Institute of Peace, 2001, 170.

[7] Gurr, 174.

[8] Holdstock, Nick. China’s Forgotten People: Xinjiang, terror and the Chinese state. London: I.B. Tauris, 2015, 41.

[9] Gladney, 229-230.

[10] Gurr, 170.

[11] Clarke, Michael E. 2011. Xinjiang and China’s rise in Central Asia: A History. Vol. 64. London: Routledge, 69.

[12] Clarke, 65-67.

[13] Increased PLA presence in Xinjiang post-1968 alleviated the sociopolitical instability. Hence, overall state capacity for repression remained high from 1958 to 1976.

Holdstock, 47.

[14] Clarke, 37.

[15] Holdstock, 49-50.

[16] Clarke, 91.

[17] Holdstock, 49-50.

[18] Van Wie Davis, Elizabeth. 2008. Uyghur Muslim ethnic separatism in Xinjiang, China. Asian Affairs: An American Review, 35(1): 23.

[19] The link to Al Qaeda was affirmed by both Russian and Chinese sources. In 2002, the US treasury department had also included ETIM in its list of terrorist organizations.

Reed, Todd J. and Diana Raschke. The ETIM: China’s Islamic militants and the global terrorist threat. California: Praeger, 2010, 48.

Xu, Beina, Holly Fletcher, and Jayshree Bajoria. “The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).” Council on Foreign Relations. September 4, 2014. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/east-turkestan-islamic-movement-etim.

[20]Tsang, Annie. “Timeline: Thailand’s coups.” The Financial Times. May 23, 2014. https://www.ft.com/content/88970d60-e1b0-11e3-9999-00144feabdc0

[21] Antolik, Michael. ASEAN and the diplomacy of accommodation. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990, 57.

[22] Bajunid, Omar Farouk. “The Malaysian factor in the prospects for peace in Southern Thailand.” In Understanding conflict and approaching peace in Southern Thailand, edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf and Lars Peter Schmidt. 2nd ed. Bangkok: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2006, 194-195.

[23] Tan, Andrew T. H. 2011. Security strategies in the Asia-Pacific: the United States’ “second front” in Southeast Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 71.

[24] Tsang.

[25] Antolik, 66.

[26] Gunaratna, Rohan, and Arabinda Acharya. The Terrorist Threat from Thailand: Jihad or Quest for Justice? Washington: Potomac Books, 2013, 91.

[27] Suwannathat-Pian, Kobkua. “Historical identity, nation, and history-writing: the Malay Muslims of Southern Thailand, 1940s-1980s.” In The ghosts of the past in Southern Thailand, essays on the history and historiography of Patani, edited by Patrick Jory. Singapore: NUS Press, 2012, 240.

[28] Dorairajoo, Saroja, D. 2004. Violence in the south of Thailand. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 5:3, 456-466.

[29] Gunaratna et al, 90.

[30] Blaxland, John. “Thailand’s simmering security crisis gathers steam.” Asian Studies Association of Australia. October 7, 2014. http://asaa.asn.au/thailands-simmering-security-crisis-gathers-steam/.

[31] Gurr, 170-171.

[32] Keck, Zachary. “The CCP Didn’t Fight Imperial Japan; the KMT Did.” The Diplomat. September 4, 2014. https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial-japan-the-kmt-did/

Epoch Times Editorial Board. 2005. Nine commentaries on the Communist Party. New York: The Epoch Times, 205.

[33] Clarke, 42.

[34] Clarke, 48.

[35] Van Wie Davis, 16.

[36] Clarke, 78-79.

[37] Zang, Xiaowei. 2013. Major determinants of Uyghur ethnic consciousness in Ürümchi. Modern Asian Studies 47 (6): 2051.

[38] Holdstock, 84-86.

[39] Connor, 101.

[40] Gurr, 167-169.

[41] Castells, Manuel. The power of identity. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997, 6-9.

[42] Furnivall, J. S. Colonial policy and practice: a comparative study of Burma and Netherlands India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014, 304.

[43] Gurr, 169.

[44] Gladney, 219.

Tambiah, Stanley J. Leveling crowds: ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in South Asia. London: University of California Press, 1996, 17.

[45] The Han Chinese went from being 5% of Xinjiang’s population in the 1940s, to 38% of the population in 1995.

Bovingdon, Gardner. 2002. The not-so-silent majority: Uyghur resistance to Han rule in Xinjiang. Modern China 28 (1): 55.

[46] Gladney, 220.

Holdstock, 84-87.

[47] Clarke, 91.

[48] Clarke, 50.

Zang, 2049.

[49] Clarke, 48-49.

[50] Saifuddin was the inaugural chairman of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Clarke, 53.

[51] Holdstock, 40.

[52] Suwannathat-Pian, 233.

[53] Bauman, Richard. “American folklore studies and social transformation: A performance‐centered perspective.” Text and Performance Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1989): 177.

[54] Grabowsky, Volker. Regions and national integration in Thailand, 1892-1992. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995, 201.

[55] Eichensehr, Kristen, and W. Michael Reisman. Stopping Wars and Making Peace: Studies in International Intervention. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009, 151.

[56] Aphornsuvan, 112-123.

[57] Ross-Harrington, Jonathan. “Separatist Insurgency in Southern Thailand: An Approach to Peacemaking.” In Stopping wars and making peace: Studies in international intervention, edited by Kristen Eichensehr and W. Michael Reisman. Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009, 177.

Suwannathat-Pian, 233.

[58] Dorairajoo, 467.

[59] Clarke, 66-69.

[60] Zang, 2050.

[61] Clarke, 67.

[62] Zang, 2049.

Bibliography

Antolik, Michael. ASEAN and the diplomacy of accommodation. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1990.

Aphornsuvan, Thanet. “Nation-state and the Muslim identity in the Southern unrest and violence.” In Understanding conflict and approaching peace in Southern Thailand, edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf and Lars Peter Schmidt, 92-127. 2nd ed. Bangkok: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2006.

Bajunid, Omar Farouk. “The Malaysian factor in the prospects for peace in Southern Thailand.” In Understanding conflict and approaching peace in Southern Thailand, edited by Imtiyaz Yusuf and Lars Peter Schmidt, 191-239. 2nd ed. Bangkok: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2006.

Bauman, Richard. “American folklore studies and social transformation: A performance‐centered perspective.” Text and Performance Quarterly 9, no. 3 (1989): 175-84. doi:10.1080/10462938909365929.

Blaxland, John. “Thailand’s simmering security crisis gathers steam.” Asian Studies Association of Australia. October 7, 2014. http://asaa.asn.au/thailands-simmering-security-crisis-gathers-steam/.

Bovingdon, Gardner. 2002. The not-so-silent majority: Uyghur resistance to Han rule in Xinjiang. Modern China 28 (1): 39-78, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3181331.

Castells, Manuel. The power of identity. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997.

Clarke, Michael E. 2011. Xinjiang and China’s rise in Central Asia: A History. Vol. 64. London: Routledge.

Connor, W. “Terminological chaos (“a nation is a nation, is a state, is an ethnic group, is a…”).” In Ethnonationalism: the quest for understanding, 90-117, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Elizabeth Van Wie Davis (2008) Uyghur Muslim ethnic separatism in Xinjiang, China. Asian Affairs: An American Review, 35(1): 15-30, doi: 10.3200/AAFS.35.1.15-30

Eller, Jack David. Cultural anthropology: global forces, local lives. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016.

Eichensehr, Kristen, and W. Michael Reisman. Stopping Wars and Making Peace: Studies in International Intervention. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009.

Epoch Times Editorial Board. 2005. Nine commentaries on the Communist Party. New York: The Epoch Times.

Funston, John. Southern Thailand: the dynamics of conflict. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008.

Furnivall, J. S. Colonial policy and practice: a comparative study of Burma and Netherlands India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Gladney, Dru C. Dislocating China: reflections on Muslims, minorities, and other subaltern subjects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Grabowsky, Volker. Regions and national integration in Thailand, 1892-1992. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995.

Gunaratna, Rohan, and Arabinda Acharya. The Terrorist Threat from Thailand: Jihad or Quest for Justice? Washington: Potomac Books, 2013.

Gurney, Joan Neff, and Kathleen J. Tierney. “Relative Deprivation and Social Movements: A Critical Look at Twenty Years of Theory and Research*.” The Sociological Quarterly 23, no. 1 (1982): 33-47. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.1982.tb02218.x.

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Holdstock, Nick. China’s Forgotten People: Xinjiang, terror and the Chinese state. London: I.B. Tauris, 2015.

Horowitz, Donald. “Ethnic conflict management for policymakers.” In conflict and peacemaking in multiethnic societies, edited by Joseph V. Montville, 115-130, 451-75. Lexington Books, 1990.

Keck, Zachary. “The CCP Didnt Fight Imperial Japan; the KMT Did.” The Diplomat. September 4, 2014. https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/the-ccp-didnt-fight-imperial-japan-the-kmt-did/

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Ross-Harrington, Jonathan. “Separatist Insurgency in Southern Thailand: An Approach to Peacemaking.” In Stopping wars and making peace: Studies in international intervention, edited by Kristen Eichensehr and W. Michael Reisman, 147-184, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009.

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Tambiah, Stanley J. Leveling crowds: ethnonationalist conflicts and collective violence in South Asia. London: University of California Press, 1996.

Tan, Andrew T. H. 2011. Security strategies in the Asia-Pacific: the United States’ “second front” in Southeast Asia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Tsang, Annie. “Timeline: Thailand’s coups.” The Financial Times. May 23, 2014. https://www.ft.com/content/88970d60-e1b0-11e3-9999-00144feabdc0

Xu, Beina, Holly Fletcher, and Jayshree Bajoria. “The East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).” Council on Foreign Relations. September 4, 2014. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/east-turkestan-islamic-movement-etim.

Zang, Xiaowei. 2013. Major determinants of Uyghur ethnic consciousness in Ürümchi. Modern Asian Studies 47 (6): 2046-2071. doi:10.1017/S0026749X12000558.

Image Caption: Idi Amin’s coup in 1978 of former Ugandan President Milton Obote was the first in a series of events that led to the 1978 Tanzanian invasion of Uganda. But was that invasion a humanitarian intervention?

The emergence of humanitarian intervention as a norm prompts a rare question: why, if a war appears to be conducted based on humanitarian grounds, would a state then hide that fact? This paper examines the 1978 Tanzanian invasion of Uganda and the conflicts preceding it. Although Tanzania declined to justify its removal of the murderous Amin regime in Uganda as “humanitarian intervention” due to constraints imposed by flaws in the Organisation of African Unity, the invasion was in no small part due to adherence to humanitarian norms as well as personal and state interest. Broadly speaking, the Uganda-Tanzania war provides an insight into what occurs when two norms clash.[1]

The Ugandan army invaded Tanzania in October 1978.[2] The dictator of Uganda, Idi Amin Dada, wished to annex the Kagera Salient, an area of land under Tanzanian control that extended past the Kagera River to the Uganda-Tanzania border.[3] The Tanzanian government retaliated by recapturing the Salient and pushing forward into Uganda, seizing the capital Kampala and removing Amin from power in April 1979.[4] The Uganda National Liberation Front was installed as the national government and a new president took office.[5] When viewed so simplistically, the war appears short, and to have been fought for clear, easily discernible reasons. Many experts believe the Uganda-Tanzania war “provides an early case of a war justified by humanitarian intervention.”[6] After all, it was widely known that Amin’s regime committed mass murder, and in that light, Tanzania’s counter-invasion appears to have been predicated on deposing Amin. In reality, the conflict was much more complicated. In addition to personal motivations and political justification, Tanzania did invade for humanitarian reasons, but the government did not admit to this reasoning because of problems inherent in the structure of the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

Understanding the war of 1978 first requires a consideration of Uganda’s origins and the invasion of 1972. Uganda as a nation and a state is a fairly new invention; the country as it is currently “did not exist before the period of British colonial rule.”[7] Prior to this, the area comprised four different kingdoms containing multiple ethnic groups.[8] The delineation of borders separated those ethnic groups in many cases, including in the Kagera Salient.[9] By the time Idi Amin Dada overthrew the previous president of Uganda, Milton Obote, the country also contained significant populations of Israelis and Asians.[10] The Israelis working in Uganda served a largely military role, training soldiers and aiding Amin’s rise to power.[11] As their services required payment Amin did not have, and as Amin desired to gain favour with Libya, the president expelled Israelis from the country in February 1972.[12] [13] The true infraction occurred, however, against the rights of the Asian members of the populace. Roughly fifty-thousand residents, or 0.9 per cent of the population. were Asian, the majority of whom were Indians.[14] [15] Having originally travelled to Uganda to build the Uganda Railway, Indians benefited from economic opportunities that cemented them as a “wealthy, isolated elite.”[16] [17] Iain Grahame, who knew Amin personally, quoted him as saying: “‘The Hindis have cheated the black people in this country for too long…Ugandans want full, economic independence, and they can only get this when they go.’”[18] Amin forced the Asians to flee the country in August 1972, subjecting tens of thousands to beatings and the seizure of their property in what was dubbed Uganda’s “Economic War.”[19] [20] A month later, in September 1972, a thousand Tanzania-backed, pro-Obote guerilla soldiers invaded Uganda from across the Tanzania border, but were routed by Amin.[21] One might think that this invasion was due to obvious humanitarian concerns around the treatment of the Asians. After all, both Uganda and Tanzania were members of the Organization of African Unity, the charter of which includes explicit adherence to the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[22] Since the treatment of the Asians was “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” Tanzania was at least obligated to oppose it.[23] However, popular opinion very much swung in favour of the infringement upon Asians’ rights; as Amin himself said, “‘Nyerere and Mzee Kenyatta would like to get rid of their Asians too.’”[24] [25] Thus, the motivation for Tanzania to intervene—whether by proxy in 1972 or directly in 1978—did not stem from a complete commitment to the norm of human rights. In 1972, Nyerere and Tanzania as a whole were more concerned about the four separate mass murders of soldiers belonging to Acholi and Langi tribes that Amin ordered between 1971 to 1972, operations so great in scope that “not since the whole-sale elimination of the Tutsi by the Hutu in Rwanda had such a large scale tribal massacre been attempted in East Africa.” [26] That being said, concern was not so great to as to prompt Tanzania to intervene directly. To view this in terms of norms, the norm of universal human rights was likely still in the process of being adopted in Tanzania.[27] The government had acknowledged the norm in words alone, but because it was not yet internalized, the norm did not motivate them sufficiently to intervene.[28] The 1972 invasion only occurred because there were also other interests at stake.

Milton Obote, the previous president of Uganda, was a close friend of Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere.[29] Obote was given sanctuary in Tanzania after Amin’s coup, as were one thousand of his followers—the same followers that launched the guerilla attack in 1972.[30] Obote himself ordered the attack, which means that the invasion of 1972 was not a direct intervention by Tanzania.[31] While motivated to some degree by humanitarian concerns, the offensive was also driven by Obote and Nyerere’s desire to see Obote returned to power.

Idi Amin’s government during this time has been termed a “terrorist regime,” with estimates of up to 300,000 murdered between 1971 and 1979.[32] [33] Amin did not target his policies after 1972 merely at members of the military, as before. The Amnesty International report from 1979 shows the sheer breadth of the killings, which included: “judges, politicians, civil servants, religious leaders, academics, teachers, students, businessmen, writers, soldiers, police officers, foreigners, women and members of certain ethnic groups, particularly Acholi and Langi.”[34] Not all victims of Amin’s regime were murdered. Some were imprisoned and tortured, with one prisoner describing: “routine flogging, electric shocks, physical mutilation, drownings and arbitrary shooting of prisoners…prisoners were reportedly chained and burnt to death in the presence of senior security officials.”[35] Seemingly caring little about Amin’s human rights violations, the OAU gave Amin the position of chair for its 1975 summit in Kampala.[36] The Foreign Minister of Tanzania denounced this and proclaimed that Nyerere would not attend: participating in the summit would implicate all members of the OAU in Amin’s killings.[37] As Tanzania made specific mention of Uganda’s human rights violations, Tanzania may have adopted the norm of universal human rights to a greater extent by 1975. What Amnesty International describes as the turning point occurred in February 1977, when the Archbishop of Uganda, Janani Luwum, was murdered shortly after voicing dissent against Amin’s regime.[38] [39] This is especially noteworthy because the murder was internal justification for Tanzania’s invasion of Uganda in 1978. Although, as will be addressed shortly, Tanzania did not refer to its invasion as a humanitarian intervention, within Tanzania the perception was different. A labour song from 1978, titled Idi Amin wikumyaga, or “Idi Amin Was Bragging” describes the population’s feelings:

Amin, chaga Iwako! [Amin, die on your own!]

…

Marehemu Askofu, ukamalaga [The deceased bishop, you killed him]

Untulagula na mhayo biya [You beat him without cause]

Zambi ikukwandamaga (2x) [this sin follows you (2x)].[40]

These lyrics point to an internalization among the Tanzanian populace of the norm of human rights. However, the question remains as to why the population of Tanzania had humanitarian justifications for the war, but Nyerere’s government did not.[41] The answer lies in the charter of the OAU. As discussed previously, the OAU charter contains in its preamble an affirmation of the UDHR, but only in “due regard.”[42] Thus the OAU charter consisted of some obligation to human rights, but the language used left what constituted an appropriate response to interpretation. In turn, other terms outlined in the charter prevented Tanzania from invoking human rights. Article II 1. C) specified one purpose of the OAU as: “to defend their [the states’] sovereignty, their territorial integrity and independence.”[43] This is followed by Article III 3, in which signatories agreed to “respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each state and for its inalienable right to independent existence.”[44] Then in Article III 4, states agreed to “Peaceful settlement of disputes by negotiation, mediation conciliation or arbitration.”[45] This was restated in Article XIX, which called for a “Commission of Mediation, Conciliation and Arbitration” to resolve conflicts without resorting to violent means.[46] In sum, the OAU Charter calls for all members to respect each other’s sovereignty, and for any dispute to be settled by nonviolent means. On the surface these articles appear reasonable, but in practice this simultaneous affirmation of both the UDHR and principles of sovereignty and pacifism became contradictory.

When Amin’s Uganda invaded the Kagera Salient in 1978, “Ugandan troops proceeded to murder and rape the local population, burn property, and steal cattle,” without any intervention by the OAU.[47] [48] Tanzania counterattacked shortly after and followed Amin’s forces back into Uganda in the invasion that would finally topple Amin’s regime in 1979.[49] The problem inherent in the OAU Charter was that a humanitarian intervention was, by definition, a violation of article III sections 3 and 4 and article XIX. It was a resort to violent means, and it infringed upon another state’s sovereignty. Likewise, the personal conflict between Nyerere and Amin served as a sole factor that would not justify violation of the OAU charter. Amin’s initial violation of the terms of the charter likely allowed Tanzania to invade and depose Amin. The invasion of the Kagera Salient violated those same articles, and thus the counter-invasion could be framed as a tit-for-tat affair. Thus, although both the norm of human rights and the personal conflict between Nyerere and Amin motivated Tanzania, flaws in the charter of the Organization of African Unity prevented the country from offering either point as justifications. Instead, it framed the humanitarian intervention as a political response.

When viewed from a normative perspective, two conflicts took place in 1978 and 1979: the obvious war between Uganda and Tanzania, and the less obvious conflict between the norm of universal human rights, on one hand, and norms of sovereignty and pacifism on the other. The norm of universal human rights did not sufficiently take hold until well after 1972. Tanzania intervened merely indirectly, due to Obote and Nyerere’s interest in seeing Amin removed from office alone. As Amin’s abuses grew, Tanzania became further opposed to the Ugandan regime. In 1978, a combination of concern for human rights, personal interest, and political desire for retaliation caused Tanzania to wage war. The structure of the OAU, however, forced the official line to be purely retaliatory—not personal, and not rights-driven. Amin, as well as the OAU, had internalized none of the principles they ostensibly supported. Amin’s invasion and the OAU’s inaction upon Amin’s invasion make this clear.[50] Thus the norms of sovereignty and pacifism, although declared to be absolute by the OAU, were not internalized in the region. Tanzania, then, acted upon one norm but was forced to officially espouse a contradictory norm because of a supranational institution. How this relationship between norm power and institutions affects international relations merits further research. With regards to Tanzania’s invasion of Uganda, however, the institution-backed norm only dominated discussion surrounding the event. In the end, the truly internalized norm of human rights triumphed.

About the Author

Buzz Lanthier-Rogers is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto studying International Relations and Peace, Conflict, and Justice. His research interests include humanitarian interventions and the intersection of transnational crime and human rights.

Endnotes

[1] This essay uses the framework of norm formation detailed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink in their paper, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change” in International Organization 52, no.4 (1998).

[2] Tennalur Vengara Sathyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda (England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986), 609.

[3] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 692.

[4] Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1979 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1979), 38.

[5] Tennalur Vengara Sathyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda (England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986), 660.

[6] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 704.

[7] Tennalur Vengara Sathyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda (England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986), 1.

[8] Ibid.

[9] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 695.

[10] Tennalur Vengara Sathyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda (England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986), 609.

[11] Phares Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 89.

[12] Phares Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 89.

[13] Ibid., 90.

[14] Ibid., 93.

[15] Tennalur Vengara Sathyamurthy, The Political Development of Uganda (England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986), 6.

[16] Phares Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 92.

[17] Ibid., 93.

[18]Iain Grahame, Amin and Uganda: A Personal Memoir (London: Granada, 1980), 133.

[19] Phares Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 95.

[20] Ibid., 96.

[21] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 693.

[22] Organization of African Unity, “OAU Charter” (web, Addis Ababa, 1963), 1.

[23] The United Nations, “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (web, Paris, 1948) 2.

[24] Phares Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 94.

[25] Iain Grahame, Amin and Uganda: A Personal Memoir (London: Granada, 1980), 135.

[26] Phares Mutibwa, Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope (London: Hurst & Company, 1992), 88.

[27] Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 895.

[28] Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 895.

[29] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 693.

[30] P. Godfrey Okoth, “The OAU and the Uganda-Tanzania War, 1978-79” Journal of African Studies 14, no. 3 (1987): 153.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Emma Leonard Boyle, “Was Idi Amin’s Government a Terrorist Regime?” Terrorism and Political Violence 29, no. 4 (2017): 606.

[33] Ibid., 593.

[34] Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1979 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1979), 38.

[35] Ibid., 39.

[36] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 693.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1979 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1979), 37.

[39] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 694.

[40] Frank D. Gunderson, Sukuma Labor Songs from Western Tanzania: “We Never Sleep, We Dream of Farming” (Leiden: Brill, 2010): 398

[41] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 704.

[42] Organization of African Unity, “OAU Charter” (web, Addis Ababa, 1963), 3.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Ibid., 4.

[45] Organization of African Unity, “OAU Charter” (web, Addis Ababa, 1963), 3.

[46] Ibid., 8.

[47] George Roberts, “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 695.

[48] P. Godfrey Okoth, “The OAU and the Uganda-Tanzania War, 1978-79” Journal of African Studies 14, no. 3 (1987): 155.

[49] Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1979 (London: Amnesty International Publications, 1979), 38.

[50] P. Godfrey Okoth, “The OAU and the Uganda-Tanzania War, 1978-79” Journal of African Studies 14, no. 3 (1987): 152.

Bibliography

Amnesty International. Amnesty International Report 1979. London: Amnesty International Publications, 1979.

Boyle, Emma Leonard. “Was Idi Amin’s Government a Terrorist Regime?” Terrorism and Political Violence 29, no. 4 (2017): 593-609.

Finnemore, Martha, and Kathryn Sikkink. “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change.” International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 887-917.

Grahame, Iain. Amin and Uganda: A Personal Memoir. London: Granada, 1980.

Gunderson, Frank D. Sukuma Labor Songs from Western Tanzania: “We Never Sleep, We Dream of Farming.” Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Mutibwa, Phares. Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hope. London: Hurst & Company, 1992.

Okoth, P. Godfrey. “The OAU and the Uganda-Tanzania War, 1978-79.” Journal of African Studies 14, no. 3 (1987): 152-162.

Organization of African Unity. “OAU Charter.” Web, Addis Ababa, 1963.

Roberts, George. “The Uganda–Tanzania War, the fall of Idi Amin, and the failure of African diplomacy, 1978–1979.” Journal of East African Studies 8, no. 4 (2007): 692-709.

Sathyamurthy, Tennalur Vengara. The Political Development of Uganda. England: Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1986.

The United Nations. “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Web, Paris, 1948.

Image Caption: A Filipino woman weaves in her factory, inheriting a long tradition that may be threatened by the decline of support for local weaving industries in the Ilocos region of the Phillipines.

Introduction

Weaving in the Philippines is not only a form of art for the native Filipinos, but a part of the way of life that may be traced back to before the Spanish colonization. Weaving is defined as an eminent method of textile production in which two typical sets of yarns or filaments are interweaved at right angles to construct a fabric or cloth. This is a process of intertwining the vertical yarn (warp) and the horizontal yarn (weft), respectively known as gan-ay and pasakan in the Ilocos province.[1]

Native Filipinos use fibers from pineapple, abaca, coconut cotton, bark, and silk to weave different products used for everyday life. These various products include baskets used for capturing fish or storing foods, pieces of clothing called kamiseta and saya (a traditional blouse and skirt for women), other cotton and striped clothes they call as rayadillos, and terlingas, handkerchiefs, and others alike.[2] The manner and the taste of clothing — the materials used, the designs, the embroidery, and its colors — are significant among the indigenous groups because it symbolizes the beliefs and rituals they practice. For example, the indigenous people from the province of Abra, called Itneg, believed that the designs of the textiles they use depicts their high regard for the spirits and gods of the nature that provide them with food and blessings[3].

Centuries have passed, and the culture of native Filipinos is being molded by time. With the technological innovations in cloth production made during the Industrial Revolution, the industry of weaving dramatically changed. A large complex cloth making industry that uses automated machines to produce textile has evidently played a huge role for the local community in building up and expanding the country’s capability to excel in economic industrialization. Likewise, the weaving industry of the Philippines, with its beauty, uniqueness, and maintained prestige, shows potential for contributing to the economic development of the country.[4]

Currently, local weaving industries are declining, and thus with the aim of preserving the culture of weavers and the commercial benefits of local communities’ weaving, it is necessary to understand firstly the industry’s development and secondly the challenges faced by local weavers.

The Development of Weaving Industry in Ilocos Sur

The textiles woven by hand and by loom have been developed over time and handed down from generation to generation.  According to Dr. Respicio, oral literature such as “Biag ni Lam-Ang”, a famous Ilocano epic, serves to indicate that Ilocano textile weaving has roots even before the arrival of Spanish colonizers to Northern Luzon in the third quarter of the 16^th century.[5]

In her article, Abel: The most enduring Ilocano tradition (2015), she found evidence in oral literature that culturally, a young lady was expected to know how to weave a textile because it was considered a required attribute of women, as articulated in the following lines:

“Ay, nalinis a balasang                            Ay, an accompanied lady, she

ta siam can a lalabayan                          nine skein of yarn

ti inna marugsakan                                 she can finish

iti maysa a sardam                                  in an evening”

The following lines highlighted various design techniques used in the wedding attire and ornaments of Lady Cannoyan, wife of Lam – Ang  as well as the special clothes worn by Lam-ang:

“Casta met ti inaramiddan                       So he did the same

ni sinanlalakin Lam-ang                        the man Lam-ang

incapetra met piman                               he put on

di kalsonna a ginalonan                           his stripped pull-on stringed trousers

ken badona a sinombrian                        and decorated shirt

Kken panyoma a sinambrian                  and brocaded handkerchied

tsinelas a binordaan                                 embroided slippers

ken kallogongna a kagrang                     and his fine woven straw hat”

The development of textile art in the Philippines has been encouraged by trade with other countries in East and Southeast Asia primarily in the coastal areas of central Vietnam. The geographic location of the Philippines constituted an ideal place for exchanges among various neighbor countries during the period of maritime trade. During the pre-Spanish era, Ilocanos often bartered cotton for gold.[6]

In Colonial period, the Spaniards considered the textiles to be of such excellent quality that they were allowed to count as taxes. Known for its strength and solidity, the Abel Iloko were also used as sail cloths in the Spanish galleons. It is assumed that the Abel was considered as prevalent product that it became an immense opponent of the Spanish weaving industry, daunting its very existence. The Abel Iloko is undoubtedly a depiction of the well-elegant and sophisticated history of Ilocos.[7]

According to Respicio, in the eighteenth century was a high point in demand for Ilocano textiles in European markets. In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, Ilocano textiles were also in demand for use on Katipunero uniforms and for traditional attire during the time of the late former president Manuel L. Quezon.[8]

She also discussed how the weaving industry survived the challenges brought by the American colonizers. Back then, the inexpensive importation of dyed yarns and cotton reduced demand for local goods. The Abel was no longer considered a premium product in the early 20th century, because a new material known as rengue was introduced. Rengue, which is a starched raw silk, was embraced as a blouse material by women in both urban and rural areas in of the Philippines.

Additionally, the weaving industry was disrupted by World War II. The loss of lives and destruction of resources triggered by the invasion and occupation by the Japanese Imperial Forces damaged the tradition of textile production in the Philippines. In postwar years, the marketplace was swamped with imported fabrics. The industry almost disappeared entirely due to the profundity of machine-made cloths exported to the Philippines. Over time, the weaving tradition weakened as the younger generation chose alternative employment instead of continuing the tradition of weaving. At present, only a few of the barangays, particularly in Vigan City, have preserved the age-old weaving industry. Many weavers still try their best to keep the craft alive and continue to produce more Inabel textiles, trying to ensure that the weaving, as well as the tradition’s political expressivity representing the weavers’ national identity, will carry on and continue through time.

The handwoven textile “inabel,” commonly known to many as “Abel Iloko,” has known good and bad times, yet persisted to be one of the strongest living treasures of the Ilocanos. Many provinces in the northern Philippines practice the art of Abel, and the Ilocos region is a renowned place that continues to revive the local weaving industry in the country.

Unlike in the province of Ilocos Norte, where the production of Abel is widespread in different places like in Pinili, Paoay, and Laoag, the craft of weaving in Ilocos Sur is concentrated in Vigan City with a few families that try to produce and make business of Abel. One of the oldest weaving center in Vigan City is Cristy’s Loom Weaving which is situated in the Barangay Camangaan.

Cristy’s Loom Weaving, founded by Cristy Antinaja herself, is now owned by her granddaughter, Cristeta Q. Atinaja. Cristeta is the third-generation successor of her family business, and for artisans like her, weaving is not just an art but also a source of livelihood. “[Ang Abel ay isang] art na ginawang hanap-buhay,” she said. (Abel is a form of art that we transformed into a livelihood.)

Cristeta dedicated most of her life in doing Abel, “Buhay ko na to, [Ang Abel ay] part na sya ng buhay ko,” she said. (This has been my life, [the Abel] is already a big part of my life.)  Despite the love and time she devoted to it, she is also afraid that in the years to come, she may not be able to continue such tradition because of her age and health condition. She does not have a child of her own to pass on to their Abel business, but Cristeta continus to hope and believe that the precious tradition of weaving and Abel’s Iloco will not die.

Challenges and Responses

The addition of technology and novel machines has caused a sizeable impact on people’s day to day lives and work. In an advancing world, a precious form of art is slowly fading, and the Iloco’s Abel industry is confronted by several challenges. According to Respicio, the foremost problem of the local weavers is the lack of materials. Cotton yarns play an important role in the production of Abel, and the lack of raw materials available in the Ilocos region greatly affects the manufacturing of Abel. Some local weavers have to buy cotton yarns or threads from Metro Manila because of the inefficient production of cotton in the Ilocos region. Others even use imported yarns from China, because the materials are much cheaper and more readily available. But for Respicio, the only solution for this is the restoration of the cotton industry in the Philippines, which not only provides a sufficient amount of cotton for the weavers, but also ensures the good quality of the products.“Lagi kong sinasabi na dapat i-revive ang cotton. Kasi the character of the local cotton noon ay kakaiba sa character ng cotton ng China. Somehow, kaya naiba rin yung character ng Inabel – mainly because of that. Yung cotton material itself is different ngayon kaysa noon,” she added. (I always say that the cotton industry [in the country] should be restored because the quality of the cotton here is different from the types of cotton found in China. And because of the use of synthetic cotton in the Inabel products, it made the character of Inabel different compared to the early times.)[9] The main reason why the Abel is known for its resiliency is because of the cotton yarns used, and changing this primary material could also change the quality of Abel and cause it to lose its unique identity. Furthermore, local weavers, along with the help of local cotton farmers who provide them with cotton, would be the ones who plant the cotton, then remove its seeds and craft the cotton into fine threads or yarns using a device called a spindle whorl, in which they would add natural dyes for the color of the cotton yarns. These natural dyes came from the different plants and crops available around them. Respicio said, “[The color] yellow comes from the yellow ginger [while] the blue comes from the Indigo [plant]. And then you add the yellow and the blue, [to] get the [color] green. They [also] have the Sappan or the bark of the Sappan tree for the [color] red. So they have those primary colors; they can get the other colors from there.”

Locals have maintained a wide knowledge-base for producing the natural dyes they use mainly for threads. And with the arrival of commerical and sythetic-colored yarns, the knowledge of the process of natural dyes has slowly faded. However, Respicio believes that this knowledge could still be revived with the help of different government agencies with expertise in the study of agriculture and Philippine textiles.[10]

Another challenge encountered by local weavers in Ilocos is the rainy season in the Philippines that usually starts in the month of June and lasts until October. This climate condition reduces the production as well as the demand for Abel. During the rainy season, fewer customers and tourists visit the Ilocos.

In today’s larger market amid the trend of globalization brought about by innovations in communication, transportations, and technology, many industry players build and increase their relationship and influence not just locally but as well as internationally. The locally-produced Abel is being confronted by the emergence of industrialized companies that mass-produce textiles and garments. It has become harder for local textiles like Abel to keep pace with the growing demand of the people. With a fewer families and communities engaged with the handloom weaving, a lack of available labor to produce a traditional hand woven Abel is a common problem as well. For weavers like Cristeta Antinaja and Rochelle Ramos, several factors underlie this problem: lack of interest and awareness about the importance of weaving in Philippine culture, low wages for a job that requires a lot of patience and skill, and the perception of better opportunity for prospective workers in a different field or career.

Respicio  added that the government should market and promote the practice of weaving in the new generatioins: “As I said, it [could] be taught in TLE (Technology and Livelihood Education). At least for [the provinces of] Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and La Union, even Abra pwede ituro (it can be taught).”  She also believes that weaving could still be a full-time work or career as long as people possessed proper knowledge of the marketing, product development, and designing.[11]

There had also been several offers from different businessmen to computerize Abel’s production and switch from the use of traditional weaving looms to the use of machines. The long and traditional process of weaving would be incorporated into a machine, along with the different patterns and styles made by the artisans, for a faster pace of manufacturing. But the local officials, the residents, and the group of weavers continue to resist these kinds of advances.

Artisans like Rochelle Ramos, a 20-year old weaver from Cristy’s Loom Weaving, want to maintain the practice of weaving with a traditional loom to preserve the Ilocano culture and to ensure the durability of Ilocano products. Furthermore, she believes that incorporating technology and machines in the production of Abel would only lead to the loss of livelihood for other local weavers, since these people will be replaced by computers and machines.

However, Professor Respicio had a different view of the potential effect of integrating technology with the process of traditional weaving. She does not completely reject the possibility of developing and using of technology and other machines, but cautioned for traditonal weaving to continue and not be left out.

Another challenge  faced by the local weaving industry is the control of other capitalists in the local weavers, particularly in the small enterprises in Vigan City. The locals are becoming laborers and contractuals of bigger companies. Respicio adds that Abel is hard to do and the materials are also limited, yet the weavers only get paid a little amount for their labor and hard work.

In order for local weavers to preserve their livelihoods, Respicio stated that the weavers must organize themselves into a cooperative to allow them to represent themselves as one, and they must be able to express what kind of support they need from the government and from other institutions. Thus, they could also dictate the price and ensure the quality of their products. Respicio adds that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) should help weavers in organizing as a cooperative. Only then would the weavers be able to control everything that is necessary to keep the practice of weaving thriving and receive the profit they deserve from their work.

The global market is greatly influnced by the demands of the people as consumers. The trends and the choices of people changes over time which makes selling the Abel hard for local weavers, but for Respicio, it is time for the Filipinos to set up their own fashion and style, and it is time for the Filipinos to patronize something of their own.

Government Efforts in the Preservation of Weaving Industry in Ilocos Sur

Several steps taken by the initiatives of the local officials in the Vigan City have helped the small business owners of Abel and their local artisans sustain their crafts and livelihood. The historic city of Vigan is known to be one of the best-preserved cultural sites in the Philippines, recognized by the UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1999. The city follows and continues to develop a city ordinance known as the Vigan Conservation Guidelines, which lays a set of standards regarding the conservation, preservation, or protection of the Ilocano heritage in Vigan City. This also includes maintenance and restoration of the practices, traditions, arts, and the crafts of the Ilocanos.[12]

Since there are only a few barangays in Vigan City that enrich the practice of Abel including Camangaan, Mindoro, and San Pedro, the former Mayor of Vigan City, Eva Medina, made the practice of weaving, along with the art of pottery, a mandatory subject for high school students in the public schools of Vigan City[13] Ms. Cristeta Q. Antinaja, the owner of Cristy’s Loom Weaving, is a leading advocate of the program; she said in her interview with the researchers that she taught the public high school teachers how to weave and make Abel in order for them to properly share the knowledge to students about the craft. Today, under the administration of Mayor Carlo Medina, the program is still being implemented.

The local government also supports the Abel industry in Ilocos Sur through the celebration of the Viva Vigan Binatbatan Festival of the Arts, more simply known as the Binatbatan Festival, which started in 1993.[14] The festivities include Binatbatan street dancing, Abel fashion shows, trades and exhibits, traditional games, religious rituals, parades and more. Binatbatan street dancing began in 2002, inspired by weaving practice and folk dance, and the act imitates how Ilocanos traditionally beat cotton pods using two bamboo sticks to separate or release the cotton fluff from the seed, mirrored in dancers’ gracefully swaying with the beat of drums.[15] This celebration influences more people to appreciate the art of weaving, particularly the distinct designs and styles of Abel.

The One-Town, One Product or simply known as OTOP Philippines is a program plan for Micro-, Small- and Medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs) that aims to attain comprehensive local and regional economic growth. The program enables locals to innovate, manufacture and market distinctive or culturally-rooted products or services. This program was further developed by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and is now called “OTOP Next Generation,” which includes an initiative for public and private institutions to give assistance to different MSMEs, allowing them to innovate their products and services in terms of quality, design, marketability, manufacturing capacity, and development of brand name.[16]

The OTOP program in the Ilocos Sur is organized by the local government officials in the different towns and municipalities along with the help of the DTI. The products chosen and determined by these local towns and municipalities will get support and a certain budget from the government.[17]

One of the other challenges encountered by the local producers of Abel is the lack of raw materials they needed, such as cotton threads. Today, the cotton industry in the Philippines is facing a major setback. Despite the favorable soil and climate conditions, local cotton farmers cannot grow enough cotton. The local government is attempting to revive the cotton industry to help the residents and communities to sustain their livelihood in Abel, as well as to provide additional support for the farmers. The Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (PhilDIFA), an agency under the Department of Agriculture, is currently developing a five-year program to increase the production of cotton in the Philippines, targeting the expansion of available land area for the cultivation of cotton seed. The potential provinces to be used for the cotton production include the region of Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur along with the regions of Pangasinan, La Union, Panay, Sarangani, and South Cotabato. The implementation of this program could be a big help to the aim of expanding and promoting the weaving industry in the country, particularly the Abel of the Ilocos region[18].

Conclusion

One of the main objectives of this study was to know and understand the development of Abel or the Ilocano weaving industry in the Ilocos Sur. The practice started even before the era of Spanish colonization, and the peak of the Abel industry in Ilocos dates back to between the 16^th century and the late 19^th century. A large demand for Ilocano textiles in the European market strengthened the economy of the Ilocos region. However, with the entry of other nations in the Philippines, the demand for local textiles decreased, and Abel was no longer the premium product of the Ilocos. Furthermore, the practice of weaving was further challenged during World War II, and afterwards, the weaving industry continue to decline because of the destruction of weaving looms and the lack of raw materials such as cotton.

At present time, cheap, mass-produced textiles are being imported into the Philippines; and because of the quantity and cheap price, they have greatly affected the demand for and production of local textiles. Today, there are only few towns that practice the art of weaving in the Ilocos Sur: the city of Vigan, Camangaan, Mindoro, and San Pedro.

The second objective of this study was to identify the underlying challenges in the weaving industry of Ilocos Sur and how the locals or the communities cope with these. These challenges are (1) the lack of raw materials; (2) the climate condition; (3) the mass-produced textiles imported by China; (4) the lack of man power; (5) the advances in technology and machineries; lastly, (6) the role of capitalism in lives of local weavers.

In order to preserve the practice of weaving in their communities, locals in Vigan City, Ilocos Sur tried to incorporate ready-made threads for the production of Abel from Metro Manila by importing synthetic threads from China due to lower prices. With the tight competition in the market brought about by the mass-produced textiles imported in the country, the artisans of Abel attempted to mobilize new designs and styles and to ensure thatthe quality of their products could compete with the other imported textiles in the Philippines. Despite the offers to modernize the process of weaving in the local communities, they resisted, as the locals wanted to preserve their identity and the heritage of the Ilocanos. Furthermore, the use of machinery in producing Abel would take away the livelihood of laborers.

Lastly, the third objective of this study was to determine the programs and policies implemented by the local government to help the communities in preserving and enriching their crafts and livelihood. Some of these actions taken by the local government include: (1) the development of city ordinances such as the Vigan Conservation Guidelines, which provides a set of standards regarding the conservation of the Ilocano culture; (2) the inclusion of the subject of weaving in the curriculum of the high school students in the public school of Vigan City; (3) the celebration of the Viva Vigan Binatbatan Festival of the Arts which aims to exhibit and promote the culture and arts of the Ilocos Sur; (4) the creation of the One Town, One Product (OTOP) program, allowing the local communities to choose and determine a particular product that is rooted in their culture, so they can receive budgeted support from the government for product development and marketing; (5) the action plan of the local government along with the help of the Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (PhilDIFA), which aims to revive and increase the production of cotton in the country to help local weavers develop their products.

Based on the findings and conclusions presented, the following recommendations are suggested:

1. The researchers recommend that every weaver must not let themselves be delimited by the capitalist, conducting product development without reliance upon business owners.
2. The researchers recommend giving proper training to every aspiring weaver, because any new employee should be well trained to produce excellent abel products.
3. The researchers recommend that weavers revive the cotton plantation model, because cotton clothing is valued for its abundance, absorbency, and strength.
4. The researchers recommend that every single community in the Ilocos, particularly in Ilocos Sur region, organize themselves into cooperatives, in a way that allows them to set their own price, quality control and create their own unique designs.
5. The researchers recommend that all living communities in the Ilocos region must continue to use traditional handlooms rather than machine looms. Also, they should improve design techniques through innovation to incorporate emerging fashion trends.
6. The researchers recommend that the government must give increased recognition and incentives to Filipino traditional craftsmen whose skills have reached a high level of technical and artistic excellence.
7. The researchers recommend that the government make some strategy for marketing the weaving and give its utmost support to every surviving weaving community.
8. The researchers recommend that the government create more agencies that can assist every weaver.
9. The researchers recommend that consumers give local products like “Abel Iloko” a chance. Patronizing Abel products will keep the weaving industry alive and creates livelihood for the weavers.

About the Authors

Renelyn Malbog is a writer, traveler, and an art enthusiast from the Philippines. She’s currently finishing her bachelor’s degree in AB International Studies at the University of the East, Manila. Her interest also includes understanding the globally diverse culture and politics of different countries.

Francis Co is a part time language instructor and freelancer, currently in the last year of his undergraduate studies in the University of East. He is interested in languages, business and economics.

Camille Comia is a positive self-starter and goal oriented student, currently in the last year of her undergraduate studies in University of the East-Manila, Philippines. She is interested with history, business and social sciences.

Chelsea Crisostomo is a 19-years-old Filipino student taking up AB International Student in University of the East – Manila. She is working on her Major full time and also has interests in the field of agriculture and business.

Karlo Cuare is a wanderer; and he is currently in the last year of his undergraduate studies in University of the East. He is interested in History, Tourism and Languages.

Aimee Dizon is a faculty member and a professor at the University of the East teaching History and subjects in International Studies. She’s currently completing her doctor’s degree. Also, the adviser of this study.

Endnotes

[1] Valencianco, A., Regalado, J. & et. al. 2015. INABEL: Philippine Textile from Ilocos Region. Makati City, Philippines: ArtPostAsia.

[2] Montinola, L. R. (1991). Piña. Makati City: AMON Foundation pg.16

[3] Flores, P & De la Paz, C. (1997). Sining at Lipunan. University of the Philippines, Manila pg.97

[4] Rozantals, J. 2018. Weaving History

[5] From the Interview with Dr. Norma Respicio, 2018

[6] Respicio. 2014. Journey of a Thousand Shuttles: The Philippine Weave.

[7] Respicio. 2014. Journey of a Thousand Shuttles: The Philippine Weave. pp.12-14

[8] Respicio. 2014. Journey of a Thousand Shuttles: The Philippine Weave.

[9] From the Interview with Dr. Norma Respicio, 2018

[10] From the Interview with Dr. Norma Respicio, 2018

[11] From the Interview with Dr. Norma Respicio, 2018

[12] Villalon, n.d. The Historic Town of Vigan

[13] Chua citing Medina, 2015

[14] Viva Vigan Binatbatan Festival of the Arts, n.d.

[15] Guquib, 2012.Binatbatan Festival: A Festival of Cottons and Fabric

[16] One Town, One Product (OTOP) – Philippines , n.d.

[17] Parilla, 2013.Economic Promotion through One-Town One Product

[18] Miraflor, M. (2015). Gov’t plans to revive industry with production of BT cotton. Manila Bulletin.

Bibliography

DeFranzo, S. (2011). What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?. Retrieved from https://www.snapsurveys.com/blog/qualitative-vs-quantitative-research/

Flores, P & De la Paz, C. (1997). Sining at Lipunan. University of the Philippines, Manila

Guquib, E. (2012). Binatbatan Festival: A Festival of Cottons and Fabric. Retrieved from http://www.edmaration.com/2012/05/viva-vigan-festival-binatbatan-street.html

Lee, Maria Glaiza. (2015). Agung. Manila City, Philippines: National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

Miraflor, M. (2015). Gov’t plans to revive industry with production of BT cotton. Manila Bulletin. Retrieved from: https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/manila-bulletin/20150613/282205124513214

Montinola, L. R. (1991). Piña. Makati City: AMON Foundation

One Town, One Product (OTOP) – Philippines. (n. d.). Retrieved from https://www.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=One+Town%2C+One+Product+%28OTOP%29+%E2%80%93+Philippines

Parilla, E. (2013). Economic Promotion through One-Town One Product. Retrieved from  http://hrmars.com/hrmars_papers/Economic_Promotion_through_One-Town_One_Product.pdf

Respicio, N. (2014). Journey of a Thousand Shuttles: The Philippine Weave. Manila City, Philippines: National Commission for Culture and the Arts

Rozantals, J. (2018). Weaving History. Retrieved from http://www.weavedesign.eu/weaving-history/

Valencianco, A., Regalado, J. & et. al. (2015). INABEL: Philippine Textile from Ilocos Region. Makati City, Philippines: ArtPostAsia.

Viva Vigan Binatbatan Festival of the Arts. (n. d.). Retrieved from https://greedypeg.org/ilocos-sur/Viva-Vigan-Binatbatan-Festival-of-the-Arts.html

Valencianco, A., Regalado, J. & et. al. (2015). INABEL: Philippine Textile from Ilocos Region. Makati City, Philippines: ArtPostAsia.

Image Caption: Bahrain’s government has taken efforts as part of Bahrainization to help Bahraini nationals succeed in the public and private sector in the face of an increasing migrant worker population.

Introduction

“Gulfization” is defined as the policy strategies that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries pursue, imposing allegedly necessary reforms in order to improve their economic development and to reach their goals of combating unemployment and inefficiency.[1] Gulfization has been actively undertaken by most countries of the GCC since the 1980s, and in 2008 the strategy even mentioned explicitly in each country’s vision for economic development. Some of the specific goals include increasing the ratio of employment in the private sector, lowering dependence on migrant workers in the labor market, and reducing the national unemployment rate.[2] This paper surveys the history of these policies and analyzes their implementation methods, and their overall impact, with particular attention to the case of Bahrain, a country with especially unique policies compared to the rest of the GCC. Ultimately, this paper finds that as the economic problems that these nationalization policies are trying to address grows more complex, in order to effectively reach the goal of such nationalization policies, the state first has to undertake certain market regulation measures to improve the efficacy of their existing initiatives and policies.

Historical background

Migration in GCC countries

During the oil boom in the 1970s, most Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries resorted to bringing in foreign workers for skilled labor, because Gulf nationals lacked the proper expertise and education. GCC governments decided not to educate and train native workforces for economic development because it would take a great deal of time; Bahrain was a notable exception, as it was one of the leaders in investment toward education in the Gulf. By resorting to short-term labor from migrant workers, GCC countries facilitated rapid construction and development of infrastructure.[3]

Subsequently, between 1975 and 1985, GCC countries experienced labor force growth at an increase of 7.7% a year, with Bahrain at 10.5% a year. By 1985, the percentage of migrant workers in the total labor force rose from 39% in 1975 to 67%. A decline in labor demand occurred in the late 1980s due to the fall in oil prices and the large number of nationals entering the workforce, although that only slightly slowed down the growth of immigration.[4]

At the end of the “oil-decade,” a period of time spanning from 1973 to 1982, during which GCC countries flourished due to the income from oil, authorities in GCC countries started to scrutinize and apply stricter control over foreign immigration because of plummeting oil prices, rising unemployment in the local workforce, costly wages and subsidies for foreign workers and their family members, and the authorities’ fear of unwanted social and cultural changes.  The first step taken was in 1984 with mass deportations of illegal migrants residing in the GCC, specifically in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE governments. Following that, GCC states limited the number of family members allowed to accompany each migrant worker to keep the number of foreigners requiring subsidies low. Other measures taken by authorities included restricting foreigners from undertaking a commercial endeavor without a national partner in most of GCC countries. This restriction resulted in the widespread phenomenon of the “silent partner”, in which the Gulf-national partner plays a minor role in a business while receiving around 51% of its revenue.[5]

Following those changes in policies regarding foreign workers, in the 1990s, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait resulted in a drastic change in Gulf demography, as the number of Arab migrants decreased sharply, and the number of Asian workers in the Gulf increased rapidly. The shift from a majority of Arab to Asian migrants was brought by changing market conditions and political reasons, including Arab labor-exporting countries’ inability to fulfill the growing demand for workers, the significantly lower Asian wage rates than those acceptable by Arab workers, and the political advantage of Asians being regarded by the GCC governments as unlikely to request citizenship or demand any other political rights.[6]

By 2000, Saudi Arabia was accredited for having one of the largest populations when compared to the other GCC states, and as of 2013 the country has a labor force participation rate of 51% in the private sector. The high rate of native Saudi participation in the private sector’s labor force results from both the restrictive way of life in Saudi Arabia that reduces the appeal of working there for most non-nationals, and the strict quota laws that require employers to abide by a certain ratio of Saudi nationals to foreign workers in the business that the high-ranking positions be held by Saudi or Gulf nationals. On the other hand, as of 2013, the UAE has a labor force participation rate of 6% for Emiratis in the private sector, as the UAE is particularly appealing to foreigners as one of the wealthiest countries in the Gulf and one of the most socially liberal; also, the UAE has a high rate of employment of Emiratis in the public sector, estimated at 73% of the national labor force in 2005.[7] Bahrain, however, maintains the most equitable ratio of nationals to non-nationals population residing in Bahrain and forming the entire workforce.[8]  However, Bahrain faces a problem here as the national participation rate in the private sector is only 17%. This aspect burdens the government with either a high unemployment rate or an overpopulated public sector to account for the 32% of working nationals not in the private sector.[9]

In a UN survey conducted in 2004 on the inflow of foreign workers to GCC countries, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE stated that the volume of migrant workers was too high, while Bahrain and Qatar felt that the inflow was satisfactory. Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and UAE issued policies to lower that inflow, including taxes on migrant workers and stricter regulations regarding visa issuance, whereas Bahrain had a “No intervention” approach, which meant that the government did not issue or enforce strict policies that aim to lower nor increase this influx.[10] However, Bahrain and Qatar with the other GCC countries soon realized the need for nationalization policies that could decrease the influx of immigrants to allow for a growing number of nationals to enter the workforce in the upcoming years, alongside the need for market diversification to lessen the dependence on the increasingly unstable oil sector. These measures became a formalized plan of action in each GCC nation’s vision to achieve by 2030.[11]

GCC countries are still among one of the most desirable destinations by migrants as migrants in GCC countries remitted 18% of the worldwide remittance to their home in 2015 alone.[12]

There are four main types of “irregular migrants.” One type enters illegally, a situation seen mostly in Saudi Arabia, due to its contiguous borders with Yemen and Iraq. The second type uses a “free visa”, the main method of visa trading, through which sponsors bring in migrant workers, and upon their arrival, they fail to provide the migrants with employment or compensation and leave them to find employment on their own, in exchange for the migrants’ paying the sponsors a certain annual sum. The third type occurs when the sponsor terminates the migrant’s work permit, allowing a popular method of visa trading. The migrant workers first pay the sponsor a fee through intermediaries to grant them legal entry into the country. Once the migrants have entered, the sponsor cancels their permits or visas, which leaves migrants a period of one month in Bahrain to find another job or be deported. Implementation of deportation laws in the GCC countries is different as it is perceived to be strict in UAE but less strict in Bahrain. This type can also include expiry of work permit as the employer simply neglected or chose not to pay and renew the worker’s permit. The last type is where a worker “escapes,” or fails to show up for work for a period of time. As soon as the sponsor reports them missing, the sponsor also cancels their permit so that the sponsor is no longer held responsible for this person.[13]

Nationalization Policies in the GCC

Historical Approaches in the GCC

The GCC countries can be categorized into two categories according to their policy approach to the proportionally high unemployment rate of nationals. The first category includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who took a more administrative and market-based approach, emphasizing stricter implementation of existing regulations and laws regarding nationalization policies. Bahrain falls into the second category, which also includes Oman; these countries took more of a vocational training or educational approach.

In the period from 1975 to the 2000s, nationals’ unemployment grew over time persistently. The unemployment growth rate averaged between 7.5% in UAE and 2.1% in Saudi Arabia, while Bahrain had 5% unemployment rate growth on average.[14] In order to decrease the demand for and supply of cheap labor offered by foreign workers, various GCC governments in the period spanning from 1999 to 2005 imposed direct and indirect taxes on migrant workers, detained and deported over-stayers and illegals, put forth stricter regulations on visa issuance in foreign countries, and enforced laws against visa trading on a stricter basis.[15]

To increase the private sector’s demand for Bahraini nationals, Bahraini authorities provided vocational training for nationals and enhanced the private sector’s benefits, and similar practices were also implemented by other GCC countries in turn. However, the public sector remained the major employer of nationals, due to the public sector’s job security, higher wages, less demanding work, and more benefits than entry-level jobs in the private sector. Increasingly, GCC governments felt the need to absorb unemployed nationals into the public sector. This not only created and reinforced GCC nationals’ conception that a job in the public sector is a natural born right, but also led to overstaffing of the public sector and decreased productivity overall. According to a 2015 survey, Bahraini graduates have the highest preference for private sector employment amongst the GCC countries’ graduates as 60% of them attested to preferring the private sector. Bahrainis are the only GCC citizens that prefer private sector employment more than the public sector. The Bahrainis’ preference to private sector employment can be attributed to the mobility the private sector offers, along with the comparative benefits, as Bahrain’s public sector does not compare well to its neighboring countries with regards to high paying public sector jobs, with the exception of high-ranking political appointees.[16] Thus, one of the major obstacles to the efficacy of nationalization policies in the private sector, specifically the citizens’ attitudes towards preferring public sector employment over private sector employment, does not prevail in the Bahraini context.

Authorities in the GCC also took further measures to impose nationalization of the public sector labor force by imposing quotas for expatriates and nationals, restricting the recruitment of expatriates in certain sectors, and enforcing immigration legislation.[17] Companies circumvented these by using “ghost workers,” or nationals that are officially registered as employed by the government but are not in practice employed, which created employment only on paper. The response of the private sector highlights the practical difficulties of implementing such policies, as the private sector employer finds that these policies are hurdles to attaining their own goals of efficiency and maximum productivity, due to the aforementioned stigma and lack of qualifications of the nationals.[18]

Both market-based and law enforcement-based approaches, show little in effect in regards to decreasing the influx of immigrants nor increasing the GCC nationals’ participation rate in the private sector. The Saudi example of implementing and critically enforcing quota laws on private corporations was successful in its own context, but for other countries like Bahrain they may yield more consequences than benefits. Bahrain sees the quota law as a tool that might jeopardize the state of its economy by deterring foreign investment, which could easily go toward another closer, larger, and less regulated market, such as the UAE. In addition, nationals still often were not adequately trained for required skills demanded by private employers, and forcing private enterprises to employ unqualified nationals would further discourage them from investing in Bahrain. Due to the lack of nationalization progress in Bahrain, the Bahraini government restructured its formal plan towards market nationalization policies to be more well-rounded, with educational and training approaches, market-based approaches, and immigration policy reforms.[19]

Training and educational investment

A massive problem arises from the gap of the quality of higher education in the GCC and the market’s needs. The GCC as of 1995 onwards began to respond by investing more in higher education by allocating a percentage of their budgets towards education, as high as 25.6% in Saudi Arabia and as low as 11.7% in Bahrain in 2010, adopting international models within their educational systems, and fully allowing private investment in education, which resulted in the establishment of many private higher education institutions affiliated with international partners. However, as institutions of higher education attraction of investors has led to further lowering the overall quality of education, due to the investors’ fixation on profitability and international accreditation rather than producing graduates suitable for the GCC labor market. The investors alongside the GCC governments resorted to relying on importing teaching materials from foreign universities through models of affiliation, which resulted in a widening gap between national universities’ output and the local labor market needs. These imported materials were not tailored to the GCC’s own market needs[20]. The skills deficiency strained the GCC economy and strengthened the dependency on foreign workers.[21]

In order to tackle this problem, Bahrain emphasized a more qualitative approach towards investments in vocational and applied learning institutions, establishing Bahrain Polytechnic University in 2009. The UAE and Qatar did the same in 2003 and 2011 respectively.[22] However, recent studies show that the satisfaction rate of private sector employers toward the curricula of educational institutions is only 16%, as most of them believe that the skills learned in these educational institutions do not meet their demands nor needs. Some of the skills demanded but not received by employers include stress and time management, innovation, and adaptability. However, these crucial soft skills are not present in the existing curriculum nor encouraged by teaching methods.[23] Furthermore, a high unemployment rate persists: in 2014, the unemployment rate was at 29% in Bahrain and is predicted to rise to 31% in 2018, while in contrast, in the UAE and Qatar the rate of unemployment sits at 10% and 2% respectively as of 2014 with a predicted incline of 1-2% in 2018.[24] This statistical discrepancy indicates a problem in Bahrain’s implementation of the approach towards educational and training investments when compared to its counterparts.

The number of educated nationals increased from 3.2% enrolled in tertiary education in 1980  to 27.9% in early 2000s and 46.6% in 2016, yet there appears to be an inconsistency in the results of the relation between education and unemployment.[25] Al-Qudsi, in his study of the evolution of unemployment in the GCC, has found an increase in the unemployment rate for those who finished secondary education. In Bahrain specifically, the unemployment rate for the recipients of secondary education rose to 51% in 2001 from only 17% in 1981. The unemployment rate of university graduates also rose to 8% from only 3% in Bahrain.[26] These results are attributed to the insufficiency of the educational system in better equipping a national workforce that is attractive to the private sector. A more recent study by Reji Nair regarding graduate employability has shown that the higher education investment from GCC states has not positively impacted the performance level of graduates. The problem can easily be solved by early exposure of students to the employment realities through work placement and internships, where such culture in the Gulf does not appear to be prevalent. Behavioral factors making GCC youth unattractive to private employers include lack of communication skills, discipline, and commitment. These can be remedied again by early exposure to work environment.[27]

A predominant cultural factor, the “wasta” effect, has also curbed the positive effects of the educational investment in both Bahrain and the GCC countries. Wasta is defined as “using networks and connections for favorable outcomes,” and the phenomenon is present throughout Arab society.[28] A study done in 2015 found that “Wasta” affect both the educational output and the employability of nationals. In the field of education, wasta can secure a person’s admission to university and grant them favorable treatment by the administration or faculty. Wasta also impact the hiring and promotion of faculty, which may adversely affect the quality of education if hiring a faculty member was solely conducted based on wasta and not merit.[29] The effect of wasta on education suggests that investment in education alone does not provide the expected results of nationalization policies in terms of equity and employment opportunities.

Kafala system and immigration policies

The “Kafala” or sponsorship system has roots in Arabian Gulf countries since the 1950’s with the aim to regulate the relationship between the employers and the migrant workers. In “kafala,” the migrant worker’s immigration status is legally bound to the employer or sponsor for the period of their contract, as migrants “cannot enter the country, transfer employment nor leave the country for any reason without first obtaining explicit written permission from the sponsor.”[30] The sponsor often also exercises further control over the migrant worker by confiscating their passport and travel documents, and this is legal per the law in GCC countries. Originally, the Kafala system had the clear goal of providing temporary, rotating labor that could be promptly brought into the country during periods of economic boom and expelled in less affluent periods. The Kafala immigration system seemed to achieve its primary goals, though as early as the late 1980s some problems manifested: a large population of illegal migrant workers accrued into the 1990s, because private recruitment agencies made use of fraudulent sponsorship documents. As a result, newly arrived migrant workers resorted to irregular employment; some employers were unwilling to expel their workers due to legal technicalities, so many migrant workers became semi-permanent. The Kafala system allows for extensive abuse of migrant workers’ employment rights, due to “the lack of secure legal status and enforcement mechanisms.”[31]

The Kafala system actually contributes to making nationals less desirable by private employers, due to their abilities to move freely and bargain. Moreover, nationals are protected by the government in issues ranging from wage and dismissal to employment benefits, while foreign laborers are not. The long-standing Kafala system has also reinforced the belief that nationals are less productive and unmanageable compared to migrant workers.[32] Thus, the Kafala system is a double-edged sword, because the practice harms non-nationals by exposing them to exploitation and nationals by dismissing their employment and averting any noticeable positive impact of nationalization efforts.

Analysis of Bahrainization policies

First generation of Bahrainization policies

After the economic boom in 1970s, Bahrain favored its nationals by providing them with a variety of welfare programs and enacted further Bahrainization policies.[33] These policies focused on four elements: limiting the supply of foreign workers, creating jobs for nationals, job protection for nationals, and decreasing the unemployment rate of Bahrainis.[34] A Ford Foundation report in 1974 estimated that these policies would increase the Bahraini participation rate in the workforce to 68% by 1980, even though the oil crisis witnessed a couple of months after the report caused the percentage of Bahraini participation rate in the workforce to drop from 62.7% in 1970s to 42.6% in 1980s.[35][36]

The first Bahrainization policy began in the early 1980s with the Bahraini government launching its “Project 10,000”, a training and employment scheme targeting the increased placement of young Bahrainis in private sector jobs. In mid-1980s, the “Strategic Choices Committee” was introduced with the aim to finding solutions for the emerging unemployment problems amid Bahrainis. This was noted as the first occasion in which labor market issues were addressed with a strategic framework in Bahrain. The program was further modified in 1989 to enact a five-year Bahrainization plan based on a structured process for the creation of new jobs in different economic sectors. Subsequently, in 1994, a quota law was passed, imposing a 5% annual increase in the number of Bahrainis employed in the private sector.[37] Similar measures were adopted in Saudi and yielded negative reactions from private employers which were also related to Bahrain, such as nationals’ having high expectations regarding wages while being unequipped with necessary vocational skills, employers viewing nationals as “less controllable” than foreigners under contracts, and businesses’ lack of experience in training and supervising national workers.[38]

Regarding irregular immigration, Bahrain responded with three main laws regarding immigrants, governing the entry, exit and residence of foreigners and their relations with their work sponsor. The main piece of legislation is the Aliens Immigration and Residence Act of 1965.[39] This Act had barely any effect on the actual inflow of migrant workers and had no noticeable effect on irregular migration as had to be readdressed in the second generation of Bahrainization policies.

Second generation of Bahrainization policies

At the dawn of the 2000s, the Bahraini government initiated reforms that shifted the emphasis of its nationalization policies to better address immigration issues and to invest more in education and training, rather than focusing on market-based and administrative approaches.

Tamkeen

The Tamkeen fund’s purpose is to train and educate Bahraini in order to give them a competitive edge against foreign workers for jobs in the private sector. The research done by Subhadra Gandguli and Reem Hameed Matar indicate that during the years of 2014 and 2015, Bahrain witnessed the increase of Bahrainis’ employability at 2.5% each year, although at the same time, foreign employability increased by 3.2% in 2014 and by 7.7% in 2015. These numbers raise serious questions regarding the efficacy of such training and educational programs. The attitudes of the public regarding such programs reflect a lack of faith towards the programs’ usefulness, as a number of program graduates and participants felt like the outcome still did not meet the expectations of the employer and did not advance them in their careers in the respective companies.[40] The investment in education in Bahrain does not seem to influence employers in the private sector to hire Bahrainis at a higher rate.[41]

The training and educational programs implemented in Bahrain produced more highly educated nationals, and yet they did not perceptibly improve the employability of nationals in the private sector. One of the reasons for these programs’ lack of success stems from the heightened expectations of nationals toward private sector salaries, as many Bahrainis now expected to receive a higher level job with their Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctorate’s degree and not start at an entry-level job. Furthermore, there existed a weak link between the knowledge and skills taught in educational institutions and the workplace ethics, knowledge, and skills needed and desired by private sector employers.[42]

Immigration policies reform

In the early 2000s, Bahrain and Oman enacted reforms that allowed for some increased mobility of foreign workers under the Kafala system. Non-nationals could now switch jobs even without the consent of their current sponsor. Contrary to the original objectives of the reforms, high-skilled professionals became more likely to undertake these actions rather than low-skilled workers,. Also, wages for foreigners increased during the inflation in 2008 and intensified the competitiveness of nationals against the non-nationals for employment.[43]

In 2001, Bahrain’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs launched a program that combined both employee training programs and wage subsidies for employers who hire Bahrainis. The efficiency of subsidy programs stems from the upward pressure they apply on incomes, which has a propensity to increase the cost of labor and reduce labor demand. Additionally, the policy can lead to “crowding-out or displacement” of workers.[44][45] Assessing the Bahrainization policies’ impact returns unsatisfying results, as the reforms did not significantly reduce the unemployment of Bahrainis or accomplish the objective of protecting Bahrainis from losing their jobs.[46]

As the public sector became the major employer of Bahraini citizens, the private sector filled its new jobs by hiring foreigners.[47] Besides, Wasta has an outstanding impact in the public sector in Bahrain, especially in employment and job security. As a result, the people who are in important public sector posts are underqualified to formulate policies, make decisions, and lead teams.[48] As a result, the public sector workforce’s incompetency massively affects the fulfilment of nationalization aims.

To address the problem of irregular migrants, the Labor Market Regulatory Authority (LMRA), which is “a government body with a corporate identity that is endowed with full financial and administrative independence under the authority of a board of directors duly chaired by the Minister of Labor,” was charged with the responsibility of managing all issues regarding migrant workers in the labor market, which includes issuing work permits and collecting fees and fines.[49] In 2012, Law 36 of 2012, issuing the Labor Law for the Private Sector, replaced the 1976 labor law and set legal conditions to regulate employer-employee relations. The law was regarded as a “progressive piece of legislation,” as it included domestic workers. However, the law did not set any new regulations, nor was it implemented properly to benefit irregular migrants or nationals seeking jobs in the private sector, because those that engaged in illegal visa trading practices were highly influential officials and businessmen.[50]

In 2009, Bahrain announced that it would dismantle the Kafala system by establishing the LMRA, although the LMRA ended up only regulating the work process and post-recruitment without making changes to the existing system or any legislation.[51] In July 2017, the LMRA announced the launching of the new “Flexi Permit.”[52]

The Flexi Permit as defined by the LMRA is “a renewable two year permit which allows the eligible person to work and live in the Kingdom of Bahrain without an employer (Sponsor) where he can work in any job with any number of employers on full or part-time basis.”[53] The permit costs the foreign worker around 449 Bahraini Dinars (around $1190) and also requires a monthly fee of 30 Bahraini Dinars ($79.50). There are two types of this permit: The Flexi Permit, which allows the holder to work in any “non-specialized” jobs and prevents employment in hotels, restaurants, and bars, and the Flexi Hospitality Permit, which allows the holder to work in any non-specialized jobs and allows the holder to work in hotels, restaurants, and bars. The eligibility criteria only includes expatriates who possess terminated work permits or those with an expired work permit that has not been renewed by their employer.[54]

The Flexi Permit neither completely banishes the Kafala system nor has had a great impact on the efficacy of nationalization policies. The LMRA emphasizes the restriction of the holders of these permits to non-specialized jobs, which seems to be a rather vague term that is open to interpretation. While the Flexi Permit may fix the problem of a large segment of foreign workers residing in Bahrain illegally, it may further worsen unemployment for nationals, as the permit lifts former restrictions on foreigners residing with expired permits that had kept them from seeking employment. The Flexi Permit also fails to remove the role of a sponsor in the system, as the foreign worker still needs a sponsor to enter the country, and then the LMRA simply takes on the role of a sponsor from that point onwards. The LMRA database states that there has been a reduction in the number of new work visas issued this past year by 32.4%. However, this change cannot be directly attributed to the new Flexi Permit; instead, the increase by 5.1% in work visa termination may be attributed to the Flexi Permit, due to termination being a condition for the migrant’s worker eligibility.[55]

The most recent statistics show a decline of 1.5% in Bahraini national employment during the second quarter of 2017, with an increase of 1.9% in the employment of non-nationals.[56] The government of Bahrain recognizes that irregular migration has a negative impact on the employability of nationals, as it has initiated a variety of measures to separate irregular migrants from nationals and limit their numbers. Bahrain’s government possess the legal ability to crack down on visa traders and employers of the irregular migrants, though it seldom exercises its right and power to do so, due to the lack of pressure from citizens on the government to take action. Another reason is that the citizens often are the largest beneficiaries of irregular migration, as they bring down prices of services due to their cheap labor.[57]

The demand for migrant workers needs to be addressed more efficiently, as it is one of the root problems for the unemployment of nationals. Two factors positively affect the demand for migrant workers: the economic need for the migrants’ skills and the attractive low wages given by the “hidden market” whereby migrant workers, especially low-skilled workers, are often exploited by means of wage or living conditions. Therefore, Bahrain critically needs to implement further reforms to raise the skill level of its native population and to protect foreign workers from exploitation. This includes imposing a minimum wage, restricting working hours to eight and ensuring they get paid for overtime.

Conclusion

The approach for the nationalization of labor taken by the Bahraini government still needs reforms with regards to closing the skills gap and alleviating the abuse of migrant labor. The former can be done through the cooperation of the government and the private sector’s human resources managers to address the certain lacking points of educational programs at universities and to formulate a cohesive plan to address each problem efficiently. For the latter goal, the non-interference approach the government used to take towards immigration policies still persists, and while the Flexi Permit issuance might be a solution for one problem of migrant abuse, the reform may cause more harm in the long-run towards nationalization attempts, as the reform creates a more competitive environment for nationals for any job that is non-specialized, a term that remains vague and widely interpreted. The failure of past immigration reform and the massive influx of migrant workers in the 1970s and 80s still impact the economy and the rate of national participation in the workforce. A government favored by natural resource abundance did not consider the rate of national employment in an ever-changing global market until it was too late, and the consequences of the high rate of nationals’ unemployment will only continue without adequate government reform.

About the Author

Ola Abdulla is from Bahrain and is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration with a minor in International Law at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. She is interested in Public Policy and International Law, alongside a special interest in the work of non-governmental organizations in the MENA region.

Endnotes

[1] La’aleh Al-Aali. “Nationalization: A case from the Middle East “Kingdom of Bahrain”.” (PhD diss., University of Manchester, 2014) 14.

[2] Al-Aali, 12-14.

[3] Martin Baldwin-Edwards, Labour Immigration and Labour Markets in the GCC Countries: National Patterns and Trends (London: London’s School of Economics, 2011), 7-8.

[4] Baldwin-Edwards, 8-10.

[5] Onn Winckler, “The Immigration Policy of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States”. Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 3 (1997): 483-485.

[6] Winckler, 487-488.

[7] Steffen Hertog, “A comparative assessment of labor market nationalization policies in the GCC.” In National employment, migration and education in the GCC, ed. Steffen Hertog. (Berlin: Gerlach Press, 2012).

[8] Sasha Hadgson and Darren Hanson, “Enforcing Nationalization in the GCC: Private sector progress, strategy and policy for suitable nationalization.” Middle East Journal of Business 9, no. 2 (April 2014), 18.

[9] “Labour Market Indicators – Core Data” Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed November 2017. http://blmi.lmra.bh/2017/06/mi_data.xml

[10] “Labour Market Indicators – Core Data” Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed November 2017. http://blmi.lmra.bh/2017/06/mi_data.xml

[11] Hadgson and Hanson, 17-19.

[12] Philippe Fargues, “Irregular Migration – Has It a Future in the Gulf?” in Skillful Survivals: Irregular Migration to the Gulf, ed. Philippe Fargues and Nasra Shah (Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017), 338.

[13] Hasan Alhasan, “Irregular Migration in Bahrain: Legislation, Policies, and Practices.” in Skilful Survivals: Irregular Migration to the Gulf, ed. Philippe Fargues and Nasra Shah (Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017) 80 – 83.

[14] Sulayman Al-Qudsi, Unemployment Evolution in the GCC Economies: Its Nature and Relationship to Output Gaps. (Dubai: Center for Labor Market Research and Information, 2006), 1-9.

[15] Shah, Restrictive Labour Immigration. 4-8.

[16] Reji Nair, “Graduate Employability and Educational Sector in GCC Countries: A Macro Level Study.” Asian Journal of Management Sciences and Education 6, no. 2 (2017): 83-91.

[17] Shah, Restrictive Labour Immigration, 9-10.

[18] Al-Qudsi, 41-42.

[19] Al-Aali, 15-35.

[20] Khalid Al-Ruwaihi,”Corporate Universities in the GCC: The Necessity for Custom-Designed Market-Driven Higher Education Institutions in the 21st Century.” in Challenges to Education in the GCC during the 21st Century, ed. Ahmar Mahboob and Tariq Elyas, (Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017) 52-56.

[21] Al-Ruwaihi, 58-59.

[22] Al-Ruwaihi, 51-58.

[23] Nair, 89-91.

[24] Nair, 82.

[25] “School enrollment, tertiary (% gross)” UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Accessed June, 2018. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?locations=BH.

[26] Al-Qudsi, 8-9.

[27] Nair, 87-91

[28] Magdalena Karolak, “Quality-Oriented Education and Workforce Reform: The Impact of Wasta (Case Study of Bahrain).” in The Political Economy of Wasta: Use and Abuse of Social Capital Networking, ed. Mohamed Ramady, (Berlin: Springer, 2015) 146.

[29] Karolak, 148-156.

[30] Migrant Forum in Asia, Reform of the Kafala (Sponsorship) system. (Quezon City: International Labor Organization, 2013). http://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/docs/132/PB2.pdf.

[31] Baldwin-Edwards, 36-38.

[32] Steffen Hertog, Arab Gulf States: An Assessment of Nationalisation Policies. (Geneva: Gulf Research Center, 2014) 5-7.

[33] Kasim Randeree, Workforce Nationalization in the Gulf Cooperation Council States. (Doha: Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 2012) 16.

[34] Mohammed Dito, Migration Policies and Challenges in the Kingdom of Bahrain. (Cairo: The American University in Cairo, 2007) 7.

[35] Mohammed Dito, Migration Policies and Challenges in the Kingdom of Bahrain. (Cairo: The American University in Cairo, 2007) 7.

[36] Dito, 5.

[37] Randeree, 15-17.

[38] Winckler, 485-486.

[39] Alhasan, 83.

[40] Subhadra Ganguli and Reem Hameed Matar. “A sample survey analysis of the effectiveness of training and development initiatives in Bahrain’s financial sector on employability of Bahraini nationals in 2015.” World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 12, no. 4 (2016): 362-371.

[41] Mohamed Alseddiqi, Rakesh Mishra, and Crinela Pislaru. “Identification of skills gap between school-based learning and work-based learning in technical and vocational education in Bahrain.” In Proceedings of Computing and Engineering Annual Researchers’ Conference, Huddersfield, 2009, 118-123. (Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield).

[42] Nair, 83-94.

[43] Hertog, “An Assessment of Nationalisation Policies.” 10-14.

[44] Randeree, 17.

[45] Al-Qudsi, 40-41

[46] Dito, 5-11.

[47] Hertog, “An Assessment of Nationalisation Policies.” 5-8.

[48] Karolak, 156-158.

[49] “Our Mandate.” Labour Market Regulatory Authority.  Accessed July 22, 2018 http://lmra.bh/portal/en/page/show/56.

[50] Alhasan, 83-90.

[51] Migrant Forum in Asia

[52] Labor Market Regulatory Authority. “Labor Market launches the flexible work permit, 2000 permits per month”. Labour Market Regulatory Authority (blog). July 10, 2017. http://blog.lmra.bh/en/2017/07/10/labor-market-launches-the-flexible-work-permit-2000-permits-per-month/.

[53] “Flexi Permit.”  Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed November 25, 2017. http://lmra.bh/portal/en/page/show/325

[54] “Flexi Permit”

[55] “Bahrain Labour Market Indicators.” Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://blmi.lmra.bh/2017/06/mi_dashboard.xml

[56] “Bahrain Labour Market Indicators

[57] Alhasan, 78- 79.

Bibliography

Al-Aali, La’aleh. “Nationalization : A case from the Middle East “Kingdom of Bahrain”.”  PhD Dissertation, University of Manchester, 2014.

Alhasan, Hasan. “Irregular Migration in Bahrain: Legislation, Policies, and Practices.” In Skilful Survivals: Irregular Migration to the Gulf. By Philippe Fargues and Nasra Shah, 77- 94. Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017.

Al-Qudsi, Sulayman. Unemployment Evolution in the GCC Economies: Its Nature and Relationship to Output Gaps. Dubai: Center for Labor Market Research and Information, 2006.

Al-Ruwaihi, Khalid. “Corporate Universities in the GCC: The Necessity for Custom-Designed Market-Driven Higher Education Institutions in the 21st Century.” In Challenges to Education in the GCC during the 21st Century. By Ahmar Mahboob and Tariq Elyas, 47 – 63. Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017.

Alseddiqi, Mohamed, Rakesh Mishra, and Crinela Pislaru. “Identification of skills gap between school-based learning and work-based learning in technical and vocational education in Bahrain”.  In Computing and Engineering Annual Researchers’ Conference 2009, Huddersfield. Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield, 2009. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/7679/.

Baldwin-Edwards, Martin. Labour Immigration and Labour Markets in the GCC Countries: National Patterns and Trends. London: London’s School of Economics, 2011.

Dito, Mohammed. . Migration Policies and Challenges in the Kingdom of Bahrain. Cairo: The American University in Cairo, October 2007.

Fargues, Philippe. “Irregular Migration – Has It a Future in the Gulf?” In Skilful Survivals: Irregular Migration to the Gulf. By Philippe Fargues and Nasra Shah, 337- 342. Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017.

Ganguli, Subhadra, and Reem Hameed Matar. “A sample survey analysis of the effectiveness of training and development initiatives in Bahrain’s financial sector on employability of Bahraini nationals in 2015.” World Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Sustainable Development 12, no. 4 (2016): 359-383. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/WJEMSD-05-2016-0026.

Hadgson, Sasha, and Darren Hanson.  “Enforcing Nationalization in the GCC: Private sector progress, strategy and policy for suitable nationalization.” Middle East Journal of Business 9, no. 2 (April 2014): 17-24.

Hertog, Steffen. “A comparative assessment of labor market nationalization policies in the GCC.” In National employment, migration and education in the GCC. By Steffen Hertog. Berlin: Gerlach, 2012.

Arab Gulf States: An Assessment of Nationalisation Policies. Geneva: Gulf Research Center, 2014.

Karolak, Magdalena. “Quality-Oriented Education and Workforce Reform: The Impact of Wasta (Case Study of Bahrain).” In The Political Economy of Wasta: Use and Abuse of Social Capital Networking. By Mohamed Ramady, 145-158. Berlin: Springer, 2015.

Labour Market Regulatory Authority. “Our Mandate”. Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed 22 July 2018. http://lmra.bh/portal/en/page/show/56.

Labour Market Regulatory Authority. “Labor Market” launches the flexible work permit, 2000 permits per month”. Labour Market Regulatory Authority (blog). July 10, 2017. http://blog.lmra.bh/en/2017/07/10/labor-market-launches-the-flexible-work-permit-2000-permits-per-month/.

Labour Market Regulatory Authority. “Bahrain Labour Market Indicators.”Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://blmi.lmra.bh/2017/06/mi_dashboard.xml.

Labour Market Regulatory Authority.  “Flexi Permit”. Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed November 25, 2017.  http://lmra.bh/portal/en/page/show/325.

Labour Market Regulatory Authority. “Labour Market Indicators – Core Data”. Labour Market Regulatory Authority. Accessed November, 2017. http://blmi.lmra.bh/2017/06/mi_data.xml.

Migrant Forum in Asia.  Reform of the Kafala (Sponsorship) system. Quezon City: International Labor Organization, 2013. http://www.ilo.org/dyn/migpractice/docs/132/PB2.pdf.

Nair, Reji. “Graduate Employability and Educational Sector in GCC Countries: a Macro Level Study.” Asian Journal of Management Sciences and Education 6, no. 2 (April 2017): 80 – 99.

Randeree, Kasim.  Workforce Nationalization in the Gulf Cooperation Council States. Doha: Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 2012.

Shah, Nasra. “Introduction: Skilful Survivals – Irregular Migration to the Gulf.” In Skilful Survivals: Irregular Migration to the Gulf. By Philippe Fargues and Nasra Shah, 1-11. Cambridge: Gulf Research Center Cambridge, 2017.

Shah, Nasra M.  Restrictive Labour Immigration Policies in the Oil-Rich Gulf: Effectiveness and Implications for Sending Asian Countries. Mexico City: United Nations Secretariat, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2006.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics. “School enrollment, tertiary (% gross)”  UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Accessed July 26, 2018. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.TER.ENRR?locations=BH.

Winckler, Onn. “The Immigration Policy of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States.” Middle Eastern Studies 33, no. 3(July 1997): 480-493.

Image Caption: China’s Shanghai, like Mexico’s Ciudad Juárez, worked hard to define its image by employing positive nostalgia for its past while brushing over some of the more negative parts of its history.

Introduction

Historical preservation has become an important motto of different urban development projects throughout the world. They evoke a nostalgic feeling about a glorious past that younger generations have not experienced. This essay discusses the selective nostalgia that has characterized two urban renewal projects, located in very different metropolitan areas. The first is in Shanghai, the world’s largest city, with 24.2 million inhabitants. The second is in Ciudad Juárez, a city located on the Northern Mexican border, with a population of 1.39 million people.

In both places, the switch from industry to financial and commercial services greatly affects the ongoing urban renewal plans. These changes reshape the nature of urban experiences and the power relationships among institutions, social groups, and individuals. The transition into a hegemonic discourse of development – Shanghai by the post-reform national strategy of economic growth, and Juárez by the pressures of neoliberalism and industrial restructuring – plays a core role in the process of urban redevelopment. Both examples present a particular concern with historical preservation in their urban development projects. This has both symbolic and material implications to the production of urban space in Shanghai and Juárez.

The “manipulation of collective memories” through the creation of a cultural industry of nostalgia is a process that affects both the Mexican and the Chinese cities.[1] The first aspect of this cultural industry is the cosmopolitan and international character of the “Golden Age” in both cities, historically situated around the 1920’s and 1930’s. The second is the neglected memory related to the working-class residences. This memory is treated very differently in Shanghai, with the shikumen houses – contemporarily used as a “symbol of Shanghai’s cosmopolitan and global future” – as compared to Juárez, where the adobe houses are completely ignored by the public administration.[2] This different treatment, however, has similar implications in terms of reproducing social-spatial inequalities and selecting who may effectively access the memory of old Shanghai and Juárez. A final comparable aspect is the “dark past” that both urban renewal projects intend to hide with this selective nostalgia. In Shanghai, this relates to the socialist era, when the city was experiencing marginalization by the national development strategy. In Juárez, this relates to the harsh narco-related violence that has affected the border-city especially after the 1990s.

Those three aspects of the aforementioned urban renewal projects highlight the cost of selective nostalgia in terms of reproducing and deepening urban inequalities. In this sense, the preservation of memories pertaining to working-class residences, taking in consideration the particular social practices that those environments used to present, emerges as a way of resistance to the homogenizing trend of globalisation and its pro-development atmosphere. It also offers an alternative to think of the historical preservation of urban spaces not only in terms of restoration of fixed built environments, but instead, as an intervention over a dynamic place under permanent construction by social-spatial practices.

Golden Age for the Foreigners: A Glorious Past Of “Openness”

It is interesting to notice that in both contexts the rescuing of a “Golden Age” implies a shift from a negative image of stigmatisation and humiliation to a positive and romanticised perception, highlighting its cosmopolitan and international character. The direct association between cosmopolitanism and the foreign exploitation – in the case of Juárez, by its northern neighbour, the United States, and in the case of Shanghai, by the colonial settlements – is a valuable indicator of the international character of those projects and of whom their outcomes are available to. The representations of “Old Shanghai” and “Juárez de Ayer” (Yesterday’s Juárez) bears the intention of creating a more attractive place for international tourism and local elites.

The negative reputation of Ciudad Juárez as a site of narco-related violence has its roots in the socio-economic differences between the communities in the south and north of the Mexican-American border. Recognizing the origin of the “Black Legend” of the Mexican border space is a crucial step towards understanding the production of Juárez as a stigmatised place. The Black Legend of Juárez refers to the dark and dangerous nightlife in the city. This idea has become more popular with the recent events of violent crimes that took place there – namely the femicides and narco-trafficking that have become internationally known since the 1990s. However, the origins of this stigmatisation process go back to the beginning of the 20^th century, when journalists and representatives of the Puritan movement in the northern side of the border used the term “Black Legend” to describe the lecher lifestyle of the border. The historic centre of Ciudad Juárez was full of bars, casinos and brothels, where all kinds of addiction and sins were tolerated. The stigma of city of excesses consolidated during the 1920’s, with the prohibition of alcohol consumption in the United States. This is when Ciudad Juárez was formally labelled as a space of extravagances, addiction and violence.[3]

During the Mexican Revolution (1911-1919), many public buildings were destroyed in Ciudad Juárez while the oldest neighbourhoods of the city were being founded. The moral crusades (a conservative movement driven by Puritan ideology against sin and immorality) advanced in the north during an economic crisis south of the border. During the crusades, a legal corpus was enacted and led to the prohibition era in the 1920s. The increasing demand for alcoholic beverages, especially by the soldiers of Fort Bliss, characterizes the extravagant years of the Golden Age of Juárez. This corresponds to the original accumulation of capital in many families on the border, who would constitute an incipient urban bourgeoisie in the following decades.[4]

Nowadays, with the intent of “recovering” the city’s image, the 1920’s are nostalgically brought back with the aim of “reactivating” and promoting the tourism in the city’s historic centre. This is necessary because after those years, the city was thought of as a place of gambling, alcohol, prostitution, and impunity. The Black Legend of Juárez turns into its Golden Age through a multidimensional process of restoring the city’s image. Many remaining bars from those prosperous bohemian years have been restored by the city’s redevelopment plans through a process that celebrates the history of those establishments in many ways. The public authorities interested in making the city attractive to international tourism and investment frequently highlight the visit of international celebrities and personalities such as Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, Jim Morrison, and Al Capone to the emblematic bars of the historic centre of Juárez during the Golden Age.

In Shanghai, the current nostalgia about its semi-colonial past also changes the meaning of a “century of humiliation,” especially during the socialist era, to a Golden Era of openness and cosmopolitanism under colonialism. The selective reconstruction of collective memory considers Shanghai in the 1930’s as “‘Paris of the Orient’, an ‘open’ city, or the city of sin and lust.” This is a significant shift from the previous understanding of the period. Other stereotypes, such as the “Whore of Asia” and the “Paradise of Adventurers,” “associated with the tales of magnates, gangster, writers, artists, and prostitutes” approximate 1930’s Shanghai to the 1920’s Juárez.[5]

In both cities, there exists a process of place-making based on an urban ideology of cosmopolitanism that celebrates the presence of the foreigners appropriating and using the cities’ spaces for their pleasure and fun. Cosmopolitanism here is a synonym for adulating foreign things, and it is directly related to the domain and exploitation exercised both in Shanghai and Juárez during the celebrated Golden Age. The ongoing gentrification practices in Juárez and Shanghai have many local particularities, but the transformations they promote focus on the creation of spaces that appeal to the upper-class consumers who are able to access and enjoy them, a group mainly composed by foreigners – now, tourists and expatriates – and the local elites.

Working-Residential Memory: A Different Cosmopolitanism

The industry plays an important role in the urban history of Ciudad Juárez and Shanghai. In the case of Juárez, the Maquiladora Industry (MI) still represents the main economic activity and source of jobs in the city, although the recent urban development plan has presented a greater focus on other activities like commerce and services, especially in zones like the historic centre.[6] In Shanghai, the production of an industrial space after the liberation, supported by an ideological process of promoting proletarian ideology, has also left its marks on the urban environment. Nowadays the post-industrial economy has a stronger relation with consumption, financial and entertainment services.

In the current wave of historical preservation and increasing concern to the image of the city, the shikumen houses are cherished as an important architectural element of Old Shanghai.[7] Shikumen houses were built predominantly in the 1920’s and 1930’s and remained the main residential style in Shanghai until the 1980’s.[8] They correspond to “residential row houses built by Western landlords for Chinese tenants in the former foreign concessions of Shanghai.”[9] In terms of architecture, shikumen are houses with entrances containing gates wrapped in stone. The mixed architecture style – with both Western and Chinese elements – is celebrated by the recent strategies of urban renewal in neighbourhoods such as Xintiandi and Tianzifang. In order to make these places more attractive to groups of tourists, expatriates and local elites, a set of entrepreneurial strategies have been undertaken. These strategies value determined aspects of the Old Shanghai, particularly related to their Western influences instead of the local practices of former dwellers.

In the case of Juárez, the entrepreneurial strategies do not relate to the preservation of memories of working-class residences. The casas de adobe (adobe houses), with their handcrafted essence, were used to house the migrant workers who built the city. They are some of the oldest structures of the city’s historical centre. Most of them were built between 1913 and 1920. They not only represent a sustainable way of constructing, but also an important part of the architectural inheritance typical of the areas along the border. Because of its desert climate, the city was largely benefited by the thermic qualities of adobe. The easy flow of heat and cold was limited inside the residences, helping maintain comfortable and stable internal temperatures.[10] In contrast with the shikumen houses, however, the local urban planners treat the adobe houses as something that should be replaced because of their antiquity, instead of valuing them as a historical legacy.[11] For them, the adobe houses have no marketable or cosmopolitan appeal that could be included in a plan of making the city’s image more attractive to the world.

The museumification and spectacularisation of shikumen houses in the contemporary landscape of Shanghai is not an inclusive way of rescuing the residential memory of the working-class in the city. It responds to a consumption demand created by the local authorities and developers using elements of the city’s historical background, which can be mostly enjoyed by “high-income urban professionals” and tourists with a significant purchasing power visiting the city.[12] Based on the mere rehabilitation and adaptation of old urban forms for new uses, this process presents an absolute spatial conception instead of a relational one that considers the social-spatial practices as an important part of the historical-geographical content of the preserving sites.

The social practices of those places included solidarity ties of a migrant community made of people of various origins, both in Shanghai and in Ciudad Juárez. At the end of the 19^th century, “a large number of refugees flooded into Shanghai from nearby provinces (…) Targeting this influx of Chinese migrants, Western landlords started building shikumen houses in the foreign concessions.”[13] In the case of Juárez, migrant workers from all over Mexico came to the border since the 1940s, coinciding with the boom of industrialisation. This constituted a very diverse and cosmopolitan community in the border.

In a historical context of economic and cultural globalisation, the memories of places being rescued and emphasized as important aspects of heritage and identity should serve to display a social meaning and a way of organizing our relation with the past.[14] These places, and particularly the workers’ residences, are more than a physical structure. They also present a symbolic meaning related to the everyday lives of the former dwellers. That is why an effective rescue of those places must, to some extent, preserve the social practices that used to characterize and structure them, not mediated exclusively by the consumption, but instead by a community spirit, social contacts and human care.

Erasing a “Dark Period”: The Role Of Selective Nostalgia

The selective nostalgia highlights some aspects of history at the same time that it hides others. Shanghai and Juárez share a historic feature that somehow challenges the romantic image painted by the Golden Age discourse. In both cases, the municipal authorities and urban developer want to forget about something. A period in the urban history that instead of stimulating the creation of a new space of consumption, blemishes the city’s image, threatening the international attractiveness that they once had.

In Shanghai, the glorious past of the Golden Age was sealed by the Mao era, when the city lost its prominence and cosmopolitanism to some extent, losing its former status of international metropolis and world’s financial and trading center. In Juárez, this dark past is related to a very different reality: the violent events that took place in the city during the 1990’s and the unprecedented upsurge of narco-related violence from 2008 to 2010, which made Juárez be considered the world’s most violent city.[15] Furthermore, this past is not entirely overcome in Juárez, since the city continues to face problems related to drug trafficking, state militarisation and gender crimes associated to the disappearance and murder of working-class women.

We could argue that Juárez has not left its “open” character, since it still plays a core geopolitical role both in illegal (mainly related to the narco-trafficking) and legal markets (primarily associated to the Maquiladora Industry) in a way that the city is marginally included in the globalisation process. However, the recent events that peaked in the unprecedented wave of murders drove the tourists away from the city. Shanghai has never lost its commercial spirit either, but the pre-reform era represents a significant decline in the city’s cosmopolitanism through a self-enclosure due to the shift in the national strategy.[16]

In both cities, an effort is being made of historic reinterpretation to suit a new development goal. Restoring Shanghai’s past prestige as a world-class city and making Juárez an investment-attractive city by bringing tourism back are the main objectives. In this sense, the selective nostalgia aims to bring back the shine of a Golden Age also to obfuscate a non-glamourous past of violence and incompatibility with the modern features of a global and modern city, “free of dirt, danger, offending smells, and local people.”[17]

Conclusion

The selective nostalgia creates a specific understanding about the “Old Shanghai” and “Juárez de ayer” (Yesterday’s Juárez) at the same pace that it marginalises certain fragments of history. The creation of a new urban space by rescuing particular pieces of historical heritage has not only symbolic implications that shape the collective image about the city’s past but also “material impacts on widening already fissuring gulfs of social inequalities among the urban population” both in Shanghai and Juárez.[18]

By comparatively analysing those cities, it is clear that the cost of a selective memory in urban design is the production of also selective spaces, since it denies the access of certain groups to it based on a class-criterion. The only way to rescue history under an inclusive perspective is to consider the social-spatial practices that used to take place in the “rescued” spaces. In other words, the concept of historical preservation is not only related to the physical rescue of old buildings, demanding a more complex conception of space. This conception goes against the ongoing marginalisation of the underclass citizens, and the approach of shikumen and adobe houses by the current urban renewal plans illustrate how the working-class memory is being contradictorily celebrated in the case of Shanghai and completely neglected in the case of Juárez.

About the Author

Larissa Santos is an undergraduate student of Geography at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, on an exchange period at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Her bachelor’s dissertation in urban geography focuses on the process of urban restructuring of Ciudad Juárez, a city located in the US-Mexican border, where she undertook a research internship in 2017.

Endnotes

[1] Tianshu, P. “Historical memory, community-building and place-making in neighbourhood Shanghai.” In Restructuring the Chinese City: Changing society, economy and space, eds. Laurence, J. C. M. and WU, F., 122-158. New York: Routledge, 2005.

[2] Ren, X. “Forward to the Past: Historical Preservation in Globalizing Shanghai.” City and Community, 7, no. 1 (Mar 2008): 23-41.

[3] Pereyra, R. G. Ciudad Juárez: La fea. Ciudad Juárez: Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez, 2010.

[4] Martínez, A. F. G. “Breve historia del centro y su ciudad.” In Relatos de la memoria: la erosión del centro histórico en la ciudad fronteriza, edited by Carpio, E. M., 15-28. Ciudad Juárez: Editora UACJ, 2010.

[5] Tianshu, P. and Zhijun, L. “Place matters: an ethnographic perspective on historical memory, place attachment, and neighbourhood gentrification in post-reform Shanghai.” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, 43, no. 4 (Summer 2011): 52-73.

[6] Wright, M. “Feminicidio, narcoviolence, and gentrification in Ciudad Juárez: the feminist fight.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, no. 31 (2013): 830-845.

[7] Wai, A. W. T. “Place promotion and iconography in Shanghai’s Xitiandi.” Habitat International, 30 (2006): 245-260.

[8] Lu, H. “Nostalgia for the future: the resurgence of an alienated culture in China.” Pacific Affairs, 75, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 169-186.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Morones, M. “Difunden bondades del adobe,” El Diario de Juárez, May 13 2016. Retrieved from http://diario.mx/Local/2016-05-12_68cc91e3/difunden-bondades-del-adobe/

[11] Mexico. Chihuahua. Municipal Institute of Planning and Investigation of Ciudad Juárez. Plan Parcial del Centro Histórico de Ciudad Juárez, Ciudad Juárez: IMIP, 1998.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Bourdin, A. A questão local. Rio de Janeiro: DP&A Edit., 2001.

[15] Ortega, J. A. “Cd. Juárez, por Segundo año consecutivo, la ciudad más violenta del mundo,” Seguridad, Justicia y Paz, Jan 11 2010. Retrieved from http://www.seguridadjusticiaypaz.org.mx/sala-deprensa/58-cd-juarez-por-segundo-ano-consecutivo-la-ciudad-mas-violenta-del-mundo

[16] Pomeranz, K. The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid.