Scaling back minority rights? The debate about China's ethnic policies

The 2008 Lhasa and 2009 Urumqi riots altered popular perceptions among China's majority Han population about China's Tibetan and Uighur minorities, and thus, Han views about the country's ethnic policy. In what follows, we first review China's main ethnic policies: of ethnic minorities, ethnic regional autonomy, preferential policies, suppression of separatism, the non-faciliation of anti-discrimination actions, and (limited) freedom of religion. Proposals that would attenuate minority rights especially those of Beijing University sociologist and ethnologist Ma Rong, will then be considered and critiqued. We contend that the proposals call for actions that, to varying degrees, will impair minority interests and hence worsen inter-ethnic and minority/state relations, which are best served by expanding, rather than curbing, minority rights. Adapted from source document.