Causes of ethnic unrest in China: the cases of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia

Abstract

By analyzing the cases of Xinjiang, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia, three Autonomous Regions of the People’s Republic of China, this dissertation attempts to answer the following question: When do states’ ethnic assimilation policies cause ethnic unrest? These regions have historically been populated by the non-Han ethnic groups of Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols, respectively. Xinjiang and Tibet are wellknown for their ethnic unrest, while Inner Mongolia has remained relatively free of it since China’s economic liberalization in the 1980s. Mongols, unlike Uyghurs and Tibetans, largely seem to have assimilated into Han culture. This dissertation has identified four factors that contribute to the existence of ethnic unrest, or its lack, in the three Autonomous Regions: the presence of a strong religious identity tied to ethnicity, ethnic market segregation, a strong extranational community supporting the ethnic group, and, especially, the demographic share of the ethnicity in the region.