Despite China’s formal guarantees of self governance and protection, the country’s ethnic minorities continue to face political under-representation, discrimination and economic disadvantages, human rights groups said Wednesday.
The New York-based Human Rights in China and London-based Minority Rights Group International said in a report that the impact is “particularly grave” on the Mongols, Tibetans and Uyghurs in the country’s Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous regions.
“Currently, minorities are unable to make decisions or exercise any significant legislative or administrative powers,” said the report, based partly on interviews with recently arrived Tibetan refugees in India as well as workshops with the Inner Mongolian, Tibetan and Uyghur communities in the United States and Europe.
While minorities are represented significantly at the local legislature and to a certain extent at the national-level legislature, their influence on policy is negligible as they do not participate in the structure of the Chinese Communist Party, where the true power lies, according to the report.
“The disproportionate minority representation between the lower and higher level of governance demonstrates that the central government wants to show that it is inclusive of minorities, while not allowing them any real power,” the report said.
The report also said that discrimination continues to exist in various forms, including in employment.
While some minorities are prevented from finding jobs due to their lack of Mandarin fluency, even those who are proficient in the language and have progressed in the education system are turned away because of who they are, the report said.
“Uyghurs interviewed for this report indicate that many Uyghurs…are unable to obtain jobs because of the bias of government- and privately-owned businesses, who basically say, ‘we don’t want you, Uyghurs,'” the report said.
The minorities’ freedom of opinion and expression are also often curbed, as comments expressing frustration are interpreted as “dissent against the country” and suppressed as “separatist” activities, the report said.
The report also criticized China’s economic development strategy for the minority areas, saying that they focus on extracting resources from them for use in China’s urban and coastal economic boom towns.
For example, lucrative oil and gas extraction from the Inner Mongolian, Tibetan and Uyghur autonomous regions are funneled to pipelines that go to the coast, rather than being used locally, it said.
