[The Financial Times]
By Ben Marino
It is one of Beijing’s worst nightmares: subjects in a resource-rich semi-autonomous province hold a vote on independence.
So when Premier Li Keqiang was asked in June where he stood on Scottish independence, it came as no surprise that he backed the union.
In the heart of Beijing the Communist party is watching Scotland’s exercise in democracy with suspicion.
In China, separatism – one of the “three evil forces”, along with terrorism and extremism, that President Xi Jinping has pledged to stamp out – is tantamount to treason.
As harsh crackdowns in Xinjiang and Tibet show, talk of self-determination by ethnic minorities or ordinary Chinese will not be tolerated.
In the lead-up to the Scottish referendum, Chinese state media have carried a series of editorials warning about the dangers of Scottish nationalism.
The Global Times, an English-language tabloid owned by Communist party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, asserted that without Scotland, the UK would become a “second-rate” nation.
It went further by pouring cold water on nationalist campaigns in general:
“The Scottish independence campaign also tells us that established developed countries like the UK are far from stable as we previously imagined.”
Willy Lam, a Hong Kong-based China observer, says Beijing is worried that its subjects in restive provinces may look to Scotland’s quest for independence as an inspiration and get ideas of their own.
“This is an international precedent, and pro-independence elements in places ranging from Xinjiang, Taiwan, Tibet, and to a lesser extent Hong Kong, are taking note.”
Beijing’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion over demands for more self-determination of its ethnic minorities has drawn harsh criticism from human rights groups.
In July 2013 the Financial Times interviewed Ilham Tohti, an economics professor and outspoken advocate of peaceful dialogue between Beijing and the Uighur minority.
Mr Tohti warned then that Beijing’s crackdown in Xinjiang was making Uighurs more “aware of their ethnic identity”.
Shortly after talking to the FT, Mr Tohti was arrested and is now facing charges of separatism. He is likely to face trial soon, and is almost certain to be found guilty.
The Uighur are a Turkic-speaking, Muslim people native to Xinjiang, who have struggled under China’s restrictive religious, cultural and language policies in the region. Uighur militants have staged several violent attacks on Han Chinese civilians this year, including a knife attack in which eight Uighurs stabbed to death 29 people in a southwestern Chinese train station, and a suicide car crash in a crowded market in Urumqi that killed 43 people.
In response to recent terror attacks at the hands of Uighur militants, Beijing has declared an all-out war on what it calls Uighur separatism.
Authorities in some cities in Xinjiang have even banned traditional headscarfs from public transport and offered cash incentives for mixed marriages.
To students of Scottish history, the harsh methods adopted by China to suppress Uighur identity and culture remind some of the Disarming Act passed by the British parliament in 1746 in the wake of the last Jacobite rebellion.
According to the Scottish historian Sir Tom Devine, the act was aimed at disarming the clan system and erasing Scottish culture by banning tartan dress but in fact helped reinforce Scottish identify and became “a badge of honour” to the nascent Scottish nationalism of the 19th century.
Now Scottish nationalists are on the edge of a watershed moment in their quest for self-determination.
Policy makers in Beijing may be advised to take note of Scottish history when trying to snuff out calls for greater self-determination within their borders.
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