Not surprisingly, the overseas Chinese feel enormous pride in China ’s rise. After two centuries during which their homeland was synonymous with poverty and failure, China has risen to a position of great global prominence and allure in a remarkably short space of time. Television channels the world over are pouring out programmes about China and in many countries people are signing up in large numbers to learn Mandarin. The gravitational pull exercised by China on its overseas communities has increased markedly as a result. My son’s Sunday Mandarin School decided to cancel lessons for the day in order to join the London festivities for the Olympic relay. For them China was coming home and being embraced by their adopted city. There was real delight in China ’s achievement and the global recognition that the Olympics signified.

In taking to the streets in support of the Beijing Olympics in so many cities around the world and in such large numbers, the overseas Chinese proved a powerful political force in their adopted countries, as well as for the Chinese government. This kind of phenomenon, of course, is neither new nor particularly Chinese: diasporas in many countries have long played a significant role in support of their homeland, the most potent post-war example being that provided by the Jewish diaspora for Israel. The Chinese diaspora, however, has several characteristics which together mark it out as somewhat distinct. It is numerically large and spread all around the globe, from Africa to Europe, East Asia to the Americas; for historical and cultural reasons, it enjoys an unusually strong identification with the Middle Kingdom; and China is already a global power, and destined to become the most powerful country in the world. As its rise continues and Chinese worldwide interests grow, the Chinese diaspora is likely to greatly expand, become increasingly prosperous, buoyed by China’s own economic success, enjoy enhanced prestige as a result of China’s rising status, and feel an even closer affinity with China.

CHINA AND DIFFERENCE

China will, like other great powers, see the world in terms of its own history and values, and seek to shape the world in accordance with them. The world, however, contains great diversity and difference. No country, not even one as large as China, can even vaguely be regarded as a microcosm of it. The attitude of China towards difference — the diverse cultures, histories, ethnicities, races and values embodied by other peoples — is therefore of great consequence. How will the Chinese treat people who are different from them? To what extent will a rising China respect them and seek to understand them? Will its own history allow an outlook that enables it to appreciate the very different experiences of others? These are difficult questions to answer, firstly because China has spent virtually all of its history isolated from the rest of the world — excepting its regional neighbours — and secondly because the answers obviously still lie in the future: China’s present behaviour can only be regarded as a partial indicator, simply because its power and influence remain limited compared with what they are likely to become. From the foregoing discussion, there are a number of elements that should be considered.

China ’s own experience of race is unique. Although once comprised of countless races, China is now dominated by what the Chinese regard to be one race, the Han Chinese, with the other races — described as ‘nationalities’ — accounting for less than 9 per cent of the population (though this is still 105 million people). [838] ‘The Chinese may have different origins,’ argues Wang Xiaodong, ‘but 95 per cent of them believe they are from the same race.’ [839] This melding is a function of China’s extraordinarily long and continuous history, the slow and long-drawn-out process by which the Han Chinese were created and came to represent and embody the overwhelming bulk of the population. The Chinese writer Huang Ping puts it like this: ‘The process by which the Chinese [within China] became hegemonic was the process which also resulted in the subordination and dissolving of ethnic difference — the process of the formation of Chineseness.’ [840] As a consequence, the Chinese tend to downplay or disregard ethnic difference, holding it to be largely transient. There is, as a result, a lack of recognition of other ethnicities, which are seen as subordinate, inferior, and not deserving of equal respect. The idea of overwhelming racial homogeneity, in the context of a huge population, makes the Chinese, in global terms, unique. As Jared Diamond points out, four of the world’s other most populous countries — India, the United States, Brazil and Indonesia — are not only relatively recent creations but are also ‘ethnic melting pots’ comprising many races and languages; in contrast, China is neither recent nor a melting pot. [841] Many Han Chinese, in contrast, believe that they are not only of one race, but that they share a common and distinct origin, and that, at least figuratively speaking, they are descended from the Yellow Emperor in northern China. The perception and the ideology are quite different from anywhere else in the world and inevitably pose the question as to the ability of the Chinese to understand and respect the very different formation and make-up of other countries. The world’s other most populous countries, in particular India, the US, Brazil and Indonesia, recognize their diverse origins and the heterogeneity of their contemporary populations; indeed, in varying degrees, they celebrate their diversity. In China ’s case, there is a de facto coincidence of race and nation — except, relatively speaking, at the margins — which is simply not true of the other most populous countries. [842] In practice, though not formally, the Han Chinese think of themselves overwhelmingly as a nation-race.

China ’s own unique experience inevitably influences its perception of others. ‘Because the Han Chinese see themselves as all the same,’ argues Huang Ping, ‘is also the reason why they see everyone else, for example Indians and Africans, in the same terms.’ [843] China, in other words, faces a profound problem in trying to comprehend the nature of ethnic difference in the outside world. As we have seen, the problem is graphically illustrated by the attitude towards the Tibetans and Uighurs: the Han have pursued a policy of absorption, assimilation and settlement based on a belief in their own virtue and superiority rather than a respect for and acceptance of ethnic and cultural difference. Huang Ping argues:

China has a lot of learning to do, not least… learning who we are, where we came from and how it happened… People should not take it for granted that people are Chinese. This has been the result of a historically-constructed process. They take it as a given when it is not. We can do a bit of teaching [to the outside world], but only after we have done a lot of learning. [844]

Given how historically entrenched these attitudes are, however, any serious change is bound to take an extremely long time. In the meantime, China’s ethnic mentality will inevitably exercise a powerful influence over its attitude and behaviour towards other peoples: the Chinese will tend to see the world in terms of a complex racial and cultural hierarchy, with the Chinese at the top, followed by whites, and, notwithstanding the anti-imperialist line of the Maoist era, those of darker skin somewhere at or near the bottom.