Dr Jian Junbo is assistant professor of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, Shanghai, China. From the Asia Times Online:
As the influence of Marxism as the dominant ideology is diminishing in China, the sense of political equality is also abating. Today, common people aren’t really considered the owners of the country, and laborers are no longer a respected class. Capitalists have become the government’s guests of honor.
In China, political equality based on class equality has collapsed. For the past 60 years, this idea of class equality was a basis on which all common people, including minorities, could maintain an identity as one member of the Chinese political community.
Now, the economic and political marginalization of ethnic minorities is destroying the foundation of some ethnic groups’ Chinese identity. At the same time, this marginalization is deeply misunderstood by many of the majority Han ethnic group.
The shared identity of the Chinese – as socialist labor – is gradually falling to pieces. The resulting riots in Urumqi may be just the start of something much, much bigger.
