On the Huihui Question

In Western discourse today the charge that Islam is “not just a religion” but a comprehensive social system is leveled to cast doubt over Muslims' ability to integrate into a political community. In the People's Republic of China, this understanding of Islam has served the opposite purpose. From the perspective of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), religion cannot be the basis for legitimate political identity. Islam, however, is not just a religion. Rather, as a “social system,” Islam constitutes a legitimate basis for national identity, and the Hui (Huihui), or Chinese Muslims, therefore constitute a minority nationality. This essay explores the origins of the CCP's understanding of Islam in the 1930s and 1940s, when the Party first formulated its policy vis-à-vis the Hui. Glasserman shows how this understanding of Islam as “not just a religion” suited the political, geopolitical, and ideological circumstances of the Yan'an period (1936–48). He also shows how this understanding was informed by contemporary Hui discourse and activism.

Hermann Cohen and Socialist Democracy

This chapter is dedicated to Hermann Cohen’s renewal of Jewish theologico-political thought. Cohen is the first to establish an internal, systematic connection between the Jewish messianic idea and a universalistic conception of democracy. He articulates a political theology of socialist democracy, not based on the analogy between One God and One King, but on that between One God and One Humanity. Cohen rejected Zionism as a solution to the political problem caused by the condition of minority nationality in which the Jewish people lived in European states. But he did not believe in assimilation either. He maintained that its messianic religion assigned the Jewish people the task of pointing the way to an international order based not on state sovereignty but on the supremacy of international law founded on human rights that recognized the plurality and right to self-determination of nationalities.

Health Resources Allocation Analyzing of the Western China

Background: To achieve the goal “health equity for all", equitable and reasonable allocation of health resources is the basic material guarantee. As an area which owns more developing provinces and minority nationality region than other regions in China, the western China should get more attention in the health resources allocation while there was not.Methods: Lorentz curve, Gini coefficient and Theil index were used to analyze the health resources allocation which including number of health institutions, number of beds, (assistant) medical practitioners, registered nurses in the western China from 2014 to 2018 from two dimension: population and geography. Results: The total health resources shows an increasing tendency from 2014-2018; The Gini coefficients for health resources by population dimension were ranged from 0.057 to 0.13, in geography dimension the Gini coefficients ranged between 0.61 and 0.64. Meanwhile, the Lorentz curve in population dimension had a smaller curvature than in geography dimension; In two dimensions, the intra-group contribution rate of the Theil index was higher than the inter-group. Conclusion: The equity of health resources allocation should be further improved, especially the allocation of health institutions. Moreover, the access to health resources should also by improve by a diversity method.

Is it Possible to Define the Impossible – What is a ‘Community’ for Purposes of Section 235 of the Constitution of South Africa?

The Constitution of South Africa contains the promise in Section 235 that any community that shares a common language and cultural heritage may be granted self-determination. The Constitution does not give any guidance about who the communities are that qualify for this self-determination. Terms such as minority, nationality and peoples have been notoriously difficult to define. The term ‘community’ has now been added to this list. In this article, consideration is given to international law and state constitutional law to ascertain how the term ‘community’ can be applied in South Africa; whether the term ‘culture’ should be used to expand or restrict the composition of the language community; and whether the community should be organised at a national level or whether local and regional communities could also qualify for a form of self-determination.

Tibetans do the Housework, but Han are the Masters

This chapter looks at the events in Zeku County and beyond from the end of the High Tide in summer of 1956 through the eve of the Great Leap Forward in late 1957. This period, referred to as an “un-Maoist interlude,” was marked by a retreat from plans for rapid collectivization and even saw a push during the One Hundred Flowers campaign to encourage open criticism of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) so that its mistakes could be rectified. A centerpiece was soliciting critiques from United Front figures, particularly Han intellectuals but also leading minority nationality figures. Among the latter, many complained that the autonomy the CCP promised non-Han communities at the time of “Liberation” had proved more mirage than fact. Far from a reactionary stance, in the months following the Eighth Party Congress, this critique was widely promoted in Party and government circles.

Toward knowing: Engaging Chinese medical worlds

This discussion opens with a puzzling statement from the analects of Confucius: When you know it you know it, when you don’t know, you don’t know. This is knowledge. Reflecting on various Chinese approaches to zhi (知), knowing/knowledge, in this article we re-explore the terrain we two authors covered together in recent research on minority nationality medical systems of southwestern China. Our itineraries drew us near to ‘folk’ approaches to knowing, evident both in practical medical work and in classic written sources. We found ourselves in that frictional field of medicine where expertise is not just possession of knowledge, it is also skills, politics, ethics, manipulations, ideologies, and more than one set of ontological assumptions. Reminded of some ancient Chinese metaphysical philosophy, we were led by healers to conclude that knowing and good action cannot be separated. The article reports visits to three mountain herbalists, describing the particular ways they practice knowing and use their expertise to treat difficult disorders. On the road through a mostly unknowable world, such Chinese healers expect transformations in both those who know and in what can be known and enacted. These lives teach us how to know not through concepts but through the irreducible patterning of life.

On the Intersectionality of Religious and Racial Discrimination: A Case Study on the Applicability of ICERD with Respect to China’s Uyghur Muslim Minority

As an officially recognised minority nationality in China, the Uyghurs’ unique religious identity is ostensibly protected under Chinese national law. In reality, such protections are limited in practice, with frequent claims by Uyghur activists, human rights NGOs and scholars that government policies result in the religious discrimination of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. In light of the inefficacy of state legislation in protecting the Uyghurs’ religious freedoms, this article considers the protections offered within the Human Rights Treaty System of the United Nations (UN), of which China is both a charter member and an increasingly active participant. However, any attempt to consider Freedom of Religion or Belief protections within the UN’s core treaties remains frustrated as China has yet to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is the sole UN human rights instrument to contain provisions dedicated to religious and minority rights. To overcome this issue, this article argues that acts of religious discrimination against the Uyghur minority may also fall into contention with the protections contained within the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty that has been ratified by China and is therefore legally obligated to comply with.

The Constitution of the Territory and Politics of a Large State

This chapter examines the constitution of the territory and politics of a large state. It first discusses the problem posed by a large state before explaining how historical China became a geographically large state. It then describes the feudal system of the Zhou dynasty as an early attempt to build the constitution of a large state. It also explores how the commandery system integrated different localities of the country into an overarching entity, along with the role it played for the political constitution of ancient China. The chapter goes on to analyze the geopolitics underlying China's administrative divisions, focusing on the administration of the frontiers and integration of minority nationality areas. It concludes with an overview of the idea of “bringing peace to the world under heaven” and suggests that the center-periphery relations in historical China were successful from a constitutional point of view.