Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
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Item Uighur Separatism and the Stability Discourse in China(IPCS, 2013) Ramachandran, VeenaItem Bilingual Education in Xinjiang in the Post-2009 Period(Sage, 2016-11-16) Ramachandran, VeenaThis article analyses strategies of minority education currently in place in Xinjiang in the context of the second generation ethnic policy debate in China. The article argues that the 2009 ethnic riots in Xinjiang coupled with the change of leadership in China has significantly hardened the state’s approach to aggressively promoting Putonghua (standard Chinese). This policy is facing significant structural and political challenges in its implementation and acceptance in Xinjiang. The policy to universalise Putonghua in all Xinjiang schools is likely to produce more resistance to the statist agenda rather than resulting in the intended outcome of integration.Item Redefining China’s Xinjiang policy: Rhetoric or reality?(Sage, 2017-04) Ramachandran, VeenaThe Ürümqi riot (2009) in Xinjiang and frequent ethnic conflicts in other ethnic minority regions like Tibet has initiated a debate on reforming China’s ethnic management, calling for the adoption of a ‘second generation’ ethnic policy. The Chinese scholars and the minzu establishment (“ethnic” lobby) failed to reach a consensus on this much discussed and debated alternative. However, the Beijing and the Xinjiang authorities framed a new slogan of achieving ‘everlasting stability’ in Xinjiang proposing inclusive development and inter-ethnic unity as the ultimate objectives of the Chinese state in Xinjiang region. In this context, the paper explores the trajectory of China’s Xinjiang policy in the post-Ürümqi riot (2009) scenario. This paper discusses the scholarly debates on the direction of ethnic policy and examines the nature of its impact on China’s Xinjiang policy in the post-2009 period. It also explores the strategies of the Chinese state in the post-2009 Xinjiang to examine whether the regime subscribes to any radical shift in its approach towards Xinjiang, complying with the ethnic unity and stability slogans raised by the regime. The paper suggests that there is a comprehensive harmonization of Uyghurs in the post- Ürümqi Xinjiang that not only refutes any radical shift in Xinjiang policy but ensures continuity and change in China’s treatment of the region.Item China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: The Uyghur Challenge and the Chinese Security Model(Diplomat Media, 2018) Ramachandran, VeenaRecent news reports on the alleged arrest and detention of 50 Uyghur women married to Pakistani men from Gilgit Baltistan and a resolution passed by the Gilgit Baltistan Legislative Assembly (GBLA) demanding the federal government in Pakistan take steps to release these women exemplify the escalating on-ground mistrust between the so-called “iron-brothers.” Gilgit Baltistan is significant for both China and Pakistan since the region serves as the gateway to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which has seen a $62 billion investment by the Chinese. The Uyghur presence in Baltistan is nothing new; marriage between the people from Gilgit Baltistan and Xinjiang has been a frequent affair. Recently, China’s increasing crackdown on Uyghurs in the name of the “war on terror” appears to be extending toward Uyghurs outside Chinese borders. As part of the larger standardization, surveillance, and securitization measures adopted in Xinjiang, the Chinese authorities had started arresting people married to foreigners and among those were the wives of the Gilgit Baltistan men who were mostly traders.Item BRI: Neutralizing Xinjiang and Legitimizing Stability-Security Paradigm(BRI research, 2019) Ramachandran, VeenaBRI intends to utilize Xinjiang’s crucial geographical position facilitating the institutionalization of the region as a connectivity corridor. The Xinjiang government has issued a new transportation development plan (2016-2030) to become vital transportation, trade, logistics, culture, science, and education center and a core area on the Silk Road Economic Belt. This complex trade interconnectivity eventually underplays the significance of Xinjiang, while overtly projecting it as the gateway or connectivity corridor. Xinjiang in the ancient civilization, as well as in the contemporary context, represents the pivotal theatre of a non-inclusive Uyghur ethnicity with its Islamic orientations that constitute an existential challenge to the Han civilizational empire. The Uyghurs at the borderland in the past, if not also in the contemporary era, has raised the issue of loyalty and control for the Central State. In contemporary times, China being a Postcolonial Imperial Empire has a problematic relationship between the majoritarian nationalism and ethnic nationalist collective at the borderlands. However, as Anand (2012) argues, most of the discussions in academia on Empire and imperialism ignore the non-Western states except as collaborators/victims. Hence the victimhood status often camouflages strong integrationist measures leading to human rights abuses, religious repression, civilian surveillance, police/military brutality, and economic inequality. There is limited tolerance of dissent from this picture of centuries of glory upset by decades of humiliation that are over now and will soon be followed by a regaining of rightful place as a great power in the scheme of things.Item China as a World Leader: Assessing Implications of COVID-19, BRI and a “Global Common Destiny(NIICE Commentary, 2020-05-08) Ramachandran, VeenaAmidst the COVID-19 induced global lockdown, it is significant to re-listen to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s 2017 Davos speech in which he articulated his vision to build a community of “common destiny”. It was in Davos, that Xi’s regional vision of common destiny transcended towards becoming the common destiny of humankind, exemplifying China’s urge to elevate the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from a mere development model to a strategic landscape. Xi has been consistent in claiming high moral ground of inclusivity for BRI, opposing Manifest Destiny, the founding principle of United States’ foreign policy. This articulation of global destiny overtly stated China’s quest to redesign or rather offer a Chinese version of the world order. Despite the strategic and economic concerns across the globe, BRI did offer its partner countries a better-connected world by focusing on massive infrastructure and digital projects. However, the fundamental challenge for China remained its failure to be a responsible global power, as has been exposed once again in the COVID-19 outbreak narrative. The Chinese model of development, which is classified as authoritarian capitalism, strives for political stability and regime legitimacy through assured economic development. China has often been driven by its domestic concerns, and so it has always been an inward looking reluctant global player. BRI was a paradigm shift in this policy as China expressed its desire to lead a world greatly interconnected under the BRI network, making it the first step towards the “opening of China to the world”. Until the COVID-19 outbreak, the world was more concerned about the lack of transparency among other flaws in this development model, which normalised securitisation and idealised a surveillance state. Even when, the partner countries are predominantly quasi-democracies, failed democracies or autocracies and their preferred choice was the Chinese model over what Washington provided. The early spread of novel Coronavirus and its declaration as a global pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of the Chinese regime and has jolted the Chinese model. Moreover, it is ironic to find that the global pandemic that originated in Wuhan, essentially followed the Chinese path of global common destiny in terms of the damage it caused to entire humankind. The significant concerns that arise here, are the frailties of the BRI amidst COVID-19, and China’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Even though BRI is a loosely-governed infrastructure initiative, it has been designed not only to benefit the Chinese state but also to significantly increasing foreign dependencies on China. Subsequently, the BRI projects depend extensively on Chinese companies for labour, materials supply and credit. As global travel restrictions on Chinese people continue, it is a significant factor for the disruption of these projects. Even after China shows signs of recovery internally and has recouped after a countrywide lockdown, the longer the Chinese labour and supplies are denied entry to the partner countries, the more it will droop these projects. This raises questions about the Chinese model, as it demonstrates the inherent vulnerability of partner nations in being excessively dependent on Beijing, and there is no scope for devolution. The immediate future of globalisation seems to be bleak as the virus has accelerated the need for localisation. Subsequently, this has compromised initiatives like the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and various BRI projects in South-east Asian countries. Though reports indicate China’s fast recovery, it would not reflect in its projects outside China any sooner.Item OPINION: China expanding clout in Sri Lanka’s politics, after dominating economy(The Week, 2020-07-29) Ramachandran, VeenaThe impending general elections in Sri Lanka, which are scheduled to be held on August 5, present a significant trajectory of power politics in the Indian Ocean region that features China’s expanding dominance. As the election campaign heats up in the island nation, the political parties have no dearth of domestic issues to discuss and debate. But what observers are interested most in are the strategic investments and foreign policy decisions that dominate the election campaign and shape the domestic political discourse. This very pattern exemplifies the role of Sri Lanka in catalysing strategic power projection by the major regional players in the Indian Ocean in the coming years. ‘Mask’ diplomacy “China and Sri Lanka are true friends sharing weal and woe.” This is an excerpt from an official statement by the Chinese Embassy in Sri Lanka while declaring its donation of 3,00,000 face masks to the island nation as part of China’s mask diplomacy amid COVID-19. The pandemic has rejuvenated the Sino-Sri Lankan engagement through consistent aid diplomacy from the Chinese side. China has granted $500 million as a concessionary loan upon request from President Gotabaya Rajapaksa apart from sharing the COVID-19 combat experience with the Sri Lankan authorities. China is the only country that has created a COVID-19 emergency fund as part of its COVID-19 aid initiative. Sri Lanka was also included in Jack Ma’s COVID-19 aid package along with a few south and Southeast Asian countries. Interestingly, the US and EU pledges of assistance came much later, and the Chinese aid had already started flowing by then.Item Islam With Chinese Characteristics: China’s Ethno-Religious Challenge In Xinjiang – Analysis(Eurasia Review, 2022-07-21) Ramachandran, VeenaXi Jinping’s recent national unity tour to Xinjiang has reminisced about China’s clandestine and blatant Sinicization of Islam campaign. More significantly, this is his first visit since the evidence of mass detention internment camps began to emerge in 2018. These internment camps were just a fragment of China’s long campaign of forceful assimilation and overwhelming surveillance of Uyghurs, the indigenous Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnicity. The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) in China is home to 12 million Muslims, primarily Uyghurs but also smaller numbers of Kazakhs and other minority ethnicities.Item Occupy Temple Trees’: Sri Lanka’s Disgruntlement Towards Neo-Elites Is On Cards Next – Analysis(Eurasia Review, 2022-07-22) Ramachandran, VeenaAmidst an economic crisis, Sri Lankan people stormed into and occupied the President’s House and the Temple Trees, the palatial palaces of the President and the Prime Minister, respectively, forcing both to resign, resulting in a political crisis. Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and is still on the run hoping for political asylum, whereas Ranil Wickremasinghe, the former prime minister, has been appointed as an interim president as the opposition parties are figuring the way out. The experiences from the previous decade’s Sri Lankan politics suggest the reasons as more political than economic. The economic crisis results from a deep political decay that has engrossed its polity. The impression we obtain from the protest sites is an amalgamation of the Sri Lankan population transcending class, caste, or ethnic diversity to rightfully reclaim a democratic Sri Lanka of the people, for the people, and by the people. Though the people’s fury right now is an expression of their discontentment towards the Rajapaksa dynasty for ruining Sri Lanka’s stability through corruption and reckless decision-making, it offers a vivid signal to the neo-elites for their comradery that facilitated such a crisis.Item Who Passes the Double Standard Test in Al-Zawahiri’s Assassination?(Institute for Security & Development Policy, 2022) Ramachandran, VeenaIntelligence gathering is key in today’s global affairs, and nobody does it better than the United States. The precision drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, killed Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the most wanted terrorist on July 31 more than a decade after Bin Laden’s assassination. He was known as ‘the man behind Bin Laden’ and the operational brain of the 9/11 attack. The strike came when the globe was experiencing numerous tipping points, such as China’s aggressiveness in the Taiwan Strait, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and unrelenting proxy warfare in the Middle East. The United States’ power and norms have been questioned in the context of such precarious geopolitics. It has been criticized for withdrawing from Afghanistan and jeopardizing its credibility in the Taiwan dispute. The short-sighted framing of U.S. foreign policy is the subject of many critiques. Despite the Taliban’s denial of any knowledge that Al-Zawahiri was hiding in Kabul, many experts believe that it would not have been possible without Taliban cooperation. While the entire world has denounced the Taliban for inciting terrorism, China has responded cautiously and questioned why the U.S. maintains a double standard regarding counterterrorism efforts. By investigating the three sides of Al-Zawahiri’s assassination, this article will analyze who seems to exhibit double standards.