China’s ethnic policy chief says minority artists must focus on common national identity

China’s top ethnic policy official has criticised “self-centred” artworks about ethnic minorities and said that they should focus on the common national identity.

As an example, he criticised an unspecified Tibetan-language movie for only focusing on the spiritual world while not giving Communist Party credit for building the region’s infrastructure.

Pan Yue, director of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, made the remarks last month in a speech at a meeting of the Junma (or Steed) Ethnic Minority Literary Awards.

The speech was published on Friday at China Minzu News, an official outlet focused on Beijing’s ethnic policies.

Pan, who is ethnically Han, said he had observed a “disconcerting trend” in recent years where ethnic minority artworks were swayed by “Western multicultural theories”.

He said: “This is evident in narrative models that isolate individual social groups for development, in constructing a closed historical lineage for a single ethnic group, in the binary oppositions of urban versus rural, modern versus traditional, and centre versus periphery, as well as in cutting off the close connection with the historic progress of the entire country, and generate self-centred and exaggerated expressions.”

Pan criticised one film about a pilgrimage by Tibetan herders that illustrates how religious faith shapes their material and spiritual world.

“Did they not know that it is the Communist Party of China that has constructed the pilgrimage paths, repaired the Potala Palace and thousands of temples, as well as compiled the Tibetan Buddhist canon?” Pan said.

He did not name the film in question, but the content matches that of Zhang Yang’s 2015 movie Paths of the Soul.

Although the director is ethnically Han, it is the highest grossing Tibetan-language movie ever released in China. It follows a group of Tibetan pilgrims on a monumental 2,000km (1,200-mile) journey to Mount Kailash, a sacred site in Tibetan Buddhism.

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Growing number of young people in China flock to religious temples to escape life’s pressures

Growing number of young people in China flock to religious temples to escape life’s pressures

Pan also said: “The No 1 criterion for evaluating ethnic literature works is whether they contribute to strengthening the sense of community for the Chinese nation.”

He also set out specific instructions on works related to different ethnic groups.

When writing about Tibet, it was acceptable to highlight its uniqueness, Pan said, but cautioned against portraying Tibet as an isolated “Himalayan cultural circle” adding that Tibetans had always “looked eastward”.

Since 2014, policy towards ethnic minorities has been shaped around President Xi Jinping’s slogan of the “community of the Chinese nation”, which emphasises the wholeness of the nation rather than ethnic differences.

Beijing has been accused of widespread human rights abuses in regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, but it says its policies there are designed to combat terrorism, separatism and extremism.

Pan said divisive narratives promoted by the West had introduced erroneous historical perspectives, creating false opposition and misrepresenting various ethnic groups and regions.

These included the deliberate creation of oppositions such as “Han versus non-Han”, “nomadic versus agricultural”, and “inner Asia versus China”, he said.

He criticised claims that groups such as the Manchus, Mongolians, Tibetans and Hui were not part of the Chinese nation, and criticised the portrayal of the southwestern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi as “historically unclaimed lands” that “rebel against the country”.

“It is vital to avoid narratives that stray too far from historical facts and the idea of unity,” Pan said. “Importantly, it should be acknowledged that all ethnic minorities are co-creators of Chinese civilisation.

“Historical evidence shows that cultures fostering a sense of shared identity are well-maintained and developed, while those that undermine this unity tend to fade away over time.”

Pan also said Western critics were twisting China’s narrative of national unity into a notion of “ethnic assimilation”.

He said efforts to modernise and improve areas inhabited by minorities had been mischaracterised as “resource exploitation”, while attempts to preserve and safeguard folk culture were portrayed as “cultural eradication”.

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Chinese archaeologists find sutras dating back to 618 during Tubo period in Tibet

Chinese archaeologists find sutras dating back to 618 during Tubo period in Tibet

“If we fail to take action and develop alternative narratives, the true story of the Chinese nation may be forever overshadowed by these falsehoods,” he said.

He called on filmmakers and authors within minority communities to craft compelling stories that resonated with both personal histories and the collective national narrative promoted by the Communist Party.