PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Ben Hillman is senior lecturer in comparative politics at the Crawford School of Public Policy and fellow at the Research School of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. He has published widely on Chinese politics and ethnic politics in Asia. He has also worked as an adviser to the United Nations on postconflict governance and the incorporation of minority groups in political processes. Gray Tuttle is the Leila Hadley Luce Associate Professor of Modern Tibet in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University and serves on the executive committee of Columbia's Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. His Columbia University Press books include The Tibetan History Reader (2013), Sources of Tibetan Tradition (2012), and Tibetan Buddhists in the Making of Modern China (2005).
Ethnic unrest in Tibet and among the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is very much in the news nowadays and is a subject of great academic and public interest. It is hard to research because the Chinese government limits access to these areas. Nonetheless, these resourceful and courageous scholars have managed to get access to these regions, find out what's troubling the ethnic minority residents there, and assess how deep the trouble is. -- Andrew J. Nathan, Columbia University This is a terrific book. Ten experts take a balanced and clear-eyed view of the conditions and politics behind the recent wave of ethnic unrest in China. The book should be required reading for those who would understand the interlocking causes of conflict, including decision makers in Beijing. -- June Teufel Dreyer, author of China's Political System These studies of contemporary China's relations with the Tibetans and the Uyghurs are unique because many are based on on-site observations in Tibet and Xinjiang, regions that have, on occasion, been inaccessible to foreign scholars. They offer insights on a wide variety of issues, including the Chinese state's policies toward Buddhism and Islam, the causes of conflicts between China and these so-called minority nationalities, the government's economic policies and the ensuing environmental effects, and the possible economic synergies between Chinese and Tibetan and Uyghur entrepreneurs. The authors differ in their opinions about the future, with some providing negative predictions while others are more optimistic, but each furnishes informed analyses. -- Morris Rossabi, Distinguished Professor at City University of New York This collection of well-argued essays offers valuable and insightful perspective on the current situation in Tibet and Xinjiang. There is a renewed debate on ethnic policies amongst the Chinese academics and policy makers; this has engendered a state of anxiety' regarding a loss of identity in Tibet and Xinjiang. The two regions faced a similar situation, being part of contemporary China's periphery but central to its nation building, and modernization program. The essays provide details study of ethnopolitics in contemporary China based on solid fieldwork and scholarly analysis of regional peculiarities and center's equalizing policy. -- Tsering Shakya, University of British Columbia
