From Autonomous Areas to Non- Autonomous Areas

Abstract

Since the start of the market reform in 1978, approximately 30 million of China’s rural ethnic minority people have moved to China’s industrializing coastal cities. This extraordinary migration wave has included in the past twenty years more than 60% of the two million Korean Chinese. How has this migration of Korean Chinese influenced the political and economic power structures in the autonomous areas and the new non-autonomous areas? This article argues that (a) the decrease in the Korean population in established autonomous areas has weakened the minority’s autonomous power. The higher level governments of the autonomous areas have pursued more comprehensive and Han-majority-oriented macroeconomic policies—such as the abolition or merger of smaller Korean autonomous areas and the diminution of the political and economic power of larger Korean autonomous areas—rather than minority-protective policies. (b) The increasing Korean population in new migratory areas motivates these minority migrants to establish governmental and non-governmental organizations to further their political representation in their areas of settlement.

Keywords

China minority politics Korean Chinese migration autonomy

Since the start of the market reform in 1978, well over 200 million rural dwellers have migrated to China’s cities in search of better economic opportunities (Zheng and Huang, 2007: 9–35). Among them have been approximately 30 million migrants from ethnic minorities or almost a third of China’s minorities (Guojia minzu shiwu weiyuanhui, 2006: 97; Zhu and Blachford, 2006: 332; Zhou and Ma, 2005). Migration of the Korean minority (Chaoxianzu)¹ from their traditional autonomous areas in Northeast China is perhaps one of the most extreme cases: more than 60% of the two million Korean Chinese have joined this extraordinary wave of migration over the past twenty years.

The politics of Korean minority migration has been largely under-researched. Research by Chinese (mostly, ethnic Korean) and South Korean scholars on this migration has paid little attention to its political impact on different levels of government in the autonomous areas of origin and the new, non-autonomous areas that are the destination of Korean migrants (see Choi, 1999; Lee Jeanyoung, 2001; Lee Seungryul, 2008). On the one hand, the outflow of Koreans from established autonomous areas has encouraged higher level governments to encroach on their autonomy. We will discuss two cases to support this argument, namely the abolition and merger of Korean villages (cun) and townships (xiang)—in Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin—and the diminution of the power of larger Korean autonomous areas.

On the other hand, the increasing Korean population in non-minority areas of destination has gained political influence. First of all, they have been forming concentrated communities (jujuqu) and have been establishing governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in pursuit of their interests. Through such organizations, minority leaders have emerged who have begun to play a role in government. They have tried to establish public Korean minority schools, sometimes as branches of Korean minority schools in the old autonomous areas. One possible outcome of this movement could be the establishment of new, lower level minority autonomous governments, for instance, street offices (jiedao banshichu) in urban areas. An additional factor is the growing influence of South Korean international migrants in many Chinese cities. The presence of South Koreans creates great economic opportunities for Korean Chinese and motivates them to migrate. These two Korean groups have interacted and cooperated economically, and gradually, also politically.

In sum, the rise in Korean influence in new minority areas is the counterpoint to the loss of power in traditional minority areas. These shifts in the governance of minorities shows how at the level of policy implementation China’s seemingly rigid minority policies are actually quite flexible, responding to critical demographic, political, and economic changes. The article is based on documentary and ethnographic data collected during multiple visits to old autonomous areas (Yanbian and Changchun in Jilin province and Shenyang in Liaoning province) and the new non-autonomous areas (Qingdao in Shandong and the Wangjing area in Beijing) between January 2008 and October 2008. We interviewed more than a hundred Korean and Han cadres, entrepreneurs, peasants, workers, academics, and journalists along with South Korean entrepreneurs and journalists who work in those areas. The written materials used include Chinese government documents and Chinese, Korean minority, and South Korean media reports.

Minority Autonomy, Migration, and Politics in Contemporary China

The minority autonomous areas were originally created to protect the political, economic, social, and cultural integrity of the 55 official minorities in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). In total, China has 5 provincial-level autonomous minority regions, 30 prefectures, 117 counties, and 1,271 townships, and hundreds of thousands of villages for 44 minority groups altogether (Zhou, Fang, and Xia, 2007: 26–37). Around 1990, Korean autonomous areas in Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang included one prefecture, one county, 46 townships, and more than 2,000 villages (Cho and Park, 1997: 245–48). These areas are recognized in the Constitution (Articles 111–122) and are given a number of rights such as independence in the area of finance, economic planning, culture, organization of local police, and language—such independence is not accorded to other administrative sub-divisions.²

The existing political and administrative configuration in the autonomous areas is hard to change unless there is a major political or demographic shift. Since the 1980s, however, the booming market economy in the coastal cities and loosened administrative control have enabled peasants to migrate to urban areas and even abroad. Tens of millions of minority citizens have joined this migration wave within as well as out of their traditional autonomous areas. Conversely, a large number of Han citizens have migrated into the minority autonomous areas, attracted by commercial or agricultural business opportunities. The size of minority migration varies among the minorities. One of the most active migrant minority groups is the Koreans, who previously lived only in the three northeastern provinces of Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang, close to the Korean peninsula. Since the mid-nineteenth century, Koreans crossed the border into China to avoid famine or to flee Japanese colonial repression. At the onset of the reforms, Korean Chinese numbered nearly two million (up from 1.1 million in the 1950s) and were still mostly stuck in the agricultural economy and remained within their autonomous areas in the Northeast. Seeing economic opportunities in the booming market economy in the 1990s, however, they quickly started to move to rapidly industrializing cities, such as Qingdao, Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, where they have formed ethnic clusters (mostly with their South Korean co-ethnics) that remain without official minority autonomy.

Korean Chinese have a specific advantage over other minorities that migrate to the industrializing cities and abroad: they have a well-developed putative homeland, South Korea.³ Since (or even slightly before) the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea in 1992 (Chung, 2007), a large number of South Korean companies have rushed into China to take advantage of its cheap labor and large market (Kim and Mah, 2006). They have found the Korean Chinese—many of whom are bilingual in Korean and Chinese—very useful as translators and middlemen (Yoon, 2003; Interviews in Changchun, May 7–8, 2008, and Beijing, October 15–17, 2008). In addition, Korean Chinese also have found plenty of high-paying jobs in South Korea itself (Lee Doowon, 2006). The symbiotic cooperation between these co-ethnics has motivated more than 60% of the two million Korean Chinese to migrate to Chinese cities and South Korea (Kwon, 2004; Lee Seungryul, 2008). Table 1 demonstrates that Korean migration and South Korean investment in the destination areas of migrants are highly correlated. For example, of all Chinese provinces Shandong attracted the most projects (27,683) and largest amount (US$5.6 billion) of foreign direct investment from South Korea and also received the most Korean immigrants (200,000 persons).⁴

Table 1.

Korean Population Changes and South Korean Investment

		Korean Minority Population
				2005		South Korean Investment (1998–2008)
Areas	Sub-Areas	1953	1990	Official Registered	Unofficial Estimated	No. of Projects	Amount (U.S. Dollars, Thousands)
Original autonomous areas	Yanbian	551,025	821,479	830,000	400,000	187	163,299
	Non-Yanbian in Jilin	205,001	360,485	340,000	200,000	2,139	352,156
	Heilongjiang	231,510	452,398	390,000	200,000	909	281,960
	Inner Mongolia	N/A	22,641	20,000	10,000	0	0
	Liaoning	132,869	230,378	230,000	300,000	6,836	1,918,228
Subtotal		1,120,405	1,923,361	1,900,000	1,110,000	10,071	2,715,643
Destination: Non-autonomous areas	Shandong	0	3,362	40,000	200,000	27,683	5,665,057
	Tianjin	0	1,820	12,000	40,000	5,705	2,035,998
	Beijing, Hebei	0	14,423	45,000	120,000	5,089	3,479,665
	Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang	0	1,556	N/A	80,000	12,403	7,589,236
	Guangdong	0	611	N/A	40,000	2,189	896,187
	Other provinces	0	(3,000)	N/A	20,000	1,664	985,136
Subtotal		0	(25,000)	N/A	500,000	64,804	23,356,992
Foreign countries	South Korea	0	0	360,000^a	360,000	N/A	N/A
	Other countries	0	N/A	N/A	100,000	N/A	N/A
Subtotal		0	0	N/A	460,000	N/A	N/A
Total		1,120,405	1,923,361	1,900,000	2,070,000^b	64,804	23,356,992

Note.

The official population figures in 1953, 1990, and 2005 are compiled from various sources including China statistical yearbooks, the Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and other provincial statistical yearbooks, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture statistical yearbooks, the China census, and other surveys.

The unofficial estimated population figures in 2005 are compiled from population surveys by two Korean minority newspapers—Heukryonggang sinmun (Heilongjiang xinwen) and Gillim sinmun (Jilin xinwen)—along with information from other reports and interviews. See Lee Jinshan (2006) and Nam (2008).

The population figures in South Korea are based on statistical data from the Korean Ministry of Law.

The population figures in other countries are compiled from several journalistic sources, namely Heukryonggang sinmun, Gillim sinmun, Yeonbyun ilbo, and Chosun ilbo, various dates.

The figures on South Korean investment in China are the cumulative balance from 1998 to March 2008 from the Export-Import Bank of Korea (www.koreaexim.go.kr/kr/oeis/m03/s01_0402.jsp, accessed Sept. 20, 2008).

A small number of Korean Chinese resident in South Korea have been naturalized but a majority of them have not (Lee, 2003). Most of these 360,000 overseas Korean Chinese still officially belong to the original autonomous areas, which is why they are not included in the total population of 1.9 million in 2005. However, the unofficial estimate in 2005 subtracts these 360,000 (and 100,000 in other countries) from the population of the original autonomous area and designates them as belonging to the population of other countries.

This number is greater than the official number (in the 2005 national census) by about 170,000, which might be because of overcounting the number of floating population across the provinces and abroad. Just as it is difficult to estimate the size of the migrant worker (nongmingong) population overall, it is difficult to accurately measure the demographic distribution in the respective areas despite the general estimates that have been offered by various scholars.

Table 1 also shows the demographic consequences of this abrupt (and still ongoing) migration. The Korean Chinese population in the Korean autonomous areas has plummeted from 1.92 million in 1990 to 1.11 million in 2005. The Korean Chinese population outside the autonomous areas has rapidly increased from 25,000 in 1990 to 770,000 in 2005 (including 270,000 in Liaoning province, especially in the cities of Dalian, Shenyang, and Dandong), while the number of Korean Chinese outside China has increased from literally zero in 1990 to 460,000 (including 360,000 in South Korea) in 2005. In total, approximately 64% of the entire Korean population of the original autonomous areas has left, triggering many political and economic changes in their old as well as new homes.

As Korean Chinese move away—and most of them intend to do so permanently—the power of the old autonomous areas has significantly deteriorated. Higher level administrations have shifted their policy focus from minority protection toward majority prosperity or comprehensive and efficient macroeconomic development.⁵ In addition, they are more likely to take advantage of the natural resources and growth potential of subordinate autonomous areas. Conversely, the Korean migrants in their new areas of residence have gradually gained influence and pursued their interests, either through official or unofficial mobilization and organization. Here too population numbers are a critical source of political power.

Withering Korean Power in Autonomous Areas

After the massive out-migration of Koreans in 1990s and 2000s, one of the most significant changes in minority policy has been the abolition or merging of smaller Korean autonomous areas in Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Jilin. In Heilongjiang, for example, the number of Korean villages decreased from 501 in 1982 to 392 in 2002. In Yansu county, for instance, 14 autonomous villages were merged into six villages. Furthermore, the number of Korean autonomous villages with a 100% Korean population has also decreased, from 389 to 150 (Ryu and Kim, 2007: 14–15; Du, 2007: 268–77). The personal experience of a Korean pastor vividly illustrates this process:

My hometown consisted of four Korean and eight Han brigades. Each brigade had four or five villages with thirty to sixty households. We had Korean elementary and middle schools and did a great job in collective rice farming until the early 1990s. However, the migration to Korea and to the cities began and our village lost 53 out of 60 households, and to a similar extent so did the other three Korean villages. Then the city and township governments merged the four Korean brigades into one, which is managed by only one Korean cadre. When I visited in 2007, our brigade and villages had been reduced to complete ruin. (Interview in Changchun, May 10, 2008)

Such an abolition and merger policy is also confirmed by other Korean interviewees from Heilongjiang. One of them observed, “many Korean autonomous villages were abolished and the surviving villages are just meaningless ‘husks without a kernel’” (Interview in Changchun, May 9, 2008).

Autonomy at the village level is the most vulnerable once the population shrinks. Even though the village is a more cohesive autonomous unit due to its Korean-dominant (up to 100%) population and geographically concentrated nature than the prefecture and county, it quickly loses the demographic grounds for maintaining its autonomy after the massive loss of its members. The ease with which autonomy can be lost depends on the geographic and demographic size of the autonomous area in question. The procedures for merging or abolishing autonomous areas are complex and the smaller ones are easier for higher level administrations to outmaneuver.⁶

The two largest Korean autonomous areas are Yanbian prefecture and Changbai county in Jilin province. Even though Yanbian has lost roughly 50% of its 830,000 Koreans and 15% of its total population of 2.8 million (see Table 1), both Yanbian and Changbai are not exposed to a serious threat to their minority autonomous status, as such a radical change would cause fierce resistance from the still large number of Koreans in addition to a serious backlash in China’s relations with both South and North Korea.⁷

In case of a (proportionally or absolutely) decreasing minority population in bigger minority autonomous areas, higher level administrations tend to take smaller but more practical steps to weaken the entrenched autonomous institutions, pursue their own political and economic agenda, and address the Han majority’s interests.

In general, students of Chinese politics have reported entrenched conflicts between higher level and lower level administrations (Chung, 1995; Hsu, 2004; Li, 2006; Zhan, 2009). Those interest conflicts occur in three major policy areas: (1) sharing fiscal revenue, (2) exploiting natural resources, and (3) controlling local economic development plans. These conflicts were also in evidence between Yanbian prefecture and Jilin province after the former’s significant loss of its Korean population. Jilin took previously devolved power away from Yanbian to further its own interests in two ways: exploiting the natural resources of Mount Changbai and establishing the new Yan-Long-Tu united city within the prefecture.

As soon as one leaves the airport of Changchun, Jilin, one is greeted by a series of huge outdoor billboards for the Yiqi-Volkswagen Automobile Company, the largest enterprise in the province, along with billboards advertising “Mount Changbai tourism and development.” This shows how important the natural resources of Mount Changbai are for Jilin. In August 2005, Jilin province officially took away the entire rights to develop this mountain’s resources from Yanbian prefecture to boost its own fiscal revenue, one of the lowest in China.

Changbai (Baekdu in Korean) is the highest mountain in Northeast Asia. It is located on the border of Yanbian prefecture, Changbai Korean autonomous county, and North Korea. All Koreans in the two Koreas and China consider this mountain the origin of their ethnie (Chung, 2009; Goma, 2006). Owing in equal part to South Korea’s nationalistic enthusiasm and Changbai’s breathtaking scenery, since normalization of diplomatic relations in 1992, South Korean tourists have rushed to the mountain, making it a cash cow for Yanbian. Following the Koreans, more and more Chinese tourists have been attracted as well, comprising 80% of tourists in the mid-2000s. In total, Yanbian developed more than 80 tourism districts, including three ski resorts, on Mount Changbai. As a result, Yanbian generated 2.51 billion yuan in 2006, or 11.8% of its GDP, from tourism, mainly from Mount Changbai. During the Tenth Five-Year Economic Plan period (2001–2005), the accumulated number of domestic and international tourists in Yanbian was 11.72 million, generating a total revenue of 7.29 billion yuan (Yanbian ribao, 2006).

Yanbian’s success with the development and exploitation of Mount Changbai has naturally attracted the attention of revenue-starved Jilin province (Cho and Park, 1997: 431, 438, 447–78, 508–29). The economic struggle of the three Northeast (Dongbei) provinces—Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang—has been widely reported. Before the reforms, they were a glorious industrial region based on state-owned enterprises (SOEs), propelled by the “constructing the interior” (neidi jianshe) policy (Chung, Lai, and Joo, 2009; Donnithorne, 1972; Naughton, 1988; Gore, 1999). Those outdated and inefficient SOEs, however, mostly lost their edge to competitors in coastal cities and were eventually marketized in the 1990s and early 2000s (Putterman and Dong, 2000; Sabin, 1994; Smyth and Zhai, 2003). More recently, the widely publicized “revive the Northeast” (zhenxing Dongbei) plan has only just begun a slow and uneven renewal. Among the three provinces of the Northeast, Liaoning is the most promising. Its industrial cities—Dalian, Shenyang, and Dandong—have attracted significant foreign investment from South Korea and Japan. Heilongjiang has its own potential from its natural resources such as oil and trade with Russia. Jilin, however, has much less potential. Jilin’s interest in Mount Changbai is therefore not surprising, despite the fact that Article 28 of the Law on Regional National Autonomy gives priority to minority autonomous governments over higher level administrations in developing the natural resources under their jurisdiction. As a high-ranking official in Jilin province informed us,

Jilin province needs more revenue to develop its own economy. . . . We desperately need another revenue source like Mount Changbai, in addition to Changchun’s Yiqi-Volkswagen, which accounts for almost 80 percent of real revenue. So, the province took it away from weakened Yanbian. (Interview in Changchun, May 17, 2008)

The competition over Changbai between Yanbian and Jilin is evidenced in documents of the Yanbian prefecture government dating from before and even shortly after Jilin province’s takeover in August 2005. One document, “Implementing Opening up the West, Promoting the Development of Yanbian” (Shishi xibu dakaifa cujin Yanbian dafazhan), issued in March 2005 by Li Jiesi, member of the Yanbian Communist Party’s Standing Committee and standing deputy prefecture head, strongly asserts that Changbai’s tourism and natural resource development is one of Yanbian’s key economic resources and will become even more crucial in the years to come (Li, 2005). During the twelfth session of Yanbian Prefecture’s People’s Congress in January 2005, Korean deputies submitted a “Suggestion for Accelerating Mt. Changbai’s Tourism Development,” which was subsequently accepted by the Yanbian government.⁸

Despite strong resistance by Yanbian prefecture, Jilin province in July 2005 established a deputy department level (butingji) Committee for Developing Mount Changbai (later the Committee for Preserving and Developing Mount Changbai) that completely took over the development and management of Mount Changbai. A new airport near Mount Changbai was opened in 2008, even though the prefecture tried to maintain its own Yanji airport as the main point of entry to the mountain. However, the new airport is much closer and Yanbian seems to be fighting a losing battle. If the autonomous prefecture had retained its Korean population, it would have been much harder for the Jilin provincial government to wrest Mount Changbai from the Yanbian prefectural government (Interviews in Changchun, May 17, 2008; Yanbian, May 13–15, 2008; Beijing, October 23–25, 2008).⁹

The creation of Yan-Long-Tu united city is another example that reveals the link between Yanbian’s loss of its Korean population and loss of power. In March 2008, the central and provincial governments established Yan-Long-Tu united tri-city (Yan Long Tu yitihua sanshi) to impose more direct control over Yanbian prefecture’s economic development. This new city merges Yanbian’s three core cities—Yanji, Longjing, and Tumen. The new party committee of the tri-city has taken over the authority over the three cities’ economic development at the expense of Yanbian prefecture and is more directly controlled by the Jilin provincial government. Even though this united city is under the prefecture, many official documents state that the city’s development will be more closely incorporated into national and especially provincial macroeconomic planning, not prefectural planning (Zhongguo jingji shibao, 2009; Chengshi wanbao, 2008). In a similar vein, one of the most salient features of these documents is the lack of clauses and contents on the protection of the rights of the Korean minority in the city.¹⁰ This administrative change promotes more comprehensive and Han-majority-oriented macroeconomic development over preserving minority autonomous leadership and economic interests. The head of the united city’s party committee is not Korean but Han Chinese. In fact this person is also the secretary of the prefectural party committee, succeeding a Korean predecessor in 2002 for the first time in this post. A Korean minority professor at Yanbian University worries,

After establishing this [Yan-Long-Tu] united city, power shifted from the Yanbian autonomous prefecture government to the city, which severely weakens Korean autonomy. Our Korean citizens worry about a possible demotion or abolition of its autonomous status, as happened to a minority autonomous prefecture in Hainan in 1987. (Interview in Yanji, May 14, 2008)¹¹

However, instead of a plot to disenfranchise Yanbian’s Koreans, more practical concerns may be more important. Currently, a Han Chinese population of 70% or perhaps even 80% means that the prefectural government has to take more care of their interests rather than those of the decreasing Korean population. According to the Yan-Long-Tu city spatial development plan, the city’s population will increase from 792,000 in 2005 to 1,200,000–1,250,000 by 2020 (Yanbian xinwen, 2008), and almost all of the new residents will be Han immigrants.

The creation of the Yan-Long-Tu united city will promote economic development, including manufacturing, over minority protection and autonomy (Interviews in Yanji, May 13–15, 2008; Changchun, May 10–12, 17, 2008; Qingdao, May 20–22, 2008).¹² Planning for a Han influx therefore makes sense because policy makers in Jilin and in the central government have to consider the gap in the cost of labor between Korean workers and Han workers, which has hamstrung the development of manufacturing in the prefecture. Because of the availability of relatively high-paying jobs with South Korean employers either in South Korea itself or elsewhere in China, Korean high school graduates in Yanbian demand at least 3,000–5,000 yuan a month, while most of them want to be a middle manager, not a manual laborer, emphasizing their language advantage over their Han counterparts (Interviews in Changchun, May 9, 2008; Yanji, May 13–14, 2008; Qingdao, May 20–22, 2008; Tianjin, May 23, 2008; Beijing, April 15, 2009). Han Chinese are satisfied with 1,500–2,500 yuan and are more than willing to do physical labor.¹³ As a result, Yanbian has been heavily dependent on exporting its Korean labor to South Korea (currently, 360,000) and its emigrant remittances (US$1 billion in 2006).

The move away from minority autonomy has been helped by a drop in the number of Korean cadres in the prefecture and all other Korean autonomous areas (Cho and Park, 1997: 553–55, 870–934; Interviews in Changchun, May 9, 13, 16, 2008; Yanji, May 14, 2008). Article 114 of the Constitution and Articles 17, 18, 22, 23, and 70 of the Law on National Autonomy oblige minority autonomous governments to have a certain proportion of minority cadres. Nevertheless, this legal protection could not stop Korean cadres from abandoning their post and migrating for lucrative jobs in coastal cities and South Korea. The loss of Korean cadres thus adds a further dimension to the general issue of the Korean population loss. Agreeing with the view of other Korean professors during a group interview in Yanbian, a Korean professor confirms,

This crisis [the sharp drop in the number of Korean cadres in the prefecture] will become even worse when we see the sharply dropping number of our university’s Korean students who are members of the party, which is indispensable for becoming a cadre in China. (Interview in Yanji, May 15, 2008)¹⁴

Increasing Korean Political Presence in Non-Autonomous Areas

To a lesser but still substantial extent, the Korean minority’s migration has also caused political changes in their new areas without autonomy. A significant increase in the number of Koreans in the coastal cities propels this group to form organizations to represent their interests to the local government. They also have been interacting and cooperating with South Korean business people, a further incentive for the local government to listen to their demands.

Most Korean migrants are not integrated into majority Han society, but live together and form their own community (jujuqu). A good example is found in eastern Shandong (including the cities of Qingdao, Weihai, and Yantai), which has received more than 200,000 Koreans in the last twenty years. Along with more than 100,000 South Koreans who are their main employers, they have substantially transformed several areas. The local economy is booming and the social atmosphere is becoming more and more Korean. They call cities like Qingdao their new home, permanently settle down and are unlikely to return to the Northeast. We find similar Korean areas in other coastal cities, the largest probably being the one in Beijing’s Wangjing area, which is often called Koreatown (Hanguocheng).

A Korean delegate to the People’s Political Consultative Conference (PPCC, Zhengxie) of Chengyang district in Qingdao claims: “In Chengyang, 100,000 Korean migrants live along with 40,000 South Koreans. It will be a second Yanbian” (Interview in Qingdao, May 23, 2008).¹⁵ The total population of Chengyang is 480,000 (Qingdao nianjian, 2008), so the number of Korean Chinese residents has already passed the twenty percent mark and is still rising. Koreans are concentrated in several areas. For example, they own 9,800 houses in Xiyuanzhuang, a urban community located on the borderline of Jimu city and Chengyang district, and more than 20% of the 3,390 houses in Tiantai Chengqiao community, and 600 of 1,000 houses in Baitong Huayuan community in nearby Yichang district. An influential Korean businessman and NGO founder has estimated that in total Korean Chinese own 35,000 houses in Qingdao (Interview in Qingdao, May 22, 2008). Added to these Korean communities should be the South Koreans. The prominence of the locally resident Koreans has been acknowledged by the Chengyang district government with the establishment of a Korean street (Hanguojie) in its central area.

As the Korean migrants expand their demographic and economic influence, they have begun to mobilize politically in three major ways. First of all, they have set up NGOs. For example, in Qingdao there are dozens of them, spearheaded by the Qingdao Korean Minority Business Association (Lee Jinshan, 2006: 83–84), the Qingdao Korean Minority Senior Citizen Association, and the Qingdao Korean Minority Science and Culture Association. Similar organizations are found elsewhere, such as in Shenyang, Dalian, Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai (43–190). At the initial stage, these NGOs are the most realistic and effective way of creating a political presence, neither requiring too much official endorsement nor offending cautious local authorities, who are mostly inexperienced in dealing with minority issues. As an influential Korean businessman argued, “We should fight for our interests. Without autonomy, we need to find alternative ways to do it. NGOs are a very effective tool for this goal now” (Interview in Qingdao, May 22, 2008).

As their presence is increasingly felt in local society, Korean Chinese have made efforts to establish semi-official or even fully official organizations to exercise more direct and effective influence on local governments. A crucial organization in this regard is the Korean Minority Association (Chaoxianzu lianyihui), which is recognized as a formal minority representative organization by the minority affairs committee of local administrations. This association was first established in Shenyang and quickly became a model for Korean communities elsewhere. Chengyang district in Qingdao established a “Korean branch” under the local Minority Nationalities Association in 2007 and is currently considering elevating it to an independent Korean minority association (Interview in Qingdao, May 23, 2008). Newly emerged Korean community leaders in Qingdao have initiated and led this political movement. In fact, local governments did not even have the required information on the number of Korean Chinese residents in their jurisdiction. Korean leaders then proceeded to calculate the number of Korean-owned houses in Qingdao by surveying the major real estate agents in the city and reported their findings to the city and district governments. Their efforts persuaded the governments to take an official census of the Korean population in their jurisdiction and to establish a Korean branch of the Minority Nationalities Association (Interviews in Qingdao, May 22–23, 2008).

This Korean branch and major Korean NGOs have strengthened Korean solidarity and made their presence felt in local society. For example, these organizations, led by dozens of emerging Korean leaders in Qingdao, have organized a Qingdao Korean Folk Festival (Qingdao Chaoxianzu minsu qing- dian) every year since 2006. In 2007, the festival attracted more than 10,000 Korean migrants as well as many leaders and members of South Korean business associations, to the surprise of invited local government leaders. A Korean leader said,

Through such activities, local governments recognized our power. More than ten thousand Koreans voluntarily participated in the festival, shocking cadres from Qingdao and Chengyang. Our population will grow to be one third of Chengyang’s entire population. So, how could the governments ignore our interests? What if tens of thousands of dissatisfied Koreans hit the streets and demonstrate? (Interview in Qingdao, May 23, 2008)

Considering the seemingly rigid minority policies of China, it is remarkable that the Chengyang district government has been flexible enough to accept these Korean actions to show off their growing power in local society. It certainly, however, is concerned with the activities of some illegal Korean and South Korean organizations, which might be beyond official control and disrupt the social order in many ways.¹⁶

In addition, some Korean leaders have become delegates to the People’s Political Consultative Conference (PPCC), exercising political influence at the city and district levels. In Qingdao city and its districts, a total of 15 Korean PPCC delegates were selected in 2007. Even though this still under-represents the 150,000 Korean Chinese and as yet hardly any Koreans have been recruited as cadres in Qingdao, it is a promising start for a place that is not a designated minority autonomous area.

An important initiative of Korean leaders has been to launch a movement to establish minority schools or branches of established minority schools in Northeast, considered a cornerstone in preserving minority identity and society. Qingdao currently has two private Korean schools, a clear success of the efforts to strengthen Korean identity and a sense of community but absolutely not enough to accommodate the thousands of children of Korean migrants. Leaders and their supporters are now trying to persuade local authorities to establish public schools in the city offering a full-fledged Korean education.¹⁷

The movement to create Korean schools is critical in three respects. First of all, four Korean delegates of the Chengyang PPCC officially submitted a “Proposal for solving the difficulties of minority students’ education” (Guanyu jiejue shaoshu minzu zinü shangxue nan wenti de jianyi) (Zhongguo renmin zhengzhi, n.d.). They specifically emphasized the rapid increase of the Korean population, which is not an issue in their old autonomous areas. Subsequently, along with these four delegates’ action, Korean leaders and supporters have officially asked that the district and city governments establish public Korean minority schools (Zheng and Huang, 2010).

Second, Korean migrant society in Qingdao has been closely cooperating with Koreans in the old autonomous areas. Most Korean autonomous areas have minority schools from kindergarten to high school. However, these schools have difficulty in recruiting new students due to the decrease of the number of Koreans, and so are eager to cooperate in establishing schools in Korean migrant areas such as Qingdao. A private Korean elementary school and local Korean NGOs held a conference on developing Korean minority schools to bring the issue of establishing public Korean schools in Qingdao to the attention of the authorities (Gillim sinmun, 2008). The conference organizers invited 40 elementary school principals from Jilin and Heilongjiang, professors at Yanbian University, and many Korean cadres from educational departments in Yanbian and other autonomous regions. In addition, Korean minority media such as Jilin News (Gillim sinmun [Jilin xinwen]) joined this movement not only by reporting the exchange and cooperation between the old and new communities but also by publically raising the issue.¹⁸ Interestingly, South Korean communities and the South Korean consulate in Qingdao have also supported the movement.

Third, this movement has brought up the issue of “ethnic equality” in the new areas. A Korean PPCC delegate argues, “We [Koreans] know that the government should establish public minority schools if it has a certain number of minority people” (Gillim sinmun, 2009). Many of the aforementioned media reports also touch on the potentially sensitive issue of “ethnic equality.” Koreans still want to have at least some of the privileges they enjoyed in the old autonomous areas for the last sixty years. Zheng Xinzhe of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Huang Na of National Minzu University investigated the issue of Korean minority education in Qingdao and concluded that public Korean minority schools should be established as soon as possible, providing important support from the academic world (Zheng and Huang, 2010). They argue,

In cities with a concentration of minority people, establishing all levels of minority educational institutions—minority schools and minority classes—is an implementation of the party and government’s policy of ethnic equality and minority education. . . . Considering the situation of Qingdao’s Korean society, not having Korean minority schools is not possible. (Emphasis added)

This movement for ethnic education in both Korean (as a primary medium) and Chinese (as a secondary medium), which does not look very political at first glance, has important political ramifications for Korean society in Qingdao. Minority schools are not only one of the key elements sustaining their own communities but also a cornerstone of minority autonomy. Many Korean leaders and ordinary people label Qingdao “the second Yanbian,” and they regard the aforementioned political movement as a cautious but crucial step to expand their influence in local society with the ultimate aim of achieving a certain degree of autonomy. We could speculate that this movement could ultimately lead to the establishment of a lower level minority autonomous area such as a minority autonomous street office (jiedao banshichu).

In principle, Korean migrants can be given autonomous areas in their new places of residence. Article 12 of the Law on Regional National Autonomy gives local authorities the right to establish one or more minority autonomous areas in places with a concentration of minority people after considering the area’s interethnic relations and economic development. A good example of an urban autonomous area—an autonomous street or even a district—for the 100,000 Koreans in Chengyang district is the Mudanjiang Korean Street Office (Mudanjiang Chaoxianzu jiedao banshichu) in Xi’an district, Mudanjiang city, Heilongjiang province (Xi’an qu renmin zhengfu, 2007). Unlike street offices in Yanbian, which belong to the higher-level autonomous governments, the Mudanjiang Street Office was established in a major non-autonomous, Han-dominated city. Its six community committees (shequ jumin weiyuanhui) also enjoy autonomous status and its government is run by Koreans.

Its sustained autonomy is also closely related to Mudanjiang’s efforts to attract South Korean investment and trade, which has substantially contributed to its economic development.¹⁹ With the endorsement of National Development and Reform Committee, the city and district governments have established a substantial “Korean Folklore Street” (Chaoxian minsu feng- qingjie) at the city’s center to promote the businesses of Korean Chinese and South Koreans (Mudanjiang shi Xi’an qu jingji fazhan he gaige ju, 2007). Similar initiatives have been taken by the Qingdao and Chengyang governments in recent years. In this context, Mudanjiang is a good example for the Qingdao Koreans to press for a status of at least pseudo-autonomy, with more Korean representatives and cadres at the grassroots level, if full autonomy is not plausible in the short term.

In face of such pressure, areas and sub-administrative units with Korean migrant communities have been cautious but flexible, and the issue has even attracted the attention of the central government. In 2005, the National Minorities Committee issued a document urging the governments of such areas to adjust to and control their new minority population.²⁰ In this context, the future policy direction in Qingdao and Chengyang could provide a template for the Chinese government’s minority policy in non-autonomous areas.

Conclusion

In the past 20 years, more than half of the two million Korean Chinese have migrated from their autonomous areas to new, non-autonomous areas to take advantage of economic opportunities offered by market reform and closer Chinese–South Korean relations. This migration has had important political ramifications for both traditional autonomous areas of origin and non-autonomous areas of destination.

In Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning, the massive loss of Koreans, including cadres, has led to the abolition or merger of smaller autonomous areas, such as villages and townships. Even though the larger autonomous areas—Yanbian prefecture and Changbai county—have been preserved for mainly symbolic and political reasons, their political and economic autonomy has been substantially curtailed. Jilin province took away the right to develop and manage Mount Changbai from Yanbian and asserted much stronger control over economic development policies in the prefecture by establishing Yan-Long-Tu united city. In the new, non-autonomous areas, on the contrary, newly emerged Korean leaders have aggressively expanded their economic, social, and political influence by establishing NGOs as well as governmental organizations. A series of political movements has vividly demonstrated their ability and efforts to establish Korean schools in Qingdao, and their argument of ethnic equality has ample potential for legitimizing more fundamental demands for autonomy.

Our research points to two main conclusions. First, the rise in the Korean migrants’ influence in the new minority areas has come at the cost of a loss of power in traditional minority areas. These shifts in Korean power in autonomous and non-autonomous areas reveal that population size is one of the most important determinants of minority autonomy. Second, at the level of policy implementation, China’s seemingly rigid minority policies—which have recently been restated²¹—are actually cautiously flexible and are deployed creatively to deal with changing patterns of diversity. Extrapolating a bit further, this could also have implications for areas in China that are politically much more problematic, particularly Tibet and Xinjiang. As the ethnic mix in these areas changes under the impact of increasingly complex patterns of Han and minority urbanization, in-migration, and out-migration, existing minority autonomy in these areas might very well be eroded along the same lines as in the Korean Chinese areas. This, in turn, might put an even greater strain on China interethnic relations than is currently the case, and in the long run force a more fundamental rethinking of “the theory of a united multiethnic nation” (tongyi de duominzu guojia lun) undergirding China’s minority policies.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Richard Baum, Daniel A. Bell, Barbara Geddes, James D. Seymour, participants of the conference on “The Global Politics of China” organized by the British Inter-University China Centre (London and Manchester, 2009), and especially Frank Pieke.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:

This work was supported by National Research Foundation of Korea by the Korean Government (MEST). (NRF-2007-361-AL0014)

Notes

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