Muslim minorities in China are often depicted as either forces for integration (i.e., sinicization and assimilation) or disintegration (as separatists, radical Islamists, or ethnic nationalists). Yet, many of the challenges China’s Muslims confront remain the same as they have for the last 1400 years of continuous interaction with Chinese society, though clearly many are new as a result of China's transformed and increasingly globalized society, and especially since the watershed events of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks with the subsequent Sino-U.S. cooperation on the “war on terrorism.”

Muslims in China live as minority communities amid a sea of people, in their view, who are largely pork-eating, polytheist, secularist, and kafir ("heathen"). Nevertheless, many of their small and isolated communities have survived in rather inhospitable circumstances for over a millennium. 

This seminar will examine Islam and Muslim minority identity in China. Through comparing the two largest Muslim minorities in China (Uyghur and Hui), it will be argued that successful Muslim accommodation to minority status in China can be seen to be a measure of the extent to which Muslims have been able to reconcile the dictates of Islamic identiy to their host culture. This goes against the opposite view that can be found in the writings of some analysts of Islam in China, that Islam in the region is almost unavoidably rebellious and that Muslims as minorities are inherently problematic to a non-Muslim state. The history of Islam in China suggests that both within each Muslim community, as well as between Muslim nationalities, there are many alternatives to either complete accommodation or separatism.

Dru C. Gladney is the author of over 50 academic articles, as well as Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People's Republic (Harvard University Press, 1996, 2nd edition); Ethnic Identity in China: The Making of a Muslim Minority Nationality (Wadsworth, 1998); Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the U.S. (Editor, Stanford University Press, 1998). Former president of the Pacific Basin Institute and dean of the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Gladney is also the author of  Dislocating China: Muslims, Minorities, and Other Sub-Altern Subjects  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). He is currently working on a comparative study of Muslim adaptations in China as well as a study of new media in helping to build a Uyghur "virtual" nation. 

 This seminar series is co-sponsored by the South Asia Initiative,
 

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More than two decades after the cold war ended elsewhere, it continues undiminished on the Korean Peninsula. The division of the Korean nation into competing North and South Korean states and the destructive war that followed gave rise to one of the great, and still unresolved, tragedies of the twentieth century.

Published for the first time in English, Peacemaker is the memoir of Lim Dong-won, former South Korean unification minister and architect of Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung’s Sunshine policy toward North Korea. Lim will present a talk at Stanford in conjunction with the book’s U.S. release, highlighting major themes from it and discussing them within the context of recent developments on the peninsula.

As both witness and participant, Peacemaker traces the process of twenty years of diplomatic negotiations with North Korea, from the earliest rounds of inter-Korean talks through the historic inter-Korean summit of June 2000 and beyond. It offers a fascinating inside look into the recent history of North-South Korea relations and provides important lessons for policymakers and citizens who seek to understand and resolve the tragic—and increasingly dangerous—situation on the Korean Peninsula.

About the Speaker

Following a thirty-year career in the South Korean military, Lim Dong-won’s government service began with his tenure as ROK ambassador to Nigeria and then Australia; under the Roh Tae-woo administration, he served as chancellor of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security and director of arms control planning. During the Kim Dae-jung administration Lim held numerous key national-level posts, including head of the National Intelligence Service and minister of unification. He currently is chairman of the Korea Peace Forum and the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture.

This event is made possible by the generous support from the Koret Foundation.

The emergence of Protestant Christianity introduced by American missionaries in the late 19th century influenced various reform movements aimed at reconstituting Korean society. Today, five of the ten largest Protestant churches as well as the largest mega-church in the world are said to be in South Korea. Professor Park argues, however, that Protestant Christianity appears to have lost its potential for transforming society, and that often the churches are enmeshed in heredity scandals and calumniations. He will examine the causes of these phenomena.

Yong-Shin Park is a professor of sociology emeritus at Yonsei University, Korea. His areas of interest include social theory, historical sociology, and social movements. He directed the Yonsei Institute of Korean Studies, and co-founded an interdiscplinary journal, Hyonsang-gwa-inshik. He takes part in ecological movements as a member of World Without Nuclear Power and Green Korea United where he served as president from 2000 to 2011.

Showing some of his "home movie" footage of U.S. President Richard Nixon's trip to the People's Republic of China (PRC), film of family and diplomatic events, and reading from his memoir, Nicholas Platt will talk about life in China in 1973. As a former president of the Asia Society, which oversees numerous contacts and exchanges with China, and as a frequent visitor and lecturer in the PRC, Platt is in a unique position to compare those early days of diplomatic contact to relations with the West today, as China now emerges as a major player on the world stage and an economic power house.

Nicholas Platt, long-time China specialist, three-time U.S. ambassador (Pakistan, Zambia, and the Philippines), and author of the recently published memoir China Boys, will share his
experiences and insights gained from a long and distinguished career in the diplomatic service and as president of the Asia Society in New York for 12 years.

As a young diplomatic officer in the early 1960s, when China was firmly closed to the West, Platt took the unusual step of studying Mandarin. This put him in a key position when U.S. relations to China suddenly opened. Platt was one of the State Department officials chosen to accompany President Nixon on his historic visit to China in 1972. The following year he and his family were stationed in Beijing with the opening of a U.S. Liaison Office, the forerunner of the U.S. Embassy in the PRC.