North East Asia

Sidney Stadelmann

The most pressing issue in Siberia currently is the Ukrainian-Russian war. From a human rights perspective, the Ukrainian war has resulted in numerous human-rights violations for Russians. A series of laws were passed that effectively criminalized criticizing or reporting the war. Russian activists have been exiled, and additional laws have been enacted that criminalize anyone associated with independent groups that authorities deem “undesirable organizations.”  Additionally, the war is fueling Russian Nationalist ideals. Russia’s superiority complex, motivated by ethnocentric ideals, has led the country to invade and attack Ukraine, at the cost of many many lives and the safety of multiple countries. 

In addition to its negative consequences socially and politically, the war against Ukraine is also having extreme effects on the environmental stability of Siberia. Siberia consists of numerous ecological biomes that are becoming increasingly threatened by climate change. For example, tundra and taiga biomes are extremely vulnerable to climate change, but are becoming destroyed due to rising temperatures, clear cutting,  and wide-spread wildfires. These are causing the permafrost layer under the tundra to melt, which harms biodiversity, threatens animal habitats, and increases sea-level rising. The Russian-Ukrainian war is only perpetrating these threats. Crucial firefighters in Siberia are being drafted away from vulnerable forests to go fight in Ukraine. As a result, extreme fires are spreading throughout Siberia essentially unaddressed. Thus, wildfires are spewing emissions and are burning out of control.The taiga forests that these fires target are carbon sinks, meaning they store old carbon, but when burned, release that carbon into the atmosphere. This creates a cycle (often referred to as a positive feedback loop). The more fires there are, the more trees burn and release carbon, increasing global temperatures, leading to more fires, etc. etc. 

Action must be taken to help mitigate the effects of this war on Siberia, Russia as a whole, and the global in totality. The human-rights violations are not reserved to just Russia, there are global consequences. Additionally, the environmental destruction that is occurring due to this war is not simply a Siberian issue, but a global one. We are all responsible for promoting and protecting the safety of one another and the physical world that surrounds us.

Over the centuries, the Korean peninsula has developed as a fairly homogeneous, singular nation with one shared cultural identity. That identity is one largely defined by its location, pinned in between the ancient giant of China and the rising sun of Japan. Korea follows, generally, a traditional Confucian approach to family, with a close-knit patriarchal family structure. In recent years, western ideas on the family have worked their ways into the folds of Korean society, and women have gained a greater degree of social power.

Currently, there is not any minority cultural group within Korea, so none are in danger of going away. The main cultural struggle is one of conservative older generations versus newer, liberal generations trying to introduce more western ideas.

For the presentation I discussed how the most pressing issue in Mongolia was that of the Ukraine war. The Ukraine was very much an issue for all of the world right now. but Mongolia in particular is impacted in many ways by the war. Mongolia is landlocked and sandwiched between Russia and China. This puts Mongolia in a difficult situation under normal circumstances and even more so in wartime.

Mongolia relies heavily on Russia economically as Mongolia has no ports of its own and needs to use those of Russia and China to trade. The vast majority of Mongolian imports also come from Russia and China. Mongolia was for many years trying to become more friendly to western nations in order to become less dependent, but with a war going on Russia of course expects Mongolia to support them, as does China who have been a constant threat to Mongolia’s sovereignty since Mongolia gained independence and became a democracy. Due to this Mongolia is in a very tough spot with so much of their economy being reliant on a country that is currently the biggest enemy to NATO. Perhaps due to the inevitability and very little that Mongolia can do in this situation they cannot be held responsible. On the other hand Russia and China are very capable of crippling Mongolia’s economy, which is why I consider the Ukraine war to be the most pressing issue for Mongolia right now.

Blog post 7

 

I wrote about how china has disappearing cultures and languages. China’s government recognizes 55 different ethnicities, although many more exist. For example, the Namuyi, a minority group in Sichuan, is unique but classified as Tibetan by the government. Of these ethnic groups, the Han Chinese is by far the most prevalent. Their language is taught in schools, and they make up over 80% of the nation. President Xi is Han Chinese, and mandarin is called 汉语sometimes, meaning han language. China also has more than 300 languages, where 50+ are critically endangered. This means that people are not teaching their kids, and the speakers are dying out, with less than 5000 speakers. The government is not teaching these languages and is pushing mandarin more, causing these cultures’ histories to be lost. In a map of china seen below, Han Chinese make up a lot of the area, but still, a lot is made up of other cultures. This diversity isn’t shown in the government, with Han men still mostly in power. 

Genocide is by no means new to Mongolia, in the 1930s a genocide of Buddhist Monks took place. The genocide was due to the soviet ties and Stalin’s staunch anti-religious sentiments. These were essentially an extension of the Stalinist purges that occurred across the Soviet Union (Washington Times 2001). It is believed 20000 people died and were killed because of “espousing Buddhist beliefs” (Wikipedia). This is but one example of genocide in Mongolia and in the 1960s during the Chinese cultural revolution, and after inner Mongolia was annexed by the people’s republic of China. In this case the genocide was of Mongolians who attempted to defend their sovereignty and supported the IMPP-Inner Mongolia Peoples Party (Yang 2008). While these were never as incredibly systematic and deadly as the genocide in Rwanda, they do support the idea that Mongolia was very much aware of the horrors of genocide in Rwanda.

            In research there seems to be no reference to a Mongolian response to the genocide in Rwanda and this makes sense as Mongolia is a relatively small nation in comparison to the major countries that control decision making in the UN. I don’t think that Mongolia carries much of the blame for the genocide and there is likely very little that could be done. Ultimately what Mongolia can do is to ensure that such horrors will not occur in their country. And in this respect Mongolia has done well. Many nations struggle after being controlled by so many foreign countries over the years. Mongolia is a democracy and scores well on the freedom index. A characteristic they may have in common with Rwanda is a having multiple cultural groups and having to find a way to balance the priorities of each specifically so that this kind of genocide does not occur. Mongolia has thus far had no issues with this and perhaps it is because they have many more groups than Rwanda, so not one group is so dominant over one other group.

            Mongolia being an east Asian country is a bit of an exception to the rule when it comes to humanitarian law. Perhaps because they have been controlled by foreign governments for so long, they have more experience with these issues. In Mongolia, all are given equal rights and they seem like western countries in that they believe in democracy and simultaneously do not necessarily provide necessities such as housing for their people. One way or another compared to their peers, Mongolia seems to handle human rights and genocide in a very respectable way.

Sources:

Mongolian Genocide by Communist China during the Cultural Revolution in Inner Mongolia. Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://www.smhric.org/news_217.htm

The Washington Times. (2001, July 7). Mongolians recall purges by Stalin. The Washington Times. Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2001/jul/7/20010707-024154-7538r/

Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, November 10). Stalinist repressions in Mongolia. Wikipedia. Retrieved November 20, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinist_repressions_in_Mongolia

Sidney Stadelmann

November 20th, 2022

International humanitarian law is a set of rules that restricts the means and methods of warfare. It only applies during armed conflicts, and it aims to protect people who are not or are no longer directly involved in war hostilities. However, international humanitarian law failed Rwanda and its citizens. Although these laws are supposed to protect citizens, clearly they failed, as over 1 million people were murdered in the course of 3 months. 

In Russia, issues around international humanitarian law are present. In the past, Russia was a leader in early efforts to establish the IHL. Russia initiated the St. Petersburg Declaration in 1868, which was the first treaty to ban a specific weapon. Additionally, The USSR advocated for better protection of civilians in wartime, and supported extending the IHL to non-international armed conflicts as well.  However, Russia’s positive efforts towards the developments and establishment of IHL have stayed in the past. In recent times, Russia has systematically evaded IHL, and has not supported a single major treaty advancing IHL since 1991. We see the effects of this through the Ukrainian war, and Russia’s war strategies/practices. As stated in Human Rights Watch, “since the February 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s leadership has engaged in a full-scale assault on the rights of its citizens…” For example, a series of laws were passed that effectively criminalize criticizing or reporting the war. Russian activists have been exiled, and additional laws have been enacted that criminalize anyone associated with independent groups that authorities deem “undesirable organizations.” These are just a few of the many, many ways Russia has neglected human rights of its citizens, not to mention the attack on human rights of Ukrainian people. 

SOURCES: 

Dam, Philippe, and Lucy McKernan. “UN Human Rights Council Should Mandate Expert Monitor on Russia.” Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch , 5 Oct. 2022, https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/10/05/un-human-rights-council-should-mandate-expert-monitor-russia.

von Gall, Caroline. “Russia’s Approaches to International Humanitarian Law.” Vlkerrechtsblog, Russias Approaches to International Humanitarian Law Comments, 13 Apr. 2022, https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/russias-approaches-to-international-humanitarian-law/. 

International humanitarianism failed because not everyone’s culture is the same, and something that one person might think is wrong, someone else might think is okay. The USA should not have intervened; having a “police force” of the USA doing what they want without others having a say is not good; there should be comities and the like overseeing. Many say that China is currently having a humanitarian crisis with the Uighurs, either called a genocide, mass-incarceration, or some think it doesn’t exist. While the public in china feels that human rights are very important. The lawmakers in china, however, have been removing many of the nation’s human rights clauses, resulting in a lack of legislation keeping people safe. While China has human rights in its ideals, the “Asian human rights” argument exists; some believe that individualism is less important and, therefore, the freedom of speech is less important. The Chinese public and citizens are still people with empathy and beliefs for rights for all, and they should not be dismissed as evil or wrong. The average Chinese citizen lacks knowledge about what is going on with Uighurs, and if they learn what they are taught, it is western propaganda. The human rights violations are not because they are evil or even because they have wildly different ideas about equality, but instead a lack of knowledge about these topics.

 

Sources: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/

 

https://2017-2021.state.gov/chinas-disregard-for-human-rights/index.html

 

 

 

Human rights in Mongolia have long been an interesting issue, and in general they are viewed as being a much more democratic and fair country than their neighbors China and Russia. While they do deserve that reputation, Mongolia still seems to struggle with issues of human rights, and the pandemic brought to light what some would consider the more autocratic side of the Mongolian government.

            Mongolia is very much a free and democratic nation however recently pandemic restrictions seem to have been abused in order to exert control over the populace. With regards to freedom to assembly and protesting. During 2021, healthcare workers and others who had been negatively impacted by pandemic restrictions took to the streets and peacefully protested. The government used restrictions as a pretext to disperse these protests, often violently. These protests often were made up of healthcare workers who had been exposed to highly unsafe conditions in Mongolia’s underdeveloped healthcare system unprepared for the pandemic. (Amnesty International 2021) Ultimately Mongolia seems to making efforts on the whole to improve the state of human rights.

            An interesting exception to what is an impressive record on human rights for a developing country is that of torture in Mongolia. Mongolia despite agreeing to UN anti-torture provisions as a country has not actually provided for any protections from torture in law. 53 cases had been reviewed with only 2 convictions and very little ability to seek reparations. (Amnesty 2021). Mongolia also struggles with pretty majore anti-LGBTQ sentiment, although this seems to be more cultural than governmental as LGBTQ identifying people have full rights politically and socially in Mongolia.

            From a human rights perspective Mongolia does a pretty good job considering they are by no means a rich country. Mongolia is an interesting case from an ethnocentrism perspective due to the rather broad definition of Mongolian. Mongolian can mean many things from resident of Mongolia to specific ethnic groups in Asia or even anyone who speaks a language in the Mongolian Language group. All this simply Means Mongolian can mean many things depending on the context. In Mongolia however there are so many different cultural groups that consider themselves different from each other that ethnocentrism is not necessarily seen the same way even within the same country. (Wu, 2018)The Buryat group in Mongolia consider themselves separate from Mongolia as we think of it, and many Mongolians outside of the country are even further separated from each other due to the number of languages and cultures and changes that have occurred within those languages in the past century (Szmyt 2011). Ultimately this is what makes the Pan-Mongolism movement impossible-Mongolians don’t all have one identity to unite under. The country itself doesn’t have its own ethnocentric ideals but the groups within the country do.

Citations

Szmyt, Zbigniew. (2011). Nation and ethnicity in Mongolia. Etnograficeskoe Obozrenie. 84-103.

Sarina Wu (2020) To share or not to share: contested heritage in Inner Mongolia, China —A case of overtone singing (khoomei), International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26:3, 267-280, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2019.1620833

Fallone, Andrew. “Oppositional Identities: The Pitfalls of Postcolonial Identity Creation in Mongolia.” The World Mind, The World Mind, 11 Mar. 2020, https://www.theworldmind.org/home/2018/4/3/oppositional-identities-the-pitfalls-of-postcolonial-identity-creation-in-mongolia.

“Mongolia Archives.” Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/mongolia/report-mongolia/.

 

China has hundreds of languages and more than fifty recognized ethnic groups. In this massive nation, there was racial fighting historically, the Mongols invading and taking over hundreds of years ago, wars between north and south china, and the silk road, all examples of ethnic struggles in ancient china. Currently, the most populated ethnicity in china, with more than a billion people, is the Han Chinese. In China, they are spread out, being the majority in every province except for two. Xinjiang and Tibet are both more populated with other ethnic groups. Han Chinese mostly speak Mandarin, although, in many cities, they speak regional languages, such as the Beijing dialect or Shanghainese. A lot of the beauty standards in china centralize around the Han Chinese. White, pale skin is seen as beautiful even though many Chinese people aren’t pale.  Han Chinese historical Tv and movies are top-rated, while some changes are made. primarily, beauty standards have changed to match a more eurocentric vision of broad shoulders and no monolid eyes. This relates to what Farish Noor speaks about with eurocentrism. He says this idea is about where people think Europe is the most powerful and advanced while everyone else is lesser. Even though the Chinese invented many things, including gunpowder, the idea that white people are clever or more beautiful is still prevalent. Hopefully, in the future, every ethnic group in china will find themselves attractive and not compare themselves to someone else. 

 

Sources:

https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Han_Chinese

http://en.chinaculture.org/focus/focus/minzuwang/2010-06/08/content_381865.htm

 

Sidney Stadelmann- November 3, 2022

Ethnocentrism is the concept that individuals and cultures will view themselves and their environment from the perspective of their own culture. Consequently, this view leads people to see their own cultural values and beliefs as “better than”, and to associate differences in culture with being lesser or inferior. These ideologies are harmful, especially in terms of globalization and the deterioration of culture. Europe and the West are especially plagued by these ideologies, and thus attempt to assimilate everyone else to their own values and beliefs. Additionally, they categorize countries and cultures that do not fall into western ideals as being underdeveloped and inferior. However, Russia and Ex-Soviet states are examples of backlash against Western ideologies, as illustrated by Jürgen Habernmas in Chapter 3 of Dealing With Human Rights. He claims that ex-Soviet states of Eastern Europe are a “notable example of the inability to transfer Western-style liberal democracy outside of its social and historical contexts.” Russian Communism and other political/moral ideologies are seen as extremist in the West, and are actively shunned. Additionally, many Asain governments such as those in China and North Korea are also seen as “crazy” from a Western perspective, which further proves how deeply ingrained ethnocentrism is within society.  

From a Siberian and Russia perspective, ethnocentrism and human rights are complicated. On one hand, it is important to note that the media paints Russia and its political goals from a negative Eurocentric point-of-view. The battle of Russia vs. the West is ongoing, but serves as a great example of the dangers present when two powerful governments both see themselves as ideal. With that being said, we do see the dangerous effects that Russian ethnocentrism is having on neighboring countries, and the world as a whole. The Russian-Ukrainian war offers an example of this. Russia’s superiority complex, motivated by ethnocentric ideals, has led the country to invade and attack Ukraine, at the cost of many many lives and the safety of multiple countries.