Lesser Dragons: Minority Peoples of China

by Michael Dillon

Lesser Dragons is a timely introduction to the fascinating, complex, and vital world of China’s national minorities. Drawing on firsthand fieldwork in several minority areas, Michael Dillon introduces us to the major non-Han peoples of China, including the Mongols, the Tibetans, the Uyghur of Xinjiang, and the Manchus, and traces the evolution of their relationship with the Han Chinese majority. With chapters devoted to each of the most important minority groups and an additional chapter exploring the parallel but very different world of inter-ethnic relations in Taiwan, Lesser Dragons will interest anyone eager to understand the reality behind regional conflicts increasingly covered by global media. From the tense security situation in Xinjiang to China’s attitude toward Tibet and the Dalai Lama, to the resistance efforts of Mongolian herders losing traditional grasslands, Dillon’s book both examines clichés—such as those found in the Chinese press, which often portrays ethnic minorities as colorful but marginal people—and defies expectations. He shows us how these minority peoples’ religions, cultures, and above all languages mark these groups as distinct from the Chinese majority—distinct, yet endangered by the systemic forces of integration.

Genres: China

288 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 2018

About the author

Michael Dillon is a China specialist with expertise in teaching the history, politics and society of the Chinese world and the Chinese language. He was founding Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Durham, where he taught courses on modern China in the Department of East Asian Studies. He has a BA and PhD in Chinese Studies from Leeds University and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Asiatic Society. He is a peer reviewer for academic publishers and journals including China Quarterly, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Inner Asia and is guest editor for a forthcoming special issue of Ethnic and Racial Studies focussing on Chinese ethnicity. He is a frequent commentator on Chinese and Asian affairs for the BBC and other international broadcasters, contributes to the Times Literary Supplement and was a consultant for China, a four-part television documentary directed by Jonathan Lewis for BBC2, Granada and PBS (USA).

He reads Chinese fluently, speaks Putonghua (Mandarin) and some Cantonese and has a working knowledge of the Uyghur language of Xinjiang.

Reviews

[C. Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some confusion on linguistic classification — for some reason Dillon’s Altaic-pilled, and the Tai languages are not Sino-Tibetan — and the prose is a bit flat, but overall not a bad introduction to ethnic minority policies in the PRC.