Barry Sautman


Barry Victor Sautman is a professor emeritus with the Division of Social Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He holds both Canadian and American nationalities and he speaks both English and Cantonese.
A political scientist and lawyer by training who primarily teaches international law, he has conducted research about ethnic politics and nationalism in China, as well as China–Africa relations.

Graduate education

From 1983 to 1985, he was a law clerk and from 1985 to 1991, an attorney.
From fall 1990 to spring 1991, he was an adjunct assistant professor at California State University, Northridge, teaching courses in US politics.
In 1991–1992, he was a visiting assistant professor in comparative politics at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies, in Nanjing, China. He taught courses in comparative politics; politics, law & society; political development; and US-China relations.
From 1993 to 2000, he was an assistant professor in the Division of Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, then from 2000 to 2008, an associate professor at the same university.
In 2002–2003, he was also a visiting fellow in the Department of East Asian Studies at Princeton University.
He taught undergraduate courses in international law; politics, law & society; China-US relations; political development; and comparative politics; and also graduate courses in nationalism, ethnicity, and US hegemony.

Fields of research

His areas of research have been Communist and post-Communist systems; Chinese politics ; the political economic and legal aspects of the Tibet and Xinjiang issues; China-Africa links; the supposed strategic rivalry between the US and China in Africa; and international law.

Reception

On account of his rejection of the claim of a physical and cultural genocide in Tibet, his underlining of the various benefits, rights, and material gains Tibetans have reaped from the region's modernization, and his indictment of what he calls "ethnonationalism" on the part of exile Tibetans, Sautman has drawn criticism from writers supportive of an independent or free Tibet such as Jamyang Norbu and Elliot Sperling. Jamyang Norbu called Sautman a "running-dog propagandist" in 2008 and accused him of selectively using dubious facts and figures, skillfully applying "academic gobbledygook", and jumping to conclusions without citing evidence. Sautman responded to Norbu's criticism in an article in Phayul.com, stating "Being attacked by Jamyang Norbu is like being criticized by John Bolton."
Australian sinologist Colin Mackerras sees Barry Sautman as the main contributor to Tibet studies in Hong Kong's universities. He added that Sautman has become a controversial figure because his stand on Tibet is not fashionable in the West but he is also "so well-informed and his research is so thorough".
Hong Kong magazine The Points criticized Sautman for his downplaying the Persecution of Uyghurs in China, attending a forum which attacked claims by “Western politicians and media, led by the United States,” of genocide or authoritarian rule in Xinjiang.

Publications

Journal articles

  • 1985. , Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 9, Issue 3, pp. 483–539
  • 1997. The Tibet Question: Meeting the Bottom Lines, in Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 44, Issue 3, pp. 15–24
  • 1998. Preferential Policies for Ethnic Minorities in China: The Case of Xinjiang, in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 4, Issue 1-2, 1998, pp. 86–118
  • 1998. , in Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, University of Washington, Vol. 7, Issue 1, 1998, pp. 77–86
  • 1999. , in Law & Policy, Vol. 21, Issue 3, pp. 283–314, July 1999
  • 2000. Is Xinjiang an Internal Colony?, in Inner Asia, Vol. 2, Issue 2, pp. 239–271
  • 2000. Association, Federation and 'Genuine' Autonomy: the Dalai Lama's Proposals and Tibet Independence, in China Information, Vol. 14, pp. 31–91
  • 2001. Is Tibet China’s Colony? The Claim of Demographic Catastrophe, in Columbia Journal of Asian Law, Vol. 15, Issue 1, pp. 81–131
  • 2001. Tibet: Myths and Realities, in Current History. A Journal of Contemporary World Affairs, September 2001, Vol. 100, Issue 647, pp. 278–283
  • 2003. , in Texas International Law Journal, Vol. 38, Issue 2, pp. 173–246
  • 2005. China's Vulnerability to Ethnic Minority Separatism in Tibet, in Asian Affairs: an American Review, Vol. 31, Issue 2, pp. 87–118
  • 2006. , in Asian Ethnicity, Vol. 7, Issue 3, pp. 243–265
  • 2007., , in African Studies Review, vol. 50, No. 3, pp. 75–114
  • 2008., Fu Manchu in Africa: the Distorted Portrayal of China's Presence in the Continent, in South African Labour Bulletin, November, Vol. 31, Issue 5, pp. 34–38
  • 2008. , Phayul.com, August 4
  • 2008. , in China Left Review, Issue 1
  • 2008. , in China Left Review, Issue 1
  • 2010. , in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, Vol. 18, Issue 1, pp. 89–143
  • 2010. Tibet’s Putative Statehood and International Law, in Chinese Journal of International Law, Vol. 9, Issue 1, pp. 127–142
  • 2011. , in The Asia-Pacific Journal : Japan Focus, Vol. 9, Issue 52, No 1, December 26
  • 2011. The ‘Right Dissident’: Liu Xiaobo and the Nobel Peace Prize, in Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, Vol. 19, Issue 2, pp. 581–613
  • 2012. , in East Asia Forum, March 21
  • 2012. Chasing Ghosts: Rumors and Representations of the Export of Chinese Prison Labour to Developing Countries, in China Quarterly, No 210, pp. 398–418
  • 2013. , The Adelaide Review, September 10

    Book chapters

  • 1995. Theories of East Asian Intellectual and Behavioral Superiority and the "Clash of Civilizations", in Racial Identities in East Asia, Barry Sautman Ed., Hong Kong: Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, pp. 58–121
  • 1997. , in Frank Dikötter, The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, pp. 75–95,.
  • 1999. Year of the Yak: the Tibet Question in Contemporary US-China Relations, in The Outlook for U.S.-China Relations Following the 1997-1998 Summits: Chinese and American Perspectives on Security, Trade, and Cultural Exchange, Edited by Peter H. Koehn, Joseph Y.S. Cheng, Chinese University Press, Hong Kong, 403 p., pp. 181–205
  • 1999. Expanding Access to Higher Education for China's National Minorities: Policies of Preferential Admission, in China's National Minority Education Culture, Schooling, and Development, Edited by Gerard A. Postiglione, Falmer Press, New York, pp. 173–210
  • 2000. , in Handbook of Global Legal Policy, CRC Press, 560 p., pp. 71–102
  • 2004. Hong Kong as a Semi-Ethnocracy: 'Race,' Migration, and Citizenship in a Globalized Region, in Agnes Ku & Pun Ngai, Remaking Citizenship in Hong Kong: Community, Nation, and the Global City, Routledge, New York, pp. 115–138
  • 2005-2006., The Politics of the Dalai Lama's New Initiative for Autonomy, in Pacific Affairs, Vol. 78, Issue 4, pp. 601–629 - aussi sous le titre Dalai Lama's New Initiative for Autonomy, in Paula Banerjee and Samir Kumar Das, Autonomy: Beyond Kant and Hermeneutics, Anthem Press, London, 2007, pp. 235–260.
  • 2006. Introduction: Cultural Genocide in International Context and , in Barry Sautman, Cultural Genocide and Asian State Peripheries, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 279 p., pp. 1–37 and 165-279,
  • 2006. Introduction: the Tibet Question in Contemporary Perspective and 'Demographic Annihilation' and Tibet, in Barry Sautman & June Teufel Dreyer, Contemporary Tibet: Politics, Development and Society in a Disputed Region, ME Sharpe, Armonk, pp. 3–22, pp. 230–257,
  • 2012. Ethnicity in China: Politics, Policies and Consequences, in Handbook of Contemporary China, Edited by William S Tay, Alvin Y. So, World Scientific, New Jersey ; Hong Kong

    Editorship

  • 1995. Racial Identities in East Asia, edited by Barry Sautman, Hong Kong: Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
  • 2006. Cultural Genocide and Asian State Peripheries, edited by Barry Sautman, Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
  • 2006. Contemporary Tibet: Politics, Development and Society in a Disputed Region, edited by Barry Sautman & June Teufel Dreyer, ME Sharpe, Armonk

    Monographs

  • 1990. Retreat from Revolution. Why Communist Systems Deradicalize, University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1990, 669 p.
  • 1995., , Maryland Occasional Papers/Reprints Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, No. 2 - 1995, 82 p.,
  • 2002., The Politics of Racial Discrimination in Hong Kong, Maryland Monograph Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, No. 2-2002, 83 p.,
  • 2006., East Mountain Tiger, West Mountain Tiger: China, Africa, the West, and 'Colonialism' in Africa, Maryland Monograph Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, No. 3-2006, 77 p.,
  • 2009. , Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, No 3-2009, 86 p.,
  • 2011. , University of Southern California Annenberg School Center on Public Diplomacy Series, Paper No 11,
  • 2012., The Chinese are the Worst?: Human Rights and Labor Practices in Zambian Mining, Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies, 2012, 100 p.,