Multiculturalism has not failed across the board. The far right and left always make electoral gains in times of economic adversity, it's one of the basic 'laws' of politics. I come from a part of the UK (Scotland) where the devolved government actively seeks to encourage foreign nationals to live and work there. Hell, it's no utopia but it's working fairly well in my opinion.

The situation in China is quite different. It is not a nation of immigrants, nor is it the Mother country of a faded colonial hegemony. It has NEVER been exposed to cultural diversity (accepting some coastal cities) and makes it difficult for outsiders to integrate. Even those territories China has which are not ethnically Han have very little representation (if any) at the government level (including local).

Then, I'm biased by virtue of being a firm believer in the whole 'unity in diversity' thing.

Multiculturalism has failed?  News to me.  Your suggestion that people living their lives outside of the mainstream is somehow bad is ridiculous to me.  What a boring life if everyone and their neighbor was the same.

Growing up, we were Jewish, my brothers best friends were Indian and Black while my best friends were Chinese and Polish.  All great people.  Just because people are different races, doesn't mean they live seperate lives.  That's a silly assumption.

And I'd take the occasional hurt feelings and rare violence from race relations over a population of isolated, ignorant of the outside, inbred people any day. 

(note:  that last remark is not intended as a poke to any country, it's just what would happen if a country decided to become isolationist)

Multiculture has failed,i am British and in my country its a sad state,in some areas its like Pakistan,some India Poland,people do not mix.We are all different and instead of saying we are all the same,we should have a big war get it over with?Not really but if we did?Would the world be better 100 or 200 years from now

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say. This is supposed to pertain to China, right? But the only multiculturalism in China has to do with their own minorities, not us foreigners. We aren't even part of the equation. Barely anyone can become a citizen here. They're not even trying, and as for their minorities, sure, they claim their dances and songs for themselves, and use them as traditional entertainment, but is that really multiculturalism? They're not trying to curb anything because there's nothing to curb. We are foreigners here, and we will always be foreigners here, even if we married one of the locals and became a citizen, we would still be foreigners in anyone's eyes, and most likely, so would our children. At this time, there is no way to integrate. So I guess you could say multiculturalism hasn't failed because there wasn't any to start with. 

I'm not sure that I accept your premise here. Do you mean to suggest that the fact that groups of people will self select voids the notion of having a multi-cultural society can benefit a nation's culture as a whole? This strikes me as a very European idea that I'll admit that I've never fully understood, and I'd appreciate it if some of posters from GB would elaborate a little more on what Cameron, Merkel, and Sarkozy have been saying. I mean does David Cameron really think that he can substitute St. George's day for Jihad? It can't be that simple and the idea itself seems  ridiculous in every single way.

In North America we've had wave after wave of immigrants come to our shores for well over a hundred years and each group contributed something of value to our culture as a whole. The Chinese-Americans, for instance, built a lot of our infrastructure and then settled into communities in our majors cities. Today many of these neighborhoods still maintain large populations of Chinese immigrants and they are absolutely wonderful places to visit.

In the US we even give tax breaks to immigrants that come to open their own businesses. For the most part, these groups conduct themselves fairly well. I spent a large amount of time during my childhood in Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest middle eastern population in the US, and West Bloomfield, which is a neighboring suburb with a very large Jewish population, and from everything I saw these groups seemed to get a long fairly well.

About China, I'd say that many here are concerned about westernization, but I feel that those concerns are unfounded. Look at Hong Kong. It was in direct contact with the west for a very long time, and is better for it but still unmistakably Chinese.

I live in the most multicultural city on the planet and there's no problems. That may be because Canada takes a mosaic approach in which people are encouraged to keep their culture instead of insisting people become Canadian. 

It seems the only people who say it fails are crusty old conservatives who don't like cooking smells.

Errrrr, where's your proof that multiculturalism has failed???

Just because there are occasional scandalous news stories doesn't mean that there is actually a significant problem with multiculturalism.

If anything, the real problem is elitism.

I would not say it has failed, just that it is experiencing "growing pains".  It really was not until the late 20th Century that we began  to live in a multi-cultural environment where we tried to put them all on equal footing (unlike the multi cultural experience under colonial rule).  As such, when some of those cultures clash, it can be uncomfortable and that is where the tension arises.

I see this like being in kindergarten. When we were toddlers, we were the center of attention for all the adults in out lives. Yet, once we began school, we had to "share" the attention and we had to learn to play together, share toys, decide which story to hear, etc. Sometimes we got our way, sometimes not.

Same thing happening here.  We grow up secure in the knowledge that "our culture" and "our religion or disbelief"  is the "right one". But now, we have to share with others who feel just as strongly about their beliefs which may be different and even opposite to ours.  If this is new for us, it can be difficult.

I represented the government once, in a case involving a prison, so the other attorneys wanted to examine the Chaplains.  We were trying to set up a date for depositions but were finding it very hard.  Because all of us had a heavy workload, we were unable to take the depo during  our regular "business hours" but we could not agree on the day of the weekend since two led services on Saturday  and the other four on Sunday.  What we eventually had to do was meet on Tuesday and Thursday nights fro the next two weeks, from 7 pm to 11:30 for the depositions.  Yes, it was a real pain in the butt, however, it had to be done. This respected every ones beliefs and no one imposed anything on the rest. Just like in kindergarten. You learn to compromise and find solutions.

Now, expand that to ALL the cultures on the planet, living together.  We still need to "sort it out" and it will take time.  To say that multiculturalism has failed or succeeded at this point in time is premature.

In regards to Multiculturalism and China, well, it is going to be much harder here for them.

I should ad it sure didn't feel like it was failing when I was at the local Asian night market last weekend. Tons of people of all races eating the street food and browsing the merch... I can't BELIEVE a race riot didn't break out!