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China is a unified, multi-national country, with 56 nationalities
in all. The Han people take up 92 percent of the total population
of the country, leaving 8 percent for the other 55 nationalities.
To realize equality, unity and common prosperity among the nationalities
is China's basic principle guiding relationships between nationalities.
The Constitution provides that all nationalities in the People's
Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights
and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops
the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among
all of China's nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression
of any nationality are prohibited, and any acts that undermine the
unity and create splits among the nationalities are also prohibited.
The Constitution clearly stipulates that in striving for unity among
all its nationalities, China opposes great-nation chauvinism, especially
great-Han chauvinism, as well as local nationalism.
In old China, severe national discrimination and oppression existed
over a long period of time. Many of the minority nationalities,
who were in straitened circumstances and not countenanced, had to
hide in the mountains and live a life of seclusion from the outside
world.
After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, discrimination
against and oppression of minority nationalities were abolished
and their condition underwent a thorough change. In the 1950s, the
Chinese government organized a large-scale investigation for identification
of the nationalities. After scientific differentiation, 55 minority
nationalities were acknowledged and this fact was announced publicly.
Most of the minority nationalities, for the first time in China's
history, became equal members of the great family of Chinese nationalities.
New China brought about the system of regional autonomy for minority
nationalities. Organs of self-government were set up in regions
where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities,
and the internal affairs of the minority nationalities were handled
by themselves. At present, there are throughout the country 159
national autonomous areas, including five autonomous regions, 30
autonomous prefectures and 124 autonomous counties (or banners).
National autonomous areas exercise all rights of self-government
in accordance with the Law of the People's Republic of China on
Regional National Autonomy and may work out autonomous rules and
specific regulations according to local political, economic and
cultural characteristics. Without violating the Constitution and
the law, autonomous regions have the right to adopt special policies
and flexible measures; autonomous organs can apply for permission
to make alterations or desist from implementing resolutions, decisions,
orders and instructions made by higher-level state organs if they
are not in accordance with the situation in autonomous regions.
Organs of self-government have the right to handle local financial,
economic, cultural and educational affairs. In regions where people
of a number of nationalities live together or in scattered communities,
more than 1,500 national townships were established so as to enable
minority nationalities to enjoy equal rights to the fullest.
In New China the political rights of minority nationalities are
ensured.
Before liberation, the minority nationalities, like the majority
of the Han people, suffered under severe oppression by the reactionary
ruling class. The oppression in some areas took more savage and
cruel forms than in others. For instance, in old Tibet, over 95
percent of Tibetans, from generation to generation, were serfs attached
to officials, nobles and lamaseries. According to the 13-Article
Code and the 16-Article Code which had been enforced for several
hundred years in old Tibet, Tibetans were divided into three classes
and nine grades. The lives of ironsmiths, butchers and women, who
were declared an inferior grade of inferior class in explicit terms,
were as cheap and worthless as a straw rope. This feudal serf system
with its hierarchy of three classes and nine grades was boltered
by cruel punishments such as gouging out eyes, cutting off feet,
removing the tongue, chopping off hands and arms, pushing an offender
off a cliff or drowning. Under such circumstances, the human rights
of the majority of laboring people were out of the question.
After New China was founded, the old system was abolished and democratic
reforms were carried out in one minority area after another. In
Tibet, the serfs shook off their chains, and are no longer serf-owners'
private property that can be bought, sold, transferred, bartered
or used to clear a debt, no longer to suffer the above-mentioned
savage punishments, and no longer divided into the three classes
and nine grades. Thanks to the democratic reform, the minority nationalities,
oppressed for generations, obtained the freedom of person and human
dignity, won basic human rights and for the first time became masters
of their own destiny.
Today, the minority nationalities, as equals of the Han nationality,
enjoy all the civil rights which are set down in the Constitution
and the law. In addition, the minority nationalities enjoy some
special rights accorded to them by law.
The right of the minority nationalities to participate in the exercise
of the supreme power of the state is specially protected. The Constitution
stipulates that "all the minority nationalities are entitled to
appropriate representation" in the National People's Congress (NPC),
the highest organ of state power. The proportion of deputies elected
by the minority nationalities to the NPC in the total number of
NPC deputies is always about twice as large as the proportion of
members of the minority nationalities in the country's total population.
Of the deputies to the Seventh National People's Congress, 455 or
15 percent come from minority nationalities. And even the Loba,
Hezhe and Monba nationalities, with only several thousand people,
are represented in the NPC.
The local people's congress is the local organ of state power.
As prescribed in China's Electoral Law, in areas where the people
of minority nationalities live in compact communities, each minority
nationality of a compact community should have its own deputies
to the local people's congress. The law also has stipulations for
special consideration to be given to the deputies from each minority
nationality in the election. According to these stipulations, if
the total population of a minority nationality in a region where
people of minority nationalities live in compact communities is
less than 15 percent of the total population of the region, the
population that each deputy of the minority nationality represents
can be less than the population that each deputy to the local people's
congress represents.
The Chinese people of all nationalities are eligible to hold any
posts in the state organ and government departments. In this respect,
there is also no discrimination against the minority nationalities.
For instance, not a few members of minority nationalities are holding
or once held such high-ranking state posts as vice-president of
the state, vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC, vice-premier
of the State Council, president of the Supreme People's Court, and
vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The Law on Regional National
Autonomy prescribes that citizens of the minority nationality that
exercises regional national autonomy should serve as director or
deputy-director of the standing committee of the people's congress
of the autonomous region; and the chairman of the regional autonomous
government and head of the administration of the autonomous prefecture
and the autonomous county should be citizens of the nationality
that exercises self-government. The staff and officials of the people's
governments of the autonomous regions, and of the departments affiliated
to them, should include members of the nationality that exercises
regional national autonomy and members of other minority nationalities.
Statistics show that in 1989 the number of minority officials made
up 17.27 percent of the total number of directors and deputy-directors
of the standing committees of the people's congresses of various
provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under
the central government. The number of minority officials made up
12.66 percent of the governors or vice-governors of provinces, mayors
or deputy-mayors of municipalities, and chairmen or vicechairmen
of autonomous regions. Of the directors or deputy-directors of the
standing committees of the people's congresses at levels of city,
prefecture and autonomous prefecture, minority officials reached
14.20 percent. The number of minority officials among mayors or
deputy-mayors, commissioners and directors of prefectures took up
11.90 percent. Of the directors or deputy-directors of the standing
committees of the people's congresses at the county level, minority
officials totalled 17.30 percent. Minority officials made up 15.16
percent of county magistrates. All these proportions surpass 8 percent
which is the proportion covered by the population of the minority
nationalities in the total population of the country.
The state always pays close attention to training cadres from among
people of minority nationalities. In recent years, the number of
minority nationality cadres has gone up at a rate of more than 10,000
people annually. Now there are 37,000 Tibetan cadres throughout
Tibet, making up 66.6 percent of the total number of cadres; this
breaks down to about 72 percent at autonomous-region level and 61.2
percent at county level. The number of Mongolian cadres accounted
for 50 percent of the total number of cadres in Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region.
The rights of the national autonomous regions to economic, cultural
and social development are given special consideration. Before the
founding of the People's Republic of China, the economic, cultural
and social development in minority areas was extremely backward.
At that time, some areas were still at the stage of primitive clan
communes, with people practicing slash-and-burn cultivation. The
minority nationalities lived in dire poverty. The average life expectancy
was only 30 years, and epidemic diseases were rampant, with the
result that the population decreased year after year. After the
founding of New China, the people's government actively helped the
minority nationalities develop their economies and culture in an
effort to change their outdated mode of production. This enabled
them to leap over several historical stages of social development.
Now most of the minority nationalities have solved the problem of
food and clothing, and the total population of the minority nationalities
increased from 35 million in 1953 to 91.20 million in 1990. The
growth rate of the population of minority nationalities is faster
than that of the Hans. The average life expectancy of the minority
nationalities is over 60, an increase of more than 30 years over
the past.
In order to help minority nationalities develop their economies,
the state has carried out economic construction on a large scale
in minority areas. In some of these areas where there was no industry
at all in the past, many large modern industrial enterprises have
been set up. These include the Karamay Oilfield in Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region, the Baotou Iron and Steel Co. in the Inner Mongolia
Autonomous Region, the Longyang Xia Hydroelectric Power Station
in Qinghai, the Daba Power Plant in Guizhou, the Yangbajin Thermal
and Power Station in Tibet, the Guizhou Aluminium Works in Guizhou,
the Holingol River Coalfield in Inner Mongolia, the North Xinjiang
Railway in Xinjiang, the Sichuan-Tibet Highway and the Qinghai-Tibet
Highway. Before liberation, there were no highways worthy of the
name in Tibet. When the British wanted to send a car to the Dalai
Lama as a gift, it had to be dismantled and carried to Lhasa by
yak-back. At present, a highway network centered on Lhasa has been
built, its mileage reaching 21,800 kilometers, and many domestic
and international airlines have already opened. The state always
gives aid in the form of labor, material and financial resources
to national autonomous regions. Today the central government provides
subsidies totalling nearly 8 billion yuan a year to minority areas
in eight provinces and autonomous regions. Of them, Tibet receives
more than 1.2 billion yuan. Besides, the state also allocates special
funds totalling 600 million yuan a year to aid minority areas, such
as development funds to support underdeveloped areas, subsidies
for areas inhabited by minority nationalities, special investments
in capital construction in frontier areas, as well as operating
expenses to subsidize border construction. The government pursues
a tax-reduction and tax-exemption policy towards poverty-stricken
minority areas in addition to many special measures adopted to lighten
their financial burdens, provide preferential investment for them
and send them help in the form of brain power and wholesale contract
to enable them to get rid of poverty. Special funds have been set
up to supply food and clothing to minority areas. The government
has also arranged for the economically developed areas to provide
assistance to the economic construction in minority areas. The economic
construction in minority areas has made great progress thanks to
help from the state and efforts by the local people. The total output
value of industry and agriculture of minority regions in 1949 was
3.66 billion yuan; of this, 3.12 billion yuan came from agricultural
production and 540 million yuan from industrial production. In the
same areas the total industrial and agricultural output value in
1990 came to 227.28 billion yuan, an increase of 23.6 times by calculating
at 1980 constant price. Of this, the value of agricultural output
was 97.776 billion yuan, up 8.1 times; and 129.506 billion yuan
for industry, a hike of 135.5 times.
As for employment policy, the Chinese government has formulated
a special policy for the minority nationalities. The government
requires that state-owned enterprises in minority areas give precedence
to local citizens of the minority nationalities over all others
when recruiting workers, and that various local governments, when
recruiting workers for state-owned enterprises, should employ minority
farmers and herdsmen from rural and pastoral areas in a planned
way.
The Chinese government has greatly developed medical and health
undertakings in the minority regions, tackling the problem of shortage
of doctors and medicine that has existed for a long time there.
In 1990, health organizations in those regions increased to 31,973,
providing 359,830 hospital beds, and the ranks of doctors and nurses
have grown to 488,600. While furthering the practice of modern medicine,
the government encourages the development of traditional minority
medical practice including the Tibetan, Uygur, Mongolian and Dai
medicines. The central government has sent a large number of medical
teams to minority regions. During the period from 1973 to mid-1987,
the state organized medical teams totalling 2,600 persons from some
dozen provinces and cities and sent them into Tibet.
The Chinese government has paid a great deal of attention to maintaining
and developing the excellent traditional cultures of various nationalities,
and made tremendous efforts to promote the culture and education
of the minority nationalities. By 1990, there had been 75 institutions
of higher learning established in minority areas where in previous
years there were none. A total of 12 nationality colleges run specially
for minority nationality students have been set up in different
parts of the country. In addition, some well-known universities
including Beijing University and Qinghua University run classes
specially for minority nationality students. When enrolling new
students, colleges and vocational secondary schools appropriately
relax admission standards for minority examinees. The government
has actively created conditions for teenagers living in pastoral
and remote areas to receive education by establishing boarding schools
in minority areas, where students coming from pastoral, mountainous
and poverty-stricken areas usually enjoy grants-in-aid. The state
has transferred many teachers from inland and coastal areas to remote
minority regions to help expand educational undertakings there.
Between 1974 and 1988, the number of teachers helping in Tibet alone
numbered 2,969. The enrollment of minority students in colleges
and universities throughout the country in 1989 was 102.4 times
that of 1950; in ordinary middle schools, they totalled 70.3 times
that of 1951; and in primary schools, 11.2 times that of 1951.
China's law stipulates that all minority peoples have the freedom
to use and develop their own spoken and written languages. In the
performance of their functions, the selfgovernment organs in autonomous
regions should use one or several locally used languages according
to the regulations of autonomy set by the autonomous regions. Those
organs which simultaneously use several commonly used languages
in their work can give priority to the language of the nationality
which exercises regional autonomy. The spoken and written languages
of minority nationalities are equal to the Han language (Chinese)
in judicial activities. Citizens of all nationalities have the right
to use the language of their own nationality in legal proceedings.
Trials in regions where minority nationalities live in compact communities.
or which are inhabited by many nationalities should be conducted
in the commonly used language of the locality. Indictments, court
verdicts, notices and other documents, if necessary, should be written
in one or several local languages.
The central government supports minority nationalities in the development
of culture and education through the use of their own languages
and has helped ten minority nationalities create their own script.
Both central and regional specialized publishing houses and news
agencies were established to publish minority-language newspapers,
magazines and books, which in 1989, according to statistics, were
respectively 3.1, 7.6 and 5.8 times the number published throughout
the country in 1952. People in minority regions can tune in to the
Central People's Broadcasting Station every day to listen to programs
in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Kazak and Korean languages. Each minority
region runs radio and TV programs in one or several minority languages
appropriate to the nationality population living there.
The Chinese government fully respects the traditional culture and
customs of minority nationalities, supports various minority arts,
and encourages minority people to go in for all forms of artistic
and sports activities. People from minority areas can take holidays
on their own traditional festivals. Gold, silver and other raw materials
are allotted in certain amounts by the government to the minority
peoples for the production of the daily necessities or luxury articles
including silks, satins, shoes, hats, jewelry, jade artifacts and
gold or silver ornaments.
The disparity between the minority regions and the inland and coastal
areas arose and developed over a long historical period. For more
than 40 years since the People's Republic was founded, the Chinese
government has made positive achievements in its effort to narrow
the gap, promote social development and bring about a change for
the better in the backward minority areas.
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