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China Policy
Since 1949 government policy toward minorities has been based
on the somewhat contradictory goals of national unity and the
protection of minority equality and identity. The state
constitution of 1954 declared the country to be a "unified,
multinational state" and prohibited "discrimination against or
oppression of any nationality and acts which undermine the unity of
the nationalities." All nationalities were granted equal rights and
duties. Policy toward the ethnic minorities in the 1950s was based
on the assumption that they could and should be integrated into the
Han polity by gradual assimilation, while permitted initially to
retain their own cultural identity and to enjoy a modicum of selfrule . Accordingly, autonomous regions were established in which
minority languages were recognized, special efforts were mandated
to recruit a certain percentage of minority cadres, and minority
culture and religion were ostensibly protected. The minority areas
also benefited from substantial government investment.
Yet the attention to minority rights took place within the
larger framework of strong central control. Minority nationalities,
many with strong historical and recent separatist or anti-Han
tendencies, were given no rights of self-determination. With the
special exception of Xizang in the 1950s, Beijing administered
minority regions as vigorously as Han areas, and Han cadres filled
the most important leadership positions. Minority nationalities
were integrated into the national political and economic
institutions and structures. Party statements hammered home the
idea of the unity of all the nationalities and downplayed any part
of minority history that identified insufficiently with China
Proper. Relations with the minorities were strained because of
traditional Han attitudes of cultural superiority. Central
authorities criticized this "Han chauvinism" but found its
influence difficult to eradicate.
Pressure on the minority peoples to conform were stepped up in
the late 1950s and subsequently during the Cultural Revolution.
Ultraleftist ideology maintained that minority distinctness was an
inherently reactionary barrier to socialist progress. Although in
theory the commitment to minority rights remained, repressive
assimilationist policies were pursued. Minority languages were
looked down upon by the central authorities, and cultural and
religious freedom was severely curtailed or abolished. Minority
group members were forced to give up animal husbandry in order to
grow crops that in some cases were unfamiliar. State subsidies were
reduced, and some autonomous areas were abolished. These policies
caused a great deal of resentment, resulting in a major rebellion
in Xizang in 1959 and a smaller one in Xinjiang in 1962, the latter
bringing about the flight of some 60,000 Kazak herders across the
border to the Soviet Union. Scattered reports of violence in
minority areas in the 1966-76 decade suggest that discontent was
high at that time also.
After the arrest of the
Gang of Four (see Glossary) in 1976,
policies toward the ethnic minorities were moderated regarding
language, religion and culture, and land-use patterns, with the
admission that the assimilationist policies had caused considerable
alienation. The new leadership pledged to implement a bona fide
system of autonomy for the ethnic minorities and placed great
emphasis on the need to recruit minority cadres.
Although the minorities accounted for only about 7 percent of
China's population, the minority deputies to the National People's
Congress made up 13.5 percent of all representatives to the
congress in 1985, and 5 of the 22 vice chairmen of its Standing
Committee (23 percent) in 1983 were minority nationals. A Mongol,
Ulanhu, was elected vice president of China in June 1983.
Nevertheless, political administration of the minority areas was
the same as that in Han regions, and the minority nationalities
were subject to the dictates of the Chinese Communist Party.
Despite the avowed desire to integrate the minorities into the
political mainstream, the party was not willing to share key
decision-making powers with the ethnic minorities. As of the late
1970s, the minority nationality cadres accounted for only 3 to 5
percent of all cadres.
Under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese government
in the mid-1980s was pursuing a liberal policy toward the national
minorities. Full autonomy became a constitutional right, and policy
stipulated that Han cadres working in the minority areas learn the
local spoken and written languages. Significant concessions were
made to Xizang, historically the most nationalistic of the minority
areas. The number of Tibetan cadres as a percentage of all cadres
in Xizang increased from 50 percent in 1979 to 62 percent in 1985.
In Zhejiang Province the government formally decided to assign only
cadres familiar with nationality policy and sympathetic to
minorities to cities, prefectures, and counties with large numbers
of minority people. In Xinjiang the leaders of the region's
fourteen prefectural and city governments and seventy-seven of all
eighty-six rural and urban leaders were of minority nationality.
Data as of July 1987
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