Ethnic Relations in China

In: The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Band 433, S. 100-111

Abstract

Due to their strategic location & their occupation of some of China's most valuable lands, the ethnic minorities of the Chinese People's Republic (CPR) have occupied the attention of the central government to a far greater degree than would be expected from their relatively insignificant 6% of the CPR's total population. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) inherited an ethnic cleavage pattern of some salience from prior governments & has been attempting to deal with it through alternating policies of tolerance for ethnic particularism with policies repressive of these particularities. The tension between these two policies forms an ongoing theme in China's leadership struggles & can be traced to two different statements by Mao Tse-tung on the proper handling of ethnic problems. The debate between proponents of the two different policies can be expected to go on, though domestic & international constraints seem to portend a continuation of the moderate measures presently in force. The leadership's dissatisfaction with the status of nationalities relations should not be allowed to obscure the CCP's successes in dealing with its ethnic minorities. Modified HA.