III. Regional Autonomy for Ethnic Minorities
In China regional autonomy for ethnic minorities is a basic policy
adopted by the Chinese government in line with the actual conditions of
China, and also an important part of the political system of China.
Regional autonomy for ethnic minorities means that under the unified
leadership of the state regional autonomy is practiced in areas where
people of ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities; in these
areas organs of self-government are established for the exercise of
autonomy and for people of ethnic minorities to become masters of their
own areas and manage the internal affairs of their own regions.
Autonomous areas for ethnic minorities in China include autonomous
regions, autonomous prefectures and autonomous counties (banners). 1)
Autonomous areas are established where people of one ethnic minority live
in concentrated communities, such as the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region; 2) autonomous areas are established where two ethnic minorities
live in concentrated communities, such as the Haixi Mongolian-Tibetan
Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province; 3) autonomous areas are
established where several ethnic minorities live in concentrated
communities, such as the Longsheng Ethnic Minorities Autonomous County in
the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; 4) autonomous areas are established
within a larger autonomous area where people of an ethnic minority with a
smaller population live in concentrated communities, such as the
Gongcheng Yao Autonomous County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region;
5) autonomous areas are established for people of one ethnic minority who
live in concentrated communities in different places, such as the Ningxia
Hui Autonomous Region, the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture in Gansu
Province and the Dachang Hui Autonomous County in Hebei Province. For
places where ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities but where
autonomous areas and organs of self-government are not fit to be
established because the areas and populations of the ethnic minorities
are too small, ethnic townships are established so that the minority
peoples there can also exercise their rights as masters of their
homelands. Ethnic townships are a supplement to the system of regional
autonomy.
By the end of 1998, five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures
and 120 autonomous counties (banners) had been established, as well as
1,256 ethnic townships. Among the 55 ethnic minorities, 44 have their own
autonomous areas, with a population of 75 percent of the total of the
ethnic minorities and an area of 64 percent of the area of the whole
country. The number and distribution of the autonomous areas are
basically the same as the distribution and composition of the ethnic
groups nationwide7.
The following are the three reasons for China to practice the system of
regional autonomy for ethnic minorities: First, it conforms to the
conditions and historical traditions of China, because China has been
centralized and united country over a long period of time. Second, over a
long period of time China's ethnic groups have lived together over vast
areas while some live in individual concentrated communities in small
areas. The Han population accounts for the majority of the total
population of the country, while the populations of ethnic minorities are
in the minority. In the early period of the People's Republic of China,
ethnic minorities only accounted for six percent of China's total
population. In most multi-ethnic group areas the population of the
national minorities is less than that of the Han people except in Tibet,
Xinjiang and a few other regions. The national minorities are distributed
over large areas, in more than half of the total territory of China.
Economic and cultural contacts over long periods have evolved among them
a relationship in which cooperation and mutual assistance, rather than
separation, is the best choice for them. Third, following the outbreak of
the Opium War in 1840, all the ethnic groups of China were faced with the
common task and destiny of struggling against imperialism and feudalism
and striving for national liberation. In the long-term revolutionary
struggle against foreign enemies and for national independence and
liberation, the various ethnic groups have developed a close
interrelationship characterized by the sharing of weal and woe, and the
common political understanding that the Han people cannot go without the
minority peoples nor can the minority peoples go without the Han people
or one minority people can go without another minority people. So a solid
political and social foundation for the establishment of a united New
China and the practice of regional autonomy in minority areas was laid in
that period.
Regional autonomy for ethnic minorities conforms with the national
interests and the fundamental interests of the people of all ethnic
groups in China. The practice of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities
has ensured their equal footing and equal rights politically and
satisfied the desire of all the ethnic minorities to take an active part
in nation's political activities to a large extent. According to the
principle of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities, an ethnic group may
establish an autonomous area in a region where it lives in concentrated
communities, or it may establish several autonomous areas at different
administrative levels in other parts of the country in line with the
distribution of the ethnic group. The practice of regional autonomy not
only ensures the rights of the ethnic minorities to exercise autonomy as
masters of their homelands, but also upholds the unification of the
state. It enhances the combination of state policies and principles and
the concrete conditions of the ethnic minority areas and the integrated
development of the state and the ethnic minorities, the better for each
to give free rein to its own advantages.
The system of regional autonomy in China has two distinguishing features.
First, regional autonomy is under the unified leadership of the state,
and the autonomous areas are inseparable parts of China. The organs of
self-government of the autonomous areas are local governments under the
leadership of the Central Government, and they must be subordinated to
the centralized and unified leadership of the Central Government. The
concrete conditions and requirements of the various minority areas must
be taken into full consideration and assistance and support solicited
from all quarters when policies and plans are formulated and economic and
cultural construction is conducted by the organs of state at higher
levels. Second, regional autonomy for ethnic minorities in China is not
only ethnic autonomy or local autonomy, but is the integration of ethnic
and regional factors and the combination of political and economic
factors. The practice of regional autonomy in China should be beneficial
to the unification of the country, social stability and the unity of all
ethnic groups; it should also benefit the development and progress of the
ethnic group that practices autonomy and assist in national construction.
The establishment of the system of regional autonomy for ethnic
minorities has undergone long period of exploration and practice. Under
the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the first provincial-level
autonomous region--the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region-- was founded in
1947. The Common Program of the CPPCC, adopted at the first CPPCC session
on September 29, 1949 and serving as the country's provisional
constitution, defined regional autonomy for ethnic minorities as a basic
policy and one of the important political systems of the state. The
Program for the Implementation of Ethnic Regional Autonomy of the
People's Republic of China, issued on August 8, 1952, embodied overall
arrangements for the implementation of regional autonomy for national
minorities. The Constitution of the People's Republic of China adopted in
1954 and later amended and promulgated defines such autonomy as an
important political system of state. The Law of the People's Republic of
China on Ethnic Regional Autonomy, promulgated in 1984, contains
systematic provisions on the political, economic and cultural rights and
duties of ethnic minority autonomous areas. After the founding of the
People's Republic of China, four autonomous regions were established
successively: the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, founded in October
1955; the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, founded in March 1958; the
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, founded in October 1958; and the Tibet
Autonomous Region, founded in September 1965.
The Constitution stipulates that the organs of self-government of
autonomous areas are the people's congresses and people's governments of
autonomous regions, autonomous prefectures and autonomous counties. The
establishment and organization of organs of self-government of autonomous
areas are based on the basic principles of the people's congress system,
but these organs are different from ordinary local state organs. The Law
on Ethnic Regional Autonomy stipulates that all ethnic groups in
autonomous areas shall elect an appropriate number of deputies to take
part in the people's congresses at various levels; among the chairman or
vice-chairmen of the standing committee of the people's congress of an
autonomous area there shall be one or more citizens of the ethnic group
or groups exercising regional autonomy in the area concerned; the head of
an autonomous region, autonomous prefecture or autonomous county shall be
a citizen of the ethnic group exercising regional autonomy in the area
concerned, and the other members of the people's governments of these
regions, prefectures and counties shall include members of the ethnic
group exercising regional autonomy as well as members of other ethnic
minorities as far as possible.
While exercising the functions and powers of a local organ of state,
organs of self-government in autonomous areas at the same time exercise
other functions and powers as stipulated by the Constitution and the Law
on Ethnic Regional Autonomy. These include legislative power, the power
to flexibly carry out, or halt the carrying out of, some decisions, the
right to develop their economics and control the local finances, the
power to train and employ cadres belonging to ethnic minorities, the
power to develop education and ethnic culture, the power to develop and
employ the local spoken and written languages, and the power to develop
technological, scientific and cultural and undertakings.
--The people's congresses of the autonomous areas have the right to enact
regulations on the exercise of autonomy and separate regulations in light
of local political, economic and cultural characteristics. By the end of
1998, 126 regulations on the exercise of autonomy and 209 separate
regulations had been enacted by the autonomous areas.
--If resolutions, decisions, orders and instructions from the
higher-level state organs are not suited to the actual conditions of the
autonomous areas, the organs of self-government of these areas may be
flexible in carrying them out or may decide not to carry them out after
approval by the higher state organs. According to Article 36 of the
Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China, supplementary regulations
have been worked out for carrying out the Marriage Law by the five
autonomous regions and some autonomous prefectures in line with their own
actual conditions. They changed the legal marriage age from ``not below
22'' to ''not below 20 for men'' and from ``not below 20'' to ''not below
18 for women.''
--Organs of self-government of autonomous areas may independently arrange
and manage local economic construction within the guidance of state
planning, and formulate policies, principles and plans for their economic
construction according to their local characteristics and requirements.
Owing to the adoption of a series of policies and measures suitable for
the concrete conditions of local economic development, the economy of the
Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has seen rapid development. In 1998, its
GDP had reached 119.202 billion yuan, with a per capita average GDP of
5,067 yuan, and its revenue was 13.12 billion yuan, with per capita
average incomes of 4,353 yuan and 1,981 yuan in urban and rural areas,
respectively--increases of 9.6 , 7.5, 17.9, 10.4 and 11.3 percent8.
--The organs of self-government in the autonomous areas have trained a
large number of minority cadres, technicians, management personnel and
other specialized personnel and skilled workers in line with the needs of
national construction and brought their roles in work into full play.
There were 372,900 minority cadres in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region in 1998, accounting for 35 percent of the total cadres in Guangxi.
The chief leaders of the governments of the 12 autonomous counties of
this region are from the ethnic minorities exercising regional autonomy
and the heads of the region's 62 ethnic townships are also from the
ethnic minorities that have established such townships. Minority Party
and government leaders of prefectures (cities), counties and townships in
this region account for 26.92 percent, 39.71 percent and 48.03 percent of
the total Party and government leaders of this region, respectively.
Among the reserve cadres at the provincial, prefectural and county
levels, minority cadres account for 46 percent, 32 percent, and 35
percent, respectively. In 1998, Tibetan cadres accounted for 74.9 percent
of the total in the Tibet Autonomous Region, and at the regional,
prefectural and county levels Tibetan cadres and cadres from other local
ethnic minorities accounted for 78 percent, 67 percent and 62 percent,
respectively. At the same time, cadres from the Tibetan and other ethnic
minorities account for more than 60 percent in the scientific and
technological departments.
--Organs of self-government of autonomous areas may decide their own
local education programs, including the establishment of schools, the
length of study, the forms of school running, course contents, language
of instruction and procedures of enrollment and develop independently
their own type of education based on their ethnic minority
characteristics and within the state education policies and relevant laws
(see Table 1). Before 1949, the illiteracy rate was upwards of 95 percent
in Ningxia, and there was not a single institution of higher learning.
But today, a rational multi-level educational system embracing different
types of school that complement each other for coordinated development is
in place in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. By 1998, there were 6,100
different kinds of schools in Ningxia, with a total of 1.3 million
students. Among them there were five institutions of higher learning,
with 11,000 students. As a result, in this region 89.5 percent of the
people are literate. In old Tibet, there were no schools in the modern
sense, and the illiteracy rate was 95 percent. But by 1998, there were
4,365 schools of all levels in the Tibet Autonomous Region. About 81.3
percent of school-age children now attend school, and the illiteracy rate
has been reduced by 47 percentage points
Table 1 Educational Development in National Minority Autonomous
Areas in 1952 and 1998
Item 1952 1998
institutions of higher learning 11 94
students in institutions of higher learning (10,000 persons) 0.45 22.64
secondary schools 531 13,466
students in secondary schools (10,000 persons) 20.94 529.64
primary schools 59,597 90,704
students in primary schools (10,000 persons) 467.31 1,240.90
The Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province has made
considerable progress in its education in the past 50 years, proving
itself worthy of its time-honored reputation as ``home of education.''
According to the latest statistics, 99.97 percent of school age children
in this prefecture were in primary schools in 1998, 99.98 percent of them
have entered secondary schools of all types and 95.2 percent of them have
entered regular junior middle schools, with a graduation rate of 96.8
percent. Nine-year compulsory education is virtually universal in this
prefecture. Higher education, vocational education and adult education
have gradually got onto the track of coordinated development. The
proportion of graduates from universities and secondary specialized
schools and intellectuals of the intermediate rank and above in the
population of Yanbian exceeds the average number in the country.
--Organs of self-government of autonomous areas make their own decisions
concerning medical and health work. Modern medicine and traditional
ethnic minority medicine are promoted, prevention and cure of endemic
diseases and maternal and child care have been improved, with the result
that the health standards of the ethnic minorities across the country
have markedly improved ( see Table 2).
Table 2 Development of Medical and Health Service in National
Minority Autonomous Areas in 1952 and 1998
Item 1952 1998
medical and health institutions 1,176 16,700
hospital beds 5,711 393,000
medical technicians 17,877 605,255
one medical institution per 47,619 people 10,139 people
number of hospital beds per thousand people 0.10 2.32
one medical technician per 3,132 people 341 people
It took only three years for the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region after
its founding to check the spread of the plague. The Ningxia Hui
Autonomous Region controlled the spread of the plague in 1963. In 1961,
smallpox was eliminated throughout the whole country, including minority
areas. The life span of Tibetans has increased to 65 years from 36 in
1959, the year of the democratic reform started. The infant mortality
rate shrank to 3.7 percent in 1998 from 43 percent 40 years previously in
Tibet. The life span of the people of Ningxia has increased to 69 from 30
before 1949.
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