Ethnic Relations in China

Abstract

Due to their strategic location and their occupation of some of China's most valuable lands, the ethnic minorities of the Chinese People's Republic have occupied the attention of the central government to a far greater degree than would be expected from their relatively insignificant 6 percent of the CPR's total population. The Chinese Communist party inherited an ethnic cleavage pat tern of some salience from prior governments and has been trying 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 and can be traced to two different statements by Mao Tse-tung on the proper handling of ethnic problems. The debate be tween proponents of the two different policies can be ex pected to go on, though domestic and international con straints 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.