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Abstract

An intriguing demographic equation resides at the heart of the People’s Republic of China. The equation reads: 55 minorities + the Han = the PRC or, in shorthand format, 55+1=1. Where did this remarkable equation come from? How was it derived and why in this particular form? In an exploration of this question, the present introduction and edited volume investigates the Ethnic Classification Project (or minzu shibie), a massive state-sponsored enterprise undertaken in the PRC wherein a team of social scientists and cadres fanned out in the non-Han minority regions of China to determine once and for all the precise ethnic make-up of the nation.

Keywords

ethnic classification minzu shibie minzu categorization demography ethnology

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