China, with a territory of 9,600,000 km2 and 1.3 billion people (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2001, 2003b), is a vast and the most populous country in the world. From the hinterlands of the north to the lush jungles in the south, from the mountains of Taiwan in the east to the top of the world in the west, China is home to 56 official ethnic groups. The largest group, Han, makes up over 92% of the population, and it is the Han civilization that the world considers to be Chinese culture. Yet the 55 ethnic minorities nestled away on China’s vast frontiers maintain their own languages and rich traditions and customs (Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, 2007). The 104.49 million ethnic minority people account for 8.41% of the nation’s total population (Information Office of China’s State Council, 2005). The five largest ethnic minority groups (Tian, 1991) are Zhuang (15 million), Manchu (9.8 million), Moslems or Hui (8.6 million), Miao (7.4 million), and Uygur or Weiwu’er (7.2 million). While the Han are concentrated mainly in the Northeast Plain and the middle and lower reaches of the three major rivers (the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl rivers), 95% of the minority population lives in the underdeveloped northwest, west and southwest border regions of China, which account for 64% of the nation’s territory and boast the richest natural resources of minerals, grazing land, forests and water. Except for Hui and Manchu, who speak Mandarin as Han does, all other 53 minorities have their own languages, which amounts to a total of more than 70 tongues (Xinhua, 2005b).
In the 1950s, five provinces with large minority populations were designated as autonomous minority nationality regions: Xinjiang, Inner-Mongolia, Tibet, Ningxia, and Guangxi. This constitutes the basic principles of Chinese ethnic relations: equality, respect, solidarity, and mutual assistance (Wangden, 2006). It means increased local control over the administration of resources, taxes, birth planning, education, legal jurisdiction, and religious expression. The central government would provide social and cultural services, including education.
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Wan, G., Jun, Y. (2008). How China Best Educates Its Ethnic Minority Children: Strategies, Experience and Challenges. In: Wan, G. (eds) The Education of Diverse Student Populations. Explorations of Educational Purpose, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8204-7_8
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