Multicultural China: A Brief View

Abstract

Throughout history, race, language and religion have divided China as much as physical terrain, political fiat and conquest. However, it is always a politically sensitive issue to identify those non-Han people as different ethnic groups. As a result, the total number of ethnic groups has never been fixed precisely in China. For example, in 1953, only 42 ethnic peoples were identified, while the number increased to 54 in 1964 and 56 in 1982. Of course, this does not include the unknown ethnic groups as well as foreigners with Chinese citizenship.

Notes

The text in this chapter is prepared by Rongxing Guo based on the following sources: (i) The Ethnic Minorities in China [title in Chinese: “zhongguo shaoshu minzu”, edited by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) of the People’s Republic of China and published in 2010 by the Central Nationality University Press, Beijing] and (ii) the introductory text of China’s 56 ethnic groups (in Chinese, available at http://www.seac.gov.cn/col/col107/index.html, accessed on 2013-11-20). The photos that are adopted in this chapter are drawn by Zhou Xiuqing and Jin Xiang under the financial support received from the State Post Bureau (SPB) of the People’s Republic of China.