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Minority Nationalities in China's Yunnan Province: Assimilation, Power, and Policy in a Socialist State

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Dorothy J. Solinger
Dorothy J. Solinger
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

The varying experiences of different minority groups in China's Yunnan province are analyzed in light of the power resources that each possesses. The size, location, and impregnability of the group account for whether or not it can exert leverage on the regime in attempting to obtain cultural, political, and economic benefits. The author found that a group's assimilability, or its propensity to change its cultural traits, is negatively correlated with its numbers, with living in an isolated territory, and with its impregnability. The treatment the group has received under the People's Republic is dependent upon the same three power resources, as affected by the regime's policy and goals. For example, efforts have been made toward the political integration of groups whose main power resource is numbers, while the regime's main goal, when faced with groups whose principal resource is impregnability, has been to maintain civic peace.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , October 1977 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1977

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References

1 Gordon, Milton M., “Toward a General Theory of Racial and Ethnic Group Relations,” in Glazer, Nathan and Moynihan, Daniel P., eds., Ethnicity: Theory and Experience (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1975), 89.Google Scholar

2 Examples of excellent studies of minorities in the PRC are: Deal, David M., “National Minority Policy in Southwest China 1911–1965,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Washington 1971)Google Scholar; June Dreyer, Teufel, “Chinese Communist Policy Toward Indigenous Minority Nationalities: A Study in National Integration,” Ph.D. diss. (Harvard University 1972)Google Scholar; Dreyer, , “China's Quest for a Socialist Solution,” Problems of Communism, XXIV (September-October 1975), 49–62Google Scholar; Dreyer, , “Traditional Minorities Elites and the CPR Elite Engaged in Minority Nationalities Work,” in Scalapino, Robert A., ed., Elites in the People's Republic of China (Seattle: University of Washington Press 1972), 416–50Google Scholar; Moseley, George V. H., “China's Fresh Approach to the National Minority Question,” China Quarterly, XXIV (September-December 1965), 15–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moseley, , The Consolidation of the South China Frontier (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973)Google Scholar; Moseley, , The Party and the National Question in China (Cambridge: The MIT Press 1966)Google Scholar; Moseley, , A Sino-Soviet Cultural Frontier: The Hi Kazakh Autonomous Chou (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Winnington, Alan, The Slaves of the Cool Mountains (London: Lawrence and Wishart 1959).Google Scholar

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6 For the purposes of this paper, location is considered in terms of its impact on a group's seclusion. Proximity to international borders, another significant aspect of location, is not dealt with here.

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8 See especially Deal (fn. 2), 8; Moseley, “The Consolidation …” (fn. 2), 22, 98–99; and Dreyer, “Chinese Communist Policy …” (fn. 2), 191–99, 355–57.

9 These are the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (1949), the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (1954), and the Constitution of the People's Republic of China (1975).

10 See Dreyer, “China's Quest …” (fn. 2), for a summary of the shifts and variations in national policy toward minorities since 1949.

11 Cf. Dreyer, “Chinese Communist Policy …” (fn. 2), 4–5.

12 Of Yunnan's minority population of approximately 6 million, 2.2 million have been said to live along its more than 2,000 kilometers of international borders.

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16 The following account draws on Fitzgerald (fn. 13), 46–74, unless otherwise noted.

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25 Ibid., chaps. 9–11, esp. pp. 34–35, 52, 62.

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27 De Beauclair (fn. 5), 13.

28 Ibid., see also Lebar, Hickey, and Musgrave (fn. 26), 25–26; Wiens (fn. 19), 94; and Clarke, Samuel R., Among the Tribes in Southwest China (Taipei: Ch'eng-wen Publishing Company 1970), 126–28.Google Scholar

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30 Lin (fn. 26), 2.

31 Ibid., 86.

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33 The following is drawn from Lebar, Hickey, and Musgrave (fn. 26), 129–30; Wiens (fn. 19), 309–11; and Winnington (fn. 2), 125–29.

34 See Lebar, Hickey, and Musgrave (fn. 26), 27–30.

35 Ibid., 9–12; Wiens (fn. 19), 293, 320–21.

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39 See Dreyer, “China's Quest…” (fn. 2).

40 The shifting means that the central government has used over time in leading the Chinese minorities toward an eventual regime goal of integration are well documented and summarized in Dreyer, “China's Quest …” (fn. 2), and Moseley, “China's Fresh Approach …” (fn. 2). For a more detailed study of these changes, see June Dreyer, Teufel, China's Forty Millions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1976).Google Scholar

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42 Autonomous areas were provided for in Article 50 of the Common Program of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference of 1949, which served as the temporary constitution of China until 1954. These areas were, in theory at any rate, to guarantee regional autonomy where national minorities are concentrated. In such places, special organs were set up according to the size of the populations involved; special attention was to be paid to respecting minority languages and customs; minority cadres were to be trained and put into office; and special economic benefits were to be granted. The Common Program is translated in Blaustein, Albert P., ed., Fundamental Legal Documents of Communist China (South Hackensack, N.J.: Fred B. Rothman 1962), 51–52.Google Scholar

43 Moseley, “The Consolidation …” (fn. 2), 66, 115; 113; 66.

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46 SCMP, No. 669 (1953), 29–30.Google Scholar

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48 Kunming Radio, April 25, 1975.

49 SCMP, No. 875 (1954), 42–45. Of 45 deputies chosen, 23 were picked from 14 minority groups. Of these, 5 were Yi, 4 were Tai, and 2 were Pai. There were also 2 Kawa, but the remaining II groups had only one representative each.Google Scholar

50 SCMP, No. 1504 (1957), 24.Google Scholar

51 SCMP, No. 496 (1953), 18.Google Scholar

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53 Large numbers and hostility do not tend to go together, probably because unassimilated groups isolated in the mountains were not numerous by 1949. However, the Kawa are a sort of counterexample with a population of 300,000 (some of whom, though, are of the “tame” branch). In their case, a divide-and-rule strategy has been followed, as noted below.

54 Moseley, “The Consolidation …” (fn. 2), 49.

55 See, for example, SCMP, No. 505 (1953), 22–24Google Scholar, and No. 589 (1953), 28.

56 Yun-nan jih-pao [hereafter YNJP], January 7, 1956.

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59 Wilmington (fn. 2), 208, describes these three modes of transition to socialism.

60 YNJP, April 5, 1956; Moseley, “The Consolidation …” (fn. 2), 95.

61 Ibid., 92; 89; 106, 118.

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63 Dreyer, “Chinese Communist Policy …” (fn. 2), 156.

64 YNJP, April 5, 1956.

65 Winnington (fn. 2), 209, notes that this policy was used for primitive groups where class divisions were unclear or minor and not recognized by the people themselves. Although the lack of perceived classes does justify omission of a reform aimed at deepening class antagonisms, it is also true that this policy need only be used for unassimilated groups, and is thus an exemption that their power wins for them.

66 Ibid., 78.

67 Deal, David M., “Policy Towards Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China, 1927–1965” (Northwest Regional Seminar on China, University of Washington 1972), 22.Google Scholar

68 Moseley, “The Consolidation …” (fn. 2), 126.

69 CNA, No. 720 (1968), 6.Google Scholar

70 According to the New York Times (April 22 and May 31, 1976), 20 Lahu and Pulang families were at the time still living outside the system in Yunnan. The Lahu, according to Lebar, Hickey and Musgrave (fn. 26), 30–32, are a proud, quarrelsome people, who, until recently, retained their autonomy in the mountains. They boasted a reputation for being able fighters against Chinese encroachments.