Editing Ethnic minorities in China (section)

==History of ethnicity in China==
{{Further|Ethnic groups in Chinese history|Racism in China}}

===Early history===
[[File:Dinastia tang, shanxi, straniero dal volto velato, 600-750 ca.JPG|thumb|250px|An 8th-century [[Tang dynasty]] [[Chinese ceramics|Chinese clay figurine]] of a [[Sogdia]]n man (an [[Eastern Iranian languages|Eastern Iranian person]]) wearing a distinctive cap and face veil, possibly a camel rider or even a [[Zoroastrian]] priest engaging in a ritual at a [[fire temple]], since face veils were used to avoid contaminating the holy fire with breath or saliva; [[Museum of Oriental Art (Turin)]], Italy.<ref>Lee Lawrence. (3 September 2011). [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904332804576540533071105892 "A Mysterious Stranger in China"]. ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]''. Retrieved 31 August 2016.</ref>]]

Throughout much of recorded [[History of China|Chinese history]], there was little attempt by Chinese authors to separate the concepts of nationality, culture, and ethnicity.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harrell |first=Stephan |title=Cultural encounters on China's ethnic frontiers |location=Seattle |publisher=[[University of Washington Press]] |year=1996 |isbn=978-0-295-97380-7}}</ref> Those outside of the reach of imperial control and dominant patterns of Chinese culture were thought of as separate groups of people regardless of whether they would today be considered as a separate ethnicity. The self-conceptualization of [[Han Chinese|Han]] largely revolved around this center-periphery cultural divide. Thus, the process of Sinicization throughout history had as much to do with the spreading of imperial rule and culture as it did with actual ethnic migration.{{Citation needed|date=June 2021}}

This understanding persisted (with some changes during the [[Qing dynasty]] due to the importation of Western ideas) until the [[Chinese Communist Revolution|Communists seized power in 1949]]. Their understanding of minorities had been heavily influenced by the policies of the Soviet leader [[Joseph Stalin]] and his [[Marxism and the National Question|1913 pamphlet on the subject]]—and they also influenced the Communist regimes in the neighbouring countries of [[Vietnam]] and [[Laos]]<ref>Michaud J., 2009 Handling Mountain Minorities in China, Vietnam and Laos : From History to Current Issues. Asian Ethnicity 10(1): 25–49.</ref>—but the Soviet definition of minorities did not cleanly map onto the Chinese people's historical definition of minorities. Soviet thinking about minorities was based on the belief that a nation consisted of people who spoke and wrote a common language, people whose culture was historic, and historic territory. Therefore, The people who inhabited each nation had the theoretical right to secede from a proposed federated government.<ref>{{cite book |last=Blaut |first=J. M. |chapter=The Theory of National Minorities |title=The National Question: Decolonizing the Theory of Nationalism |location=London |publisher=Zed Books |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-86232-439-1}}</ref> This differed from the previous way of thinking mainly in that instead of defining all those under imperial rule as Chinese, the nation (as defined as a space upon which power is projected) and ethnicity (the identity of the governed) were now separate; being under central rule no longer automatically meant being defined as Chinese. The Soviet model as applied to China gave rise to the autonomous regions in China; these areas were thought to be their own nations that had theoretical autonomy from the central government.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ma |first=Rong |title=The Soviet Model's Influence and the Current Debate on Ethnic Relations |journal=Global Asia |date=June 2010}}</ref>

During [[World War II]], the American Asiatic Association published an entry in the 40th volume of their academic journal, ''Asia'', concerning the problem of whether [[Islam in China|Chinese Muslim]]s were Chinese or a separate 'ethnic minority', and the factors which led to either classification.<ref name=":3" /> It tackled the question of why Muslims who were Chinese were considered a different race from other Chinese, and the separate question of whether all Muslims in China were united into one race. The first problem was posed with a comparison to Chinese Buddhists, who were not considered a separate race.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gIBCAAAAYAAJ|title=The Moslem World, Volumes 31–34|author=Hartford Seminary Foundation|year=1941|publisher=Hartford Seminary Foundation|page=182|access-date=8 May 2011}}</ref> It concluded that the reason Chinese Muslims were considered separate was because of different factors like religion, culture, military feudalism, and that considering them a "racial minority" was wrong. It also came to the conclusion that the Japanese military spokesman was the only person who was propagating the false assertion that Chinese Muslims had "[[racial unity]]", which was disproved by the fact that Muslims in China were composed of multitudes of different races, separate from each other as were the "Germans and English", such as the Mongol Hui of Hezhou, Salar Hui of Qinghai, and Chan Tou Hui of Turkistan. The Japanese were trying to spread the lie that Chinese Muslims were one race, in order to propagate the claim that they should be separated from China into an "independent political organization."<ref name=":3">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CKc5AQAAIAAJ|title=Asia: journal of the American Asiatic Association, Volume 40|author=American Asiatic Association|year=1940|publisher=Asia Pub. Co.|page=660|access-date=8 May 2011}}</ref>

===Distinguishing nationalities in the PRC===
Early documents of the People's Republic of China (PRC), such as the 1982 constitution,<ref>[http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/english/constitution/constDetail.jsp?pages=10 Constitution of the People's Republic of China] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060523174831/http://www.npc.gov.cn/zgrdw/english/constitution/constDetail.jsp?pages=10 |date=23 May 2006 }}, 4 December 1982. Retrieved 27 February 2007.</ref> followed the [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] practice of identifying '[[Nationalities (ethnic affiliations)|nationalities]]' in the sense of ethnic groups (the concept is not to be confused with state citizenship).<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1">Moseley, George. "China's Fresh Approach to the National Minority Question." ''[[The China Quarterly]]''.</ref> The Chinese term {{Transliteration|zh|mínzú}} ({{Lang-zh|c={{wikt-lang|zh|民族}}|s=|t=|p=|labels=no}}), made during the Republican period, translates this Soviet concept. The English translation (common in official documents) of 'nationality' again follows Soviet practice; in order to avoid confusion, however, alternative phraseology such as 'ethnicity' or 'ethnic group' is often used. Since the [[Anthropology|anthropological]] concept of ''ethnicity'' does not precisely match the Chinese or Soviet concepts (which, after all, are defined and regulated by the state), some scholars use the [[neologism]] ''zuqun'' ({{Lang-zh|c={{wikt-lang|zh|族群}}|s=|t=|p=|labels=no}}, '[[ethnic group]]') to unambiguously refer to ethnicity.<ref name=":2" />

After 1949, a team of social scientists was assembled to enumerate the various ''mínzú''. An immediate difficulty was that identities "on the ground" did not necessarily follow logically from things like shared languages or cultures; two neighboring regions might seem to share a common culture, and yet insist on their distinct identities.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mullaney |first=Thomas |title=Seeing for the State: The Role of Social Scientists in China's Ethnic Classification Project |journal=Asian Ethnicity |volume=11 |issue=3 |year=2010 |pages=325–342 |doi=10.1080/14631369.2010.510874|s2cid=145787875 }}</ref> Since this would lead to absurd results—every village could hardly send a representative to the [[National People's Congress]]—the social scientists attempted to construct coherent groupings of minorities using language as the main criterion for differentiation. Thus some villages with very different cultural practices and histories were lumped together under the same ethnonym. For example, the "[[Zhuang people|Zhuang]]" ethnic group largely served as a catch-all for various hill villages in [[Guangxi]] province.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kaup |first=Katherine Palmer |title=Regionalism versus Ethnic nationalism |journal=The China Quarterly |volume=172 |year=2002 |pages=863–884 |doi=10.1017/s0009443902000530|s2cid=154596032 }}</ref>

The actual census taking of who was and was not a minority further eroded the neat differentiating lines the social scientists had drawn up. Individual ethnic status was often awarded based on family tree histories. If one had a father (or mother, for ethnic groups that were considered [[Matrilineality|matrilineal]]) that had a surname considered to belong to a particular ethnic group, then one was awarded the coveted minority status. This had the result that villages that had previously thought of themselves as homogenous and essentially Han were now divided between those with ethnic identity and those without.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Mullaney |first=Thomas |title=Ethnic Classification Writ Large: The 1954 Yunnan Province Ethnic Classification Project and its Foundations in Republican-Era Taxonomic Thought |journal=China Information |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=207–241 |year=2004|doi=10.1177/0920203X04044685 |s2cid=146596892 }}</ref>

The team of social scientists that assembled the list of all the ethnic groups also described what they considered to be the key differentiating attributes between each group, including culture, custom, and language. The center then used this list of attributes to select representatives of each group to perform on television and radio in an attempt to reinforce the government's narrative of China as a multi-ethnic state and to prevent the culture of the minority ethnic groups from assimilating by the Han and the rest of the world.<ref name = gladney>{{cite journal |last=Gladney |first=Dru C. |s2cid=162540993 |title=Representing Nationality in China: Refiguring Majority/Minority Identities |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |volume=53 |issue=1 |year=1994 |pages=92–123 |jstor=2059528 |doi=10.2307/2059528}}</ref> However, with the development of modern technology, these attempts brought little effect. In fact, many of those labeled as specific minorities bore no relationship to the music, clothing, and other practices presented with images and representations of "their people" in the media.

Under this process, 39 ethnic groups were recognized by the [[First National Population Census of the People's Republic of China|first national census]] in 1954. This further increased to 54 by the [[Second National Population Census of the People's Republic of China|second national census]] in 1964, with the Lhoba group added in 1965. The last change was the addition of the [[Jino people]] in 1979, bringing the number of recognized ethnic groups to the current 56.

===Reform and opening up===
[[File:Ethnolinguistic map of China 1983.png|thumb|278x278px|right|Ethnolinguistic map of China in 1983.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/china_ethnolinguistic_83.jpg|title=China - Ethnolinguistic Groups 1983|publisher=University of Texas Libraries|year=1983|access-date=20 September 2019}}</ref>]]However, as China [[Chinese economic reform|opened up and reformed]] post-1979, many Han acquired enough money to begin to travel. One of the favorite travel experiences of the wealthy was visits to minority areas, to see the exotic rituals of the minority peoples.<ref>{{Citation |last=Oakes |first=Timothy S. |title=2. Ethnic Tourism in Rural Guizhou: Sense of Place and the Commerce of Authenticity |date=2017-12-31 |work=Tourism, Ethnicity, and the State in Asian and Pacific Societies |pages=35–70 |editor-last=Picard |editor-first=Michel |publisher=[[University of Hawaii Press]] |doi=10.1515/9780824865252-003 |isbn=978-0-8248-6525-2 |editor2-last=Wood |editor2-first=Robert E.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |url=http://crawford.anu.edu.au/pdf/staff/ben_hillman/2013/paradise-under-construction.pdf |last=Hillman |first=Ben |title= Paradise under Construction: Minorities, Myths and Modernity in Northwest Yunnan |journal=Asian Ethnicity |volume=4 |issue=2 |year=2003 |pages=177–190 |doi=10.1080/14631360301654|s2cid=143987010 }}</ref> Responding to this interest, many minority entrepreneurs, despite themselves perhaps never having grown up practicing the dances, rituals, or songs themselves, began to cater to these tourists by performing acts similar to what the older generation or the local residents told. In this way, the groups of people named [[Zhuang people|Zhuang]] or other named minorities have begun to have more in common with their fellow co-ethnics, as they have adopted similar self-conceptions in response to the economic demand of consumers for their performances.{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

The categorization of 55 minority groups was a major step forward from denial of the existence of different ethnic groups in China which had been the policy of [[Sun Yat-sen|Sun Yet-Sen]]'s Nationalist government that came to power in 1911, which also engaged in the common use of derogatory names to refer to minorities (a practice officially abolished in 1951).<ref name=":0" /> However, the Communist Party's categorization was also rampantly criticized since it reduced the number of recognized ethnic groups by eightfold,{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}} and today the ''wei shibie menzu'' (literally 'undistinguished ethnic groups') total more than 730,000 people. These groups include Geija, Khmu, [[Kucong]], Mang, Deng, Sherpas, Bajia and Youtai (Jewish).{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

After the [[breakup of Yugoslavia]] and the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]], there was a shift in official conceptions of minorities in China: rather than defining them as 'nationalities', they became 'ethnic groups'. The difference between 'nationality' and 'ethnicity', as Uradyn Erden-Bulag describes it, is that the former treats the minorities of China as societies with "a fully functional division of labor," history, and territory, whereas the latter treats minorities as a "category" and focuses on their maintenance of boundaries and their self-definition in relation to the majority group. These changes are reflected in uses of the term {{Transliteration|zh|mínzú}} ({{Lang-zh|c={{wikt-lang|zh|民族}}|s=|t=|p=|labels=no}}) and its translations. The official journal ''Minzu Tuanjie'' changed its English name from ''Nationality Unity'' to ''Ethnic Unity'' in 1995. Similarly, the Central University for Nationalities changed its name to [[Minzu University of China]]. Scholars began to prefer the term ''zuqun'' ({{Lang-zh|c={{wikt-lang|zh|族群}}|s=|t=|p=|labels=no}}, 'ethnic group') over ''minzu''.<ref>{{Cite book |author3=Uradyn Erden-Bulag|chapter=Alter/native Mongolian identity: From nationality to ethnic group|pages=261–287|title=Chinese Society: Change, conflict and resistance|first1=Elizabeth J.|last1=Perry|first2=Mark|last2=Selden|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-203-85631-4}}</ref> The Chinese model for identifying and categorizing ethnic minorities established at the founding of the PRC followed the Soviet model, drawing inspiration from [[Marxism and the National Question|Joseph Stalin's 1913 "four commons" criteria]] to identify ethnic groups: "(1) a distinct language; (2) a recognized indigenous homeland or common territory; (3) a common economic life; and (4) a strong sense of identity and distinctive customs, including dress, religion and foods."{{Citation needed|date=May 2021}}

Following the breakup of the Soviet Union intellectuals and policymakers within China began to argue that the designation of minority groups could be a threat to the country. Violence in Xinjiang and Tibet provided evidence for this argument. Beijing University professor Ma Rong argued that the Chinese Communist Party had unwittingly created a "dual structure" of governance in which the representation and identity given to recognized ethnic groups would increase ethnocultural differences and create social conflict. He recommended new policies of ethnic fusion and assimilation. These proposals made by Ma and others were controversial at the time, but they would find a place at the heart of the policy of the [[Xi Jinping Administration|Xi Jinping administration]]. Xi has shifted state policy towards assimilation in what he calls the "grand minzu fusion" or "the coalescing of blood and minds."<ref name= "Leibold 2021" >{{cite web |last1=Leibold |first1=James |title=Beyond Xinjiang: Xi Jinping's Ethnic Crackdown |url=https://magazine.thediplomat.com/#/issues/-MYn5h79Zquc0uO7CAyx/read |website=thediplomat.com |publisher=The Diplomat |access-date=5 May 2021}}</ref> The CCP under Xi has reacted to violence committed by a number of [[Uyghurs]] by the imprisonment of this group in the [[Xinjiang internment camps]].<ref>{{Cite news|date=2020-01-09|title=Dismantling China's Muslim gulag in Xinjiang is not enough|newspaper=The Economist|url=https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/09/dismantling-chinas-muslim-gulag-in-xinjiang-is-not-enough|access-date=2020-11-16|issn=0013-0613|quote=A tiny minority have made their displeasure known violently. China has reacted by building a vast network of prison camps and tossing perhaps 1m Uighurs into it for "vocational training"}}</ref>

In 2020, a Han Chinese person was named director of the [[State Ethnic Affairs Commission]] for the first time since 1954.<ref name= "Leibold 2021" />