‘Time ripe’ to build on minorities’ advantage
Print Edition
China must use the linguistic and cultural links of its ethnic minorities with neighboring countries to help develop its poor border areas, but also guard against an infiltration of extremists, a senior official wrote in an influential journal.
China has 55 minority groups, from larger communities like Tibetans and Mongols to tiny ones such as the traditionally shamanistic Evenki. Many languish in poverty.
Lack of development has been seen by the government as a drawback when separatists stir up unrest in west China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which borders Central Asia.
Wang Zhengwei, head of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, said the time has come to promote the economic advantage China has with its minorities.
“Minority areas must develop their own advantages,” he wrote in the latest issue of bimonthly Party magazine Qiushi.
“Many minorities who live on the borders are linked by common mountains and rivers with neighboring states, speak the same language, have similar cultures and customs,” the article said.
Eight countries on China’s borders are nations made up of groups that also live in China, and the cultural connections go even further, he said.
“In Xinjiang, Ningxia and other places there are many Muslims, just like in Arab countries. In Tibet and Yunnan there are many Buddhists, just like on the Indochina Peninsula,” it said.
“This can become a bridge for communication between the peoples of different countries along the periphery and a beneficial condition for promoting the construction of ‘one road, one belt,’” he said, referring to China’s plan to build a new Silk Road.
Wang also mentioned long-held concerns about its minorities, that the periodic unrest that affects Tibet, Xinjiang and other areas is being provoked by separatists ethnic kin outside China.
“We must ... resolutely prevent and crack down on in accordance with the law infiltration, damaging, separatist and subversive activities by enemy forces at home and abroad,” the article said.
“We must ... prevent extremist thoughts and forces from creating divisions between different cultures.”
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
