China has long been a unified multi-national state. The Chinese nation is composed of 56 different nationalities. The majority of the Chinese are the Hans, who make up about 92 per cent of China's total population. But the Hans have not been of a single origin and were formed in the course of thousands of years through merging and assimilation between the Huaxia and many other nationalities. The name Han originated over two thousand years ago during the Han Dynasty.

The unification of all those nationalities into the Chinese nation was a gradual process that took thousands of years. Although the Hans played a major role in the unification, other nationalities, notably the Mongolians and the Manchus played important roles too. The magnificent Chinese national culture has not been the creation of the Hans alone. Such splended cultural relics as the murals and sculptures in the caves of Dunhuang (Gansu Province), Yungang (Shanxi Province), Longmen (Henan Province) and Kuche (Xinjinag Uygur Autonomous Region) were the cooperative work of the artists and craftsmen of the Hans and other nationalities.

The minority nationalities - so called because of their relatively smaller populations - differ greatly in size. The Zhuangs are the most numerous, totalling over 15 million, and live mostly in Guangxi, which has been designated as the Zhuang autonomous region.

There are 12 other nationalities which number more than one million each, including the Mongolians, Huis, Tibetans, Uygurs, Miaos, Koreans and Manchus.

Nine comprise less than 10,000 people, with the Russians and Hoches both less than one thousand people. (TOP)

The minority people live mainly in western China; a small number live in the north and northeast and on islands off the southeastern coast, including Taiwan and Hainan Province. The vast areas inhabited by the minority people are rivh in resources, which will soon be developed as the country's modernization progresses.

At the time of liberation in 1949, the minority nationalities were in various stages of socio-economic development. More than 30 nationalities, totalling some 30 million people, were about on a par with the Hans. Others were comparatively backward to varying degrees. They have since been enjohing equal political rights as the Hans, and have established regional autonomies to manage their own internal affairs in accordance with their ethic characteristics. Those organs of self-government now include five at the provincial level, 30 at the prefetural and many more at county levels.

Ten special institutes of higher learning have trained over 100,000 administrators and professionals from among the minority nationalities. Although this marks a 10-fold increase within more than 30 years, it is far short of meeting the needs of the economic and cultural development in many regions. For instance, 13 nationalities in Yunnan Province still have no professionals of their own, and in southern Gansu, half of the ethic cadres have had only primary education. Of the 578 counties inhabited by the minorities, half do not have any libraries.

With the envisaged shift of major economic construction efforts to the vast northwest around the turn of this century, accelerated development of culture, education, science and public health in many of the minority inhabited areas is increasingly becoming a matter of urgency.

(TOP)