Regional ethnic autonomy: thinking and actions on the reconstruction of a unified multi-ethnic country by the CPC

Abstract

The founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) established and consolidated a new type of socialist ethnic relations, and the people of all ethnic groups in China have embarked on a socialist road since then. This “had never occurred in thousands of years” in the history of China’s ethnic relations and was based on the correct path for solving ethnic issues with Chinese characteristics pioneered by the Communist Party of China (CPC), the institutional core of which is the system of regional ethnic autonomy. So to speak, the system of regional ethnic autonomy, as a fundamental political system of the country, is the reconstruction of the important content and system of ethnic relations and the reconstruction of the governance system of a unified multi-ethnic country. Around the year of 1949, the Chinese communists planned the system of regional ethnic autonomy in a systematical and comprehensive manner, and established a basic discourse guiding the ethnic work, ethnic policies and ethnic studies in the PRC. On the basis of historical literature, this paper arranges and sorts out the ethic policies and thinking context at the early stage of the governance by the CPC.