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Minorities In General
Introduction
There are fifty-five minorities in the China besides the Hun Tribe. The largest one is the Zhuang Tribe, which has about thirteen millions people. The population of the smallest tribe in China is about one thousand. The total populations of minorities have reached about a hundred million people and are continuing to grow. Most minorities live in a certain province or autonomous region. Each culture involves a variety of different traditions and customs. Before the establishment of PRC, some minority groups had established their regime in the "countryside" and sometimes established united dynasty including Yuan and Qing Dynasty.
Minority Oppression
However, after the establishment of PRC, a lot of minorities were forced to follow the way of China. China said "we are right because we modernized minorities." Most minorities were so far from modernization, that they took feudalism as a normal way of life. Many others also lived in subhuman and primitive conditions. China adapted the theory of Stalin, that is "removing oppressive policy by the socialism revolution", to the policy against minorities. The CCP however had ruined many minorities in the sense that they were deprived of free-though or forced to work in labor camps. In addition, it was hard for primitive thinking people to understand the socialist values, something they had concerned themselves with before.
The Tibetans
Tibet is a perfect example of this. China invaded Tibet in 1950. The invasion was labeled a 'liberation'. China liberated the Tibetan people from the feudalistic society, and drove their spiritual leader the Dali Llama out in 1959. They killed 100,000 Tibetans and destroyed most of the Tibetans' cultural heritage. But it was not Chinese but Dalai Lama who has been worshiped by the Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibet, referred to China's politics as 'Cultural genocide' for the Tibetan people. The Tibetan's, who have had their lives ruined and oppressed by an intolerant people, cannot easily forget such tyranny. The Tibetan's even today have to endure the continuous heavy-handed presence of the Chinese police and military. Many people, including the Dali Llama, call for Tibet to be recognized as a sovereign state, to be ruled by no one except its people and their spiritual leader.
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