Nation-Building in Contemporary China : An Academic Research on the Ethnic Groups in the Chinese Periphery

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

1. There is a remarkable increase of centrifugal forces in 1990's China that holds 55 national-minorities in her peripheral regions and tries to integrate the heterogeneous political communities --Taiwan and Hong kong. From the view point of the national integrity, we may say she is now facing an identity crisis.The purpose of our academic research was to investigate the ethnic minorities in the peripheral regions, especially in Xinjiang and Yunnan, and to survey their reciprocal relation and inter-relation with their brothers in Mongolia and Kazakhstan.2. The research was carried out by three groups. The first group, five members, made an on the spot investigation (language-education, religious activities, family budget, market research, etc.) and had talks with scholars and government officials in Almatui in Kazakhstan and Ulaanbaatar.The second group made an investigation into Sino-Mongolian cultural and economic exchanges and collected books and materials in Ulaanbaatar.The third group made on the spot investigation into the actual condition of life, religion, economy and the tourist industry of Bai Nationality in the south-western part of China.3. It is very significant that we could observe "three types of nationalism" in these areas. The national problem of the new born Mongolia is the democratization, roots-searching of Mongolian-State and finding "the third neighbor". We can see the composed nationalism and national confidence.Because of the economic stagnation, the lack of technocrats and the authoritarian regime, nationalism in Kazakhstan is inactive contrary to her recent independence.On the other hand, we observed the depressed nationalism in Uigur ares ---Kashgar in Xinjiang where they can't assert their national ideintity and their own national culture, because of the drastic social change, marketization and the strong control over the ethnic regions from the central government.