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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 36, Number 20. 29th August 1973

Race Relations — NZ Can Learn from China

page 13

Race Relations

NZ Can Learn from China

There are 56 races in the People's Republic of China. Fifty-five of them are national minorities because their 40 million people make up only 6% of China's total population.

During a recent trip to the People's Republic, I learnt that the Chinese attitude to minority races is not one of "assimilation" or "integration", but one of encouraging economic and social development in a way decided by each minority race.

In other words, matters affecting minorities are decided by the people themselves in their own way.

Any New Zealand movement towards a genuinely multicultural society could learn a great deal from the Chinese experience. But it would be foolish to copy it blindly, as the conditions and history of New Zealand and the People's Republic are quite different.

Real concern and help

The basic attitude towards national minorities in China is one of great concern and positive help. That's one side of the coin. The other is that the majority race, the Han, do not force their standards on the minorities. They give the help that is asked for by the minorities themselves and in fact favour them in many aspects of life.

In the supreme national body, the National People's Congress, the minorities have 14% representation. The minority groups, although only 6% of the population, are spread out over about 60% of the total occupied area. The regions are under central Government direction but have wide powers to regulate their own affairs. This includes even the smallest minority, which has only 500people.

The people of these regions have freedom of religion but there is also the freedom to propagate atheism. The only rule is that people of either belief cannot use coercion or force. Each race takes the socialist road, but decides its own methods.

Use of own language

In the minority areas, the newspapers are printed in the local language, central Government decrees are printed in all languages and officials from each minority group work among their own people as much as possible.

Planned parenthood is encouraged among the Han majority, but the minority groups are left to decide their own population. One of the reasons for this policy is that the minority areas are often underpopulated, and there is a need for more people to develop the land.

If a legal dispute arises which affects any member of the minority races, then he or she has the right to demand that the proceedings are carried out in the minority language.

The Government gives special encouragement to the minority groups, particularly in the educational and economic fields.

There are four universities for minorities and more than ten institutes for training cadres (officials) from the minority groups.

At the Central Institute for National Minorities in Peking, there are 1300 students, attending courses on the main Chinese language (so they can act as interpreters for their own people); political science and the study of Marxist classics; and the arts of their own cultures, including dancing, painting and music.

The great attention that is shown to these institutes is indicated by the frequent occasions on which Chairman Mao Tsetung or Premier Chou En-Lai visit them.

In the library of the Peking Institute, there are half a million books, 80,000 of them printed in minority languages. In addition, the library regularly receives minority language newspapers from every region.

Liberation of Tibet

The differences between life today and life before the Liberation of China were described by a Tibetan student. She said "Before Liberation (Tibet was liberated in 1959), there were seven members of my family. My mother died a year after I was born. We lived a miserable life under oppression, growing vegetables for the market. Although we worked day and night, we could not support ourselves. We had to pay rent and taxes. There were 100 types of tax, including a tax on every child born. Sometimes I begged in the street.

"There was no freedom to move about. None of us went to school, none of us could read and we did not have enough to eat. It was worse than a dog's or a horse's life.

"In 1961, after the suppression of the slaveowners' rebellion, the People s Liberation Army came to my village and three of my sisters were sent to university. I went to school and in 1969, became a radio announcer in Lhasa. In 1971, I came to study here in Peking. Now my family is living a happy life in Tibet and my father is enjoying his old age."

I saw photographs and exhibits that showed the various barbaric torture methods used by the slaveowners of Tibet. They included the gouging out of eyes after placing a heavy stone skullcap on the slave's head, cutting off of hands, and chaining slaves in holes filled with scorpions.

It was easy to understand the Tibetan student's reaction to her present living conditions, compared with those of her childhood.

Lesson for New Zealand

In view of the fact that the People's Republic has none of the racial tensions seen in New Zealand and in other countries, what lessons can we draw from the Chinese experience?

Certainly, under the present system, there is little chance of Maori land being returned to the original owners. But the encouragement of separate learning facilities in different languages to help the minority groups develop to their fullest ability is possible. The practise of conducting legal proceedings in minority languages can be carried out immediately, though there's little chance of that happening while the Government, Press and other "experts" continue to insist that there is no racism in New Zealand.