Chinese People

Most Chinese do not cherish the distinction of living in the world's most populous country, with some 1.3 billion inhabitants and counting. Despite the vast land area, three-quarters of the population is crowded into the eastern third of the country, bounded by an imaginary line stretching from the tip the Dongbei Horn to the Myanmar border. Eastern China is densely packed: more than 100 cities have over 1 million residents each, including the major population centers of Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and N*ing. Although recent economic expansion has led to the rapid growth of urban areas, about 70% of China's people still live in rural areas. The government has tried to curb mass peasant migration to the cities through the use of hukou, or residence permits, but recent liberalization has relaxed travel and work restrictions. There is currently a floating population of more than 100 million drifting in and out of China's major cities in search of better jobs. These migrarits have been blaiued by city dwellers for urban social problems such as rising crime rates and disease outbreaks.

POPULATION GROWTH

China has a long tradition of meticulous census-taking. Imperial accountants kept careful demographic records for the purpose of tax-collection. At the turn of the first millennium (AD 4), there were already 69 million inhabitants living in the Han Empire, and that number reached 100 million during the Song (ca. 1100). More recently, under the Qing, the increase in agricultural productivity has led to a greatly accelerated population boom. Between 1762 and 1834 the population doubled, ballooning to 400 million despite the lack of a simultaneous increase in cultivated land area. Tensions caused by land scarcity led to a series of peasant rebellions in the late 19th century, which contributed to the demise of the Qing. It comes as no surprise, then, that the Chinese Communists eventually rose to power on a platform of land redistribution.

After founding the People's Republic in 1949, the Great Helmsman of mass mobilization movements, Chairman Mao, promoted Stalin's "the more, the merrier" approach. Women who gave birth to five or more children were honored as "Revolutionary Mothers" and awarded government subsidies. Unlike the severely underpopulated Soviet Union, China already had more than half a billion inhabitants. These ill-advised policies, coupled with improvements in health care and food production, caused the population to swell quickly out of control. Ever since, the immense population has placed enormous strains on resources and advancements in the standard of living. Since the 1980s, the government has adopted a series of population control measures, limiting couples in cities to one child and rural families to two. Despite stiff penalties, the traditional desire for male heirs and the demands of farming still prompt many couples to ignore government restrictions. Even at the current natural growth rate of only 1.0411/o, the number of babies bom every year exceeds the entire population of Australia.

ETHNIC COMPOSITION

Although China is a multicultural nation consisting of 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, over 92% of the population is Han Chinese. The Han trace their ancestry back to the Han dynasty and claim to be the historic guardians of Chinese culture. The remaining 55 groups total 108 million people and live on two-thirds of the nation's land, mainly around ChinzCs periphery.

Traditionally, the ethnocentric Chinese have regarded other nationalities as uncivilized barbarians. The minority peoples in return harbor deep mistrust of Han designs for domination and oppression. During the republican era of 1911-49, Sun Yat-sen envisioned a nationalist state ruled by China's five main ethnic groups: the Han, Manchu, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uighur. In his early guerilla days, Mao expressed interest in building a federalist state offering minority groups significant autonomy. Post-1949, however, the Chinese Communists did not follow Stalin's example of establishing minority republics. The CCPI backed by the powerful People's Liberation Army, consolidated central control by organizing minority areas into so-called autonomous regions, counties, and townships that ostensibly enjoy self-rule. At first, the CCP relied upon compliant local clan and tribal leaders because the party had virtually no support among minorities. Gradually, Be@ingtrained minority cadres assumed control and took orders from Han superiors. Radical communist policies in the Maoist period proved disastrously unfit for minority regions. Collectivization severely disrupted traditional modes of production, and atheist mandates trampled religious customs. Minority-Han tensions exploded into a number of uprisings, followed by swift government reprisals. Han migration into minority areas, both government-sanctioned and spontaneous, has marginalized minorities in their homelands and contributed to ethnic tensions.

In the 1980s, Deng Xiaoping's liberalization policies led to nominal recognition of minority cultures and religions. National minorities enjoy special government benefits, such as exemption from the one-child policy, lower academic test score requirements for secondary school entry, tax breaks, and government subsidies. However, opportunities are still not distributed evenly. Han-minority relations tend to be better among groups that have assinfflated (Manchu, Zhuang, Korean) and worse among those that have not (Tibetan, Uighur).

Although minority settlements are often located in hard-to-reach areas, they are among the most fascinating places to visit in China. For a little something different, spend a night in a yurt on the windswept steppes of Inner Mongolia or savor the sweet melons of the Turpan Oasis in Uighur territory.

The Manchus (numbering 10 million), and their sub-Siberian relatives the Ewenki and Oroqen, once dominated the Northeast. Descendants of the Jurchen tribes that harassed the Song dynasty, the Manchus rose to prominence in the early 17th century and toppled the Ming. The Manchu Qing court demanded that all male subjects wear pony tails (queues) but made few other demands on traditional Han customs. Despite the fondness of Qing emperors for Chinese art and literature, the Manchu court sought to preserve their culture from Han absorption. Han migrants were barred north of the Great Wall, and inten-narriages were made illegal. Nonetheless, Han influences gradually prevailed. The Han had outnumbered the Manchus in the Northeast even before the fall of the Qing. Today even though Manchus are still heavily concentrated in Liaoning and Be@ing, their language is virtually extinct, and, as a people, they are almost indistinguishable from the Han. Farther north in Heilongjiang, Ewenki and Oroqen, formerly hunters and gatherers, have settled down and adopted an agricultural way of life. Their cultural traditions have been diluted by Han encroachment, but many still live in traditional clans and worship spiritual deities. The word "shaman" comes from the Ewenki language.

A large number of Koreans live in eastern Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang provinces, along the Yalu River. Most are descended from the masses that fled during the Japanese annexation of the Korean peninsula in 1895. Sharing strong cultural ties with the Chinese and benefiting from decades of friendship between Beijing and Pyongyang, the Koreans have lived peacefully and prospered. In recent years, thousands of North Koreans have fled to the Chinese-Korean communities in this region to escape devastating famines in their homeland.

SOUTHWESTERN MINORITIES

Scattered across the mountains of southwestern China are at least three dozen ethnic minority groups. For centuries they have lived in familial clans and practiced primitive slash and burn agriculture, planting mainly rice and raising livestock. Most of these peoples were indigenous to the lower Yangzi valley but were gradually pushed southward by Han expansion. The Dai in Yunnan share a language and cultural kinship with the Thai of Thailand, Lao of Laos, and Shan of Myanmar. Although several groups such as the Li on Hainan Island still worship animist deities and ancestral spirits, the introduction of Theravada Buddhism converted many of the region's ethnic minorities. The Naxi follow both Tibetan lamaism and cults of supernatural spirits. A considerable number of the Miao and Yao in Guizhou are Christians.

The relationship between the Han and these minorities ranges from the Zhuang's full-embracement of Han acculturation to the Yi's fierce resistance of Han influence. The largest ethnic minority in China, the 17 million Zhuang of Guangxi have all but become Han Chinese, speaking Mandarin dialects and learning Chinese classical literature. The homespun-cloth-wearirig Yi have retained a caste system; their tradition of Han enslavement, though, has been officially outlawed. The once even more fearsome head-hunting Wa have been tamed by Buddhism and the People's Liberation Army. In general, the myriad diverse ethnic groups in the southwest pose no threat to Han regional hegemony and have been allowed to follow their own way of life amid a sea of Han Chinese.

Although spread throughout China, the Hui, or Chinese Muslims, are most heavily concentrated in Ningxia, Beijing, and Shanghai. While most Hui are rural farmers, urban Hui are often active merchants and craftsmen. Because they speak Mandarin and practice Han social customs, the Hui are often regarded by other minority groups as Chinese. But official Chinese ethnographies trace the ancestry of the Hui to Islamic Persians who immigrated to China in the Tang and Song dynasties, although the group also contains Han converts. During the days of Mao Zedong's guerilla war in Yanan, many Hui locals joined the communist cause and subsequently rose to power after 1949. They were the only minority group to join the communists in sizeable numbers and were rewarded with the establishment of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in 1956. The government assigned many Hui cadres the task of administering other minority groups to achieve their promise of "having minority cadres rule minority people." Despite close ties with the Han majority, tensions stemming from religious differences still exist; during the Cultural Revolution, for instance, the Han Red Guard destroyed Hui mosques. The white-cap-donning Hui also refuse to eat pork, the favorite meat of the Han.

Like their greatest historical hero, Genghis Khan, the Mongols are known as hardy, nomadic, yurt-dwelling people who follow their grazing herds across the steppes of Central Asia. They are organized socially into family clans and tribes. In their 12th-century heyday, the Mongols vanquished much of Asia. After encountering the Tibetans, Mongols converted to Tibetan Lamaist Buddhism. The shortlived Mongol Yuan dynasty reopened trade routes between China and the West, and the splendor of that empire was documented in Marco Polo's memoirs. The Manchus began the political separation of Mongolia by administering the region as two entities, divided north and south of the Gobi. Han settlers began moving into the southern portion, which became known as Inner Mongolia during the Qing dynasty, and cultivating grazing lands. When "Outer Mongolia" declared its independence in 1921, Inner Mongolia remained part of China.

Today, as a result of past warfare and migration, Mongols in China are spread across the northern rim of the country, stretching from Xirdiang across Inner Mongolia to Heilongjiang. Hopelessly outnumbered by Hans in their homeland, many Mongols have been sinicized and have become sedentary farmers. Other former nomads have turned to raising sheep for the cashmere wool they yield. Closely related to the Mongols are the Daur of Heilongjiang and the Bonan of Gansu. These two groups have their own spoken languages but rely on Mongolian script.

XiWiang is a land dominated by Islam, the religion of the Uighur, Kazakh, Tatar, Tailk, Uzbek, and Kyrgyz nationalities. All except the Persian-speaking Tajiks use variations of Turkic languages. The Uighur (also written Uygur, and pronounced weiwuer in Mandarin) are by far the most numerous at 8 million. They are descended from a people who inhabited the Tarim oases a thousand years ago. While the Kazakh and Kyrgyz are pastoral nomads, the Uighur depend on irrigation agriculture, building elaborate underground channels to plant crops in the desert. In Uighur towns, conservative Muslim women still wear veils in public. The northwest is also home to Mongols, Tibetans, Sibo (descendants of the Manchu garrisons established during the Qing), and the offspring of Russians who escaped to China after the Bolshevik Revolution. Han presence in the region has increased dramatically since 1949, rising from 3.7% to more than 50% of the population in the last 50 years. The PLA executed thousands of local separatists, GMD sympathizers, and uncompliant nomads in the 1950s. Ethnic tensions during the Great Leap Forward resulted in the exodus of 20,000 Uighurs to the Soviet Union.

A fresh round of ethnic violence occurred after the fall of the USSR. Riots broke out in Yining in 1995, and Uighur separatists, hoping to establish an independent state, bombed a Be@ing bus, prompting a harsh government crackdown. Since then, the Chinese government has succeeded in securing pledges from new Central Asian neighbors to deny support to Uighur separatists.