Article 50 of the Common Program

---

Article 50 is a further elaboration of Article 2 of the Common Program, which states “…to liberate all the territory of China, and to achieve the unification of China.” and of Article 9 , which points out “ All nationalities in the People's Republic of China shall have equal rights and duties.” Articles 50, 51, 52, and 53 of the Common Program define this policy. The CCP embraced a pluralistic notion of the Chinese populace, categorizing the Han Chinese as the predominant nationality—a designation formed in the twentieth century—and labelling all other ethnic groups as "minority nationalities." Mao's vision of the new democratic revolution aimed to encompass these minority nationalities within the revolutionary populace of China. Mao defined "national" as opposing imperialism, and "democratic" as both anti-feudal and serving the interests of the broader masses of the population. The economic development of the minority Regions will be described in the various articles of Chapter 4 of the Common Program.
In order to achieve the goals of the Common Program, the CCP employed various mechanisms. Initially, it appointed ethnic cadres to positions within the central government. These individuals act as exemplars for their fellow citizens in their native regions, fostering the belief that ethnic background would not impede political engagement. Additionally, protective policies were implemented to ensure both privileges and esteemed governmental roles for individuals from minority ethnicities, illustrating that belonging to such a group can be advantageous.
A second method was to grant the establishment of autonomous districts and Regions. (see Article 51 ) The third instrument was the use of the media to promote the "Han" way of living, in other words to bring "civilization" to the minorities. On the other hand, the media were used to uphold the culture of the ethnic groups (Article 53 ) Starting in July and August 1950, the CCP organized four groups of representatives to visit minority areas in the border Regions throughout the country: southwest, northwest, northeast, and Mongolia. These representatives offered food and money, provided medicine and necessities, and propagandized the Party’s nationality policies. On July 2, 1950, a goodwill mission traveled to Yunnan under the direction of ethnologist Xia Kangnong

The ultimate mechanism involved social policies, particularly those targeting demographics and economic factors. The government extended support to ethnic communities by offering privileges such as sponsoring ethnic schools and providing exemptions from investment restrictions or tax obligations. On the economic front, businesses were encouraged to pursue opportunities and utilize natural resources like forests, mines, and water reserves. A significant portion of the Chinese bureaucratic system strongly advocated for China to become a homogenous state closely associated with the Han ethnicity. This mindset persisted even after 1949. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai couldn't oversee every matter personally. Following the decision to annex Tibet, Mao's endeavours, although well-intentioned, often faltered due to the racial prejudices within the Chinese bureaucracy.

---

December 24, 1952, Zhou Enlai announced that according to articles 12, 13, and 14 of the Common Program, elections will be held for the People’s Congresses. He declared “…during the early period after the establishment of the government—considering that the people's liberation war had not been concluded, that basic political and social reforms had not been carried out on a national scale, and that the economy still required a period of rehabilitation-- conditions were not favorable for instituting at once the people's congress system.... This transitional period is now over, and our country is entering upon a new period of large-scale planned economic construction. In order to meet the tasks of this new period, it is necessary to convene the All China People’s Congress and local people's congresses…”
2 months later, the election law was promulgated. The elections shall be carried out at the county, provincial, and national levels. Article 24 of this election law states: “In allocating the number of seats for the 150 delegates to be elected to the ACPC by minority nationalities throughout the country, the CPG shall make provisions with due regard to the population of each minority group, its distribution and other such factors.
To meet this promise, the government had to identify the minorities and had to know how many minority groups there were in China. In April 1953, the government issued a directive "..to convene in 1953 the various grades of xiang, xian, and provincial (or municipal) people's congresses elected through universal suffrage, and then to convene, on this basis, the NPC. In order to ensure that all citizens of China who reach the age of 18 shall take part in the election according to law, it is necessary to make a good job of registration of the electors, while the registration of electors will have to be based on registration of the population. Therefore, simultaneously with the election work a national census and registration of population should be carried out in order to facilitate the election work and to furnish accurate figures of population for the economic and cultural construction of the State."

---

In theory, all people living on Chinese soil are members of the Chinese people (renmin), it does not matter which ethnicity one belongs but rather to what class. As seen in Article 1, those who belong to the right class belong to the nation, the people, and all others not. “In other words, class was actually made the most powerful unifying force that was supposed to help overcome China’s ethnic (and Regional) diversity.”
In anticipation of the 1954 elections for the NPC, an identification process was started in 1953. In the new election law of 1953, each minority group was granted at least one representative seat in the NPC. The identification of minorities was based on the theory of Stalin. In his work “Marxism and the National Question” (1913) he concluded: “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” However, none of the aforementioned components in Ethnic Identification would be conclusive on their own. It was the amalgamation of these elements along with a thorough examination of pertinent information that proves indispensable. The criteria were adeptly employed to satisfy nearly all demands, which was a positive aspect. Conversely, the ambiguous utilization of the criteria led to dependence on subjective judgment and artificial intervention. The inclusion of ethnic willingness and feedback from various social strata further exacerbated this subjective approach to Ethnic Identification. It was argued that Ethnic Identification successfully blended objective criteria with the willingness of relevant ethnic groups and the perspectives of higher minority echelons. The method of identification employed by the SU differed from that of the PRC. Unlike the Soviet census, upon which the initial registration campaign of the PRC was loosely modelled, where respondents were presented with a predetermined set of nationality categories to choose from, the Chinese census conducted during 1953-54 posed the minzu question as an open-ended, fill-in-the-blank query. Registrants were given the opportunity to provide their minzu name to the census taker, who would then transcribe it into Chinese characters. The underlying principle of this approach was a commitment to self-categorization, a political ideal that granted citizens the unrestricted right to determine their own minzu designations. Specifically, individuals over the age of eighteen were free to select their minzu status, which would then be officially recognized by the state. Whatever individuals chose to call themselves, the government would acknowledge accordingly.

Nevertheless, the impact of Soviet expertise remained significant. Throughout the process of identification and categorization, Soviet support persisted, encompassing both theoretical and practical assistance. The Chinese government conducted surveys on non-Han language under the guidance of Soviet specialist advisers. Linguistic endeavours were segmented into three categories: the development and establishment of scripts, exploration of spoken languages, and the training of linguistic personnel.
This way of categorizing resulted in over 400 minorities who had applied for minority status. In practice, this would result in an overrepresentation of minorities in the People’s Congress. More than half of these applications came from Yunnan province. According to the census outcomes, roughly one-third of the province (32.6 percent) self-identified as non-Han. Calculations revealed that at least 190 delegates from Yunnan alone would come to the NPC and nationwide at least 400 minority delegates. This meant a disproportionate representation of the minorities in a NPC with only twelve hundred seats. Eventually only 19 of these claims in Yunnan were recognized by the government.

---

In the middle of April 1954, the Ethnic Identification teams were formed to solve this problem. Hundreds of ethnologists, linguists, historians, sociologists, and archaeologists were divided into teams to investigate the claims of self-reported groups, A group of Soviet linguists were also involved in the process. Lin  Yaohua, a member of an Ethnic Identification team stated: "Don’t forget that academic research is to serve political practice. The work of minority research before us is certainly not purely for the sake of academic research. It must unite with politics, particularly with the problem of national security."

They had less than 6 months to investigate because the National People’s Congress will convene in September 1954. In practice, sizeable groups, whether in terms of geographic distribution or population, were frequently designated as minorities, whereas smaller groups often faced exclusion or were assimilated into other minority categories. This selective application of criteria provided ample room for the Communists to manipulate the identification process, influenced by political and/or economic motives. In 1954, the Ethnic Identification teams had characterized 38 minority groups. The national census of 1953 revealed the number of minorities in China. There are 34 million people classified as minority; this is about 6% of the total population. See Table.
Three Regions with a majority of nationalities are easily identified; Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang. Other minority ethnic groups are scattered in the northeastern, northwestern, and southwestern parts. 62 percent of China’s territory is populated by non-Han-Chinese people. The Han majority occupies mainly plains, arable land, towns, and cities, while some four-fifths of the country’s minorities take refuge in more mountainous (and less suitable for agriculture) land including 90% of the country's border Regions. A combination of political, strategic, and pragmatic concerns are the main reasons for the early recognition of these minority groups. July 21, 1950 Deng Xiaoping stated "The southwestern boundary line is several thousand kilometres long, extending from Tibet to Yunnan and Guangxi, along which the overwhelming majority of inhabitants are minority nationalities. So, if the issue of minority nationalities is not handled well, the matter of national defence cannot be handled well. Therefore, in view of the importance of the southwest to national defence alone, we should give high priority to our work among the minority nationalities." The ethnic policy primarily emphasized the involvement of minority groups in the construction of a new China. Despite sufficient evidence indicating that at least during the 1950s, the Communist regime enthusiastically embraced the concept of China as a multi-ethnic nation, high school history textbooks from that era and throughout the Maoist period remained predominantly focused on Han perspectives, portraying non-Han peoples as distinct from the Chinese identity.

---

The identification results showed some remarkable outcomes. The Chinese Muslims who were termed Hui were united by religion, but in reality, they were divided by race and culture. In the case of the Manchus hardly any Manchus still spoke Manchu. Yet both groups were qualified as a minority group. The Hakkas constituted the most significant group that, despite meeting the criteria, was not officially recognized as a 'nationality'. Originating from southern China, the Hakkas, although culturally, linguistically, and socially distinct during the late imperial period of Chinese history, played a crucial role in twentieth-century Chinese nationalism, particularly during the early stages. Quite the opposite occurred in Guangxi where millions of Guangxi residents were to be convinced by the government that they were members of the larger minority designated “Zhuang”. Most of the Guangxi population were claiming instead to be Han. "...the Uyghurs, Kazaks and Hui (Dungan) all have kin relations with Central Asian states, in particular the former two. Mongolia is a kin state for the Mongols, as are both North and South Koreas for the Koreans. Minorities that are located in the Southwestern border areas – such as the Miao, Yao, Hani, and Dai – all have external kin in mainland Southeast Asia. Finally, the Tibetans have extensive relations with groups in Bhutan, Nepal, and India."
Being recognized as a minority group offered several benefits. Firstly, it entailed additional subsidies or assistance, and secondly, it provided a certain level of autonomy. It was not uncommon for individuals who were originally of Han Chinese descent to attempt to convert and re-register themselves as belonging to minority ethnic groups in order to access preferential treatment in areas such as education and employment. Ethnic minority groups, such as the Hui and Manchu, which had no language barriers and which had greater economic development, shared the same preferential policies as groups with less advantages. All Chinese citizens were to be registered by ‘nationality status’ in household registration and personal identification. See Article 5.

---

On March 16, 1953, Mao Zedong addressed the problem of Han Chauvinism: “In some places the relations between nationalities are far from normal. For Communists this is an intolerable situation. We must go to the root and criticize the Han chauvinist ideas which exist to a serious degree among many Party members and cadres… Delegations led by comrades who are familiar with our nationality policy and full of sympathy for our minority nationality compatriots still suffering from discrimination should be sent to visit the areas where there are minority nationalities, make a serious effort at investigation and study and help Party and government organizations in the localities discover and solve problems. The visits should not be those of "looking at flowers on horseback". He concluded “Moreover, the newspapers should publish more articles based on specific facts to criticize Han chauvinism openly and educate the Party members and the people.” He was not the only CCP leader who warned against Han Chauvinism. On July 21, 1950, Deng Xiaoping pointed out: “With our past work plus our current work we are quite capable of solving the several-thousand-year-old problem of estrangement from the minority nationalities and uniting all our nationalities. … So long as we truly act in accordance with the Common Programme and so long as we sincerely assist the minority nationalities in political, economic and cultural fields, we can solve the problem satisfactorily. If we throw off Han chauvinism, the minority nationalities will forsake their narrow nationalism in return. We should not ask the minority nationalities to abolish their nationalism before we honestly abolish Han chauvinism. Once these two isms are abolished, unity will result.” The fight against Han Chauvinism started in 1926 at the first Hunan Peasant Representatives Conference when the CCP accepted a resolution in which the CCP pledged to "liberate the Miao and Yao," declaring that "the Han nationality must not deliberately slander the Miao, and Yao in insulting words."
In August 1952, Wang Zhen, the party secretary of Xinjiang, faced accusations of Han Chauvinism due to his implementation of radical redistribution of pastoral areas. He was criticized for failing to consider the current stage of political, economic, and cultural development among the various nationalities. Instead, he blindly adopted strategies from Han agricultural and military areas without regard for the specific historical, cultural, and traditional nuances of the different ethnic groups. Additionally, he disproportionately focused on their perceived backwardness and addressed issues in a rigid manner, disregarding the complexities and nuances of local non-Han cadres and their potential opposition to narrow nationalism. His successor Wang Enmao emphasized the need to struggle against Han Chauvinism.
Despite all good intentions, the CCP cadres dealing with minority peoples still were guilty of Han Chauvinism. Wang Feng, in accordance with Mao Zedong, stated: "Speaking in nation-wide terms, 'Great-Hanism' is the principal current danger in the ethnic relationship. It is essential to suppress 'Great-Hanism' because this is the only way whereby narrow nationalisms among the minorities can be eradicated ... Certain of the Han Chinese cadres have even gone so far as to insist that the minority peoples speak Han-Chinese and wear Han Chinese clothes, and have wanted to substitute Han-Chinese songs and dances for the tribal songs and dances. This is extremely erroneous."

---

Chapter 6 of Common Program

• Road to Common Program
• Common Program
• Bibliography
• Documents