Mandarins, Marxists, and Minorities

Abstract

Those charged with designing or implementing policies to placate minorities ensconced in their own homelands face two levels of problems. The first, the urge of minorities to control their own destinies and therefore to resent and resist rule by outsiders, is common to all multi-homeland states. The second set of problems evolves from each country’s unique experience. What follows is a discussion of both of these frameworks, within which current Chinese minority policies necessarily operate and that are apt to influence the relative success of those policies.