Chinese Government Mandates "Ethnic Unity Education" to Promote Party Policy on Ethnic Groups

The Chinese government has directed schools throughout the country to implement "ethnic unity education," in a stated effort to promote Communist Party policy on ethnic minorities. The trial Guiding Program on Ethnic Unity Education in Schools, issued November 26, 2008, by the Ministry of Education and State Ethnic Affairs Commission (SEAC) and publicized in December (see a December 15 Xinhua report on the Central People's Government Web site), calls for "ethnic unity education" starting in grade three of elementary school and extending to high school and vocational schools. Describing work to promote ethnic unity as an "inevitable demand" for strengthening "socialist ethnic relations" and safeguarding stability and unification of the country, the program requires schools to guarantee teaching 10-12 hours a year of "ethnic unity education" in elementary and junior high school, 8-10 hours in high school, and 12-14 hours at the vocational school level. The content of the classes, which must use government-approved teaching materials, includes general information on China's ethnic groups and adds a focus on issues including "safeguarding the unification of the motherland" and "opposing separatism" starting in the upper levels of elementary school. Students in high school also study other multiethnic countries and learn the "superiority of the Communist Party's and [Chinese] state's ethnic minority policy." The "ethnic unity education" curriculum also includes topics such as the state's "guarantee of ethnic minorities' freedom of religious belief" and their rights to "preserve and reform" their customs and "use and develop" ethnic minority languages.

The November 2008 program comes after Tibetans and Uyghurs held demonstrations earlier in the year challenging the Chinese government's ethnic minority policies, though the program also builds on earlier efforts to promote ethnic unity education. (For more information, see previous CECC analyses on the Tibetan and Uyghur demonstrations. For information on older central and local government attention to the promotion of "ethnic unity education," see, for example, article 6 of the 1995 Education Law, a 2004 report on the Tonghai county, Yunnan province, government Web site, and a 2005 report (estimated date) from the Henan province Ethnic Affairs Commission Web site.) The Uyghur and Tibetan demonstrators in 2008 had protested issues including government restrictions on religious practice and controls over cultural expression. Following the demonstrations, local governments in Uyghur and Tibetan areas have reported on wide-scale education campaigns in local schools that include focus on "ethnic unity" and anti-separatism. (See a previous CECC analysis for more information on campaigns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. For information on campaigns in Tibetan areas, see, e.g., an April 30, 2008, report on the Tibet Autonomous Region government Web site and a June 27 report on the Lhasa municipal government Web site.)

The program also comes amid central government statements emphasizing the broad promotion of ethnic unity. See, e.g., a November 4 report on the Central People's Government Web site, a December 24 Xinhua report, and a December 31 People's Daily report by the SEAC Leading Party Group (via Xinhua).

For more information on conditions for ethnic minorities in China, see Section II--Ethnic Minority Rights, Section IV--Xinjiang, and Section V--Tibet, in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2008 Annual Report, as well as the Special Focus on ethnic minorities in the 2005 Annual Report.