China's Ethnic Minorities: Policy and Challenges under the Fourth-generation Leadership

Abstract

This chapter takes up several aspects of policy and a few challenges regarding China's ethnic minorities under the new leadership of Hu Jintao since 2002. Discussion of policy focuses on national unity and the obsession about secession, a few foreign policy issues relevant to ethnic minorities, especially those of Xinjiang and Tibet, and economic development in the wake of the Great Western Development Strategy. The challenges the chapter considers include the continuing sensitivities about separatism and related matters, especially as regards the Uygurs of Xinjiang and the Tibetans, and the HIV/AIDS and drug crisis. The paper argues that the Hu Jintao leadership has mainly inherited policy from the previous period, but made a few changes in line with the new demands of the times and a new leadership emphasis on social values as opposed to an exclusive rise in the GDP.