China's population
Context:
|BASIC INFORMATION |p.2 |
|POPULATION GROWTH |p.8 |
|POPULATION DISTRIBUTION |p.12 |
|INTERNAL MIGRATION |p.14 |
|China Sticks to Population Control Policy in New Century |p.16 |
|President on Population Control, Resources and Environmental |p.17 |
|Protection | |
|LITERATURE |P.19 |
BASIC INFORMATION
China is a multinational country, with a population composed of a large
number of ethnic and linguistic groups. Almost all its inhabitants are of
Mongoloid stock: thus, the basic classification of the population is not so
much Han ethnic as linguistic. The Han (Chinese), the largest group,
(Chinese) outnumber the minority groups or minority nationalities in every
province or autonomous region except Tibet and Sinkiang. The Han.
therefore, form the great homogeneous mass of the Chinese people, sharing
the same culture, the same traditions, and the same written language. Some
55 minority groups are spread over approximately 60 percent of the total
area of the country. Where these minority groups are found in large
numbers, they have been given some semblance of autonomy and self-
government; autonomous regions of several types have been established on
the basis of the geographical distribution of nationalities.
The government takes great credit for its treatment of these
minorities, including care for their economic well-being, the raising of
their living standards, the provision of educational facilities, the
promotion of their national languages and cultures, and the raising of
their levels of literacy, as well as for the introduction of a written
language where none existed previously. In this connection it may be noted
that, of the 50-odd minority languages, only 20 had written forms before
the coming of the Communists; and only relatively few written languages,
for example, Mongolian. Tibetan. Uighur, Kazakh, Tai, and Korean, were in
everyday use. Other written languages were used chiefly for religious
purposes and by a limited number of persons. Educational institutions for
national minorities are a feature of many large cities, notably Peking,
Wuhan, Ch'eng-tu. and Lan-chou.
Four major language families are represented in China: the Sino-
Tibetan. Altaic. Indo-European, and Austro-Asiatic. The Sino-Tibetan
family, both numerically and in the extent of its distribution, is the most
important; within this family, Han Chinese is the most widely spoken
language. Although unified by their tradition, the written characters of
their language, and many cultural traits, the Han speak several mutually
unintelligible dialects and display marked regional differences. By far the
most important Chinese tongue is the Mandarin, or p'u-l'ung hua, meaning
"ordinary language" or "common language". There are three variants of
Mandarin. The first of these is the northern variant, of which the Peking
dialect, or Peking hua, is typical and which is spoken to the north of the
Tsinling Mountains-Huai River line: as the most widespread Chinese tongue,
it has officially been adopted as the basis for a national language. The
second is the western variant, also known as the Ch'eng-tu or Upper Yangtze
variant; this is spoken in the Szechwan Basin and in adjoining parts of
south-west China. The third is the southern variant, also known as the
Nanking or Lower Yangtze variant, which is spoken in northern Kiangsu and
in southern and central Anhwei Related to Mandarin are the Hunan, or
Hsiang, dialect, spoken by people in central and southern Hunan, and the
Kan dialect. The Hui-chou dialect, spoken in southern Anhwei, forms an
enclave within the southern Mandarin area.
Less intelligible to Mandarin speakers are the dialects of the south-
east coastal region, stretching from Shanghai to Canton. The. most
important of these is the Wu dialect, spoken in southern Kiangsu and in
Chekiang. This is followed, to the south, by the Fu-chou, or Min. dialect
of northern and central Fukien and by the Amoy-Swatow dialect of southern
Fukien and easternmost Kwangtung. The Hakka dialect of southernmost Kiangsi
and north-eastern Kwangtung has a rather scattered pattern of distribution.
Probably the best known of these southern dialects is Cantonese, which is
spoken in central and western Kwangtung and in southern Kwangsi a dialect
area in which a large proportion of overseas Chinese originated.
In addition to the Han, the Manchu and the Hui (Chinese Muslims) also
speak Mandarin and use Chinese characters. Manchu The Hui are descendants
of Chinese who adopted Islam and Hui when it penetrated into China in the
7th century. They are intermingled with the Han throughout much of the
country and are distinguished as Hui only in the area of their heaviest
concentration, the Hui Autonomous Region of Ningsia. Other Hui communities
are organised as autonomous prefectures (tzu-chih-cfiou) in Sinkiang and as
autonomous counties (tzu-chih-hsien) in Tsinghai. Hopeh. Kweichow, and
Yunnan. There has been a growing tendency for the Hui to move from their
scattered settlements into the area of major concentration, possibly, as
firm adherents of Islam, in order to facilitate intermarriage with other
Muslims.
The Manchu declare themselves to be descendants of the Manchu warriors
who invaded China in the 17th century and founded the Ch'ing dynasty (1644-
1911/12). Ancient Manchu is virtually a dead language, and the Manchu have
been completely assimilated into Han Chinese culture. They are found mainly
in North China and the Northeast, but they form no separate autonomous
areas above the commune level. Some say the Koreans of the Northeast, who
form an autonomous prefecture in eastern Kirin, cannot be assigned with
certainty to any of the standard language classifications.
The Chuang-chia, or Chuang, are China's largest minority group. Most of
them live in the Chuang Autonomous Region of Kwangsi. They are also
represented in national autonomous areas in neighbouring Yunnan and
Kwangtung. They depend mainly on the cultivation of rice for their
livelihood In religion they are animists, worshiping particularly the
spirits of their ancestors, The Puyi (Chung-chia) group are concentrated in
southern Kweichow, where they share an autonomous prefecture with the Miao
group. The T'ung group are settled in small communities in Kwangsi and
Kweichow; they share with the Miao group an autonomous prefecture set up in
south-east Kweichow in 1956. The Tai group are concentrated in southern
Yunnan and were established in two autonomous prefectures—one whose
population is related most closely to the Tai of northern Thailand and
another whose Tai are related to the Shan people of Burma. The Li of Hai-
nan Island form a separate group of the Chinese-Tai language branch. They
share with the Miao people a district in southern Hai-nan.
Tibetans are distributed over the entire Tsinghai-Tibetan plateau.
Outside Tibet, Tibetan minorities constitute autonomous prefectures and
autonomous counties. There are five Tibetan autonomous prefectures in
Tsinghai, two in Szechwan, and one each in Yunnan and Kansu. The Tibetans
still keep their tribal characteristics, but few of them are nomadic.
Though essentially farmers, they also raise livestock and, as with other
tribal peoples in the Chinese far west, also hunt to supplement their food
supply. The major religion of Tibet has been Tibetan Buddhism since about
the 17th century; before 1959 the social and political institutions of this
region were still based largely on this faith. Many of the Yi (Lolo) were
concentrated in two autonomous prefectures—one in southern Szechwan and
another in northern Yunnan. They raise crops and sometimes keep flocks and
herds.
The Miao-Yao branch, with their major concentration in Kweichow, are
distributed throughout the central south and south-western provinces and
are found also in some small areas in east China. They are subdivided into
many rather distinct groupings. Most of them have now lost their
traditional tribal traits through the influence of the Han, and it is only
their language that serves to distinguish them as tribal peoples. Two-
thirds of the Miao are settled in Kweichow, where they share two autonomous
prefectures with the T'ung and Puyi groups. The Yao people are concentrated
in the Kwangsi-Kwangtung-Hunan border area.
In some areas of China, especially in the south-west, there are many
different ethnic groups that are geographically intermixed. Because of
language barriers and different economic structures, these peoples all
maintain their own cultural traits and live in relative isolation from one
another. In some places the Han are active in the towns and in the fertile
river valleys, while the minority peoples depend for their livelihood on
more primitive forms of agriculture or on grazing their livestock on
hillsides and mountains. The vertical distribution of these peoples is in
zones usually the higher they live, the less complex
their way of life. In former times they did not mix well with one
another, but now, with highways penetrating deep into their settlements,
