Managing Multi-Ethnicity in China, Challenges at Home and Abroad

Abstract

China is unique compared to ancient civilizations due to its 3000-year written history that witnessed the succession of many dynasties, beside its geographic extent, which borders 14 countries. The vast geographic size of China on the Asian continent led some to say that Asia is more Chinese than China is Asian. This was due in part to the political authoritarianism imposed by spreading Confucianism throughout the Asian continent. While China represented the edge of the heart of the world in the theory of Mackinder, the present day says that it is gradually moving towards the center. Politically, China is considered one of the last strongholds of communism in its Chinese version, with a one-party system (the Chinese Communist Party) still in place. The claim that China is a communist state does not deny the existence of capitalist features that are coupled with the state-directed economy, where the state controls about 65% of production. Socially, China is known for its diversity of races and ethnicities, with 56 ethnic groups in which the Han ethnicity dominates with about 1.286 billion people, which is 91.11% of the country’s population of approximately 1.411 billion people as announced in May 2021. The rest of the population is distributed among 55 minorities. These minorities vary between Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Taoists, Tibetans, and others, including 10 Muslim minorities.