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Chinas ethnic minorities and the middle classes: an overview

Colin Mackerras
Department of International Business and Asian Studies, Grifth University, Nathan, Australia
Abstract
Purpose The paper aims to discover the role of the middle classes in the development of the ethnic minorities of China, given the importance of the middle classes in international economic development in the modern age. Design/methodology/approach The paper offers a denition of the middle classes, including both the economic and political aspects. It looks at these classes among the ethnic minorities of China through eldwork and printed statistics and materials. Findings The ethnic minorities were 8.41 per cent of the total population of China, according to the 2000 census. The paper nds that there are emerging middle classes among the ethnic minorities, especially some of them, including the Uygurs and Koreans of China. These middle classes are centres of entrepreneurship among the ethnic minorities, promoting development and modernization, but also intensifying inequalities. Their role is mainly economic, but also political; for example, there is some material on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in general and among the ethnic minorities in particular. There is some discussion on literacy and education among the ethnic minorities, on the grounds that middle classes do not emerge in the modern age without education. Originality/value Although there is some research on the role of the middle classes in recent Chinese development, this is the rst time that such a concept has been applied to the ethnic minorities. Keywords China, Ethnic minorities, Social structure Paper type Research paper

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International Journal of Social Economics Vol. 32 No. 9, 2005 pp. 814-826 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0306-8293 DOI 10.1108/03068290510612593

Introduction Chinas Constitution denes the country as a unitary multinational state. Among its population of just under 1.266 billion (2000 census), the state recognizes a majority nationality, the Han, and 55 minority nationalities, the latter being 8.41 per cent of the population, or about 106,430,000 people, but about two-thirds of the countrys area. (NBS, 2002, p. 95). This paper looks at contemporary Chinese theory concerning nationalities and the role of the middle classes. It assumes that theory on the middle classes applies to all ethnic groups, no matter whether economically developed or not. The middle classes may be stronger among some ethnic groups than others. However, that should not affect how the middle classes affect their societies and economies. The paper inquires about the extent to which middle classes are emerging among the ethnic minorities, or minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu), as Chinese sources describe them. It will also make references to some specic ethnic groups. The ethnic group to get most attention is the Uygurs of Xinjiang in north-western China, because of their importance and because I have made a special study of them. Others will include the Hui (Sinic Muslims spread all over China), the Mongolians (mainly Inner Mongolia), the Koreans (mainly Jilin), the Manchus (north-eastern provinces), the Dai (Yunnan), and the Naxi (north-western Yunnan).

The sources for the paper are mainly visits to ethnic areas of China. Over the years, I have made research visits to many ethnic areas of China, including several to various parts of Yunnan, Tibet and Inner Mongolia. In particular, I made research visits to many parts of Xinjiang, a large Muslim area in Chinas far north-west and covering about one-sixth of its total area, both in 1999 and in October and November 2003. This is of importance, because in 2000 the government began a Western Development Strategy, which aimed to bring more prosperity to the ethnic areas, almost all of which are included in those places affected by the Western Development Strategy. Xinjiang already showed considerable effects of this strategy by the late months of 2003. From 1949 to 1976, Chinas most powerful gure was Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who followed a radical revolutionary version of Marxism. At the end of 1978, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) succeeded in switching state policy towards a radical modernization of the country through economic development. Deng Xiaopings ideas are summed up in his slogan to get rich is glorious. His reform programs have been broadly very successful, with China posting an average annual economic growth rate over the period since 1978 of not far short of 10 per cent per annum. The average Chinese has indeed become very much richer than was ever the case before, with average GDP per capita rising from 379 yuan in 1978 to 8,184 yuan in 2002, which represents about 9 per cent per annum growth over the period (NBS, 2003, p. 55). China has seen a strategic rise so dramatic and rapid that some are beginning to fear it as a major challenge to Western interests. There have, however, been some political uncertainties and crises, by far the most important of them being in June 1989, when the CCP crackdown on student demonstrations Deng Xiaoping believed had the potential for party overthrow. The main beneciary of the leadership change that followed the crisis was Jiang Zemin, who rose to be CCP general secretary later in June 1989 and PRC president in 1993. He relinquished the former position towards the end of 2002 and the latter early the next year, both in favour of Hu Jintao. The ethnic minorities The ethnic minorities that make up 8.41 per cent of Chinas total population include some that are quite famous and have gained a good deal of international media coverage, most notably the Tibetans. Several of the ethnic minorities border countries where the peoples that are minorities in China constitute the majority. Examples are the Koreans, most of whom live near Chinas border with Korea, the Mongols, who live near Mongolia, and the Kazaks, who live near the border with Kazakhstan. There are actually more Mongols in China than in Mongolia (5,813,947 in China as against 2.242 million in Mongolia), but the proportion they occupy in the total national population is enormously greater in Mongolia than in China (0.46 per cent in China as against 94.1 per cent in Mongolia) (DP, 2002, p. 79; Turner, 2002, p. 1140). Some of Chinas ethnic minorities are very close culturally and ethnically to the Han Chinese, some so close indeed as to be almost assimilated. An interesting example is the Manchus. These people actually ruled China from 1644 to 1911, but during that time became more and more like their Chinese subjects. Nowadays there are hardly any Manchus who still speak their own language, and the Manchu written language has all but disappeared.

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In Chinas south-west, there is a whole range of ethnic minorities who have become quite well integrated into the Chinese majority, even though they do retain their own culture and language a bit more extensively than peoples like the Manchus. These include the most populous of all Chinas ethnic minorities the Zhuang, who numbered 16,178,811 according to the 2000 census (DP, 2002, p. 82) and are rather similar culturally to the Vietnamese. In Yunnan Province there are 25 ethnic minorities with populations over 5,000, the great majority of them with their own languages and cultures, but still quite well integrated with the Han majority. One of particular interest is the Dai, who are culturally and linguistically very similar to the Thais of Thailand and the Shan of Myanmar/Burma (hereafter Myanmar). One instance of this similarity is that, almost alone among Chinas peoples, they believe in Theravada Buddhism. There are a few minorities in China who are very different indeed from the Chinese majority in their cultures, religions and languages. One is the Tibetans, who are believers in a form of Tantric Buddhism special to the Tibetans and called simply Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan is a very different language from Chinese, even though it belongs to the same overall language family, called Sino-Tibetan. Tibetan diet, architecture and dress are very different from Chinese. Even more distinct from the Chinese are the Turkic peoples of far north-western China, such as the Kazaks, Kirgiz and Uzbeks, and most importantly the Uygurs. Tibetan at least belongs to the same language family as Chinese, but Uygur and the other Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language family, which is totally different from the Sino-Tibetan. These peoples are Muslims and, at least among the Uygurs, Islam is gaining in strength, both culturally and socially. The arts, architecture and diet of the Uygurs are Turkic, not Sinic. Following Muslim proscriptions, they abstain from pork, which forms a major part of the Han Chinese diet. Their music and musical instruments are quite similar to those of Turkey, but do not have much in common with those of the Han Chinese[1]. What are the middle classes? First, we should dene what we mean by the middle classes. In 1869 Marx (1969, p. 479) dened a class as follows:
In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that divide their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes and put them in hostile contrast to the latter, they form a class.

In the light of this denition, the features of a class might include the following: . some relation to the means of production; . specic class interests; . some class consciousness; and . some general and vaguely distinctive culture. There are other denitions of class that scholars have applied to China in the reform period, and with good reason[2]. However, the Marxist denition still has applicability, especially since China is still led by a communist party that claims adherence to Marxism-Leninism, even though one that has added various other notions to its ideology, such as Mao Zedong Thought and, in 1997, Deng Xiaoping Theory.

Scholars in contemporary China are well aware of increasing disparities of wealth within their society (Sun, 2002, p. 59). They have also analysed the classes within society. On the whole, however, they are reluctant to embrace the concept of the middle classes, despite understanding that there are groups of people whose wealth, status and power lie between the top groups of society and the masses of the people. One study lists ve major social groups in contemporary China, those being the workers, peasants, cadres, intellectuals and private business owners (Zhang, 2002, pp. 52-5). One very detailed study of entrepreneurs in contemporary China and Vietnam describes them as a strategic group rather than a class (Heberer, 2003, pp. 340-1). However, if we adopt the Marxist denition of class, the middle classes in contemporary China would include the entrepreneurs and the professionals. There are signs that the entrepreneurs in general do indeed have class-consciousness, and a concept of their own value. They certainly have some relation to the means of production. They may already be developing an idea of their power as entrepreneurs. They certainly have class interests and possibly a developing attitude towards life, family and their country that might be described as a vaguely distinctive culture. The middle classes include not only the intellectuals but also the elite that has acquired more education than the majority. However, the level of such education is very difcult to quantify precisely. Does somebody automatically enter the middle classes when they achieve education higher than primary or junior middle school? My answer is that they probably do, because once people advance past very basic education, they develop interests and ambitions that set them apart from those less educated, and they probably develop a vague culture that is different from others. Do the middle classes include the CCP? These people are still a power elite within China. They may also be generally better off economically. They most certainly have a collective culture based on a general belief in CCP ideology, even if not the specics of it, and collective interests. Can we relate the middle classes to modernization processes in China? I believe we can, because the entrepreneurs and other people I am describing as belonging to the middle classes are in the forefront of bringing about modernization in China. One Chinese writer (Li, 2002, p. 42) says that:
One of the main features of these changes [those taking place in China since the reform] is the synchronicity of economic institutional transition and social structural transformation. China is now changing from a redistributing economy into a socialist market economy, and at the same time from a traditional agricultural country into a modern industrial country.

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Changes of this sort affect wide sections of the population, and they certainly affect class structure. They tell us that those groups of people we may describe as belonging to the middle classes are becoming far more numerous than ever before, especially in the cities, which are the fulcrum of the modern industrial country. Change in attitudes towards entrepreneurship and the middle classes In the last years of the twentieth century and the rst years of the twenty-rst, conditions in China were very favourable both for the growth of entrepreneurship and the middle classes. One of the reasons for this was that government policy moved more and more strongly in favour of allowing entrepreneurs into the CCP, lauding them as patriotic, and recognizing their contribution to the Chinese economy and society.

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The man chiey responsible for this shift in thinking towards appreciation of entrepreneurs was Jiang Zemin. A fervent Marxist, Jiang was not so blinded by ideology as to be unable to see that entrepreneurs were a major force in the modernization of China. In July 2001, Jiang Zemin commemorated the 80th anniversary of the rst congress of the CCP with a speech supporting the admission of entrepreneurs into the CCP. He said, among other points (QCD, 2001, p. 1051):
The basic components and backbone of the Party are those from workers, peasants, intellectuals, servicemen, and cadres. At the same time, it is also necessary to accept those outstanding elements from other social sectors who have subscribed to the Partys programme and Constitution, who have self-consciously worked for the Partys line and programme, and who have proved to meet the requirements for Party membership through a long period of tests.

However, Jiang was catching up with reality rather than setting it. Deng Xiaopings doctrine that to get rich is glorious had resulted in an increasing emphasis on material values and a loss of belief among many sectors of the community in Marxism of any kind. With the increasing emphasis on money and prosperity within society, it was only a matter of time before the CCP faced a stark choice. Would it try to maintain the emphasis on ideology and rein in the money-centredness of society? Or would it transform itself into a quasi-capitalist party, in which patriotism replaced Marxism and Chinese progress expressed itself mainly in economic development? Jiang Zemin chose the latter path. This was a wise decision that will help to keep the CCP in power for some time. Entrepreneurs and the ethnic minorities An entrepreneurial class is emerging among most of Chinas ethnic minorities. Among a few, progress is already rapid and we are beginning to see groups of people with a highly developed consciousness as entrepreneurs. Among others, the record is less clear, but still with evidence of social change towards giving entrepreneurship a high social status. Several minorities show entrepreneurial classes developing that are willing to take part in the Chinese states modernization program. These include the Mongols, the Manchus, the Hui, the Koreans, the Uygurs and even the Tibetans. I say even, because until very recently Tibet has proved itself somewhat resistant to modernization and its effects. Unlike the Koreans or the Hui, both of which have a strong entrepreneurial tradition, the Tibetans have tended to focus more attention on spiritual matters to the exclusion of worldly ones. Industry is quite well developed among the Koreans, Mongols and Manchus at present. This is particularly due to their educational levels, to be discussed more later on. The Japanese developed some industry during the time they occupied Chinas north-east (1931-1945). While their record was generally an atrocious one, it is fair to give them credit for those few positive things they accomplished. In Yunnan, there are signs of growing entrepreneurship among some of the minorities. The capital of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Jinghong, as well as other Dai areas, show a growing class of entrepreneurs keen and able to make money out of border trade and services. Sometimes this is harmful to society as a whole. For instance, in Ruili on the border with Burma, the drug trade and cross-border

prostitution are contributing to a massive AIDS problem. Some of the entrepreneurs who carry out entrepreneurial activities are Han, but there are also some who belong to the minorities. The Naxi of north-western Yunnan are making large sums of money from tourism, itself a ourishing industry and money-spinner throughout the ethnic areas of Yunnan and other parts of China. Tourism has transformed much of ethnic China, increasing its wealth enormously. Again, one might caution that Han people (as well as foreigners) make more money out of this than do the local minorities. But this should not disguise the evident growth of wealth that has emerged among the minorities, and the fact that the number of entrepreneurs has grown greatly. It is not only Han people who like to make money and who are happy to wallow in their rising standard of living. As elsewhere, the middle classes are more heavily concentrated in the cities than in the rural areas. Table I shows some gures concerning the balance between agricultural and non-agricultural populations in Chinas ethnic areas over the two decades or so following the institution of the reform policies. These gures include Han populations as well as those of the minorities. However, the fact that they show rising proportions of minorities in the ethnic areas, falling proportions in agriculture, and rising in non-agriculture, suggest more members of the minorities moving into non-traditional urban callings. Such a trend can only impact favourably on the rise of a middle class. In Xinjiang, modernization and the classes that contribute to it are developing very rapidly. During my visit in 2003 I saw signs in all the main cities that an entrepreneurial class is beginning to take shape, especially among the Uygurs. In the wake of the Western Development Strategy of 2000, Chinese investment from the eastern seaboard has gathered momentum greatly. Most of the beneciaries of this Han Chinese investment are themselves Han, but there is still a signicant minority that belongs to the Uygurs or Kazaks. In Aksu in central southern Xinjiang, for example, there is now a developed economy resulting from the Western Development Strategy. I was surprised to see there a modern mall with a range of modern shops not too dissimilar from what one nds in modern developed economies. Some of these shops were owned and managed by Uygurs, and there were some Uygur patrons. Outside one of them were two Uygur musicians playing traditional Uygur music as a marketing device. Most of this entrepreneurial middle class is urban. However, there are signs of such developments also in the countryside. I take one example from the cotton industry, production in which grew from 294,700 tons in 1989 to 1,500,000 in 2002 (XSY, 2003,

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Year (per cent) Total population (000s) Minorities (per cent) Agriculture (per cent) Non-agriculture (per cent) Source: ED (2000, p. 438)

1978 110,772 39.2 84.65 15.35

1990 152,957 45 82.24 17.76

1995 160,444 45.1 80.27 19.73

1999 167,840 45.8 78.96 21.04

Table I. Population of the ethnic areas

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p. 371). I was travelling from Kucha towards Aksu by road. This is one of the main centres of the cotton industry in Xinjiang, so I wanted to interview people at random about their cotton growing. I found a shepherd, who told me that he had earned a great deal of money over the past years out of growing cotton. As we were talking, a Uygur cotton-grower rode up on a rather large motorbike, quite an expensive item in this part of the world. He had earned even more than the shepherd and many times the average rural income in Xinjiang. So there is already an entrepreneurial class among the Uygurs and other minorities in Xinjiang. However, there are several areas of major concern about these middle classes and the regions modernization processes. It may be appropriate to begin with cotton, the enormous growth in which has caused some controversy. Many people in the West, especially among human rights activists, are strongly opposed to this development (Becquelin, 2000, pp. 80-3). They argue that Xinjiang is very short of water, which cotton needs, and that it is mainly the Han who prot from the cotton industry. They argue further that the cotton industry causes friction between the Han and Uygurs, simply because it is primarily a Han commodity the major benets of which ow not to the Uygurs but to the Han. I asked the two cotton growers their reactions to these concerns. On the question of water, they agreed that Xinjiang was short of water, but claimed that alternative crops, for instance corn, used even more than cotton. I asked if ethnic relations were affected. The Uygur with the motorbike thought they were, because of the inequalities caused, not because cotton is a Han crop. His willingness to tell this to me as a foreigner was one of the factors that led me to think he was a genuine cotton-grower and an entrepreneur, and not just telling me the ofcial line. A second major concern about entrepreneurs as a whole, not just cotton, is the growth of inequalities. These have increased enormously in China overall in the last few years, largely due to the reform policies. The government claims that the Western Development Strategy is partly aimed at countering the growth of inequality and it may be sincere. But I have serious doubts that this will in fact be the result of the strategy. As modernization gathers momentum in Xinjiang, disparities will widen because, though many do very well from the opportunities modernization offers, others are left behind. The third major concern is how the rise of the middle classes and the modernization that goes with it affect culture. Will modernization tend to undermine Uygur culture, including Uygur religion, arts and architecture? As people move into modern ats, will the old Uygur architecture be destroyed? Up to now, what has happened is that Uygur culture has undoubtedly weakened under the impetus of modernity. There is a process of demolition of old dwellings in Uygur style in the cities of Xinjiang, and it was obvious to me as I travelled around the region. And the pattern is to replace the old demolished houses with modern ats that are rather similar all over the world. However, I do not think it is time to give up on Uygur culture. I visited several middle class Uygur and Kazak families in these modern ats and can testify that on the inside the style is Uygur or Kazak, that the people still follow their traditional diet and still believe in Islam. And that brings me to the question of religion. Indeed, Islam is under pressure in Xinjiang. At the behest of the government authorities, the Islamic association has adopted a law forbidding all people under 18 to enter a religious place. Just as

seriously, the authorities are obsessed with terrorism due to Islamic fundamentalism and are watching Muslim activities with an eagle eye, desperate to prevent them from threatening the Chinese state. Yet despite all this, Islam is thriving. The number of mosques is rising dramatically, especially in the south of Xinjiang. Ordinary Uygur men go to prayer at the mosques. Women are forbidden to enter a mosque for prayer, not by the state but by Islam itself, but they do pray at home and do so regularly. In my opinion, Uygur culture is very much alive and well and I do not expect it to die in the foreseeable future. The CCP, the middle classes and the ethnic minorities The CCP is the most important power-holding body in China. This makes its membership denitely an elite and, according to the denitions offered above, it may t into the category of the middle classes. It seems appropriate, therefore, to discuss the ethnic minority membership of this power-holding elite body. In June 2002 there were 66,355,000 members of the CCP. This gure has grown consistently since the PRC was established in 1949. The gures in Table II give some indication of the composition of the CCP. Although the ethnic minorities are not the only groups considered, they are important here. Unfortunately there are quite a few gaps in these gures, and the categories are not completely consistent. However, a few points do seem to emerge. These are:

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Proportion from ethnic minorities 1989 1995 1998 1999 June 2002 Proportion by class (employment) 1989 June 2002 Workers, farmers, shermen and rural enterprise labourers Cadres, entrepreneurs, managers, armymen, armed police Technicians or skilled personnel Details of those recruited between 1997 and 2002 Total Those aged 35 and below Female Those belonging to ethnic minorities Those with upper secondary and higher education

5.5 per cent 5.8 per cent 6.2 per cent 6.2 per cent 6.2 per cent, 4.1 million ethnic minority members 56.6 per cent workers, farmers, shermen 27.7 per cent cadres 2.8 per cent army members 29.913 million, 45.1 per cent 14.112 million, 21.3 per cent 7.701 million, 11.6 per cent 11.892 million 8.939 million, 75.2 per cent 3.026 million, 25.4 per cent 0.922 million, 7.8 per cent 9.353 million, 78.6 per cent Table II. Figures on the CCP

Source: The main source for these gures is Renmin ribao (Peoples Daily) (2002). Some of the pre-2002 gures are from Mackerras (2001, p. 90)

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The proportion of workers, farmers and comparable labourers has fallen quite signicantly. The category of entrepreneur is missing from the composition in 1989 but is shown in 2002. The proportion of members with upper secondary or higher education is growing with most recruits quite or very well educated. The proportion of ethnic minorities has grown slightly, but still does not reect their proportion of 8.41 per cent in the total population.

Even though the proportion remains below that of the population as a whole, this rise suggests that the minorities are taking part in the rise of a middle class occasioned by the growth of the CCP. There are quite a few members of these minorities who do indeed hold more power and are beginning to show the features of a middle class, as I have dened it in this paper. We may observe that the minorities on the whole tend to be more religiously dedicated than the Han. This applies especially to the Tibetans and the Islamic minorities like the Uygurs. It is not surprising that adherence to Islam in an ethnic group should affect its willingness to join a body like the CCP that is avowedly atheist. On the other hand, the emerging Uygur and Tibetan middle classes include quite a few who are proud to be members of the CCP, even though they may still call themselves Muslims or Tibetan Buddhists in their private lives. Education, literacy and language The education system matters a great deal from the point of view of the present topic for three reasons: (1) Education is a major path, indeed a prerequisite, to better careers and career opportunities. It is the path towards more prosperity, especially for people brought up in rural communities where they have not been used to good opportunities. (2) Education is essential for modernization. Experience shows that when a community is literate and knowledgeable, it is much easier for it to acquire the skills necessary for industrialization and those other factors that lead to modernization. (3) Education is a means whereby every citizen in a country can acquire knowledge of the national language, without which it is very difcult to modernize a country effectively. In the case of China the national language is called putong hua (literally the common words) in Chinese, and translatable into English as Modern Standard Chinese or Mandarin. Most of the minorities have their own spoken languages and a few their own written languages, some of them with important written literatures. Table III shows some gures for minority students. The secondary school gures include regular secondary schools as well as secondary-level technical schools, teacher training schools and vocational schools. Of all minorities in China, the one that has traditionally given the highest priority to education is the Koreans. By the end of the twentieth century, illiteracy was more or

less wiped out among the Koreans. Mongols and Manchus are also well above average in educational terms. Among the most important minorities, it was the Tibetans who stood at the other end of the spectrum, and by the end of the twentieth century only a little over half Tibetans aged 15 or more were literate, either in Tibetan or Chinese or both. (Mackerras, 2003, p. 129). There have been many campaigns to eliminate illiteracy among the minorities, with quite signicant injection of funds. According to the 1990 and 2000 censuses, the rates of illiteracy China-wide fell from 15.88 to 6.72 per cent over the decade (NBS, 2002, p. 95). Although particular minorities, such as the Koreans, are more literate than the Chinese population as a whole, the average literacy rate for minorities is lower than for the total population. Yet, the campaigns do seem to have had some success among the minorities over the 1990s and more recently. Tourism was mentioned above as a major way many ethnic group members make money. Ofcial claims are that ethnic tourism has given both direct and indirect impetus to the development of ethnic culture (CEY, 2003, p. 159). I nd this quite credible because the ability to make money from tourism both encourages and enables authorities to invest in educating their young people at least to the point that they can contribute meaningfully to tourism. I have myself visited quite a few ethnic areas where tourism is specically promoted, and come into contact with newly educated people who felt that their education had a lot to offer job prospects and money both to their own communities and to themselves. In many of the minority areas of China there is a two-track system of education, according to which the ethnic minorities receive instruction in their own languages, but at the same time learn Chinese. In areas where the students belong to various nationalities, instruction is usually in Chinese from the beginning, especially if many of the students are Han. One example illustrating the two-track education system is in the Korean areas. In many primary schools, the Korean language is the language of instruction and remains so to the highest grade offered in the school. In the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, I visited two secondary schools in 1990s where there was absolutely no sign of any language other than Korean. Apart from the lack of pictures of Kim Il Sung and the milder ideological atmosphere, the school reminded me of some I have visited in North Korea. Despite this, these schools do teach Chinese, and by the time the students graduate from them, they will have mastery over both Chinese and Korean, in written and spoken. This will enable them to do well and get on in good careers in China, where the national language is the one that matters most everywhere in terms of employment opportunities.

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Year Higher education Secondary schools Primary schools

1978 36.03 2,526 7,686

1985 94.1 2,448 9,548

1994 177.9 3,664 11,492

1997 217.0 4,597 12,482

1999 247.7 5,251 12,142 Table III. Minority students enrolled (thousands)

Note: The 1999 gures total 17,640,700, which had increased still further to 19,490,000 by 2001 (CEY, 2003, p. 149) Source: ED (2000, p. 564)

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Another very interesting example of two-track education is among the Uygurs in Xinjiang. There are two types of school there, one teaching in Uygur, the other in Chinese, and the curricula being almost entirely the same. One difference is that the students in the Uygur schools must learn Chinese, which they do as a foreign language, while those in the Chinese schools learn Chinese as their own language and generally also learn a foreign language such as English as well. Some Uygur schools teach English and it is becoming more and more common, but it is still not normal, as it is in the Chinese schools. Han Chinese parents always send their children to Chinese schools, seeing no need for them to learn Uygur. Most Uygur parents send their children to the Uygur schools. This is so that they will become literate in their own language and maintain their own culture. In many communities, especially in the countryside, there is hardly any Han Chinese anyway, and there may not be a local Chinese school. Another phenomenon that is becoming more widespread with modernization is for Uygur parents to send their children to Chinese schools. The reason for this is simply because parents think that their children will enjoy better careers and more prosperity if they have a real mastery over the Chinese language, both in its written and spoken forms. The increased literacy and education levels among the ethnic minorities can only contribute to the rise of the middle classes among them. It makes them keener to get on in the world, and I have met innumerable young people eager to learn and advance their career, money and power prospects within society. Deng Xiaopings slogan that to get rich is glorious has met with a very good response among the people, including the minorities. And the perception that education is an essential door into getting these riches is very widespread. Conclusions It is very clear from all this material that China is undergoing a rapid and accelerating modernization process. This process is not entirely consistent throughout the country, and is very much more pronounced in the urban than in the rural areas. However, it is affecting the whole country and having a profound impact on the standard of living of the people. This modernization process is producing groups of people who are richer, better educated, more sophisticated generally and more inuential than the majority of the population, groups of people we can describe as middle classes according to the denition offered at the beginning of this paper. In general the modernization process and the growth of the middle classes are more concentrated on the Han majority than on the minority nationalities. However, it is affecting the minorities as well, and the middle classes are beginning to emerge among them in signicant ways. Xinjiang and the Uygurs provide a good example of how the middle classes are developing among the ethnic minorities, and that is despite the political problems of separatism that have aficted the region. There are also individual minorities that display better than average growth in those matters that impact on the emergence of the middle classes. One of these is the Koreans, who are better educated and keener to prosper than the Han. At the beginning of the twenty-rst century, the minorities are much more modern than they were in 1990. Barring some political upheaval, which I do not expect but cannot rule out altogether, the situation in the 2010s will again show a much more modern face that at centurys dawn. We can expect to see more urbanization of the

ethnic minorities, higher rates of education and literacy and stronger middle classes. These trends will produce a signicant inuence on the Chinese economy and society as a whole, including ethnic relations. On the whole, prosperity improves society, but other countries have shown that unfortunate by-products could also emerge, including rising crime and divorce rates, great disparities of wealth and declining community spirit. It is likely that the growth of the middle classes will exercise similar effects in China, but only time can tell.
Notes 1. For brief notes on each of the state-recognized ethnic minorities see Mackerras (2001, pp. 262-6). 2. For example, Heberer (2003, pp. 60-1), who criticises the Marxist concept of class and prefers the concept of Pierre Bourdieu, because it goes beyond the purely economic element and places the classes in a constructed social space . . . References Becquelin, N. (2000), Xinjiang in the 90s, The China Journal, Vol. 44, pp. 65-90. Department of Population, Social Science and Technology Statistics, National Bureau of Statistics of China (DP) (2002), Zhongguo Renkou Tongji Nianjian (China Population Statistics Yearbook 2002), China Statistics Press, Beijing. Chinas Ethnic Yearbook Editorial Board (CEY) (2003), Zhongguo Minzu Nianjian (Chinas Ethnic Yearbook 2002), China Statistics Press, Beijing. Economic and Development Department State Ethnic Affairs Commission and Department of Integrated Statistics State Statistical Bureau, Peoples Republic of China (ED) (2000), Zhongguo Minzu Tongji Nianjian (Chinas Ethnic Statistical Yearbook 2000), Ethnic Publishing House, Beijing. Heberer, T. (2003), Private Entrepreneurs in China and Vietnam, Social and Political Functioning of Strategic Groups, translated by T.J. Gluckman, Brill, Leiden. Li, P.L. (2002), Introduction: changes in social stratication in China since the reform, Social Sciences in China, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 42-7. Mackerras, C. (2001), The New Cambridge Handbook of Contemporary China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Mackerras, C. (2003), Chinas Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation, RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, NY. Marx, K. (1869/1969), The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Marx, K. and Engels, F. (Eds), Selected Works in Three Volumes, Vol. 1, Progress Publishers, Moscow, pp. 394-487. National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) (2002), Zhongguo Tongji Nianjian (China Statistical Yearbook 2002), China Statistics Press, Beijing. National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) (2003), Zhongguo Tongji Nianjian (China Statistical Yearbook 2003), China Statistics Press, Beijing. Quarterly Chronicle and Documentation (QCD) (2001), The China Quarterly, Vol. 168, July-September, pp. 1047-91. Renmin ribao (Peoples Daily) (2002), Chinas main Chinese Communist Party daily, overseas ed., 2 September, p. 1. Sun, L.P. (2002), Re-accumulation of resources: the background of social stratication in China in the 1990s, Social Sciences in China, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 59-68.

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Turner, B. (Ed.) (2002), The Statesmans Yearbook: The Politics, Cultures and Economies of the World 2003, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, NY. Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2003 Editorial Board (XSY) (comp.) (2003), Xinjiang Tongji Nianjian (Xinjiang Statistical Yearbook 2003), China Statistics Press, Beijing. Zhang, W.L. (2002), 20 years of research on stratied social structure in contemporary China, Social Sciences in China, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 48-58. (Colin Mackerras is Foundation Professor in China studies at Grifth University, Australia. He has written widely on Chinese culture, politics and ethnic minorities, his most recently published single-authored book being Chinas Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation, RoutledgeCurzon, London and New York, 2003.)

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