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China is very tolerant of minorities and officially recognizes
56 ethnic groups among its population of 1.2 billion people. The
majority of the ethnic Chinese people, known as the Han Chinese,
make up 93 percent of the population. Han Chinese speak seven
different dialects but Mandarin or Putonghua, meaning "common
speech" is the official and most-commonly used language. Cantonese,
which is spoken in Hong Kong and the southern provinces is the
second most popular. Most of the 55 other ethnic groups speak
their own dialects.
China has five Autonomous Regions for its minorities:
Guangxi, Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Ningxia. The minorities
account for a small 7 percent of the entire population and there
are efforts to preserve their unique characteristics for future
generations. They live along the country's borders and some across
the border. The government's one-child policy has been lifted
for ethnic minority couple from the same group. They can have
a second child if both parents are only children and from the
same ethnic minority group.
China has been ruled by Han for most of its recent
history, except in the Yuen Dynasty when Mongols ruled for less
than 100 years and in Qing Dynasty, Manchuria ruled for almost
300 years. China's boundaries of today were solidified in the
early Qing Dynasty in the beginning of the 17th Century.
China has been a multi-culture and multi-disciplined
society for a few thousand years. All minorities in China today
have equal right to the Han Chinese majority. Minorities usually
reside in the more remote and usually poorer regions but the Chinese
government has a preferential policy to provide training for the
minorities to progress, govern and manage independently.
Chinese would like to enjoy the peaceful environment
and tolerate many religions and nationalities if there is no foreign
pressure to interfere.
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