China - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 251

and businesses. Everyone was assigned a work unit, which also controlled
housing, food, marriage, family planning, education, and so forth. In the
countryside, farms were collectivized. Privately owned land was seized,
and the former landlords were often shot. Their children had the lowest
priority for food and education. While these policies were a product of the
Communist Party, they echoed thousands of years of authoritarian gov-
ernment under the empire and contained elements of Confucian beliefs.
The geographic boundaries of the People's Republic were close to those
of the old empire. In 1945 Manchuria was returned from Japanese control.
The People's Liberation Army chased the Nationalists out of the south by
early 1950. Later in that year, the Army conquered Tibet, effectively inde-
pendent since the 1911 Revolution. Outer Mongolia had been lost to the
Republic in 1921 and was officially an independent country, but in fact it
was a satellite under the domination of the Soviet Union. The only other
territory lost was Taiwan, to which the Nationalist government and army
retreated in 1949. The People's Republic continues to maintain that this
island of 23 million people is an integral province. Perhaps the biggest
difference by 1949 was the nearly complete end to the foreign treaty ports.
The British, French, Russians, Portuguese, Americans, and the Japanese
no longer controlled territory in the major cities. The only exceptions were
Hong Kong and Macao.
The population, about 400 million in 1949 and 1.3 billion today, is
homogeneous in ethnicity. About 92% are Han, that is, racially Chinese,
and speak one of the dialects of the Chinese language. About 4% are also
racially similar, but speak different languages and have different cultures,
and another 4% appear racially different, and do not speak Chinese as their
native tongue. Tibetans and Uighurs are examples. These 8% are referred
to as “minorities” or “nationalities,” and may have distinctive citizenship
status. Many of the minorities live in the south along the border with
Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. Uighurs are a Turkic people living in the
northwestern province of Xinjiang and are Muslim. There are only eight
million Uighurs and five million Tibetans. In both Xinjiang and Tibet,
government has encouraged immigration of Hans, so they now constitute
about half the population, an item of resentment. The homelands of many
other minorities, however, are not geographically remote but are scattered
all over China.
As a Communist country, adherence to the doctrines of Karl Marx was
paramount. In its earliest days, the party believed that, as Marx had pre-
dicted, a revolution had to take place in a city by industrial workers. This