(TibetanReview.net, Mar18’25) – China’s state media said Mar 18 that president Xi Jinping had called for the preservation of the distinctive culture of people in areas with large ethnic minority populations, which appears to be in stark contrast with his previous calls for the Sinicization of such areas under the rubric of ethnic unity in the name of forging a “strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” in those areas.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, has stressed that areas with large ethnic minority populations should preserve their distinctive culture and let it shine through the integrated development of culture and tourism, reported China’s official Xinhua news agency Mar 18.
However, it bears noting that Xi has made those remarks not in areas like Tibet or East Turkestan (Xinjiang), but in mainland China’s southern province of Guizhou while inspecting a Dong ethnic minority village in Liping County. The Dong people number around 3 million and dwell in innumerable villages among the tree-clad hills dotting an extensive stretch of territory on the Hunan-Guizhou-Guangxi borders.
In contrast from what he has said in Guizhou’s Liping county, Xi has, while visiting Qinghai province in Jun 2021 and Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) in Jul 2021, underscored his administration’s priorities concerning not only regional development but also cultural integration and “national unity” in the name of Sinicization. He called on local officials to foster a stronger sense of identification among Tibetans with the “great motherland, Chinese people, Chinese culture, the Chinese Communist Party, and socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Those visits reflected Xi ‘s focus on integrating Tibet and Qinghai into the broader ethnic Chinese national framework, promoting not only economic development and environmental conservation, but also cultural assimilation, and loyalty to the Communist Party.
Also, in Aug 2020, during a significant conference on Tibet, Xi highlighted the necessity of guiding Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to socialist society, promoting its alignment with Chinese cultural and political norms.
China’s push to foster a “sense of community for the Chinese nation” – an effort to boost a Han Chinese-centric national identity among ethnic minority regions – was first put forward by Xi at the Communist Party congress in 2017.