Speech by Dondrub Wangben, Vice-Minister of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good morning.

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to meet everybody here.

China is a unified multi-ethnic country with 56 ethnic groups. The minority groups have a total population of over 100 million, accounting for 8.4 percent of the national total population. Ethnic autonomous regions cover an area of over six million sq km, making up 63.7 percent of the territory of China . This basic situation of China indicates that ethnic minorities affairs have a bearing on whether we can build China into a comparatively well-off society as a whole.

The Chinese government always attaches great importance to ethnic minorities affairs, and gives energetic support to work in this regard. Since the policies of reform and opening-up were implemented, especially the launching of the Western Regions Development Program, ethnic minorities affairs have made rapid progress. However, due to historical, natural and social reasons, this work is still backward, with not well-coordinated economic and social development in ethnic minority areas and quite big gaps between different areas, urban and rural areas, and ethnic groups, severely hindering the building of a harmonious society in China .

In recent years, the Chinese government has made some important plans to accelerate the development of ethnic minorities and their areas. In 2005, at the Central Conference on Ethnic Affairs Work and the Fourth National Award Ceremony on Ethnic Unity and Progress of the State Council, President Hu Jintao proposed that the government should formulate an 11th Five-Year Plan on ethnic minorities work. According to the overall plans and requirements of the State Council for compiling the 11th Five-Year Plan, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission took the responsibility of compiling the 11th Five-Year Plan for Ethnic Minorities Affairs with the support of the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Culture. In early 2007, the State Council approved this Plan, ushering in a new page in the progress of ethnic minorities affairs.

The Plan aims to provide equal basic public services to all, starting by solving the conspicuous problems and difficulties of ethnic minorities and autonomous regions. On this basis, the Plan refers to relevant indices in the 11th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, uses data from previous ethnic-minority censuses and previous China Ethnic Statistical Yearbooks, and quantifies the goals into major expectant indices by 2010, i.e. income level, coverage rate of nine-year compulsory education, infant mortality, publications in the languages of ethnic minorities, proportion of qualified people and urbanization rate of minority areas.

The Plan puts forward 11 major tasks to achieve the overall goals and major expectant indices: 1) to improve the infrastructure for economic development in national autonomous areas; 2) to put emphasis on solving dire poverty and other urgent special problems faced by ethnic minority people; 3) to work hard to improve the level of education, science and technology for ethnic-minority people; 4) to steadily improve health and medical care for ethnic minorities; 5) to energetically develop the cultural undertakings of ethnic minorities; 6) to steadily enhance social welfare for ethnic-minority people; 7) to strengthen training of qualified personnel for ethnic minorities; 8) to encourage ethnic minorities and national autonomous areas to open wider to the outside world; 9) to gradually perfect the legal system for ethnic minorities; 10) to improve the national theoretical and policy system; and 11) to create a social environment favorable for the harmonious development of all nationalities.

Based on the actual situation of the undertakings concerning ethnic minorities, China will put emphasis on 11 key projects in the 11th Five-Year Plan period: Anti-Poverty Project for Ethnic-Minority People Living in Abject Poverty, Project in Support of Elementary Education for Ethnic Minorities, Project of Building Institutions of Higher Learning for Ethnic Minorities, Ethnic Minority Traditional Medicine Development Project, Ethnic Minority Cultural Development Project, Project for Cultivating Competent Minority Personnel, Legal System Building Project for Ethnic Minorities, Foreign Communication and Cooperation Project for Ethnic Minorities, Informationization Construction Project for Ethnic Affairs Administration, Survey Project on the Situations of Ethnic Minorities, and Project for Building a Service System for Ethnic Affairs.

Guarantee measures of the Plan fall mainly into four aspects: 1) incorporating ethnic minorities affairs into the overall national economic and social development planning and developing it together with other national undertakings in a coordinated way; 2) setting up a responsibility system to ensure the goals of the Plan will be reached: under the leadership of local Party committees and governments, relevant departments will perform their functions and cooperate with others, while all social circles will give their support; 3) beefing up the support of the central and local governments for ethnic minorities affairs, and formulating and improving preferential policies in this regard; and 4) improving the construction of managerial and supervisory abilities concerning ethnic affairs, and strengthening social supervision and public services, so as to form a mechanism involving all social circles.

The implementation of the 11th Five-Year Plan for Ethnic Minorities Affairs is of great realistic, political and historic significance for promoting the coordinated economic and social development of ethnic minorities and their areas, guaranteeing the legitimate rights and interests of ethnic minority people, consolidating and developing socialist nationality relationships, and safeguarding social stability, state unification and national security. We are confident that under the leadership of the Central Party Committee and the State Council, and with the concerted efforts of the departments concerned in each area, ethnic minorities work will certainly enter a new development stage as the Plan is implemented step by step, and make new contributions to the building of a well-off, harmonious society in an all-round way.