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China's People Groups

How Many Groups Are There?

Early writers were aware of a large number of different tribes and peoples in China but had no means of conducting ongoing research or gathering further information, or biographical data. Most of them simply offered a list of names and locations to the interested world. The Christian world marveled at the results of a 1944 survey by missionary John Kuhn, who documented 100 tribes in Yunnan Province alone. Kuhn wrote: Everywhere we kept finding tribes, many of whom we had never heard of, until our hearts were thrilled. On December 23 we tabulated the one hundredth tribe! One hundred tribes in Yunnan ! And two-thirds of these had never had a gospel witness.

When a new constitution in the early 1950s declared China to be “a unitary, multi-national socialist state,” leaders from China 's minority groups were invited to come forward, register their groups with the government, and be considered for official recognition. The results, first released in 1953, were staggering. Over 400 groups submitted their names; more than 260 of them were located in Yunnan Province alone.

Obviously not willing to deal with so many different tribes and groups, the new communist government began to artificially trim the list down to manageable proportions. In 1956, 16 teams with a total of more than 1,000 people were established by the government and sent across China to investigate the claims of the 400 groups who had applied for recognition. “The members included linguists, archaeologists, historians, economists, and experts in literature and the arts.” The teams “collected a large body of data and presented their views on the classification of minority languages. These form most of the language information used today on China 's minorities. The researchers rejected most of the 400 names, claiming that some were different names referring to the same group of people, some were different branch names of one ethnic family, some were place names of the areas where the minority groups lived and some were Chinese transliterations of a group of people.

While there is no doubt that this is true in part, even a casual researcher of China 's ethnic composition will soon realize that there exist many groups in China today which defy their official classification. By 1964 the government had managed to reduce the number of groups on their list to only 183. Dismayed at being rejected, many minority groups applied again in the late 1960s, including over 80 groups representing 900,000 people in Guizhou Province alone. With the central government feeling uncomfortable at the prospect of dealing with so many collective needs, and with administrators in Beijing no doubt feeling unwilling to welcome hundreds of new representatives — Deputies to the National Party Congress — the scholars were sent back to work.

From their revised list of 183, they squeezed together dozens of groups into broad ethnic classifications, grouping together tribes who in many cases shared no historical kinship and could not understand a word of each others' languages. In this way in 1976 the State Council of the People's Republic finally arrived at a total of just 51 selected “minority nationalities” in China . Since then four more groups have been added to arrive at the current total of 55 officially recognized minorities. The State Nationalities Affairs Commission now “considers the work of identifying nationalities virtually complete and is unlikely to accept any of the outstanding claims.”

By way of example, the eight million Yi people, rather than being a cohesive ethnolinguistic people group, are a collection of 120 smaller groups from diverse cultural and historical backgrounds. Many speak mutually unintelligible languages. One source even goes as far as to divide the Yi into 485 clans — with each clan occupying a distinct territory! There can be no excuse for the official trend, for even as long as a century ago, scholars were calling for the various branches of the Yi to be recognized as distinct entities. In addition to the Yi, many distinct ethnolinguistic peoples have been artificially grouped together in the Tibetan, Miao, Hani, Zhuang, Yao , Dai, and Mongolian nationalities. Even Chinese scholars have admitted that the true number of distinct ethnic groups in China is staggeringly high. Among the Yao minority, for example, There are thought to be as many as 300 such different appellations… making research and classification ethnically an impossible task… [the different Yao groups] are probably not of the same ethnic stock. Most of the 55 official minorities in China have been created by a similar artificial fusion of smaller groups.

The Christian Perspective

What should be the Christian response to the official Chinese classification of 55 minorities in China? Does it matter? Many ministries to China today have wished to focus their energy on the minority groups. However, people interested in China's ethnic groups will be hard pressed to find information on the approximately 350 “missing” groups — ones that have disappeared since the 1953 study. Few details of the original list of 400 names have ever been released by the Chinese authorities, and there is generally little information available for Chinese students beyond what supports the official 55 minorities. Missionaries and Christian researchers in the West are similarly obliged to support the official classification of the minorities for lack of research done prior to the expulsion of missionaries from China almost 50 years ago. In addition, a stream of books, articles, and studies from both inside China and abroad continue to promote the official classifications.

That there has been phenomenal church growth in China is beyond question. It is a leap however to assume that the Gospel will automatically spread within China among the various groups. For instance, observers have noted that the Yi nationality contains an estimated 200,000 Christians. Many would immediately classify them as a “reached” group, but this is not the case: People have the impression that these groups should be able to effectively evangelize the other members of the Yi. However, upon closer inspection it is found that almost all of the Yi Christians are among the Eastern Nasu and Eastern Lipo. … The other 100 or so Yi groups are totally unreached. They live as far as 1,000 km [620 miles] away from the centre of Yi Christianity. But, even if the Eastern Nasu and Eastern Lipo Christians should decide to travel and share the gospel with other Yi groups, they would find it a cross-cultural experience. They would have to learn a new language, in many cases with hardly a single word the same as in their mother tongue, and they will have to learn new customs and a new culture. Far better if we view all these people groups as separate gospel targets to begin with. History confirms the truth of this finding among the Yi. In the mid-1940s James Broomhall of the China Inland Mission tried to mobilize Yi Christians from Yunnan to evangelize the Nosu in Sichuan : “They found it very difficult to adjust to the differences in language, culture, and general lifestyle and soon returned to their homes.”

Until All Are Reached

While it is true that there are lost people in every community of the world, the difference is that in places like China there are whole races of people who have never had the opportunity to hear the gospel. Not only are these lost individuals but they are lost ethnic representations of humankind. The 1982 Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization defined an unreached people group as:

A people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize their people group without requiring outside (cross cultural) assistance.… Therefore a group is considered reached if it has a viable, indigenous, self-producing church movement in its midst. This means a people group has strong churches pastored by their own people using their own language, and these churches are actively evangelizing their people and planting daughter churches.

Although the revival of Christianity in eastern and southeastern China has resulted in millions of conversions among the Han Chinese, most of western and northern China remains in complete spiritual darkness without a glimmer of gospel light. Many of the people groups have no known believers in their midst. Some could be considered completely unevangelized — that is, 100% of the population has never yet heard anything of the gospel and is unaware of the Person of Jesus Christ. China's more than 400 unreached people groups are in desperate and urgent need of a “people movement” to Christ which is defined by missionary statesman Donald McGavran as the joint decision of a number of individuals — whether five or five hundred — all from the same people, which enables them to become Christians without social dislocation, while remaining in full contact with their non-Christian relatives, thus enabling other groups of that people, across the years, after suitable instruction, to come to similar decisions and form Christian churches made up exclusively of members of that people.

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Extensive prayer information on the Chinese peoples can be found in Operation China by Paul Hattaway, available from Piquant. Paul is a partner of AsiaLink and widely regarded as an expert on the Chinese Church today. This paper is an edited version of a more complete introduction found in Operation China.

China and Her Minorities

For centuries the outside world has yearned to understand the mysterious land of China . Since the late 1970s — when China again opened her doors to foreign trade and tourism — thousands of visitors have flocked into the Middle Kingdom, sampling her sumptuous food, photographing her scenic beauty, and experiencing her bustling marketplaces. People around the world conjure up several key images when they think of China — the Great Wall, the Forbidden City of Beijing, the canals of Suzhou , or the spectacular karst peaks of Guilin .

Few, however, have been fortunate enough to experience the “hidden” China which possesses a side so dramatically colourful and enticing, they are surprised to find it even exists. Woven into the fabric of the largest population on earth is the rich thread of China's ethnic minorities — numbering more than 100 million people — lost, largely, amid the vast population of 1.2 billion Han Chinese.

This article introduces the reader to these hidden minority peoples, to groups and cultures as diverse as the pale, blue-eyed Muslims of Xinjiang and the tribal people of the jungles of Yunnan with their intricately embroidered costumes; the Tibetans in the west, proud of their fascinating heritage, and the nomadic hunter tribes, related to the Eskimos, in the extreme northeast of this vast country. Although numerically the minorities of China account for only 6.7% of China 's population, they inhabit 62.5% of China 's territory.

Understanding the Minority Groups in China:

The name the Chinese use for their country is Zhong Guo , or “The Middle Kingdom.” For more than a thousand years the Chinese have believed theirs is the cradle of civilization, the culture at the centre of all human existence. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the Chinese felt great shame as a nation. Parts of their country had been divided up and were controlled by foreign powers — the Japanese, British, Dutch, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russians, and others had seized strategic ports and regions for their own benefit. The Chinese economy was in tatters, and the countryside was practically ruled by warlords and gangsters.

On 1 October 1949 Chairman Mao ascended to the podium before one million spectators in Beijing's Tiananmen Square and triumphantly declared the founding of the People's Republic of China . The humiliated Chinese people sensed in the founding of the People's Republic that a new dawn had arrived.

China 's reaction was to close the door to foreigners for the best part of the next 30 years. The 1920s had been a “high water" mark of the missionary enterprise in China .” More than 10,000 missionaries were scattered throughout the region. Now these Christian missionaries were ordered to leave. Many of the departing missionaries lamented the future of the church in China , believing it too young and weak to withstand the ferocity of a totalitarian regime. History, however, has proven that, far from being overcome by persecution, the Chinese church found a maturity and boldness in their faith that they probably would never have experienced in other circumstances. The Chinese church today has a testimony similar to that of the Israelites in Egypt : “The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread”.

The Communist government brought a mixture of fortune to China 's minority peoples. The nation's new leaders reacted mercilessly and violently towards the Tibetans and Uygurs, not tolerating even the slightest suggestion of claims to independence by these two people groups. It soon became clear that what the law stated and how it was applied were two different things. China 's law states:

"If any worker of the government unlawfully deprives the citizens of their rights of lawful religious freedom, or violates the customs and practices of any minority nationality, he may be sentenced to imprisonment or compulsory labour for up to two years."

The reality has proved to be in stark contrast to these bold legal declarations. In My Land and My People the Dalai Lama in 1962 listed some of the atrocities inflicted on the Tibetan people: Tens of thousands of our people have been killed, not only in military actions, but individually and deliberately. They have been killed without trial.…Fundamentally they have been killed because they would not renounce their religion. They have not only been shot, but beaten to death, crucified, burned alive, drowned, vivisected, starved, strangled, hanged, scalded, buried alive, disemboweled and beheaded. These killings have been done in public. Men and women have been killed while their own families were forced to watch, and small children have even been forced to shoot their parents.

Yet for some of the smaller groups, the new regime meant an end to centuries of exploitation by greedy landlords and slave-owners. It also meant, for some, they were officially allowed “to exist” for the first time ever. The small Kucong tribe, inhabiting a mountainous jungle in the extreme southwest of the country, had lived in dire poverty for centuries, and were on the brink of extinction:

The Kucong cultivated the land by the traditional “slash and burn” method.… To clear the brush, only three hatchets were available in the whole village.… Their clothing was plantain leaves, in which they also wrapped their babes.… In their nakedness the Kucong dared not to go out, so they placed their rattan, animal hides and meats by the wayside and hid in the bushes waiting for a prospective barterer. Then they would call out: “Take these. Leave in exchange clothes and salt.” Only when the takers were far away would the Kucongs emerge from the bushes and collect whatever had been left for them.

Sun Yatsen in the 1920s considered China to consist of only five nationalities. The Kuomintang government simply denied the existence of ethnic minorities, regarding them erroneously as branches of the Han nationality. The original flag of the Republic of China displayed five colors, representing five people groups: Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Uygur. Centuries of hostility and prejudice between the Han Chinese and the minority peoples was poignantly illustrated by the Chinese use of the character for “dog” after the name of a tribe. This was officially banned by the government of the young People's Republic in favour of the use of the character for “nationality.” Each officially recognized minority group was allowed a representative at the National Party Congress in Beijing . More recently, health and education benefits have been given to minority peoples. Only those of minority groups who live in urban areas are subject to China 's one-child policy. Most minority families are allowed two children, while those living in remote regions are allowed three. Some of these small gestures of goodwill have been appreciated by the people.

Origins of the Minorities:

Today there are hundreds of distinct ethnic groups scattered throughout China 's territory. Linguistically, their languages are as diverse as Persian, Turkish, Malayo-Polynesian, Burmese, and Siberian. This ethnic composition is a result of thousands of years of history. As one author notes: In 1500 BC there was no China , and there were no Chinese. The area that is now China was then inhabited by a great number of tribes with different cultures. Though the majority of them belonged to one or another branch of the Mongoloid race, other races were represented. There was no great man who created the first Chinese empire; it grew out of a long, slow process of assimilation and integration over centuries.

Many groups and peoples migrated across the continent, some fleeing from persecution, others because of famine, and still others searching for a land where they might live in peace. Some people groups who appeared at different times in history can no longer be traced, having been assimilated into the vast Han Chinese race.

Prior to the 1950s little was known about China 's minority peoples. Chinese scholars did little or no research. The lack of motivation and the practical and geographical barriers kept many minorities hidden from the outside world. The majority of the early missionaries did not progress past the Chinese coastal areas, where they worked faithfully and valiantly among the Han Chinese, sowing the seeds for the great revival still in progress. Of course, there was mission activity among some of the larger and better-known minority groups such as the Tibetans, Miao, and Mongolians. Although some brave and faith-filled souls ventured to extremely remote border areas to proclaim the gospel among groups such as the Lisu, Lahu, Wa, and Jingpo, however, the lack of research before the arrival of Communist rule, and the ensuing antireligious fervour which still continues today, meant that the smaller ethnolinguistic people groups of China have remained hidden from the Christian world and, therefore, from prayer, awareness, and efforts to evangelize them. In the 1950s, motivated by the need to extend its rule to all corners of the nation, the government commenced massive communication projects. Millions of miles of railways and roads were constructed across the length and breadth of China. Minority villages that required an arduous two-week horse ride through dangerous bandit-filled mountains in the 1940s were now a short flight and bus ride away from a provincial capital. Perhaps most important of all, Mandarin became the national language, used in all schools throughout the nation. Minority tribesmen from remote locations, who previously on their irregular visits to the marketplaces only looked askance at the Han Chinese, could now communicate with their Han neighbours.

Accurate information about the smaller people groups of China became easier to obtain to benefit the advance of the gospel among them. It should also be noted that in recent decades the Chinese authorities have adopted a better approach to the minorities, taking a genuine interest in their lives, culture, and welfare and generally no longer viewing them with the flippant arrogance that once prevailed.