Protecting unique cultures of ethnic minorities

Priority given to construction projects to consolidate the foundation for further development

In the early days of New China, the State gave top priority to infrastructure construction in the minority areas. In 1952 the central government issued the Principles of the Five-Year Construction Plan for the Minority Areas, involving the construction of rails and trunk roads, the repair of existing roads and bridges, and the building of postal, telegraph, telephone and other communication systems in some minority areas. During China's First Five-Year Plan period (1953-1957), the State started the construction of eight trunk railways, five of which, including the Lanzhou-Urumqi and Baotou-Lanzhou lines, were in minority areas or linked them with other places. In 1954 the two world-renowned highways connecting Tibet with Sichuan and Qinghai were completed. In the 1960s more railways were built, including the Chengdu-Kunming, Changsha-Guiyang and Panzhihua-Liuzhou lines, and the Yunnan-Tibet highway was also completed. In 1962 the Lanzhou-Urumqi railway line, the first railway line in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, reached Urumqi. Since the late 1970s a large number of key projects have been completed in the minority areas, including the Nanning-Kunming, Neijiang-Kunming and Southern Xinjiang railway lines, Lhasa Airport, the Lanzhou-Xining-Lhasa optical cable, and the project for utilizing water from the Yellow River for irrigation in Ningxia, which have greatly improved the transport and communication conditions and the livelihood in those minority areas.

The State has made the development of local advantageous resources and modern industry a major measure to promote the advance of the ethnic minorities and minority areas. During the First Five-Year Plan period, 40 of the 156 large state construction projects were initiated in the minority areas, such as the Baotou iron and steel base in Inner Mongolia, the Karamay oilfield in Xinjiang and the Gejiu tin company in Yunnan. In the 1960s the State moved a host of large industrial enterprises from coastal areas and inland places to the minority areas, thus laying the foundation for modern industry in the latter. Since the introduction of the reform and opening-up policies, the State again has approved a large number of massive projects in the minority areas, such as the Tarim oilfield in Xinjiang, the aluminum plant in Pingguo, Guangxi, the potash fertilizer plant in Qinghai and the coal and electric power base in Inner Mongolia, leading to the formation of several important industrial bases for resources development and processing in these minority areas, and blazing a trail for industrialization based on local resources and with local characteristics.