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on the basis of independence, equality and mutual respect. International relationships between religious circles are regarded as part of the non-governmental exchange of the Chinese people with other peoples of the world. In recent years, Chinese religious organizations have established and developed friendly relations with more than 70 countries and regions and sent delegations to many international religious conferences and symposiums. Chinese religious groups have joined world religious groups such as the World Fellowship of Buddhists, the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, the World Conference on Religion and Peace, the Asian Conference on Religion and Peace and the World Council of Churches.
Since 1955, excluding the “cultural revolution" period, the Chinese Muslims have never stopped their pilgrimages to Mecca. The Chinese government has offered all kinds of facility and assistance for these trips. Between 1955 and 1990 more than 11,000 Chinese Muslims participated in the Mecca pilgrimages, several dozen times the total before the founding of new China. In recent years the annual number of pilgrims has surpassed 1,000 - 1,500 in 1987, 1,100 in 1988, 2,400 in 1989, 1,480 in 1990, and 1,517 in 1991.
VII. GUARANTEE OF THE RIGHTS OF THE MINORITY NATIONALITY
China is a unified, multi-national country, with 56 nationalities in all. The Han people take up 92% of the total population of the country, leaving 8% for the other 55 nationalities. To realize equality, unity and common prosperity among the nationalities is China's basic principle guiding relationships between nationalities. The Constitution provides that all nationalities in the People's Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China's nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited, and any acts that undermine the unity and create splits among the nationalities are also prohibited. The Constitution clearly stipulates that in striving for unity among all its nationalities, China opposes great- nation chauvinism, especially great-Han chauvinism, as well as local nationalism.
In old China, severe national discrimination and oppression existed over a long period of time. Many of the minority nationalities, who were in straitened circumstances and not countenanced, had to hide in the mountains and live a
life of seclusion from the outside world.
After the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, discrimination against and oppression of minority nationalities were abolished and their condition underwent a thorough change. In the 1950s, the Chinese government organized a large-scale investigation for identification of the nationalities. After scientific differentiation, 55 minority nationalities were acknowledged and this fact was runounced publich, afest of the minority nationalities, for the first time in China's history, became equal members of the great family of Chinese nationalities.
New China brought about the system of regional autonomy for minority nationalities. Organs of self-government were set up in regions where people of minority nationalities live in
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compact communities, and the internal affairs of the minority nationalities were handled by themselves.
At present, there are throughout the country 159 national autonomous areas, including five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and 124 autonomous counties (or banners). National autonomous areas exercise all rights of self- government in accordance with the Law of the People's Republic of China on Regional National Autonomy and may work out autonomous rules and specific regulations according to local political, economic and cultural characteristics. Without violating the Constitution and the law, autonomous regions have the right to adopt special policies and flexible measures; autonomous organs can apply for permission to make alterations or desist from implementing resolutions, decisions, orders and instructions made by higher-level state organs if they are not in accordance with the situation in autonomous regions. Organs of self-government have the right to handle local financial, economic, cultural and educational affairs. In regions where people of a number of nationalities live together or in scattered communities, more than 1,500 national townships were established so as to enable minority nationalities to enjoy equal rights to the fullest.
In new China the political rights of minority nationalities are ensured.
Before liberation, the minority nationalities, like the majority of the Han people, suffered under severe oppression by the reactionary ruling class. The oppression in some areas took more savage and cruel forms than in others. For instance, in old Tibet, over 95% of Tibetans, from generation to generation, were serfs attached to officials, nobles and lamaseries. According to the 13-Article Code and 16-Article Code which had been enforced for several hundred years in old Tibet, Tibetans were divided into three classes and nine grades. The lives of ironsmiths, butchers and women, who were declared an inferior grade of inferior class in explicit terms, were as cheap and worthless as a straw rope. This feudal serf system with its hierarchy of three classes and nine grades was boltered by cruel punishments such as gouging out eyes, cutting off feet, removing the tongue, chopping off hands and arms, pushing an offender off a cliff or drowning. Under such circumstances, the human rights of the majority of labouring people were out of the question.
After new China was founded, the old system was abolished and democratic reforms were carried out in one minority area after another. In Tibet, the serfs shook off their chains, and are no longer serf-owners' private property that can be bought, sold, transferred, bartered or used to clear a debt, no longer to suffer the above-mentioned savage punishments, and no longer divided into the three classes and nine grades. Thanks to the democratic reform, the minority nationalities, oppressed for generations, obtained the freedom of person and human dignity, won basic human rights and for the first time became masters of their own dest my.
Today, the minority nationalities, as equals of the Han nationality, enjoy all the civil rights which are set down in the Contion and the law. In addition, the minority na ionalities erjoy some spcom rights accorded to the by law.
The right of the minority nationalities to participate in the exercise of the supreme power of the state is specially