CHINA'S 35 MILLION NON-CHINESE
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Table II lists the numbers of people in each ethnic group distributed by provinces in south and central China. In brief, the T'ai-related groups lead with some 10 million people at present. They are followed by the Tibeto-Burman related group with some 8.4 million, followed by the Miao-Yao related group with about 3.4 million. The greatest concentration of minorities in any one group is among the Chuang in the Tai group. The Chuang live in a compact body numbering some seven million in Kwangsi. The Miao, however, are the most widely distributed of all ethnic groups, being found in significant numbers in every province of south and central China except Kiangsi, although their chief strength is in Kweichow. Yunnan, by all odds, is the most complex province ethnically. Of the 30 national minorities listed by the Census for 1953, some twenty-four are found in Yunnan. This Census apparently may need considerable revision when the minorities are scrutinized more closely. Thus, it listed only 90,000 so-called T'u-chia, which was proclaimed to be a newly discovered ethnic group hitherto confused with Han Chinese and Miao because of their degrees of acculturation. A personal check by Fang Jen revealed over 300,000, and a still more detailed check in subsequent years disclosed that actually these were 549,000 that should be so classified and, from their original cultural traits, they belonged in the Yi-related group. They occupy an area in northwest Hunan.
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The Yi comprise so many sub-groups under different names (there are 40 sub-tribes in Yunnan alone) that confusion is understandable. In northwest Yunnan such sub-groups of the Yi as the Na-khi or Na-hsi and Li-su live in the region between the great bends of the Chin-sha river and the Burma border. In the western part of this region are the Nu, Tu-lung, and Ching-p'o, occupying parts of the Salween and Mekong drainage of north Yunnan. Farther south in the drainages of these rivers are the related La-hu and A-ch'ang. The Pai people, in a solid bloc on the plain of Erh Hai (Lake Erh), have been thought by some writers, including this one, to be a T'ai-related people, but are listed by Bruk as a Yi sub-group. In the west bank region of the Red river of Yunnan are the sub-group known as the Han-yi. The Yi proper are scattered over the three southwestern provinces,