TNAG-1622-FCO40-2236-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-China-1987 — Page 207

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R Fletcher-Cooke Esq

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elected:inqiumuqing Village in Chengong County, a local man had been elected in preference to the two chosen candidates because his name had been written in on the ballot paper by a majority of those voting. The electorial college for this village only constitutes eighteen people. Nonetheless, Mr He said that it was the first occasion that it had happened in Yunnan Province.

4.

I also had a meeting with Shi Zhenqin, the Deputy Editor of the Yunnan Daily. Shi told me that the main provincial newspaper has a circulation of 240,00 copies, and that the daily evening paper has a circulation of nearly 150,000. The Yunnan Daily has been operating since March 1950. Since nearly one third of the 34 million people in Yunnan Province come from minorities, the Yunnan Daily has a special editorial department to deal with minority questions. Mr Shi said that the main aim of this department was to promote unity between the Han and the minorities, and help the minority races develop their own economies by publicising areas where minorities had been particularly effective as examples.

5. While Shi was willing to talk at some length about the campaign against bouregois liberalisation and the basic principles, I gained the impression that this campagain was not as active in Yunnan as in other parts of China. Shi said that his paper was particularly concerned to promote economic reform because Yunnan Province is one of the most backward in China. For this reason, most of the news was economic news and most of his editorials have an economic slant.

6. In the predominantly agricultural area around Dali in the Bai Autonomous Region I was told that 91% of the population worked in agriculture. The main industries were local marble factories. The average income in the region was Yuan 420 per annum. This seems a little on the high side, particularly in view of the fact that the local authorities themselves acknowledge that significant numbers of people in mountainous regions live in conditions of extreme poverty. However, the main plain around Lake Erhu is extremely fertile, in some areas preparations were already being made to sow the second crop of the year.

7. 12,000 tourists visited Dali in 1986 and it is hoped that this number will rise to 15,000 by 1990. There are plans to build an airfield 60 kilometres east of Xiaguan to promote this

I saw little evidence of minority problems, but despite

trade.

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