China will adhere to the Law on Regional Autonomy for China's Minority Nationalities, and further improve the system of regional national autonomy, said an article in People's Daily on June 1.

The article, written by Li Dezhu, director of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, was published to mark the 20th anniversary of the endorsement of the law, which was passed on May 31, 1984, at the 2nd Session of the 6th National People's Congress (NPC).

According to the law, which was revised in 2001, the system of regional autonomy should be treated as one of China's basic political systems as well as the national people's congress, the multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of Communist Party of China.

The revised law has added some provisions concerning preferential treatment for ethnic minorities in such fields as investment, finance policy and employment.

China's system of regional autonomy, based on the respect to diversity of ethnic minorities, reveals the unity between ethnic and regional factors, between politics and economy, between traditional systems and laws and between history and the current situation, said the article.

"The system is the result of decades' practice by the Chinese government, which has been proved to be fit for China's special conditions," Deng Xiaoping was quoted by the article as saying.

The adherence to the regional autonomy must be based on the full implementation of the law, which should be publicized not only among ethnic minorities' departments, but also administrations and people at all levels, pointed out the article.

It also called for the enactment of regulations supplementary to the law in related central departments and provincial governments, especially the punishment provisions for violating the law.

The core problem of regional autonomy is to promote the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of the minority regions, which need more investment as well as more preferential policies, said the article.

Besides the support from the central government, China has launched a special policy asking a relatively developed eastern province to provide comprehensive assistance to one minority autonomous region.

The article said that the number of ethnic-minority cadres had reached 2.9 million, but its covering percentage in the whole still could not be seasoned with the proportion of the minority population.

Training of ethnic-minority cadres should be further strengthened to guarantee the long-term stability and development of ethnic autonomous areas, it said.

In the past three years, the number of such cadres who attended the training sessions sponsored by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission alone reached 4,000. Most of the 42,000 ethnic-minority cadres at the county (division) level or above have attended training courses of one kind or another, statistics show.

It pointed that all efforts of the Chinese government aim at fully mobilizing production capacity of all ethnic groups and pushing the minority regions toward comparative affluence.

The supreme purpose of implementing the system is to maintain national unity and social stability, and realize the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, it stressed.

Source: Xinhua