After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in order to guarantee equal rights to minority nationalities in local organs of political power, democratic coalition governments of the local nationalities were established in some areas inhabited by several minority nationalities in accordance with the fundamental spirit of the nationality policy contained in the Common Programme of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. On December 29, 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai signed and issued the ``Directive of the State Council on Modifying Democratic Coalition Governments of Local Nationalities'', changing the counties and townships under the jurisdiction of such governments into autonomous counties and townships of nationalities or ordinary counties and townships and changing the prefectures and districts into autonomous prefectures and autonomous counties or prefectural commissioners' offices and district offices.