Jurisprudential Analyses Of Preferential Policies For Ethnic Minorities In China

Preferential policies for ethnic minorities refer to the policy, which is morepreferential than that of Han and non-minority areas in political, economic, cultural, andsocial aspects, which are made by Chinese government to the minorities and regionsbecause of their relative lag of economical and social development. Those policiesreflect China’s great help and support to them. Preferential policies for minorities are animportant part of the constitutionalism construction of China’s regional ethnic autonomy.It is also a real right for the minorities and regions, which are affirmed in the“constitution”,“the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Ethnic RegionalAutonomy” and other laws. And it is the inevitable product of modern Chinese societyin implementing the constitutional government on ethnic issues. From the aspect ofessentialism, preferential policies for minorities are a kind of interest regulationmechanism, which intend to reform and balance the unequal interests of different ethnicgroups especially for the ethnic minorities, as a result, we can achieve the real equalityamong ethnic groups, and make maximum implementation of the overall interests ofChinese nation.The introduction part expounds the background and significance of the research;And from three research aspects, it summarizes the related research status in theacademic circles of law thinking of preferential policies for ethnic minorities. Thosethree research aspects are from the preferential policies for minorities and ethnicequality, questioned the fairness and equality of the preferential policy, to improve andmake the preferential policies more scientific and jural. It gives some necessarystatements, at the same time, shows the main research method of this article.The first part introduces the concept of preferential policies for ethnic minorities,the system and the legal origin. Thus it distinguishes the differences between thepreferential policies for ethnic minorities and the special measures to maintain ethniccultural characteristics. The article expounds the system of preferential policies for ethnic minorities from the aspects of the policy contents, the adjustment objects, thepolicy level and stability and applicability. And the article also acquires the source andbasis of the preferential policies in the domestic law and international law, to pave theway for the following statements.The second part introduces the realistic foundation and value implications ofpreferential policies for ethnic minorities. Policy, as a part of cultural system, is basedon reality, in order to meet the demand of human, preferential policies for minoritiesnaturally has no exception. The historical status and distribution of minorities, and therelatively insufficient development of its politics, economy and culture constitute therealistic foundation of the preferential policies. To safeguard and promote the rapiddevelopment of ethnic minorities and ethnic minority areas, to achieve real equality, tomaintain national solidarity and unity, and to enhance Chinese national identity andcountry identity are the main value implications of preferential policies for ethnicminorities. The different value implications may occur conflicts in certain situations, sowe need conduct effective integration.The third part introduces the legal basis of formulating and implementingpreferential policies for ethnic minorities, namely, Marx’s theory of equality, the justicetheory of political philosophy, Chinese traditional “benefits” theory, minority rightsprotection theory and constitutional theory of regional ethnic autonomy, and gives ananalysis in detail to the first three bases.The fourth part will analyze the perspective of “canceling preferential policies”in“The Second-generation Ethnic Policy”. Namely, let the equal rights of citizensreplace the equal rights of the ethnic minorities, and let the regional preferential policiesalternative preferential policies for ethnic minorities. This view sees some wrongpractices which are contrary to social equity and justice, and which partially curedethnic differences when implementing preferential policies, but artificially inflated the“unfairness” of preferential policies. The “canceling preferential policies” viewpoint isthe embodiment of the classical liberalism and the civic nationalism. But it is not in conformity with the constitutional law of regional ethnic autonomy, and it is contrary tothe international trend of protecting the minority rights. It can not fully guarantee thefairness, justice and national unity.The fifth part illustrates some problems in making and implementing preferentialpolicies for ethnic minorities in the new period, mainly in the following six aspects,namely, the formulation and implementation of policy legal basis is too principle, thelack of operability, the policies making process is unidirectional and opaque. The mainpolicy implementation and its scope of authority is not clear enough, and it is lack of thenecessary supervision and operation mechanism, and lack of performance evaluationmechanism. Some practice on the specific operational level of certain policy wouldconstitute a “reverse discrimination”, may lead to “identity dissimilation”.According to the problems analyzed in the fifth part, the sixth part put forward sixapproaches to insist and improve the preferential policies for ethnic minorities under theconstitutional framework. Namely, improve legislation and enhance the operability ofpreferential policies for ethnic minorities in formulation and implementation adhere toscientific and democratic decision making to guarantee the preferential policies forethnic minorities legalized. Perfect the implementary mechanism of preferential policiesfor ethnic minorities to ensure the effective implementation of it, and establish andimprove the evaluation mechanism, supervision mechanism and perform the preferentialpolicies for ethnic minorities under constitutional identity operation, strictly controlpreferential policies for ethnic minorities within reasonable limits.