Regional Ethnic Autonomy (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region)

China is a unified multi-ethnic country. Based on the historical features and present conditions of its ethnic question, the Communist Party made regional ethnic autonomy its basic policy for resolving ethnic issues. After victory in the War of Resistance, under the Party's leadership, the people of Inner Mongolia carried out an autonomy movement. On 1 May 1947 the Inner Mongolia People's Congress met at Wangyemiao (now Ulanhot, Inner Mongolia) and announced the founding of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Government, with Ulanhu elected chairman; it was the first provincial-level ethnic minority autonomous area established under the Party's leadership. In September 1949 the Common Program adopted by the first plenary session of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference provided that regional autonomy should be practiced in areas where minorities live in concentrated communities. In 1954 the system of regional ethnic autonomy was written into the Constitution of the People's Republic of China. The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (1955), the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (1958, with the Zhuang name written in its current form from 1965), the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (1958) and the Tibet Autonomous Region (1965) followed. Today China has five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and over a hundred autonomous counties (banners). Together with the people's congress system, the system of multiparty cooperation and political consultation led by the Communist Party, and the system of grassroots self-government, regional ethnic autonomy forms the country's basic political system. It safeguards the right of ethnic minorities to be their own masters.