A Study On The Regulation And Change Of Ethnic Relations In China 's Social Transformation

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the regulation and changes of the ethnic relations in the course of the Chinese social transformation in historical comparison, by the basic framework of Talccot Parsons’ theory of social action. Our Country’s regulation of the ethnic relations, determine the trend of the changes of the ethnic relations in Xinjiang. In order to better understand the current ethnic relations in Xinjiang, the consciousness of problems and the social environment of the analysis in this article will be focusing on Xinjiang. By this way, I will furtherly research on the common problems of the regulation and changes of the ethnic relations in China.In Parsons’ theory, the social action is divided into several parts as actor, value content, inner chain of means and aim, and social environment. The mutual relation of these elements is just the structure of action. Although this theoretical framework provides the essential analytic factors, my recognition of the structure of these factors is not identical with Talccot Parsons’ judgment. I think the value content plays the disciplining functions in the construction of the social environment through the leaders of the society. And whether other common actors can get effective means and positive conditions to realize their aims of actions, and fatherly realize the internalization of the values, will determine the degree of social integration. Therefore, whether the members of each ethnic group could realize the internalization of the values, especially the internalization of the value of ethnic equality, will finally determine the level of the development of the ethnic relations. And this factually depends on whether the regulation of the ethnic relations, which is established under the guidance of the value content, could provide well balanced means and conditions for each ethnic group that is purchasing its goal of modernization, to properly handle the gap of the interests and the cultural differences between the different ethnic groups to realize the ethnic equality.In feudal China, although the rulers of the Central Plains Dynasties always stood on the view of ethnic discrimination and oppression, they could also establish the regulatory policies of the ethnic relations under the guidance of the view of humanity and morality. And these policies formed the main social environment actually in which the different ethnic groups communicated with each other. As a result, the gap of the interests between the different ethnic groups would be narrowed and the common interest between them would be accumulated. Moreover, the cultural conflicts between the different ethnic groups would be defused and their common culture would be fostered. In this way, the ethnic groups in central plains areas and the ethnic groups in frontier areas would develop harmonious and integral relations between them. And the plural ethnic groups would gradually go to become a pluralistic integration in China. But the class nature of the feudal dynasties and the under-developed productive forces caused the regulatory policies of the ethnic relations had the insurmountable defects, which limited the traditional ethnic relations to get larger developments and made them oppressive, turbulent and finite. In the period of Republic of China, the Chinese nation gradually became self-conscious in the course of defending against invasion. In order to improve the development of the ethnic relations, the central government tried to turn the traditional regulation of the ethnic relations into modern mode. But it finally failed for the limitations of the class nature and the difficult circumstance.The foundation of the People’s Republic of China means that the interclass oppression which constraint the development of the ethnic relations was eliminated. Then, the new period of the development of the ethnic relations begun. In Early Days of the People’s Republic of China, the national unity, the socialist road and the powerful country had become the prior value to guide the establishment of the regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations successively, and at the same time the ethnic equality was also an essential value goal, due to the judgment of the social principal contradiction made by the Chinese Communist Party, who consciously combined Marxism with Confucianism. Accordingly, the integrated regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations was gradually established under the planning system, and its actual form was the system of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities. This integrated mechanism had the intrinsic collective property, provided relatively balanced methods and conditions for each ethnic group, effectively absorbed their participations in China’s modernization, enormously promoted the internalization of the value of the ethnic equality, propelled all the ethnic groups to realize the system-value integration in the socialist system and the system of regional autonomy for ethnic minorities and promoted the great development of ethnic relations.However, the problems of information asymmetry and incentive incompatibility of the planning system caused economic inefficiency and restricted the sustainability of the integrated regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations. To conquer these questions, the Chinese Communist Party made the new judgment of the social principal contradiction, and led the people to initiate the gradual reform which took the economic reform as the key link. Then the social transformation begun. In this process, rich life became the prior value to guide the reform, and the ethnic equality was also an essential value goal. Just in this course, the integrated regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations gradually turned to be differentiated, and this also meant that the system of the ethnic regional autonomy began to change. It made the whole changing regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations to be less collectivistic, and the one-sided development of utilitarianism occurred. Accordingly, in the course of the social transformation, the differentiated regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations failed to provide relative balanced measures and conditions for different ethnic groups to efficiently deal with the problems of the culture and interest between them, and the influence of the traditional view of humanity and morality became more and more weakened. In practice, this problem was just that the system of the ethnic regional autonomy could not effectively promote the process of the system-value integration of the ethnic groups in the new stage of modernization. Then, the development of the ethnic relations and the system of the ethnic regional autonomy face difficulties.Nevertheless, the track of the development is always going forward in twists and turns. China’s integrated regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations successfully overcame the traditional defect and effectively enhanced the level of the development of the ethnic relations. But the problems of the planning system constrained the future of the integrated regulatory mechanism. In the process of social transformation, the differentiated regulatory mechanism of ethnic relations has overcome the problems of the equalitarianism of the collective property of the regulatory system, and makes a significant progress in economics. But the new problems of the weakness of the collective property of the regulatory system and the negative influence of the utilitarianism, impede the differentiated regulatory mechanism to effectively deal with the interest gap and the cultural conflict between different ethnic groups. Therefore, in order to promote the development of the ethnic relations into a higher level, we should realize the collective property of the regulatory mechanism at a higher level at first. For this purpose, we should put the value of fairness and justice into the basic system of values. Then, under the guidance of this value, we should systematically remedy the weakened collective property of the differentiated regulatory mechanism and promote it to become a differentiated-integrated regulatory mechanism. In practice, we should try to make the system of the ethnic regional autonomy more effectively to absorb each ethnic group’s participation in the new phase of China’s modernization. These efforts will make the ethnic groups to better realize the system-value integration in the new stage of China’s development, and make the pluralistic integration of the Chinese nation to get a new height in the future.