Training and using officials of ethnic minorities and all types of talented personnel at all levels is an important policy of the Chinese government for solving ethnic problems under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Training a large number of officials of ethnic minorities who have both moral integrity and professional competence and all types of talented personnel at all levels is also an important foundation for China to implement the strategy of reinvigorating the nation through human resources development and to promote its modernization drive.
    The formation and development of the policy of training officials of ethnic minorities and all types of talented personnel at all levels
    The CPC always attaches great importance to training, selecting and using officials of ethnic minorities. It took training and appointing these officials as an important way of solving ChinaÕs ethnic problems in the 1920s and 1930s.
    During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-1945), the CPC formulated its policy of training and selecting officials of ethnic minorities. In addition, it adopted some effective measures in this regard. One was to offer all types of training courses for people of ethnic minorities. Another measure was to create special working organs for training officials of ethnic minorities which trained a number of leaders of ethnic minorities. There were already about 10,000 such officials shortly before the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949.
    After the founding the PeopleÕs Republic, the policy of training officials of ethnic minorities was further enriched and developed. In November 1950, the Government Administrative Council approved the implementation of the Plan for Training Officials of Ethnic Minorities (for Trial Implementation) which made it clear that in training these officials, we “should mainly train general political officials supplemented by efforts to train technical ones.” It also decided to establish the Central Ethnic Institute in Beijing and Ethnic Institute in the northwest, southwest and central-south regions. The preliminary formation of the system for training ethnic officials, the social reform of ethnic minority areas and the implementation of the regional autonomy of ethnic groups led to the rapid expansion of the contingent of ethnic minorities.
    Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the CPC in 1978, the training of officials of ethnic minorities, which had been seriously undermined by the Cultural Revolution, was brought back to the right track. The Law of Regional Autonomy of Ethnic Groups of the People’s Republic of China adopted in 1984 points out, “The autonomous organs of autonomous areas of ethnic groups shall take various measures to train from among local ethnic groups large numbers of officials at the various levels, professionals of science and technology and management, and technical workers, give full scope to their role and attach great importance to training officials at the various levels and all types of professional technicians among women of ethnic minorities.” The law emphasizes that ‘state organs of the higher level shall help autonomous areas of ethnic groups train officials and professionals at the various levels and technical workers among local ethnic groups.” It makes it clear that “the standing committees of the people’s congresses should have the citizens of the ethnic groups in autonomous areas serving as their chairmen or vice-chairmen.” “The governors of autonomous regions and prefectures and magistrates of autonomous counties should be the citizens of the ethnic groups that have regional autonomy. As many other members of the people’s governments of autonomous regions, prefectures and counties as possible should be the citizens of the ethnic groups that have autonomy or other ethnic minorities.” “As many officials in the working departments under the autonomous organs of autonomous areas of ethnic groups as possible should be the citizens of the ethnic groups that have autonomy or other ethnic minorities.”
    Main measures for training officials of ethnic minorities and talented personnel of different types at all levels
    1. Constantly increasing the number of officials of ethnic minorities
    By the end of 1958, the number of officials of ethnic minorities had soared from 10,000 when the PeopleÕs Republic was founded to 480,000.
    Since the introduction of the reform and opening up policy in the late 1970s, in addition to continuing the basic approaches of the 1950s, the government adopted the following approaches: establishing special quotas for selecting the best possible workers, farmers, herdsmen and intellectuals of ethnic minorities in factories, rural areas and pastoral regions for primary-level management; setting up classes for ethnic groups in key colleges and universities, offering preparatory courses for ethnic groups in other colleges and universities, enroll college students who are preassigned to remote poor areas to join the officials there after graduation; establishing schools for ethnic officials or setting up colleges for administrators in Ethnic Institute to train primary-level officials who are preassigned to ethnic minority counties, townships and towns.
    By the end of 2002, the number of officials of ethnic minorities in China had exceeded 2.90 million.
    2. Working hard to improve the quality of officials of ethnic minorities
    From the founding of the People’s Republic to the introduction of the reform and opening up policy, officials of ethnic minorities trained by the Chinese government were mostly administrators. Since the 1980s, the work of training and selecting these officials has entered a new stage.
    To meet the need to establish and improve the socialist market economy and build a relatively prosperous society in all respects and meet the requirements of the new situation following China’s accession to the World Trade Organization and different posts, the government has established colleges and training departments for officials of ethnic minorities in CPC schools at all levels, institutes and universities for nationalities and regular institutes of higher learning to offer officials of ethnic minorities on-the-job, post, professional, or certificate-oriented training to raise their educational level and professional quality. At the same time, in order to broaden the horizons of officials of ethnic minorities and improve their capacity to make decisions and solve practical problems, the CPC and the government implement the programs to exchange officials and posts in a planned and systematic way. Under these programs, officials of ethnic minorities in ethnic minority areas work in state organs and comprehensive departments at higher levels and in developed regions while officials in state organs are selected to work in ethnic minority areas to acquaint themselves with the conditions there and offer these areas advice or suggestions. This two-way exchange helps officials of ethnic minorities improve their knowledge and capacity.
    3. Making a point of improving the structure of officials of ethnic minorities
    As the focus of the country’s work has been shifted to economic development after the introduction of the reform and opening up policy, the government has begun to gradually adjust and improve the structure of officials of ethnic minorities. First, the education reform of universities and Ethnic Institute was accelerated to adjust majors, enrich instruction contents, improve teaching programs and training contents, and add majors that were badly needed in ethnic minority areas. Second, some able officials of ethnic minorities who had done economic work or economic management work to receive special training before assigning them to the economic departments of governments in ethnic minority areas at all levels.
    At present, officials of ethnic minorities with a junior college degree or higher accounts for 35.3% of the total, and over 20% of these officials are women. Some 67% of the officials of ethnic minorities are engaged in professional and technical work in enterprises and institutions. A rational pattern of officials that meets the need of current development has already been basically formed.
    4. Fully trusting officials of ethnic minorities and making full use of them
    The purpose of training officials of ethnic minorities is to use them. The state fully trusts and makes full use of them so as to give full scope to their wisdom. To ensure success in the work of selecting and using officials of ethnic minorities, the state guarantees their access to leading positions at all levels by means of enacting laws and formulating relevant policies and measures. In accordance with the Law of Regional Autonomy of Ethnic Groups of the People’s Republic of China, all the main leaders in the five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and 120 autonomous counties throughout the country are from ethnic minorities. Moreover, the proportion of officials of ethnic minorities in regional autonomous areas of ethnic groups exceeds by a large margin the proportion of their population in these areas. According to statistics, officials of ethnic minorities account for 7.7% of China’s officials at and above the county (section chief) level, and their proportion is even larger in the officials at and above the county (section chief) level in the five autonomous regions.