The Chinese culture is very ancient and well recognized throughout the world. The development of such a distinct and prestigious civilization has made China the role model for other countries around the world.
Cultural unity is not only seen in the glory of the empire and the literate culture but also in the way China views the rest of the world. The Chinese view has been to be a model of unity, greatness, development, and culture for those throughout the world who are not yet at such a standard. Unity with compatriots of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao and overseas Chinese is an important factor of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
China's separatists are small in number, poorly equipped, loosely linked and vastly out-gunned by the People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police. Local support for separatist activities, particularly in Xingjian and Inner Mongolia, is ambivalent and ambiguous at best given the economic disparity between these regions and their foreign neighbors, which are generally much poorer, or even, in the case of Tajikistan, driven by a three-way civil war. Memories in the region are strong of mass starvation and widespread destruction during the Sino-Japanese and civil wars in the first half of this century, not to mention the chaotic horrors of the Cultural Revolution.
Many local activists are not calling for real independence. More often they are expressing concerns over environmental degradation, anti-nuclear testing, religious freedom, over-taxation and recently imposed limits on child- bearing. Many ethnic leaders are simply calling for more of the autonomy promised by Chinese law for the five autonomous regions, which are each led by Han Chinese First Party Secretaries controlled by Beijing.
The differences among regional and linguistic subgroups of Chinese are at least as great as those among many European nationalities. Chinese.....
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