Under the Red May

World War II marked the end of Yunnan's de facto isolation from the rest of China. The industries and institutions (universities,for example) set up as wantime expedients continued after the Japanese surrender. China's Civil War resumed but did not affect Yunnan until the end, when those Guomindang remnants too distant to escape to Taiwan retreated to Yunnan, making a last stand in the west, like the last of the Ming princes. Local people felt no fondness for the Nationalists and aided the People's Liberation Army's campaign to drive them across the frontier into Burma. From there they made occasional forays into Yunnan, but as the Communists extended their administrative control, these soon ceased. The Nationalists turned to the opium business in northern Burma and henceforth became part of Southeast Asia's history and not China's.

Now firmly in control of Yunnan, the Communists set about to reorganise and reform the province. But in the beginning, mindful of the differences, both social and economic, between the Han areas and the minority areas, they moved gingerly. In the minority areas they worked together with tribal leaders to effect change. The tusi office was abolished. Dai princes' authority was curbed. But the affected personnel were given new positions in the reorganised governments, By the mid-50's most minority-dominated areas were set up as autonomous prefectures, counties and even townships.

Autonomy did not mean a hands-off policy. It meant that in a Yi Autonomous County, for example, the personnel of the leading political positions had to he Yi. Han cadres were also encouraged to learn the minority languages and become familiar with the customs and beliefs of the people they worked with. In theory, any proposed regulation that grossly conflicted with local custom could not be introduced. Gradually the Party trained its own minority cadres, setting up the Minority Nationalities Institute in Kunming for this purpose. By the time this group was ready for administrative duties back in their native lands, the Party was ready to inaugurate serious reform campaigns, such as the abolition of slavery. Some mistakes in carrying out policies were made, but adequately corrected, and in general,the reforms were successfully implemented and accepted by the peoples concerned.

Not quite the same claim could he made for the reforms of the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. One can only say the Han suffered as much as the non-Han, perhaps more, for the remotest mountain minority areas were scarcely touched. However, since 1979, when China changed direction under Deng Xiaoping, progress in Yunnan has bounded forth. Economic liberalisation has fostered rapid commercial growth, while agricultural produce has risen multiple fold. Fancy new, high-rise, modern-style office buildings and department stores have replaced the old, brick-and-tile, two-story shophouse neighbourhoods not only in Kunming, but also in prefectural and county capitals throughout the province.

When the government finally opened Yunnan to foreign tourists in the mid-80's modernisation had already taken hold. Prosperity reigned as shopping malls were thronged and more and more hotels and bank buildings rose from the rubble of the old neighbourhoods. 'This prosperity has continued throughout the 90's. Now Kunming and a few other big cities have traffic problems. Communications improve every year, with ever more minibuses going to ever more destinations. And they are usually full, as the rural folk take advantage or the transport system to get more involved in marketing their surpluses. It’s becoming a perpetual motion province.

Yet modernisation has by no means wiped out tradition. In addition to launching the economic reforms, the Deng government also reversed Party policy on minorities. Ethnic costume was no longer forbidden. Minority customs and festivals not only were permitted again. They were even encouraged and subsidised through grants to the autonomous county governments. To varying degrees in the province,the minorities responded with an enthusiasm that inaugurated a new, revivalist phase in their history. Ethnic pride has returned to Yunnan, augmented by tourist interest in same places, but plainly evident in counties where tourists rarely tread.

For centuries,Chinese policy towards the non-Han was to gradually assimilate them with the Han body politic through the powerful influence of Chinese culture.They would be fully accepted when they identified themselves as Han. Even the Communists pursued this goal, however they might have propagandised about the equality of nationalities. The ultimate aim, climaxing in the Cultural Revolution, was to turn them into Han-style communist citizens.

Now that aim has been officially abandoned. It is not Sinification that is the antagonist to tribal tradition, but modernisation. But at this moment in their history ,Yunnan's minorities are flaunting their ethnic identity, very visibly, across wide parts of the province. That, and the varied and often beautiful places in which they carry on their traditions, make Yunnan a most interesting, even exciting, place to explore.