minorities. It was on the Long March that many CCP members came into contact with some of these communities for the fi rst time.
On paper, the Party’s policies are designed to give equality to minority groups and to ensure that they enjoy at least a token representation in bodies such as the CPPCC, the national advisory body. In practice, ethnic minorities and their cultures have suffered considerable discrimination, especially during periods of Maoist radicalism such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. There is little sympathy among the majority Han population for expressions of minority ethnic identity and even less for demands for political independence by some Uyghurs and Tibetans.25
The complex histories of the ethnic groups of Tibet