Premier Stresses Unity of Various Nationalities

Zhu Rongji Inspects the Central University for Nationalities

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Premier Zhu Rongji Thursday stressed the importance of strengthening the unity of the various nationalities in China and maintaining social and political stability.

This not only concerns the stability and development in areas inhabited by minority nationalities, but is also an major guarantee for achieving the goals of China's modernization drive, he said.

The premier made the remarks during a tour to the Beijing-based Central University for Nationalities, China's top academy for ethnic studies established 50 yeas ago.

Zhu encouraged the university to make more contributions to developing the minority nationality regions.

He said the Communist Party of China and the State Council always attach great importance to issues concerning the various nationalities, and have adopted many policies and measures to support economic and social development in the minority nationality regions.

Boosting the development of education in areas inhabited by minority nationalities is one of the key issues to promote economic growth there and to strengthen the unity of all nationalities in the country, he said, adding that the university should make more efforts in training students from minority nationalities.

Over the past five decades, over 60,000 students of different minority nationalities have graduated from the university. Among them, more than 60 are now provincial- or ministerial-level officials, and a large number of others are specialists and scholars playing a major role in the development of the ethnic minority regions.