Different views held by countries on the human rights issue ought to be addressed through dialogue, and confrontation should be avoided. China is ready to keep up exchanges and cooperation with other countries in a continued effort to promote human rights throughout the world. The Chinese government has always endeavored to protect the rights and interests of ethnic minorities in accordance with the Constitution. Regional autonomy is practiced in places where ethnic minorities live in compact communities. All ethnic groups are free to use and develop their own spoken and written languages as well as to keep and reform their own customs.
Chinese citizens have the freedom of religious belief.
Inter-ethnic relations characterized by equality, unity and mutual assistance have further solidified, and the process toward common development and common prosperity of all ethnic groups has visibly accelerated. I wish to emphasize here that the establishment and development of the socialist system in China has enabled some ethnic groups to leap over certain stages of social development. For example, until the democratic reform of 1959, Tibet was a feudal-serfdom, a theocracy with a heavy taint of slavery. The serfs, bond servants to their masters, had no human rights whatsoever to speak of. It was our democratic reform that emancipated some one million serfs and slaves through peaceful means.