The 1931 constitution of the Chinese Communist Party accepted secession as legal with article 14 stating
“The Soviet government of China recognizes the right of self-determination of the national minorities in China, their right to complete separation from China, and to the formation of an independent state for each national minority.”
However, the CCP's change from a revolutionary group to the dominant state power in 1949 led to this language being left out of later constitutions and any legal chance for secession disappeared from Chinese law.[1]
List of secessionist movements in the People's Republic of China[edit]
Claimed region Current political status within the PRC Capital city of region Area (km2) of region Total population of region Main independence movement Main ethnic group seeking independence
The term 'Liangguang' refers to a combination of the provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. It was an historical administrative division of China during the Qing dynasty era. The island province of Hainan also used to be part of Guangdong and, by extension, Liangguang.
After the failed Tibetan uprising, some Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama into India, establishing a government-in-exile called the Central Tibetan Administration.[2]
The movement is no longer supported by the 14th Dalai Lama, who although having advocated it from 1961 to the late 1970s, proposed a sort of high-level autonomy in a speech in Strasbourg in 1988,[3] and has since then restricted his position to either autonomy for the Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Regionwithin China,[4] or extending the area of the autonomy to include parts of neighboring Chinese provinces inhabited by Tibetans.[5]
