The Jingpo ethnic minority

Post-1949 Development

In 1950, liberation came to the Jingpo area. The Dehong Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Region was established in 1953 (changed to an autonomous prefecture in 1956). The Jingpo people elected their own representatives to the leading bodies of the autonomous region. In addition, the Jingpos have deputies to the Provincial People's Congress and National People's Congress.

To fundamentally change the backward conditions in Jingpo areas, the central and local governments helped the Jingpos get organized for cooperative production shortly after liberation. Measures were taken to do away with class exploitation and vestiges of primitiveness.

Since 1950, the Jingpo people have transformed virgin forests into tea plantations and orchards, and reclaimed barren mountain slopes into terraced fields. They have built tractor stations, reservoirs and power stations. Their grain production and income from sideline occupations have increased.

Industry, which was nonexistent in Jingpo areas before liberation, also has developed. The autonomous prefecture has built a number of small and medium-sized enterprises including a power plant, a motor factory, a farm tools factory and a factory producing daily-use chemicals.

There has been progress in other respects. Highways have been built on the formerly inaccessible Jingpo Mountain. High-tension power lines extend to many places, while a wire-broadcasting network covers almost every Jingpo household. Brick houses have begun to replace thatched cottages. Formerly poor peasants now have enough grain and different clothes for different seasons. Some more affluent peasants have bought radios, sewing machines and new hunting rifles. An increasing number of small hydroelectric stations have made electricity available to many Jingpo villages.

The ruling classes before 1949 established no schools for the Jingpo people, resulting that very few people were literate. Now, however, there are middle schools in every county and primary schools in every community. Central and local ethnic minority institutes have trained group after group of Jingpo officials and professionals.

Violent epidemics, especially malaria, used to ravage the area. Since 1950, clinics have been set up in key Jingpo communities and many medical workers of Jingpo origin have been trained. Efforts have been made to improve environmental hygiene and drinking water. There has been a marked decrease in disease incidence. Formerly rampant epidemics such as cholera and the plague have been stamped out, and malaria, the most serious threat to local people's health, brought under control. The once desolate Jingpo Mountain is beginning to enjoy a prosperity it has never known before.