Frontier governance has a histori-cal origin .Before the Opium War , the Qing gov-ernment mostly determined territorial borders with neighboring countries using border lines drawn ac-cording to traditional custom .Since modern times, under the situation of being surrounded by powerful enemies together with frequent invasions , it was imperative for the Qing government to reform tradi-tional governance .At the end of the 19th century, the Qing government successively established prov-inces ( xingsheng,行省) in Taiwan, the northwest and northeast regions; and in Kaiguan, Yadong, Tibet, they established a port ( bu, 埠).In the early of 20th century, the “New Policy”, such as gaitu guiliu ( i.e.the replacement of native offi-cials with imperial ones ) and the establishment of provinces , was carried out in the frontier regions of Sichuan ( current Ganzi prefecture in Sichuan and Changdu in Tibet ) by Zhao Erfeng , in Tibet by Li-anyu , the minister of Tibet , and in the Outer Mongolia ( Uliastai ) by Sanduo , the minister in Kulun. n However , while these measures were still be-ing implemented , the 1911 revolution erupted sud-denly .Although the new government of the Repub-lic of China formulated relevant laws , and the gov-ernmental leaders also stressed the unity of the country , the control of frontiers from the Beiyang Government and the national government was somewhat weak .This was due to the influences of the circumstances , the weakness of the system , the unstable social situation , and the weakness of gov-ernmental power .So , it was not the time to talk a-bout governance .At the instigation or incitement of other countries , some frontier regions either an-nounced their “independence” ( for instance , Out-er Mongolia ) , or were incorporated into another country .The territory of the country was gradually being reduced , and the crisis in the frontier areas became more and more serious .It was not until the establishment of the People ’ s Republic of China in 1949 that the situation of powerful countries“eating up” China ’ s territory ended . n Along the tens of thousands of kilometers of border extending from the estuary of Yalvjiang in Liaoning to the estuary of Beilunhe in Guangxi within China ’ s mainland area , almost all of these border areas are ethnic autonomous regions , pre-fectures or counties .This geographical situation re-quires that when we think about current governance and relevant strategies for China ’ s frontier areas , we must take ethnic regional autonomy into consid-eration, and we must study and think about the countermeasures and measures within the frame-work of this system . n In order to build the national system and eth-nic theory, the Communist Party of China ( CPC) went through a process beginning with “self-de-termination” to a mixture of “self-determination”and “ethnic autonomy”, then to “ethnic autono-my”, and finally , to the determination of using“ethnic regional autonomy”. n However , ethnic regional autonomy encoun-tered a series of problems in its practice .For in-stance , what should the content of the “autonomy”include, or how should it be carried out , etc.?Thus, in November 1982, the Fifth Session of the Fifth Meeting of the National People ’ s Congress made some modifications or additions to the Consti-tution of the People ’ s Republic of China.Ethnic regional autonomy was one of the important modifi-cations.Based on the rules of the constitution, the Sixth Session of the Second Meeting of the National People’ s Congress approved the Ethnic Regional Autonomy Law of the People’ s Republic of China in May 1984.In February 2001, the Ninth Session of the 20th Meeting of the People ’ s Republic of China made some changes on the Ethnic Regional Autonomy Law, and promoted Ethnic Regional Au-tonomy as“the basic political system of the state”, making it parallel with the current National Peo-ple’ s Congress system , Chinese people ’ s political consultative conference system and democracy sys-tem at the grass-roots level.Even so, we need to notice and pay serious attention to ethnic regional autonomy within frontier governance , and study relevant issues from the perspective of governance theory. n Frontier governance must face up to ethnic re-gional autonomy .Firstly, ethnic regional autonomy has been confirmed as “the state’ s basic political system ”, no matter concerning our understanding to frontier governance or building of frontier gov-ernance theory , we cannot ignore it , and we must conduct activities within this framework .Secondly , although various differences and unbalanced devel-opment exists in our frontier areas , frontier govern-ance needs to be unified so as to avoid these differ-ences.Thirdly, we need to address whether the re-alization of “autonomy” in the ethnic autonomous regions refers to “the nationalization of the units”and“nationalization of party members”? After all,“the Han cannot be separated from the ethnic mi-norities” and“the ethnic minorities are also insep-arable from the Han”.Last , while doing research on the new approaches of frontier governance , we need to enrich the system of ethnic regional autono-my based on the current law of ethnic regional au-tonomy; and develop the economy actively and flexibly by using the relevant provisions of the “au-tonomy”. By doing so , we should increase in-come, improve the life of the people in the frontier region, reduce or even eliminate the gap , realize common prosperity; strengthen the exchange be-tween the frontier area and the interior area , and change the frontier region into “interior area”.On-ly through these actions can the frontier areas have a long-term stability .
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