Ethnic relations and their linguistic classification in are illustrated in Table 2. The ethnic minorities living in the uplands can be put into three categories: (a) Tibeto-, such as Yi, Hani (Akha), Jingpo, Lisu, Lahu, Nu, Derung, Primi, and Jinuo; (b) Mon-khmer, such as Wa, Blang, and Deang; (c) Miao-Yao such as Miao and Yao. The ethnic minorities in Yunnan are characterized by complex dialects within groups and distinctive socio-economic systems because of the region''''s biological complexity.

Following Stevan Harrel (1995), we stress in this paper that ethnic minorities in can be better understood as peripheral people living in a modern State which assumes its power as a civilizing centre. Generally speaking the kind of interface between peoples and the State is an asymmetrical relationship legitimised ideologically by means like central policies of official education (Postiglione, 1999), poverty alleviation or agricultural extension. Within the terms of this interaction, the civilizing centre has the mission to upgrade peripheral people so that the differences of lifestyles disappear or at least to help so that the degree of civilization of peripheral people come closer to the level of the centre.

This interaction is not monolithic. The Chinese state shifts from an authoritarian exercise of its state control, to tolerance in dealing with local initiatives, fundamentally from the provincial peripheries, as long as they do not challenge in theory and practice the authority at the centre. Indeed, Chinese society can be hierarchically stratified, but it is also enormously fluid, allowing information, ideas, values, and goods to flow incessantly from one stratum to another. (Tu Wei Ming 1994)

Since 1949, the government and intellectuals have been paying special attention to the participation of peripheral people in the Chinese. Nevertheless after several policy efforts including the rights of autonomy, ethnic minorities/peripheral people are far from being included in the development of a process of construction of Civil society (Dreyer 1976, Leshan 1999, Heberer 2000). This inclusion depends on the retreat of the state from active involvement in shaping the economic life of the country, and especially the regions considered as "backward". It also presupposes a substantial middle class and a full-fledged non-governmental sphere challenging the authority of the political centre and supporting the cultural practice of the peripheral people.