Emerging economic regional and cultural initiatives (like the Yunnan Provincial Government''''s Green Policy and Cultural Policies) could make pluralism possible. It needs a stronger support of conditions that create a forum for different voices and alternative structures of power that are already present in freedom of speech, publication, religion, assembly and association.

lture in the last decades has re-shaped gaps in consciousness and cultural outlooks between city and countryside, state and society, intellectuals and the public and between intellectuals and the state (Myron L. Cohen, 1994). Identities are being redefined in order to enter modern socialism. There is a process of constructing new images about the past which is no longer feudal, but instead traditional, rural people are no longer the brave activist peasants but active entrepreneurs. The image of the minority''''s cultures has changed also into a complex mosaic that Harrel (1995) has coined and analysed in three metaphors: peripheral peoples as women, as children and as ancient. Current official simplifications make out minority identities to be poor yet exotic populations ignoring the sophisticated relationship exiting between cultural analysis and political economy (Schein, 2000).

These images of ethnic minorities in the fashion of exotic commodities are widespread through the tourist agencies as well as by many development projects and photographic books (Tan Chee- Beng et alii). Fortunately, there are also notable examples of intellectuals such as Yin Shaoting (2001), Deng Qiyao (1991) whose work in minority rural villages are detached from stigmatising ethnic peoples. The former locates the practice of swidden agriculture as an organic whole in the perspective of human ecology, whereas the second formulates a clear message that the society, customs and beliefs he investigates have a clear link in the perpetuation of natural resources and are of considerable importance to rural China.

The Chinese central power makes a great effort to maintain a socialist culture on the basis of a fundamental organization of the economy. The state also continues to be the main source of constructing and formulating a meaningful cultural outlook that is convincing to the ordinary persons and is asserted by the masses. The creation of a comprehensive set of official, nationwide cultural innovations produce several impacts on the diverse cultural traditions in the rural areas: we can find a process of collectivisation, decollectivization, rejection of the old regime, the welcoming of all kinds of new ideas, compliance, re-emergence of ethnic identity and revival of religions.

Some examples of the religious revival have been studied by foreign as well as by Chinese scholars. This is the case of Taoism, among the Yao, (Litzinger 2000), Buddhism, among the Dai (Halskov Hansen1999), Lamaism among the Tibetan (Wang Xiao Sung, director of the Tibetan Institute in Zhongdian, pers.com.), Millenarianism and Christian Movements by the Miao (Siu-Woo Cheung, in Harrel, 1995), Naxi Dongba Religion (Mac Khann, in Harrel 1995). It is worth mentioning these revival processes because they are cultural responses to the rapid modern development and are transcendental forms of ethnic identity empowerment.