China's Frontier Regions: Ethnicity, Economic Integration and Foreign Relations

China has traditionally viewed her frontier regions--Zxinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan--as buffer zones. Yet their importance as commercial and cosmopolitan hubs, intimately involved in the transmission of goods, peoples and ideas between China and it west and southwest has meant they are crucial for China's ongoing development. The resurgence of China under Deng Xiaoping's policy of 'reform and opening' has therefore led to a focus on integrating these regions into the PRC (Peopl...