Post-1949 Development

In the early years of the People's Republic, few Bouyeis took part in management. By 1981, however, there were 8,220 Bouyei administrators, accounting for 65 per cent of the total minority managerial staff in the area.

Before 1949, Bouyei agriculture was backward, especially in remote mountain areas, where slash-and-burn farming methods still dominated. Since liberation, tremendous changes have taken place. By 1982, grain output totaled 720,000 tons, nearly twice as much as the 1949 figure, and 12,880 water conservancy projects had been built. These stored 200 million cubic meters of water, and brought 6,600 hectares of land under irrigation -- a six-fold increase over the 1949 area.

Before 1949, there was virtually no industry in the Bouyei region. Since then, however, many industries have been developed, including iron and steel, coal, machine building, chemicals, electronic products, building materials and plastics.

In 1949, the total length of roads came to only 296 kilometers in what is now Qiannan Prefecture. By 1981, 6,100 kilometers of new roads had been built. And three main railway lines (Guizhou-Guangxi, Yunnan-Guizhou and Hunan-Guizhou) run through Bouyei areas in Qiannan, Anshun and Guiyang. In addition, air services now link Guiyang with Beijing, Shanghai and other big Chinese cities.

Education and medical care have also improved greatly since 1949. By 1981, the numbers of secondary and primary schools had already risen to 150 and 3,789 respectively, compared with hardly any in 1949. Teacher training schools and colleges teaching modern farming methods have also been established.

In the past, medical facilities in the area were very poor. Epidemic diseases, such as smallpox, cholera and dysentery were rampant, with malaria alone affecting 58 per cent of the local population. After 1949, the government supplied financial aid, equipment and large numbers of medical workers to help the Bouyeis improve health care. Now, besides major hospitals at prefectural level, every county has its own hospital, epidemic prevention station and maternal health center, and every district has a clinic.