ABSTRACT
The Chinese Government believes that the question of indigenous peoples is the product of European countries' recent pursuit of colonial policies in other parts of the world. Because of those policies, many indigenous peoples were dispossessed of their ancestral homes and lands, brutally oppressed, exploited and murdered, and in some cases even deliberately extern1inated. To this day, many indigenous peoples still suffer from discrimination and diminished status, and they cannot in fact exercise on an equal footing or to the full the economic, social, cultural, civil and political rights enjoyed by other citizens of the countries where they live.
