North Chinese ǀ East Asian
Photo: Wang Zhengwei is a Chinese politician, economist, and expert on Islamic affairs. Of Hui ethnic heritage, Wang served as the Chairman of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission between 2013 and 2016.
Ningxia is in north central China and is the home of the Hui people, one of the 56 officially recognized Nationalities of China. The Hui people are a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, and have developed their own variation of Chinese Islamic cuisine and Muslim Chinese martial arts. Their mode of dress also differs primarily in that men wear white caps and women wear headscarves or veils. The Hui people are of varied ancestry, and many are direct descendants of Silk Road travelers. Their ancestors include Central Asians, Arabs, and Persians mixed with Han Chinese.
Winemaking boosts the economy of what is still one of the country’s poorest areas. Before the arrival of viticulture, Ningxia’s 6.8 million people, 36 per cent of whom are Muslims from the Hui ethnic group, relied largely on animal grazing, subsistence agriculture and the cultivation of wolfberries used in traditional Chinese medicine. The province housed almost 40,000 hectares of wine grapes and produced 120 million wine bottles in 2017 – a quarter of the entire nation’s production.
Chinese Hui – Ningxia represents 100 unrelated individuals of the Chinese Hui population living in Ningxia province with known ancestors until at least the third generation who were sampled in 2005 by Xi’an Jiaotong University.
Source publication: Genetic Polymorphisms of 15 STR Loci in Chinese Hui Population, JFS, 2005, p1508-1509.
[Population 284]
