China will stick to its major ethnic policies and fine tune them according to changing realities, the State Ethnic Affairs Commission said Sunday, as a white paper on the country's ethnic policy stressing harmony and equality among all ethnic groups was released.

The paper, the third of its kind and released by the State Council Information Office, reviewed the country's ethnic issues, government policies over the past six decades and the economic, social and cultural progress in ethnic minority regions.

It said the Chinese government has upheld regional ethnic autonomy and made great strides in those areas.

Regional ethnic autonomy is a basic policy and political system of China, said Yang Jing, minister of the commission, during a press conference Sunday. "We'll stick to that policy."

Wu Shimin, vice-minister of the commission, also said China's preferential policies to the ethnic regions are necessary and would not change.

"Some people think the government is treating the ethnic minorities too well and even complain the policies go too far but these policies are all based on certain laws, regulations and procedures," he said.

Some in the Western media have accused the government of controlling religion and assimilating ethnic cultures into the Han culture.

But Wu denied there was migration of the Han population to ethnic regions.

In the past 60 years, the population of ethnic minorities has been increasing, the white paper said, from just over 6 percent of the total population in 1953 to 8.4 percent in 2000, when the latest national census was conducted.

By the end of last year, China had 155 ethnic autonomous areas. Of these, there were five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and 120 autonomous counties.

Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty in the minority areas shrank from some 40 million in 1985 to 7.7 million last year.

There are now more than 1,700 Tibetan Buddhism temples in Tibet and more than 20,000 mosques in Xinjiang, Wu said, adding people there enjoy full freedom of religion.

Meanwhile, the government is trying hard to protect ethnic culture, such as by publishing books in ethnic languages and setting up bilingual schools, he said.

As for economic development in ethnic regions, the commission said the State will continue to spend a great deal to boost the economy of ethnic autonomous regions.