邓小平同志一贯十分重视我国的民族问题和民族工作，对中国民族问题和民族工作有很多深刻的精辟论述，是我国新时期民族工作的指导思想。一、维护民族团结坚持和维护民族团结，是马克思主义观察和处理民族关系的一个基本原则，是我们党和国家的一贯主张，也是中国特色民族理论 Comrade Deng Xiaoping has always attached great importance to the ethnic issues and nationalities in our country. He has a lot of profound and brilliant expositions on China’s ethnic issues and ethnic affairs and is the guiding ideology of our ethnic work in the new era. I. Maintaining National Unity The upholding and safeguarding of national unity is a basic principle by which Marxism observes and handles ethnic relations. It has always been the proposition of our party and state as well as the national theory of Chinese characteristics