In the People's Republic of China the government had instated affirmative action policies called Youhui zhengce (simplified Chinese: 优惠政策; traditional Chinese: 優惠政策; pinyin: Yōuhuì zhèngcè) when it began in 1949 and became an explicit policy in the mid-1980s. The policies giving preferential treatment to ethnic minorities in China were modeled after those by the Soviet Union. Three principles are the basis for the policy: equality for national minorities, territorial autonomy, and equality for all languages and cultures. The dissolution of the USSR was studied by China; economic inequalities and power imbalances were found to be the cause of the collapse, and the findings led to a new policy, Law on Autonomy for Minority Regions.