Secession is the formal withdrawal of a group from a political entity. The process begins once a group proclaims an act of secession. A secession attempt might be violent or peaceful, but the goal is the creation of a new state or entity independent of the group or territory from which it seceded. Threats of secession can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.
Separatism is the advocacy of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, regional, governmental, or gender separation from the larger group. As with secession, separatism conventionally refers to full political separation. Groups simply seeking greater autonomy are usually not considered separatists. Some discourse settings equate separatism with religious segregation, racial segregation, or sex segregation, while other discourse settings take the broader view that separation by choice may serve useful purposes and is not the same as government-enforced segregation. There is some academic debate about this definition, and in particular how it relates to secessionism, as has been discussed online.
Regionalism is a political ideology that seeks to increase the political power, influence and self-determination of the people of one or more subnational regions. It focuses on the "development of a political or social system based on one or more" regions, and/or the national, normative, or economic interests of a specific region, group of regions or another subnational entity, gaining strength from or aiming to strengthen the "consciousness of and loyalty to a distinct region with a homogeneous population", similarly to nationalism. More specifically, "regionalism refers to three distinct elements: movements demanding territorial autonomy within unitary states; the organization of the central state on a regional basis for the delivery of its policies including regional development policies; political decentralization and regional autonomy".
The Montagnard Foundation, Inc. is a political organization whose mission is to protect the rights of the Montagnard/Degar peoples of Vietnam, who belong to over thirty indigenous ethnic groups in the Central Highlands. It is a non-profit organization, founded in 1990 and based in South Carolina in the United States designated as a Militant group by Vietnam. The Montagnard Foundation has spoken out against Vietnam's policies that affected the Montagnards. The organization was designated as a separatist group by the Vietnamese government.
The Insurgency in Northeast India involves multiple separatist and jihadist militant groups operating in some of India's northeastern states, which are connected to the rest of India by the Siliguri Corridor, a strip of land as narrow as 14.29 miles (23.00 km) wide.
Baloch nationalism is an ideology that asserts that the Baloch people, an Iranic ethnic group native to Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, form a distinct nation. The origins of modern Baloch nationalism coupled with the insurgency in Balochistan involving various militant organizations, go back to the period of the partition of British India and subsequent independence of Pakistan, when Kalat, the largest Baloch princely state, acceded to the Dominion of Pakistan.
There are or have been a number of separatist movements in Pakistan based on ethnic and regional nationalism, that have agitated for independence, and sometimes fighting the Pakistan state at various times during its history. As in many other countries, tension arises from the perception of minority/less powerful ethnic groups that other ethnicities dominate the politics and economics of the country to the detriment of those with less power and money. The government of Pakistan has attempted to subdue these separatist movements.
Secession in China refers to several secessionist movements in the People's Republic of China. Many current separatist movements in China arise from the country's ethnic issues. Some of the factors that have created these ethnic issues include history, nationalism, economic and political disparity, religion, and other factors. China has historically had tensions between the majority Han and other minority ethnic groups, particularly in rural and border regions. Historically, other ruling ethnicities, such as the Manchu of the early-Qing dynasty, experienced ethnic issues as well.
There are several separatist movements in Iran, most of which are associated with a particular minority ethnic group. Iran is a highly diverse country: in 2015, it was estimated that Persians―Iran's dominant ethnic group―only made up about 61% of the Iranian population.
