cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51758910
In the name of promoting inter-ethnic harmony, China is to force dozens of ethnic minorities within the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to assimilate into Han-dominated society by enacting a landmark law during the upcoming fourth session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) which opens on Mar 5. The law will require ethnic minorities to use Mandarin Chinese as their main language of instruction, overturning decades-old policies that date back to the era of Mao Zedong, noted ft.com Mar 3.
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The sweeping law marks the latest effort in a signature “Sinicization” campaign under Chinese leader Xi Jinping and prescribes legal action against anyone, inside or outside the country, who undermines “national unity” or provokes “separatism”.
The so-called Han majority accounts for more than 90% of the PRC’s population of 1.4 billion and the country’s constitution recognises 55 ethnic minorities, and a dozen languages — some with their own written scripts — and hundreds of dialects.
Under the new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, while minority languages may still be taught as a second language, groups such as Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians will no longer be entitled to use their native tongues for core subjects in schools and universities, the report noted.
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The new law “overturns the multicultural promises upon which China was founded”, moving from “an idea of unity through difference or unity through pluralism, to one of unity through sameness, through the elimination of difference”, Benno Weiner, a historian of modern China, Tibet and Inner Asia at Carnegie Mellon University, has said.
“The conclusion that Xi Jinping and others seem to have come to is that diversity is dangerous.”
[…]
Worryingly, one clause in the new law is cited as saying only the state has the right to promote “a system of symbols of Chinese civilisation”, which can be used “in public facilities and architectural design, scenic area exhibitions, place naming and public activities”. Such policies, if enforced, meant there was “no way” that non-Han people would be able to safely express “any type of discontent without being accused of being essentially separatists or terrorists,” Weiner has said.
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You just listed like eight examples of minority languages being protected in Europe. What is the threshold you’re searching for here to prove that minority language and culture are, at least sometimes, treated differently in Europe? I’m in no way suggesting that these issues are being dealt with perfectly anywhere in the world, or that Europe doesn’t have plenty of examples of minority populations being mistreated, but I think it’s kind of strange to argue that China isn’t engaging in some form of ethnic cleansing. Especially when it comes to Tibet and the Uyghur people. The Chinese government is using policies like this to intentionally suppress the culture and language of minority populations.
Both things can be true; Europe has an imperfect record when it comes to treatment of ethnic minorities, and China is targeting certain ethnic minority populations under the guise of “assimilation”.
Never said that. Not even implied it. I literally said “That is fucked. Your minority status should never be used to exclude you from exercising all your rights.”.
It’s well established that China does repress these minorities.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/01/un-experts-alarmed-reports-forced-labour-uyghur-tibetan-and-other-minorities
My point was that wanting your population to all be able to speak the same national language is not unreasonable where I directly quoted the article stating that the minority language could still be used as secondary. Replace China with any other country and I would still support that statement.