China has approved a sweeping new law which claims to help promote “ethnic unity” - but critics say it will further erode the rights of minority groups.
On paper, it aims to promote integration among the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups, dominated by the Han Chinese, through education and housing. But critics say it cuts people off from their language and culture.
It mandates that all children should be taught Mandarin before kindergarten and up until the end of high school. Previously students could study most of the curriculum in their native language such as Tibetan, Uyghur or Mongolian.
I’m Basque, we are “forced” to learn Spanish too since it’s a co-official language in out autonomous region of Spain.
This post might sound alarming to monolingual people, but for any multilingual that had to learn both official languages AND english, watching people complain about schools requiring extra languages is embarrassing.
Unless I’m misunderstanding the post, it doesn’t imply that most lectures need to be in Mandarin, only that the kids need to be taught the language, right?
Edit: I read the post. The language thing doesn’t matter, what’s alarming is actually this:
The law also provides a legal basis to prosecute parents or guardians who may instil what it described as “detrimental” views in children which would affect ethnic harmony and it calls for “mutually embedded community environments”.
If it were actually about language and communication, that bit wouldn’t be there.
Unless I’m misunderstanding the post, it doesn’t imply that most lectures need to be in Mandarin, only that the kids need to be taught the language, right?
You are misunderstand it (and the BBC article is also very unclear about it). Learning Mandarin was already mandatory, it’s now about making Mandarin the default.
I think it varies in parts of Xinjiang, but in at least part of it, along with most of the rest of China, most school instruction is in Mandarin.
Everyone still speaks their native languages, but they speak mando to chinese from other places. The kids know a few english phrases too for some reason.
Except they literally won’t allow non-Mandarin families to teach their own cultures’ languages or histories. That’s not something I read second hand either, that’s from talking one-on-one with a Uyghur linguist that was given special recognition by an international linguistics organization for his efforts to save the language.
Yeah, I covered that in the edit. That’s horrible and alarming.
I’m Basque, we are “forced” to learn Spanish too since it’s a co-official language in out autonomous region of Spain
All co-official languages of the Spanish state are co-official in all of the state, this is state policy and not just in specific autonomous regions.
Your critique comes from a good place as a people whose culture and language have a history of repression under fascism, but you need to understand that the history of China is the polar opposite of that: the communists won the civil war against the fascist Kuomintang. They’ve had and still enjoy a level of cultural diversity unseen anywhere in Europe for the past century, especially Spain as I say because of our fascist history.
Trying to extrapolate the centralist repressive policy of Spain to a country as different, huge and diverse and China is simply bad analysis based on unfortunately wrong starting points. As a silly example, ethnic minorities in China were exempt from single-child policy.
If you want an Uyghur person’s perspective on this, I suggest you watch this short video. Please listen to actual minority voices within China instead of listening we western-manufactured hate campaigns.
You didn’t read past my first paragraph man. You completely misunderstood the point I was making in the first half of the comment. I’m clearly making a similarity to then expand by saying that I don’t feel like it’s a problem for the official language to ALSO be learnt, and that for any multilingual person such a thing being complained about sounds silly.
Your “alarming edit” is the thing I’m mainly responding to. What do you have to say to that Uyghur national?
It’s rarely about the actual letter of the law and more about the vague wording and standards that allow it to be enforced in a bigoted way.
There are restrictions on teaching the Tibetan language. This seems like an authoritarian move, not an educational one.
Imagine quoting “the Tibet post” seriously, an Indian tabloid whose official stance is the defense of the “Tibet government in exile”. This would be like using a Russian-based “Marie Antoinette post” defending monarchy in France as the legitimate system.
Firstly, they didn’t quote anything. Secondly, it’s very clear what they said is true no matter what they linked as proof of that. As per the other reply and if you’d have taken a few minutes to look up what other articles have said, it’s not wrong. I agree that it wasn’t a good choice but you’re apparently dumb enough to think that absolutely anything reported/said by something or someone bad must be untrue. Everything, no matter who and where it comes from should be looked at through facts and not “bad person/thing said something so it’s automatically untrue”.
Secondly, it’s very clear what they said is true
Source: Zionist media that would totally not lie to me
As per the other reply and if you’d have taken a few minutes to look up
Go ahead, tell me what’s the trend of Uyghur speakers in China versus Occitan speakers in France. Give me the fucking hard data if it’s so obvious
you’re apparently dumb
No need for ableism
absolutely anything reported/said by something or someone bad must be untrue
“Noooo how could the Zionist war machinery be lying to me :((((”
Everything, no matter who and where it comes from should be looked at through facts
Facts: pre-communist Tibet was a literal feudal kingdom in which Tibetans were serfs legally bound to the lands of their lord, with outrageously low life expectancy, close to zero literacy, amd massive poverty. Now it’s a thriving province in a multiethnical country and even has a higher degree of autonomy under the Chinese system due to belonging to the Tibet Autonomous Region. You’re quoting the fucking spiritual heir or Buddhism, not any fucking serious source
How do you feel about the guardian? I concede I didn’t vet the original link, but if you need to use “imagine” as an argument you aren’t capable of the very critical thinking you’re criticizing.
Two circular links in The Guardian without primary sources. I wonder why Zionist media would lie to me about China!
Catalan here, always funny to see monolinguals be shocked when China does it but turn around and see nothing wrong with Spain imposing Spanish to all its regions in the same way
If Spain doesn’t get in line on the Iran War, I’m confident we’re going to start getting stories about how we need to liberate Catalonia soon enough
Shit.
I assumed this was always the case in China, didn’t they create mandarin with the sole purpose of making everyone learn it
China is a very large country and a lot of different ethnic groups. You don’t see them because they have no mobility, aren’t featured in Chinese media and the CCP really doesn’t like them. Their idea of cultural “unity” is to convert everyone to Han.
Question: how often do you watch Chinese media? I personally visited China last year and in their National History Museum they have constant mentions to many different ethnicities even if they didn’t belong to China proper at the time
I know that, I’m saying I assumed the ccp was forcing them to learn mandarin all this time already
Han groups have like 100+ non-mutually-intelligible languages.
Historically, it’s been a largely regional split with Cantonese in the West and Mandarin in the East.
China’s been something of an outlayer in supporting as many languages as it does.
All country force a main formal language, the fact that China didn’t do it until now is actually interesting.
This isn’t true.
Please provide a source for this ridiculous claim. And don’t be lazy and just list countries that have official languages for government business. You said “force.” You can still get by in a place with an official language by doing business at government offices through interpreters. What we’re talking about here is far beyond an official language (which is just the language used in government paperwork.) We’re talking about laws that actually require people to know and speak a specific language.
Prove that even a majority of countries legally require people to know how to speak a specific language, let alone all of them.
Otherwise, I have to conclude that you’re just spreading fascist propaganda.
While it’s true that most countries don’t legally require to speak the official language they do it indirectly. University and college exams are in the official language and I’m more then sure they don’t allow interpreters. Although it’s a good idea for them to learn the language so they know what they sign or don’t get scammed this is most likely a surveillance operation or indoctrination, maybe both.
That’s not what we’re discussing here. Please stay on topic.
Most countries consider not offering teaching gin minority languages to be genocide. The status of the Russian language was used as one of the false pretense for the Russo-Ukrainian war.
That image is kinda small, so …,
Article 15: The state is to fully promote the spread of the nation’s common language and script. Citizens’ learning and use of the nation’s common language and script must not be obstructed by any organization or individual.
Schools and other educational institutions are to use the nation’s common language and script as the basic language and script for education and teaching. The state is to promote preschool students’ learning of Mandarin, so that youth who have completed compulsory education have a basic understanding of the nation’s common language and script.
State organs are to use the nation’s common language and script as the official language and script. Where it is necessary to use minority languages and scripts to issue documents in accordance with laws and regulations, a version in the state’s common language and script shall be concurrently provided with the minority language version.
Where state organs, social groups, enterprises, public institutions, and other social organizations need to concurrently use the national common language and minority languages, they shall highlight the national common language in terms of position, order, and so forth.
The state respects and protects the learning and use of minority languages and scripts, promotes the regulation, standardization, and digitalization of minority languages, and supports the protection, organization, research, and use of old ethnic minority books.
Actually don’t have a problem with this. I think all countries should have one primary language that is used across the entire country and that everyone in the country knows the language.
No, I’m not saying you should suppress the native languages or do things like only allow that language to be used in government offices, but for schooling and general communication, I think it’s best if everyone in the country is using one language. That helps keep everyone linked culturally, which is a crucial part of having a unified country.
That would be a reasonable take if China were a democracy.
Before claims about authenticity or validity of polls in China, check out the methodology and the country of origin of the institution who carried out the poll.
Only works in tiny countries with a monoculture. In which case it becomes irrelevant.
I can honestly say with some confidence that I can narrow down the set of countries that you might be from, just from this one comment of yours. No one who has lived in any kind of diverse-culture environment could espouse a brain dead take like this.
Also, when your government mandates something like this, you can be sure its not going to be your language that is being forced on you.
EDIT: Ah, nevermind - I just read through your comment a few more times and I think you have a valid position to defend - I think even the most diverse countries have like one or two official languages and a host of other languages.
EDIT 2: Problem with having an official language for schooling is that it immediately disadvantages every other language simply because children spend 8 hours in school with this “official” language. Considering there is little hope of full fluency in a foreign language after formal education, it will slowly push out any cultural languages.
Why not have a session so that kids can learn each other’s language. I would have loved to have a buddy in school to help me learn Spanish and I could help them with English. (In US)
Hopefully the minority Tibetan, Manchurians, Uyghurs and Hong Kong Cantonese decide enough is enough and break away from the CCP and PLA. Free West Taiwan!
Free West Taiwan!
Are you a fascist? Do you know what the Kuomintang wanted to do to said minorities?
Are you an idiot? You know the Kuomintang aren’t in power right?
And out of all the political parties in Taiwan, the Kuomintang have the closest ties with China.
With what army?
Might makes right. The only thing stopping countries from violent hostile take overs is the chance a bigger country will step in to stop them. Now the US is showing they are happy to help countries to this, it might open the floodgates and China will just take what it wants as long as it stays within its timezone.
Slow genocide.
So basically like all of history
There’s no way to define “ethnic unity” that doesn’t involve racism and ethnic genocide.
Well good thing then that China’s laws aren’t written in English yeah? The actual title of the law does not carry the connotations you think it does.
“bUt In ChInA iT’s CaLlEd ThE cUtE fLuFfY pUpPy LaW!”
Idgaf what they call it, it can’t change the purpose and inevitable effect of the law, which is to further the ongoing ethnic genocide.
Requiring schools to teach the national language is genocide. But bombing children before they’re even school age is not genocide.
- Western hypocrites
The purpose of the law is quite literally the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Have fun living in in your sinophobic fever dream.
Then why is it “ethnic unity” and not “language/linguistic unity”? I’m pretty sure the Chinese have terms for "language/linguistic " as they have for “ethnic”…
The original poster’s point is precisely that it isn’t “ethnic” because it’s originally in Chinese (民族) without a direct obvious translation. The linked translated text has a note on their chosen translation:
“民族- ethnic, ethnicity. Official translations are fond of translating this as nationality, which is confusing because it can confuse statehood/citizenship with ethnic identity. In most situations, we use forms of ethnic.”
https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/ethnic-unity-and-progress-law/#Notes
For what it’s worth, Firefox’s translator (bergamot) also translates this as “National Unity”. The definition on pleco seems to imply more of an ethnic nation, as in a nation of peoples as opposed to a nation state.
Translation is not a one-to-one mapping between words. The act of translating a text will always distort the meaning a bit. It’s good to consider what may have been lost in the process of translation, especially when a contentious translation seems to align with a position that is geopolitically convenient.
Fair
Genocide is never convenient, you really gotta go out of your way to make it happen.
Watch as Americans without a shred of irony decry this and then demand people in our country speak English.
It’s because we’re living in a post American assimilation world and they don’t realize that happened. But my grandparents would talk about how they’d be slapped on the hands with rulers for speaking creole French and now it’s a dead language. This law feels like the first step to a similar cultural assimilation.
dude, I knew an old German woman who immigrated after WW2 to the US.
she straight up started yelling at the Mexicans speaking Spanish that it’s disrespectful to not speak English in the US.
it’s not just Americans doing it…
Spanish is an American language (as is French, and lots of indigenous languages, also the Amish might disagree with her).
Did you know German was the second most spoken language in the USA until ww1? Victims of opression often opress others.
I’m decrying this AND the racists that demand everyone speak English in America. The American racists will probably say that this is fine because it’s Chinese governing Chinese, so long as they stay in China.
You have to understand, this law explicitly protects the rights of minority languages. Also it’s important to understand that mandarin is kind of a western construct. It encompasses many different dialects that are actually distinguished in China.
What is known as “the common language” which is what this law mandates schools teach is a constructed language. It shares similarities with but is not identical to the dialects of Heibei province and Beijing. Most Chinese people do not learn it as a first language anyways. The common language itself, is not a new invention either. Its origins can be traced back basically for as long China has been a state. With the lingual diversity within China, it’s long been necessary for administration and interregional commerce to be conducted in shared language.
The government now is attempting to extend that to common people given the nature of Chinas modern economy and media landscape. This is a wildly different context than American settler colonialism where indigenous language not only did not receive any supports or protections but instead was actually banned. If you want to be critical of American chauvinism do not embrace it when interpreting the actions of another country. If you want to criticize China you need to actually understand it first.
I think it’s a good opportunity for language submersion. They can still speak their native language. Me friend taught her two kids to speak Japanese. They speak English at school in the US. I wish we had more immersion opportunities here. I didn’t read the article so, I’m sure I’m missing the detail that warrants everyone’s reaction though. It could be a good thing if they aren’t being shitty simultaneously.
They’re a global super power. They’re going to be shitty about it.
A lot of people in this thread are interpreting the law through the lens of the BBC while also applying their American framework for language to China. I think there reasonable critiques one can make but most here seem to be based on wild assumptions that have little to do with the law or the Chinese context.
America is not a monolith, one group could say one statement and another say the other.
Garbage journalism from the BBC. They provide no link to the primary source i.e. the text of the law: Ethnic Unity and Progress Law
(my bold)
Article 46: Religious groups, religious schools and religious activity sites shall carry out publicity and education on forging a strong sense of the community of the Chinese people, persist in the direction of sinicization of our nation’s religions, guide religions to adapt to socialist society, guide religious professionals and believers to carry forward the tradition of patriotism, and promote ethnic, religious, and social harmony.
Will children be punished for speaking languages other than Mandarin in schools?
Just when China could been better than America…
Requiring people learn the national language isn’t exactly evil, so long as they’re not preventing people from privately learning or using other languages.
IMO this should really be a requirement for citizens of any country. The fact is, I’ve seen plenty of people get taken advantage of - often by “friends” or family - due to NOT knowing the dominant language in a country, especially when it comes to contracts etc.
If you don’t agree with China, you should also not agree with Germany forcing all immigrants to learn German before getting a job in Germany.
There needs to be a common language for all people in a country to communicate and China doesn’t want that language to be English, which I can understand why.
I absolutely agree. I’m Canadian and we have two official languages here (English, French). Laws actually state that signage etc needs to be in one or both, but there are various areas where it’s entirely in - ironically - Chinese, and restaurants will actually not serve those that speak English.
People who choose to live in China should learn Chinese, Canada English/French, Deutsch in Germany etc.
That doesn’t mean that some arsehole should bug you for having a private conversation in (not official language) but for any official documents, contracts, work, driving and basic societal interaction a certain base knowledge should be absolutely required.
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You can tell by the moral blindness.
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Everyone being able to speak a common language is good actually.
Ask the indigenous people how much they liked learning to speak the common tongue
Yes, teaching english is what’s wrong with what was/is being done to indigenous communities. Absolutely nothing else.
Yeah …notice I said “learning”, not “being taught”. Maybe the rest of it that I left implied is what happens when you force people to learn your language? Didn’t think I’d have to spell out what the schools did to those poor children to make them learn English for you to understand an implied point, but here we are.
How do you think they’re going to make these people learn Mandarin? Do you think they’re going to ask nicely? Or are they going to do the same thing every dominant colonial culture tries to do to its minorites?
Didn’t think I’d have to spell out what the schools did to those poor children
That is precisely why I referred to it that way, so you’d have to spell it out the dumb implication you’re making.
How do you think they’re going to make these people learn Mandarin?
Same way they teach math and science lmao.
Which is a false equivalency to a state forcing a minority group to learn the majority language.
all minority groups in the us have to speak english. most states have a variation of this for that matter?
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sure. do ethnical minorities born in, say, spain not have to learn spanish?
tell me of states where this isn’t true.
I don’t know where it isn’t true. I know it isn’t right - anywhere.
then put your money where your mouth is and fight it in your own country instead of acting all twisted up when some country starts doing it.
spanish is the second most spoken language in the us, do you speak it?
Forcing? Do you think parents should be allowed to remove the kid from those classes? Just send them out in the world unable to communicate with anyone outside their hometown?
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It would be nice if we could speak a common language, yes. Then you’d be able to use it to read the article that was linked instead of a single paragraph excerpt and realize the new law is not just about the language.
It would be nice if you could read Mandarin. Then you’d be able to realize that the BBC is deliberately mistranslating whats in the law. How arrogant do you have to be to criticize someone for not reading an article when you can’t even read the document the article claims to describe?
I’m not ML by any means, but I don’t really see the problem here? Schools are for learning useful life skills, etc. Surely learning the official language of your nation is a very useful life skill to have? Mandating that kids be taught a language does not mean forcing them to unlearn their native language.
I’m not sure how the Uyghurs and Mongols came under Chinese power, but Tibetian people were captured by force. They have autonomous states each, where they could decide to just collectively learn Mandarin if they thought it was something they wanted.
If the autonomy of these states are being infringed by this law, then that is a problem. In that case, I think the reduction of autonomy is far more concerning than the particular curriculum change.
It’s giving me native boarding school vibes. First they separate you from your language and force you to use theirs
I mean that’s clearly very bad, but the bad thing in particular in that scenario is separating you from your language, which afaik isn’t happening here? At least not yet?
Pattern recognition, this is how it starts
It’s not like they are separate problems, but both part of the same push where minority nations are being assimilated and stripped of indentity.
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Bold move, criticizing someone you never heard’s pronunciation of a language whose people you’ve never met.
If you wanted to change that, anybody can go to xinjiang or kazakhstan and talk to the people. Its really easy unlike Tibet, you can just go there.
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The actual struggles of the uhigurs is entirely alien to either what western media makes up or just imagining China is copying western imperialism despite having different material pressures.
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Its not an english word lmao would you rather I spell it using the alphabet they use?
You are making some wild jumps in logic.
Learning another language is not “destroying a culture”, this is a dog whistle of hardcore conservatives who are afraid of diversity. What would be destroying a culture, would be forcefully restricting the use of the native languages, such as forbidding the use of the native languages in schools. But I am not aware of this happening, nor was I arguing in support of that in any way.
Also, justifying a curriculum choice in schools is a far leap from justification of colonialism. I am very much against the forced subjugation of native peoples, but that is not the topic.
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Did you read my messages at all? As stated, I very much oppose the colonisation and forced subjugation and assimilation of native peoples, including in Australia. But I do not think that English being a mandatory subject in Australia is a bad thing.
Is the idea of someone knowing more than one language, so foreign to you?
In the US, all children are required to take English classes from kindergarten and up until the end of high school. There are no alternatives offered, if a student can’t speak English, then they are at the very least offered ESL classes in addition to their regular English courses, but they still must take those courses and pass in order to get a diploma
While I don’t actually think that mandating the official national language as a class in schools is at all a problem (or a new idea), your argument is blatant whataboutism. Something cannot be justified merely by comparing it to somewhere else (especially the US, I might add).
It’s not whataboutism when there’s a clear bias in terms of what country the BBC is criticizing. Having a national language and requiring it to be taught in schools is incredibly common for many states including the UK. Why is China singled out so often for things almost every state does?
You do understand that the widely recognized genocide in North America is and has been criticized for this, right? The language deprivation has mostly wrapped up in political terms but a linguistic rebirth is still struggling financially and in many nations/tribes will never fully recover.
China is not being singled out, but called out based on historical familiarity with the process.
You’re right. There is no difference between banning native languages and ensuring children get taught the skills they need to succeed in life. Totally the same.
The assumption here is that we should take CPC pronouncements as fully truthful. Ask tibetans about language rights.
Tibetan is legally required to be used as a language of instruction in Tibet. That’s literally the opposite of banning a language. Nobody is really disputing that. Mandating that mandarin be taught in schools as well is not the same a banning Tibetan and it’s disingenuous to pretend that it is.
The difference between how China is handling these classes compared to how the US (and Canada) handled tribal cultural and linguistic genocide generally is not even close to comparable. You have absolutely no clue. It is disgusting that you are attempting to compare the severity at all just to lose an internet argument.
You do understand that the widely recognized genocide in North America is and has been criticized for this
Yes, but China hasn’t genocided its ethnical minorities though and isn’t on the process of doing so. Conjuring hypothetical genocides is not useful for political analysis.
Well we can disagree about genocides that are clearly under way, as defined by the UN.
Believe the authoritarians instead of the victims and researchers. There is no war in… or is it we have always been at war with… oh whatever. Yay, shiny boots.
the victims
Let’s liste to an actual Chinese Uyghur then, instead of BBC
So call out the journalistic bias, or hypocritical behaviour of the BBC. But if the topic in general is brought up in conversation, just pointing to the US as some kind of justification, is definitely whataboutism. It sidesteps actual critical thinking by playing to familiarity: “well if this country does it, then it must be fine!”, which is clearly a logical fallacy.
All countries actions should be criticized equally. No countries actions should be justified by being the same as another country.
The person you initially replied to did not say anything about was or wasn’t justified. They just stated a simple fact. Their wording did not give any clear indication about how they actually felt. What does give you an indication of what they believe is the context under which they provided that fact.
To me, knowing the history of the BBC and other western media outlets, it seems clear that their comment is calling out the hypocrisy and bias of the BBC. I imagine it only appears to you as whataboutism because you do not share a perspective which encompasses the prior behavior of the BBC.
The reason I thought they were using it as justification, was because their comment was a reply to a comment that said something like “justify that tankies”
Is it not obvious to you that “justify that tankies” is not a serious request? It’s a flippant way to dismiss any alternative opinions. It’s kind of absurd to assume that anyone replying to that request is taking it seriously. If you think otherwise, ask yourself if you really believe the person you replied to sincerely self identifies as a “tankie”?
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That’s your best comeback?
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I can’t imagine moving to a country and NOT chosing to study hard and learn the language. Hell, I’d be doing that prior to moving.
A law about it is a little weird.
Annnnnnd as soon as the Pedo-in-Chief hears about it, he’ll steal the idea and tell everyone they have to speak “American” or get deported…
It’s a little bit different in that most of the ethnic groups in China were conquered by force. The didn’t “move to China” China came to them.That would be like the US conquering Mexico, Haiti, Venezuela, etc. and then forcing everyone to speak American English.
The One Chinese Policy, everyone is Han Chinese now. Your individuality and your history is to be erased.
This law literally outlaws discrimination on an ethnic basis and provides support for the learning, archival, and standardization of minority languages but okay…
It mandates that all children should be taught Mandarin before kindergarten and up until the end of high school. Previously students could study most of the curriculum in their native language such as Tibetan, Uyghur or Mongolian.
Liar.
Oh look, someone who didn’t read the law and is just blindly making accusations. I guess this following provision of the law doesn’t actually exist.
国家尊重和保障少数民族语言文字的学习和使用，推动少数民族语言文字的规范化、标准化和信息化建设，支持少数民族古籍的保护、整理、研究和利用。
www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c2/c30834/202603/t20260313_453201.html
Also to be clear mandating that mandarin be taught is not the same thing as mandating that mandarin is the only or even primary language of instruction. Maybe have some self doubt the next time you want to speak with authority about a topic you know nothing about.
None of that matters.
This is not a fact based discussion, it is a Two Minute Hate.
Once we’re done here, we’ll be off to posting Iranian girls in bikinis while screaming “This is what Islam took from us”
Its only discrimination if someone other than the state discriminates. When the state discriminates, its called “campaigning for unity”.
The prohibitions against discrimination in this law literally apply to the state. It includes reporting mechanism that would allow citizens to file complaints against public officials who engage in discrimination. The whole point is to stop any forms of discrimination and prejudice which inflame ethnic tensions and create disunity and conflict.
No, its to eliminate discrimination by homogenizing the populace regardless of cultural or linguistic background.
The whole point is to strip individuals of the things that the state could discriminate against. There can be no discrimination between culturally and ethnically identical drones, and that’s the end game. The state is dictating which language (and culture) should be taught in an effort to cultivate obedience and conformity among unique and distinct cultures. Its a quiet genocide.
As a native American man comfortably past residential schooling and the other atrocities committed against my people, i will still bear a French last name on all of my official documents for the rest of my life. I am very aware of cultural erasure. That’s what this is.
I mean this sincerely, what the fuck are you talking about? The law says nothing about homogenizing the populace. You’re pulling that out of your ass. It’s no different that McCarthy era fear mongering about collectivism. Don’t project the horrific history of western imperialism onto a country that literally suffered the consequences of imperialist and ethno-nationalist violence.
Like, let’s take a second and think about what Canada and the US did. They committed unspeakable atrocities and explicitly outlawed native cultural practices and language. China has done none of that. China has the rights of minorities to practice their culture and language embedded in their constitution and in many other laws including the one we’re discussing. In regions of China with majority minority populations, minority languages are often a mandatory part of primary education. Many minority cultural institutions and events are funded by the state. How the fuck is that “genocide” and “cultural erasure”?
Seriously, you’ve taken the whole intent and purpose of this law and flipped it on its head. The sky is blue and you’re out here claiming that it’s red. Why? Because a British media outlet told you so? Do you not see the irony? You’re trusting the state media of the country who basically invented modern colonialism.
There isnt any irony to recognizing the first steps in cultural erasure. It starts with language. Maybe China doesn’t go as hard as colonial NA, but they dont have to. All they have to do is mandate all students learn mandarin.
In a few years, they start phasing out the availability of teaching materials in languages other than mandarin. This is the start of “standardization”
In a few more years, they mandate all tests must be taken in mandarin, because its the only language every student is required to learn.
Next thing you know, all official documents are only recognized as valid if they happen to be in mandarin. A decade or three of quietly suffocating the “other” languages will have drastic and lasting effects on the next generation of people’s those languages represent. And that’s the whole point. Associating education and intelligence with certain languages has gone very well for English speaking nations before. Why not mandarin as well? It’ll only cost the minorities.
In a few years, they start
Oh, I get it, the slippery slope argument. “Everyone must be as evil as the western imperialists so I can predict communist China’s policy in advance by privilege of my previous history of discrimination on the capitalist west”.
The law we’re talking about literally guarantees the rights of minorities to use and learn their language. It charges the state with the responsibility of funding preservation efforts. There are also rights which are made clear in the Chinese constitution. There are laws that direct schools to teach minority languages in minority majority regions. At the local level minority languages are often a mandatory part of the curriculum. Having schools teach mandarin doesn’t change any of that.
It’s honestly absurd to think China has any intention of following in the footsteps of the US or Canada. If you care at all about respecting indigenous culture, then why are you so willing to embrace the chauvinism of settler colonial states? Do you realize that projecting the patterns of cultural erasure onto other countries is a way in which white supremacists normalize the crimes committed against indigenous peoples in the Americas? It’s a fucking lie.
Multilingualism is the global norm. I’d be willing to bet more countries than not have thriving regional languages even as people also learn the national language. This is because for most countries, the majority of the population are indigenous! It’s far more reasonable to assume that this is what China intends especially considering that having a common language for national matters far predates the PRC. Standard mandarin isn’t even really a variant of Chinese that has local roots. The dialect spoken in Beijing differs in a variety of ways. Also the vast majority of Chinese people do not learn mandarin as their first language. That includes most Han Chinese. Like it’s almost hard to comprehend the number and diversity of regional languages spoken in China. Educate yourself on the subject before just making ridiculous assumptions.
