- cross-posted to:
- slop@hexbear.net
- world@quokk.au
- cross-posted to:
- slop@hexbear.net
- world@quokk.au
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.
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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.
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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.
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Genocide is never convenient, you really gotta go out of your way to make it happen.
“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.
Watch as Americans without a shred of irony decry this and then demand people in our country speak English.
America is not a monolith, one group could say one statement and another say the other.
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.
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.
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.
They’re a global super power. They’re going to be shitty about it.
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.
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…
Did you know German was the second most spoken language in the USA until ww1? Victims of opression often opress others.
Spanish is an American language (as is French, and lots of indigenous languages, also the Amish might disagree with her).
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 Cajun French and now it’s a dead language. This law feels like the first step to a similar cultural assimilation.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
Does Spain prosecute Parents that teach about catalan?
Spain routinely kidnaps Roma children from their parents.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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The law literally prohibits ethnic discrimination and the specific passage being referred to here is saying that parents do not have any legal protections that would allow them to freely indoctrinate their children with bigoted beliefs. How you people have decided that the law actually means the exact opposite of what it means is beyond me.
Language and cultural history are not “bigoted beliefs,” but Uyghurs aren’t allowed to teach them to their children. Sounds pretty discriminatory to me.
Language and cultural history aren’t bigoted beliefs and Uyghurs are allowed to teach their culture and language to their children. You’re deeply misinformed if you think otherwise.
Believing that makes you no different from MAGA. Blind followers.
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.ml at it again.
Oh no! Facts! Whatever will you do???!!
terrifying
Slow genocide.
So basically like all of history
The same people who scream “speak American” will have a problem with this.
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…
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”
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.
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”.
See, China’s peacefulness and benevolence are on full display providing conquered peoples free education, and re-education!
Anything can be true when you read Zionist media and take their word!
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.
Have you ever watched TV in china? It is full of representation of different ethnicities.
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
Han groups have like 100+ non-mutually-intelligible languages.
I know that, I’m saying I assumed the ccp was forcing them to learn mandarin all this time already
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.
I found this amusing: all the American LLM systems I fed the translated text to for a take refused to reply, calling the topic “prohibited.”
Stepfun3.5 (locally) had no problem, and surprisingly, neither did GLM 5 over their web UI; it went and double checked the Chinese translation, in fact, and said it’s “difficult to square with international human rights norms,” along with any LLM’s usual hedged approach. I’ll put the conclusion slop in a spoiler, but here it is:
spoiler
### 5.2 Major concerns and criticisms 1. **Language and education: heavy assimilation bias** - The law’s strong emphasis on Mandarin as the national common language, and on unified teaching materials, is widely seen by outside observers as **curtailing minority-language education**. - BBC and other analyses note that it mandates Mandarin-medium education from pre-school through high school, replacing previous policies that allowed many subjects to be taught in Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian, etc.【turn1fetch2】 - While Art. 15 formally says minority languages are protected, the **practical effect** is likely to be further erosion of those languages as living languages of education and public life. This raises serious issues under international human rights standards on **minority language education and cultural rights**, even if Beijing argues that Mandarin improves job prospects and national unity.【turn1fetch2】 2. **Ideological uniformity and freedom of expression** - The “five identifications,” the obligation to love the CCP and the motherland, and the restrictions on parents transmitting views “not conducive to ethnic unity” (Art. 20) go far beyond typical anti-discrimination or hate-speech rules. - They effectively **mandate a specific political and historical narrative** and can be used to penalize dissenting views on history, politics, or religion. - This is hard to reconcile with robust protections for freedom of expression and belief, even if one accepts that every state promotes some national narrative. 3. **Potential for misuse and overreach** - Concepts like “undermining ethnic unity” or “ideas not conducive to ethnic unity” are broad and can be interpreted flexibly by local officials, especially in a context where the judiciary is not independent. - The combination of: - vague prohibitions, - extensive supervision and reporting obligations, and - penalties for failing to stop “wrongful” behavior creates a strong **incentive to over-enforce**, for fear of being accused of laxity. 4. **Impact on minority communities and identities** - Policies promoting “mutually embedded” communities and Mandarin dominance can improve mobility and opportunity, but they can also **dismantle concentrated minority neighborhoods** and weaken the social base for distinctive linguistic and cultural practices. - Scholars and exile organizations argue that this is part of a longer-term **“Sinicization” campaign** to reshape minority identities around a CCP-defined Chinese nation identity.【turn2search0】【turn2search1】 That’s why many see the law as **“legalizing assimilation”** rather than simply promoting equality and unity. 5. **Extraterritorial reach and foreign criticism** - Art. 63 claims jurisdiction over overseas organizations and individuals who target China with actions undermining ethnic unity. - From Beijing’s perspective, this is a defensive move against foreign support for separatist or critical movements; from outside, it looks like an attempt to **export censorship** and intimidate critics abroad. --- ## 6. Overall judgment If I step back: - **Legally and institutionally**, the law is a significant step: it elevates “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” into a fundamental legal principle and tries to align every part of the state apparatus around that goal. - **From a development and stability angle**, it strengthens tools for reducing regional inequality and managing ethnic-related risks, which could enhance social stability and long-term development—**provided** implementation is restrained and rights-protective. - **From a human-rights and pluralism angle**, it clearly **prioritizes unity and commonality over diversity and minority rights**. The language and education provisions, ideological requirements, and broad prohibitions on “harmful” views will likely deepen fears of cultural erasure and political control, especially among Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, and other smaller groups.【turn1fetch2】【turn2search0】【turn2search1】 So my view is: - As a **state-building and governance instrument**, it’s coherent and ambitious. - As a **framework for genuine ethnic pluralism and minority rights**, it leans heavily toward assimilation and control, and is difficult to square with international human rights norms, even if it formally commits to equality and non-discrimination. If you’d like, I can next map out specific “trade-offs” (e.g., unity vs. diversity, development vs. cultural rights) in a table or draw out a comparison with China’s earlier autonomy-based system.I’m not a tankie. I’ll make fun of Sam Altman as an idiot all day long.
…But it is interesting how Chinese open-weights LLMs, for all their obvious gaps and kool-aid of their own, seem to be quite “uncensored” compared to American ones.
It’s… not a good sign.
If you post very long blocks like that I think it’s considered polite to use a spoiler tag
I did use a spoiler! I think:
edit: Is it not showing up in a particular UI?
Oh. I guess sync didn’t render it automatically then.
Don’t the US, Canada, and Australia have similar laws? Kinda crazy China took so long to stoop to our level
EDIT: I have since learned that public schools in the US are not required to teach in English, so you can cross the US off that list! My bad!
EDIT2: I just googled it, and it turns out it is required. Back on the list it goes!
EDIT3: I’ve had to explain multiple times in the comments that I’m not talking about teaching immigrants the local language, but teaching the native population the language of the colonizers. The US, Canada, Australia all arrived somewhere where there were already people, like Polynesians, Inuits, and Aboriginals, and in their public school, they’re all taught in English. It’s disheartening to see how little people think of the native population of these countries, and it shows how effective the native American genocide was.
Genuine question : why do requiring a earnest effort to learn the language of the country a bad thing?
There is a shit ton of bad things about our immigration laws, but forcing immigrants to learn the local language isn’t one of them.
Language barriers isolate people and learning the local language helps reduce the isolation, benefiting everyone.
They didn’t move there. They were conquered. That’s called cultural genocide.
The post I am replying to is specifying Canada, US and Australia. Not China.
I agree that assimilating vs integration is a different thing.
The post I am replying to is specifying Canada, US and Australia.
You mean the countries with a long history of enforcing lingual homogeneity on the native and immigrant populations?
For example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Languages_Act
https://hawaiianflair.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-hawaiian-language-suppression-and-revival
https://daily.jstor.org/when-american-schools-banned-german-classes/
I specified those countries (and not, for example, Germany or France) because they are settler colonies. I’m not talking about immigration.
So we should only expect immigrants to learn the current local language only if the country they immigrate to isn’t a colonialist country?
I am not talking about immigrants, I am talking about the native population. The Uyghurs, Tibetans, Polynesians, Inuit, Aboriginals are not immigrants.
Han Chinese are also not immigrants. These regions have been multiethnic for centuries. Also lingual and cultural diversity is immense even amongst people who are considered Han. It would make no sense for this law which is about teaching kids a common language that was constructed for that purpose has anything to do with ethnonationalism.
Learning a language in itself is not a bad thing, as long as you have a lot of support and mix with the locals, but mixing it with integration politics, the R word will start to rear its head: by endlessly raising the bar to a fantasy “native” level of the target local language in business hiring, that a coded word meaning they don’t want expats. While the government is simultaneously pulling public funding away from language schools. Oh no, you will never be one of them. Realistically, you will also need some years to be at a native level; the pressure is real.
I actually don’t think having a main language in a country and offering education in that language is a bad thing per se.
But I don’t like hypocrisy, and if someone’s upset at the Chinese for teaching in Mandarin I need them to be just as upset at Australia, Canada and the US for doing the exact same thing.
What hypocrisy?
The discussion conflates a lots of things. So to be clear :
We are talking about someone moving to a new country, not a country invading another country and forcing them to learn the new language to assimilate them.
We can be mad at China for annexing Tibet for example, forcing them to learn mandarin and forbidding them to talk to their native language.
But if I decide to go live in China, then it is not far fetched to expect me to learn mandarin, regardless of its history. It is two different things.
Context matters.
I live in Canada. Should we make real efforts to restitute Natives? Absolutely. Does that mean that we can’t expect new immigrants to learn the current local language because of our past?
We can’t change the past, but we can make better in the future and integrating new arrivants is necessary and beneficial for everyone.
We are talking about someone moving to a new country, not a country invading another country and forcing them to learn the new language to assimilate them.
I’m not talking about people moving to a new country at all. Polynesians didn’t move to the US, the US invaded their land and forced them to learn a new language. And so on and so forth for the other settler colonies. I am not talking about immigration at all. There’s a reason why I talk about the US, Canada, and Australia, and not for example Italy. They are settler colonies. They moved somewhere and then forced the locals to learn their language.
So folks getting upset about the Chinese teaching Uyghurs and Tibetans in Mandarin in schools should be just as upset at the Americans, Canadians, and Australians for teaching Polynesians, Inuit, and Aboriginals in English in their schools. I hope it’s a bit clearer now, I’m not a great communicator, and I really cannot make the hypocrisy more obvious than this.
Other examples: Norwegians teaching Sami in Norwegian, the Portuguese teaching the locals ij Brazil in Portuguese, the Spanish teaching the locals in Chile in Spanish, the English teaching the Maori in New Zealand in English, et cetera.
Nonexamples: the Dutch teaching Turkish immigrants in Dutch, the Germans teaching Morrocan immigrants in German, Italy teaching Slovenian immigrants in Italian, the US teaching Mexican immigrants in English, China teaching Indonesian immigrants in Mandarin. – I am fine with all of these, full stop.
We can be both upset at what our ancestors and parents did and integrate new arrivant within the current state of the society they arrive in.
Both aren’t exclusive. I get what you are saying, but I don’t see that as hypocrisy.
And again, there is a distinction between integration and assimilation.
Holy shit you are so fucking dense. This has nothing whatsoever to do with immigrants. No one is talking about immigrants but you.
Your argument boils down to : If there is history of colonialism, requiring a basic level of the most spoken language is bad. Otherwise it’s good.
Society at large has been multi-cultural for as long as human written history has existed through conquest, war and trade.
There is a possibility to require people to both learn the country’s main language while keeping their culture. I live in a city where that happens on a daily basis and everyone is better for it.
Why can’t I move to China and assimilate into the Uighur or Tibetan population, if that’s something I really want to do? Why does only the dominant imperialist ethnicity get to expect immigrants to learn the language? Maybe it should be the opposite. Maybe every Han person who moves to Western China should have to learn Uighur or Tibetan. After all, they’re immigrants.
You’re so ridiculously ignorant. Both Tibet and Xinjiang have been multiethnic for so long that trying to determine who was “first” is just stupid. If you wanted to play that game then you would have to admit that Han people existed in Xinjiang prior to the Uyghur ethnic group. Now it would be ridiculous to claim that Han people have a special right to Xinjiang and Uyghur people. What you seem to be advocating for is literally ethnonationalism which is China’s laws including the one we’re discussing explicitly reject.
but teaching the native population the language of the colonizers
And you don’t think China is a colonial empire that expanded its borders in the exact same way the US or Russia did? Just how exactly do you think China ended up being a majority Han nation ruling over a bunch of ethnic minorities? Skin color or ethnicity is not a prerequisite for imperialism.
You’re putting words in my mouth.
I keep mentioning, over and over, Polynesians, Inuit, Aboriginals AND Tibetans AND Uyghur as examples of native populations forced to learn the tongue of their colonizer. I keep mentioning, over and over, how the situation of colonization in the US, Canada, and Australia is SIMILAR to the one in China. It’s deeply frustrating how much I have to re-explain here. Am I that bad at writing?
What do you even do think Han is? lol To think that this law is a tool of Han supremacy is to ignore that it doesn’t actually encompass the idea of ethnicity as it exists in the West. Most people that would be identified as Han do not share an identical culture or even language. What this law talks about ie “the common language” is a construct created by many people who spoke other Chinese languages first. It’s wild how ready you are to speak with such authority about a country you seemingly know next to nothing about.
And do you think “white people” in the West are a monolith as well? The concept of “Han” sounds pretty damn similar to the concept of “white” in the United States.
No, it’s actually a very important point that there is no national language in the US.
And no, the EO from 2025 is not legally binding and is more symbolic than anything.
it doesn’t but good luck dealing with any authority if you don’t speak english or speak it with a foreign accent
At multiple government offices I have seen them bring out someone to match the language spoken when someone has no or poor English.
It is far easier to speak English because practically speaking English is most prevalent, but it’s not like inability to speak English is a crime (though with this administration…)
Yeah I’m not talking about gov offices I’m talking about dealing with any cop
My local DMV has forms in all sorts of languages. What are you smoking?
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EDIT: I have since learned that public schools in the US are not required to teach in English, so you can cross the US off that list! My bad!
Don’t apologise too soon, it’s the basis for their lingual homogeneity, and is a common theme since its inception. For example:
https://daily.jstor.org/when-american-schools-banned-german-classes/
And check the history section of the
Don’t the US, Canada, and Australia have similar laws?
Yes, but all these countries have politicians who say they feel bad about it
It varies by state, but some do require instruction in English. While the US has no official language, most states have English as their official language, which impacts various policies. Schools are federally required to support the education of students learning English as a second language.
Last I checked, only three states (AZ, MA and OK) have required english instruction - only one of them (MA) requires english immersion instead of ESL or bilingual-specific classes, and all three allow for public-funded nonenglish education, just outside the district.
Bilingual and ESL programs are still designed such that the student will learn English though. I’m not aware of a state in which a child can graduate high school without English as a core subject.
Spanish speaking kids get an education too.
Yep, in English, which is what this thread is about. Also, the Spanish kids are not the right comparison. When you think of Uyghurs or Tibetans, what demographics in the US come to mind?
Hint: Public schools in Hawaii teach in English.
Good point. I forgot about that guy going to jail for teaching his language recently. I think he was Tibetan.
In Canada we don’t legally force people to learn English. Legally the federal government MUST provide services in English AND French. Meanwhile, they also offer their many of their services in other languages depending on need and logistics.
So the Inuits get to choose between two European languages. I don’t see how this is better.
No, fundamentally the USA does not.
how is this different than europeans learning english at 10 years old? except the earlier onset age.
But when Spain or France does the same to its own minorities nobody cares
The difference is that Spain, or especially so France (Occitan isn’t even an official language), actually carry out this policy, whereas this is manufactured bullshit that people are taking at face-value from Zionist media.
Ah but the difference is they’re white and as we know it’s ok when white people do anything actually evil but when nonwhite people especially from the global south does anything it’s always evil.
Hey ML, justify this.
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?
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”?
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 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
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’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.
Bringing all your alts out eh?
That’s your best comeback?
To this alt account? Yes.
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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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.
overall good points, but I’d like to expand on the one about forbidding languages at educational institutions:
a ban isn’t even necessary to expediate the decline of a language; it’s often enough to simply defund it.
teachers need funding, and simply not giving any to other languages or other cultural curriculum is effectively the same as a ban.
few schools and administrations would shoulder the costs of “extra” curriculum, because few have the funds to do so, particularly when it comes to minorities…
source: am part of such a minority (in central europe though) and our state actually sponsors extra language classes, courses, and cultural clubs, activities, and events in order to preserve our unique identity and culture.
it’s still trending towards extinction though, as such minorities tend to do…
tl;dr: no need for a ban, just withhold a bit of funding and it will die out within a few generations…
That’s fair, but it assumes that mandating one language means that the other language will be defunded. Is that happening here? I think ideally both languages (national language, native language) would be funded and studied
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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?
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?
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Everyone being able to speak a common language is good actually.
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?
send them out in the world unable to communicate
Is that what yours did?
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.
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?
