- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
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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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?
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.
All country force a main formal language, the fact that China didn’t do it until now is actually interesting.
This isn’t true.
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.
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.
Don’t the US, Canada, and Australia have similar laws? Kinda crazy China took so long to stoop to our level
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.
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.
White people aren’t a monolith because race is a pseudoscientific construct. It has no meaningful relationship with ethnicity or ancestry. If you don’t know the difference between race and ethnicity in America what gives the confidence to speak on how ethnicity works in China? lol
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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/
If I decide to go live in Germany for example, is it reasonable for me to learn German? What about Haïti? Or Jamaica? Is it only acceptable in non colonialist countries?
I understand that the track record about assimilating other culture is terrible. However, not speaking the local language where you live is extremely isolating. If you’ve ever had to live in a place where they don’t speak your native language, you know the feeling.
For everything that is wrong about our immigration system, I believe that asking new immigrants to make an earnest effort to learn the local language is normal. We can’t change the past, but we can do better in the future. And making sure that a new immigrant integrates to his new country is helping both the immigrant and the country that welcomes him.
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.
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.
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 in 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 Moroccan 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.
Spanish speaking kids get an education too. It’s not malicious. We’re not all monsters here. Just half of us.
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, 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…)
My local DMV has forms in all sorts of languages. What are you smoking?
No, fundamentally the USA does not.
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.
Don’t the US, Canada, and Australia have similar laws?
Yes, but all these countries have politicians who say they feel bad about it
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/
https://hawaiianflair.com/blogs/news/the-history-of-hawaiian-language-suppression-and-revival
And check the history section of the
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.
Showed up as a spoiler in Voyager at least.
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.
Yeah, I have huge doubt that this law won’t be used to crush any cultural diversity to make a mono culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system
Despite current views that might define the system of residential schools as racist or genocidal, many scholars contend that they were seen as progressive at the time, a form of state intervention.
The school system was created as a civilizing mission to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture.
During their stay many students were forced to assimilate to Euro-Canadian culture, losing their Indigenous identities and struggling to fit into both their own communities as well as Canadian society.
These acts assumed the inherent superiority of French and British ways, and the need for Indigenous peoples to become French or English speakers, Christians, and farmers.
In 1894, amendments to the Indian Act made attendance at a day school, if there was a day school on the reserve on which the child resided, compulsory for status Indian children between 7 and 16 years of age. The changes included a series of exemptions regarding school location, the health of the children and their prior completion of school examinations.[
The introduction of the Family Allowance Act in 1945 stipulated that school-aged children had to be enrolled in school for families to qualify for the “baby bonus”, further coercing Indigenous parents into having their children attend.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission list three reasons behind the federal government’s decision to establish residential schools.
- Provide Aboriginal people with skills to participate in a market-based economy.
- Further political assimilation, in hope that educated students would give up their status and not return to their reserves or families.
- Schools were “engines of cultural and spiritual change” where “‘savages’ were to emerge as Christian ‘white men’”.
It’s China. The ethnostate. The country known for acting solely in the interest of the ethnostate.
You should just assume it will be used to crush cultural diversity.
It’s China. The ethnostate. The country known for acting solely in the interest of the ethnostate
Meanwhile, in China there are entire regions with extra political autonomy like the Xinjiang autonomous region or the Tibet autonomous region, with a higher degree of political freedom than most Han-majority regions. But knowing this would require that you base your criticism of China on actual reading and not reddit comments
The country known for acting solely in the interest of the ethnostate.
Glances at Japan
Yeah… pretty sure South Korea is very xenophobic as well.
here to watch the tankies lol
You can tell by the moral blindness.
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”.
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.
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!
Hey ML, justify this.
“Anyone who doesn’t speak Mandarin is RACIST”
Everyone being able to speak a common language is good actually.
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?
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?
Whatabout nope! Let’s not race to the bottom, eh?
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 … 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.
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.
Do you condemn China’s treatment of the Uyghurs… or can you not even pronounce it?
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.
I’m suggesting they have never heard of them, being the reason they are so quick to side with the destroying a culture. I suppose you would have agreed with forcing the Native Americans to learn English and participate in the white society. I also suppose you agree with forcing The Australian aboriginal people to learn English.
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
You know nothing of what is going on, admittedly, and yet you somehow want to support it.
I suppose it was cool for the English to force the Aboriginal Australians to assimilate? Or, are you going to say that’s fake? Western Propaganda?
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.
Uhigurs? Yeah, you can’t even respect them enough to spell it right. I’m not taking your advice.
Here are the alternate spellings. Earn that fifty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs
Its not an english word lmao would you rather I spell it using the alphabet they use?
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?
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.
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 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
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.
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”?
Bringing all your alts out eh?
That’s your best comeback?
To this alt account? Yes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This is very similar to the Native American genocide.
“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” which some analysts believe could result in the break up of minority-heavy neighbourhoods.”
Definitely genocidal.
For fucks sake why do you trust the BBC to accurately report on this law? It literally guarantees the right to learn and use minority languages and it even has provisions to help archive and standardize them. It also outlaws forms of description and ethnic suppression. But sure, it’s the same thing as violent cultural erasure 🤦♂️
Well for one there is an ongoing genocide in China. Unless you are tanky there really is no denying this. This is exactly the same sort of laws the US passed under the same pretenses. So yeah, genocide.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/ASA1741372021ENGLISH.pdf
So your evidence of genocide is a report which never makes the claim that what took place in Xinjiang was a genocide? 🤦♂️
I think the claims of genocide are closely tied to sterilization, interment, and the dramatic drop in births as a result of these practices.
Are you denying the first hand accounts of all these people. I hope not.
the claims of genocide are closely tied to sterilization
Source: anonymous interviews
interment
The reeducation camps have been closed since 2019, you’ve had 7 years to educate yourself but you’d rather repeat reddit comment propaganda because it suits your “China bad” mindset
dramatic drop in births
The Uyghurs were explicitly exempt from single-child policy, you uneducated twat, they attained majority-status in Xinjiang as a consequence… The largest predictors for fall in birthrates are female educational level and economic development, both of which have surged in Xinjiang over the past 20 years
They experienced an almost 60% drop in births compared to the average of about 10% according to the most dramatic report I read.
The reason you are so against this truth is because it proves that China is without a doubt a fascist entity enacting genocide.
Credit where credit is due China lifted a lot of people out of poverty by embracing capitalism. This is all part of their fascist journey.
The reason you are so against this truth
I’m not against any truth, in fact I explained to you the reason why birthrate dropped in Xinjiang: massive rise in Uyghur female education and massive rise in Uyghur economic power
Idk, maybe I’m just skeptical of interviews conducted by a guy who doesn’t speak the language, is associated with nutty right wing organizations, and who claims he was ordained by god to battle the communist party of China? You understand that listening to a guy like that is basically the same as listening to people who claim they have evidence that Biden stole the 2020 election right? Just because the AP reported on his claims and Amnesty cites them doesn’t make them a reliable source of truth.
It’s also not like anything say idk, economic development could lead to a drop in birth rates. No, that’s never happened. I guess Han Chinese people are also subject to a genocide then. Even more so because while it’s a well known fact that the one child policy didn’t apply to Uyghurs, it certainly did apply to Han Chinese.
I personally don’t care for any of the current fascist superpowers. That makes it easy to criticize and not make up excuses.
Okay so let me get this straight, you don’t like any of the current fascist superpowers. However, you’re so eager to believe a guy who’s funded by fascist organizations. You know, fascist organizations that openly support the incredibly well documented genocide Israel is currently committing. Make that make sense. Being skeptical about what fascists say has no bearing on whether or not you have to care about China!
Yes they are overhanded when addressing terrorism with “education camps”, but I don’t think their intent is to erase their culture. If Israel acted like the Chinese towards their minorities then the world would look very different.
You don’t need to be a “tanky” to deny this. You just need to care about sources. Do they have any?
Whenever I dig into the sources for these reports they come down to the same handful:
- Adrian Zens - the crackpot who believes he’s on a mission from god to destroy China.
- Gordon Chang - the guy who’s been predicting the imminent collapse of China for nearly 3 decades.
- A law student from Canada who claims you can see barbed wire in satellite photos.
- Various anonymous “whistleblowers”.
- The “Xinjiang Cables” - you can easily find English translations of these and see that they contain scary stuff like minimum amounts of times that detainees must be allowed visitors and prohibitions around guards having any weapons around minors. (The Amnesty article claims to mostly use this source)
I stopped believing in the Xinjiang genocide when I realized I couldn’t find a single source that I could independently corroborate and most of the “sources” I was able to find receive over 90% of their funding from the US government or were created by the US government.
Just about every Muslim country in the world denies on this claim. It seems that the only countries that try to claim a “Xinjiang Genocide” are the same ones that cheer every time the US bombs another Muslim country.
Yeah, I will trust Amnesty International over China any day. There are, of course many other sources.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/xinjiang-police-files-uyghur-mugshots-detention/
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/14/the-faux-anti-imperialism-of-denying-anti-uighur
https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/countries/china/chinese-persecution-of-the-uyghurs
https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/4899186
https://www.rferl.org/a/china-strict-rules-islam-xinjiang/32798502.html
The dramatic decline in births, restrictions of practicing their faith, sterilization, and internment all point to a slow burn genocide like the Native Americans experienced once they were put onto reservations.
When I was in grade school I would have gotten reamed for trying to cite any of these as sources. It should go without saying that they should be primary sources, not periodicals.
Does a single one of those links cite even a single reliable source?
You don’t need to trust China. Just use the basic critical reasoning we we taught in school.
My basic critical reasoning says that China is a fascist nation that supplies arms to several conflict regions and has produced more billionaires than the US this and last year. I find it funny they “fought the fascists” to just become fascist themselves. So they lost around 50 million citizens between the cultural revolution and the famine for nothing.
That is what my basic logic tells me.
That’s not critical reasoning. It’s just bigotry.
Well if the west is doing something clearly the east must be doing the same thing but significantly worse, this is because people from the global south are inferior beings to my high IQ shitlib intellect.
It’s non-violent cultural erasure, the more popular kind in the 21st century.
Yeah sure, guaranteeing protections for minority culture is cultural erasure. 🙄
A single unified culture, the stated intent of this law, means erasing the minority cultures. It’s no secret that Beijing does not let Tibet do what Tibet wants, just ask the 14th Dalai Lama.
Nowhere does the law imply the creation of a single unified culture. You’re just making that up. Only fascists think that national unity and multiculturalism are in conflict. What’s actually in this law suggest that China thinks the exact opposite, that national unity requires the protection of minority cultures.
Also why do you take this self proclaimed theocratic in exile to be the representative of the people of Tibet? It genuinely makes no sense.
People love to conflate the Dalai Lama with the people of Tibet.
He was plucked from a rural Chinese village as a child and turned into the head of Tibet’s theocracy. At the time Tibet was a miserable feudal backwater. The vast majority of the population were oppressed, illiterate peasants. It may not have been as bad as the Chinese government claims, but every account from outside observers talks about the deprivations in Tibet.
Today Tibet has almost all children in compulsory bi-lingual education and the people have many more job options than tenant-farmer. The fact that the Dalai-Lama lives in a temple in India instead of Tibet makes no difference to the lives of Tibetans.
Well then it’s a good thing China swooped in and saved them from savagery!
Nah. It’s fucked up when Western colonial expansion absorbs people against their will and it’s fucked up when China does it.
You still seem to think that the will of the Dalai Lama is at all related to the desires of the people of Tibet.
Aside from a CIA funded uprising half a century ago, there’s no evidence at all that China “absorbs people against their will.”
Wow, I should probably just outright block all accounts with .ml. Everytime I see a stupid take, I look at the handle and I see lemmy.ml.
Okay then do it already. You’ll spare me from having to see whatever empty insults you think constitute a rebuttal.
Man you guys always act like assholes
Oh no! I insulted someone who called my take stupid on the internet! Someone call the police!
This is very similar to the Native American genocide.
The one where Colonial European settlers were literally marching into Indian communities and massacring them?
Umm for the most part that was just the colonialists and later on the US when it was created. The actual Europeans were not always that horrible (except the Spanish ofc)
That China is following these same genocidal blueprints is no surprise considering their embrace of fascism.
The actual Europeans were not always that horrible
Trying to explain this in Cherokee.
The Cherokee Genocide was almost exclusively attributed to the US. I do understand that the US came from Europe of course.
The actual Europeans were not always that horrible (except the Spanish ofc)
What makes the Spanish worse than the Dutch, English or French? All enacted genocide where they arrived, brought in slaves from Africa, and funnily enough there are more native people left in the Spanish regions (Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala) than in the English-controlled ones, the Anglos were more thorough in their genocide.
We were talking about the Native American Genocide specifically. The US was absolutely genocidal whereas other European countries were actually respecting treaties and not always trying to steal lands like the US and British.
This is very similar to the Native American genocide.
In China it was the Communists who walked the death march.
In North America, unlike South America and Tibet or Xinjiang, the people don’t look native. It’s not very similar.
In China it was the Communists who walked the death march.
I was unaware communists were an ethnic group. But I guess if their predecessors had a hard time in a civil war 80 years ago it means they can’t be racists now.
In North America, unlike South America and Tibet or Xinjiang, the people don’t look native. It’s not very similar.
Ah yes, let’s set state policy based on what people look like.
Can we please stop with the scare quotes around terms that don’t have the same connotation in their original language? The BBC is deliberately misleading its readers by translating 民族团结 to mean “ethnic unity”. A better translation in this case would be “national solidarity” but that wouldn’t sound as scary would it?
It’s also not unreasonable for a country to require schools to teach children the common language. Knowing 普通话 (the common language) is a critical skill for any Chinese national who wants to succeed in the modern Chinese economy. Almost every state with a national language does this in some way.
Instead of falling for deliberate mistranslations, maybe look up what was actually said in Mandarin next time.
I get that this is China fearmongering, but it’s also how France eroded and almost killed off the regional languages…, by stigmatizing their use in schools, posting exclusively french-speaking state workers in administrative roles, etc. under the guise of “national unity” or some other variation of it
This seems quite different.
Rather than stigmatizing their use in schools, they actively encourage them. China maintains dual language education in these languages. Literacy rates have gone from low single digit percentages to above 90 for every minority language in China I’ve checked.
It’s closer to how kids all over Europe were taught English. There are certainly many local dialects that are dying off but it’s by choice. When I was a kid in Austria, the “Waldviertler” dialect was generally considered low-class, as was my own “Ottakringer” dialect. Those have mostly died off but there are a bunch of people who keep “Wienerisch” alive because they think it’s cool.
Almost all the people I knew growing up in Austria speak English. It’s the language of business, TV, and Rock ‘n’ Roll. My dad thinks it’s cool when he can speak Shanghainese or Cantonese to people but he likes that he can speak Mandarine with people who natively speak one of the many other dialects.
There are serious practical benefits for people in China to learn Mandarin. It doesn’t seem to interfere with their ability to learn their native languages.
That’s great, thanks for sharing your experience. The value that mandarin or french or hindi or english have as a vehicular within their own borders (or beyond, in the case of english) is immense. Independentist velleities are not always a consequence of strong regional identity in my experience
What do you mean by “certain dialects are dying off by choice” ?
I can’t help but be reminded of my own Provençal (dialect of Occitan) when reading your bit about Waldviertler & Ottakringer being considered lower class. In the case of Occitan (in all its varieties), its “peasant” perception was encouraged if not manufactured by the state. The generation of my grandparents (early 20th) was physically reprimanded if they were caught using it.
That’s great if China is not going this route. For such a big country, levelling the cultural field would be such an immense loss
I’ve lived in the US for a really long time so a lot of this is out of date.
Waldviertel is a region near Vienna. They were poor farmers. When we used to visit family friends there, we’d pass the giant manure pile in the courtyard on the way into the living area. We’d walk right into the entrance/eating nook. There was one door to the kitchen, one to the bedrooms, and one that went directly to the pig stalls. You could hear and smell them while you were eating. They spoke a really thick Waldviertler dialect. I could not understand their grandmother at all. After the fall of the USSR that whole village slowly moved up the agriculture supply chain (ie storing grain, agricultural insurance, etc). Now they’re rich. The grand kids of those farmers converted the farm into a mansion and they all speak High German now.
Ottakring only became part of Vienna in 1892. For a long time it was an industrial working class neighborhood. My relatives and everyone I knew in the area went to “Volksschule”, that’s essentially vocational school. While a working class background is often romanticized, many people from that background want to disassociate with it.
I can’t understand old people when they speak Ottakringer but I still have enough of it that some people can identify me as coming from the 16th district, AKA Ottrakring. It’s kind of fun to dip into it when I speak with my family but there’s little reason to use it with other German speakers. Living in the US I have barely any reason to use German at all. Even when I run into people from Austria we usually find it easier to switch to English for actual work discussions.
Yes, we should criticise France’s capitalist government for this, you’re right. Go ahead and make posts on .world about it. How’s that related to China though?
There are recognized minority languages in Sweden which children have a right to study as part of their public school education. My understanding is that they most commonly* have normal classes in Swedish, but can attend an additional course in their mother language as well as receiving tutoring help in that language for their standard courses. Is that how you’re saying this Chinese system will be run? And also can you link a source? I don’t mind if it’s not in English.
*Some schools are in other languages entirely, and I don’t understand what exactly the rules are, but I believe they’re private institutions.
Here’s a section of the law that explicitly calls out the states role in safeguarding the learning and use of minority languages.
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
Additionally the Ministry of Education explicitly calls on schools that primarily serve minority students to use texts and conduct classes in minority languages whenever possible.
招收少数民族学生为主的学校（班级）和其他教育机构，有条件的应当采用少数民族文字的课本，并用少数民族语言讲课；根据情况从小学低年级或者高年级起开设汉语文课程，推广全国通用的普通话和规范汉字
www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xwfb/xw_ft/moe_46/moe_1055/tnull_13924.html
The Chinese constitution also explicitly gives minorities the right to use and develop their language and culture.
各民族都有使用和发展自己的语言文字的自由，都有保持或者改革自己的风俗习惯的自由
https://www.gov.cn/guoqing/2018-03/22/content_5276318.htm
That said, there is conflict around the language of instruction in Chinese schools. It seems to me that China is moving more towards a model similar to what you’ve described in Sweden. In places where education was done almost entirely in a minority language, such changes haven’t engendered a degree of public dissent. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to discuss the merits of such changes. I just find it frustrating when western media projects their own history of cultural erasure and assimilation onto a China when that’s clearly not their intent.
The Chinese constitution also explicitly gives everyone the right to vote, freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.
第三十四条 中华人民共和国年满十八周岁的公民，不分民族、种族、性别、职业、家庭出身、宗教信仰、教育程度、财产状况、居住期限，都有选举权和被选举权；但是依照法律被剥夺政治权利的人除外。
第三十五条 中华人民共和国公民有言论、出版、集会、结社、游行、示威的自由。
That says enough about how much that document is worth.
Yes, and those rights actually exist in China as intended. However, they obviously do not exist as you’re choosing to interpret their constitution. It’s fine to be critical of how they believe these rights should operate, but claiming that they’re being hypocritical or disingenuous disregards the actual intention of what they wrote in their constitution. I’m happy to explain.
For one, Chinese people do vote in competitive elections at the local level. Of course, the constitution explicitly guarantees the centrality of the communist party so elections tend not to be won over ideological difference but rather perceived competence. You can say that’s not democratic but this is not in contradiction with the constitutional right to vote or run for office.
As for freedom of speech and press, these too exist. Just go on platforms like Weibo and you’ll find people complaining about government policy and corruption all the time. Investigative journalism is legal as well and there are cases of corruption or other failures caused by poor governance that journalists have uncovered without facing any retribution. The difference here is that separatist speech, calls for regime change, or disinformation are not legal. What is separatism or disinformation is obviously defined by the people enacting these laws which I’m sure you would argue undermines these rights. Again, that’s a reasonable argument but it doesn’t mean these rights don’t exist.
Freedom of assembly and protest also exist. Protests are more common in China than most people in western countries realize. The government has a high degree of fear over how they might develop though and apply similar kinds of restrictive permitting requirements that occurs in many western countries. Also the second the protest has any separatist or regime change elements it will be shut down. However, again this situation is clearly what the constitution intended if you read it in full.
So please, critique the specific ways in which the Chinese government interprets the rights written in their constitution. However, there’s no evidence that the Communist Party was acting disingenuous when they wrote their constitution. It’s not a worthless document just because you want it to be.
That’s very helpful, thank you.
Who cares what they call it, the end result is the same.
The end result is not the same. The article is purposely misconstruing the intent of that which changes how a reader might imagine it will be enforced. There is a big difference between forcibly suppressing ethic culture and identity and instead trying to better integrate China by ensuring children learn the tools they would need to communicate with their peers across the country.
This same law contains provisions that actually protect minority languages. It guarantees the right to learn and use minority languages. It also contains provisions to help keep them alive by directing the government to help archive minority language texts and support the standardization of minority languages. There are also provisions that explicitly outlaw ethnic discrimination and suppression. Do you think these aspects of the law would have been included if the actual intent was to suppress minority identity?
This would be true if it weren’t for the biggest unrecognised genocide taking place against the Uyghurs
It’s not recognized because there was never a genocide. You can still be critical of China. You can say they carried out a heavy handed de-radicalization program where innocent people were forcibly imprisoned. That’s likely true. However, calling it genocide when the evidence is just not there to make such a claim just waters down the utility of the term, especially when a genocide that is recognized by the UN is ongoing in Gaza.
I find it funny how the people who claim to care the most about Muslims in China are also the same people who celebrate the murder of civilians in Iran
Slow genocide.
So basically like all of history
