- cross-posted to:
- humanrights@crazypeople.online
- cross-posted to:
- humanrights@crazypeople.online
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/51758910
In the name of promoting inter-ethnic harmony, China is to force dozens of ethnic minorities within the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to assimilate into Han-dominated society by enacting a landmark law during the upcoming fourth session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) which opens on Mar 5. The law will require ethnic minorities to use Mandarin Chinese as their main language of instruction, overturning decades-old policies that date back to the era of Mao Zedong, noted ft.com Mar 3.
[…]
The sweeping law marks the latest effort in a signature “Sinicization” campaign under Chinese leader Xi Jinping and prescribes legal action against anyone, inside or outside the country, who undermines “national unity” or provokes “separatism”.
The so-called Han majority accounts for more than 90% of the PRC’s population of 1.4 billion and the country’s constitution recognises 55 ethnic minorities, and a dozen languages — some with their own written scripts — and hundreds of dialects.
Under the new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, while minority languages may still be taught as a second language, groups such as Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians will no longer be entitled to use their native tongues for core subjects in schools and universities, the report noted.
[…]
The new law “overturns the multicultural promises upon which China was founded”, moving from “an idea of unity through difference or unity through pluralism, to one of unity through sameness, through the elimination of difference”, Benno Weiner, a historian of modern China, Tibet and Inner Asia at Carnegie Mellon University, has said.
“The conclusion that Xi Jinping and others seem to have come to is that diversity is dangerous.”
[…]
Worryingly, one clause in the new law is cited as saying only the state has the right to promote “a system of symbols of Chinese civilisation”, which can be used “in public facilities and architectural design, scenic area exhibitions, place naming and public activities”. Such policies, if enforced, meant there was “no way” that non-Han people would be able to safely express “any type of discontent without being accused of being essentially separatists or terrorists,” Weiner has said.
[…]
This probably does offer better long-term economic prospects for their citizenry.
Wouldn’t students who were taught in (insert minority language here) be at a disadvantage trying to compete with first-language Mandarin speakers for jobs outside of their narrow region?
Even in the US, there’s been intense debates over schools offering core instruction in Spanish,
No, absolutely not. Learning another language - especially learning a majority language is easy as fuck. There’s countries with 2, 3 or 4 official languages. Nobody bats an eye.
Learning a second language is the default across all of Europe, so much so that it starts being seen as kinda boring/bland? Even in France, kindergarten-aged children learn English. In my country, Romania, by far not the most well off country in Europe, English is taught from kindergarten as a second language and then from age 10 you get to learn a third language - french, german, spanish, italian. Some schools have started introducing the third language earlier. And yes, this does mean that minority children often get to learn 4 languages.
I’m not even going to comment on this because I’m going to be hurtful and bigoted.
Yeah. It sucks culturally, but it will absolutely accomplish what they’re trying to do.