The purpose of the law is quite literally the opposite of what you’re suggesting. Have fun living in in your sinophobic fever dream.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Oh no! Facts! Whatever will you do???!!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Whether or not you think China is fascist has no bearing on how much you should trust other fascist organizations.

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!

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 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.

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.

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