World News

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.

Watch as Americans without a shred of irony decry this and then demand people in our country speak English.

See, China's peacefulness and benevolence are on full display providing conquered peoples free education, and re-education!

There's no way to define "ethnic unity" that doesn't involve racism and ethnic genocide.

Slow genocide.

But when Spain or France does the same to its own minorities nobody cares

The One Chinese Policy, everyone is Han Chinese now. Your individuality and your history is to be erased.

The same people who scream “speak American” will have a problem with this.

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'".

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.

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

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.

I assumed this was always the case in China, didn't they create mandarin with the sole purpose of making everyone learn it

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:

### 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.