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.
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.