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.
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
Just when China could been better than America…
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.
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.
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.
In before the tankies start defending 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”.
terrifying
Watch as Americans without a shred of irony decry this and then demand people in our country speak English.
America is not a monolith, one group could say one statement and another say the other.
I’m decrying this AND the racists that demand everyone speak English in America. The American racists will probably say that this is fine because it’s Chinese governing Chinese, so long as they stay in China.
I think it’s a good opportunity for language submersion. They can still speak their native language. Me friend taught her two kids to speak Japanese. They speak English at school in the US. I wish we had more immersion opportunities here. I didn’t read the article so, I’m sure I’m missing the detail that warrants everyone’s reaction though. It could be a good thing if they aren’t being shitty simultaneously.
They’re a global super power. They’re going to be shitty about it.
dude, I knew an old German woman who immigrated after WW2 to the US.
she straight up started yelling at the Mexicans speaking Spanish that it’s disrespectful to not speak English in the US.
it’s not just Americans doing it…
Did you know German was the second most spoken language in the USA until ww1? Victims of opression often opress others.
The same people who scream “speak American” will have a problem with this.
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.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Don’t the US, Canada, and Australia have similar laws?
Yes, but all these countries have politicians who say they feel bad about it
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
My local DMV has forms in all sorts of languages. What are you smoking?
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…)
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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.
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.
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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.
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, fundamentally the USA does not.
Slow genocide.
So basically like all of history
I assumed this was always the case in China, didn’t they create mandarin with the sole purpose of making everyone learn it
China is a very large country and a lot of different ethnic groups. You don’t see them because they have no mobility, aren’t featured in Chinese media and the CCP really doesn’t like them. Their idea of cultural “unity” is to convert everyone to Han.
Question: how often do you watch Chinese media? I personally visited China last year and in their National History Museum they have constant mentions to many different ethnicities even if they didn’t belong to China proper at the time
Have you ever watched TV in china? It is full of representation of different ethnicities.
I know that, I’m saying I assumed the ccp was forcing them to learn mandarin all this time already
Han groups have like 100+ non-mutually-intelligible languages.
Historically, it’s been a largely regional split with Cantonese in the West and Mandarin in the East.
China’s been something of an outlayer in supporting as many languages as it does.
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…
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.
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”
Its only discrimination if someone other than the state discriminates. When the state discriminates, its called “campaigning for unity”.
The state calls its violence law, and that of others crime. (to paraphrase Stirner)
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.
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.
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”.
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.
I’m Basque, we are “forced” to learn Spanish too since it’s a co-official language in out autonomous region of Spain
All co-official languages of the Spanish state are co-official in all of the state, this is state policy and not just in specific autonomous regions.
Your critique comes from a good place as a people whose culture and language have a history of repression under fascism, but you need to understand that the history of China is the polar opposite of that: the communists won the civil war against the fascist Kuomintang. They’ve had and still enjoy a level of cultural diversity unseen anywhere in Europe for the past century, especially Spain as I say because of our fascist history.
Trying to extrapolate the centralist repressive policy of Spain to a country as different, huge and diverse and China is simply bad analysis based on unfortunately wrong starting points. As a silly example, ethnic minorities in China were exempt from single-child policy.
If you want an Uyghur person’s perspective on this, I suggest you watch this short video. Please listen to actual minority voices within China instead of listening we western-manufactured hate campaigns.
Except they literally won’t allow non-Mandarin families to teach their own cultures’ languages or histories. That’s not something I read second hand either, that’s from talking one-on-one with a Uyghur linguist that was given special recognition by an international linguistics organization for his efforts to save the language.
Yeah, I covered that in the edit. That’s horrible and alarming.
There are restrictions on teaching the Tibetan language. This seems like an authoritarian move, not an educational one.
Imagine quoting “the Tibet post” seriously, an Indian tabloid whose official stance is the defense of the “Tibet government in exile”. This would be like using a Russian-based “Marie Antoinette post” defending monarchy in France as the legitimate system.
Catalan here, always funny to see monolinguals be shocked when China does it but turn around and see nothing wrong with Spain imposing Spanish to all its regions in the same way
Does Spain prosecute Parents that teach about catalan?
Spain routinely kidnaps Roma children from their parents.
If Spain doesn’t get in line on the Iran War, I’m confident we’re going to start getting stories about how we need to liberate Catalonia soon enough
Shit.
It’s rarely about the actual letter of the law and more about the vague wording and standards that allow it to be enforced in a bigoted way.
I think it varies in parts of Xinjiang, but in at least part of it, along with most of the rest of China, most school instruction is in Mandarin.
Everyone still speaks their native languages, but they speak mando to chinese from other places. The kids know a few english phrases too for some reason.
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?
You are misunderstand it (and the BBC article is also very unclear about it). Learning Mandarin was already mandatory, it’s now about making Mandarin the default.
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
Yes, yes — I’m sure that everything bad about China is a lie and that it’s the single best place to live on Earth. Thank you for your take.
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.
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.
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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 (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.
US is of European origin though, but sure
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.
it means they can’t be racists now.
It means they didn’t do death marches to genocide their population. It’s just a historic curiosity that they did one to themselves.
There were famines which could be used for genocides. Maybe you find something there.
set state policy based on what people look like.
The logic works in the other direction. The look shows past policies. But looking at prison numbers, race still seems to be an issue.
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 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.
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Okay then do it already. You’ll spare me from having to see whatever empty insults you think constitute a rebuttal.
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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.
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.”
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.
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
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.
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That’s not critical reasoning. It’s just bigotry.
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.
Fair enough. Yes, they are definitely no Isreal shudder
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.
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!
