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.
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In the US, all children are required to take English classes from kindergarten and up until the end of high school. There are no alternatives offered, if a student can’t speak English, then they are at the very least offered ESL classes in addition to their regular English courses, but they still must take those courses and pass in order to get a diploma
While I don’t actually think that mandating the official national language as a class in schools is at all a problem (or a new idea), your argument is blatant whataboutism. Something cannot be justified merely by comparing it to somewhere else (especially the US, I might add).
It’s not whataboutism when there’s a clear bias in terms of what country the BBC is criticizing. Having a national language and requiring it to be taught in schools is incredibly common for many states including the UK. Why is China singled out so often for things almost every state does?
So call out the journalistic bias, or hypocritical behaviour of the BBC. But if the topic in general is brought up in conversation, just pointing to the US as some kind of justification, is definitely whataboutism. It sidesteps actual critical thinking by playing to familiarity: “well if this country does it, then it must be fine!”, which is clearly a logical fallacy.
All countries actions should be criticized equally. No countries actions should be justified by being the same as another country.
The person you initially replied to did not say anything about was or wasn’t justified. They just stated a simple fact. Their wording did not give any clear indication about how they actually felt. What does give you an indication of what they believe is the context under which they provided that fact.
To me, knowing the history of the BBC and other western media outlets, it seems clear that their comment is calling out the hypocrisy and bias of the BBC. I imagine it only appears to you as whataboutism because you do not share a perspective which encompasses the prior behavior of the BBC.
The reason I thought they were using it as justification, was because their comment was a reply to a comment that said something like “justify that tankies”
Is it not obvious to you that “justify that tankies” is not a serious request? It’s a flippant way to dismiss any alternative opinions. It’s kind of absurd to assume that anyone replying to that request is taking it seriously. If you think otherwise, ask yourself if you really believe the person you replied to sincerely self identifies as a “tankie”?
Yes it is obvious that it is flippantly dismissing others opinions, but do you seriously think that no people might want to justify it anyway, to rebuke the person acting flippantly? Or else why respond at all?
Whether meant serious or not, the topic the original comment brought up was the justifiability of the event linked in the post. I see no reason to assume that someone directly responding to that comment, was not responding to that topic.
Even if you think they weren’t justifying anything, can you at least recognise that it can certainly look like they were?
You do understand that the widely recognized genocide in North America is and has been criticized for this, right? The language deprivation has mostly wrapped up in political terms but a linguistic rebirth is still struggling financially and in many nations/tribes will never fully recover.
China is not being singled out, but called out based on historical familiarity with the process.
Yes, but China hasn’t genocided its ethnical minorities though and isn’t on the process of doing so. Conjuring hypothetical genocides is not useful for political analysis.
Well we can disagree about genocides that are clearly under way, as defined by the UN.
Believe the authoritarians instead of the victims and researchers. There is no war in… or is it we have always been at war with… oh whatever. Yay, shiny boots.
Let’s liste to an actual Chinese Uyghur then, instead of BBC
The difference between how China is handling these classes compared to how the US (and Canada) handled tribal cultural and linguistic genocide generally is not even close to comparable. You have absolutely no clue. It is disgusting that you are attempting to compare the severity at all just to lose an internet argument.
You’re right. There is no difference between banning native languages and ensuring children get taught the skills they need to succeed in life. Totally the same.
The assumption here is that we should take CPC pronouncements as fully truthful. Ask tibetans about language rights.
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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That’s your best comeback?
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I’m not ML by any means, but I don’t really see the problem here? Schools are for learning useful life skills, etc. Surely learning the official language of your nation is a very useful life skill to have? Mandating that kids be taught a language does not mean forcing them to unlearn their native language.
I’m not sure how the Uyghurs and Mongols came under Chinese power, but Tibetian people were captured by force. They have autonomous states each, where they could decide to just collectively learn Mandarin if they thought it was something they wanted.
If the autonomy of these states are being infringed by this law, then that is a problem. In that case, I think the reduction of autonomy is far more concerning than the particular curriculum change.
It’s giving me native boarding school vibes. First they separate you from your language and force you to use theirs
I mean that’s clearly very bad, but the bad thing in particular in that scenario is separating you from your language, which afaik isn’t happening here? At least not yet?
Pattern recognition, this is how it starts
It’s not like they are separate problems, but both part of the same push where minority nations are being assimilated and stripped of indentity.
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Bold move, criticizing someone you never heard’s pronunciation of a language whose people you’ve never met.
If you wanted to change that, anybody can go to xinjiang or kazakhstan and talk to the people. Its really easy unlike Tibet, you can just go there.
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You are making some wild jumps in logic.
Learning another language is not “destroying a culture”, this is a dog whistle of hardcore conservatives who are afraid of diversity. What would be destroying a culture, would be forcefully restricting the use of the native languages, such as forbidding the use of the native languages in schools. But I am not aware of this happening, nor was I arguing in support of that in any way.
Also, justifying a curriculum choice in schools is a far leap from justification of colonialism. I am very much against the forced subjugation of native peoples, but that is not the topic.
overall good points, but I’d like to expand on the one about forbidding languages at educational institutions:
a ban isn’t even necessary to expediate the decline of a language; it’s often enough to simply defund it.
teachers need funding, and simply not giving any to other languages or other cultural curriculum is effectively the same as a ban.
few schools and administrations would shoulder the costs of “extra” curriculum, because few have the funds to do so, particularly when it comes to minorities…
source: am part of such a minority (in central europe though) and our state actually sponsors extra language classes, courses, and cultural clubs, activities, and events in order to preserve our unique identity and culture.
it’s still trending towards extinction though, as such minorities tend to do…
tl;dr: no need for a ban, just withhold a bit of funding and it will die out within a few generations…
That’s fair, but it assumes that mandating one language means that the other language will be defunded. Is that happening here? I think ideally both languages (national language, native language) would be funded and studied
oh, that wasn’t really the point; i just pointed out that a ban isn’t the only way to undermine a culture or language!
it was in addition to what you wrote, not meant as a counterpoint.
Somehow I doubt China is funding or encouraging any kind of ethnic difference.
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Did you read my messages at all? As stated, I very much oppose the colonisation and forced subjugation and assimilation of native peoples, including in Australia. But I do not think that English being a mandatory subject in Australia is a bad thing.
Is the idea of someone knowing more than one language, so foreign to you?
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The actual struggles of the uhigurs is entirely alien to either what western media makes up or just imagining China is copying western imperialism despite having different material pressures.
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Its not an english word lmao would you rather I spell it using the alphabet they use?
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Everyone being able to speak a common language is good actually.
Which is a false equivalency to a state forcing a minority group to learn the majority language.
all minority groups in the us have to speak english. most states have a variation of this for that matter?
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sure. do ethnical minorities born in, say, spain not have to learn spanish?
tell me of states where this isn’t true.
I don’t know where it isn’t true. I know it isn’t right - anywhere.
then put your money where your mouth is and fight it in your own country instead of acting all twisted up when some country starts doing it.
spanish is the second most spoken language in the us, do you speak it?
You’re putting so much energy into justifying China’s repression of Uyghurs. You must really hate them.
Forcing? Do you think parents should be allowed to remove the kid from those classes? Just send them out in the world unable to communicate with anyone outside their hometown?
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Ask the indigenous people how much they liked learning to speak the common tongue
Yes, teaching english is what’s wrong with what was/is being done to indigenous communities. Absolutely nothing else.
Yeah …notice I said “learning”, not “being taught”. Maybe the rest of it that I left implied is what happens when you force people to learn your language? Didn’t think I’d have to spell out what the schools did to those poor children to make them learn English for you to understand an implied point, but here we are.
How do you think they’re going to make these people learn Mandarin? Do you think they’re going to ask nicely? Or are they going to do the same thing every dominant colonial culture tries to do to its minorites?
That is precisely why I referred to it that way, so you’d have to spell it out the dumb implication you’re making.
Same way they teach math and science lmao.
It would be nice if we could speak a common language, yes. Then you’d be able to use it to read the article that was linked instead of a single paragraph excerpt and realize the new law is not just about the language.
It would be nice if you could read Mandarin. Then you’d be able to realize that the BBC is deliberately mistranslating whats in the law. How arrogant do you have to be to criticize someone for not reading an article when you can’t even read the document the article claims to describe?