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.
It’s because we’re living in a post American assimilation world and they don’t realize that happened. But my grandparents would talk about how they’d be slapped on the hands with rulers for speaking creole French and now it’s a dead language. This law feels like the first step to a similar cultural assimilation.