Throughout the not too long ago concluded “Two Classes” annual legislative conferences, the Nationwide Folks’s Congress (NPC) handed a brand new “Legislation on Selling Ethnic Unity and Progress” that many students and educators worry will threaten the survival of languages together with Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uyghur, and additional undermine cultural identification amongst non-Han communities in China. Strongly promoted by Xi Jinping and different CCP leaders, the legislation was handed with 2,756 votes (and simply three opposing votes and three abstentions) and is scheduled to take impact on July 1 of this 12 months.
It comprises wide-ranging provisions that embody schooling, housing coverage, leisure, and different areas. The legislation formalizes assimilationist insurance policies together with the strict promotion of Mandarin because the “nationwide frequent language” in schooling and public affairs. Faculties and universities will now not be allowed to show core topics in languages comparable to Tibetan, Uyghurs, or Mongolian. It additionally comprises language suggesting restrictions on freedom of speech and potential penalties for these outdoors of China who “interact in actions that undermine ethnic unity” or incite “ethnic separatism.”
At AP, Huizhong Wu interviewed students and rights advocates who fear that the brand new legislation will additional erode ethnic identification and cement assimilationalist insurance policies:
Students additionally notice the point out of pushing for “mutually embedded group environments” within the legislation, which they are saying could outcome within the breakup of minority-heavy neighborhoods.
“The intention is to encourage Han and different minorities emigrate into one another’s communities,” stated Minglang Zhou, a professor on the College of Maryland who studied China’s bilingual insurance policies.
[…] Maya Wang, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, stated the legislation shouldn’t be about making certain equality.
“The query was by no means a lot about making certain their participation within the economic system in an equitable method, extra inclusive method,” as a result of the insurance policies are being compelled on Tibetans, Wang stated. “And a really inclusive mannequin doesn’t preclude the flexibility of youngsters to talk two languages.”
[…] The legislation additionally creates a authorized base for the Chinese language authorities to prosecute individuals or organizations outdoors China if their actions hurt the progress of “ethnic unity.”
[…] Rayhan Asat, a authorized scholar at Harvard College, stated “the legislation serves as a strategic device and provides the pretext to authorities to commit all kinds of human rights violations.” [Source]
A bit by Changhao Wei on the NPC Observer famous the highly effective political backing behind the brand new legislation, summarized its key provisions, and described the importance of its legislative path:
The Legislation’s high-profile legislative journey demonstrates its significance. The Communist Occasion expressly referred to as for its enactment within the 2024 Third Plenum Determination. Final August, the Occasion revealed that the complete Politburo had mentioned a draft of the Legislation—the primary such disclosure in nearly 4 many years. In December, the NPC Standing Committee determined to refer the invoice to the NPC on the bottom that it qualifies as a “fundamental statute” [基本法律] on ethnic affairs that constitutionally have to be permitted by the complete legislature.
The Legislation’s political salience can also be evident in two atypical options. First, it begins with a uncommon narrative preamble of over 800 characters. Solely three different statutes embrace a preamble: the carefully associated Regional Ethnic Autonomy Legislation [民族区域自治法] and the Primary Legal guidelines of Hong Kong and Macao. Second, the Legislation makes use of Occasion-speak drawn from the “Twelve Musts” because the headings of three core chapters (II–IV): “Constructing a Shared Religious House,” “Facilitating Interactions, Interchanges, and Intermingling,” and “Selling Widespread Prosperity and Improvement.” Removed from being descriptive and dry, as headings usually are, they incorporate key prongs of Xi’s doctrine and set up the Legislation round them. [Source]
Writing for The Diplomat, Sophie Richardson explored the broader implications of such language restrictions, and documented some particular instances of political repression geared toward language advocates:
Language restrictions are particularly pernicious, eroding a number of elements of group and identification with a objective of eradicating these communities’ distinct tradition. A January 2026 report by the United Nations particular rapporteur on minority rights cited Chinese language authorities insurance policies of language erasure as a type of “extermination,” and argued that such practices “needs to be certified as genocide and be handled as such by the worldwide group.”
The human value of those insurance policies is already obvious. Famend Uyghur scholar and Xinjiang Folklore Analysis Heart founder Rahile Dawut is serving a life sentence for “separatism” after authorities subjected her to enforced disappearance in 2017. The identical 12 months, Tibetan language activist Tashi Wangchuk was sentenced to 5 years in jail for advocating for higher Tibetan medium instruction in faculties. In October 2024, a public safety bureau in Qinghai Province detained him for 15 days for movies he posted on social media advancing his language rights activism.
Ethnic Mongolian dissident Hada disappeared over a 12 months in the past, when he was reported to be in sick well being. A author and advocate for Mongolian identification and tradition, Hada spent 15 years in jail, beginning in 1995, for shielding and selling Mongolian tradition, and endured round the clock surveillance after his launch. [Source]
CDT Chinese language editors have archived some previous content material crucial of restrictions on bilingual schooling, notably in Inside Mongolia, the place there have been mass public protests in 2020 about curriculum reform and on-line censorship in regards to the finish of the Mongolian-language gaokao faculty entrance examination in 2024. Our editors have additionally famous some ongoing cross-platform censorship of delicate phrase mixtures associated to Mongolian-language suppression, comparable to “bilingual + schooling + Mongolian.” Previous CDT English protection about assimilation and language suppression contains items in regards to the purging of Uyghur language books in Xinjiang; the removing of Tibetan and Uyghur language content material from language-learning app Talkmate and video-sharing platform Bilibili; and interviews on the growth of Tibetan boarding faculties the place college students as younger as 4 or 5 are compelled to talk solely Mandarin, and the varied threats to Tibet’s minority languages.
A latest article by Zhang Zisong, first revealed by the freelance journalism collective Aquarius Period and archived by CDT Chinese language, describes the “language hole” that now exists in Inside Mongolia and different Mongolian areas 5 years after textbook and curriculum adjustments curtailed the educating and public utilization of the Mongolian language:
In Inside Mongolia’s public areas, one can observe the linguistic remnants of three distinct eras present facet by facet. The primary dates again to the decade-long Cultural Revolution, when Mandarin Chinese language was dominant and Mongolian subordinate. The second period, which lasted till 2022, noticed Mongolian and Chinese language displayed collectively, with Mongolian usually given precedence: “Mongolian on prime, Chinese language under,” or “Mongolian on the left, Chinese language on the fitting.” Mongolian loved clear authorized standing and visibility as one of many area’s official languages, and was included in ubiquitous bilingual signage starting from the smallest store indicators to the most important public areas and amenities.
From 2022, new public signage both adopted a structure that put “Chinese language on prime, Mongolian under,” or used Chinese language completely. In the meantime, some present Mongolian signage has been bodily erased: Mongolian inscriptions have been chiseled off stone carvings and sculptures commemorating place-names have been eliminated, leaving solely the faintest traces behind.
Maybe probably the most hanging instance is the trilingual stone plaque on the Xanadu ruins [a UNESCO World Heritage site commemorating the remains of Kublai Khan’s legendary capital city]. Previous to 2022, the stone plaque featured inscriptions in three languages, with Mongolian on the prime, adopted by Chinese language and English. After 2022, the Chinese language inscription was moved to the highest place. Uneven white scars the place the unique textual content inscriptions had been scraped away stay seen.
[…] When the curriculum reform coverage reached Harqin County [an autonomous Mongolian county located in Liaoning province] in 2021, Ruofeng [a pseudonym] had simply entered highschool and barely registered the change. However after turning into serious about ethnology at college, she started to really feel that one thing “wasn’t fairly truthful.” Whereas engaged on a analysis undertaking associated to language coverage, she discovered she couldn’t find any official authorities paperwork on the coverage change: even when the coverage had first been enacted in her county, her lecturers had solely given the verbal rationalization, “We’re not educating Mongolian anymore.” Though the Harqin County authorities web site nonetheless claims that Mongolian is being taught there, the truth is “they stopped educating it way back,” a discrepancy that Ruofeng finds puzzling.
Finding out ethnology prompted Ruofeng to suppose extra deeply about her personal ethnic identification. Prior to now, missing immersion in that cultural custom, she had by no means been aware of being Mongolian; studying the Mongolian script had solely been a method to an finish, a manner of passing exams. Now she has begun to understand the significance of Mongolian script, and her sense of ethnic belonging has steadily deepened. For her, language is the one thread nonetheless connecting her to that identification.
“My youthful brother is within the second 12 months of center college,” she says. “He most likely stopped learning Mongolian by third or fourth grade, and by now he’s principally forgotten all of it. In a while, when he goes out into the world, will he nonetheless say he’s Mongolian? I ponder about that typically. If he leaves residence, the place will his sense of ethnic identification come from?”
As for these younger people who find themselves nonetheless fluent of their mom tongue, they’ve responded to its rising marginalization by clustering collectively for heat and help. Many add “Mongolian” tags to their social media profiles as a manner of recognizing each other. Most of them dwell in cities the place, drawn collectively by their shared language and cultural background, they usually collect for meals and dialog. [Chinese]
