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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      This is very similar to the Native American genocide.

      The one where Colonial European settlers were literally marching into Indian communities and massacring them?

    • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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      2 months ago

      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 🤦‍♂️

      • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.dbzer0.comBanned from community
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        2 months ago

        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.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        It’s non-violent cultural erasure, the more popular kind in the 21st century.

          • Soggy@lemmy.world
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            2 months ago

            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.

            • cecinestpasunbot@lemmy.ml
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              2 months ago

              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.

            • nednobbins@lemmy.zip
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              2 months ago

              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.

              • Soggy@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                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.

                • nednobbins@lemmy.zip
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                  2 months ago

                  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.”

    • plyth@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      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.

      • falcunculus@jlai.lu
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        2 months ago

        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.

        • plyth@feddit.org
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          2 months ago

          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.