China: local laws allowing minority language teaching ‘unconstitutional’
- Allowing languages besides Mandarin in education is not conducive to ethnic integration, unspecified cabinet department had said in requesting a review
- Ruling annuls laws in autonomous regions allowing ethnic minority language teaching – defence of which had already sparked protests in Inner Mongolia
China’s legislature has ruled that local regulations allowing ethnic minority language education are unconstitutional and urged greater dominance of Mandarin.
The unspecified department had claimed that regulations in unnamed ethnic autonomous areas were unconstitutional and not conducive to ethnic interaction and integration.
The NPC’s decision was based on the constitution and laws’ provisions for the promotion of a national language and “correct character”, the report said, and meant that articles on minority languages were repealed.
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Mongolians protest Beijing’s language policy in Inner Mongolia as Chinese foreign minister visits
The central government has stepped up cultural assimilation and promotion of the dominant Mandarin language as a priority in place of decades-long ethnic language teaching in ethnic minority schools.
President Xi Jinping said in August that the country should forge a sense of common community and resist infiltration and subversion by extremist and separatist ideologies.
