China’s cultural mutilation is dangerous
Imagine what would happen if a British prime minister in London told the Scots they could not have their own parliament, national football team or fly the saltire. Or if the Welsh were told their language and poetry were banned and must no longer be taught in schools. The ensuing uproar would probably destroy the United Kingdom. Yet thatβs exactly what Xi Jinping, Chinaβs communist emperor, is telling the roughly 125 million members of the 55 ethnic and religious minorities who together comprise about 9% of the countryβs (majority Han Chinese) population.
Xi claims his sinicisation policy, embodied in a new βethnic unityβ law, will boost national identity and integration and, by expanding compulsory use of the Mandarin language, improve life and work prospects. Minorities should βhug tightly like pomegranate seedsβ to build a strong, united China, he says. But Tibetans, Mongolians, Uyghurs and others who value their separate language and customs fiercely object to what they see as forced assimilationinto a conformist, intolerant monoculture dominated by the Communist partyβs tunnel vision. For them, itβs ethnic cleansing by another name.
The GuardianΒ
Crushing the cultural identity of 125million people seems pretty extreme even for a Communist regime!
With our collective attention on Gaza, Iran and the Ukraine, many mat have missed this brutal cultural crackdown inside China.
A ‘ethnic unity’ Law sounds like something Winston Peters would attempt.
I’m old fashioned, I think you should be allowed to express your ethnic identity because it’s an intrinsic part of who you are as an individual, and enforcing a majority culture upon others is just so White isn’t it?
It’s like China is trying to be Western Colonial power.
Could these new powers be expanded into China’s diaspora? Could we see these cracks down on ethnic minorities expanded to anyone fleeing China?
It isn’t a sign of confidence when you are strangling off any identity that isn’t State sanctioned.
Modi is facing backlash from the cockroach movement, could Chinese repression spark a similar resistance?
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“Xi claims his sinicisation policy, embodied in a new βethnic unityβ law, will boost national identity and integration and, by expanding compulsory use of the Mandarin language, improve life and work prospects”
Well it demonstrates that minorities in China already speak their own languages to a far greater extent than the indigenous in Anglo Saxon dominated countries.
And I suppose you don’t need to know English to get ahead in New Zealand? FFS
Ethnic unity law is the opposite of the way Peters thinks. Ethnic unity law rightly or wrongly is that ethnic minorities are part of the family. Whereas Peters is saying that some people can never be part of the family. Peters is exlusionary, Xi is inclusionary.
The pro-imperialist chumps are out in force again.
According to these useful idiots we can’t condemn Beijing for the subjugation and human rights abuses against the national minorities inside the Chinese empire. .
We can’t condemn the Russian empire when they commit the crime of imperialist aggression against their neighbours.
The only exception they allow, we can condemn the US imperialists for abusing human rights and commiting crimes of imperialist aggression, but only the Americans.
This filth are just as pro-war and fascist as their mirror image supporters of US imperialism.
We have the right condemn fascism and racist oppression and imperialst aggression where ever it occurs who ever commits it, at hoime and abroad. Don’t let the gormless pro-imperialist jingoists on both sides tell you otherwise.
The problem with Russia and China and Iran for that matter is that collectively, they challenge Western imperialism, henceforth, the imperial mainstream media machine along with a never ending array of bought and paid for Western political leaders and pundits, will paint these countries, and any country and or person, that dares to challenge Western imperial interests, in a million and one negative, but typically baseless, lights. The chumps are those that believe these spurious claims.
Unfortunately the world is mostly full of chumps, hence why we have a genocide taking place along with other horrors happening in the Middle East along with a war against Iran and a war between Ukraine and Russia – all – linked, not by Russia or China, but linked together by the head of Western imperialism – the USA.
And the USA is only getting started as it primes countries in Asia and the Pacific for its next war, the war against China. All war is a war against humanity. The West is at war with everyone, everyone including its own citizenry and our own blind belief in our politicians and mainstream media machine allows this it be the case. Power is at war with the people and we are all just too blind to realize this.
Pat O’Dea says:
15 August 2026 at 12:41 am
“The pro-imperialist chumps are out in force again….
….We have the right condemn fascism and racist oppression and imperialst aggression where ever it occurs who ever commits it, at home and abroad. Donβt let the gormless pro-imperialist jingoists on both sides tell you otherwise.”
Talk about a case in point
A O says:
15 August 2026 at 10:11 am
“The problem with Russia and China and Iran for that matter is that collectively, they challenge Western imperialism,….”
The problem with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and imperial Japan for that matter is that collectively, they challenged Western imperialism.
According to AO’ logic, because these countries challenged Western imperialism this makes these countries the ‘good guys’ whose atrocities must be overlooked or even applauded.
This is the anti-imperialism of idiots.
The βanti-imperialismβ of idiots
Leila Al-Shami
April 17, 2018
https://libcom.org/article/anti-imperialism-idiots-leila-al-shami
This βanti-imperialismβ of idiots is one which equates imperialism with the actions of the US alone….
….This pro-fascist left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners β only white men have the power to make history….
…. The international system itself is collapsing under the weight of its own impotence. The words βNever Againβ ring hollow. Thereβs no major peopleβs movement which stands in solidarity with the victims. They are instead slandered, their suffering is mocked or denied, and their voices either absent from discussions or questioned by people far away,…
…. I will never see people who place grand narratives over lived realities, who support brutal regimes in far off countries, or who peddle racism, conspiracy theories and atrocity denial, as allies.
Re-posted from Leila Al-Shami’s blog with permission. https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/
Syria imperialism internationalism
Leila Al Shami
Its not about human rights at its core. We could nitpick about that all day.
Its about outcomes. The greatest human right is for a woman to walk the streets safely at night, and in this regard, most of China is far better than Auckland.
Without the 1917 revolution, the vast majority of Asia and Africa would still be colonised by the West.
Without China and Russia, Iran may well have already fallen. Same with Cuba. And the entire world would be an Anglo US colony.
That does not mean the Chinese and the Russians have to be nice. In fact being nice would have gotten them nowhere. If Stalin was nice, he would not have rolled back the Germans all the way to Berlin.
And China and Russia are nothing like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is fucking ridiculous, the only countries that compare today are Israel and the US.
The problem, or logic here isn’t overlooking wrongdoing while challenging imperialism. The problem/logic here is in what imperialism will do you if you dare challenge it, or in fact, if it views you to be a challenge to it. Typically, imperialism will accuse a country or person of wrongdoing regardless of whether this accusation is true or not. This is the problem. What imperialism, what power can bring to bear against anyone that dares challenge it. In this instance there’s the imperial mainstream media machine sometimes used in conjunction with the bought and paid for political class or pundit class. Together, they can paint any country or any person in a negative light without the need to verify or substantiate their claims. This is because most people believe, more often than not, in the aforementioned and or, cannot be bothered to find out the truth for themself.
Thus we have Pat talking atrocity without ever proving a given atrocity. Who does this serve, will power, imperialism of cause. Forever waving the atrocity card as a means of delegitimizing any challenge to imperialism itself. But Pat is typical of the world today, believes without proving beliefs. Believes in the imperial mainstream media machine and the near endless line of political puppets that only big money can fund.
This is why we have the parlous world we live in today, most people’s views are sufficiently manipulated to allow power to go about its merry way at the expense of us all. We are at war, we may just never wake up in time to realize this.
Don’t be a fucking purist.
If not for Russia and China there would not be a counterbalance for the depredations of US and Western imperialism.
If not for the 1917 revolution, most of the world would still be colonised.
For this reason alone Russia and China (and Iran) do not have to be perfect for me to throw my support fully behind them.
Mark says:
16 August 2026 at 1:41 am
“Donβt be a fucking purist.
If not for Russia and China there would not be a counterbalance for the depredations of US and Western imperialism….”
By that same dirty logic, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were a counterbalance for the depredations of US and Western imperialism
That’s truly pathetic, how disgusting can you appologists for Russian and China fascism get?
You scumbags would excuse the Holocaust, because Nazi Germany was fighting the British Empire and the US imperialists.
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were simply taking what the Western imperialist powers were doing to a greater extreme. So it was right to fight the greater evil. Whereas the Soviet Union (Russia now) and China (post 1949 PRC) were the counterbalance to imperialism.
That is why these countries and their ideology were hugely popular in colonised Africa and Asia.
Again, think outcomes. Because of communist movement, most of the world is now at least politically decolonized.
Whereas if Nazi Germany and Japan won they would have split up the world with Western imperialism —definitely they had no anti-imperialist agenda.
Its not a choice between good and evil. Its a choice between what will give you a very bad outcome and a relatively better outcome.
Pat –you obviously supported the war against German fascism and Japanese militarism.
You would no doubt have not been against allying with the Soviet Union to defeat the greater evil.
That is what its about. You don’t simply say all sides are bad so we don’t support one side over the other!
If people then were purity spiralling Germany and Japan would have wone the war!
As even Churchill said: ” If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons”
Here we go again ,telling another country how to treat is people .Fuck, we need to look in our own mirror and see how we treat our own .Remember the abuse in care enquiry which is now being swept under the carpet .And our own form of covert genocide directed at Maori .We are far from a reasonable society while we think it is ok to have more than one homeless person or any form of poverty .
“covert genocide directed at Maori.” ?
Is anyone seriously going to deny that Maori are now more numerous, richer, healthier and better educated than at any time in history?
That’s a pretty damned covert genocide.
Imagine this, imagine that.
Imagine British papers like the Guardian ever stopping other countries how to run their own affairs.
Or alternatively imagine those papers ever running an article about American French or Australian legislation without ever bothering to ask the American French or Australian government about it.
What very few people in the West understand and what the Guardian doesn’t bother to mention is that this “mandarin” language is the native language of virtually nobody in China. It’s a heavily constructed and standardized language with a standardized simplified script designed for communication across provinces.
It’s a second language for the Han Chinese too.
Beijing isn’t doing anything that London, Paris, Berlin, Rome etc. haven’t already done.
Compulsory education and mass literacy with a standard language was seen as a great advance of the 19th & 20th century progressives.
When China does it the Western progressives see it as some sort of crypto-fascism.
Good comment, and good point about Chinese dialects.
Interestingly Han Chinese dialects do not get any protection or recognition from the government and sadly some have disappeared.
Whereas the recognised ethnic minorities do get their languages recognised and protected.
Han Chinese were restricted by the one child policy (when it was implemented). Ethnic minorities were not.
Does not sound like fascism to me.
The problem with a lot of Western progressives is they don’t really want to win.
“enforcing a majority culture upon others is just so White isnβt it?”
Probably just so conqueror or majoritarian.
The Ukrainians did it to the Russians fifteen years ago.
The Indonesians did it to the Chinese fifty years ago.
Communist or fascist ethno-nationlaist?