BEIJING--China is launching an aggressive campaign to promote Mandarin, saying 85 percent of its citizens will use the national language by 2025.
The move appears to put threatened Chinese regional dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien under even greater pressure, along with minority languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian and Uighur.
Along with the 2025 goal, the policy aims to make Mandarin virtually universal by 2035, including in rural areas and among ethnic minorities.
The promotion of Mandarin over other languages has sparked occasional protests, including last year in the Inner Mongolia region when the Mongolian language was replaced by standard Mandarin as the language of instruction.
China’s ruling Communist Party has denounced all such movements as a form of separatism and repressed them ruthlessly.
It says language conformity is necessary for the sake of the economy and national unity.
It calls also on officials to “vigorously enhance the international status and influence of Chinese” in academia, international organizations and at global gatherings. »
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