Sure, it is a question how to best safeguard the national languages as well, and it is possible they may make mistakes here. Often policy details are left to the regional governments, so hopefully they can find good solutions. My point is just that it is a policy question, and not a “they are commiting cultural genocide”. This is a continuation of the marxist approach to the national question, which often helped build up the national cultures and languages and writing systems in the first place in the time after the revolution.

It is true that previously young students in some regions have received instruction in their national language in the first grades of school, and then in Mandarin when they have learned it well enoguh to receive instruction in Mandarin. Now, they will get instruction in mandarin from the start. This is probably a reflection of how proficiency in Mandarin is becoming more common, even among the youngest students. They can however still have classes which teach the national language also, which has also been common previously. The law mentions that this right to the national language should be protected, although it is not very specific about how local party branches should do this, essentially leaving it up to local cadre, often from minority nationalities themselves, to work it out with the people they represent.

It is of course possible to critique this, but it is not a case of the party banning anyone from speaking or learning their national language as such.

Yeah, the western media don’t understand (or don’t want to understand) the Chinese approach to nationalities, which is promoting all nationalities while also promoting what they have in common, as to create unity through the hamony of differences. The law basically talks about how China should continue to share all it’s unique cultural heritages across nationality lines, promote socialist principles, and ensure that everyone knows a common language for efficient communication. For example it doesn’t ban teaching national languages in schools, it just says to use mandarin for other classes to ensure everyone learns it. The local party branch can still ensure that the national minority language is taught in school. This is much more than most western countries do for their minority groups. Imagine if a school in the west with many pupils from arabic background ensured that they got arabic classes, the national media would be ringing the alarm bells about “islamization”.