• 1 Post
  • 244 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
Cake day: June 1st, 2023
  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.mltoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•Don't you even try!English
    131·
    2 months ago

    It’s a joke, but that shit was serious. Imagine a squad of heavily armed men showing up and demanding to sleep in your house, eat your food, and potentially steal your things and sexually assault you or your family members. And if you refuse or resist, they will still do all of those things but assault or kill you.

    That’s how this worked in Europe for much of history and for America.

  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.mltoWorld News@lemmy.world•China tells its minorities to integrate or face consequences with sweeping new lawEnglish
    211·
    3 months ago

    I am definitely sympathetic to the defense against foreign dissent-manufacturing. I don’t doubt that is a serious issue.

    But, ethnicity and nationality are separate things. Being a Chinese citizen does not make one ethnically Chinese - or in this case Han Chinese. I think what you are calling “sub-ethnicity” here is just what people mean by “ethnicity”. And what you’re implying is “ethnicity” is just “nationality”.

    Though I think the CCP is trying to establish the concept of a Zhonghua Minzu (中华民族) or “Chinese Nation/Ethnic Group” - which is an artificial category intended to create a unified Chinese national identity out of the 56 ethnic groups recognized in China - maybe that’s what you mean? Either way, that doesn’t fit the typical anthropological definition, in my opinion.

    I think they walk a fine line with that concept - it’d be very easy for that national identity to represent the Han majority more than the small minorities. As evidenced by the language restrictions posed by the law. Given the Han majority is 90% of the country, I don’t see how it could be otherwise.

    To the extent that it reduces racism and foreign-sponsored dissent groups, that is good. To the extent that it limits free practice of culture and true, non-US-State-Dept sponsored, free speech, I’d say it’s overly draconian. But, I can also appreciate the need for more “authoritarian” laws in a country that has been under attack by foreign powers for as long as China has.

    I am not a Chinese legal expert and have not read the full law, nor do I fully understand the context. So I withhold full judgment and don’t value my opinion too highly.

  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.mltoWorld News@lemmy.world•China tells its minorities to integrate or face consequences with sweeping new lawEnglish
    433·
    3 months ago

    Here’s the wiki article on the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_on_Promoting_Ethnic_Unity_and_Progress.

    Some stuff makes sense - like economic modernization of regions with many minorities (especially poor regions), teaching Mandarin in schools so that everyone can speak the majority language, and preserving cultural works and texts of minority groups.

    Other stuff seems repressive, like the broad enforcement section, the extremely broad reach of the law into all public and private institutions, legislating what various actors can/can’t teach the youth if it might “harm Chinese ethnic unity” which is left pretty vague. Very ethnostate-coded stuff on the whole, not great.

    Some sections I thought were noteworthy, taken from wikipedia, shortened with DeepSeek. There is lots more stuff in there.

    "Chapter I… tasks the whole of government and society to achieve these goals, mandating general obligations on a wide range of public and private actors such as … " [basically all imaginable institutions]

    “Chapter II, titled Building a Shared Spiritual Home, lays out the ideological characteristics … requiring fostering identification with ‘the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics’ through patriotic education … and promotion of ‘Chinese cultural symbols and image of the Chinese nation’. It also codifies the predominance of Standard Chinese (Putonghua) in public life … and requires that Chinese characters be displayed more prominently than minority scripts if both must be used in public.”

    “It tasks the Ministry of Education and the National Ethnic Affairs Commission in developing textbooks regarding ‘the community of the Chinese nation’ … It vows to support the standardization, digitization, and preservation of minority texts. It broadly requires media, internet service providers, families, among others, to promote the CCP’s ethnic policy … while prohibiting them from ‘instilling in minors ideas detrimental to ethnic unity and progress’.”

    “Chapter V and VI concern the enforcement mechanisms … permits citizens to report conduct that ‘undermines ethnic unity and progress’ … Procuratorates may initiate public interest litigation when any such conduct also ‘undermines national interests or the public interest’. It generally leaves penalties to be imposed under other applicable laws. It also asserts jurisdiction over foreign organizations and individuals that ‘commit acts targeting the PRC that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division’.[7] The law empowers the state to pursue those outside of China perceived as undermining notions of ethnic unity.”