Tibetans Preserve Language Under China's Ethnic Unity Law
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- China's "ethnic unity" law took effect July 1, mandating Chinese as the primary language for schools and government agencies and prohibiting acts deemed to incite division among the country's 56 ethnic groups.
- Kalsang Lhamo, a 73-year-old retired nurse in Lhasa, is learning to write Tibetan calligraphy at an eldercare center despite never having learned the script as a child, calling it her proud mother tongue.
- Carnegie Mellon professor Benno Weiner said the law "codifies" rather than changes existing trends of stripped-away education and language rights for ethnic minorities, including expanded Mandarin education for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and the replacement of Mongolian-language instruction in Inner Mongolia.
- China's No. 4 Communist Party leader Wang Huning toured Tibet the same week as AP's visit, calling for stability and urging authorities to "guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to socialist society."
- Both the Jokhang Temple and the Potala Palace display no signs or references to the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since fleeing after a failed 1959 uprising; Beijing insists his successor must comply with Chinese law.
- James Leibold of La Trobe University and Tenzin Dorjee of Tibet Action Institute wrote in Foreign Affairs that minority communities seeking to maintain their culture will be "pushed toward a double life of public conformity and private reservations."
- China is marking the 75th anniversary of what it calls the "peaceful liberation" of Tibet — an event many Tibetans in exile and critics regard as an invasion — while the Tibet Museum exhibit highlights centuries of Chinese dynastic ties to the region.
Why it matters: The law codifies years of gradual restrictions on minority language and education, giving Beijing legal authority to target activities it considers separatist even outside China. With the 75th anniversary of Chinese control over Tibet and the No. 4 party leader touring the region to emphasize stability, pressure on Tibetan cultural institutions — from schools to temples to the Dalai Lama's legacy — is intensifying in a system where foreign journalists cannot move freely or report independently.
