China’s new language law

Insisting students of minority groups be taught entirely in Chinese to the neglect of their native language suggests a desire to demote these languages and ultimately to eliminate them completely.

As lifelong Communists, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his advisers have been trained from early adolescence to believe that everything must be controlled by the state, writes Gwynne Dyer.Photograph courtesy of the UN/Jean-Marc Ferré

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

March 18, 2026

LONDON, U.K.— In Quebec, the English-speaking minority used to call them “tongue-troopers”: the government functionaries who come around to check that the French on signs in shops is in a typeface twice as big as the English. Now China will have tongue-troopers too, al...

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