On December 27, 2025, China’s national legislature, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC), approved revisions to the 2000 Law on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language (Standard Language Law or Law) [国家通用语言文字法]—a statute that defines China’s “national common language” and mandates its use across a variety of settings.
The Law’s first overhaul came after the Communist Party under Xi Jinping had elevated “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” [铸牢中华民族共同体意识] to “the main task for [its] ethnic work and all other initiatives in areas with large ethnic minority populations.” The task’s success hinges on cultivating a “deep” fivefold identification—with the motherland, the Chinese nation, the Chinese culture, the Party, and socialism with Chinese characteristics—among all ethnicities. And the key to such identification is a common language, Xi argues, calling for “comprehensive efforts to popularize the standard spoken and written Chinese language and the use of unified state-compiled textbooks, so as to facilitate shared psyche and future through communication.”
Continue reading “China Amends Common Language Law to Expand Mandarin Use”
