Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for the expanded use of Mandarin Chinese and the increased adoption of standardized national textbooks nationwide.
According to state media CCTV, Xi made these comments during a Politburo study session on border issues earlier this week. He stressed the importance of continuing to build a unified national community, particularly in ethnic minority regions along China’s borders. “We must guide all ethnic groups to deepen their understanding of the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Xi said. He underscored the need to promote and popularize Mandarin broadly, the national language and script, to foster greater unity.
Xi also emphasized that “standardized national textbooks must be fully promoted,” calling for efforts to “actively build an interconnected social structure so that all ethnic groups unite like pomegranate seeds.” In his speech, he further noted, “To govern the country, we must govern the borders. We must stabilize and strengthen the frontier regions.”
China’s border regions span five provinces: Yunnan in the southwest, Gansu in the northwest, and Jilin, Liaoning, and Heilongjiang in the northeast. They also include four autonomous regions: Tibet and Xinjiang in the west, Inner Mongolia in the north, and Guangxi Zhuang in the south.
In Xinjiang, home to the Uyghur ethnic group and Tibet, both regions have seen intense ethnic separatist movements, and tensions remain high. The international community, including the United States, has raised concerns over human rights abuses reported in both regions.
In recent years, the Chinese government has stepped up efforts to integrate ethnic minorities more fully into Han Chinese culture. Xi’s latest remarks signal an ongoing push to accelerate these efforts.
However, there are growing concerns that the country’s rapidly declining population—particularly in its sparsely populated border regions—could pose a security risk for China.
The South China Morning Post has reported that the increased promotion of Mandarin and the push for nationwide use of standardized textbooks could spark protests, particularly in regions with distinct local languages and cultures. Large-scale street protests erupted in Inner Mongolia in 2020 after authorities mandated the use of Mandarin in schools instead of Mongolian. This move raised fears among local communities that their native language could be erased.