
Towards a More United China: CCP Rationale for Mandarin's Supremacy - meri_dian
https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language
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AnimalMuppet
I think China is wise here. If the US had shared a common language with Great
Britain, they never would have separated.

What's that? Oh. Never mind, carry on...

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meri_dian
It's not an either or situation though.

No one is saying that sharing a common language prevents fracturing, only that
it helps promote national unity.

In a nation as large and diverse as China, linguistic unity can act as a
powerful unifying force. Canada and Belgium have struggled in recent years
with bilingualism.

Prosperity minimizes the tension caused by multilingualism, but in times of
economic hardship these tensions can become magnified.

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AnimalMuppet
True. Monolingualism is neither necessary nor sufficient, but it is not
nothing. It is still a unifying force.

