• Thursday, March 28, 2024

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Pakistan makes Mandarin one of its official languages

This photograph taken on October 20, 2017 shows a construction site of the Jakarta-Bandung bullet-train development in Bandung, West Java province. From a stalled Indonesian rail project to an insurgency-threatened economic corridor in Pakistan, China’s push to revive Silk Road trade routes is running into problems that risk tarnishing the economic crown jewel of Xi Jinping’s presidency. / AFP PHOTO / BAY ISMOYO / TO GO WITH AFP STORY ‘CHINA-POLITICS-INVESTMENTS-INDONESIA’ FOCUS BY SAMUEL REEVES (Photo credit should read BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images)

By: Keerthi Mohan

In a move that show’s China’s growing influence in Pakistan, the country has decided to make Mandarin as one of its official languages. A motion in this regard was approved in the Pakistani Senate on Monday. “In a short span of 70 years, Pakistan has flirted with promoting four languages that were not the mother tongue of many people in the country – English, Urdu, Arabic, and now Chinese — ignoring native languages,” Pakistan’s Ambassador to US, Hussain Haqqani wrote on Twitter. English and Urdu are the two other national languages. This decision has raised a few eyebrows as neither…

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