China is a unified multi-ethnic coun-try, and the realization of the“Chinese dream”is the common wish and goal of all ethnic people. The hap-piness that is characteristic of the realization of the“Chinese dream” is a further development of social harmony. The realization of social harmony must de-pend on harmonious multi-cultural development. Starting by discussing that the fusion of multiple cul-tures has a long history, that the construction of a harmonious society needs to train a large number of ethnic talents, and that strengthening the ethnic lan-guage-Chinese bilingual education is necessary for promoting the harmonious development of a multi-culture, this article proposes that training ethnic tal-ents through bilingual education is an important guar-antee for the realization of the“Chinese dream”, and also suggests the path forward and measures to be taken for the development of multi-culture. Language is the carrier for the inheritance and development of culture. Through ethnic language-Chinese bilingual education, ethnic cultures can be more fully inherited and further developed, hence, it will put vitality into the Chinese nation’s cultural structure of unity in diversity. During the process of developing ethnic minority cultures, China advocates ethnic language-Chinese bilingual education, and re-quires that all ethnic minorities should not only know their own language and scripts, but also should know Chinese language and characters so as to become multi-cultural inheritors and developers. This is not only necessary for ethnic unity, prosperity, and long-term stability of the state, but also the practical
needs of each member of society in their social life. China has been a unified multi-ethnic country since the Qin and Han dynasties, therefore, the ex-istence and development of multi-culture is a result of historical factors. The comprehensively harmonious development of ethnic areas is a complicated system-atic project, which requires the combined force of different elements, among which ethnic education, especially bilingual education, should play a signifi-cant social function. Because ethnic areas are the key areas for carrying out bilingual education in Chi-na, as an educational activity targeting ethnic minori-ty people, the concept and content spread by bilin-gual education are much more readily accepted by ethnic minorities—this is just the unique place that cannot be replaced by other methods while promoting the stability and harmonious development in ethnic areas. Over several decades of developing ethnic lan-guage-Chinese bilingual education in ethnic areas, not only have the ethnic cultural and educational af-fairs been further developed, but also the participa-tion rate of the young people in ethnic areas has in-creased. The achievements of ethnic language-Chinese bilingual education tell us that carrying out ethnic-Chinese bilingual education in ethnic areas is not on-ly good for developing ethnic educational affairs, but is also good for social harmonious development. If we do not carry out the bilingual education correctly, ethnic education, as well as the harmonious social construction and development in ethnic areas, will be impacted negatively.
In the new historical conditions, we should ac-tively carry out ethnic language-Chinese bilingual ed-ucation in the“structure of unity in diversities of the Chinese nation”. Different ethnic groups should learn to use their own languages and scripts through bilin-gual education so as to inherit and develop their own ethnic cultures; meanwhile, they should also strengthen their learning of Han Chinese culture, and learning of the common language and script of the country through bilingual education. Developing bi-lingual education is a contemporary need, and also a national need. The purpose of carrying out bilingual education is to let the learner become someone who not only knows about their ethnic culture, but also knows about Han Chinese culture.