Abstract

With the building of a “harmonious language lifeµ and the improvement of the national language competences, the first two decades of the new century has been defined as the third golden age of language affairs of the People’s Republic of China. The purpose of this article is to illustrate the main achievements of this period and to show to what extent these initiatives embody some basic ideas of language planning, such as the awareness of the idea of language-as-resource and the respect toward language diversity. The need for a more scientific approach to language planning and the development of an internet and language integrated information technology are also one of key elements at this stage of the language politics of the People’s Republic of China