It identifies four different models of trilingual education: the accretive model,

the balanced model, the transitional model, and the depreciative model.

The Chinese government has attempted to promote the languages of ethnic minority
students, Putonghua as the national language and English as the first foreign
language. However, these three policy strands have been implemented independently
and lack an underlying coherent theory of trilingual education.

China's language reform began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries with a
desire to modernize. At that time, only a small minority of people were literate
due to the difficulty of learning to write Chinese. The newly established Education
Ministry predicted that it would take many years to make even 5% of the population
literate.

English is currently the most learned second language in China and is a compulsory
component of the curriculum from Grade 3 of primary school.

Overall, this PDF file provides valuable insights into China's language education
policy and its efforts to modernize its education system.