A week-long campaign has been launched in China to promote Mandarin Chinese, the China Education Daily reported Tuesday.

The campaign launched Monday, the 22nd of its kind, is themed on celebrating the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

When specifying requirements for this year's campaign, Minister of Education Chen Baosheng called for efforts to realize the goal of popularizing Mandarin Chinese by the year 2020, according to the newspaper.

He also called for giving full play to the role of the language in poverty alleviation.

Various activities will be held during this year's campaign to facilitate poverty alleviation and promote traditional Chinese culture.

First launched in 1998, the annual campaign has become an important platform for promoting standard spoken and written Chinese language, improving literacy and inheriting and developing Chinese culture.