BEIJING—The Chinese regime is launching an aggressive campaign to promote Mandarin, saying 85 percent of its citizens will use the national language by 2025. The move appears to put threatened Chinese regional dialects such as Cantonese and Hokkien under even greater pressure, along with minority languages such as Tibetan, Mongolian, and Uyghur. The order issued Tuesday by the State Council said use of Mandarin, known in Chinese as “putonghua” or the “common tongue,” remains “unbalanced and inadequate.” Critics have sporadically protested changes to the education system and employment requirements that have steadily eroded the role of minority languages, calling it a campaign to eradicate cultures. Along with the 2025 goal, the policy aims to make Mandarin virtually universal by 2035, including in rural areas and among ethnic minorities. The promotion of Mandarin over other languages has sparked protests, including last year in the Inner Mongolia region when the Mongolian language …