Beijing, Aug 2 (IANS) China’s Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress should not be seen as a legal legislative instrument, but as a constitutional expression of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political vision, where national unity is preferred over a differentiated economy and where the state tries to pursue a single political identity that transcends ethnic distinctions, a report has detailed.
The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which came into effect in China on July 1, has sparked criticism for its perceived assimilationist undertones, with significance extending beyond the debate over minority rights. The law demonstrates the legal codification of a profound shift in how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) sees national identity, ethnicity and state-building under the Xi Jinping-led government, according to a report in Mekong News.
“Unlike previous legislation that centred on ethnic autonomy and differentiated governance, the new law repeatedly emphasises the need to forge a ‘strong sense of community for the Chinese nation’. This phrase, frequently invoked by Xi Jinping over the past decade, has become the organising principle of China’s contemporary ethnic policy,” the report in Mekong News mentioned.
“The law requires state institutions, schools, religious organisations, businesses and even social organisations to actively cultivate identification with the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party and socialism with Chinese characteristics,” it added.
Under the new law, government departments, neighbourhood committees, enterprises, religious institutions and the armed forces have the responsibility to promote ethnic unity. The law includes provisions that enable China to take legal action against foreign organisations or people who it considers undermine ethnic unity. Whether these provisions are implemented actively is yet to be seen; however, they demonstrate how questions regarding ethnic identity have connected with concerns about national security and ideological governance.
“Ultimately, China’s new Ethnic Unity Law should not be viewed simply as another legislative instrument. It is better understood as a constitutional expression of Xi Jinping’s broader political vision, one in which national unity increasingly takes precedence over differentiated autonomy, and where the state seeks to cultivate a single political identity that transcends ethnic distinctions. Whether this approach succeeds in strengthening cohesion or instead generates new tensions over identity will become evident only over time,” the report in Mekong News mentioned.
In July, over 50 Uyghur civil society organisations strongly condemned China’s Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress and urged the international community to take meaningful action to repeal the legislation.
According to a joint statement, the law is not a “technical administrative measure” but a “legislative instrument of forced assimilation”. It noted that the legislation explicitly conflates the Chinese nation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and demands that ethnic groups abandon their distinct identities in favour of loyalty to the Party, the Han-defined “motherland,” and “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.”
Under this framework, the organisations said, the Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian, and other non-Han identities are permitted to exist only insofar as they are absorbed into a single, CCP-defined Chinese nation.
“The law’s reach is sweeping. It entrenches Mandarin as the language of education, displacing Uyghur, Tibetan, and Southern Mongolian languages from the classroom and public life. It mandates the ‘sinicisation’ of religion, subordinating faith to Party ideology. It instructs parents and teachers to raise children in loyalty to the CCP rather than to their own culture, religion, or language,” read the statement.
“These are not incidental effects; they are the law’s stated purpose, and they build directly on policies that have already devastated our communities — mass internment, cultural and religious destruction, and the forced separation of children from their families,” it added.
The organisations called on the UN human rights experts and mechanisms — including the Special Rapporteurs on freedom of religion or belief, and the situation of human rights defenders, on minority issues, as well as Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and other relevant treaty bodies — to formally monitor and report on the implementation and extraterritorial application of the Ethnic Unity Law, and press Beijing to repeal it.
–IANS
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