Body
China adopted a sweeping “ethnic unity” law on Thursday, setting out government and private-sector duties aimed at what officials described as strengthening bonds among the country’s ethnic groups—an effort critics say could further erode minority rights and speed up assimilation policies. The law was approved by China’s ceremonial legislature, according to the Associated Press, following a proposal presented to the National People’s Congress by Lou Qinjian.
Under the provisions described by AP, the new law calls on all government bodies and private enterprises, including local governments and state-affiliated groups, to promote ethnic unity. The draft text also lays out what Beijing says is a shared responsibility to build a common national consciousness among all groups, including the armed forces, every Party and social organization, and companies.
One of the central changes highlighted by critics centers on language instruction. Article 15, according to AP’s account of the law, mandates that Mandarin Chinese be taught to all children before kindergarten and remain the language taught through compulsory education up to the end of high school. Supporters and officials have previously cited Mandarin’s role as the country’s primary language of instruction, while critics argue the nationwide requirement reduces the space for minority languages to be used as primary languages in education.
Academics said the policy effectively limits minority languages nationwide even where Mandarin already serves as the main instructional language. AP reported that Mandarin is already the primary language of instruction in Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang, while the new law further signals that minority languages cannot be the primary language of instruction across the country.
James Leibold, a professor at Australia’s La Trobe University, said the measure represents a major setback for autonomy and called it a “death nail” for what he described as the party’s earlier promise of meaningful self-rule. AP also reported that Leibold described the law as a capstone of President Xi Jinping’s “major rethink” of ethnic policies, while the constitution and a separate law on regional ethnic autonomy have promised rights including language use and self-rule.
In Inner Mongolia, AP reported that policy shifts in recent years removed the ability of students in the region to use Mongolian language textbooks, a change that it said triggered protests and later re-education campaigns, according to an essay co-written by Leibold and a former Mongolian journalist. AP said that students in the region can currently study Mongolian only as a foreign-language class inside schools for one hour a day.
Other experts focused on what the law says about social integration at the community level. Minglang Zhou, a professor at the University of Maryland who studied China’s bilingual policies, told AP that wording about promoting “mutually embedded community environments” could result in the breakup of minority-heavy neighborhoods. Zhou said the approach appears designed to encourage Han and other minorities to migrate into each other’s communities.
In remarks ahead of the vote, AP reported that Hanengbi Ayisa, a deputy from Xinjiang, said China attaches “great importance” to a sense of community and national unity and that unity among ethnic groups is “very well maintained.” But Maya Wang, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the law is not about equal participation, arguing instead that it is being forced on Tibetans and that a truly inclusive model would allow children to speak two languages.
AP also reported that the law lays out legal penalties related to ethnic policy and gives Beijing a basis to prosecute people or organizations outside China if their actions harm progress on “ethnic unity.” Critics said the extraterritorial provision echoes China’s national security law imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, which AP said allows prosecution based outside China over actions Beijing perceives as secession or subversion.
Rayhan Asat, a legal scholar at Harvard University, told AP that the law serves as “a strategic tool” and gives authorities a pretext to commit “all sorts of human rights violations.” AP reported that Asat said her younger brother, Ekpar Asat, is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Xinjiang on charges involving inciting ethnic discrimination and ethnic hatred, and that she said her family did not receive formal notice about his arrest or trial. AP reported that Asat said her brother, who built a social media platform for Uyghurs, was taken after he visited the United States in 2016 as part of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.
Wang’s remarks and Asat’s comments were included alongside broader context in AP’s reporting about Xinjiang, where ethnic Uyghurs have faced a long-running campaign that involved detention and incarceration, with experts saying in past accounts that people were targeted for their identity rather than for crimes. AP also reported that Asat said she hopes U.S. President Donald Trump will raise her brother’s case in an upcoming summit with Xi, and that she fears how the new generation will define being Uyghur.