China has adopted an ethnic unity law that critics say cements assimilation

Beijing — BEIJING (AP) — China adopted a sweeping law Thursday to promote what it calls “ethnic unity,” a move critics say will further erode the rights of some minority groups.

The law, approved by the country’s ceremonial legislature, is “designed to foster a strong sense of community among all ethnic groups in the Chinese nation,” said Lou Qinjian, a representative of the National People’s Congress who introduced the proposal to the entire body.

The proposed law addresses the need to promote ethnic unity by all government agencies and private enterprises, including local governments and state-affiliated groups such as the All-China Women’s Federation.

“People of every race, all organizations and groups in the country, the armed forces, every party and social organization, every company, must form a common consciousness of the Chinese nation according to the law and the constitution and take responsibility for building this consciousness,” it reads.

Academics and observers say the new provision represents a setback for ethnic minority identity because it, among other things, mandates the use of Mandarin Chinese in compulsory education.

The majority of China’s population is Han Chinese and the official language is Mandarin. The country has 55 ethnic groups, accounting for 8.9% of the 1.4 billion population.

The constitution states that “each ethnic group has the right to use and develop its own language” and “the right to self-government”, but the Territorial Ethnic Autonomy Law guarantees limited autonomy to those groups, allowing them to create flexible measures to develop their economies.

Despite those provisions, experts say the new law is likely to take precedence in practice.

“It nails the death knell to the party’s original hope of meaningful autonomy,” said James Leibold, a professor at Australia’s Latrobe University who has studied China’s changing policies toward its ethnic minorities. Liebold called the move the cornerstone of a “major rethink” of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s racial policies.

The United Front of China, which monitors ethnic minority policy, did not respond to a request for comment.

According to Article 15 of the new law, Mandarin Chinese is mandated to be taught to all children before kindergarten and throughout the rest of compulsory education until the end of high school.

Mandarin is already the primary language of instruction in Inner Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang — Chinese regions with large ethnic minority populations — but the new law essentially says minority languages ​​cannot be the primary language of instruction nationwide.

Until recent years, ethnic minorities had little autonomy over which language could be used for instruction in schools.

Previously, students in Inner Mongolia, a Chinese autonomous region bordering Mongolia, could study most parts of the entire curriculum in Mongolian.

That changed in 2020 when new students found they could no longer use their Mongolian language textbooks and could only use Chinese textbooks. According to an essay co-authored by Liebold and a former Mongolian journalist, the policy change led to massive protests and immediate repression, as well as later re-education campaigns.

Students in the region can currently only study Mongolian as a foreign language class in schools, for one hour a day.

Scholars note the law’s reference to pushing for “mutually embedded community environments,” which they say could lead to the fragmentation of minority-heavy neighborhoods.

“The intention is to encourage the Han and other minorities to migrate to each other’s communities,” said University of Maryland professor Minglong Zhou, who has studied China’s bilingual policies.

Many countries, including the US, follow similar assimilation policies. China says its approach is to bring development to ethnic minority areas. But Maya Wang, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the law is not really about ensuring equality.

“There was never a question of ensuring their participation in the economy in an equal, more inclusive way” because policies were being forced on Tibetans, Wang said. “And a truly inclusive model does not preclude children’s ability to speak two languages.”

It creates a legal basis for the Chinese government to prosecute people or organizations outside of China if their actions harm the progress of “ethnic unity”.

The legal penalties for people abroad echo a clause in a national security law China imposed in Hong Kong in 2020, which says authorities can prosecute people outside China for actions Beijing perceives as separatist or subversive. The Hong Kong government offered rewards to 34 overseas activists suspected of violating security laws.

Rayhan Asat, a legal scholar at Harvard University, said, “The law serves as a strategic tool and gives the government a pretext to commit all kinds of human rights violations.”

Asat said her younger brother, Ekper Asat, is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Xinjiang on charges of racial discrimination and inciting ethnic hatred. Asat said her family had not received any formal notice from the government about her arrest or interrogation.

Asat’s brother is a businessman who built a social media platform for Uyghurs. He said he was taken shortly after he visited the US in 2016 as part of the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

Ethnic Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group, have been targeted for prolonged detention operations and subsequent imprisonment by China. Although the short-term internment camps were said to be closed in 2019, thousands ended up in prison, where experts say they were targeted for their identities and not for actual crimes.

Asat said he hopes US President Donald Trump will raise his case in his upcoming summit with Xi.

He said he worries about how the new generation will define being a Uyghur.

“I think it is impossible to preserve any kind of Uighur identity,” he said.