Why is China set to approve a new law promoting 'ethnic unity'?

 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly called for the "Sinicisation of religion" (Image: Getty Images)

For decades the Chinese government has been accused of implementing repressive policies designed to subjugate ethnic minorities, forcing them to assimilate into the dominant Han culture.

 Academics and human rights activists assert that a new law that will be ratified by the country's annual parliamentary session later this week will consolidate, broaden, and even accelerate this process, posing a further threat to minority groups' rights and way of life. However, it is defended by the Chinese government as essential for "modernization through greater unity" and referred to as the law for "Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress."

Read More: What to know about the 'two sessions', China's biggest political meeting

It lowers the status of other languages at the expense of Mandarin; encourages intermarriage between the dominant Han Chinese and other ethnicities by prohibiting moves to restrict this; requires parents to "educate and guide minors to love the Chinese Communist Party"; and, in a sweeping generalisation, prohibits any acts seen as damaging to "ethnic unity".

 Experts consider this law to be an enshrinement of what had already established itself as a fundamental component of Xi Jinping's rule. Xi Jinping has repeatedly called for the "Sinicisation of religion," which would require religious practices to conform with what the Communist Party considers to be Chinese culture and values. "Whether it is the promotion of Mandarin or the restrictions on the expression of ethnic minority identity, religious practices, and so forth, the regime is saying that all that stuff we did is correct," states Aaron Glasserman of the University of Pennsylvania. "We are so confident in that, that we are going to now elevate what was previously just sort of policy to the level of basic law." There are 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities in China, whose populations range from tens of thousands to millions. But Beijing has always worried more about some than others - it faces the gravest allegations of human rights violations in Xinjiang, home to Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities, as well as in Tibet.

President Xi and the 14th National People's congress is expected to pass a law restricting the rights of ethnic minorities (Image: EPA)

Instead of providing minority groups with more autonomy to make them happier to be a part of China, the Communist Party has heavily relied on instilling a sense of fear of retribution as a means of combating any dangerous talk of breaking away. Tibetan monks led an uprising in Lhasa against Beijing's rule in the months before the 2008 Olympic Games. This, like previous uprisings, was crushed; Beijing claims 22 deaths, but exile Tibetan groups estimate 200. The next year, in the far west of the country, deadly clashes between Uyghurs and Han Chinese in Xinjiang's regional capital Urumqi led to nearly 200 deaths.

 In 2013, a group of Uyghur separatists killed two people while driving an explosive-laden vehicle toward the gate overlooking Tiananmen Square. In 2014, another group of Uyghurs attacked people walking by a train station in Yunnan Province. Beijing contends that violent uprisings have served as justification for its harsh repression of ethnic minorities. But UN and rights groups allege that more than a million Uyghur Muslims have been forcibly detained in camps.  The Chinese government has called these locations centres for "re-education" and vocational training.  Uyghur religious practices have also been restricted, according to reports, and mosques have been closed. In Tibet, monasteries, which were once centres of power, are heavily controlled.  In order to study Buddhist texts, anyone under the age of 18 must now learn Mandarin in state-run schools. This is bad news for a community where children used to go to schools run by monasteries to learn how to be monks.

In 2008, the Tibetan capital Lhasa erupted in deadly violence with security forces using gunfire to quell protests against Chinese rule (Image: AFP/Getty Images)

In more recent times, government orders to demolish Hui Muslim mosques in Ningxia in the north-west and restrictions on Mongolian language instruction in Inner Mongolia have caused upheavals.

In more recent times, government orders to demolish Hui Muslim mosques in Ningxia in the north-west and restrictions on Mongolian language instruction in Inner Mongolia have caused upheavals. Analysts believe that the government may have felt the need to replace existing legal protections for minority rights with the new law in light of this potential for instability. And it allows them to control critical regions that link China to its neighbours and key global trade routes.

 "We say China is a country vast in territory, rich in resources and large in population," Mao told the China Power Project in its analysis of the new law. "As a matter of fact, it is the Han nationality whose population is large and the minority nationalities whose territory is vast and whose resources are rich."

It's true that although some minority ethnic groups, like the Uyghurs, number in millions, they are still dwarfed by the number of people recorded in the census as being Han, who make up more than 90% of Chinese citizens.

 But when you look at the homelands of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians, these massive areas are rich in mineral resources and important for agriculture and they count for a significant proportion of the country's entire land mass.

 Throughout history these groups have had periods of independence from China.  They live in vast border regions with exposure to foreign countries.  They write in their own distinctive scripts and speak their own languages. Even if they failed, they have attempted to preserve their distinct cultures by resisting Beijing's control at times, and their exiled communities have been among the regime's most outspoken critics abroad. And though the law in China can often be whatever the Party wants it to be, the new "ethnic unity" law makes it that much easier for officials to implement what has already been in the works – they now have a clearer set of orders from above.

 For years, the Chinese Government has offered incentives for Han Chinese people to move to Tibet or Xinjiang where critics say it has deliberately tried to outpopulate minority ethnic groups.  As a result, the regional capitals of Lhasa and Urumqi have already seen a massive influx of Han culture.

 In addition, Beijing has been accused of trying to incorporate minority groups into the majority Han culture by providing financial incentives to marry across ethnic groups, particularly between Han Chinese and Uyghurs. Now the new law is touching on this.

 "The law does not explicitly encourage interethnic marriage. What they're saying is no person or organisation is allowed to interfere with marital freedom on the basis of someone's religious or ethnic identity," Glasserman says.

 He gives the instance of a marriage proposal between a Han Chinese man and a woman from a minority ethnic group where a local official had to deal with religious opposition from an imam or a priest. "You can easily picture this official; their top priority is to have as few issues as possible so that they can be promoted or, at the very least, not fired. This official might quietly massage the situation so that pressure is put so that the marriage does not go through.  This law is making it harder for that informal process to play out and making it more likely that people will not allow the imam or the priest or the parents to say you are not allowed to marry that person".

In the China of 2026, it is difficult to interview Uyghurs, Tibetans or Mongolians still living in their traditional homelands about their impressions of this law because criticising any government policy could see them imprisoned if their comments were judged to promote "separatism".

 However groups overseas which advocate for them have raised the alarm.

In 2025, the BBC visited a monastery that has been at the centre of Tibetan resistance for decades(Image: bbc)

By restricting minority language education for most subjects, the new law ensures that "Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongolians will no longer be entitled to use their native languages for subjects in schools and universities.  Instead, they will be forced to use Mandarin Chinese in one facet of the Communist Party's ongoing crusade to assimilate China's ethnic minorities into Han-Chinese society", the Campaign for Uyghurs wrote on social media.

 "Critics view the legislation as the latest phase of an accelerated 'Sinicisation' campaign under Xi's leadership," states Phayul, an Indian English-language website funded by Tibetans in exile. In a sense, the Communist party agrees with activists and critics that this law is all about assimilation - except it argues that this is a good thing.

 It "aims to ensure the party's comprehensive leadership over ethnic affairs, improve institutional mechanisms for strengthening a sense of a shared community for the Chinese nation and to support ethnic minority regions in better integrating into the country's overall development," said Lou Qinjiang, the spokesperson for this year's National People's Congress, where the law will be passed.

 The party has long spoken of how the Han Chinese majority is at a different stage of modernisation compared to other ethnicities.  What they mean is that they see the minority ethnic groups as backward.

 Glasserman says this has also been a headache for the national government when dealing with overly zealous local officials whose attitude at times has been "We've had a revolution and therefore now it's time we all speak Mandarin.  Because we're all modern now, you don't have to respect their "backward" funeral or marriage practices. This has previously resulted in lower-level officials forcing Muslims to consume pork or factory managers employing Muslim employees without halal kitchens. For Beijing, these fights are pointless. However, it has had difficulty getting this message across to cadres in some locations. As a result, it is hoped that this law will standardize responses. Rights groups argue that it should be interpreted more as a public declaration than as a document to bring criminals to court. Yalkun Uluyol, a researcher for Human Rights Watch China, stated, "It formalizes an ideological framework related to a 'common consciousness of the Chinese nation' across education, religion, history, culture, tourism, mass media, and the internet and directs that this ideology be integrated into urban and rural planning and economic development." The majority of analysts believe that Beijing does not require a new law to assert its power throughout the nation. However, the significance of the legislation lies in the message it conveys regarding the direction that Xi intends to take China in the near future.

Source: BBC