(TibetanReview.net, Jul02’26) – Despite being criticized and condemned in the democratic world as a repressive assimilation move designed to homogenise the minority communities with penal enforcement, China has hailed its Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law as the country’s fundamental law on ethnic affairs as it entered into force on Jul 1. A five-year plan for its implementation from national to township level is being worked out.
The law is designed to enhance cohesion and common prosperity among all 56 ethnic groups. It comes as the country enters the final decade of its drive to basically achieve modernization by 2035, said China’s official Xinhua news agency Jul 1.
As the law comes into effect, governments at all levels will need to rigorously implement its key priorities, such as promoting extensive exchanges, interactions and integration among all ethnic groups, and advancing their common development, Yan Qing, a professor at Minzu University of China, was cited a saying.
The nub of the law’s implementation lies in China’s characteristically coercive, often brutal, mechanism of enforcement which Yan is obviously unable to talk about. He has simply said, “This will help raise the level of law-based governance in ethnic affairs.”
The law stipulates that upholding national unity and ethnic solidarity is the responsibility of all Chinese citizens, and prohibits discrimination and suppression against any ethnic group, the report said, forgetting the fact that imposing Mandarin itself amounts to discrimination and suppression against them.
Besides, the law apparently does not say what would be the exact consequences to those who may be accused of failing to uphold or, worse, oppose this responsibility.
However, an indication of the consequences can be seen in the fact that the law is stated to combat violent terrorism, ethnic separatism and religious extremism, holding organizers, planners, perpetrators, instigators and funders of these activities criminally liable. These are enormously weighty crimes entailing heftiest of penalties.
The law can be seen as a summary of China’s practical experience in countering separatism, terrorism and radicalization, while also focusing on ethnic unity and progress, the report said, citing Hu Haifeng, director of the institute of ethnology at the Xinjiang Academy of Social Sciences.
Implementation of the law provides more enduring and standardized legal support for stability and cohesion in regions with diverse ethnic populations, Hu has maintained.
While the law is vehement about its stipulation that the state shall promote the standard spoken and written Chinese language, its proviso about also respecting and safeguarding the right to study and use ethnic minority languages is without any meaningful implementation measure.
And so, Zhu Yafeng, an associate professor at Xinjiang University, is right when he says, “The law elevates into institutional norms the promotion of a common language among different ethnic groups.” However, he is plainly bluffing when he goes on to claim that it is also about “the preservation of their respective cultural roots, enabling the cultures of all ethnic groups to flourish within the big family of the Chinese nation.”
The report said authorities have promised to strengthen public education of the legislation and follow up on the formulation and revision of local-level regulations.
Also, “the National Ethnic Affairs Commission is working with relevant departments to formulate a five-year plan for promoting ethnic unity and progress,” Chen Ruifeng, head of the commission, has said, adding that efforts to fully implement the law will figure prominently in the plan.
The Party mouthpiece globaltimes.cn ran an opinion piece on Jul 1, saying “external noise will never shake China’s ethnic unity, progress,” referring to the international, including UN, criticisms of the law, with calls for its repeal.
A globaltimes.cn report Jul 2 said multiple regions in the country were already introducing measures to implement the law, including ethnic autonomous regions such as Inner Mongolia and Xizang, as well as ethnic autonomous prefectures, counties and townships, using the assimilated name “Xizang” for “Tibet”.