Adopted by the National People’s Congress on March 12, 2026, China’s Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress entered into force on July 1.

As many in the West embrace the ideal of the world with progressively weaker—or even obsolete—states, China’s legal entrenchment of national unity may look odd or counterintuitive, perhaps anti-historical, considering China’s own keenness to engage with the world through trade and wider cooperation. In reality, China’s declared pursuit of social cohesion speaks to underlying issues of national identity and self-perception affecting the contemporary fabric of most societies, whatever their geographical or geopolitical profile, from Ukraine to Israel, from Germany to the United Kingdom. China’s move, however, reveals significant tensions with the requirements of international law for any viable national concept to be sustainable.

The Law on Ethnic Unity and Progress reaffirms the centuries-old idea of a nation that binds people together, albeit by promoting “Chinese characteristics”.

There are at least three elements of this legislation that should be noted and are cause for concern.

First, the Chinese people represent a distinct civilization, “a community of destiny with the same blood and beliefs, cultural interdependence, and emotional affinity”, fostered as a territorial unit in the face of foreign aggression. This national concept, despite drawing partly on the idea of kinship and resistance to external (real or perceived) oppression, differs from ethnicity and is presented essentially as a civic-cultural one. “Ethnic unity” is articulated as a way of seemingly transcending ethnic membership in understanding the historical and cultural character of the Chinese nation. Ethnically diverse, China is said to rest on its “exceptional traditional culture” as an overarching national framework of values and commonality in which all ethnicities or ethnic peoples partake. However, this cultural notion is qualified by strong political and ideological control in the mainstream tradition and lived experience of socialist states, including the former Soviet Union. The multi-ethnic idea of the Chinese nation is still informed by Marxism-Leninism, and the Chinese Communist Party remains “the vanguard of the Chinese working class”, yet it adapts Marxist theory (focused on economic achievements or temporary tactical emancipatory claims) to China’s “specific conditions”.

Second, while this revised, civic-cultural national concept echoes elements of past intellectual trajectories of the idea, particularly in Europe, the practical implications of this vision in contemporary China may prove alarming. Ethnic discrimination is prohibited, the state supports “commonality while respecting and embracing differences,” the learning and use of minority languages are recognized, and “the system of ethnic autonomous regions” is upheld and improved. Yet the overwhelming emphasis throughout the text on Chinese culture, the Chinese people, and the role of the state, even in the context of modern technology, in establishing the “correct perspectives on the nation, history, ethnicity, culture, and religion” does suggest a far more limited space for minority groups to be able to articulate and affirm identities of their own. While recognized as an integral part of Chinese culture, each ethnicity is urged to transform itself and develop in the name of unifying China’s traditional culture. Mandarin is mandated to be the nation’s basic language and script for all schools and educational institutions, from pre-school to higher education levels, which makes the use of minority languages difficult to achieve, despite some form of constitutional protection. Intermingling and interactions amongst ethnicities will be promoted with a view to achieving ethnic unity and progress, or otherwise “integrated diversity”, in the service of the Chinese nation. The state will embrace a “new concept of development” which will support ethnic regions in their “collective march … towards socialist modernization” and the fulfilling of their “primary functional positioning” (as opposed to regional cultural distinctiveness). The Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, and even Taiwan, will be involved in the same process of national identification and unity. Religious groups will be required to steer education towards the “sinicization” of the nation’s religions, while parents will be obliged not to instil in minors’ ideas that are not conducive to ethnic unity and progress. Parental autonomy in child education under human rights law, as well as freedom of speech more broadly, are thus bound to fuel hostility or open opposition by the state: all acts using “excuses” such as ethnicity, religion, or human rights “to insult and disparage, contain and suppress”, will be censored.

Third, the state will have oversight (centrally and locally) over the implementation of the Law, issuing warnings, ordering corrections, dispensing sanctions, or pursuing criminal liability in order to counter, for example, “ethnic division” or “religious extremist” activities. Business actors and social groups will be involved in some form of monitoring, too. Citizens have the right to make complaints, and public interest litigation may be initiated against anyone thought to have broken this law. More controversially still, “organizations and individuals” outside of China’s mainland that are said to undermine ethnic unity and progress will be held legally accountable.

The long-term impact of this law remains to be seen, but despite the Chinese government’s reassurances about the way its minority groups will be treated (around 9 percent of the overall population—125 million people out of 1.4 billion), it is hard to dissociate the open-ended structure and language of the legislation from the likely effect of undermining spaces of cultural/linguistic and political autonomy for historical groups. This is especially the case in ethnically populous regions such as Xinjiang (where most Uighurs live), Tibet, or Inner Mongolia—classified as provincial-level autonomous regions—where international organizations and civil society groups have long reported unlawful detentions on terror charges, religious repression, or language assimilation or marginalization. Human rights campaigners are more, rather than less, likely to be viewed as enemies of national security, or openly charged with “separatism”, a charge already leveled at Tibet’s Dalai Lama. Under this Law, the same may apply to ordinary citizens or family members. The law’s affirmed extraterritoriality may put more pressure on Taiwan’s political dissidents or democracy supporters around the world, even though there is no basis for seeking extradition of peaceful activists and critics from other states, whether or not with Chinese nationality, under international law.

At one general level, this legislation reminds us of the enduring dimension of the national idea, of the need of all societies, whatever their population size or historical record, to rally around some key values underpinning collective consciousness and self-determination. But the practical impact of the Chinese approach, combining the pursuit of cultural distinctiveness with tight political and ideological control, is more likely to clash with realities on the ground as it offers a legal basis for forced assimilation, xenophobia, distorted views of discrimination, or potentially severe crackdowns on non-Han minority cultures, in breach of international human rights law. China has an international legal obligation to protect minority groups. Any viable idea of a nation must absorb and firmly uphold these minimum, indispensable legal standards within the framework of pluralism, against the excesses of nationalism sanctioned by history.

For more analysis on the idea of a nation’s intellectual trajectories and their repercussions on the right to self-determination, see my forthcoming essay for the Polish Academy of Sciences, here: https://czasopisma.inp.pan.pl/index.php/pyil/announcement/view/72

Cover photo: Local Chinese people of Miao ethnic minority dressed in traditional silver-decorated costumes and headwear attend a celebration to mark the Chinese Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, in Nanwa village, Taijiang county, Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China’s Guizhou province, 8 February 2019. (Photo by Ou yanggl / Imaginechina via AFP)