On July 1st, the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law of the People’s Republic of China officially came into effect. As the first foundational and comprehensive law concerning China’s ethnic affairs, its enactment and implementation demonstrate China’s firm resolve to ensure equality for all ethnic groups, safeguard the fundamental interests of all ethnic groups, and promote their common prosperity and development. It has laid a solid rule-of-law foundation for China’s ethnic work, human rights protection, and enduring stability in border areas in the new era.

Enacting the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law is an inevitable requirement for forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation. China is a unified multiethnic country. Through long interactions, exchanges, and integration, people of all ethnic groups have jointly founded this unified multiethnic state, written a glorious chapter of Chinese history, created a splendid Chinese culture, and nurtured a great national spirit. Together, they have forged a community with a shared future characterized by shared blood ties, belief, culture, economic interdependence, and emotional affinity. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that “a keen sense of national identity is the foundation of ethnic unity.” In line with the historical trajectory of the Chinese nation from the past to the future, from tradition to modernity, and from diversity to unity, this law improves the institutional mechanisms for forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation through the rule of law. It guides people of all ethnic groups to firmly establish the philosophy of a community with a shared future, in which all ethnic groups share weal and woe, honor and disgrace, life and death, and a common destiny, and to stick together like seeds of a pomegranate.

Enacting the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law is a practical necessity for advancing Chinese modernization. In........

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