The Debate | Opinion | Central Asia

China’s ‘Ethnic Unity’ Law is Already Harming Uyghurs

Government actions that could once be described as regional campaigns are now embedded in national legislation. Restrictions will become easier to expand and harder to challenge.

China’s new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress has been in effect for more than one month. Beijing claims the law will foster cohesion and protect the rights of minorities. In reality, it is already doing the opposite. One month in, the law is already harming Uyghurs and other ethnic groups and dissidents. Governments must take decisive action to challenge the law and protect diaspora communities before it is too late.

As numerous sources have warned, the new law codifies a dramatic shift away from even the promise of regional autonomy, instead embedding Xi Jinping’s campaign of forced assimilation into nearly every facet of government and public life. In doing so, the law violates China’s own constitution.

For Uyghurs, this is not new. In 2017, a Chinese official summarized the government’s strategy toward Uyghurs: “Break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins.” 

Since then, Chinese authorities have systematically dismantled Uyghur social, cultural, and religious life in what the United States government and numerous national parliaments have formally recognized as genocide and crimes against humanity. The indoctrination Uyghurs faced in internment camps, where authorities sought to replace Islam and Uyghur identity with loyalty to the CCP, is now imposed in daily life across the Uyghur homeland of East Turkestan.

What has changed is this: Government actions that could once be described as regional campaigns are now embedded in national legislation. These restrictions will become easier to expand and harder to challenge.

The new law makes schools, religious institutions, all levels of government, and even families responsible for instilling and enforcing the CCP’s definition of “ethnic unity.” It requires parents to “educate and guide minors to love the Chinese Communist Party,” replaces bilingual education with Mandarin beginning in preschool, and requires religious institutions to persist in the “Sinicization” of religion. In other words, all children must be raised to love the CCP, all languages must give way to Mandarin, and any faith is permitted only when reshaped to serve the state.

The law’s effects are already visible. Videos on Chinese social media show Uyghur-language signs being removed from city streets and replaced with Chinese. Uyghurs are unable to resist, or even express sadness, as CCP cadres watch. Any negative reaction can be labeled resistance to “ethnic unity,” placing a person at risk of interrogation, detention, and arrest.

Just three days after the law took effect, two Uyghur sisters and their mother were reportedly arrested for sending merchandise to another sister in Turkiye. They were accused of “supporting terrorism” for helping with her business. While it is not new for authorities to penalize Uyghurs for contacting family abroad, the ethnic unity law gives an already abusive system an........

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