Since China’s leader, Xi Jinping, rose to power more than a decade ago, the ruling Communist Party has worked aggressively to make ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Tibet and elsewhere in the country identify first and foremost as patriotic citizens.
Now, this campaign of assimilation has been codified into an expansive new law that makes “ethnic unity” the responsibility of all of society, including every level of the government, business owners and parents.
The law, which was approved at the close of China’s legislative meeting on Thursday, has wide-ranging provisions that touch on education, housing policy, entertainment and other areas.
It embodies Xi’s mission to forge a single national identity molded by the party — seen as a way to protect Beijing’s rule from threats at home and abroad. While Beijing says the law will protect the traditions of all officially recognised 56 ethnic groups, a main focus appears to be assimilating minority residents into the culture of the Han Chinese, who are the majority.
It orders that Mandarin Chinese be the language of instruction in schools and in official communication. (In government communication when both languages are used, Mandarin should be used first and displayed more prominently.) Under the new law, the authorities must guide citizens to have “correct views” on history, culture and religion and shed “outdated customs.”
It also requires parents to “educate and guide children to love the Chinese Communist Party.” The law makes it illegal for anyone to oppose a marriage on ethnic or religious grounds and also calls for minority residents to live in mixed com- munities.
According to James Leibold, a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne who focuses on China’s ethnic policies, the law marks the final “legal capstone” in Xi’s hard-line approach toward the country’s hinterlands like Xinjiang and Tibet, where demands for greater autonomy have in the past erupted into protests and violence. The ethnic unity law is now “mobilising all aspects of the party, state and society to forge a single national consciousness,” Dr Leibold said.
In Xi’s China, there is very little room left for diversity of culture, language, identity, or even thought.” Even before Xi came to power, Chinese officials and intellectuals were debating whether decades of granting limited autonomy to minority regions had gone too far.
After a string of attacks by Uyghurs — including in 2014 when a group armed with knives killed 31 people at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming — Xi oversaw an intense security crackdown and a shift in the party’s ethnic policies.
Officials restricted the use of minority languages in schools in Xinjiang and Tibet and other places where minority students had previously been able to choose their language of instruction. The ban caused widespread protests that were quickly put down. The new law formalises and applies that language policy across the country.
