With robots, publicity events and official speeches, China is mounting a propaganda effort to promote and defend a new “ethnic unity” law that critics say will further undermine the rights of Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minorities in the country.
The law grants sweeping powers to Beijing to pursue groups and people overseas seen as undermining national unity or inciting ethnic division. That has raised concerns that the Chinese authorities would accuse activists living abroad of crimes and seek their extradition or repatriation to China.
Since the law went into effect on Wednesday, Tibetan and Uyghur activists have held demonstrations against it in Washington and Brussels. One Tibetan activist set himself on fire outside the United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday and died. Human rights groups, Western governments and American lawmakers have issued statements criticizing the measure.
China has pushed back aggressively against the criticism, which China’s vice minister of justice, Hu Weilie, has blamed on “distorted interpretations” by the Western media of the legislation. Mr. Hu said the law was “legitimate, legal, necessary,” and in line with international norms. On Friday, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, accused the United States and the European Union of “maliciously slandering” his country’s policies.
The rhetoric underscores how intolerant the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has become of any criticism of its treatment of ethnic minorities. Under Mr. Xi, the party has imposed heavy crackdowns on such groups, particularly targeting the Tibetans, to erode the influence of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, and the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in Xinjiang.
While the government says the new rules will protect the traditions of all 56 officially recognized ethnic groups, they appear to be mainly focused on assimilating minority groups into the culture of the Han Chinese, who are a majority in China.
The Persecution of Uyghurs in China
A History of Tension For decades, the Chinese government has treated the Uyghurs, an ethnic group of about 12 million people in China’s northwestern region of Xinjiang, as a troublesome population with separatist tendencies.
An editorial in the state-run Global Times on Thursday accused “some Western countries and media outlets” of maligning China’s ethnic policies. “Their claims, detached from facts and shaped by prejudice, amount to nothing more than one-sided rhetoric,” it said.
Officials in China held events meant to rally public support for the new law. On Wednesday, at least half a dozen Chinese cities held cultural performances and public discussions to promote the new law, according to state media reports. Such demonstrations are usually symbolic, intended to signal to the world that citizens across the country are united behind a national policy.
With tight censorship online, it is hard to see how ordinary Chinese perceive the new law. But such measures have set off unrest in the past. In Inner Mongolia, restrictions on the use of Mongolian in local schools prompted widespread protests in 2020. This week, local officials invited Communist Party cadres and residents to play tug of war and skip rope in the name of ethnic unity.
In Chengxi District of Qinghai Province, home to the Hui, a Muslim ethnic group, a robot answered questions about the law. A video showed the robot clapping next to a sign that called for “a shared future characterized by blood ties, shared beliefs, cultural affinity, economic interdependence and emotional closeness.” In June, several counties in Xinjiang held competitions where cadres were tested on their knowledge of the new law.
The law bans any acts that “undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic divisions” among Chinese people inside or outside of China and requires all of Chinese society to participate in the mission of ethnic integration. It mandates Mandarin Chinese as the language of instruction in schools and in official communication and orders parents to “educate and guide children to love the Chinese Communist Party.”
President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan, who said the ethnic unity law could be used to target Taiwanese citizens, called on the international community to oppose it. Taiwan is a self-governed island that China claims as its own.
In response, Zhu Fenglian, a spokeswoman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, said on Thursday that the measure would help “pool the strength of all ethnic groups nationwide to advance the building of a strong country.”
Human rights groups have called for the law, which was passed at China’s annual legislative meeting in March, to be repealed. Volker Türk, the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, said last month that it “risks deepening restrictions on freedoms of language, education, practice of religion, culture, expression and assembly” of minorities in China.
In a letter to the Chinese government in April, eight human rights experts said the law could have “serious implications” for Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians.
The law embodies Mr. Xi’s goal to forge a single national identity molded by the Communist Party. It is also part of his campaign to tighten his control over Xinjiang and Tibet, where demands for greater autonomy have in the past erupted into violence.
To assert its control, the Chinese government has conducted mass detentions of residents and forced political indoctrination, separated children from their families and suppressed of population growth. Those measures have led to the erasure of minority languages, religious traditions and cultural norms.
Pei-Lin Wu contributed reporting.
