In March 2026, the People’s Republic of China promulgated a new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress. The New York Times reports:
Mandarin Chinese must now be the language of teaching. Parents must guide their children to love the Communist Party. Neighborhoods should be mixed…. [The new law] makes “ethnic unity” the responsibility of all of society, including every level of the government, business owners and parents. [Its] wide-ranging provisions…touch on education, housing policy, entertainment and other areas….
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the new law, the authorities must guide citizens to have “correct views” on history, culture and religion and shed “outdated customs.”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 communities….
The new law formalizes and applies that language policy across the country. It also mandates that children must start learning the language before kindergarten, with the goal of having a “basic grasp” of it by the time they finish the nine years of compulsory education.
In Inner Mongolia, for instance, “students in the region can currently only study Mongolian as a foreign language class inside schools, one hour a day.”
According to Deutsche Welle, “There were 2,756 votes [in the National People’s Congress] in favor of this ‘ethnic unity’ law, three abstentions and three votes against.” So there were a few brave voters in the PRC’s rubber-stamp parliament. But since “442 delegates from ethnic minority groups took part in the vote,” the few are very few.
The new law will also punish “acts that undermine ethnic unity and create ethnic division.” Now, demands for cultural autonomy morph into the political crime of “separatism.” And this law applies worldwide, not just in Red China.
The law is intended to “lead each ethnic group to carry forward an ethnic spirit with patriotism at its core…and persist in identifying with the great motherland, the Chinese people, Chinese culture, the Chinese Communist Party, and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” One would expect communism to be at the top of this list, not Han nationalism. And yet the great motherland is Han China and the Chinese people are Han, as is Chinese culture.
Not surprisingly, the Tibetan Government in Exile “strongly condemned” the new law.
Transnational prosecution
Note that the law “also creates a legal base for the [communist] Chinese government to prosecute people or organizations outside [Red] China if their actions harm the progress of ‘ethnic unity.’
“The legal penalties for people abroad echo the clause in the National Security Law which China imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, which states that authorities can prosecute people based outside China over actions that Beijing perceives as secession or subversion. Hong Kong’s government has issued bounties for 34 overseas activists on suspicion of violating the security law.”
Duly noted by Taipei:
The Mainland Affairs Council yesterday said a new Chinese law on ethnic unity could compel people to actively support unification with Taiwan or face legal consequences.
The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, passed by [Red] China’s National People’s Congress on March 12 and set to take effect on July 1, would make support for unification a legal obligation, the council said in a social media post….
The law could provide Beijing with a legal basis to target Taiwanese people or businesses who do not take a pro-unification stance, the MAC said, describing it as a form of “long-arm” jurisdiction.
The council said it expects China to intensify efforts to counter pro-Taiwan independence views, promote unification narratives and expand transnational repression targeting Taiwanese.
China had committed 122 instances of cross-border repression involving Taiwan, affecting 103 people, companies or organizations as of March 13, the MAC said.
The law sets the table for all sorts of human rights violations.
Assimilation in the U.S.
The United States ended its indigenous assimilation policies in the middle of the last century, definitely closing the books on these with the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Acts of 1975 and the Tribal Self-Governance Act of 1994.
According to Census numbers, “1.7% of the U.S. population—or 5.2 million people—identified as American Indian or Alaska Native alone or in combination with another race.” However, only “approximately 372,000 Native people speak a language other than English at home,” suggesting a certain level of cultural assimilation.
The US allows immigrants to integrate into American society at their own pace “by adopting…economic, social, and cultural norms.” The success of assimilation can be evaluated in part by looking at repatriation rates. “As many as one-third of U.S. immigrants eventually return home, 18% within 5 years and 22% within 10 years of arrival.”
Minorities within Red China cannot return home—they are already home. And “Your home is my home,” says the CCP. □
James Roth works for a major defense contractor in Virginia.
