We have written before about the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign to erase the unique identities of its ethnic and religious minorities. Few human rights abuses today affect as many people or threaten as many distinct cultures, languages, and religious traditions. With China’s new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law now taking effect, what critics describe as a decades-long campaign of forced assimilation is no longer simply government policy. It is becoming law.
Recent reporting by Fergus Gregg highlights just how personal the consequences of that policy have become. His reporting details the latest developments surrounding China’s new legislation and the growing fears among Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, and other minority communities that their cultures are being deliberately dismantled.
A Protest That Captured the World’s Attention
On July 2, Tibetan activist Lobga Rangzen approached United Nations headquarters in New York City and set himself on fire in an act of political protest. Amnesty International said the 52-year-old’s self-immolation was a direct response to China’s new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, legislation that many believe threatens the future of China’s remaining minority cultures.
The law is intended to create what Beijing describes as a “shared” national identity among China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. Chinese officials argue that the legislation strengthens national unity, combats separatism, and protects social stability.
Human rights organizations see something very different.
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, said Rangzen’s protest should remind the international community of the human cost behind the legislation. She described it as “a law that brazenly pushes non-Han ethnic groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians toward a single, state-defined national identity rather than protecting their distinct cultures and languages.”
To many critics, the law represents the latest step in a long-running effort to replace China’s ethnic diversity with a single identity centered on the Han majority and loyalty to the Communist Party.
From Policy to Law
China officially recognizes 56 ethnic groups, but critics argue the new legislation moves the country closer to treating them as one.
The government says the law promotes equality and unity while prohibiting discrimination. It also states that all citizens share responsibility for maintaining national unity and authorizes strong action against what Beijing defines as separatism, terrorism, and religious extremism.
Human rights advocates argue those broad definitions have repeatedly been used to justify restrictions on minority languages, religious practices, education, and cultural traditions. In their view, the law transforms years of administrative policy into permanent legal authority.
The broader campaign is often described as sinicization, President Xi Jinping’s effort to reshape ethnic and religious communities so they conform to the political and cultural standards established by the Chinese Communist Party. Critics argue that sinicization reaches into schools, religious institutions, language instruction, media, and even family life, gradually replacing unique identities with a single state-approved national culture.
A Long History of Cultural Suppression
The new legislation arrives after decades of pressure on many of China’s minority populations.
Inner Mongolia provides one of the clearest examples. According to research cited from the University of Cambridge, more than 16,000 Mongols were killed and roughly five times that number were maimed during political campaigns against the Mongolian population. Human rights advocate Enghebatu Togochog said the Mongolian people were “completely devastated by this large-scale genocide campaign.”
More recently, authorities have reduced Mongolian-language education, censored publications written in Mongolian, relocated traditional nomadic communities, and detained thousands who protested the loss of their language and culture. Similar policies have been documented in Tibet and Xinjiang, where critics argue language, religion, and cultural identity have steadily been subordinated to the priorities of the Communist Party.
Congress Raises the Alarm
Concern over the law has spread well beyond human rights organizations.
Members of the U.S. House of Representatives urged the State Department to condemn the legislation, arguing that it “codifies and expands the Chinese Communist Party’s campaign of forced assimilation against Tibetans, Uyghurs, Southern Mongolians, and other non-Han Chinese communities.” Lawmakers further described it as “a tool of forced assimilation, ideological control, and transnational repression.”
Those criticisms reflect a growing belief among Western lawmakers that the legislation is not simply about domestic governance but about permanently reshaping the identity of millions of people while extending pressure beyond China’s borders.
One of the World’s Largest Human Rights Challenges
Supporters of Beijing’s policy argue that a unified national identity is necessary to preserve stability in a country with dozens of ethnic groups and a history of separatist violence.
Its critics argue that stability achieved through forced cultural conformity comes at an extraordinary human cost.
If those critics are correct, China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Law represents one of the largest ongoing human rights issues in the world today, affecting tens of millions of people whose languages, religions, traditions, and cultural identities are being systematically replaced by a single identity defined by the Chinese Communist Party. For many observers, the greatest concern is not simply the loss of political freedom, but the gradual disappearance of entire cultures that have existed for centuries.
