Slandering of ethnic unity law futile attempt to undermine it

The concerns the United States and the European Union recently expressed over China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, which took effect on July 1, do nothing but expose their ideological prejudice.

They baselessly claim that this statute gives the Chinese government “legal basis to take action against people outside its borders”.

The law is a legislation designed to strengthen legal governance over ethnic affairs.

It enshrines the principle that all 56 ethnic groups of China are equal, prohibits discrimination against any minority, and mandates State support for infrastructure, public services and economic development in ethnic regions. It also safeguards the right of all ethnic groups to use and develop their own languages. This is a legal framework for national unity under the rule of law.

China’s population of ethnic minority groups exceeds 125 million — nearly 9 percent of the total national population. From 2020 to 2024, the combined GDP of the five provincial-level autonomous regions with large minority populations grew at an average annual rate of 5.6 percent, outpacing the national average. From 2012 to 2025, that combined GDP surged from 3.25 trillion yuan ($478 billion) to 8.66 trillion yuan. All 420 poverty-stricken counties in ethnic autonomous areas were lifted out of extreme poverty. These are not the markers of oppression. They are the fruits of inclusion.

Yet some Western critics — who have never been to China’s Xinjiang Uygur or Xizang autonomous regions, and who show zero curiosity about how local ethnic groups’ language courses are offered and how the local cultures are protected — prefer to lecture from a distance.

Their weaponized vocabulary includes “forced assimilation” and “human rights violations”. They ignore that boarding schools in Xizang exist because communities are scattered across vast, mountainous terrain. They ignore that Uygur taxi drivers in Bole, Xinjiang, tell visitors their businesses are thriving. They choose fiction over fact because fiction is politically useful.

As Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said, they take things out of context, maliciously slander China’s ethnic policies, and fabricate and spread misinformation. With such gross interference in China’s internal affairs, they attempt to undermine ethnic unity in China.

The real irony is that the US and EU are now panicking about a law that codifies ethnic equality, while their own records on minority rights are less than pristine.

The law’s preamble — a rare legislative feature in China — explicitly frames ethnic unity as the foundation for common prosperity. It is a pragmatic and people-centered model for multiethnic states, which is precisely why it unnerves those who profit from division.

As for the extraterritorial paranoia: the law is crystal clear.

Its provision complies with legal principles, basic norms of international law and common practice worldwide.

The provision stipulates that overseas organizations and individuals undermining China's ethnic solidarity or engaging in ethnic separatism targeting the country will be held legally accountable.

All countries are entitled to enact laws countering separatist and destructive conduct, as protecting national unity, territorial integrity and social stability falls within every country's sovereign rights.

China firmly oppose all acts of smearing, suppression, infiltration and sabotage targeting China under the guise of ethnic, religious, human rights or other issues.

Beyond penalizing unlawful conduct, this article of the law also builds in protections for exchange and shared prosperity among China's different ethnic groups.

Enforcement will proceed strictly within the bounds of law, applied carefully and consistently, without disrupting ordinary cross-border personal contact or legitimate academic, trade and investment activity.

The jaundiced critics of the law to visit its ethnic regions and see for themselves. But its invitation will not be accepted — because the Western narrative depends on not seeing. The Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law of China is a mirror held up at home. And what it reflects — rising living standards, cultural preservation, and legal clarity — is something some in the West simply cannot bear to acknowledge. But their discomfort says more about their own anxieties than about China’s stability, unity and prosperity.