A law that took effect July 1 makes ethnic assimilation the official duty of every level of government and authorizes citizens to report anyone who threatens “ethnic unity.”
In March 2026, China’s National People’s Congress passed the “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” by a vote of 2,756 to 3. It took effect July 1. The law is the strongest signal yet that Xi Jinping intends to intensify an already aggressive project of national integration and to bring the full machinery of the state to bear, from media and education to tourism and migration management.
Xi has described China’s ethnic groups as needing to be “tightly packed like pomegranate seeds,” small, similar, and red. The new law is his attempt to make that metaphor into policy.
The law’s provisions are sweeping. It affirms Mandarin as the language of basic education throughout China, a move that effectively ends bilingual education in regions where Uyghur, Tibetan, Mongolian, and Korean are spoken. It makes the forging of a unified Chinese ethnonational identity the responsibility of every level of government and every part of the party-state apparatus. It instructs local governments to encourage members of different ethnic groups to live and study together, and to strengthen services in cities where minority migrants move for economic opportunity.
The most striking provision authorizes all citizens to report any behavior that harms “ethnic unity and progress.” The language is vague by design. In a system where the legal category “behavior that harms ethnic unity” can include speaking a minority language in public, wearing traditional clothing, or questioning the party’s ethnic policies, the reporting provision turns every citizen into a monitor. It is a surveillance mechanism disguised as a civic duty.
The law is Xi’s answer to a problem that has dogged the party for decades: local officials have either overclassified ethnic tensions or underreported discrimination to avoid career risk. The new law signals to every level of government that assimilation is not an optional task or a response to crises; it is a core, routine responsibility.
This is a sharp break from China’s previous approach. The 1984 Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law had provided affirmative action, multicultural symbolism, and policy exemptions for minority regions. That era is over. Since 2016, under Xi, the emphasis has shifted steadily toward what the party calls “Sinicization,” the elimination of foreign cultural and religious elements from minority life. In Xinjiang, this has meant mass internment, family separation, and forced labor. In Tibet, it has meant the near-total dismantling of bilingual education. Across the country, mosques have had their domes and minarets removed. Arabic script has been effaced from shopfronts, restaurants, and private homes.
The law is not merely repressive. It also contains provisions aimed at reducing the social, economic, and cultural gaps between regions: constructing interregional networks for transportation, energy, food, and environmental protection; building a unified national market; expanding services for minority migrants in cities. The dual approach, both carrot and stick, suggests that Beijing understands that forced assimilation alone creates more problems than it solves.
Beneath the law’s confidence, however, is a note of anxiety. China’s ethnic problems have not gone away. The violence in Xinjiang, the protests in Tibet, the quiet resistance in Inner Mongolia; none of these have been resolved by repression. The law may make it easier to punish dissent, but it does not address the underlying grievances that produce it. As one analyst put it: “The law is about disciplining the bureaucracy and instilling in every cadre a sense of personal responsibility for implementing ethnic policy.” It is not about listening to what minority communities actually want.
The test of the law will not be in Beijing, where the votes were counted, but in Kashgar and Lhasa and Hohhot, where the new rules will be enforced. A law that demands unity through surveillance and reporting does not build unity. It builds silence.