Overview
- The National People’s Congress approved the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress on March 12 by 2,756 to three with three abstentions, with the law set to take effect on July 1, 2026.
- Mandarin is mandated as the basic language of instruction from kindergarten through high school and for all official business, with priority over minority languages in mixed-language public settings.
- Article 62 criminalizes activities deemed to create “ethnic division,” and the law orders religious bodies and schools to follow the Sinicization of religion.
- Measures promote interethnic integration through mixed housing and population mobility, and forbid interference in marriage choices based on ethnicity or religion, which critics say could dilute minority identities.
- Human rights groups, the UN’s Volker Türk, Tibetan and Uyghur advocates, and the East Turkistan Government in Exile warn the law entrenches assimilation and may carry extraterritorial reach by pursuing legal liability for those accused of undermining ethnic unity.