China is claiming the right to punish its critics anywhere on Earth
theconversation.com
China’s new ethnic unity law reaches across borders. The danger is not that it does so. It is what it criminalizes, whom it targets, and how it enforces.

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/56159234

Op-ed by Reza Hasmath, Professor in Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada.

On July 1, China brought into force its Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, converting a decade of Xi Jinping’s doctrine of “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” into binding law.

Most attention has gone to its domestic machinery: entrenching Mandarin over minority languages, unified state textbooks and “inter-embedded” neighbourhoods engineered to dilute concentrations of Uyghurs and Tibetans among the Han majority. In other words, this is an assimilationist project that’s already far advanced.

The provision that matters most to the world outside China is buried near the end. Article 63 declares that organizations and individuals outside Chinese territory who “undermine ethnic unity” or “create ethnic division” shall be pursued for legal liability.

The Chinese government is therefore asserting, in statute, that its authority follows its critics across oceans into other countries, including Canada, home to some of the world’s largest Chinese, Uyghur and Tibetan diaspora communities. The danger is not that the law reaches across borders. It is what it criminalizes, whom it targets and how it’s enforced.

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The intimidation inherent in the new law already violates many domestic harassment and foreign interference laws in jurisdictions around the world. Prosecutors, here, should use them against the agents carrying out the coercion, not the exiles who are its victims.

Governments should shut the unlicensed “police stations,” and press Interpol to reject politically motivated notices aimed at diaspora activists.

Governments can also build dedicated channels for those targeted: a clear law enforcement contact, protective guidance for Chinese and minority diaspora communities and training for officers who could mistake transnational repression for an ordinary domestic dispute.

Finally, asylum systems should treat Article 63 as evidence: a statute in which China announces that diaspora advocacy invites retaliation is close to proof of persecution for those seeking to flee.

China has every right to legislate for its own territory and citizens. What it cannot legitimately do, however warmly it speaks of unity, is disregard borders. The task for all nations, Canada included, is to insist, in law and in practice, that borders still exist.

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  • Sepia@mander.xyzOP
    12·
    12 days ago

    I will point out that nobody has actually printed the text of the law or the internal logic of why they felt that this law is necessary or beneficial.

    Here is an English translation of China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, passed on March 12, 2026.

    Most relevant to the article is Article 63:

    Organizations and individuals outside the [mainland] territory of the P.R.C. that commit acts aimed at the P.R.C. that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division are to be pursued for legal responsibility in accordance with law. [Emphasis mine.]

    So it effectively extends Chinese law to foreign countries.

    You’ll find numerous reports and statements published by non-U.S. media outlets, legal scholars, human rights organizations, and other experts from around the world.

    Edit: Btw, the article is written by a Canadian researcher.

    • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
      2·
      12 days ago

      So I read through about half of it and skimmed the rest. Idk I guess the most problematic thing I found was this.

      Article 15: The state is to fully promote the spread of the nation’s common language and script. Citizens’ learning and use of the nation’s common language and script must not be obstructed by any organization or individual.

      Schools and other educational institutions are to use the nation’s common language and script as the basic language and script for education and teaching. The state is to promote preschool students’ learning of Mandarin, so that youth who have completed compulsory education have a basic understanding of the nation’s common language and script.

      State organs are to use the nation’s common language and script as the official language and script. Where it is necessary to use minority languages and scripts to issue documents in accordance with laws and regulations, a version in the state’s common language and script shall be concurrently provided with the minority language version.

      Where state organs, social groups, enterprises, public institutions, and other social organizations need to concurrently use the national common language and minority languages, they shall highlight the national common language in terms of position, order, and so forth.****

      The state respects and protects the learning and use of minority languages and scripts, promotes the regulation, standardization, and digitalization of minority languages, and supports the protection, organization, research, and use of old ethnic minority books.

      The rest of it reads like this

      Article 5: All citizens of the People’s Republic of China are equal before the law.

      All ethnicities in the People’s Republic of China are equal. Discrimination against or oppression of any ethnicity is prohibited.

      Article 29: The state is to promote mutual learning and integration between ethnic cultures, encouraging all ethnic groups to appreciate each others’ exeptional traditional cultures, and learn each other’s languages and scripts. All levels of people’s government shall support cultural workers and related units to create and display literary and artistic works that are rooted in Chinese culture and embody the interaction, exchange, and integration of all ethnic groups.

      All levels of people’s government shall support public cultural service units, such as libraries, museums, cultural relics depositories, memorials, art museums, science museums, workers’ cultural centers, and youth cultural centers.

      So as far as I can gather the only thing is they’re making the official state language Mandarin and expecting minorities to be functional in Mandarin in order to deal with the state. And yeah that’s certainly not a great position for a government to take. The rest of it reads like “we want all ethnicities to get along and be respected within the family of China”