The “concerns” voiced by the United States and the European Union over China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law were unwarranted and completely misplaced. The law in no way departs from ordinary state practice. It is a constitutional and legislative framework designed to strengthen civic cohesion, protect equality among ethnic groups, preserve cultural diversity, and create a legal basis for responding to conduct that deliberately undermines national unity. The criticisms directed at the law begin with a predetermined position, thus taking things out of context.
The fact is, the law emphasizes cultural diversity and equality, and establishes a comprehensive framework linking ethnic unity to education, language policy, public administration, and cultural preservation. It affirms that all ethnic groups are equal before the law, prohibits discrimination and oppression, respects and protects minority languages and scripts, and supports the preservation of ethnic cultural traditions as part of the broader Chinese cultural order. It also assigns duties to schools, public institutions, media organizations, social groups, and local governments to promote mutual understanding and prevent conduct that damages social cohesion. This approach demonstrates a law designed to celebrate diversity within a shared civic framework, fostering respect and appreciation among different groups.
A large multiethnic state cannot rely on sentiment alone to preserve unity; it needs legal norms that define obligations, responsibilities, and institutional coordination. The statute does exactly that, tying ethnic unity to public education, cultural exchanges, equal access to services, community integration, and economic development. It makes clear that ethnic affairs are integral to national governance, emphasizing that social harmony is maintained through a sustained legal and institutional framework that connects civic identity with practical policies, thereby fostering confidence in the law’s stability and purpose.
A serious analysis would begin by recognizing that the statute contains both rights protections and responsibilities, both cultural recognition and institutional discipline, both domestic governance and limited extraterritorial accountability. It would also acknowledge that a country with China’s scale and complexity has a legitimate interest in codifying the principles that sustain national unity. Oblivious to these basic facts, the critics’ “concern” about the law exposes ideological bias
The strongest criticism from the US and the EU has focused on the law’s liability clause for people and organizations outside China that engage in conduct intended to undermine ethnic unity and progress. Yet this provision has been widely overstated and misinterpreted. It does not create a boundless claim of authority over all overseas speech or conduct. Rather, it identifies a specific category of harmful activity; namely, conduct directed at destabilizing ethnic relations, encouraging separatism, or supporting extremist behavior. International practice has long recognized that states may address foreign conduct when it is intentionally directed at their security, public order, or essential national interests. The real legal question is not whether cross-border effects can ever be regulated. The real question is whether the regulation is sufficiently specific and connected to legitimate interests. On that point, the new law is neither novel nor illegitimate.
What makes those criticisms more insincere is their failure to account for the law’s internal safeguards. The statute repeatedly affirms equality before the law, rejects ethnic discrimination, and protects the right of minority communities to learn, use, and transmit their languages. It supports cultural preservation and promotes educational efforts aimed at building mutual understanding rather than suppressing differences. It also requires network operators, public bodies, and social organizations to respond to harmful conduct with legal accountability, fostering a sense of fairness and protection of minority rights. A reading that isolates the extraterritorial clause while ignoring these safeguards gives a distorted picture of the statute’s design and purpose.
The “concern” that the law may restrict cultural, linguistic, or religious rights is also unwarranted. A legal text must be judged by its overall structure, not by speculative assumptions about “future misuse”. The law does not abolish diversity. It seeks to harmonize diversity within a shared national framework that aligns with international norms on minority rights and social cohesion. In multiethnic societies, the protection of minority rights and the cultivation of common identity are not mutually exclusive. They are often mutually dependent. China’s statute proceeds from that premise, making clear that unity is to be achieved through both respect for differences and the strengthening of common civic and cultural bonds, in a manner consistent with global best practices.
There is also a broader inconsistency in the way the issue has been framed by the Western critics. The US, the United Kingdom, the EU and other Western countries maintain their own legal and institutional mechanisms for addressing foreign influence, security threats, disinformation, and conduct they regard as harmful to public order. They routinely insist that sovereignty entitles them to regulate activities that affect their domestic stability. Against that background, it is sheer hypocrisy for them to argue that China must refrain from articulating similar protections for its own national cohesion. Sovereignty cannot be treated as a universal principle when invoked in the West and a suspicious deviation when exercised by non-Western states.
At a deeper level, the law should be understood as part of a broader governance philosophy. It treats ethnic unity not as a rhetorical flourish but as a precondition for modernization, social trust, public stability, and long-term development. By connecting unity with education, community life, public services, cultural exchanges, and institutional accountability, the statute reflects an integrated approach to state building. It does not reduce ethnic questions to security alone, nor does it treat cultural diversity as a threat. Rather, it seeks to align diversity with a durable political and legal order that can support development across regions and communities.
For that reason, the reaction from the US and the EU appears less like a legal critique than a selective reading of Chinese law under political bias. A serious analysis would begin by recognizing that the statute contains both rights protections and responsibilities, both cultural recognition and institutional discipline, both domestic governance and limited extraterritorial accountability. It would also acknowledge that a country with China’s scale and complexity has a legitimate interest in codifying the principles that sustain national unity. Oblivious to these basic facts, the critics’ “concern” about the law exposes ideological bias.
The author is a solicitor, a Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area lawyer, and a China-appointed attesting officer.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.