>Next week, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) is expected to adopt a Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Law) [民族团结进步促进法]—designed to codify General Secretary Xi Jinping’s new orthodoxy for governing China’s ethnic minorities. That doctrine, known as the “Important Thinking on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work,” reflects the “Second-Generation Ethnic Policies” promoted by several prominent scholars. In a nutshell, this new “assimilationist” approach aims “not just to strengthen citizens’ sense of belonging to a larger, unified Chinese nation under the Party but also to mute expression of other—in the Party’s view, competing—identities.”
>Xi’s “Important Thinking” canonically consists of a dozen requirements, or “Twelve Musts” [十二个必须]. Echoing the scholarly proposals, these include prioritizing “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation [or Zhonghua minzu]” [铸牢中华民族共同体意识], “building a shared spiritual home,” and “promoting extensive interactions, interchanges, and intermingling [交往交流交融] among different ethnic groups.” The doctrine also views ethnic issues through a securitized lens, emphasizing the duty of all ethnic groups to “consciously safeguard national unity, national security, and social stability.”
>Xi’s ethnic policy, moreover, calls for “correctly grasping” “Four Pairs of Relationships” [四对关系]—a concept that the Law’s drafters expressly invoke. One relationship concerns the hierarchy between the Han-centric Zhonghua culture and various ethnic cultures: the former is the “trunk [or backbone],” while the latter are subordinate to it, likened to “branches and leaves.” “Only when the roots are deep and the trunk is strong can the branches and leaves flourish,” Xi said in a seminal 2021 speech on ethnic governance.
>The Law is envisioned as “a comprehensive and fundamental law in the field of ethnic work.” Like statutes of this nature, it primarily contains general policy statements and imposes broad obligations on a wide array of state and private actors, with few enforceable rules. But it should not be dismissed as merely symbolic. The Law would legitimize and entrench Xi’s new doctrine by placing it on a firm legal footing. And, precisely because of its open-textured policy goals, it would supply a capacious statutory basis—à la the 2015 National Security Law [国家安全法]—for all official actions that broadly align with those goals.
>The Law’s high-profile legislative journey demonstrates its importance. The Communist Party expressly called for its enactment in the 2024 Third Plenum Decision. Last August, the Party revealed that the full Politburo had discussed a draft of the Law—the first such disclosure in almost four decades. In December, the NPC Standing Committee decided to refer the bill to the NPC on the ground that it qualifies as a “basic statute” [基本法律] on ethnic affairs that constitutionally must be approved by the full legislature.
>The Law’s political salience is also evident in two atypical features. First, it begins with a rare narrative preamble of over 800 characters. Only three statutes now include a preamble: the closely related Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law [民族区域自治法] and the Basic Laws of Hong Kong and Macao. Second, the Law uses Party-speak drawn from the “Twelve Musts” as the headings of three core chapters (II–IV): “Building a Shared Spiritual Home,” “Facilitating Interactions, Interchanges, and Intermingling,” and “Promoting Common Prosperity and Development.” Far from being descriptive and dry, as headings typically are, they incorporate key prongs of Xi’s doctrine and organize the Law around them.
>Finally, we briefly summarize the latest draft that NPC delegates received on March 5. This post will be updated after the Law’s final text is released.The preamble presents the orthodox narrative that China’s various ethnic groups, through five millennia of shared history, have created a “unified multiethnic state”—“a community of common destiny bound by intertwined bloodlines, common beliefs, cultural similarities, economic interdependence, and close emotional ties”; and that, despite periods of foreign aggression after 1840, they have successfully preserved their civilization (para. 1).
>Later, the Communist Party, as the “vanguard of the Chinese people and the Zhonghua minzu,” led all ethnic groups in achieving independence and equality, charting “a correct path with Chinese characteristics for addressing ethnic issues” (para. 2). That approach has evolved into the Party’s “Important Thinking on Improving and Strengthening Ethnic Work,” under which its “main task” is to forge “a sense of community for the Chinese nation” [中华民族共同体意识]—a term that subsequently appears no fewer than 30 times in the Law (id.).
>The preamble concludes by calling on all citizens and institutions, state and private, to fulfill their shared obligations to “forge a sense of community for the Chinese nation” and to develop that community (para. 3).
>Chapters I and V set forth the organizational structure and overarching principles of ethnic governance. The Law affirms the Party’s “comprehensive leadership” over efforts to advance ethnic unity and progress (art. 2). Underneath it, the Party’s United Front Work Department and the National Ethnic Affairs Commission—the latter has been reporting to the former since 2018—are responsible for coordinating and supervising the implementation of the Party’s new ethnic policy (art. 41, para. 2).
>The Law declares “a sense of community for the Chinese nation” to be “the foundation of ethnic unity” (art. 6). It mobilizes the whole of government and society to achieve assimilationist goals, imposing general obligations on a wide range of public and private actors, including public employees, mass organizations, enterprises, public-service institutions, industry groups, religious institutions, neighborhood committees, and the military (arts. 42–48).
>Chapter II (Building a Shared Spiritual Home)lays the ideological foundation for the assimilation project. It affirms the policy of fostering identification with “the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics” through patriotic education, education in official historical narratives, publicity of “the fine Zhonghua traditional culture,” and promotion of “Chinese cultural symbols and image of the Chinese nation” (arts. 11–14).
>This Chapter then affords language and education particular attention. It incorporates the relevant rules of the newly revised Law on the Standard Spoken and Written Chinese Language [国家通用语言文字法], but often goes beyond them. For instance, it codifies the goal of having preschoolers become proficient in Putonghua and requires that Chinese characters be displayed more prominently than minority scripts if both must be used in public (art. 15, paras. 2, 4). It also tasks the education and ethnic affairs ministries with developing textbooks on “the community of the Chinese nation,” while requiring all schools to integrate that concept into their curricula (art. 16, paras. 1–2; art. 18, para. 1). This Chapter does vow to support the standardization, digitization, and preservation of minority texts (art. 15, para. 5), but the goal of such investment is to “protect languages from being completely forgotten rather than protecting their ongoing, everyday use by living people.”
>Finally, this Chapter broadly requires media, internet service providers, families, among others, to promote the Party’s ethnic policy (arts. 19–21). Parents are reminded of their duty to provide lawful family education and are prohibited from “instilling in minors ideas detrimental to ethnic unity and progress” (art. 20, para. 2).
>Chapter III (Facilitating Interactions, Interchanges, and Intermingling) aims to further social and spatial integration. It sets forth the overall governmental obligation to develop “inter-embedded community environments” [互嵌式社区环境] so that different ethnic groups can “live, study, build, share, work, and enjoy together” (art. 22). Toward that goal, local governments must strive to “forge a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” and promote integration in all aspects of urban planning and governance (art. 23). Specifically, they are directed to implement policies to facilitate cross-regional population movement, employment, student enrollment, and teacher and youth exchanges (arts. 24–27).
>In addition, this Chapter instructs state authorities to promote integration by supporting—and shaping—volunteer services, cultural institutions (libraries, museums, etc.), the tourism industry, and modern technologies and online media (arts. 28–31). It reiterates internet service providers’ legal obligations to promptly stop the transmission of “information containing ethnic hatred, ethnic discrimination, or other content that undermines ethnic unity and progress.” (art. 31).
>Chapter IV (Promoting Common Prosperity and Development) focuses on integrating ethnic and border areas into national economic and security priorities. It requires all economic and social policies to further assimilationist objectives, to improve people’s lives and build popular support—and to help safeguard national unity and fight against separatism (art. 33). It emphasizes the “mission and responsibility” of ethnic areas to safeguard the nation’s “border security, resource and energy security, food security, and ecological security” (art. 34, para. 2). It also lays out general mandates for the relevant central and local authorities to improve infrastructure connectivity, develop appropriate local industries and agriculture, equalize public services, and strengthen environmental protection (arts. 35–38).
>This Chapter ends by pivoting to “civic and moral development” (art. 40). In the name of development, it announces the policy of “transforming outdated customs and traditions” [移风易俗] and “promoting a new culture of civility and progress” (id.). This provision appears to reflect the common stereotype that all ethnic minorities are “backward” and to curtail their distinctive cultural and religious practices.
>Chapters V and VI both touch on the Law’s enforcement mechanisms. It permits citizens to report conduct that “undermines ethnic unity and progress” and to lodge complaints against government agencies and employees who fail to discharge their obligations under the Law (art. 54, para. 1). When any such conduct also “undermines national interests or the public interest,” procuratorates may initiate public interest litigation (id. para. 2).
>Beyond generic provisions directing the competent authorities to stop violations and order corrections, and in some cases to issue warnings or notices of criticism, the Law by itself does not prescribe any meaningful punishments. Rather, it leaves penalties to be imposed under other applicable laws (arts. 57–62). For instance, inciting ethnic hatred or discrimination is punishable, depending on the severity, by up to 15 days of detention under the public-order offenses law, or up to 10 years in prison under the criminal code.
>Finally, the Law asserts jurisdiction over foreign organizations or individuals who “commit acts targeting the PRC that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division” (art. 63).https://npcobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/2025-09-12-Public-Consultation-Explanations.pdf#page=19https://npcobserver.com/2026/03/05/china-npc-2026-ethnic-assimilation-unity-law/ What are your thoughts?
The people's ethnic chauvinism
Here's the version from China's government website too. Translate it to English
http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c2/kgfb/202603/t20260306_452203.htmlExplanation of the Draft Law of the People's Republic of China on Promoting National Unity and Progress (Summary)
General Secretary Xi Jinping leads the advancement of the building of a community with a shared future for the Chinese nation.
https://www.spp.gov.cn/tt/202603/t20260308_722464.shtmlThe Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress held a plenary meeting to discuss ecological and environmental issues.
Draft Code, Draft Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress
The draft law on national development planning will be reviewed in a unified manner.
http://www.npc.gov.cn/c2/c30834/202603/t20260310_452746.htmlLi Hongzhong's explanation of the draft law on promoting national unity and progress
http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/c2/kgfb/202603/t20260305_452073.htmlBased. Fuck idpol.
>>2730354There is a lot of idpol though in the writing
The article is supposted to be about the new policy, but less than a third the article if wuote from the policy
What gives?
>>2730356You have to indulge in some idpol to defeat idpol. Iron cuts iron or something like that
Bump
>>2730332America should have something like this.
>>2730416He used the phrase "authoritarian socialism", dismissed
This entire policy is by definition nationalist ethnic idpol. Being or not being Han has nothing to do with being socialist and all citizens of China and any socialist country should have the same rights. Creating an ethnic hierarchy is by definition nationalistic, and forced assimilation is fascistic.
>>2730426It’s not about ethnic hierarchy, it’s about building one nation and one people. Honestly it makes sense, forced assimilation i the most humane option to end ethnic conflict.
>>2730427what are the ethnic conflicts in China?
>>2730495Maybe the liberals have a point, most of you will support even the most obvious forms of imperialism if a Russian, Chinese or Iranian official is the one doing it.
As a third worlder I have a hard time seeing this as anything but a good thing.
Can some first world white boy enlighten me on how is this a bad thing? Preferably longer than one paragraph and with no namecalling.
>>2730426>>2730356>>2730342Who give a shit? A bunch of pissant tribes, with names that should be forgotten, just like the Kurds and other unimportant people in the world. Any serious government pursues ethnic assimilation, as it is preferable to the alternatives of separatism or genocide
>>2730552>Imperialismlmfao just throwing words around at this point. How you gonna do imperialism in your own country retard?
>nooo i dont want to learn mandarin i wanna live in my peasant village and wallow in shit
>>2730552Also
>Russian, Chinese or Iranian imperialismNo such thing
>>2730562uh what's the criteria for being important peoples?
Waaahh how dare the Party teach me Mandarin I should just be stuck with my language without any literary or academic history, how dare the Party encourage evil Hans to develop their own country, I should get an ethnostate where I can herd goats the same exact way my ancestors did in 1000bc and never accept the modern world.
seems like a sensible policy. Promoting a common language and culture without repressing local culture but avoiding encouraging it too much either is clearly the best long term path forward
>>2730574I guarantee you complained about countries like Latvia and estonia pushing Russian minorities to learn the languages there instead of stay in their Russian only communities
>>2730579pushing learning a language != repressing minority language
retard
>>2730579no see Russians are great peoples and Latvians and Estonians are lesser peoples. I'm learning today that this is leftism
>>2730332unrelentingly common China W
>>2730579Baltoids are actually racist as fuck towards ruskis tho
>>2730572You already know, the Chinese, Arabs, and Whites are the main people that matter, the ones who earned the right to write history, Everyone else is there to bear witness and be assimilated.
>>2730598Ironically, the right-wing Baltic parties are all pretty chummy with Russia and want to align with them. When Russian ever does invade the Baltics, they'll be the ones put in charge.
>>2730603>ArabsLol. Anyways, fuck off idealist.
So the actual policy is what? Everyone learns mandarin in addition to whatever language their ethnic minority speaks? I didn’t see anything about clothes or cultural rituals, or those that hunt with flintlocks
>>2730607Who fucking cares? Right-wing parties are just shitting around, pro-Russian or not. I'm from Riga (I don't get why I'm mentioning this but y'all just summoned me when you mentioned the Baltics) and I just want Laima to return and prove that only the trve latvian gods Dievs, Mara, Laima etc. actually exist.
So yeah, WORDSWORDSWORDS
If the Soviet Union had the same kinds of laws but for Russian culture it would have won the Cold War handily, no Gorbachev or Yeltsin
>OH NO PEOPLE HAVE TO LEARN A COMMON LANGUAGE HOW HORRIBLE
This is 1 to 1 the same discourse Gusanos engage in when they shit on literacy campaigns enacted by socialist states because being able to read makes it easier to make you a communist or something, wtf.
>>2730579It’s almost like there’s a difference between good and bad things
Ukraine literally did this under Poroshenko and you all insisted this was naziism and russophobia
This is going turn China into Myanmar
>>2730648See
>>2730646Reactionary bootleg “nations” invented by the Nazis using Nazi tactics is not equivalent to a legitimate civilization state keeping a lid on reactionary peoples and cultures
>>2730648No he fucking didn't.
>>2730656So all non Han in China are inherently reactionary, good to know
>China repeats its self-definitinon as a multi-ethnic society with strong minority rights and minority language rights with the goal to achieve universal literacy in a common language.
>This is apparently the same as the Neo-Fascist governments in the Ukraine and Latvia declaring their minority citizens enemy agents, suspending their civil rights in many regards and banning their language from all social spaces, including politics, education and media.
This is a literal CIA thread.
>>2730662The ones being funded by the CIA to violently balkanize China are yes
>>2730663Obviously they aren’t stupid enough to do what Ukranians, Francophone Cameroonians, or the Tatmadaw have done but defining Han culture as the backbone with all the rest of the ethnic cultures as branches off the Han tree is chauvanist, even if banal. You don’t need to frame it like that for teaching everyone mandarin
Are you people even aware that several aspects of minority cultures are actually better preserved within China than in their respective borders states like the use of Mongolian scripture in Inner Mongolia or some aspects of Tajik culture?
>>2730667Minorities of minorities in a country that’s 90% one ethnic group already, you’re chasing fleas outside
>>2730669And why exactly is Han “chauvinism” so bad? What is so horrible about the people who built one of the greatest civilizations in the world and maintained it for thousands of years being allowed to determine their own destiny? You liberal cosmopolitan freaks don’t make any sense
>>2730669I don't see any reference to Han in the OP post. I think that there is a huge misunderstanding here. The usage of 'Chinese' in the above post doesn't mean Han, it means Chinese in the general sense that it is inclusive of Chinese minorities. I am sure this distinction is being made in the original Chinese text. Kind of like in Russian you distinguish between being Russian and a so-called 'Russlander'. Westerners often are troubled by distinction because they hail from proper ethno or nation-state projects.
>>2730673> In some places the relations between nationalities are far from normal. For Communists this is an intolerable situation. We must go to the root and criticize the Han chauvinist ideas which exist to a serious degree among many Party members and cadres, namely, the reactionary ideas of the landlord class and the bourgeoisie, or the ideas characteristic of the Kuomintang, which are manifested in the relations between nationalities. Mistakes in this respect must be corrected at once. Delegations led by comrades who are familiar with our nationality policy and full of sympathy for our minority nationality compatriots still suffering from discrimination should be sent to visit the areas where there are minority nationalities, make a serious effort at investigation and study and help Party and government organizations in the localities discover and solve problems. The visits should not be those of "looking at flowers on horseback".< Judging from the mass of information on hand, the Central Committee holds that wherever there are minority nationalities the general rule is that there are problems calling for solution, and in some cases very serious ones. On the surface all is quiet, but actually there are some very serious problems. What has come to light in various places in the last two or three years shows that Han chauvinism exists almost everywhere. It will be very dangerous if we fail now to give timely education and resolutely overcome Han chauvinism in the Party and among the people. The problem in the relations between nationalities which reveals itself in the Party and among the people in many places is the existence of Han chauvinism to a serious degree and not just a matter of its vestiges. In other words, bourgeois ideas dominate the minds of those comrades and people who have had no Marxist education and have not grasped the nationality policy of the Central Committee. Therefore, education must be assiduously carried out so that this problem can be solved step by step. Moreover, the newspapers should publish more articles based on specific facts to criticize Han chauvinism openly and educate the Party members and the people. >>2730680Fair criticism tbqh
>>2730416>Stalin goonersStalin was right, cope
The policy is whatever (not my business) but holy fuck is it /pol/ in here
>>2730693That’s how you get (you)s and (you)s are a dopamine hit
>>2730494You just know them irish uyghas was asking for it.
>>2730494This is reversing thanks to Kneecap
>>2730453Some people here are so /pol/ brained they think the existance of ethnic/religious minorities = balkanization (
only for Good Countries though, as soon as Assad fled to Moscow they suddenly became very concerned about ethnic minority rights in Syria).
>>2730671>Are people even aware [of the nuances of chinese society]no
>China: Mandarin is now mandatory for official communications and education, applying to all minority groups in china.
<""lefty"" /pol/: OMG THEY'RE GONNA KILL THE NON-WORLDFILTERED UYGHURS
>>2730715True, but the other half of posters also believe that except they think it's good
>>2730648how many times did china drop mortar shells on people over language?
>>2730708I wonder if some of them are spies for /pol/
>>2730552Liberals have a point and they love using it to their advantage: Americans subjected the natives of the land they inhabit to genocide, so they are free to use minorities as pretext for divide and conquer strategies as they have done in every single country on earth except anglo settler colonies and Israel. The rest of the world will just have to be balkanized into ten thousand tiny ethnonationalist statelets that bow to America and liberalism. They encourage nationalism and genocide on ethnic grounds in all Soviet republics and they're doing it everywhere else.
Marxists fundamentally don't believe in the idea that the continued existence of ethnic enclaves is valuable or even possible. I know radlibs love using Marx to bash Lenin and Stalin but that much is clear at every point in the development of Marxist ideas. If you approach the subject with good faith, in no way can it be construed as imperialism.
>>2730760You have the exact politics as the Tatmadaw
You know, what really grinds my gears is not that leftist hypocritically defend ethnonationalism or right wing policies when it comes to the countries that THEY like.
No, what really makes me mad is how retarded liberals and right wingers are at not being able to see through this obvious deception. They still think that leftists are dumb or misguided.
it's right wing (very useful term btw) because I say it is
>>2730332Based. Multiethnic societies are inherently counterrevolutionary.
>>2730579Russian is a language of world-historic culture, its the analogue to Mandarin in this case. Latvian is the equivalent of all of these petty languages without a single worthwhile piece of writing like Uyghur.
>>2731068>acknowledging facts is "imperialism"Imperialism isn't "having vibes I don't like"
>cultural chauvinismChauvinism actually means something materially so of course you have to add in mystic nonsense before. Every Marxist prior acknowledged superior national cultures existing.
>>2730842>He was known as a staunch Russian chauvinistFunny enough that was actually Gorbachevs faction trying to depict him like that despite Romanov condemning Great Russia Chauvinism. They only said that because he would have done something like Andropov's plan to get rid of the 15 Soviet Republics and replace them with 41 different Republics based off of population and geography instead.
>>2731066Ukraine,Baltics,Caucasus and Central Asia are all speaking more English than Russian. English is now the world language and Russian is pretty much going to get subdued by English and its influence
>>2730936>Based. Multiethnic societies are inherently counterrevolutionary.leftypol.org
TIL from the comments that bigotry and ethnic chauvinism are okay as long as you give it a red coat of paint
what are some proletarian languages and bourgeois ones?
>>2731190only made up languages are of proletarian
lmao the eglin bots are talking to each other trying to build a fake consensus on some garbage ass forgotten discord occupied imageboard with a population of 5 people
>>2731190Modern hebrew is a fake and bourgeois language
>>2731190Languages that will be spoken in a Communist society when unification rids the world of useless petty languages are, at most: English, Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese. These thus are proletarian languages. Any language not listed above, meaning that it will die off under Communism and only survives today because of the fragmented bourgeois society, is a bourgeois language.
>>2731371You are missing Arabic. In short, the proletariat languages are the languages that are official in the United Nations.
>English>Spanish>French>Russian>Chinese>Arabic Xinjiang would be an Afghanistan-tier shithole of warlord cocaine growers raping boys for fun if not for China taking it upon itself to develop the land. If Mandarin is what it takes to make them connected to culture then so be it, maybe eventually they won't need to have their Gaokao scores artificially inflated in order to make up for their abysmal academic performance.
>>2731389What about Hindustani and French? Shouldn't we just go by what languages have the most speakers?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers >>2731579>HindustaniEnglish is pretty much the unifying language in South Asia so no need for that and French is an official language in the UN so it would be used. Basically the six languages listed
>>2731582Bleh, I can't read today. I still think that it's possible to do better. I suppose you'd say that Arabic, English or French should be the unifying language for sub-Saharan Africa. I think it might be possible to do better for Africa which is less economically and linguistically unified.
>>2730781We're back into 2nd International levels of bankruptcy
>>2731584Languages are tools of communication, thinking of it as an expression of your ethnicity is bourgeois nationalism. There will be no loss if the African languages loss all native speakers, just as languages of New Guinea are dropping like flies without anything of value being lost.
"leftists" on "lefty"/pol/ be like fucking pinkos want to destroy muh trad cvltures remember the black book stalin genocided millions AIIIEEEEEEE
>>2731608That is why Esperanto will be mandatory and the destruction of all bourgeois languages
>>2730562correct but i'd just like to point point out that all kkkrakkkerz are pissant tribes compared to zhongguo and should be likewise absorbed and forgotten
>>2730842>Proud anti intellectual No, he was just hated by the intelligentsia, particularly in the performing arts. Romanov was a smart guy, and a technocrat.
>>2731735I'm from India btw
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