Human Rights Offenses in the Name of Ethnic Unity: The Effects of China’s New Ethnic Unity and Progress Law on Tibetan Citizens
Fern Rutlin
On March 12, 2026, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) passed a new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law that will take effect on July 1, 2026. This recent law effectively writes onto paper the PRC’s longstanding intentions of promoting the idea of a united Chinese identity that connects all the citizens of the PRC, often reinforced through legal systems; a united Chinese identity that supports the forced annexation of the Tibetan state and the assimilation of Tibetan and other ethnic minorities, leading to various human rights violations and conflicts with international law. The new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law further assumes the basic human right of sovereignty against the legally legitimate state of Tibet, bypasses China’s human rights commitments in the United Nations, and endangers the cultural diversity among Chinese ethnic groups.
The main goal of the new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law is put plainly in Article 8, which states, “the state is to uphold and improve the system of ethnic autonomous regions, preserving national and ethnic unity.” [1] The system of ethnic autonomous regions effectively allows regional administration of various primarily non-Han Chinese regions by those specific minorities. This allows for the Chinese state to hold national control while adhering to specific regional conditions and allowing for more non-Han Chinese representation in the regional government system. These ethnic autonomous regions are in full adherence to the Constitution of the PRC and represent the territorial integrity of the PRC. [2] In the implementation of the autonomous region system, the region of Tibet in particular has been proven to be greatly underrepresented from what it formerly was as a recognized de facto and de jure state. [3] This further overshadows the actions of the current Tibetan government in exile, or the Central Tibetan Administration as it tries to maintain order over its people while being in exile. [4] The glaring legal contradictions built on of decades of political contestation and military actions in Tibet will only grow with the implementation of this new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law.
Legal contradictions present in Chinese law that illegitimize the sovereignty of Tibet also delegitimize the value of the international declaration of human rights, quote “matters of ethnic unity and progress are not to be interfered with by foreign forces. … ethnicity, religion, or human rights to insult, contain and suppress, or infiltrate and undermine the PRC are to be resolutely opposed.” [5] The written declaration to separate human rights interference and internal affairs in regard to the Chinese ethnic unity and progress laws questions the ideology of China on protecting one’s fundamental rights. International institutions like the United Nations (UN), for example, are built on the foundations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A declaration adopted by the United Nations in 1948 that clearly stands for the freedoms in speech and from fear, promotes last resort “rebellion against tyranny and oppression,” and requires Member States to encourage the “observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” [6]
As the first state to sign the first UN charter, the PRC has a long history of membership and support of the United Nations and human rights internationally. Being a permanent member of the UN Security Council, standing for “the international system built around the UN, the international order underpinned by international law,” and believing the “great importance to human rights,” and “integrat[ing] the universal principle of human rights with its specific conditions.” [7] When countries like China are a part of international organizations like the United Nations that support human rights initiatives, yet write into their domestic law that their stipulations cannot reliably criticize the PRC, then the authority that international human rights institutions claim to have can come into question. [8]
The concept of human rights and highlighting unique cultures and their preservation can also be contradicted within China. The fine line between cultural integration into a single national identity while keeping the identity of the individual groups is a common challenge of all ethnically pluralistic states around the world. China’s goal of having national unity [9] while having many ethnic groups is illustrated all through this new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, but can be generally thought of as the integration (交融) of ethnic groups, to appreciate cultures and learn the other’s languages rooted in Chinese culture. [10] The concept of 交融 can be thought of as integration, or the blending or intermixing of peoples, but it can also correlate to the concept of assimilation by blending together, an act that can lead to the loss of one’s unique cultural traditions with the prioritization of another. [11]
China has a history of cultural assimilation in the name of national unity. For example, the creation of Tibetan boarding schools run by the Chinese government to use “Tibetan children as a means to forcibly assimilate the Tibetan people,” making Tibetan children "vulnerable to negligence and abuse, separating them from their families, and reshaping the children’s identity.” [12] The actions taken in these boarding schools that effectively work to erase the Tibetan identity go against both international laws and the Chinese Constitution. [13] The new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, however, moves to legalize the prioritization of Mandarin in schools while only protecting the use of “old ethnic minority books.” [14] The schools are now going to mandate the use of “unified national teaching materials in accordance with state provisions,” [15] use a Chinese made historical archive in academic research and in the Chinese community, [16] and promote the idea of community and unity of Chinese people in the news media and in family, family education, and family atmospheres. [17] The legal prioritization of traditional Chinese culture versus the claimed respect and protection of Chinese ethnic groups has proved to promote further erasure of crucial aspects of the ethnic minorities’ identities in order for certain Chinese minority groups to be united under the common Chinese characteristics.
As the Chinese government claims to “ensure that people of all ethnic groups have truly obtained equal political rights and become joint masters of the country,” [18] they will also stand for the annexation of Tibet, the subordination of human rights in its own agenda, and the cultural assimilation of the Tibetan people to promote the Chinese identity. Even in the face of international criticism and concern from human rights organizations, from the International Court of Justice’s Report on Tibet and China [19] and following UN Resolutions of the late twentieth century to more recent UN Special Rapporteurs [20] and actions from different grassroots efforts, China’s legal and political agenda aims to devalue the Tibetan identity in favor of the integrity of the Chinese identity. These efforts help analyze the status of China’s perspectives of human rights arguments and compare them to the conditions in Tibet. Though China’s political stature and international affairs and relationships will be ever-changing, how legal and political perspectives change with time remains to be seen.
[1] ChinaLawTranslate. “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law.” China Law Translate, March 13, 2026. https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/ethnic-unity-and-progress-law/.
[2] “Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law of the People’s Republic of China (Chinese and English Text) | CECC,” CECC, July 1, 2024, https://www.cecc.gov/resources/legal-provisions/regional-ethnic-autonomy-law-of-the-peoples-republic-of-china-amended. Created by the Commission on China after "Decision on Revising the People's Republic of China Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law" on Feb.28th, 2001
[3] Argued by Dr. Michael van Walt van Praag and the Tibetan Justice Center in The Case Concerning Tibet, referencing the period of Tibetan history after the Simla Conference of 1913-14 and the continued legal legitimacy through the invalid Seventeen Point Agreement of 1951, the document that would surrender Tibet’s independence to China.Andrew G. Dulaney et al., The Case Concerning Tibet : Tibet’s Sovereignty and the Tibetan People’s Right to Self-determination, 1998. http://www.tibetjustice.org/reports/sovereignty/the_case_concerning_tibet-update_and_exec_summary2013.pdf.
[4] Since Tibet was a recognized de facto and de jure state, then “once a state exists, it is legally presumed to continue as an independent state unless proved otherwise,” 6 Ibid and “There is no principle of International law which says that a government cannot act validly upon foreign territory with the consent of the local sovereign,” Sir A. McNair, Legal Effects of War (1948) at 357-58Reference argument from The Case Concerning Tibet at 46
[5] Article 10 of the new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[6] United Nations, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” n.d., https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.
[7] “China and the United Nations: Position Paper of the People’s Republic of China for the 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly,” n.d., https://www.mfa.gov.cn/eng/zy/gb/202405/t20240531_11367393.html.
[8] Emmanuelle Jouannet, "Universalism and Imperialism: The True-False Paradox of International Law?," European Journal of International Law 18, no. 3 (June 2007): 379–407, https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chm029.
[9] ”国家统 - national unity of a single, unified nation-state instead of ethnic unity or solidarity, of 国家团结” Translation note from the China Law Translate version of the new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law
[10] Article 29 of the new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[11] Translation note from the China Law Translate copy of the new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[12] Tibet Action Institute, "'When They Came to Take Our Children': China's Colonial Boarding Schools and the Future of Tibet," May 2025, 1, accessed May 25, 2026, https://tibetaction.net/when-they-came-to-take-our-children/.
[13] The Tibet Action Institute mentions (pg. 4):The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, Article 4: “All nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their own folkways and customs.”
[14] Article 15 of the new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law,” an update from the 1984 Law on Regional National Autonomy, Article 37 that promotes the use of minority languages being used in schools as the media of instruction
[15] Article 16 of the “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[16] Article 17 of the “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[17] Article 19 and 20 of the new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[18] The Preamble of the new “Ethnic Unity and Progress Law”
[19] ICJ Report on Tibet and China (excerpt)(1960)[p.346] (Accessed May 15, 2026)
[20] Mandates of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues; the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights; the Special Rapporteur on the right to education; and the SpecialRapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, “Communication to the Government of China,” November 11, 2022, available at: https://spcommreports.ohchr.org/TMResultsBase/DownLoadPublicCommunicationFile?gId=27444 (accessed May 25, 2026).
