China has passed a law on a shared national identity among the country’s 55 ethnic minority groups on Thursday.
Called Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, the ethnic minority law aims to forge national unity and advance the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at its core, a draft copy of the law showed.
The law was passed at the closing session of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, by 2,756 votes, with three opposing votes and three abstentions.
According to reports, the law will come into force on July 1 this year.
Officially, China has 56 recognised ethnic groups, dominated by the Han Chinese, who account for more than 91% of the country’s 1.4 billion people.
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China’s ethnic minority populations – including Tibetans, Mongols, Hui, Manchus, and Uyghurs are concentrated in regions that together cover roughly half of the country’s land area, much of it rich in natural resources.
The law aims to promote integration across ethnic groups through education, housing, migration, community life, culture, tourism, and development policy, the law said.
It mandates that Mandarin is the basic language of instruction in schools, and for government and official business.
In public settings, where Mandarin and minority languages are used together, Mandarin must be given prominence in placement, order, and similar respects,” the draft said.
“The state respects and protects the learning and use of minority languages and scripts,” it added.
Religious groups, religious schools, and religious venues must adhere to the direction of the Sinicization of religion in China,” according to the draft.
The law also seeks to ban any interference with marriage choices based on ethnicity, custom, or religion, to enable more intermarriage between ethnic groups.
Integrate with the Majority
Allen Carlson, an associate professor of government at Cornell University and an expert on Chinese foreign policy, said the law underlined a move towards assimilation.
“The law makes it clearer than ever that in President Xi Jinping’s PRC non-Han people must do more to integrate themselves with the Han majority, and above all else be loyal to Beijing,” he said, referring to China by the initials for its official name.
Reuters