Turkistan Times, March 13, 2026 – Istanbul: During the National People's Congress held in Beijing in March 2026, the Chinese government officially passed and began implementing the "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress" [1]. Although this law is cosmetically adorned with terms like "unity" and "development," it is in reality a clear manifestation of China completely abandoning the multi-ethnic state model it has maintained for decades and turning forced assimilation into a fundamental legal obligation of the state [2]. As international observers and human rights organizations have warned, this new law is the highest legal embodiment of the plan to eliminate colonized nations such as the Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongols as distinct ethnic entities and swallow them into a single ethnic body [3].
The fundamental ideological basis of this law traces back to the "Second Generation Ethnic Policy" that emerged during the Xi Jinping era. While previous policies recognized the uniqueness of ethnic minorities to some extent and granted autonomy rights—at least on paper—the current goal is to strip all ethnicities of their national distinctions and forcibly accustom them to a single "Chinese Nation" (Zhonghua Minzu) identity [4]. The Chinese government now views ethnic identity not as a cultural asset, but as a factor that threatens national unity, and it has extended these assimilation activities to all fields in ethnic regions[5].
The most dangerous aspect of the new law is that it transforms political slogans into national legal obligations that every citizen must unconditionally obey. Article 6 of the law establishes that the "Consciousness of the Community of the Chinese Nation" is the foundation of ethnic unity and that national identity stands absolutely above any individual ethnic identity [6]. Under this legal framework, any expression by Uyghurs to protect their own culture, history, or national pride falls into the position of being considered and punished as an act of rebellion against national unity and the crime of separatism.
The provisions of this assimilation law regarding education and language deal a fatal blow to the mother tongues of ethnic minorities. According to Article 15, Putonghua (Mandarin Chinese) is established as the sole primary and compulsory language in education and social life, and any organization or individual is prohibited from obstructing the learning and use of the Chinese language [7]. With this, the promises in the previous state constitution that "ethnic groups have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages" have effectively been nullified, and the false mask under the name of bilingual education has been torn away [8].
For the Uyghurs, the practical implementation of this language policy is extremely cruel. Since all lessons are taught entirely in Chinese starting from kindergarten, Uyghur children are being permanently deprived of the opportunity to think, learn, and be cultural heirs in their own mother tongue [9]. The system of teaching only in Chinese schools (the Minkaohan model), which has been ongoing for years, is now being forcibly imposed on the entire new generation, ensuring they grow up as a Sinicized generation alienated from their own culture, separated from their language, and knowing only history centered on China [10].
Altering the social structure of ethnic regions is another important strategy of the new law. Articles 22 and 23 explicitly propose the creation of "mutually embedded" social environments and residential areas [11]. The Chinese government uses this article as a pretext to isolate and break apart regions where ethnic groups live together, attempting to fundamentally destroy the purity of Uyghur society and neighborhood culture by forcibly introducing Chinese cultural symbols into local communities [12].
This type of social and population engineering is actually the core of systemic assimilation. The state's goal is to disperse and settle Uyghurs in inland Chinese provinces under the pretext of "transfer employment," while simultaneously settling a large number of Chinese migrants in the Uyghur region with preferential policies [13]. As a result, Uyghurs will not only lose their status as the majority population in their own ancestral land but will also be gradually dissolved and eliminated in a sea of majority Chinese.
The law also establishes overt state control in the field of religious belief. Article 46 strictly stipulates that all religious organizations, schools, and activity sites must promote the "Consciousness of the Community of the Chinese Nation" and adhere to the direction of "Sinicization" of religions in China to adapt them to a socialist society [14]. Through this article, religion has been transformed into a political tool for declaring loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party, and pure religious belief has been driven outside the law [15].
For Muslim nations like the Uyghurs, it is well known that this policy is seen in heinous suppressions ranging from tearing down the domes and minarets of mosques to change them into Chinese styles, to counting the simplest religious activities such as fasting and praying as crimes [16]. The new law provides legal ground for these destructive actions, aiming to fundamentally sweep away the religious identity of the Uyghurs by fitting Islam into the mold of Chinese national customs [17].
The linking of national security with ethnic identity is another crucial feature of this law. Article 52 of the new law stipulates that the mechanism for identifying, assessing, and handling "risks" in the ethnic field will be strengthened in the name of protecting national security [18]. This actually opens a legal path to consider any plea for preserving ethnic identity directly as "separatism," "radicalism," and a threat to national security, and presents the act of throwing people into camps and prisons to the international community as a "legal national security protection operation" [19].
The law also drives the strengthening of high-tech surveillance systems. Article 31 establishes the obligation for internet operators and technology companies to clean up information that "undermines ethnic unity" [20]. Through this, the system of monitoring every move of Uyghurs using the state's DNA collection, facial recognition cameras, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology will be more strictly implemented [21]. Even information about their own culture written by ordinary netizens on the internet faces the risk of becoming evidence of a political crime.
More alarmingly, the impact of this law is not limited to within China's borders but also brings serious challenges to Uyghur migrants abroad. Article 10 clearly states that so-called "smearing" and "pressuring" actions by overseas forces against China's ethnic, religious, and human rights policies will be opposed, and international intervention in ethnic policies will be rejected [22]. This article will be used to designate the reports and international protests of Uyghur human rights organizations and activists abroad as "threats."
The most direct and open threat to Uyghurs abroad is reflected in Article 63 of the law, which clarifies that "legal responsibility will be pursued for the acts of organizations and individuals outside the borders of the People's Republic of China that undermine the country's ethnic unity and cause ethnic separatism" [23]. Through this article, the Chinese state has completely legalized its "Transnational Repression" policy, granting itself the right to punish Uyghurs who criticize its policies no matter where they are in the world, turning it into a legal weapon [24].
The implementation of this draft law brings heavy psychological and real pressure to the freedom of living and expression of Uyghurs abroad. Based on this law, the Chinese government will further intensify actions such as taking the relatives of Uyghurs in the diaspora as hostages, threatening them into silence through online means like WeChat, and distributing forced video confessions in the international community [25]. This is a systematic malicious intent aimed at suffocating Uyghur voices in the free world on a global scale.
In conclusion, China's 2026 "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress" is by no means a law of peace and equal rights; rather, it is a manual for systematic genocide and forced assimilation designed to eliminate colonized nations like the Uyghurs along with their language, religion, social structure, and national consciousness [26]. This law not only threatens the existence of ethnic groups within China's borders but also poses a serious danger to the physical safety and human rights of Uyghurs worldwide through its transnational repression articles, and it must trigger the urgent attention of the international community.
