For years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pushed ethnic minority groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs to adopt an identity rooted in Chinese nationality and allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.

Now, that push has been codified into a sweeping new law that reaches into classrooms, neighborhoods and homes – and gives Beijing the right to target people outside of its borders that it believes violate its rules.

The statute, officially known as the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, came into effect on July 1. It bans acts that “undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic division” among China’s 56 officially recognized ethnicities, which include a Han Chinese majority that makes up over 90% of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

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[+] 46 points 4 months ago* (12 children)
  • [–] 37 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (6 children)

    Here's the wiki article on the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_on_Promoting_Ethnic_Unity_and_Progress.

    Some stuff makes sense - like economic modernization of regions with many minorities (especially poor regions), teaching Mandarin in schools so that everyone can speak the majority language, and preserving cultural works and texts of minority groups.

    Other stuff seems repressive, like the broad enforcement section, the extremely broad reach of the law into all public and private institutions, legislating what various actors can/can't teach the youth if it might "harm Chinese ethnic unity" which is left pretty vague. Very ethnostate-coded stuff on the whole, not great.

    Some sections I thought were noteworthy, taken from wikipedia, shortened with DeepSeek. There is lots more stuff in there.

    "Chapter I.... tasks the whole of government and society to achieve these goals, mandating general obligations on a wide range of public and private actors such as ... " [basically all imaginable institutions]

    "Chapter II, titled Building a Shared Spiritual Home, lays out the ideological characteristics ... requiring fostering identification with 'the great motherland, the Chinese nation, Chinese culture, the Communist Party of China, and socialism with Chinese characteristics' through patriotic education ... and promotion of 'Chinese cultural symbols and image of the Chinese nation'. It also codifies the predominance of Standard Chinese (Putonghua) in public life ... and requires that Chinese characters be displayed more prominently than minority scripts if both must be used in public."

    "It tasks the Ministry of Education and the National Ethnic Affairs Commission in developing textbooks regarding 'the community of the Chinese nation' ... It vows to support the standardization, digitization, and preservation of minority texts. It broadly requires media, internet service providers, families, among others, to promote the CCP's ethnic policy ... while prohibiting them from 'instilling in minors ideas detrimental to ethnic unity and progress'."

    "Chapter V and VI concern the enforcement mechanisms ... permits citizens to report conduct that 'undermines ethnic unity and progress' ... Procuratorates may initiate public interest litigation when any such conduct also 'undermines national interests or the public interest'. It generally leaves penalties to be imposed under other applicable laws. It also asserts jurisdiction over foreign organizations and individuals that 'commit acts targeting the PRC that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division'.[7] The law empowers the state to pursue those outside of China perceived as undermining notions of ethnic unity."

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  • [–] 36 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    It's quite standard fascist discourse:

    Point to real problem that everybody wants to solve; declare that some policy they want (almost always some kind of racism) is the only solution; do some genocide as the means of implementing the policy.

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  • [+] -11 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • [+] 9 points 4 months ago (1 child)
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  • [+] -18 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    The reason this law is written this way is because of the US funded and armed East Turkestan movement that has killed hundreds of men women and children and dozens of police over the last 30 years.

    That is the 'ethnic policy' that no, East Turkestan, a "country" invented in the 1990s by white people that were upset their spy networks in China kept getting executed, is not real and is not a part of Chinese history or culture. Because the East Turkestan movement used propaganda that said the evil Chinese Communists invaded East Turkestan (literally several millennia before communism came to China) randomly and out of the blue and stole away the people of turkey and their land (that just has happened to have been on every single western map of China ever made).

    The "ethnicity" is Chinese. All people in China, Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Yue, etc are Chinese. There are sub ethnicities like Uyghur, but they are Chinese.

    This law is to reduce racism and radicalism.

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  • [–] 20 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 child)

    I am definitely sympathetic to the defense against foreign dissent-manufacturing. I don't doubt that is a serious issue.

    But, ethnicity and nationality are separate things. Being a Chinese citizen does not make one ethnically Chinese - or in this case Han Chinese. I think what you are calling "sub-ethnicity" here is just what people mean by "ethnicity". And what you're implying is "ethnicity" is just "nationality".

    Though I think the CCP is trying to establish the concept of a Zhonghua Minzu (中华民族) or "Chinese Nation/Ethnic Group" - which is an artificial category intended to create a unified Chinese national identity out of the 56 ethnic groups recognized in China - maybe that's what you mean? Either way, that doesn't fit the typical anthropological definition, in my opinion.

    I think they walk a fine line with that concept - it'd be very easy for that national identity to represent the Han majority more than the small minorities. As evidenced by the language restrictions posed by the law. Given the Han majority is 90% of the country, I don't see how it could be otherwise.

    To the extent that it reduces racism and foreign-sponsored dissent groups, that is good. To the extent that it limits free practice of culture and true, non-US-State-Dept sponsored, free speech, I'd say it's overly draconian. But, I can also appreciate the need for more "authoritarian" laws in a country that has been under attack by foreign powers for as long as China has.

    I am not a Chinese legal expert and have not read the full law, nor do I fully understand the context. So I withhold full judgment and don't value my opinion too highly.

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  • Ethnicity is a crap word created by the western political discourse to undermine the developing countries.

    In many regions of the world, people don't identify via their ethnicity l, but their tribes or their religion (e.g. middle east before 1930ish). You don't see the average westoid liberal defend those rights tho.

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  • [+] -6 points 4 months ago (3 children)
  • [–] 56 points 4 months ago (21 children)

    As someone who lived in China for about 5 years, it's amazing reading people's comments on China that have never been there, but they watch bullshit propaganda tictoks, and think they know what they're talking about.

    I'm 43 from the US. For how ridiculously racist the world thinks the US is because they have the most whiney people with victim syndrome (because you know we have free speech and China doesn't), I have heard/seen legitimately 10x more racist shit living in China in 5 years than I've heard over the last 38 years of my life.

    There's government messages all over to hate/kill Japanese. They have an amusement park in the south (I forget where) where it's a replica US aircraft carrier you can visit and outside there's an activity where you can stop US tressed dummies with a bayonet.

    China thrives on the imbalance of information between itself and the US. They abuse freedom of speech in the US while controlling all media outlets, social sites, and WeChat in their own country.

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  • [–] 10 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Han Chinese are even racist towards other Han Chinese due to insane obsession with skin whiteness and China not having free movement like other countries (regional identity then becomes superiority status). This is kinda everywhere in Asia but China is especially bad.

    The problem with western freedom is that it allows for lazy conclusions like "my government is restricting my freedoms and is unjust which means the opposition is free and just, through sheer virtue of being opposition".

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    Han Chinese are even racist towards other Han Chinese due to insane obsession with skin whiteness and China not having free movement like other countries (regional identity then becomes superiority status)

    My dude...... That's not racism. They are literally the same ethnicity, let alone race. Both of the things you are talking about are based on social economics. Historically in East Asia pale skin meant that you did not have to do manual labor, meaning you were from one of the higher classes.

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  • [–] 14 points 4 months ago (10 children)

    hate/kill Japanese

    Tbf..... That's pretty much all of Asia. That's what happens when you try your best to murder all your neighbors except for the ones you enslave to do either manual labour or be raped for years on end.

    The hate for Japan would be like if the Nazi party still existed to a lesser extent and were unapologetic or in denial about their war crimes. The vast majority of their leaders since ww2 have either been war criminals, the children or war criminals, or grandchildren of war criminals.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (7 children)

    What you state is pretty much limited to Korea and China. I have been living in East Asia and SE Asia for the last 22 years and most folks outside of those two countries are fine with Japan and don't stoke hatred and hard feelings about the past. Yes the Japanese did horrible things in the Philippines but so did the Spanish before the Americans and then the Americans again after world war II. Similar situation in Vietnam, where China invaded and/or occupied Vietnam many times over a 1000 year period, them came the French, then the Japanese during WWI, then the French returned, then the Americans, and then in 1979 the Chinese attacked again.

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  • [–] 6 points 4 months ago (6 children)

    I mean Korea and China were definitely where they did the worst war crimes, but I have met plenty of Filipino, Malaysian, Singaporean, Vietnamese, and Indonesian who hold a lot of prejudice against the Japanese. For the most part it's mainly aimed at the Japanese government, and not as directed towards individuals.

    I am Korean, and Korean and Chinese people are definitely more vocal about it. But it's not something a lot of Asians would really speak openly about to white people, even if you've been there a while. And just because a country has been occupied by different countries in their past it does not mean make any other instance feel any better, there are just more people to dislike.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    I've heard my Vietnamese family and friends speak far more negatively about Koreans and Chinese than Japanese. Koreans committed some war crimes against Vietnamese during the American war and are considered some of the most rude tourists. The Chinese govt's continued aggression against Vietnam keeps them at the top of the unpopular list though.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    Korean tourists are infamous in Vietnam and I don't think it's because of history but because they are just rude. I lived in Da Nang for a while and everything is double priced there for Koreans just because of "rude tax" lol

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago

    Yeah, Korea did a lot of fucked up shit in Vietnam. That doesn't make the fucked up shit Japan did any better. Have you talked to your grandparents about their views about the Japanese government? I mean they did cause a famine that killed a couple million people in Vietnam.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (1 child)

    Nah that's not true - I live in Asia. Generally people in Asia have very little care for ww2 history outside of China and Korea because they're too pragmatic and busy developing themselves to focus on what happened almost 100 years ago.

    For example got to Vietnam as an American and you'll be more popular and liked than you ever were America. Go to the Philippines as a Japanese, and you'll make more friends than you ever had in Japan.

    It's mostly propaganda that still keeps this history alive though in all fairness Japan not accepting responsibility officially is exactly what allows this propaganda to exist.

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

    Again.... Not saying all people are holding it against individuals. However there is still plenty of animosity against the Japanese government, which is still denying war crimes.

    There are plenty of Koreans that are completely fine with Japanese tourists, have Japanese friends, or have gone to school in Japan. That doesn't mean there isn't animosity concerning the Japanese state.

    You can hate Nazis without hating the German people. The only difference is that Japan essentially still has the same ruling class with the same beliefs in their government.

    It's mostly propaganda that still keeps this history alive

    What propaganda? People are allowed to be upset at a government that still denies the war crimes their parents/grandparents committed. It doesn't require propaganda to dislike the fact that a national unapologetically enslaved, killed, tortured, or raped your family members and tried to rewrite your cultural history.

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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    This is not true, most countries in Asia and the greater specific view Japan very favorably except for Korea.

    https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/11/12/countries-views-of-japan-abe-japanese-views-of-china/

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  • Yeah ...... Sorry if I don't think that's a very well put together article, considering that they claim South Korea as the only exception. Then link further down to a study that claims China has even worse views of Japan than Korea.

    And as I have said multiple times in this thread..... Most people in asia are able to separate the Japanese people from the Japanese government.

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  • [+] -11 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    chinese hate on japanese is justified and you shouldnt cry about it

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    ww2 was almost a century ago.

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  • [–] -1 points 4 months ago (1 child)
  • You don't understand.... He's a white Ex-pat living in asia, obviously he has the deepest appreciation and understanding of Asian culture and history possible. It's not like the Ex-pat communities are primarily living in asia to exploit the low cost of living, or engage in commerce more dubious in nature.....

    Obviously if a white man living in asia says so, I should just be fine with the fact that my grandfather lived hidden in a hole in the ground in the backyard for over a year so he wouldn't be forced into a work gang or worse. It was 80 years ago, I should just get over it. It's not like Japan or America have turned my homeland into a neo fascist state or anything.

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