How China’s ethnic unity law targets Taiwanese identity

(Edited and refined by James Loo, with the assistance of AI translation.)

On 1 July, China implemented the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, which Beijing says is intended to promote ethnic unity, safeguard national unity and maintain social stability. From the perspective of Taiwanese society, however, the law is more than an internal adjustment to China’s ethnic policy. It brings together several policy directions advanced by Xi Jinping during his third term, with a strong emphasis on securitised governance, nationalist mobilisation and the legalisation of United Front tactics towards Taiwan.

Furthermore, as a communication scholar, I believe the law does more than codify the so-called “consciousness of the Chinese national community”. It may also bring cross-strait exchanges, media and propaganda, internet content governance, and even extraterritorial accountability within a political narrative framework centred on promoting unification.

In other words, the significance of this law lies not only in using legislation to promote ethnic unity domestically, but also in using it as a tool to strengthen efforts towards cross-strait unification and construct united front narratives.

A shift in Beijing’s unification logic

Compared with the 2005 Anti-Secession Law, the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law both continues and departs from previous approaches. The continuity lies in the fact that both laws serve China’s goal of unification with Taiwan and incorporate the Taiwan issue into a broader narrative of national unity and sovereignty, functioning as instruments of deterrence and legal warfare. The difference lies in their underlying logic. The Anti-Secession Law is primarily grounded in opposition to Taiwan independence, with its legal provisions targeting moves towards de jure independence or other major separatist actions. By contrast, the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law adopts a more explicitly pro-unification logic, requiring people to actively embrace the “consciousness of the Chinese national community”.

The former focuses on regulating specific political behaviours, while the latter uses the law as a tool to extend state control over media, education, culture, religion, internet platforms, cross-strait exchanges and overseas communities, with the broader aim of embedding the promotion of unification across these spheres.

The reaction from the Taiwanese government has been clear. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the agency responsible for cross-strait affairs, described this law as a “unification law” packaged under the guise of “ethnic unity”, believing it signifies a new stage in the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Taiwan policy, shifting from “opposing Taiwan independence” to “forcibly promoting unification”. Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticised the law for using China’s domestic legislation to exercise long-arm jurisdiction and transnational repression, warning that it could infringe upon the sovereignty of other countries and international human rights.

The Executive Yuan responded immediately by proposing a three-pronged strategy of “prevention, protection and countermeasures” and established an interagency platform to address transnational repression. It shows that the Taiwanese government does not simply regard the law as domestic Chinese legislation concerning ethnic unity. Instead, it sees it as a legal tool for the CCP’s recent expansion of extraterritorial jurisdiction, as well as a political move to intensify pressure on Taiwan and create a chilling effect.

According to MAC’s analysis, when viewed within the governance framework of Xi’s third term, the law reflects Beijing’s trend of integrating national security, regime security, ideological security, national identity and the unification process into a single approach even more clearly.

As a result, the so-called “ethnic unity” is no longer merely a discourse of social harmony among ethnic groups — it has become a political technique for safeguarding the security of the CCP’s party-state, suppressing dissent, mobilising nationalism and advancing the narrative of unification. The notion of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” may thus serve as an overarching narrative that links China’s internal governance to its Taiwan policy. 

Legislating a political narrative

Within this framework, Taiwan’s democratic development is further recast as an issue of national security and national rejuvenation. For example, Article 21 of the law explicitly requires the use of cross-strait economic and cultural exchanges to enhance the sense of belonging, identity and honour among Taiwanese compatriots to the Chinese nation, as well as to strengthen the understanding that “we all belong to the Chinese nation and are Chinese people”. This means that Beijing is not only asserting that Taiwan belongs to China, but is also attempting to use legal means to regulate Taiwanese people’s perceptions of their own identity.

This is precisely what has caused concern within Taiwanese society. Under the law, any expression of Taiwanese self-identity, assertion of Taiwan’s subjectivity, or political choices aimed at maintaining the status quo could be re-labelled by the CCP as acts that are detrimental to ethnic unity or violations of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” — in other words, as illegal behaviour.

Beijing has long attracted Taiwanese people to China through opportunities in education, employment, entrepreneurship, local exchange programmes, religious and cultural activities, youth camps, as well as economic and trade incentives. While these policies were ostensibly designed to provide opportunities and benefits for various forms of cross-strait exchange, the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law further transforms these exchanges from being merely “preferential” or “integrative” into requirements imbued with a political mission: exchanges are now expected to serve the construction of a unified Chinese national community.

Legalising the united front narrative

This also illustrates how the law will push cross-strait relations towards an asymmetrical pattern of exchanges. Healthy cross-strait exchanges should be built on equality, dignity, voluntariness — and the absence of predetermined political conditions. However, when youth camps, religious interactions, local exchanges, sports activities, academic collaborations and even business partnerships can all be subsumed into a “shared Chinese identity” grand project, exchanges cease to be merely exchanges and instead become channels for promoting unification policies.

Yet Taiwanese society is clear-eyed about the implications. Rather than fostering greater mutual trust across the Strait, such a law is likely to heighten Taiwan’s wariness towards cross-strait exchanges.

The function of this law hence appears not only to establish legal responsibilities, but also to create a political narrative that can be repeatedly disseminated, mobilised and reproduced. The very first article of the law’s legislative purpose emphasises “strengthening the sense of community of the Chinese nation”, while Article 19 requires news media, publishing organisations and internet service providers to carry out corresponding propaganda and reporting. Article 31 mandates that internet operators manage content deemed to undermine ethnic unity. This indicates that the law is not simply about ethnic policy; it also brings media and communication, internet governance and cross-strait exchanges into the broader work of the united front.

Self-censorship and the chilling effect

I believe such united front propaganda has three main characteristics. The first is the increasing use of unification-oriented language. It does not necessarily require Taiwanese people to accept unification immediately. Instead, it uses seemingly softer language to first encourage acceptance of the idea that both sides of the strait “belong to the Chinese nation” and that all ethnic groups have “jointly created a splendid Chinese culture”, among other formulations.

Second, it uses emotive language to promote the unification agenda. The law employs phrases like “promotes the joint inheritance and promotion of Chinese culture by compatriots on both sides of the strait”, attempting to frame cross-strait relations as a matter of kinship, cultural roots and common rejuvenation while downplaying differences in sovereignty, democracy, human rights and systems.

Third, it creates a chilling effect. Due to the various regulations in this law, it does not actually need to punish many people — as long as journalists, scholars, NGOs, Taiwanese businesspeople, youths and ordinary internet users worry about being labelled as “undermining ethnic unity” many will engage in self-censorship before speaking out.

In a panel discussion, I once analysed the communicative effect of this law, describing it as an attempt to plant a “little party secretary” in everyone’s mind. Beijing may not even need to actively enforce the law; its communicative impact could lead people to pre-emptively consider how to avoid violating the law or offending Beijing.

As a result, it inevitably constrains the space for diverse opinions, democratic critique, academic research and civic advocacy, posing a threat to freedom of speech. It is also likely to seriously endanger press freedom, since media reports on issues such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, human rights in China, transnational repression or Taiwan’s subjectivity could all be deemed crimes of “undermining ethnic unity” under this law.

Many experts in Taiwan have also recognised the potential problems. They believe that the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law uses “unity” to replace freedom and suppresses diversity in the name of “community”, disguises united front tactics as “law” and promotes forced unification under the banner of “ethnicity”, posing a major challenge to the fundamental values of democratic countries and their citizens.

Hence, Taiwan is now offering its own democratic narrative, emphasising that true unity is not about silencing voices, but about allowing different identities and opinions to coexist equally; true exchanges are not about making political declarations, but are built on equality and dignity; and true rule of law is not about long-arm jurisdiction, but about protecting people’s freedom from fear.

Taiwan is well aware that it is facing a new wave of legal warfare from China, and is building a new line of defence to protect democracy and human rights. Both the government and civil society in Taiwan have a good understanding of this law and are actively proposing various countermeasures. Taiwanese society is working hard to establish a democratic defence line, but the goal is not confrontation. The people of Taiwan are simply striving, as they always have, to safeguard national security, democracy and human rights — nothing more.  

Related: Mandarin first: China’s new push for ethnic unity | Taiwan’s Lai Ching-te sends his first minister to APEC China: A thaw?