From Soviet autonomy to a Chinese melting pot: Why China wants ethnic unity now

China’s Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Ethnic Unity Law) entered into force on 1 July 2026. It immediately drew Western condemnation over whether this law would lead to further “forced” assimilation of ethnic minority groups in the country. Such interpretations are understandable from certain Western perspectives that China is bent on cracking down on ethnic minority cultural autonomy. However, if we put the law in the context of the evolution of ethnic politics in China, it appears less a rupture than a natural progression of a long-running shift in state capacity, geopolitical circumstances and the realities of managing group identities in multi-ethnic societies.

The ethnic autonomy administrative structure was built in the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) for two reasons. The first was the influence of the Soviet model, where the Chinese ethnic classification project drew on Stalin’s definition of nationalities. The resulting 56 nationalities or minzu (民族) were attached to territory, administration and personal identity, even though the Chinese government rejected the federal model in favour of regional autonomy within a unitary state. 

Autonomy and co-optation

The second was the political reality of the newly founded PRC. Beijing’s early choices to accommodate certain ethnic groups were shaped by the geopolitical environment at the time. The state also lacked the capacity to reach and govern Tibet, Xinjiang and other borderland regions with rough terrain effectively, and thus accommodation through the provision of autonomy and the co-optation of local elites was the inevitable substitute.

However, things have changed. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 along its ethno-federal lines was treated as a warning for China. Protests and riots in Tibet and Xinjiang, for instance, since the 1990s have further reinforced such a view. Therefore, according to prominent ethnic affairs scholars such as Ma Rong, it was exactly this institutionalisation of nationalities/minzu that hardened divisions among ethnic groups. Instead, he proposed that China should learn from the American “melting pot” model by assimilating different ethnic groups into a common national identity. Although initially controversial, this line of thinking later helped shape the intellectual rationale behind the current Ethnic Unity Law.

Meanwhile, decades of economic growth have endowed the Chinese state with fiscal resources, technological capabilities and infrastructural reach that officials in the 1950s could scarcely have imagined. Airports, railways and highways now tie every corner of the borderland ethnic regions into the national economy, while intensified poverty alleviation campaigns and the expansion of public services have drawn these regions into national markets. The autonomy model served its purpose as an instrument of a weak state, which is no longer the case. The Ethnic Unity Law thus reflects a judgement by the Chinese state that the earlier autonomy arrangement is no longer fit for purpose.

Dealing with ethnic discrimination

Despite all the elaborate provisions on autonomy and preferential treatment through the 1984 Regional Autonomy Law, the PRC had no law against ethnic discrimination. Although the Chinese state periodically condemned Han chauvinism, throughout modern Chinese history many ethnic grievances have, in fact, been perceived as discrimination by the majority Han Chinese. In many places previously, for instance, job advertisements would explicitly say that no ethnic minority candidates should apply; people with certain ethnic minority ID cards would also be denied accommodation at some hotels, etc. 

Preferential policies did little to address this and in some respects made it worse, since they gave Han Chinese a grievance while leaving minority citizens exposed to informal exclusion in housing, employment and public services. The new law names both Han chauvinism and local ethnic nationalism as positions to be opposed, which obliges governments, enterprises and social organisations to guarantee equal treatment, while directing governments to improve infrastructure, industry and public services in minority regions. Therefore, its promise lies in equal treatment and equal access, and if it can deliver on these, then it should be celebrated rather than condemned.

Integration long a part of life for minorities

Critics of the law read it as one more instrument in China’s crackdown on ethnic resistance. Resistance has certainly been real, and at some point Tibet and Xinjiang have seen serious unrest, such as the 2008 protests across the Tibetan plateau and the 2009 Urumqi riot. But that is only part of the picture. Across much of China’s minority population, integration rather than resistance has been the dominant pattern. For the majority of ethnic groups in China, they have long participated in national economic and political life, and for them, identification with the Chinese nation is simply a lived reality.

Of course, some of these integration projects might be considered controversial. Large-scale relocation programmes across Inner Mongolia and ethnic Tibetan regions have moved herders and rural residents off grassland and out of villages into planned settlements and urban areas, which can be disruptive to traditional pastoral livelihoods and community ties. The expansion of boarding schools for Tibetan and Uighur students in eastern cities has also been accused of accelerating the erosion of minority languages and cultural practices. Indeed, many Western critics of the Ethnic Unity Law have focused on concerns that it could accelerate the erosion of ethnic minority languages and cultures.

Crucial: whether benefits are felt on the ground

However, broadly speaking, the Ethnic Unity Law is in part a recognition of an identification with the Chinese nation that already exists for many citizens, rather than simply a response to dissent.

By tying national belonging to development and equal treatment, it builds on what has already been a reality for the majority of ethnic minority citizens. Where resistance persists, as in parts of Xinjiang and Tibet, the law’s success will depend on empirical evidence of whether those benefits are felt widely and fairly on the ground, and on whether integration can proceed without forcing communities to give up what they value.

Every multiethnic society has to balance cultural autonomy against integrative citizenship. Nation-building through shared language, schooling and civic symbols is the ordinary business of modern states. For instance, Singapore has long legislated for domestic racial cohesion. The Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (1990), the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act (2025) and the Ethnic Integration Policy governing public housing since 1989 give the state wide-ranging powers to manage the social reality of racial diversity. 

Singapore is widely praised as a model of multiracial coexistence, yet it gives national unity clear priority over unrestricted group autonomy. China’s move from a Soviet-derived model of territorial nationality towards a civic-integrative one follows a path many others have taken, and it should be analysed on those comparative terms rather than treated as a unique departure. 

Over-reading extraterritorial reach

Finally, critics have focused on the law’s provisions concerning overseas actors, above all Article 63, which provides for legal liability for organisations and individuals outside China who undermine ethnic unity or promote separatism. External networks have indeed been instrumental in sustaining political resistance in Tibet and Xinjiang, particularly abroad. But the Chinese state’s legal capacity to act against such networks predates 2026. Article 8 of China Criminal Law already sets the conditions for extraterritorial jurisdiction. 

Some legal scholars read Article 63 as overriding those conditions. A more restrained interpretation, consistent with officials’ public rejection of the “long-arm jurisdiction” label, should treat it as operating within those conditions. Extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction over acts deemed to threaten national security is also not unusual; the US exercises it widely, from material support for terrorism to sanctions enforcement. How Article 63 is applied in practice will settle the question more than its text. Therefore, the Ethnic Unity Law’s core focus is domestic and promotional, and there is no need to overly interpret its extraterritorial reach.

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