China’s new Ethnic Unity Law raises a troubling question: how far can Beijing’s reach extend beyond China’s borders?
Under President Xi Jinping, repression of China’s ethnic and religious minorities has intensified for more than a decade. The treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Tibetans and other minority communities has been accompanied by growing restrictions on language, culture, religion and political expression.
Now, China’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, which came into force on July 1st, 2026, takes that trajectory a step further.
Beijing says the law is intended to strengthen ethnic unity and create a shared national identity. Critics argue that it further institutionalises assimilation and gives the Chinese Communist Party greater control over the cultural and religious identity of China’s minorities.
But there is another significant dimension.
The law contains provisions concerning organisations and individuals outside China who are deemed to undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic division — raising concerns about its potential use as a tool of transnational repression.
So what does the new law actually mean? How does it fit into Xi Jinping’s broader policies towards China’s ethnic minorities? And what could its extraterritorial provisions mean for people outside China who speak out about human rights abuses?
In this episode, I speak with Dr David O’Brien, an Irish anthropologist who has spent years working in China and is now a lecturer at Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
We examine China’s new Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, its implications for Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities, the tension between the law and China’s constitutional framework, and how the legislation could further codify transnational repression.
What happens when a government attempts to extend its definition of “ethnic unity” beyond its own borders — and what does that mean for freedom of expression and human rights?
Date of Recording: September 25th, 2026.
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| Thumbnail shows a map of China divided into multiple independent or autonomous regions, each represented with its own flag and label. Map courtesy of @ManchuriaMedia . Inset picture of our guest, Dr David O'Brien. |
DIVE DEEPER
- Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress - Wikipedia
- Responding to Xi and Trump's Illiberal World Order - Maya Wang and Nicole Widdersheim, Human Rights Watch (September 23rd, 2026)
- China: Decade of Impunity for Crimes Against Uyghurs - Human Rights Watch (August 27th, 2026)
- Beijing's Ethnic Unity Law Reaches into Europe - Jozef Huljak, Choice (August 24th, 2026)
- Under China's new 'unity' law, Tibetans fight to preserve language and culture - The Associated Press via NPR (August 5th, 2026)
- UN Rights Chief Calls for Repeal of China's Ethnic Unity Law at Human Rights Council Session - Central Tibetan Administration (June 15th, 2026)
- European Parliament Statement on 'ethnic unity and progress' Law (April 30th, 2026)
- OHCHR Assessment of human rights concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China - landing page for pdf download, published August 31st, 2022.
- Pro-democracy activists increasingly vulnerable to authoritarian governments in Southeast Asia - Shibani Mahtani, NPR (October 2nd, 2026)
- Foreign influencers used to whitewash Xinjiang abuses: Report - John Power, Aljazeera (December 15th, 2021)
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- Resist Transnational Repression, Defy Totalitarianism - report from the 2025 Tiananmen Commemoration in Taipei.
