29
Apr
2026
Watch
New Chinese law on ‘ethnic unity and progress’ and the intensified suppression of ethnic identities
Mr President, thank you very much. If one is to believe the Chinese self-image and propaganda, it is a country where minorities are respected and where areas such as Xinjiang Province, Tibet and Inner Mongolia have autonomy. In practice, however, things are going in the opposite direction. In Tibet, the ability of Tibetans to express their culture and their freedom of religion is restricted. In Inner Mongolia, widespread popular protests erupted as schooling went from Mongolian to Mandarin. But the hardest is the repression in Xinjiang province. There is a great deal of monitoring of the minority population. whereas up to one million Uyghurs have been in forced labour camps and Uyghur women have been subjected to forced sterilisation; This, my friends, is an oppression and an assimilation policy whose purpose is to stifle any independent expression of minority culture. China must live up to its international obligations and its own constitution.