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Aparna Rawal, Sofia, Bulgaria-based independent researcher and Co-Founder, The Strategic Perspective speaks with Mayank Chhaya on China new ethnic unity law and its implications for ethnic minorities | SAM Conversation
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00:16On the face of it, China's law on promoting ethnic unity and progress, which went into
00:23force on July 1, sounds rather anodyne.
00:27In reality, though, it is being widely seen by its ethnic minorities, particularly Tibetans
00:33and Uyghurs, as a weapon to essentially erase their unique cultures.
00:39It has provisions that experts think Beijing could use to carry out its repressive policies
00:46beyond its borders.
00:47To understand the implications of the new law, Sam Conversations and MCR spoke to Aparna
00:53Rabel, a Sofia, Bulgaria-based independent researcher and analyst specializing in Afghanistan and
01:01Pakistan affairs, counterterrorism, and regional security.
01:06She is the co-founder of the Strategic Perspective, Aparna Rabel.
01:12On the face of it, Beijing's law on promoting ethnic unity and progress sounds rather anodyne.
01:21However, as you have argued in your piece in the South Asia Monitor, it is anything but
01:27that.
01:28Explain broadly and then we'll get into the specifics of it.
01:31Well, from what we know, starting, I mean, as of July 1, 2026, China put this law into an
01:42effect.
01:42The law on promoting ethnic unity and progress.
01:49Now, this is something that China has been doing since before the law came into effect.
01:55It's been a habit, an experimentation of more than decades, which is now put into a nationwide
02:01statute.
02:02So, what happened was, on September 8, 2025, the law was given as a draft to the Chinese parliament.
02:13And that time, as soon as it was submitted, there were some revisions that had to be made
02:20on that.
02:21And right away, the human rights groups already took an objection to it because that meant
02:26that now China would be having a justified reason of pursuing its habit, you know, of persecuting
02:37minorities, ethnic groups.
02:39Assimilation means killing off the culture, the tradition, the uniqueness of a particular
02:45ethnic group, which was initially something that the CCP promoted.
02:51Like, post-1949, CCP actually followed a model which was very similar to the Soviet model.
02:58And what they did was, they recognized the 55 ethnic minority groups.
03:03And even on paper, we don't know for sure if it actually happened when it happened, but
03:09on paper, it was stated that they were going to promote the culture, the language, the development
03:16of these ethnic groups.
03:18But then, the downfall of the Soviet happened.
03:20And this was more of a wake-up call for China.
03:25And China started looking at this as an example, that if the uniqueness of these ethnic groups
03:31exist, there would be a chance that it would be a threat to the People's Republic of China.
03:37China.
03:38So then, they started with this experimentation, where assimilation started happening in areas
03:45like Xinjiang, where we see this happening in Tibet, in all the five different, you know,
03:52autonomous groups.
03:53Previously, most of these areas, these regional autonomous areas, had some kind of autonomy.
03:59But that was completely stopped in, when was it, 2014, when Xi Jinping's party had a conference.
04:14They identified this as an issue.
04:17And he himself spoke about creating this consciousness of the Chinese state.
04:24So, this set things in motion, like a first draft kind of a thing, where most of these ethnic
04:33groups were told that Mandarin would be the basic medium of instruction.
04:40And they tried to instill this in Tibet in 2018.
04:45They tried doing this in South Mongolia, but however, it did not go so well, because there
04:50were protests and things didn't go very well.
04:53But that did not stop them, because come 2019, they again pushed for it.
04:58Now, fast forward to 2025, you have a law that is presented as a draft to the parliament.
05:06They accept it.
05:07Come December of 2025, there is a new revision made to this law.
05:13And the revision is on the standardized spoken and written language for medium of instruction,
05:22where they have stopped using any ethnic language as a form of instruction in schools,
05:30where Mandarin was going to be mandatory.
05:33So, now what has happened, when we are looking at this law, this law got passed on July 1st.
05:42And Xi Jinping apparently signed this law the same day that it was passed by the parliament
05:48too.
05:48It was passed by a vote of 276 to 3.
05:52And 3 only because there was abstentations.
05:56It wasn't because anybody was against it.
05:58The whole house was in favor of this law.
06:02So, it's basically modeled after Xi Jinping's policy on what China should be.
06:09And with this in mind, they came up with these core mandates.
06:14Interestingly, this is one of the few laws which also has a preamble.
06:18Most of the laws do not have a preamble.
06:21They have a preamble which clearly states that it's a simulation of different ethnic groups,
06:28united together, under common history, culture, basically coming from the same source.
06:37So, by doing this, what you're perpetually doing is you're actually getting rid of the uniqueness of these groups,
06:43by assimilating them under one banner.
06:45So, this was the main core thing behind it.
06:50And the thing with the mandate is, again, it's become a nationwide legally binding duty.
06:58It's not something that the government is encouraging people to do, but it's a legal binding duty on every Chinese
07:06citizen, every Chinese institution,
07:09whether you are private, whether you're state owned, whether a religious body or even military.
07:16It's now considered a legally binding duty for people to create the state of common consciousness of what China as
07:25a nation should be.
07:26So, this is one of the core factors behind this.
07:30And there are two articles in the law which become very problematic.
07:35One is the Taiwan clause.
07:38So, Article 21 of this law, it states that Taiwanese people are basically the people, the citizens of People's Republic
07:51of China,
07:51which means China has a right on them and which means that the Chinese parties or organs of the parties
07:59are expected to view them as Chinese citizens,
08:03which, of course, does not sit very well with Taiwan.
08:06Now, the other clause, which is very problematic, is the extraterritorial law, which has come into place under Article 63,
08:15which means that any individual body organization that speaks against the ethnic assimilation or against the unity of these ethnic
08:27groups,
08:28which, according to China, is based on what they deem as assimilation.
08:35So, anything that goes counter to that, any citizens, bodies, organizations residing abroad, outside the mainland China, can be persecuted.
08:45And we know for a fact that, on basis of many reports, there has been a lot of transnational repression,
08:53even from the Chinese side.
08:56There have been more than 100 covert police stations that operate in many different countries, which actually take the reports
09:05and try to persecute these citizens.
09:08Some people have also been known to go missing. And China has used a lot of different ways to get
09:15to these people to return home,
09:17a way of form of persuasion of some sorts or, you know, putting pressure on the families of these people
09:24living abroad,
09:25but who happen to be in China. So these are things that has raised a lot of concern with a
09:32lot of human rights groups as well.
09:34And, of course, Mandarin has become the main language of instruction, which starts from pre-kindergarten all the way to
09:43the actual end of education that a person would pursue.
09:49Now, the ethnic groups, as far as they are concerned, their languages, we can see that in time they could
09:57start declining.
09:59And by doing this, of course, there will be a change in what people perceive China as.
10:06And mostly we see this in the Tibetans or the weak groups, especially being targeted accordingly.
10:13The South Mongolians also are facing something very similar.
10:15So there is this problem that is popping up, which has become a massive concern for a lot of people
10:24from these ethnic groups.
10:25And one thing that we also worry about is that these new changes that China intends to do, where they
10:34are pushing forward the Han majoritarianism,
10:39which probably existed side by side by side the other groups, is going to be definitely overtaking and shaping what
10:47China might be.
10:48So in this case, even people like the Tibetan government in Dharamchala, India, we will see that there might be
10:58some issues with China trying to exert some kind of influence by saying that these are Chinese citizens.
11:04And on base of the extraterritorial laws, we have a right to persecute whoever we can.
11:11Already, we see that China has already named its own Penchen Lama.
11:15It has already claimed its monopoly on Buddhism, and it states that any Lama or the future Dalai Lama or
11:24Penchen Lamas must be first approved by the Chinese government,
11:27not as how they were selected.
11:31So they are trying to monopolize religion, they are trying to monopolize culture.
11:36And even though there are reports of this transnational repression that every other country has been talking about,
11:43the US has been talking about, the United Nations has brought this up, and especially in context to this law,
11:50already in July, maybe a little sooner than that, two US senators even wrote a letter to China asking them
12:01to revoke this law, to stop this law.
12:04And I believe that was, one of them was Sheldon Whitehouse, who had written, and he had asked them,
12:12and the other one I can't recall at the moment, but there were two gentlemen who had actually asked to
12:19revoke the law.
12:20And on base of the UN also, the former UN watchdogs also made a comment that, you know, this is
12:29going to create a problem,
12:30especially with the migration and already the persecution that we are seeing of the people.
12:37The thing is, if this law comes into place, it justifies what China has been doing for a long time
12:43through law.
12:45And it's already in place.
12:47Now it has become a little more overt about its operations.
12:54Initially, it was doing Operation, what was it, Fox Hunt,
12:59which it claimed to be going after all the people who were involved in embezzlement, frauds, anti-corruption.
13:06But everybody knows that most of the people who were arrested or picked up in the hunt,
13:16most of them were actually not even embezzlers or fraudsters or scammers in terms of, you know, anti-corruption.
13:24It was more of a matter of political differences, who China might have deemed as political problems, as we can
13:35say it.
13:36So the Operation Fox Hunt came to existence in 2014.
13:42What accompanied later on was the Operation Skynet.
13:46Now this was the quick recovery of all the fugitives that China had deemed.
13:52So this had already started happening before the law came into place.
13:57This is more of a justified way and a very blatant move by China to show its dominance in some
14:07areas.
14:07And the worst part is that it also violates many international laws.
14:11The UN Charter, though it recognizes the sovereignty of different countries, it also doesn't have jurisdiction in most nations.
14:21It comes from collective responsibility, taking pressures from various countries.
14:25But China clearly disregards the sovereignty of other nations and the jurisdiction of other nations.
14:31Because if you're going to carry out, you know, extraterritorial France national repression on another person's soil, then it clearly
14:40indicates the disregard for somebody's sovereignty.
14:43Which means that other nations who are hosting refugees from China have to be extra, extra cautious in protecting the
14:51same refugees you're hosting.
14:53Whether it's in the US, whether it's in Germany, whether it's in India.
14:58We all have to take a collective effort to protect these refugees who are trying to evade being captured.
15:07And we know also for a fact that China has slapped a lot of red notices to extradite many of
15:13these refugees back home.
15:15So this is also going on at this point.
15:18So with these new developments and new laws in place, it is a very worrisome thing for human rights violations
15:27also.
15:27And for what would be the plight of these ethnic groups, which China is claiming to be some kind of
15:33assimilation, unity driven, you know, program.
15:39So that's the basic gist of it.
15:43You know, I have specifics in terms of you talked about Article 63.
15:49Yes.
15:49It will inevitably run into sovereign jurisdictions unless China chooses to do in a very covert, sneaky fashion.
15:59I mean, they cannot officially reach out to a government and say, this is our law.
16:04We want to repress this, this, this, this.
16:07Right.
16:07They have to do it in a sneaky fashion.
16:10Do you see a problem where because of the very nature of what they are trying to do, it will
16:15automatically be limited in its impact?
16:20To be very honest, I think China has been doing this even before it pushed out a law.
16:26And most nations have been very, very aware of this.
16:31For example, there was a report by the FBI in 2008 when they did the Beijing Olympics.
16:39They did the torch run in San Francisco, I think.
16:42Yeah.
16:43So during this time, there were personnel from the Chinese diplomatic board.
16:50They were directing buses and buses of Chinese students to go and counter a pro-Tibetan rally which was happening.
17:00And this was specifically mentioned in many open sources also that, you know, this has already been done.
17:06Like this is like transnational mobilization already on the move.
17:10So they have done that.
17:12And not only that, there are a lot of cases where a lot of American Chinese or if you have
17:19other people who have acquired citizenship of another country but had Chinese origins, if they return to China, they have
17:27been detained in China and not allowed to move.
17:30There was a perfect case of this American Chinese lady who traveled to China with her 16 year old daughter.
17:37It was in 2017.
17:39And she was detained because the government was pressuring her to bring her father, who was a Chinese citizen, back
17:47to China.
17:48And she was stuck in China until 2021.
17:53Only then she was allowed to go because there was some kind of a clearance and some kind of an
17:58intervention that possibly may have happened.
17:59But what doesn't change also is that China in Xinjiang area also has come up with this, Xinjiang as well
18:08as Tibet, to be very honest.
18:10They have come up with this grid surveillance where grids are formed.
18:15The areas are marked in such a way where there are these personnel who keep tabs on families in various,
18:22various areas.
18:24And then there's some kind of punitive actions which may be taking place.
18:29There has been already, there's a bit of a change in terms of religion also that we are seeing.
18:35Like churches are not allowed to have crosses.
18:38Then mosques have been demolished.
18:40I mean, there have been more than 12,000 mosques that have been demolished, that they talk about.
18:47But that is just because we know about that number.
18:50That's an estimate.
18:51We don't know for a fact exactly how much that has happened.
18:53Plus they have been doing this forced labor in China, getting these citizens of these ethnic areas to work in
19:01semiconductor factories in different kinds of areas.
19:05The different factories that they try to get them into.
19:07And they're saying that it is done with the intention of helping these ethnic groups.
19:14They're saying that this is China's counter.
19:17China is saying that it's being done to increase the economy of these areas.
19:22And it has improved at least three times than before, like by 3% or whatever.
19:28So they're saying it's not forced labor.
19:31However, human rights activists and even UN has clearly said that that's not true.
19:37They are countering everything what the world is saying.
19:41Plus, the UN itself has stated very clearly that by putting this law into effect, China is going to violate
19:49at least 12 of the human rights agreements that it has already signed.
19:56So it is contradicting itself too.
19:58But we also know that with the clause of Taiwan, we know what China is thinking.
20:03Now they're going to extend this thing into China, into Taiwan, stating Taiwan is a part of People's Republic of
20:11China.
20:11Hence, we have a right to carry out any kind of jurisdiction out there or any kind of a law
20:18out there.
20:19Similar thing is also being seen in Hong Kong.
20:21A lot of people from Hong Kong are also facing that.
20:25Yeah.
20:25How do you see it in the context of India?
20:29Is India suitably aware of the implications of the new law?
20:34Because I haven't seen or heard anything out of New Delhi which would indicate that they are even focusing on
20:42this.
20:43Yes.
20:43I think the responsibility of the Tibetan government, you know, I mean, the Americans are also very much, you know,
20:53keeping tabs on what's going on.
20:55I saw in Europe in a major way.
20:58Yes.
20:59Yes.
20:59Yeah.
21:01I'm sorry.
21:02I wasn't able to.
21:02I just saw you there have been a lot of pushback out of Europe as well against this law.
21:08Oh, yes.
21:09Yes, definitely.
21:10Because it's violated.
21:12The problem is not just in terms of these ethnic groups.
21:16The problem is that every sovereign country's soil is going to be exploited.
21:22And this clearly shows the disregard for the other sovereigns that are recognized countries.
21:28China cannot pull out its jurisdiction in other countries.
21:32I mean, as the UN Charter also suggests very, very clearly that no country has a right to interfere in
21:39another country.
21:40I mean, there are clauses, but you cannot be intervening or doing things, you know, where you disregard the sovereignty
21:48of the nation.
21:49So this is something that I think every nation is going to be worried about because China has already carried
21:55out transnational repressions in at least 120 countries.
22:01At least.
22:02That's what everybody has been talking about.
22:05Yeah.
22:06And also.
22:08Sorry to interrupt.
22:10I'm very interested in your view on how you think New Delhi has handled it, because there seems to be
22:17a measure of diffidence when it comes to these issues.
22:21Do you see that New Delhi is sensitive to the implications of what has happened as of July 1st?
22:29I'm pretty sure that New Delhi is very well aware.
22:33Maybe we haven't heard from them now.
22:35Maybe in the coming months or sooner or later, we will hear about it.
22:40Because it doesn't change the fact that the Tibetan government exists in Haramshala on the Indian soil.
22:47This is not a matter of Tibet.
22:50It's not a matter of Tibetan people.
22:51This is also a matter for the Indian citizens and for the sovereignty of our nation.
22:55So I think this is a problem that will not be overlooked.
23:00It's true that at the moment, nobody has spoken heavily on it or spoken on it, but I'm pretty sure
23:06New Delhi is very aware of what is happening.
23:10So it's only a matter of time when people react.
23:13Right.
23:14Yes.
23:16Historically, I don't think people realize, but historically, China has always given to itself the role of civilizing barbarians.
23:24Barbarians outside its borders.
23:27I mean, it has historically seen non-Chinese people as barbarians.
23:32So I suppose this is just a sort of a tool in that direction.
23:37Actually, it's interesting you bring this up because what China has been trying to do, it's been trying to run
23:42its mouth and run its own narrative.
23:44And which is why the more it pushes its own narrative, it's trying to control the history of the country.
23:51So the more they push it out, they think the Han people were far more civilized by the Tibetans who
23:58were following different kinds of rituals and things like that.
24:02Plus, let's not forget, even though China continues to push the history in a certain way in terms of civilizing
24:11the uncivilized.
24:13It was China whose cultural revolution, even the Great League forward, was a major reason why people from Xinjiang and
24:22even the Kazakhs who were living in Xinjiang actually made a run for it.
24:26They tried to leave the country precisely because of that, even though China talks about civilizing people.
24:31Because at the end of the day, there were more than 60,200 Kazakhs and Uyghurs who tried to leave
24:38the country.
24:39So everybody is well aware of that, regardless of what other narratives might be.
24:44But we know for a fact they are trying to gain a complete monopoly on the history by discrediting the
24:53history that the Tibetans offer about themselves and putting their own narrative about what the history of Tibet is.
25:01They are trying to get some kind of a legitimacy, not only on their identity, but on their history, their
25:08background, culture.
25:09And slowly we might see, if we do not put up a stop to this, there is going to be
25:14a possibility that most of these languages are going to die away.
25:18So what remains in the end would be what China offers, the idea of the consciousness of the Chinese nation.
25:28This is what they are calling it, the common consciousness.
25:30Yes, yes.
25:31You know, the Tibetans see this as China really hurrying up the erasure of their culture from every angle.
25:42Dave, you've also quoted Wenpa Shering, and so have I, calling it sort of a legislating genocide.
25:53But I mean, it's amazing that there is, they will probably get away with it.
25:59I don't know if there is going to be any significant moderation of their behavior once the law is in
26:05place.
26:07Yes, because this is the second generation revision of the previous practice they had tried out.
26:13Right.
26:13So if anything, they're getting far more bolder in their attempts.
26:19Yeah.
26:19But nothing has really changed as much, except for the fact that now they are very vocal about what they're
26:24doing.
26:25Initially, there was some kind of a deniability.
26:28Right.
26:28It does not change.
26:29But here's another scary part about this law is that anybody living abroad can report at any of the police
26:37stations,
26:38these covert police services existing in all these different countries.
26:42They can report about any person.
26:45And, you know, this is getting forwarded to the mainland China.
26:49So what follows later, it's very hard to tell how China would act.
26:56And you mean any person of any country, any ethnicity, any citizenship?
27:01It could be anyone, right?
27:05The thing.
27:06Okay.
27:07So here's the thing.
27:08This is the part that does not really get cleared.
27:12The translations that we get from the Chinese law, the Chinese law, if you read it in Chinese, it is
27:19very different.
27:20Like it is very focused.
27:22It's using very strong words, which is very nationalistic in some ways and very similar to the CCP ideology, which
27:30Xi Jinping has again, you know, revived.
27:34But the English version, somewhere we feel like it's getting diluted.
27:39I see.
27:39Things are lost.
27:40It's kind of softened up.
27:42So this becomes a bit of a difficulty understanding how things are moving also.
27:49And what was I going to say?
27:50I'm sorry.
27:51No, one particular aspect that jumped out at me from your piece.
27:56You have mentioned the concept of, and I hope I'm pronouncing the word right, Zunao.
28:04Zongka.
28:05Forwarding or casting.
28:06That's the term you use.
28:08Yeah.
28:09Now, is that a specific usage in the law that you're talking about?
28:15It's actually mentioned in the documents.
28:17They have a whole glossary on the words that they're using.
28:21Actually.
28:22The Chinese consciousness, you know, what it means.
28:26Okay.
28:26And the preamble of this law clearly states that all these ethnic groups are basically coming from the same background,
28:33sharing a history of more than 5000 years.
28:37So by putting this in the constitution, you're clearly, you know, pushing forward your own narrative.
28:43Right.
28:44You're changing the history of these other countries.
28:46I mean, of these other ethnic groups.
28:49The Xinjiang has its own uniqueness too, because majority are Muslims.
28:54You know, they were not Chinese.
28:56They were not Han Chinese.
28:56They were Turkish speaking Muslims.
28:58So it's completely different from what Han China is.
29:02Right.
29:03And Han China is now trying to assimilate these people, re-educate these people.
29:09There was a very interesting books that were written by some of these weak refugees, where they talk about these
29:18free education camps that were done.
29:20And these re-education camps from a piece that I read a long time ago, they talk about being so
29:26big, as big as football fields, where these people don't have a choice.
29:31They call it the vocational training.
29:34They get them there and they re-educate these people on how to be proper.
29:39That kind of answers your question about, you know, civilizing the uncivilized.
29:47Just last couple of things, Aparna.
29:50One is, of course, this is a subject I haven't really thought through, but it's been occurring to me for
29:55a while, especially after the enactment of the law.
29:58And that's to do with China's dramatic rise as an AI power, artificial intelligence power.
30:05That could lend itself quite powerfully to some of the provisions of the law, don't you think?
30:12Absolutely.
30:13Pointed out a very important point, even in the law, because what we have noticed before us, before the law
30:18came into power.
30:19These people have been doing a surveillance to such an extent, they have been using AI, they've been using hacking,
30:26and they have been using doxing just to pressure people, you know, to change things, to change narratives, disinformation.
30:34Not only that, now they have a surveillance system called IJOP, if I'm not mistaken.
30:40What they do is, they even do surveillance with the DNA of a person, facial recognition.
30:49So, with so many things changing, who knows to what extent it's going to violate, you know, human rights.
30:57And we don't know to what extent we will be able to counter it too, because they have a plan.
31:05Now we have put decades of experimentation finally into some kind of a judicial statute.
31:12And they're blatant about it.
31:14They're very bold about it.
31:16Yes.
31:17You know, the irony, Aparna, here is, I was reading, just this morning, there was a major AI conference which
31:23Xi Jinping inaugurated.
31:25And this is what he said, but I find it rather ironic that on the one hand, you're doing what
31:31you're doing.
31:32On the other, you're publicly saying this, and I'm quoting him now.
31:35He says, AI development should not be a solo performance by a single country, but a symphony of international cooperation,
31:44ready to work with all parties to seize the opportunities of AI.
31:49China is ready to do.
31:51Now, that sounds wonderful, right?
31:53Yes.
31:53This particular expression, a symphony of international cooperation.
31:58How does it square with the law that you've just enacted?
32:02The thing is, it sounds very good if everybody comes together, but we don't have AI laws in place yet.
32:09It's too soon for us and for other nations to actually bank on the words of completely utopian ideology without
32:20having some kind of jurisdiction in place which can protect the citizens of our own nation.
32:26So, yes, it sounds great, whatever he's saying, but except for his allies, I'm not really sure how the other
32:35countries who are trying to counter China would feel about it.
32:38You know, interestingly, before I let you go, Xi and historically China's focus has been what they call harmony.
32:48Now, again, harmony sounds very nice.
32:51It's lovely.
32:52What's wrong with having a harmonious country or a society or a civilization?
32:57But it hides so much else that people don't talk about, right?
33:03How do you achieve that harmony?
33:04So that's something I've always focused on when it comes to China.
33:10That's absolutely true, because if you think about it, you can't sweeten poison and present it as honey, even though
33:15it might taste sweet.
33:16It's sooner or later going to kill you regardless.
33:19Yes.
33:21So I think we have to take China with a pinch of salt.
33:24You know, they're very ambitious, no doubt.
33:26But at the end of the day, their ambition is causing a lot of problems for a lot of different
33:32nations.
33:32And their complete disregard, especially for the sovereignty of other nations, is something that we cannot overlook.
33:38They did that to their own people.
33:40They're going to do that to other people.
33:42It doesn't matter.
33:43So and we can we can also see this in the South China Sea also.
33:47They might create some kind of bigger issues.
33:52Right.
33:52Right.
33:53Right.
33:53Right.
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