For years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has pushed ethnic minority groups like Tibetans and Uyghurs to adopt an identity rooted in Chinese nationality and allegiance to the ruling Communist Party.

Now, that push has been codified into a sweeping new law that reaches into classrooms, neighborhoods and homes – and gives Beijing the right to target people outside of its borders that it believes violate its rules.

The statute, officially known as the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, came into effect on July 1. It bans acts that “undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic division” among China’s 56 officially recognized ethnicities, which include a Han Chinese majority that makes up over 90% of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.mlEnglish
    201·
    2 days ago

    I am definitely sympathetic to the defense against foreign dissent-manufacturing. I don’t doubt that is a serious issue.

    But, ethnicity and nationality are separate things. Being a Chinese citizen does not make one ethnically Chinese - or in this case Han Chinese. I think what you are calling “sub-ethnicity” here is just what people mean by “ethnicity”. And what you’re implying is “ethnicity” is just “nationality”.

    Though I think the CCP is trying to establish the concept of a Zhonghua Minzu (中华民族) or “Chinese Nation/Ethnic Group” - which is an artificial category intended to create a unified Chinese national identity out of the 56 ethnic groups recognized in China - maybe that’s what you mean? Either way, that doesn’t fit the typical anthropological definition, in my opinion.

    I think they walk a fine line with that concept - it’d be very easy for that national identity to represent the Han majority more than the small minorities. As evidenced by the language restrictions posed by the law. Given the Han majority is 90% of the country, I don’t see how it could be otherwise.

    To the extent that it reduces racism and foreign-sponsored dissent groups, that is good. To the extent that it limits free practice of culture and true, non-US-State-Dept sponsored, free speech, I’d say it’s overly draconian. But, I can also appreciate the need for more “authoritarian” laws in a country that has been under attack by foreign powers for as long as China has.

    I am not a Chinese legal expert and have not read the full law, nor do I fully understand the context. So I withhold full judgment and don’t value my opinion too highly.

    • no_name_dev_from_hell@programming.devEnglish
      27·
      1 day ago

      Ethnicity is a crap word created by the western political discourse to undermine the developing countries.

      In many regions of the world, people don’t identify via their ethnicity l, but their tribes or their religion (e.g. middle east before 1930ish). You don’t see the average westoid liberal defend those rights tho.