Representatives of Tibetan, Uyghur, Southern Mongolian, and Hong Kong organizations held a press conference in Tokyo on July 1, protesting China’s newly enacted Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which took effect that day and penalizes acts deemed to undermine “ethnic unity.”
The groups issued a joint statement calling the law “legislation designed to justify the Chinese Communist Party’s assimilation policies,” warning that it “provides legal grounds for cross-border repression and threatens freedom of speech and expression in democratic societies.”
Self-Censorship Is the Real Fear
The law stipulates that Chinese citizens have “a duty to safeguard national unity and the unity of all ethnic groups across the country” and explicitly promotes the widespread use of Standard Chinese.
It further states that if overseas organizations or individuals engage in “acts that undermine ethnic unity,” they will be “held legally responsible.”
Retep Ahmet, chairman of the Japan Uyghur Association, criticized the law, saying it leaves people with “no choice but to abandon their own culture and identity and live entirely as Chinese. Simply choosing not to become Chinese could make you guilty of a crime.”
He also pointed to the law’s vague language on “words and actions detrimental to ethnic unity,” saying “the definition is extremely ambiguous and can be applied however the authorities see fit.”
He added, “Out of fear, parents may be forced to give up even teaching their own ethnic language at home. This everyday self-censorship is the real fear this law is aimed at producing.”
He further warned, “It’s entirely possible that those of us speaking out here today will become the very first people treated as criminals under this law. There is nowhere to escape to, but even in this hopeless situation, we have no choice but to keep raising our voices.”
Challenging Beijing’s National Narrative
Olhunud Daichin, co-chair of the Southern Mongolian Kurultai, stated that “the concept of the ‘Chinese nation’ is nothing more than a political slogan created in the late Qing dynasty.”
He warned that “the activities of ethnic, human rights, and cultural organizations overseas could also be deemed illegal,” and called for free societies to “stand in solidarity” on this basis.
Arya Gyalpo, representative of Tibet House Japan, said the Chinese Communist Party government “has long carried out repression and detentions, but now it has created a law to justify them.” He urged the international community to “protest strongly and demand the law’s abolition.”
Alric Lee, executive director of Lady Liberty Hong Kong, cited a 2014 University of Hong Kong survey on identity, in which roughly 60% of respondents identified as “Hong Kong people, not Chinese.”
He emphasized that “over more than a century of British rule, Hong Kong cultivated values centered on democracy, the rule of law, and freedom of speech. Even today, many Hong Kong people consider themselves Hong Kongers, not Chinese.”
