Tokyo: The implementation of China’s ‘Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress’ could have broader regional implications, potentially extending the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ideological influence in the neighbouring countries and beyond, a report said on Saturday.
Writing for ‘Japan Forward’, Tsewang Gylapo Arya, Representative of the Dalai Lama’s Liaison Office for Japan and East Asia, called on the international community to oppose the “pernicious and disdainful” law, arguing that it goes beyond the minority rights concern and should not be treated as China’s internal affairs.
Quoting a report by the International Campaign for Tibet (ITC), he said, “The law provides a legal tool for the CCP to establish and enforce a unified national identity and singular idea of China, shaped by the CCP and authoritarian ideology.”
According to Arya, Beijing is pushing assimilation under the guise of unity, seeking to enforce patriotism and loyalty not only from the minority communities but also from the people in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
This loyalty, he said, is being demanded not to the nation, but to the CCP, as the ultimate authority.
“The law has seven chapters with sixty-five articles. Despite saying ‘ethnic unity’, the display of Chinese (Han) chauvinism is conspicuous with the repeated use of phrases like ‘Chinese national’ and ‘Chinese nation’ nearly eighty times in the text. If this ethnic law is all about forging a strong sense of the Chinese national community, then what is there for other nationals and ethnic communities? The law only addresses the unity of Chinese nationals. It offers nothing to the minority nationals in the region,” the official detailed.
Arya noted that the law adopted by China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) on March 12 contravened both the Chinese Constitution and the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law.
He added that the legislation aims to supersede all the existing laws and represents a deliberate attempt to “make and designate the existing minority nationals as ethnic minorities” and position the Chinese majority as the supreme majority.
“This is in violation of Article 4 of the Constitution and Articles 21, 37, and 49 of the Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law, which guarantee the preservation and promotion of minority languages, religions, and cultures. The NPC first needs to revise the Constitution and the Regional Autonomy Law before implementing the new law,” the official mentioned.
Condemning the move, Arya said, “What China has not been able to achieve through force, repression, and intimidation all these years, China is now establishing laws to achieve its goal by legitimising its repressions.”
(IANS)
