Statement on the Passage of China’s “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress”
March 12, 2026
Contact:
Lhadon Tethong I [email protected]
Statement on the Passage of China’s “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress”
Boston – Today the Chinese government’s rubber-stamp parliament approved the new “Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress,” which codifies policies and practices already being carried out in Tibet that a UN expert recently described as a project of “extermination.” [1]
The law requires the use of Mandarin in all official communication and effectively terminates the limited protections minority languages were accorded under China’s Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law of 1984; encourages intermarriage between Han and non-Han people; requires parents to “educate and guide minors to love the Chinese Communist Party” and enables prosecution of those it deems to be instilling “detrimental” views related to ethnic harmony in children, and mandates that different ethnicities should live in mixed communities.
“The Chinese government just passed a law authorizing genocide in Tibet,” said Lhadon Tethong, Director of Tibet Action Institute. “The new law should be be seen for what it is: a legal framework for policies already underway, like the coercive system of colonial boarding schools in Tibet, that aim to eradicate Tibetans’ identity as a people.” [2]
The legalization of the Chinese Communist Party’s policies of forced assimilation intensifies the threat to Tibetan identity and way of life, providing a legal basis for criminalization and prosecution of individuals actively engaging with their language, religion, and customs. We have already seen the devastating effects of colonial boarding schools in Tibet, but this law could, for example, lead to prosecution of Tibetan parents who simply express their wish for their children to be educated in their mother tongue.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues recently issued a report for the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council that suggests China’s policies targeting Tibetan language and identity are a form of genocide. Citing the boarding school system in Tibet as an example of “extermination” of a minority group, he states unequivocally that it is aimed at “erasing the Tibetan language and identity” and preventing intergenerational transmission of culture and language, which leads to the “extinction of the minority.” He later argues such policies “should be qualified as genocide and be treated as such by the international community.”
Notes for Editors:
[1] “Addressing minority issues through their root causes,” Report of the Special Rapporteur on minority issues, Nicolas Levrat, https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/61/41
[2] Tibet Action Institute, “When They Came to Take Our Children: China’s Colonial Boarding Schools and the Future of Tibet” (2025) https://tibetaction.net/when-they-came-to-take-our-children and “Separated from their Families, Hidden from the World: China’s Vast Network of Colonial Boarding Schools in Tibet” (2021) https://tibetaction.net/colonial-boarding-school-report.
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