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<\/a><\/p>\nPublished On 2 Jul 20262 Jul 2026<\/p>\n
China says it has the right to pursue legal action against overseas individuals and organisations that undermine its ethnic unity as Beijing moves to expand its extraterritorial reach.<\/p>\n
Passed in March by the National People\u2019s Congress, the \u201cLaw on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress\u201d officially went into effect on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
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The legislation has already come under fire from rights watchdogs like the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on Minority Rights and Cultural Rights, who say the law has been used to justify forced assimilation in regions like Tibet and Xinjiang, rather than encourage ethnic harmony.<\/p>\n
Article 63 of the law has drawn further international attention for extending China\u2019s legal reach overseas. It states that \u201corganisations and individuals outside of mainland China who commit crimes aimed at [China] that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division are to be pursued for legal responsibility in accordance with law\u201d, according to a translation.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International said that Article 63 could be used to justify transnational repression of overseas citizens and activists, who are monitored by an alleged network of unofficial Chinese \u201cpolice stations\u201d as well as student or cultural groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeaceful advocacy for minority rights in China by anyone, anywhere could be characterised as undermining \u2018ethnic unity\u2019,\u201d Amnesty\u2019s Deputy Regional Director Sarah Brooks said this week.<\/p>\n
Brooks said \u201cunity\u201d in this case did not mean \u201charmony between different communities\u201d but conformity with Beijing\u2019s political line.<\/p>\n
Zhou Jianshe, the deputy director-general and spokesperson of the State Council Information Office Press Bureau \u2013 the government agency responsible for introducing China\u2019s national policies to the world \u2013 responded to the controversy last week.<\/p>\n
Zhou said Article 63 was a \u201clegitimate, lawful, necessary, and workable legal provision\u201d and Western media had tried to distort and smear the law as an example of \u201clong-arm jurisdiction\u201d.<\/p>\n
Beyond international rights groups, the law has also raised the alarm in Taiwan as a possible tool to prosecute or harass its citizens abroad. In a speech on Wednesday, Taiwanese President William Lai Ching-te urged citizens to remain cautious while travelling or living in China after the law went into effect.<\/p>\n
Lai also said Taipei would continue to monitor the situation and provide guidance for officials stationed overseas.<\/p>\n
Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy claimed by Beijing, shares deep cultural and historical ties with China despite a surge in Taiwanese nationalism over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
Beijing considers Taiwan\u2019s government to be \u201cseparatists\u201d and cut off official contact in 2016 following the election of President Tsai Ing-wen.<\/p>\n
Taipei stepped up its travel warnings in 2024 after China ruled that \u201cdie-hard\u201d Taiwanese independence activists could be tried in absentia and face the death penalty if found guilty of promoting secession from China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rather than promote ethnic harmony, activists say Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress could justify…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":907153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[13214,74,356,18785,454,50,80,30723,103],"class_list":["post-907152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-asia-pacific","tag-china","tag-courts","tag-demographics","tag-government","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-taiwan","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116849582194374962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}