Xi Tightens Grip on Minorities as World Watches Other Crises

China's parliament passed a sweeping new law in March 2026 that came into force on 1 July, formalising a decade-long shift away from minority autonomy towards enforced national unity. The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress applies to the roughly 125 million people from 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities living within China's borders, most prominently Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians.

The legislation replaces a 1984 framework that, at least on paper, guaranteed minority regions the right to use their own languages in schools and preserve local customs, an entitlement that was often violated in practice even before the new law.

From autonomy to assimilation

Amnesty International has warned that the new statute puts a national legal framework behind policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups, and expects it to further institutionalise forced assimilation. The law bars acts that undermine ethnic unity, terms Amnesty says are broad and undefined, raising the risk of arbitrary enforcement.

“"This law puts a national legal framework behind policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups," Amnesty International said.”

Radio Free Asia reported that the law provides the legal basis for altering the demographic balance of minority regions, describing how experts and advocates it consulted said the framework allows Beijing to move Han Chinese settlers into minority areas while relocating minorities to the Chinese interior for so-called labour programmes. One expert cited by the outlet warned the likely long-term impact would be the erosion of distinct ethnic identities in favour of a singular Chinese national identity, with Mandarin the sole language of education.

CNN reported that Xi has for years pushed minority groups such as Tibetans and Uyghurs to adopt an identity rooted in Chinese nationality and loyalty to the Communist Party, and that the new law is widely seen as the final step in a shift from ethnic autonomy toward assimilation. James Leibold, a China ethnic-policy specialist at La Trobe University in Melbourne, told CNN that Beijing no longer treats ethnic unity as a mere propaganda slogan.

Foreign Policy magazine has noted Xi's preferred metaphor for the country's ethnic groups: that they should be tightly packed together like pomegranate seeds, small, similar and uniform. The harshest measures have been applied in Xinjiang, where independent investigations have documented mass internment, family separation and forced labour.

A more assertive China abroad

The domestic clampdown has coincided with a period of heightened Chinese diplomatic activity. In May 2026, Xi hosted Vladimir Putin in Beijing, where the two leaders issued a joint statement condemning US-Israeli strikes on Iran and pledging deeper energy cooperation, according to East Asia Forum. Xi told Putin during the visit that it was imperative to halt the conflict in the Middle East, framing the international situation as complex and volatile amid what he called rampant unilateral hegemony, according to Euronews.

On Ukraine, Beijing has stopped short of matching that urgency. China's foreign ministry has repeatedly said Xi has proposed four principles for a settlement, centred on respecting sovereignty and the UN Charter, while deepening economic and diplomatic ties with Moscow. Analysts at the Foreign Affairs Forum think tank have argued this reflects a calculated centrist positioning, letting Beijing present itself as a stabilising power even as its alignment with Russia carries risks, including exposure to sanctions and friction with Global South nations that have not endorsed Moscow's invasion.

For European readers, the juxtaposition is notable. As Western diplomatic attention is consumed by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and by tensions over Iran, Beijing has used the moment to advance both its international standing and its internal consolidation with less sustained scrutiny than either might otherwise attract.

Wider implications

The Diplomat has noted that behind the crackdown lies a drive to avoid the mistakes that led to the Soviet Union's collapse, a comparison party strategists have long drawn when justifying tighter control over ethnic regions. The 2008 Lhasa protests and later unrest in Xinjiang, which preceded Xi's rise to the party leadership in 2012, are frequently cited as the formative events behind the shift.

For the millions of Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians affected, the new law represents not a sudden rupture but the codification of a direction Chinese policy has been moving in for years. Whether the rest of the world, distracted by wars elsewhere, pays closer attention to its consequences remains an open question.

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