China’s Ethnic Unity Law Driven By Deep Insecurities And Fears

“It is basically to marginalize, assimilate and erase people, non-Chinese people they have occupied in the last few decades. People from Tibet, in Mongolia and Xinjiang and other regions. It is basically a systematic legal assimilation effort by the Chinese government,” said Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha, deputy director of the Tibet Policy Institute in Dharmshala.

He was talking to StratNews Global on The Gist and for those familiar with China’s effort to “sinicise” its minorities, their religion and culture, this may not seem new.

But the pompously titled Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity & Progress, is nothing to do with ethnic unity or even progressing them. It basically codifies all those laws passed to govern the ethnic minority regions and gives legal dressing to the government’s efforts to make the “more Chinese.”

Why? Zamlha believes it is driven by insecurity.  It is a tacit admission that China’s efforts to assimilate their minorities has not worked.

“Xi Jinping is insecure with his own health and he’s insecure about his own party. He’s insecure about his own generals and he’s insecure about his own people. Most important, he is insecure about the rich culture of the minorities. So he felt the need to do something,” Zamlha said.

And although news out of Tibet is a trickle given China’s expansive controls, resistance to assimilation is widespread.

Zamlha notes that “More than 150 Tibetans have self immolated in protest against Chinese occupation or Chinese repression. None of them harmed harmed a single Chinese or single Chinese property. They are peacefully protesting against the repressive occupation of Tibetan areas by the Chinese government.”

Zamlha suspects such large scale assimilation effort  has never been done before. For instance, making the learning  of a particular language illegal.  Anybody caught doing so will be subject to  severe penalties and even his or her own family will pay.

Tune in for more in this conversation with Tempa Gyaltsen Zamlha of the Tibet Policy Institute in Dharmshala.