China’s newly enacted Ethnic Unity and Progress Law deals a fresh blow to linguistic and cultural diversity in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, formalising the supremacy of Mandarin over Uyghur, Tibetan, and Mongolian languages in education and public life.
China’s National People’s Congress passed the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress on 12 March 2026, with the legislation set to take effect on 01 July 2026. It legally embeds Xi Jinping’s assimilationist agenda, folding the country’s 56 ethnic groups into a single Party-defined “Chinese nation,” mandating Mandarin as the standard language nationwide, and reaching beyond China’s borders to assert authority over diaspora critics.
The law builds on a troubling trajectory already visible over the past decade. In Inner Mongolia, Beijing has progressively replaced Mongolian-language instruction with Mandarin-medium education, triggering widespread protests in 2020 that were swiftly suppressed.
