On July 1, 2026, China's new "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress" went into effect after being passed by the National People's Congress.
The name makes George Orwell's Ministry of Peace sound accurate. In truth, the law has nothing to do with unity or progress and everything to do with stamping out anyone who doesn't agree with Chinese totalitarianism.
Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, having forced the entire Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to conform to his vision, now seeks that same conformity across China. This law would erase Uighurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Macanese, Christians, and others who only want to preserve their cultural heritage. Its focus is on melting subnational ethnic identities into a state-defined national identity.
Article 63 of the law is particularly troubling. It proclaims that individuals and organizations outside of China—even in the U.S.—can be held legally accountable if they commit acts that "undermine ethnic unity" or "create ethnic division." It's not hard to imagine China using this to try to conduct extraterritorial "law enforcement operations" to kidnap dissidents, as they did during their "Fox Hunt" operations.
Article 20 of the law holds Chinese parents legally accountable to raise children to love the CCP. It also lets the state punish parents who instill values that are detrimental to social harmony.
Washington right now sees China chiefly as an economic and military rival. The "Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress" reminds us that this contest isn't just economic but ideological. China wants nothing less than to replace American values of liberty and pluralism with a chilling monolith where everyone must think the same so the CCP can remain in power.
In the past, Americans had a better grasp of this ideological dimension. Stories about China's brutal treatment of its Uighur ethnic minority made front-page news while its attempts to bully "South Park" and the NBA met massive condemnation online.
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Yet lately China's cultural erasure has received less attention. This is a mistake that needs to be corrected.
The official policy of mainland China isn't just to surpass the United States but to damage its political values and cultural influence. It is a type of threat we have not seen since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union.
Look at Hong Kong, a bustling commercial center that dares to look west rather than east. Hong Kong was the subject of a brutal Chinese crackdown in 2019, culminating in the subjugation of its government, the disbanding of protest groups, and the mass arrests of China critics.
You can understand why the people of Hong Kong are even more worried now. A coalition of Hong Kong pro-freedom organizations recently signed a joint letter calling the new unity law "a coordinated assault on the right to a distinct cultural or religious identity separate from that ordained by the state."
Or look at Tibet, whose native culture China has been trying to stamp out for decades. Beijing is cracking down on the region's schools, tinkering with their curriculum to erase Tibetan identity in the minds of the young.
Earlier this month, a Tibetan man died after setting himself on fire outside the United Nations building in New York. He was trying to call the world's attention to the plight of his people, victims of the Chinese state.
In some cases, China's erasure campaign is even less subtle. Like in Taiwan, where some experts think a Chinese forced takeover is only a matter of time.
In the United States, you'll hear people complaining about a "cultural genocide," when what they really mean is someone getting criticized on social media for wearing or portraying an item from another culture.
What China is doing is actual cultural genocide. Worse, it's being abetted by the same economic competition that China is currently waging against America.
Take artificial intelligence, where China has made great strides thanks to enormous government subsidies, illicit technology transfer, and massive tech conglomerate Huawei. Beijing is increasingly using AI to gather and synthesize information not only on its own people but also on U.S. officials and members of Congress.
Fortunately, America has been pushing back. The Trump administration recently approved a merger between U.S. tech companies Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks. This new company will have the know-how and global scale to compete against Huawei in the AI market.
Additionally, the Trump administration has been lifting export restrictions on American-made AI models. This will further help U.S. companies compete against China in the global marketplace. Besides the technological benefits, U.S. AI models will not put their customers under surveillance.
It's here that we see how America can fight back. We need more companies, products, media, entertainment, and voices that encapsulate American values of liberty, pluralism, and fair play with the requisite scale to compete against state-subsidized Chinese companies. All of Beijing's restrictions can't compete with traditional American values and the yearning of all people for basic human rights.
While economically we've made some initial progress against the Chinese, we need Washington to wake up to China's totalitarian influence and stand up for basic, global human rights. A world dominated by the CCP isn't a place any of us should want to live.
It is not too late to stand with oppressed ethnic nationalities and Chinese dissidents. Doing so would reflect American values and help preserve freedom and democracy for generations to come.
David Sauer is a retired senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who served as chief of station and deputy chief of station in multiple overseas command positions in East Asia and South Asia. He earned a Master's degree in international security policy studies from the George Washington University and a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Gustavus Adolphus College.
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