Catholic clergy ‘promote China’s ethnic unity law’

The Chinese government is reportedly using state-sanctioned Church bodies to promote a contentious new law aimed at ethnic minorities.

The online magazine Bitter Winter published a June 2 article documenting an event in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, in which priests reportedly handed out booklets on the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, scheduled to go into effect July 1.

Chinese authorities present the law as an effort to strengthen national cohesion and guarantee equality between the country’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. But Western governments and human rights activists claim it seeks to subsume minority languages, cultures, and religious practices into a unified Chinese national identity that reflects the norms of the majority Han culture.

The new law embeds Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s policies promoting the “Sinicization of ethnic minorities” into the country’s legal framework. It requires state organizations, social institutions, schools, and religious groups to foster “the communal consciousness of the Chinese nation,” in practice moving the country away from a model of ethnic autonomy adopted after the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949.

Officially recognized Church bodies, such as the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, are expected to