India, July 2 -- China's constitution has long promised a degree of autonomy to its ethnic minority regions, including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, through the framework of regional ethnic autonomy. The newly enacted Ethnic Unity and Progress Law exposes how hollow that promise has become.
The law was adopted by China's National People's Congress on 12 March 2026 and comes into force on 01 July 2026. It legally enshrines Beijing's drive to merge all 56 ethnic groups into a single state-defined "Chinese nation," enforcing Mandarin as the standard language while extending its reach to silence diaspora critics overseas.
Rather than formally abolishing the autonomy system, the law preserves its outward structure; the 56 recognised eth...