Amnesty International Australia is calling on Australia to respond resolutely to the Chinese Government’s introduction of the new ‘ethnic unity’ law, which will underpin and reinforce China’s escalating transnational repression and systemic erasure of ethnic minority communities.
In response to the law coming into force, Amnesty International Australia’s Strategic Campaigns Manager and Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue, spoke at a protest in Martin Place, Sydney, this morning. The event was organised by the Australian Tibetan Community Association and the Australia Tibet Council, with rallies also taking place in Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane.
The organisations are calling on the Australian Government and Parliament to condemn the introduction of the new law, and to convey strongly to the Chinese Government Australia’s opposition to the law and its profound human rights consequences.
Responding to China’s new Ethnic Unity Law coming into force today, Kyinzom Dhongdue said:
“The Chinese Government is pursuing a long-term project of forced assimilation. Or, as described by Tibetans, a cultural genocide. It seeks to fundamentally reshape how Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples, including Southern Mongolians speak, learn, worship, and ultimately understand who they are.
“Beijing is now giving this colonial project a legal power and framework, the so-called Ethnic Unity and Progress Law, set to come into force today. ‘Unity’ in this context is not harmony between different communities — it is political and ideological alignment with the Chinese Communist Party. Rather than protecting diversity and equality, the law will be used to brutally enforce conformity.
“Rather than protecting diversity and equality, the law will be used to brutally enforce conformity.”
Amnesty International Australia’s Strategic Campaigns Manager and Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue
“The fundamental rights to enjoy one’s culture, speak one’s language and practice one’s religion are protected under international human rights law, including the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the, both of which China has ratified. It’s also protected under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which China has failed to ratify.
“This law unambiguously promotes and reinforces China’s long-running policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups. We expect it to result in an escalation of China’s brutal policies of forced assimilation.
“International human rights protect a fundamental principle: every person has the right to enjoy their culture, speak their language, practice their religion and pass that identity on to future generations.
“No government should be able to legislate those rights away, or attack those who try to defend them.”
Background
China’s Ethnic Unity Law will come into force on 1 July 2026. The law frames “ethnic unity” as a pre-condition for ambitious projects of the Chinese Communist Party leadership, including the advancement of Xi Jinping Thought, and the “rejuvenation” of a shared national political identity.
The law, for example, prohibits acts that “undermine ethnic unity or create ethnic division,” but these terms are broad and undefined, raising concerns about arbitrary enforcement.
During a 24 June State Council press conference, senior officials confirmed that authorities consider aspects of the law applicable beyond China’s borders.
Amnesty International has previously documented China’s use of transnational repression, including surveillance of diaspora communities, harassment of critics overseas, intimidation of family members in China, and efforts to pressure foreign governments to return individuals.
Cases such as those of Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti, Uyghur ethnographer Rahile Dawut, and Tibetan religious leader Choktrul Dorje Ten Rinpoche, illustrate how peaceful academic, cultural, and religious work has been criminalized under existing policies — trends this law risks further entrenching.
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