China to Hold First Ethnic Unity Publicity Week Under New Law
China will hold its first Ethnic Unity and Progress Publicity Week from September 21 to 27, 2026 — the first such event since the country’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law took effect on July 1, 2026, state media announced this week. The launch underscores Beijing’s push to elevate its doctrine of forging a “strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” from Party ideology into binding national law, with President Xi Jinping’s guidance framed as the driving force behind the effort.
According to Xinhua News, the state news agency opened a new column, “Forge a Strong Community, the Chinese Nation is One Family,” to mark the occasion and promote the concept nationwide through the week-long campaign.
A Legal Milestone
The publicity week follows a landmark legislative step. The Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law was passed by the 14th National People’s Congress at its fourth session on March 12, 2026, and took effect on July 1. Chinese authorities describe it as the first specialized law in the ethnic affairs field in the new era.
According to the National Ethnic Affairs Commission, the legislation achieves “three firsts”: it is the first time Xi’s important thought on strengthening and improving ethnic work has been written into law; the first time core concepts such as “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” have been interpreted at a legal-theory level; and the first time the Party’s ethnic work pattern in the new era has been specified in law.
The commission framed the law as “the successful practice of transforming major theoretical and practical achievements in ethnic work into national will” — a phrase that captures the document’s dual role as both legal instrument and ideological vehicle.
The Ideological Arc
The concept at the heart of the law has been built over more than a decade. Xi first proposed “Chinese national community consciousness” at the Second Central Symposium on Xinjiang Work in May 2014. In 2017, “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” was proposed at the 19th Party Congress and written into the Party Constitution. At the 2019 National Ethnic Unity and Progress Commendation Conference, Xi introduced the “four commonalities” view of Chinese national history, which was expanded to “five commonalities” in 2024.
In 2021, at the Central Ethnic Work Conference, Xi put forward the “twelve musts” for ethnic work, including the requirement to uphold Party leadership over ethnic affairs. The Xinhua feature quotes Xi’s directive that realizing the Chinese Dream “requires taking forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation as the main line and firmly grasping the cause of ethnic unity and progress as a foundational undertaking.”
A notable precedent came in 2025, when Xi, as General Secretary, President and Central Military Commission Chairman, led central delegations to celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the 70th anniversary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region — described by Xinhua as a first in the history of the Party and state.
Development as Unity
The state’s framing links ethnic cohesion directly to economic outcomes. Xinhua reported that from 2020 to 2025, the combined GDP of China’s five autonomous regions grew from 6.01 trillion yuan to 8.66 trillion yuan, an average annual growth rate of 5.5 percent.
The feature also highlighted infrastructure as a symbol of integration: July 2026 marked the 20th anniversary of the full-line opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, and the plateau rail network — including the Lhasa-Shigatse and Lhasa-Nyingchi lines — now exceeds 4,000 kilometers of operating mileage. The article noted that 2026 is also the 30th anniversary of China’s East-West cooperation program, citing the Fujian-Ningxia model as a template for deepening exchanges between developed coastal provinces and inland regions.
Xi’s directive on the program, quoted by Xinhua, called for “industrial complementarity, personnel interaction, mutual learning of technology, mutual exchange of ideas and mutual emulation of work styles” between eastern and western regions.
Voices From the Ground
The Xinhua feature drew on local officials to illustrate the campaign’s reach. Zhang Yaowen, Party secretary of the Guyuan Lane community in Urumqi, Xinjiang, said Xi’s visit to the community — where he remarked on the harmony among ethnic groups — “further strengthened our confidence in doing ethnic work well.”
Liu Yanlin, Party secretary of Panlong Community in Nanning, Guangxi, described a recent “National Advanced Grassroots Party Organization” award as “an affirmation of the community’s Party-building work, grassroots governance and the cause of ethnic unity and progress.”
A Coordinated Push
The measure has support across the Party apparatus. Separately, Xinhua reported that Li Ganjie, a member of the CPC Political Bureau and head of the Central United Front Work Department, said during a September 9-11 inspection tour of Ningxia that the law is “a major rule-of-law measure for forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation and advancing the construction of the Chinese national community.” Li called for stepped-up publicity efforts “in conjunction with major events such as the Ethnic Unity and Progress Publicity Week” and for the law’s spirit to be carried through “every aspect of ethnic work.”
The National Ethnic Affairs Commission’s source also gathered reactions from scholars and officials, including Ba Mo Qubumo, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who called the law a legal foundation for “firmly following the correct path of solving ethnic problems with Chinese characteristics.”
Analysis: Law as Ideological Instrument
Viewed critically, the publicity week and the new column are components of a coordinated propaganda campaign timed to the law’s implementation. All cited sources are state-aligned, and the quoted individuals are officials, Party cadres or scholars within the state apparatus — a reminder that the framing reflects official messaging rather than independent reporting.
The law’s significance lies in its function: it converts a core tenet of Party ideology into enforceable national law, embedding the “community for the Chinese nation” concept into governance across economic, cultural and social domains. The emphasis on territorial integrity — reinforced by references to Xinjiang, Tibet and the autonomous regions — signals that ethnic policy remains closely tied to the state’s priorities of national unity and border stability. The concurrent focus on development outcomes positions the campaign within broader goals of “common prosperity” and what Beijing calls “Chinese-style modernization.”
What to Watch
During the September 21-27 publicity week, a range of educational and cultural activities is expected across the country, accompanied by the seventh National Ethnic Minority Literature and Art Festival currently underway in Beijing. How the law is applied in practice — particularly in restive regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet — will be a key indicator of its real-world impact. Observers will also watch how the publicity campaign is received and whether the legal framework translates into measurable changes in economic opportunity and social integration for minority communities.