Security expert Robert Potter issues red alert over China’s unity law that comes into effect next week
The Ethnic Unity Law could be used by the Chinese Communist Party to pursue critics beyond China’s borders.
Australia has complained to China and at the United Nations about a law that comes into effect next week that will allow the Chinese Communist Party to pursue critics beyond China’s borders.
The Ethnic Unity Law, which was passed in March, states that people and groups outside the People’s Republic of China can be held legally accountable for undermining “ethnic unity and progress or inciting ethnic separatism” as part of a plan to build a shared national identity among China’s 55 officially recognised ethnic minorities.
While critics in the US, Europe and Asia worry the law will be used by Beijing to justify pursuing activists overseas, including Uyghurs or Tibetans, or to harass Taiwanese critics, Australia’s large Chinese population could be vulnerable. The 2021 Census recorded 320,000 people living in Australia who were born in China and were not Australian citizens.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.Chinese authorities sometimes use Interpol “red notices” to try to get foreign governments to arrest people it wants to prosecute for political offences, according to human rights groups.
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the government was concerned about the human rights implications of the law, including its potential to curtail the rights and freedoms of people outside China.
“All people in Australia, regardless of citizenship, are protected by Australian law and enjoy Australian political freedoms,” the spokesperson said. “We have raised our concerns on the Ethnic Unity Law directly with China and at the UN Human Rights Council.”
‘This should worry us all’
At a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, Vice Justice Minister Hu Weilie said Western media outlets had “distorted and misinterpreted” the law.
“Countries around the world all have the right to prevent separatist and destructive activities and to maintain social solidarity and normal order through domestic legislation,” he said, according to Reuters.
The extension of the law overseas is designed to “guard against various unlawful acts involving ethnic affairs from outside the country”, he said.
China’s foreign intelligence services have infiltrated the Chinese diaspora to monitor dissent overseas against the Chinese Communist Party, according to analysts.
China analyst John Lee, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a US think tank, said a Taiwanese citizen advocating for the current status quo of Taiwanese autonomy would likely violate the law, exposing them to entry bans or commercial sanctions.
“Those entering China caught by the law could face more severe penalties,” he said.
“For Chinese citizens residing outside China such as students, similar penalties are possible should they advocate for causes or policies on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Tibet — or even if they criticise CCP policies on coercive cultural integration more generally.”
Australian security expert Robert Potter said the law targeted expatriates who might influence cultural minorities living outside China.
“It creates another legal instrument through which the Chinese Communist Party can frame criticism of its policies in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong or Taiwan not as political disagreement, but as an attack on the state itself,” he said on LinkedIn.“China has a longstanding fear that all revolutions within China start in the diaspora. As a result, as China has gotten more powerful, it’s stopped talking about the inalienable right to its sovereignty as something purely limited to its borders. Now it’s a global claim. This should worry us all.”
Shadow foreign minister Ted O’Brien called on the Federal Government to “urgently” determine the implications for members of the Chinese diaspora who might be included in the definition of President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Nation”.
He said Australia needed to protect Australian citizens of Chinese, Taiwanese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian and other heritages.
“If these new laws are an attempt to expand the notion of sovereignty beyond territoriality and nationality to include ethnicity, I am deeply concerned,” he said. “In Australia, a person’s allegiance follows citizenship — not ancestry.”
