cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/56159234
Op-ed by Reza Hasmath, Professor in Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada.
On July 1, China brought into force its Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, converting a decade of Xi Jinping’s doctrine of “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” into binding law.
Most attention has gone to its domestic machinery: entrenching Mandarin over minority languages, unified state textbooks and “inter-embedded” neighbourhoods engineered to dilute concentrations of Uyghurs and Tibetans among the Han majority. In other words, this is an assimilationist project that’s already far advanced.
The provision that matters most to the world outside China is buried near the end. Article 63 declares that organizations and individuals outside Chinese territory who “undermine ethnic unity” or “create ethnic division” shall be pursued for legal liability.
The Chinese government is therefore asserting, in statute, that its authority follows its critics across oceans into other countries, including Canada, home to some of the world’s largest Chinese, Uyghur and Tibetan diaspora communities. The danger is not that the law reaches across borders. It is what it criminalizes, whom it targets and how it’s enforced.
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The intimidation inherent in the new law already violates many domestic harassment and foreign interference laws in jurisdictions around the world. Prosecutors, here, should use them against the agents carrying out the coercion, not the exiles who are its victims.
Governments should shut the unlicensed “police stations,” and press Interpol to reject politically motivated notices aimed at diaspora activists.
Governments can also build dedicated channels for those targeted: a clear law enforcement contact, protective guidance for Chinese and minority diaspora communities and training for officers who could mistake transnational repression for an ordinary domestic dispute.
Finally, asylum systems should treat Article 63 as evidence: a statute in which China announces that diaspora advocacy invites retaliation is close to proof of persecution for those seeking to flee.
China has every right to legislate for its own territory and citizens. What it cannot legitimately do, however warmly it speaks of unity, is disregard borders. The task for all nations, Canada included, is to insist, in law and in practice, that borders still exist.
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Hmmm… Maybe China a little bad
In International Relations, a key concept is reciprocity. If China says it can disregard sovereign borders, well, it goes both ways.
Enjoy the shitshow.
Great article. The MAGA Americans have a similar plan, couched under the pretext of “left wing” and “antifa” terror, but theirs is more embryonic as they have still to undermine all democratic checks… Scary times.
Hey Lemmy.ml, you suck that dick. Tell us why you still do? Can’t wait. 🍿🥤🤡👋👋✋👋👋
Article 63: Organizations and individuals outside the [mainland] territory of the P.R.C. that commit acts aimed at the P.R.C. that undermine ethnic unity and progress or create ethnic division are to be pursued for legal responsibility in accordance with law.
Here is what the text actually says. Ethnic unity is well defined within the earlier articles. Yeah, this does mean that if, say, the USA is taking action to encourage the people of China to resist China (let’s say they funded a splinter group of ISIS in the Uighur region), they can retaliate against the US.
Disagree? Read them here yourself instead of depending on some random scare mongering
@Calfpupa@lemmy.ml
What an absurdly weird framing.
“Organizations and individuals outside the [mainland] territory of the P.R.C” means exactly that: organizations and individuals that live abroad. Your comment is a nothing burger, unfortunately typical for ml.
Not a nothing burger if it directly refutes one of the main claims that Ethnic unity is not defined. So you’ve read the unity law now directly I hope, seeing that this whole fear mongering article is a nothing burger. Very big of you to attack me, shows your ideas can stand up on their own.
The gist of it is pretty much just campism. To them, “the West” is worse than any of the alternatives, so they go with the latter. No room for nuance with those people.
Yes but, most of them are living in the west.
True, that only makes their view even more absurd though. And you’d better believe they’d crumble under the smallest amount of face-to-face scrutiny.
Oh yeah if they couldn’t use their wiki or their LLMs they would basically have the education of a high school freshmen in an American red state
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This reminds me of how the UK tried to impose its own censorship laws on 4CHAN and other US companies…
Not really, these laws only apply to services that serve traffic to Britain.
Block all British IP addresses, like Imgur did, and you adhere to the law.
So that makes it work. Almost like Google’s deal with China is backfiring badly. Google initially refused to work with China, finding their terms authoritarian and unreasonable, but when China basically became the only real global economic superpower left they didn’t make counter offers, they just fully accepted China’s original terms.
