{"id":76674,"date":"2026-03-12T09:00:03","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/12\/china-ethnic-unity-law-parliament"},"modified":"2026-03-12T09:00:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T00:00:03","slug":"chinas-rubber-stamp-parliament-set-to-approve-ethnic-unity-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76674","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s rubber-stamp parliament set to approve \u2018ethnic unity\u2019 law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New legislation will require schools to use Mandarin by default, taking priority over minority ethnic languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur and Mongolian<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s National People\u2019s Congress (NPC), the state legislature, will vote on Thursday on a suite of new laws agreed at this year\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/04\/china-two-sessions-2026-meeting-what-are-they-when-is-it-explainer\">annual two sessions gathering<\/a>, including a piece of legislation that will diminish the role of minority ethnic languages in the education system.<\/p>\n<p>NPC delegates are expected to approve a new ethnic unity law, along with a new environmental code and the 15th five-year plan, the economic planning document for 2026-2030. Delegates have spent the last week debating Beijing\u2019s proposed bills, which they are all but certain to approve. The NPC, which is often described as a rubber-stamp parliament, has never rejected an item on its agenda.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/12\/china-ethnic-unity-law-parliament\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New legislation will require schools to use Mandarin by default, taking priority over minority ethnic languages such as Tibetan, Uyghur and MongolianChina\u2019s National People\u2019s Congress (NPC), the state legislature, will vote on Thursday on a suite of ne&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,609,2052,42,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-tibet","category-uyghurs","category-world-news","category-xi-jinping"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76675,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76674\/revisions\/76675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}