newsThe Australian government says it has raised concerns directly with China over the country's new ethnic unity law.
Under a clause in the law, people outside of China can be held legally accountable for undermining "ethnic unity and progress or inciting ethnic separatism".
The European Parliament has called for the law, which is due to come into effect next week, to be repealed.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-26/new-ethnic-unity-law-in-china-could-target-people-overseas/106838836
China says don't be racist, and obviously australia and europe took issue with that. but at what cost, etc.
reminds me if reading about the founding of the league of nations, when the Jaoanese delegation said treat us as equals, be less racist, and the australian, british, and usa delegates said uhh, that would upset out voter base, or similar anyway
xposted from the news mega - almost belongs in c/slop
When "concerns are raised" over the "long arm of China" it's usually in regards to Chinese diaspora and dissidents, as well as the people that run orgs like the World Uyghur Congress: "they fled China for their safety but now they're not even safe here."
I remember when this "ethnic unity" law was discussed here a few months back. The only thing we could agree on is that its effects are highly dependent on the implementation so this can go many ways.
This is the same state-run news outlet that has been openly stating verbatim the goals and ideals of the far-right One Nation party (the Australian equivalent of the UK Reform party that has been getting quite popular recently) in the last couple of weeks, giving credence to their ideas of a "monoculture" and forcing all Australian ethnic groups to accept "Australian values".
The irony levels of the ABC and the Australian government concern trolling China about ethnic unity (which is obviously targeting western-backed separatist movements) is through the roof.
The article in OP has a link to one on "monoculturalism", where they say that the only truly monocultural societies are North Korea and ISIS
"What are we a bunch of ASIANS"
Oh God, that read on the surface to me as some kind of race mixing law. The idea that you'd legislate to try and prevent me from happening would be cringe.
But it's almost exactly the opposite
China's Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion law, which comes into effect next week, is designed to create a "shared" national identity among the country's 55 ethnic minority groups, including Tibetans and Uyghurs.
It formalises longstanding policies to promote Mandarin as the language of education, official business and public space while criminalising "violent terrorist activities, ethnic separatist activities, or religious extremist activities"
After Serbia and the Middle East, not having a program like this is just asking for constant color revolution.
Making sure that people can communicate in a Lingua Franca is good. Preventing ethnic separatism is good. Allowing those groups to continue their regional traditions and maintain their culture while pulling this off is hard, but not impossible. You'll also inevitably get new identities that form out of this.
The USA is absolutely full of groups that were forced violently to comply with ethnic unity policies and many of them have developed new cultural traditions from it (not saying it's good that this happened, just that it did. If the integration process wasn't so violent it likely would have happened anyways, just in a different form)
Australia and EU when America with long arm of the long and unlimited jurisdiction using it to enforce its will globally including kidnapping people not even within their borders and human rights violations: yes go rules based order!
Australia and EU when China does some limited long-arm jurisdiction against people literally trying to destroy the country in concert with western intelligence efforts: waaah they're being authoritarian.
I love when the news reports on "concerns".
Whose concerns?
Nobody in particular, just concerns.
So... your concerns?
No, of course not, we're an unbiased news reporting agency, we can't have concerns of our own, we can just report on the ones that are out there.
Out where?
In the news.
In the CIA and other intelligence agencies funding separatists.
Countries funding + directing religious extremist groups to do terrorism against China are concerned about China's new law against funding + directing religious extremist groups to do terrorism against China.
I dunno, I would discourage snap takes. It would require a full understanding of Chinese jurisprudence to analyse the potential consequences of such a law.
Certainly holding people accountable for your state's laws while they are living outside of said state is a break with many legal traditions. It's not obvious to me that it's a good thing.
Certainly holding people accountable for your state's laws while they are living outside of said state is a break with many legal traditions.
No it's not. Terrorism and Separatism are almost always instigated, organized and funded by foreign states. They are still prosecuted by every state. On re-entry of abroad citizens (which is probably mostly what this law will of be about), through international cooperation of law enforcement, extradition, Europol, Interpol, etc.
E.g. Carles Puigdemont, the Catalán independence leader, was charged with rebellion, even though he wasn't currently living in Spain. Also, imagine murdering someone and the charges are just dropped, because you moved abroad, that doesn't happen either.
Also, imagine murdering someone and the charges are just dropped, because you moved abroad, that doesn't happen either.
Didn't the 2019 HK protests begin because there were talks about a common extradition treaty between the PRC, Macau, Taiwan province and HK after some HK guy killed his girfriend in Taiwan?
This superinjunction was granted “contra mundum”, Latin for “against the world”, meaning it is applied to anyone and everyone.
The effect is that a person could be found in contempt of court if they shared any information about the injunction, whether or not they are participating in the proceedings.
There has been previous use of contra mundum injunctions, but High Court judges believed this to be the first contra mundum superinjunction.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/superinjunction-what-is-court-order-mod-data-b2789156.html
English judges seem to think they have that power.
In the UK, you can also be prosecuted for child sexual offences committed abroad. Enforcing laws upon your citizens regardless of the jurisdiction crimes were committed in is nothing new. The PRC also frequently prosecute their own perople for any crime committed abroad whenever they return.
Also, if a British citizen in the UK were to, for example, hack an american computer system and cause damage (although any crime like scamming, etc done over the internet), the UK will willingly extradite that person to stand trial in the USA, despite them never having previously set foot in the country.
As you said, it's hard to say much about it without knowing more, like how they plan to hold people legally accountable. Sanctions? International arrest warrants? Or simply that they will be prosecuted should they enter China?
The criticism cited in the article is also all about how it could, in theory, be bad. The UN special rapporteurs' criticism is more detailed, but mostly boils down to "this is too vague and could be used in bad ways".
{| first time? }
No idea what that means.
they mean the us kidnapped maduro for allegedly violating us laws (specifically drug trafficking) while being outside the us. So your second sentence sounds correct on its face but in practice the break has already happened, many times, with the US as the culprit.
So if America just gets to do whatever the fuck it wants, why should other countries be bound by different standards? I do wish we lived in a world where everybody respected each other's sovereignty. But thats not our world, and hamstringing yourself while your rival doesn't bother themselves with such frivolities just doesnt seem very rational
That's kind of a ridiculous take yo. There's so many criticisms of this just three off the cuff.
-
That legislation around restricting separatist movements is in the same sphere as legislation around attacking other nation state's governments
-
that the transgressions of legal norms by one state should cause all states to abandon said norms
-
that there is critical geopolitical advantage to be gained by transgressing norms in a new sphere because of transgressions in a different sphere.
The norm about not prosecuting for crimes done outside the country at this point seems mostly to exist for the benefit of sex/war criminals in Israel and economic criminals in Dubai. Either way it's a norm that exists because of and is maintained by the people who are flagrantly breaking it. The US are the ones who oversaw the creation of these norms, and they are the ones who have declared it null and void.
