Since China’s leader, Xi Jinping, rose to power more than a decade ago, the ruling Communist Party has worked aggressively to make ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, Tibet and elsewhere in the country identify first and foremost as patriotic citizens.

自中国领导人习近平十多年前上台以来，执政的共产党一直积极致力于推动新疆、西藏及国内其他地区的少数民族首先将自己认同为爱国公民。

Now, this campaign of assimilation has been codified into an expansive new law that makes “ethnic unity” the responsibility of all of society, including every level of the government, business owners and parents.

如今，这场同化运动已被纳入一项内容广泛的新法律，将“民族团结”确立为全社会的责任，将各级政府、企业主和父母都包括在内。

The law, which was approved at the close of China’s legislative meeting on Thursday, has wide-ranging provisions that touch on education, housing policy, entertainment and other areas. It embodies Mr. Xi’s mission to forge a single national identity molded by the party — seen as a way to protect Beijing’s rule from threats at home and abroad.

该法律于周四在中国立法会议结束时通过，其条款范围广泛，涉及教育、住房政策、娱乐及其他领域。它承载了习近平构建由党打造单一国家认同的使命，被视为保护北京统治，抵御国内外威胁的手段。

While Beijing says the law will protect the traditions of all officially recognized 56 ethnic groups, a main focus appears to be assimilating minority residents into the culture of the Han Chinese, who are the majority. It orders that Mandarin Chinese be the language of instruction in schools and in official communication. (In government communication when both languages are used, Mandarin should be used first and displayed more prominently.)

尽管北京表示该法将保护所有官方认可的56个民族的传统，但其主要焦点似乎是将少数民族居民同化到占人口多数的汉族文化中。法律规定，普通话应作为学校教学和官方沟通的语言。（在同时使用两种语言的官方用语中，应当在位置、顺序等方面突出普通话。）

Under the new law, the authorities must guide citizens to have “correct views” on history, culture and religion and shed “outdated customs.” It also requires parents to “educate and guide children to love the Chinese Communist Party.” The law makes it illegal for anyone to oppose a marriage on ethnic or religious grounds and also calls for minority residents to live in mixed communities.

根据新法律，当局必须引导公民树立“正确”的历史观、文化观和宗教观，并推动“移风易俗”。法律还要求家长“教育和引导未成年人热爱中国共产党”。该法规定，任何人以民族或宗教原因为由反对婚姻均为非法，并呼吁少数民族居民居住在混合社区。

2021年，新疆一所学校的音乐课，当时正值政府组织外国记者进行考察访问。

According to James Leibold, a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne who focuses on China’s ethnic policies, the law marks the final “legal capstone” in Mr. Xi’s hard-line approach toward the country’s hinterlands like Xinjiang and Tibet, where demands for greater autonomy have in the past erupted into protests and violence.

墨尔本拉筹伯大学关注中国民族政策的教授雷国俊(James Leibold)认为，这部法律标志着习近平对新疆和西藏等边疆地区采取强硬手段的最终“法律顶峰”。 这些地区过去曾因要求更大自治权而爆发抗议和暴力事件。

In those regions, government measures — which have included mass detentions of residents, forced political indoctrination, the separation of children from their families and suppressing population growth — have led to the erasure of minority languages, religious traditions and cultural norms, he said.

雷国俊表示，在这些地区，政府的措施——包括大规模拘禁居民、强制政治灌输、将儿童与家人分离以及抑制人口增长——已经导致了少数民族语言、宗教传统和文化规范遭到抹杀。

The ethnic unity law is now “mobilizing all aspects of the party, state and society to forge a single national consciousness,” Dr. Leibold said. “In Xi’s China, there is very little room left for diversity of culture, language, identity, or even thought.”

民族团结法正在“调动党、国家和社会的所有方面来锻造单一的国家意识，”雷国俊说。“在习近平统治下的中国，几乎没有给文化、语言、身份甚至思想的多样性留下空间。”

Even before Mr. Xi came to power, Chinese officials and intellectuals were debating whether decades of granting limited autonomy to minority regions had gone too far. After a string of attacks by Uyghurs — including in 2014 when a group armed with knives killed 31 people at a train station in the southwestern city of Kunming — Mr. Xi oversaw an intense security crackdown and a shift in the party’s ethnic policies.

早在习近平上台之前，中国的官员和知识分子就在辩论，几十年来给予少数民族地区有限自治权的政策是否走得太远。在一系列由维吾尔人发起的袭击后——包括2014年一群持刀袭击者在西南城市昆明的火车站杀害31人的事件——习近平主持了严厉的安全镇压，并转变了党的民族政策。

Officials restricted the use of minority languages in schools in Xinjiang and Tibet and other places where minority students had previously been able to choose their language of instruction. Until 2020, students in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region between China and Mongolia, could study mostly in Mongolian. The ban caused widespread protests that were quickly put down.

官员们限制了新疆、西藏等少数民族地区学校使用少数民族语言的权利，此前这些地区的少数民族学生可自主选择教学语言。直到2020年，位于中国与蒙古交界处的内蒙古自治区学生仍主要使用蒙古语学习。该禁令引发了广泛抗议，但很快被镇压。

上周全国人民代表大会期间，西藏代表团在会议上。

The new law formalizes and applies that language policy across the country. It also mandates that children must start learning the language before kindergarten, with the goal of having a “basic grasp” of it by the time they finish the nine years of compulsory education.

新法律使这种语言政策正式化，并在全国范围内推行。它还强制要求儿童在幼儿园之前就开始学习普通话，目标是在完成九年义务教育时能达到“基本掌握”水平。

The law, which requires local governments to support minority workers and students when they move elsewhere in China, is likely to accelerate official efforts to promote migration into and out of minority regions, which some experts see as diluting minority culture. The goal is to bind China’s minorities to the majority population, a relationship Mr. Xi has likened to that of a tree and its branches, where Chinese culture is the trunk and each ethnic group is a branch.

该法律要求地方政府支持少数民族务工者或学生搬迁到中国其他地方。这可能会加速官方推动少数民族地区人口的迁入与迁出，一些专家认为这会稀释少数民族文化。其目标是将中国的少数民族与多数民族捆绑在一起，习近平曾将这种关系比作树干与树枝：中华文化是主干，各民族文化是枝叶。

Beijing is focused on the “contact, exchange and blending” of different ethnic groups, according to Aaron Glasserman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania who researches ethnic policy in China.

宾夕法尼亚大学研究中国民族政策的博士后学者亚伦·格拉斯曼表示，北京关注的是不同民族之间的“交往、交流、交融”。

“Xi’s preferred metaphor for China’s minorities is telling. He says they should be ‘packed tightly together like pomegranate seeds.’ That is, small, similar and red,” he said.

他说：“习近平对少数民族的比喻颇具深意。他说各民族应该‘像石榴籽一样紧紧抱在一起’。也就是说：小巧、相似，而且是红色的。”

中国额尔古纳市靠近俄罗斯边境处，一座石榴雕塑矗立于此。其后镌刻着习近平的箴言：“促进各民族像石榴籽一样紧紧抱在一起。”

Dr. Glasserman said the new law demonstrates the government’s confidence in its methods in Xinjiang and Tibet, despite criticism from international rights groups. It also empowers the authorities to pursue groups and people outside of China seen as undermining national unity or inciting ethnic division.

格拉斯曼说，尽管国际人权组织提出批评，新法律仍彰显了政府对其在新疆和西藏治理方式的信心。该法还赋予当局权力，可追查被视为破坏国家统一或煽动民族分裂的中国境外团体及个人。

Chinese officials last year pressured a museum in Thailand to remove the names and works of four Uyghur, Tibetan and Hong Kong artists. The police last year detained an overseas Chinese student advocating for Tibetans, Tara Zhang Yadi, on suspicion of separatism, according to a group advocating for her release.

去年，中国官员向泰国的一家博物馆施压，要求撤下四名维吾尔、藏族和香港艺术家的名字及作品。警方去年以涉嫌分裂国家罪逮捕了一名支持西藏的海外中国留学生张雅笛，消息由一个倡导释放她的组织提供。

“Now the Chinese government is demanding this ideological uniformity not only within its territory but also abroad,” said Yalkun Uluyol, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch. “That is what you call transnational repression.”

“现在中国政府不仅要求境内思想的统一，还将这种要求延伸到境外，”人权观察组织的中国研究员亚力坤·乌鲁尧勒表示。“这就是所谓的跨国镇压。”