BRUSSELS, July 2 (Reuters) – The United States and the European Union expressed concern on Thursday about China’s new law on ethnic unity that went into effect this week and gives Beijing the legal basis to take action against people outside its borders.
China passed the law in March to create a “shared” national identity among the country’s 55 ethnic minority groups, which include Tibetans and Uyghurs, some of whom chafe under Chinese governance and have often staged protests, some of them violent.
The law, which went into effect on Wednesday, includes a clause saying people and groups beyond the borders of the People’s Republic of China can be held legally accountable for undermining “ethnic unity and progress or inciting ethnic separatism.”
In a statement, an EU spokesperson said the law may further restrict the cultural, linguistic and religious rights of ethnic minorities.
Such rights should be upheld in line with international human rights standards and China’s commitments within the U.N. framework, the spokesperson added.
“We are concerned about the extraterritorial application of the law. The EU opposes the extraterritorial application of third-country legislation in breach of international law,” the spokesperson said.
“We call on any third country to refrain from attempts to conduct transnational repression within the European Union or elsewhere.”
U.S.: WILL DEFEND INDIVIDUALS FROM OVERREACH
In a separate statement, a U.S. State Department spokesperson called the law “problematic” for forcing people outside China to “actively promote the Chinese Communist Party’s ‘ethnic unity’ agenda, or face retaliation from Chinese authorities.”
“The United States will safeguard our sovereignty and defend individuals from the overreach of foreign governments and regimes trying to silence, intimidate, harass, harm or coerce them within our borders,” the official said.
In recent years, the U.S. has ramped up enforcement of parts of the 1917 Espionage Act, a law meant to curb activities of foreign agents on U.S. soil. Some individuals were charged in 2023 with allegedly running a Chinese “secret police station” in New York.
China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A senior Chinese official said last week the government has a right to hold people accountable outside its borders who contravene the law, adding this was in line with international practice and was legal and necessary.
Rights groups have previously complained that China has tried to use Interpol “red notices” to get foreign governments to arrest people abroad it wants for political offences at home.
The law has sparked alarm in Chinese-claimed Taiwan, in particular that it could give Beijing another legal basis to go after Taiwanese it views as separatists.
In a separate statement on Thursday, Taiwan’s China-policymaking Mainland Affairs Council said the government will work with like-minded countries “to resist the Chinese communists’ threats.”
“This is intimidation and coercion through malicious transnational repression,” it added.
China’s legal system has no jurisdiction or authority in Taiwan, whose government rejects China’s sovereignty claims.
(Reporting by Brussels newsroom; Writing and additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Taipei, Michael Martina in Washington, and the Beijing newsroom, Editing by William Maclean and Rod Nickel)
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