One of the most important outcomes of this year”s two sessions was largely ignored by the international press.
On March 12, China’s National People’s Congress adopted the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, which will take effect on July 1. Beijing says the law is designed to strengthen interaction among ethnic groups, advance common development, and place their sense of belonging to the Chinese nation on firmer legal ground.
Even before the law comes into force, Western think tanks and media outlets have returned to their familiar script. For example, the Council on Foreign Relations, a US think tank, described the law as a shift “from autonomy to assimilation”. But this says more about the West’s political reflexes than about Xinjiang.
The real issue is not whether ethnic differences are being erased but whether they are being placed within a stronger framework of common development, participation, and shared national purpose.
Evidence points to the latter.
Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is not treated as a “long-time crisis zone” as some Western politicians and scholars said. Instead, Xinjiang is an integral part of Chinese modernization. The new law matters because it shows that this is not a temporary adjustment. It is a long-term direction.
Winning the people is the key. One of the central features of “the new era” has been the effort to confront old structural problems through active reform.
In Xinjiang, this has meant moving toward a broader strategy centered on stability through development. The goal is to create stronger social foundations for long-term cohesion.
An earlier phase of policy concentrated on removing the conditions for separatism, extremism, and violence. The more significant shift came afterward. The Chinese central government has emphasized that lasting ethnic unity is best supported by better schools, better jobs, better living standards, wider public participation, and a stronger stake in the future of the country.
That is why the new law matters. Its aim is not just to ensure order. Its aim is to ensure that Uygur, Kazak, Kirgiz, Hui and other ethnic groups see themselves as active participants in China’s development.
A border region of millions can be integrated when development, dignity, and belonging reinforce one another.
Representation gives integration political substance. The ethnic question is not only cultural but also political. People feel more deeply connected to a common future when they can see themselves inside the institutions of the party and the state. By that measure, the recent figures are important.
Official statistics from China show that ethnic minority members of the Communist Party of China rose from 5.8 million, or 6.8 percent of total membership, at the end of 2012 to 7.73 million, or 7.7 percent, at the end of 2024. That is an increase of nearly 1.93 million over the years.
Recruitment figures point in the same direction. In 2021, ethnic minority new members accounted for 9.1 percent of all new Party members. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, that share stood at 10.5 percent.
Representation at the top level also matters. At the 20th CPC National Congress, ethnic minority delegates accounted for 11.5 percent of the total, with delegates drawn from 40 minority groups.
These figures show that integration is being built not only in rhetoric, but in political organization and representation.
Development creates the material basis for harmony. The strongest side of the Xinjiang policy is the scale of the development drive. The Chinese government is not offering slogans. It is reshaping daily life through infrastructure, public investment, education, social policy and promoting political participation at all levels.
Education figures make this clear. According to a 2025 white paper issued by the State Council Information Office, the completion rate for nine-year compulsory education in Xinjiang has risen above 99 percent.
Gross enrollment at the senior secondary level reached 97.74 percent, and in parts of southern Xinjiang children now receive 15 years of free education, from preschool through high school.
The poverty record is equally important. Official figures show that 3.06 million rural poor residents, 3,666 villages, and 35 impoverished counties in Xinjiang had all been lifted out of poverty by the end of 2020.
These are not abstract numbers. They mean roads, water, housing, healthcare, schools, and jobs.
Xinjiang is also becoming one of China’s major gateways to the West. Figures show that the region’s GDP surpassed 2 trillion yuan ($292 billion) for the first time in 2024. In 2025, Xinjiang’s foreign trade totaled 520.37 billion yuan, and tourism revenue reached 370 billion yuan.
Development on this scale does more than raise output. It gives social confidence and long-term cohesion a stronger foundation.
The new law should be read together with these broader changes. Education, poverty reduction, political participation, trade expansion and investment growth are not separate stories.
They are different parts of one strategy: building long-term stability through development, representation, belonging, and integration.
This is the core of the new law. It gives institutional form to a simple idea: ethnic harmony grows stronger when people become real participants in development, governance, and a shared future. That is how durable solutions are built.
For that reason, today’s Xinjiang should be read through a new lens: as an example of how the ethnic question can be addressed through national development and democratic inclusion, without allowing it to become a tool of imperialism.
The author is chairman of the Turkish-Chinese Business Development and Friendship Association.
The views don’t necessarily represent those of China Daily.
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