Ethnic Law and Minority Rights in China: Progress and Constraints

Western discourse on human rights in China typically assumes that China’s minority rights law must be a sham because China is an authoritarian state. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, China has articulated an “ethnic law” that elaborates rights and preferences that minorities value. At the same time, People’s Republic of China ethnic law is inadequate to grant the idealized range of minority rights claimed by the Chinese state, and some rights are being eroded by the marketization of China’s political economy. The most notable weaknesses in the ethnic law system include the failure to enlarge the scope of ethnic regional autonomy, a lack of preferential policies sufficient to offset the growth of the economic gap between Han and minority areas, and an inadequate program for overcoming antiminority bias. While an emerging minority elite is a stabilizing factor in minority‐state relations, additional measures to expand minority rights are required, some of which are suggested by the policies of other Asian states.