The Law on the Promotion of National Unity and Progress focuses on forging the awareness of the Chinese nation's community, writes "promoting all-round inter-embedding and extensive exchanges, exchanges and integration of all ethnic groups" into legal provisions, and systematically builds a legal framework for exchanges, exchanges and integration among all ethnic groups in the form of a special chapter. From policy advocacy to national laws, the historical laws of exchanges, exchanges and integration among ethnic groups are being transformed into institutional arrangements that are predictable, enforceable and supervisable. The significance of interpreting this law from the perspective of exchanges and integration is to use the rule of law to transform the historical experience of the Chinese nation community into institutional arrangements, and to establish a stable connection mechanism between historical laws and rule of law norms.
The exchange and integration of all ethnic groups has been elevated from a historical law to a legal obligation.
The long-term exchanges, exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups in history are the endogenous driving force for the Chinese nation to move from freedom to self-consciousness. The preamble of the Law on the Promotion of National Unity and Progress is based on the "Five Communities" view of the history of the Chinese nation as its legal basis. This historical experience of exchanges, exchanges and integration has been elevated to a normative obligation at the national legal level, laying a solid historical foundation for forging a solid sense of the Chinese nation's community in accordance with the law and promoting the construction of the Chinese nation's community.
From the perspective of legislative concepts, promoting exchanges, exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups has changed from a soft advocacy that "should be encouraged" to a rigid norm that "should be promoted". The law clearly stipulates that promoting the construction of the Chinese nation community should "promote the all-round mutual embedding and extensive exchanges, exchanges and integration of all ethnic groups." This means that promoting exchanges, exchanges and integration is no longer a discretionary choice for the government, but a legally binding institutional goal. This transformation is deeply rooted in the wisdom of Chinese civilization of "grand unification" and "harmony without uniformity", embodies the latest achievements of the modernization of Marxist national theory in China, and responds to the contemporary proposition of consolidating national unity through the rule of law. From the perspective of governance logic, the National Unity and Progress Promotion Law transforms exchanges and exchanges from policy discourse into legal norms, marking the shift of the cause of national unity and progress from policy-led to rule-of-law. This transformation is not an ex post facto confirmation of social changes, but an institutional arrangement that proactively responds to the era's trend of large-scale population migration and integration, and incorporates spontaneous social mobility into a legalized integration track. Its constitutional basis lies in the fact that the 2018 Constitutional Amendment included the concept of "Chinese nation" in the preamble; on this basis, the National Unity and Progress Promotion Law embodied the constitutional meaning of "Chinese nation" into an institutional arrangement for exchanges, exchanges and integration, completed the normative renewal from constitutional principles to departmental legal norms, and provided an institutional foundation for solidifying the consciousness of the Chinese nation's community.
Use the rule of law to build an institutional mechanism for exchanges and integration of various ethnic groups
Chapter 3 of the National Unity and Progress Promotion Law builds an institutional system for exchanges, exchanges and integration, covering community construction, population mobility, educational collaboration, cultural exchanges and other fields, forming a three-dimensional normative structure from real society to virtual space.
Laying a solid foundation for social integration through embedded communities. The law stipulates that people's governments at or above the county level should coordinate economic and social development planning and public resource allocation, promote the construction of an embedded community environment, and improve the social conditions for people of all ethnic groups to live together, learn together, build together, share, and enjoy together. At the same time, we will incorporate the awareness of the Chinese nation's community into the entire process of urban planning, construction, governance and services, take specific measures in urban and rural construction, population management, employment and entrepreneurship, social services, etc., and organize and guide people of all ethnic groups to participate in community construction, community governance, and community activities. Through the legalization of public resource allocation, we can break the implicit isolation of living space, cultivate emotional identity in jointly solving people's livelihood issues such as property management, elderly care, and education, promote the transformation of "embedded communities" into "interembedded societies," and deepen the spatial embeddedness from "neighborhood adjacent" to "spiritual connection."
Expand the time and space boundaries of integration with smooth flow. In response to the normal situation of large-scale population mobility and integration in the new era, the law strives to break down hidden barriers to cross-regional mobility. On the one hand, we will strengthen the co-construction and information sharing of service platforms for population mobility between ethnic regions and between ethnic regions and other regions; on the other hand, we will protect the legitimate rights and interests of cross-regional citizens seeking employment and entrepreneurship in accordance with the law, support the development of training in laws, regulations and policies, national common language, and vocational skills, and eliminate employment discrimination on the basis of ethnic identity. At the educational level, the law supports two-way cross-regional enrollment in higher education institutions in ethnic minority areas and other areas, strengthens collaboration in talent cultivation, encourages and supports teachers to carry out exchanges, and enables students of all ethnic groups to establish stable social connections in the common growth and progress. These institutional designs aim to dissolve the structural tension between "mobility" and "integration" so that people of all ethnic groups can not only move geographically across regions, but also obtain equal rights protection, creating institutional prerequisites for in-depth social interactions.
Cultivate the value core of integration through cultural integration. The deep-seated goal of communication and integration is to achieve cultural identity and psychological identity. This law establishes the rule of law principle of "mutual learning and integration" and clarifies that the excellent traditional culture of all ethnic groups is an integral part of Chinese culture. It not only emphasizes the subjectivity of Chinese culture, but also respects the diversity of ethnic cultures, and achieves the dialectical unity of commonality and difference at the normative level. On the one hand, we must comprehensively promote and popularize the national common spoken and written language to provide instrumental support for all ethnic groups to overcome communication barriers and deepen social exchanges. On the other hand, we must ensure the learning and use of ethnic minority languages and scripts in accordance with the law and support the integrated exchange of excellent traditional cultures of all ethnic groups. There are two kinds of deviations that need to be alerted to in the implementation of the law. One is to create ethnic barriers in the name of "protecting differences"; the other is to ignore the legitimate rights and interests of all ethnic groups in the name of "promoting commonality." It is necessary to establish and highlight the Chinese cultural symbols and the image of the Chinese nation shared by all ethnic groups in mutual learning, strengthen the overall narrative of Chinese culture, and make cultural integration a vivid practice of "each appreciates its beauty, and shares the beauty."
Use digital governance to purify the virtual space of convergence. Cyberspace has become a new field for exchanges and integration among various ethnic groups, and it is also the frontier for the governance of ethnic relations. On the one hand, this law encourages and guides the use of modern information technology to carry out communication activities and spread the positive energy of the Chinese nation community; on the other hand, it clearly prohibits the production and dissemination of information containing ethnic hatred and ethnic discrimination. This regulation extends the legal requirements for exchanges and integration from real society to virtual space, prevents the Internet from becoming an amplifier of ethnic prejudice and discrimination, and embodies the legislative wisdom of offline and online collaborative governance.
Promote exchanges and integration from institutional texts to governance effectiveness
The life of the law lies in its implementation, and the advantage of the system lies in its practice. Transform communication and integration from institutional texts into governance effectiveness, properly handle the three dialectical relationships between commonality and difference, promotion and restraint, national responsibility and social participation in the practice of the rule of law, and consolidate the foundation of the Chinese national community with the rule of law.
The first is the dynamic balance between commonality and difference. Exchanges, exchanges and integration are not a homogenization process that eliminates national characteristics, but are based on respecting and tolerating differences. Differences can be creatively transformed through mutual learning and integration, and commonalities can be gradually accumulated through exchanges, exchanges and integration. The Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law provides a legal framework for this balance. The comprehensive promotion of the national common spoken and written language goes hand in hand with the legal protection of minority languages and written languages. Building a strong sense of the Chinese nation's community and respecting the cultural rights of all ethnic groups support each other. In the implementation of the law, it is necessary to avoid opposing commonality and difference, and the dialectical unity of the two should be achieved on the track of the rule of law.
The second is the coordinated configuration of promotion mechanisms and constraint mechanisms. The National Unity and Progress Promotion Law, as a legislation oriented toward “promotion,” guides behavior by setting goals and uses a large number of advocacy expressions such as “should support,” “encourage,” and “promote,” and reserves space for local exploration and social innovation for exchanges, exchanges, and integration. At the same time, Chapter 6 of the law sets up a binding mechanism. With the dual-track structure of "promotion and restraint", exchanges, exchanges and integration not only gain the institutional power of positive incentives, but also have the legal bottom line to prevent risks. During implementation, two tendencies should be avoided: one is to only focus on promotion and not to restrict, and blur the advocacy norms into "soft constraints"; the other is to only focus on restrictions and not to promote, and alienate legal responsibilities into "tightening curses." Promotion is the main theme and restraint is the guarantee line. The two complement each other and cannot be neglected.
The third is the positive interaction between national responsibility and social participation. Communication, exchange and integration are not a single government function, but a systematic project that requires the collaboration of multiple entities. The Law on Promotion of National Unity and Progress clearly stipulates the responsibilities of mass organizations, enterprises and institutions, social organizations, religious groups, grassroots mass autonomous organizations and the military in exchanges and integration. By clarifying the boundaries of the rights and obligations of multiple entities such as the government, market, society, and family, the law has built a governance network that promotes exchanges and integration from "state-led" to "social collaboration", transforming people of all ethnic groups from governance objects to governance subjects, deepening community identity through joint participation, and forming a new situation of national unity and progress in which everyone is responsible, everyone is responsible, and everyone is enjoying it.
From the normative confirmation of historical experience in the preamble, to the system construction of social space, population mobility, cultural integration, and network ecology in Chapter 3, to the supporting settings of guarantee supervision and legal liability mechanisms, the Law on the Promotion of National Unity and Progress uses the logic of the rule of law to melt the historical laws, practical needs, and governance goals of exchanges and exchanges into an organic whole. Only by accurately grasping the dialectical relationship between commonality and difference, promotion and restraint, and state and society on the track of the rule of law, and effectively responding to the adaptability problems in implementation, can exchanges and exchanges and integration be truly transformed from institutional texts into governance effectiveness, and provide a solid legal guarantee for forging the consciousness of the Chinese nation's community and promoting the construction of the Chinese nation's community.
