A series of activities were held in Huaihua from September 21 to 27, the first publicity week for ethnic unity and progress since the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law came into force.
As a major multi-ethnic city in Hunan, Huaihua, drawing on its distinctive character of multi-ethnic inhabitation, focused on the theme of “Promoting ethnic unity and progress, advancing on the journey toward national rejuvenation” and took studying, publicizing and implementing the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law as the main thread. It has built a working pattern featuring municipal-level coordination, linkage across counties, cities and districts, whole-region coverage and all-around participation, and carefully organized a series of immersive, down-to-earth and law popularization activities, so as to let the light of the rule of law illuminate the road to ethnic unity and foster a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation in a tangible, perceptible and effective way.
High-level coordination pools strength, law lectures sound the main theme
The Huaihua Municipal Party Committee and the municipal government have attached great importance to the first publicity week for ethnic unity and progress, taking it as an important lever for implementing the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law and consolidating the achievements in building a national demonstration zone for ethnic unity and progress. The city carefully formulated an action plan with clear goals, tasks and requirements, improved the chain of responsibility, ensured that all arrangements were carried out in detail, and laid a solid organizational guarantee for the sound implementation of the publicity week activities.
On September 21, the launching ceremony of Huaihua’s 2026 Ethnic Unity and Progress Publicity Week and a lecture session on fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation were held in Xinhuang Dong Autonomous County. At the ceremony, participants watched the themed promotional video of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Publicity Week, and volunteer representatives read out an initiative on ethnic unity and progress, calling on the whole society to become practitioners and guardians of ethnic unity.
At the lecture, experts followed the original provisions of the law and, combining vivid local cases such as Huaihua’s harmonious interprovincial neighborly relations and cross-regional industrial cooperation, explained in plain terms the legislative background and core essence of the law. “I used to think ethnic unity was a grand concept. Only after today’s lecture did I understand that neighbors respecting each other’s customs and border villages helping one another are all practices of ethnic unity advocated by the law,” said Mr. Wu, a villager from Bozhou Town, Xinhuang County.
That morning, Huaihua set up sub-venues at municipal and county-level Party schools, organizing officials and employees to connect with the provincial main venue and attend the province-wide special lecture on the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, with experts from Minzu University of China invited to give lectures, guiding officials to deeply understand the rule-of-law connotation that “ethnic unity is the lifeline of all ethnic groups.”
All counties, cities, districts and municipal organs responded quickly, tailored supporting plans to local conditions, and turned the publicity week into a major classroom for studying and implementing General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important thoughts on strengthening and improving ethnic work, a main front for publicizing the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, a major platform for fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, and an important carrier for building the shared spiritual home of the Chinese nation.
All townships (subdistricts) formulated implementation plans, designated dedicated personnel and teams, coordinated village and township officials, grid workers and volunteers of New Era Civilization Practice Centers to form lecture teams, and decomposed publicity tasks to villages and assigned them to specific people. All villages (communities) activated grassroots positions and, relying on village bulletin boards, village loudspeakers and villager WeChat groups, delivered law popularization knowledge to the fields and into every household.
Multi-dimensional communication weaves a dense “publicity network”
On the evening of September 21, the launching ceremony of a mass culture and arts gala at the Hunan-Guizhou border was staged at Xinhuang’s Drum Tower Square. The event combined diverse forms including brief theoretical lectures, harvest celebrations, promotions of local specialty agricultural products and ethnic cultural and arts performances. Nine art troupes from Hunan’s Xinhuang, Mayang and Zhijiang and Guizhou’s Tongren, Yuping and Tianzhu took to the stage in turn, vividly presenting a picture of the integration, coexistence and united endeavor of people of ethnic groups in the Hunan-Guizhou border area.
Law popularization publicity matters most when it stays close to the grassroots and close to the people. Huaihua kept innovating publicity carriers, moving ethnic-unity rule-of-law publicity out of conference halls and into streets and alleys, extending it from offline to online, and continuously enhancing the appeal and influence of law-popularization efforts.
Online publicity gained strong momentum. The city launched an online prize quiz on the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, promoting learning through competition and action through learning, and continuously expanding public awareness of the law. Municipal and county media fully leveraged their communication advantages, pushing out interpretations of legal provisions and stories of exemplary models of ethnic unity through WeChat official accounts and video accounts. Xinhuang carried out an online interactive activity on a platform; Hecheng District held an online calligraphy exhibition, collecting works from across the city and then selecting 120 pieces for display in batches on new media platforms.
The whole city made good use of New Era Civilization Practice Centers, rural cultural squares, enterprise workshops and other positions, hung banners, set up law popularization display boards, distributed rule-of-law reading materials, and organized Party members and officials, law popularization volunteers and ethnic unity lecture teams to go into villages, communities and fields, explaining legal provisions face to face to people of ethnic groups. During the publicity week, the city, counties and townships cumulatively carried out more than 40 special lectures on the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law, with more than 7,000 participants; the municipal level printed 10,000 copies of reading materials, distributed to municipal organs, universities in Huaihua and trainees of the municipal Party school; and the 13 counties and districts printed 26,200 copies of reading materials and 99,900 publicity brochures, delivering law popularization materials directly to the grassroots front line.
Xinhuang, combining the Harvest Festival, held activities such as the Longxi Night Market and Golden Autumn Good Product promotions, embedding ethnic unity and law popularization content into the bustling market; Hecheng District, leveraging the popularity of the “LouBA” basketball league and the talent night market, set up law popularization booths and held interactive Q&A sessions, achieving the simultaneous resonance of cultural and sports activities, employment services and ethnic-unity publicity; Hongjiang deepened the “cultural tourism + ethnic unity” model and, relying on the rich heritage of multi-ethnic coexistence at Qianyang Ancient Town, moved its law popularization positions into the bluestone-paved streets and lanes, allowing tourists to appreciate the profound heritage of ethnic groups treating one another as brothers and sisters and helping each other while strolling through the ancient town and reading folk customs; and the Xupu County People’s Court organized court staff to go into village Party-mass service centers to conduct circuit trials, and invited people of ethnic minorities to observe the proceedings, explaining the law through cases.
Aesthetic education builds bridges to promote cross-province integration. With the support of the Hunan Provincial Department of Education and the province’s 11th batch of aid-to-Tibet work teams, the national aesthetic education brand “Field Poetry Class” traveled to Shannan City in Xizang from September 18 to 24 to carry out the ethnic unity and progress themed educational activity. The team visited the No. 3 Primary School of Shannan City and Sangri Town Primary School to hold poetry aesthetic education classes, leading children to recite and compose children’s poems, promoting pairing and mutual learning between Hunan and Xizang teachers and students, and exploring a replicable practice path of “Mandarin promotion + aesthetic education + ethnic unity.”
Tongdao Dong Autonomous County, relying on the “Weekly Fun in Hunan-Guangxi-Guizhou Folk Culture” platform, embedded ethnic unity publicity into popular folk activities, with people of ethnic groups from Hunan, Guangxi and Guizhou gathering at Dawuliang Square to convey feelings through songs and make friends through dance. Huitong County, leveraging the handmade wood-fired mooncake festival, carried out themed lectures, intangible cultural heritage experiences and cultural and arts performances at the five-village joint creation site in Buzi Township.
The seeds of ethnic unity root on campuses. Hecheng District popularized the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law through speeches under the national flag and themed class and team meetings. Mayang No. 2 Jinjiang Primary School opened Miao embroidery intangible cultural heritage experience classes, with inheritors teaching on site, organically integrating rule-of-law lectures with intangible cultural heritage handicraft experiences.
Practical efforts paint the “picture of unity”
Law popularization is not limited to knowing the law but is ultimately grounded in practice. Huaihua persisted in deeply integrating the publicity and implementation of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law with grassroots governance, rural revitalization, industrial development, livelihood services and interprovincial cooperation, turning the achievements of law popularization into practical results of ethnic unity and progress and transforming the law’s provisions on “promoting common prosperity and development of all ethnic groups” into a happy life within reach of people of all ethnic groups.
On September 22, the fourth joint meeting on the demonstration zone at the Hunan-Guizhou border for fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation was held in Xinhuang, where heads of united front work and ethnic and religious affairs work from 18 counties (districts) along the Hunan-Guizhou border gathered to jointly discuss the zone’s development and plan a new chapter of ethnic unity. Since the establishment of the demonstration zone, all member units, closely following the main line, have implemented the mechanism of “joint theoretical research, joint government affairs, joint industrial development, joint cultural and sports activities, joint education and training, joint dispute mediation and joint risk control,” continuously building the shared spiritual home of the Chinese nation, jointly creating a harmonious border environment, sharing the dividends of coordinated development, and exploring a Hunan-Guizhou border path for the high-quality development of ethnic work in the new era.
At the rural front line, law popularization publicity empowered shared prosperity through industry, with people of ethnic groups joining hands to start businesses and increase incomes together, deepening friendship and building consensus through joint labor. Mayang, based on the main line of fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, promoted the integrated development of Miao embroidery intangible cultural heritage inheritance, talent cultivation and rural industries, offering public training classes to returning youth and people relocated from inhospitable areas, with intangible cultural heritage inheritors personally teaching Miao embroidery stitching, pattern creation and garment-cutting skills.
Work-relief programs pave the road to common prosperity. In promoting the work-relief programs, Haojiping Yao Township in Zhongfang County skillfully used courtyard evening discussions, villager deliberation meetings and ethnic representative forums to extensively solicit opinions from people of ethnic groups, ensuring that project needs were raised by the masses, construction plans were discussed by the masses, employment opportunities were shared by the masses and implementation quality was supervised by the masses. During the implementation of the programs, 149 people from ethnic groups in the township found work locally, understanding the rule-of-law connotation of ethnic unity through the practice of jointly building their homeland.
The rule of law safeguards lasting peace and stability, united hearts pool strength to pursue dreams. The outreach of the first national publicity week of the Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law is Huaihua’s innovative exploration of advancing the Party’s ethnic work in the new era based on its locational characteristics.
(Translated by Yang Hong)