China seeks global leadership. Its factories dominate the world’s supply chains, and its infrastructure ambitions stretch from Asia to Africa, Europe, and beyond.
Yet global leadership is not built on economic strength alone. Enduring influence also depends on soft power, political freedoms, and the ability to cultivate diversity. China has demonstrated the first with major success. But Beijing’s pursuit of political control and cultural uniformity undermines its potential to lead the world.
China seeks global leadership. Its factories dominate the world’s supply chains, and its infrastructure ambitions stretch from Asia to Africa, Europe, and beyond.
Yet global leadership is not built on economic strength alone. Enduring influence also depends on soft power, political freedoms, and the ability to cultivate diversity. China has demonstrated the first with major success. But Beijing’s pursuit of political control and cultural uniformity undermines its potential to lead the world.
A key example is the new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress, which comes into force in July. The law strengthens the role of Mandarin as the language of instruction in schools across “minority” regions, continuing Chinese President Xi Jingping’s shift away from the country’s original policies of preserving minority languages. While framed as a measure to promote national unity, the new law marginalizes minorities and builds on the push under Xi to force Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongolians to “Sinicize.”
Uniformity also drives China’s policy of “Sinicization of religion.” All religious institutions are expected to align with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ideology and state-defined cultural norms. Churches have been ordered to remove crosses from buildings while mosques have had to remove domes or minarets to look more Chinese. Observation of Christmas and Ramadan is discouraged. Inside many religious institutions, displays of CCP slogans, Xi’s ideologies, and state-approved values dominate.
In Tibet, a historically independent state where Chinese oppression has often been particularly brutal, forced linguistic and religious assimilation is especially painful. The new laws are part of a broader effort to consolidate political control over the Tibetan nation.
This linguistic control goes deep; since 2023, official rhetoric has forbidden the use of the word Tibet in English, insisting instead on Xizang, which is the Mandarin name for the region. Replacing a historically recognized name with a state-designated one is another attempt to deny Tibetans a national identity.
Education policies emphasize the efforts to force Tibetans to separate from their own language, history, and culture. China has expanded a network of state-run boarding schools in Tibetan areas, where an estimated 1 million Tibetan children must now study away from their families, even when they come from nearby villages.
By separating children from their families and immersing them in tightly controlled institutions, the system seeks to cultivate cultural conformity and CCP ideology at an early age. Children are alienated from the Tibetan language and family influence, and local traditions are discouraged.
Xi sees this as a decisive step toward national unity, in which the weakening of minority languages will become a nail in the coffin for Tibetan, Uyghur, and Mongolian identities. But history suggests otherwise.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese authorities attempted to eradicate Tibetan civilization. Nearly all monasteries and nunneries were destroyed, the monks and nuns were forcibly defrocked, and three-quarters of Tibetan cultural artifacts were looted or destroyed. Yet Tibetan civilization survived. Tibetans rebuilt the monasteries and nunneries, revived traditions, and preserved their language. If Tibet could rise from the ashes back then, it can do so again. A cultural identity rooted in centuries of tradition cannot be erased through administrative policy.
The explanation for Xi’s delusion may lie in the background of China’s leadership. Many senior figures come from engineering or technical backgrounds that emphasize technical solutions to complex problems. But societies are not machines. Approaching social questions as technical problems underestimates the importance of soft power, legitimacy, and freedom.
This mindset is also visible in China’s global development strategy. Many projects under the Belt and Road Initiative were designed primarily as large-scale infrastructure undertakings. While some projects have delivered important results, others have struggled or stalled because they lack transparency, local participation, and strong governance. Infrastructure alone cannot build durable partnerships. Roads, ports, and railways may be engineered, but international trust requires accountability and respect for local societies.
China increasingly presents itself as an alternative to the Western-led international order. The Western system certainly has its own contradictions and double standards. Yet it remains rooted in ideals of freedom, pluralism, and respect for diversity—values that resonate widely across the world.
One defining feature of free systems is the ability to criticize those in power. In democracies, citizens can openly criticize leaders, organize protests, challenge policies, and rely on the courts to review government decisions.
In China, by contrast, criticism of Xi can lead to detention or imprisonment. No Chinese court will decide against the president. Even senior officials and generals can disappear overnight into the CCP’s detention system, with no word of their whereabouts for months. The crackdown in Hong Kong under the national security law of 2020, including the imprisonment of prominent figures such as media entrepreneur Jimmy Lai, illustrates how dissent is a threat and political uniformity is a norm.
China may continue to dominate hard power. Countries will buy Chinese goods, participate in Belt and Road infrastructure, and rely on Chinese supply chains. But purchasing products does not mean an embracing of political leadership. For China to be attractive, it needs to strengthen its soft power by demonstrating respect for cultural diversity and accommodating different national and regional identities, which would signal confidence rather than control. Equally important are basic freedoms for citizens—freedom of expression, belief, and association—which would project a sense of stability and self-assurance to the world. Finally, an autonomous and impartial judiciary is essential to uphold the rule of law and reinforce legitimacy at home and abroad.
Human societies are not engineered. People care deeply about their languages, religions, cultures, and identities. A political model that suppresses diversity and discourages freedom will struggle to build the trust necessary to shape a lasting global order.
Efforts to impose cultural and political uniformity risk undermining the soft power that China needs for global leadership. The same policies that Beijing pursues to strengthen national unity may be a nail in the coffin of China’s global appeal.
