She had spent the morning making protest placards at the office of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) in New York before heading to the Chinese Consulate General, where she joined around 150 Tibetans, Uyghurs, Hong Kong activists and Chinese dissidents protesting against the new law.
The demonstration was one of dozens held across the world against legislation that critics say provides a legal framework for the further forced assimilation of Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples whom Beijing classifies as “ethnic minorities”.
“This is not just another law. It is a dangerous escalation in the Chinese government’s efforts to erase the unique identities of Tibetans and all other non-Chinese nationalities,” Tencho Gyatso, president of the International Campaign for Tibet, told a rally outside the Chinese embassy in Washington, DC.
“This is not a law about ethnic harmony. It is a law about identity erasure. It is a law about who gets to define identity, and Beijing is seeking for only the Party to have that power,” she added.
China says the law is aimed at promoting national unity, social stability and ethnic harmony. Among its provisions are the promotion of Mandarin as the country’s common language, greater state oversight of “governing ethnic affairs”, and a clause allowing authorities to pursue legal action against individuals and organisations outside China accused of undermining so-called ethnic unity.
“What scares me the most is that this law gives China another tool to try to erase the Tibetan identity under the excuse of ‘ethnic unity and progress’,” the 16-year-old SFT New York-New Jersey board member told CNBC-TV18.
Desang said she first learnt about the law just days after this year’s Tibetan National Uprising Day on March 10.
“I remember feeling shocked, confused and scared,” she recalled.
“Every time the Chinese government uses words like ‘unity’ or ‘development’, Tibetans inside Tibet end up paying the price. Those words have been used to justify the closure of Tibetan schools, the expansion of colonial boarding schools, increased surveillance, and policies that try to erase the Tibetan identity and way of life,” Desang added.
The law has also drawn criticism from international human rights bodies and governments. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and a group of UN human rights experts have called for the law to be repealed.
The European Parliament has also adopted a resolution condemning the law, urging member states to suspend extradition treaties with China over concerns that the legislation could be used to target individuals beyond its borders.
Rights groups say China’s education policies have moved beyond promoting Mandarin in schools to reshaping children’s linguistic and cultural environment from preschool onwards.
Human Rights Watch warned in May this year that the policies were putting “the survival of Tibetan language and culture at risk within a single generation.”
The protests stretched far beyond eight major cities in the US.
Demonstrations were organised in Toronto, Vancouver, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich, Oslo, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Tokyo and several other cities, with protesters carrying Tibetan and Uyghur flags and calling for the repeal of the law.
Among those addressing the Washington, DC rally was prominent Uyghur activist Rushan Abbas, founder of Campaign for Uyghurs, whose sister has been detained in China since 2018 after Abbas publicly criticised Beijing’s policies in East Turkistan.
“The silence is the oxygen of tyranny,” Abbas told the gathering.
“We are not going to stay silent… Every one of us here represents the reality that the Chinese government is threatened by and is trying to erase.”
Abbas urged Tibetans, Uyghurs, Southern Mongolians, Hong Kong activists and Chinese democracy advocates to work together, warning that the policies being implemented in Tibet and East Turkistan should concern the wider international community.
“If we don’t speak up now, if we don’t act now, what’s happening in Tibet and East Turkistan is going to be the future of the world,” she said.
In London, activists from Students for a Free Tibet delivered a letter to Li Wei, Dean of the UCL Institute of Education, urging University College London to end its ties with its Confucius Institute.
Confucius Institutes are Chinese government-backed language and cultural centres established at universities around the world.
While Beijing says they promote Chinese language and cultural exchange, others argue they contribute to self-censorship on issues considered politically sensitive by the Chinese government.
“As the ethnic unity law comes into force, universities cannot simply claim this is just cultural exchange,” SFT activist Tenzin Dechen said.
“They are lending institutional credibility to programmes funded by the Chinese government while academic discussions on Tibet, East Turkistan and Taiwan continue to face pressure.”
The group called on UCL to close its Confucius Institute and sever contractual ties with the Chinese International Education Foundation, which supports Confucius Institutes globally.
Identity erasure at large
Desang also views the law as a formal entrenchment of the oppression Tibetans have been subjected to over the years.
“It takes what has already been happening inside Tibet for over 60 years and turns it into law, making it seem normal and acceptable,” the teen activist said, echoing long-standing concerns raised by rights groups about the human rights situation inside Tibet ever since it was occupied by China in 1959.
Tibet has consistently ranked poorly in Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report, and the flow of information remains tightly controlled. In 2022, it tied with Syria and South Sudan as one of the world’s least free regions.
The lack of information is “not accidental”, according to exiled Tibetan journalist and Knight-Wallace Fellow Tenzin Pema, who was speaking at a panel discussion during the 2026 Investigative Reporters and Editors Conference in Maryland, US, last month.
She also warned that the information vacuum is being filled with propaganda.
“It may look like a chatbot answer; a search result; a tourism video from a social media influencer; a map label. Today, Chinese authorities have moved on from simply restricting information about Tibet to actively shaping it,” Pema was quoted as saying by the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN).
