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The Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress aims to forge a “shared” national identity among ethnic groups, for example by strengthening the status of Mandarin as the official language. But overseas campaigners have argued it will further degrade the rights of ethnic minorities, such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, that Beijing is accused of persecuting.

Critics also point to a clause stating that people can be held liable for violating the law even when outside China, saying it gives the Chinese government more justification for targeting its opponents abroad.

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Amnesty International deputy regional director Sarah Brooks said the law would require “political and ideological alignment with the Chinese Communist party” and “further institutionalise … policies of forced assimilation”.

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Amnesty has warned the legislation is pushing ethnic groups to “adopt a single, state-defined national identity dominated by Han Chinese culture”, referring to the nation’s ethnic majority.

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Taiwan expressed “strong condemnation” of the law on Wednesday, the day the legislation came into effect, saying it expanded “threats and intimidation against the people of our country and other nations”.

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Several ethnic groups in China, particularly in its border regions, have their own languages, and have historically been permitted to use them alongside Mandarin in schools.

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UN rights chief Volker Turk has called for the law to be repealed, saying it risks “deepening restrictions on freedoms of language, education, practice of religion, culture, expression and assembly”.

Uyghur and Tibetan advocates have urged countries to push China to strike it down, saying it aims to erase minority communities.

Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said Taiwanese people already faced high risks travelling to China and warned Beijing now had “yet another law to fabricate charges”.

Beijing would use the law “as a legal basis to further suppress and persecute human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet, or to expand its threats against voices internationally that support or are friendly towards Taiwan”, the MAC said in a statement, attributing the remarks to deputy minister Liang Wen-chieh.