With robots, publicity events and official speeches, China is mounting a propaganda effort to promote and defend a new “ethnic unity” law that critics say will further undermine the rights of Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minorities in the country.

The law grants sweeping powers to Beijing to pursue groups and people overseas seen as undermining national unity or inciting ethnic division. That has raised concerns that the Chinese authorities would accuse activists living abroad of crimes and seek their extradition or repatriation to China.

Since the law went into effect on Wednesday, Tibetan and Uyghur activists have held demonstrations against it in Washington and Brussels. One Tibetan activist set himself on fire outside the United Nations headquarters in New York on Thursday and died. Human rights groups, Western governments and American lawmakers have issued statements criticizing the measure.

China has pushed back aggressively against the criticism, which China’s vice minister of justice, Hu Weilie, has blamed on “distorted interpretations” by the Western media of the legislation. Mr. Hu said the law was “legitimate, legal, necessary,” and in line with international norms. On Friday, Guo Jiakun, a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry, accused the United States and the European Union of “maliciously slandering” his country’s policies.

The rhetoric underscores how intolerant the Chinese Communist Party under President Xi Jinping has become of any criticism of its treatment of ethnic minorities. Under Mr. Xi, the party has imposed heavy crackdowns on such groups, particularly targeting the Tibetans, to erode the influence of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, and the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

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