Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation has become a shared task for the whole Party and the entire nation. China’s Constitution provides the fundamental legal basis for criminal law to safeguard ethnic unity and protect the Chinese nation community. As a protective law, criminal law plays an irreplaceable role in protecting the Chinese nation community owing to its broad scope of protection and stringent sanction measures. The current Criminal Law has established a relatively complete system for protecting the Chinese nation community. First, in terms of scope of protection, criminal law covers multiple dimensions including the survival of the Chinese nation community, the sense of community, community symbols and community members. Second, in terms of protection approaches, a collaborative mechanism has been formed featuring comprehensive legislative coverage, the criminal policy of “punishing early and punishing minor offences”, and the impartial application of judicial rules. Although the current Criminal Law has preliminarily established a protection system, it remains a subject for in-depth research to systematically interpret the theoretical foundation, practical approaches and improvement directions for criminal-law protection of the Chinese nation community in the new era. Moving forward, to strengthen criminal-law protection for the Chinese nation community, it is imperative to further optimize the setting of charges and penalties, implement the criminal policy of tempering justice with mercy, strengthen legal coordination and social participation, foster a systematic and rigorous criminal-law protection system, improve the efficiency of fair and efficient judicial protection, and build a comprehensive governance pattern with concerted efforts. This will provide solid and powerful legal support for forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation.