Following protests by the Chinese education authorities over the introduction of Chinese language teaching in Inner Mongolia, the authorities have again ordered Mongolian elementary school to end Mongolian language instruction early in the third grade and replace it with an “all Chinese” curriculum. According to overseas Mongolian sources, from next year, all cultural units and school party secretaries in Inner Mongolia will be appointed by Han Chinese, and the Mongolian-language channel of Inner Mongolia TV will add programs such as the history of the Chinese Communist Party.
The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government is once again pushing for Chinese language education. Tie Mu Lun, a member of the Southern Mongolian Great Hural parliament who lives in Japan, told the station that the Inner Mongolian authorities recently issued a notice to cultural units and Mongolian schools, proposing to implement various programs to enforce Chinese culture from 2021. He said the authorities asked ethnic minority cadres to expose each other: “Mongolian cadres have democratic life meetings at the end of the year, and Mongolian cadres expose and criticize each other. After New Year’s Day or by March, the secretaries of Mongolian schools are to be all Han Chinese, and the ethnic identity of the principals has not yet been determined. Now all Mongolian school secretary and principal are mostly Mongolian, now every day Mongolian school to raise the national flag”.
The right banner of Bahrain Mongolian schools will take fifty percent of Han Chinese
According to the news from Balin Right Banner, the local education department is deploying intensive Chinese language education in various schools. Tirmulun said, “The pure Mongolian schools in Bahrain Right Banner are about to disappear because the Mongolian high schools are going to integrate half Han Chinese students and half Mongolian students, mixed in classes.”
On Sept. 1 of this year, the Inner Mongolia Department of Education launched a Chinese language education model that mandates all Mongolian schools to add a Chinese language curriculum to their Mongolian language instruction starting in the first grade, with Chinese political science added in the second year and Chinese history in the third. This move by the authorities triggered hundreds of thousands of Mongolians and students from home and abroad to rally and strike in protest.
However, the authorities recently went further and changed the education model in September by deciding to have all Mongolian school students use the national standardized Chinese language curriculum from the third year onwards. In addition, Inner Mongolia TV’s Mongolian-language channel will also be Sinicized, including the addition of Chinese history, propaganda on the Communist Party’s history and the discontinuation of Mongolian news. Timurun said, “Inner Mongolia TV’s programs are going to change and Mongolian language programs may have to gradually disappear, saying that they are not suitable for Inner Mongolia.”
Yang Haiying, a professor at the Mongolian University who now lives in Japan, got the news a week ago and feels angry and helpless about the cancellation of Mongolian language education by Inner Mongolia authorities. He told the station, “This shows that the Chinese Communist Party is typically big Han Chinese, and it has further deteriorated, that is, it wants Han Chinese to be the secretary of the Communist Party in any unit. This used to be the case in administrative units, but now the implementation of making Han Chinese the secretary, the first in command, in all primary and secondary schools, in all units. This shows (the CCP’s) complete distrust of all ethnic groups.”
Yang Haiying, who was born in Erdos, Inner Mongolia, said that in the 1960s, Ulaanwu, who was known as the “King of Mongolia,” had appointed Mongolians as top officials in various departments: “After Ulaanwu’s fall, all ethnic autonomous regions in the country had to have Han Chinese as the party, government and military The first person in charge. But in educational institutions, it is not always the case. But they are now fully rejecting the vaunted ethnic autonomy.”
Policy points to eventual abolition of all Mongolian schools
Mongolian Azhar told the station that many Mongolian schools in Inner Mongolia will be merged with Han schools next year, eventually abolishing them: “Many Mongolian schools in the banners will be merged with Han schools because there are Mongolian junior high schools, high schools and elementary schools in every banner government location. It is estimated that they will be slowly abolished starting next year and mixed with Han students.”
The chairman of the Southern Mongolian Parliament, Xi Haiming, who now lives in Germany, believes that the Chinese authorities now do things without disguise and are more direct than ever: “It is a very brutal policy of ethnic assimilation, that is, instead of Mongolians being an embellishment, a vase, it proves that China is a Han Chinese country and that we are an occupied colony.”
According to overseas Mongolian organizations, thousands of people have been arrested in Inner Mongolia since the anti-Chinese education model, and many of them have been criminally detained and face prosecution, including rights lawyer Hu Baolong and rights activist Yang Jindu Lima.
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