As part of China’s effort to “Firmly Inculcate the Chinese Nationality Common Identity” into the Mongolian population of six million in Southern (Inner) Mongolia, the central government of China is aggressively enforcing the new language policy called the “Second Generation Bilingual Education,” which was launched in September 2020.

Widely considered by Mongolians to be the finishing touch of China’s long-running cultural genocide project, this move sparked a mass protest in Southern Mongolia from August through September 2020, with more than 300,000 Mongolian students taking to the streets. Millions of students, parents and teachers staged a sweeping school boycott, rejecting the erasure of the Mongolian language from the region’s educational system.

The Government of China initially claimed that this new policy would shift the language of instruction from Mongolian to Chinese for only three subjects, including literature, history and politics. Yet new details leaked from a covert recording confirm otherwise: a comprehensive ban of Mongolian language instruction across the “Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region” would be fully effective starting September 1, 2023.

In a 52-minute audio recording secretly taken by an anonymous parent during a parent-teacher meeting organized by the 30th Middle School in the regional capital Huhhot, the principal announced that “under the directive from the Central Government, all Mongolian schools across the region will use the national common language [i.e., Chinese] as the language of instruction starting September 1 this year.”

The principal added that “the same policy will take effect in the 30th Middle School starting May 1 this year.”

Additionally, the same audio recording, along with a written notice addressed to Mongolian parents, reveal that Mongolian entrance exams will be conducted in Chinese exclusively, starting in 2025 for high school students, and 2028 for college students.

The Chinese policy of total erasure of the Mongolian language in Southern Mongolia has been well planned and systematic. Shortly after the mass protest, the Chinese National Congress outlawed Mongolian language education, publicly announcing that the “education in minority languages as local legislations stipulated is unconstitutional.”

Local authorities echoed immediately to effectively block all avenues of learning Mongolian outside campuses. On January 9, 2021, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Department of Education issued a document to “ban any school from gathering students to offer extracurricular learning courses or teaching new courses.

According to official Chinese press Xin Lang Wang, the ban “strictly prohibits middle and elementary school teachers from organizing or participating in any training organizations outside the campus or any paid make-up courses organized by teachers, parents and parents’ committees, or inducing students to participate in any paid make-up courses organized by themselves or others; introducing student sources and providing relevant information to any training organization outside the school campus is strictly prohibited.”

Enghebatu Togochog, Director of the SMHRIC, testified before the United State Congressional Executive Commission on China (CECC) regarding these atrocities committed by the Government of China: “From what is happening to the Uyghurs and what is happening to the Mongolians and Tibetans, it is apparent that the Chinese authorities are engaging in different forms of genocide campaigns on multiple fronts. While in East Turkistan, millions of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples are locked up in concentration camps, in Southern Mongolia, a full-scale cultural genocide campaign is taking place. In Tibet, a similar campaign has been launched to eradicate Tibet’s unique culture and religious beliefs.” Togochog impressed on CECC members that irrespective of the form a particular campaign may adopt, “the ultimate goal of Chinese authorities is the same: To wipe out the language, culture and identity of these three peoples and turn them into the so-called ‘zhong hua,’ or simply put, [to convert them to a] ‘Chinese’ nationality. This goal is publicly stated and advertised by the Chinese Government across China.”

[For original audio recording of the parent-teacher meeting click here]

Parent-teacher meeting summary: