The Chinese government is determent to eradicate the traditional Mongolian nomadic way of life and assimilate the nomadic population into a homogeneous Chinese identity under the name of “improving the condition of grassland eco-system” and “utilizing the sustainable grassland resource”. Following is a Chinese official news report regarding the recent statement made at China’s annual People’s Congress in 2005 by Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region's Shiliin-gol League Party Secretary Liu Zhuo-zhi. He insists that “reducing herder’s population, and developing second and third industries” and “carrying out ecological immigration and prohibiting livestock grazing” are the natural choice for recovering grassland ecosystem. In order to expose the discriminatory nature of the Chinese government’s nationality policies which strongly encourage agricultural practice in Inner Mongolia by every means while prohibiting the traditional Mongolian nomadic lifestyle, we have also attached a Xinhua report titled “Inner Mongolia’s Crop Plantation Area Increased by 3 Million Mu This Year”.

Representative Liu Zhuo-zhi: Improve the Condition of Grassland Ecosystem Fundamentally

“If you want to enrich the herders and farmers, you need to reduce herders’ population; if you want to improve the condition of grassland ecosystem, you need to develop and strengthen the second and third industries. This is not only the rational choice for our Shiliin-golians who respect and comply with law of nature but also the realization of the idea of science and development in this vast grassland,” says Shiliin-gol League Party Secretary Liu Zhuo-zhi, the representative from Inner Mongolia. For this, he suggests inserting Shiliin-gol League into the name list of state level energy and heavy chemical industrial bases.

Sandstorms from Shiliin-gol grassland whose altitude is around 1000 meter higher than Beijing’s, will directly threaten Beijing-Tianjin Area once the ecosystem is destroyed there. Shiliin-gol is a region where “there are grasses on the surface of earth and treasures hidden under the ground”, containing extremely rich coal deposits of 72.2 billion tons of proved reserves. These coal fields are considered suitable for large-scale strip mining.

Liu Zhuo-zhi counted on his fingers to do the math to the correspondent: the total area of Shiliin-gol League is 203,000 square kilometers, and the herders’ population is 210,000. It is a simple calculation. Every herder occupies 1 square kilometer grassland. Setting up an environmentally qualified 4 x 0.6 million kilowatt coal-fired power plant with a corresponding complete set of open cast coal mine with annual output of 11 million tons unprocessed coal will require 50,000 square kilometer land which is equivalent to only one forth of the total grassland of Shiliin-gol League. However, this can bring us a 2 billion yuan annual industrial growth which is equivalent to the total annual income of Shiliin-gol League animal husbandry in 2003.

“More than 1000 square kilometer natural grassland will be permanently and effectively protected if this type of industry goes into operation,” Liu Zhuo-zhi says, “as a necessary option, putting the name of Shiliin-gol into the list of state level energy and heavy chemical industry bases will not only boost regional economy and help relieve the state energy bottle-neck pressure, but it also will tackle the grassland ecological problems of Shiliin-gol League.”

Inner Mongolia’s Crop Plantation Area Increased by 3 Million Mu This Year

A report provided by the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region’s agricultural authorities states that Inner Mongolia’s crop plantation area this year has reached 65 million mu (4.4 million hectares) with the growth of 3 million mu (0.2 million hectares) compared to last year.

Now, in this spring plowing season, all parts of Inner Mongolia are carefully implementing the state and autonomous region’s policies for helping peasants of crop growing areas, making grain production as main source of income increase for peasants, steadily increasing the crop growing areas, and placing emphasis on improving the unit output.

Reportedly, since the Central Government’s document was delivered to the lower level governments last year, peasants have benefited the most in crop growing, and this year they have been further encouraged to complete early preparation of spring plowing. The primary goal of grain production development in Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region this year is to keep the size of crop growing area stable and to fully and effectively plant crops in basic farmlands to guarantee crop growing area to reach 65 million mu, and also to try hard to increase unit output and achieve the total harvest of 16 billion kilogram.