"Turbulent Fifty Years of Inner Mongolia"

Bache
Fifty years have passed; the conquered Mongolia steppes are replete with violence, turmoil, poverty, and hatred; whose fault is all this? The CPC's migration and assimilation policy has resulted in a situation in which the scale and rate of immigration of Han people have been unprecedented in Chinese history. This has brought about serious consequences. The Mongolians are faced with the problem of forced assimilation in terms of culture, education, customs, and habits, and their resources are being extensively plundered; all this has been a main reason for the tense relations between the Mongolians and Han people.

Starting from spring this year, the propaganda machines of the CPC have on numerous occasions published reports and commentaries on the issue of Mongolia, boasting about the "great" achievements in Inner Mongolia; all that has been a public opinion campaign to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the CPC rule of Inner Mongolia.
The "marriage alliance" story of Wang Zhaojun has been repeatedly publicized to make the point that the Mongols and Han people were of one family a long time ago, so as to refute the "shameless slanders" issued by advocates of "Mongolian independence." However, it is well-known that contradictions and hatred between the Mongolians and Han people have been continually deepening over the past half century.

Forced Sinification Began in the Late 1950s Immediately after the founding of the state, the CPC actively worked to seek the support of the Mongolian nationality, encouraging the use of the local language. In order to secure cooperation from the upper strata of the Mongolian nationality, it trained many new bureaucrats and co-opted and trained a force loyal to the CPC; it also worked energetically to co-opt young Mongolian intellectuals.

Take the example of Ulanfu. He was a four-star general, alternate member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, vice premier of the State Council, and the person in charge of the party, government, and military in Inner Mongolia; he was extremely successful.

Toward the end of the 1950s, the CPC changed its policy, thus causing the Mongolians to raise questions. As far as the Mongolians were concerned, forced Sinification and forced acceptance of Marxism were the same thing. The 1962 "206" incident in Jining City, Ulanqab League, was a case in point. Then, five leaflets advocating opposition to the CPC and its nationality policy were discovered across Inner Mongolia; the contents had five aspects:

1. Discontent with the 1962 official delimitation of boundaries between China and Mongolia.

2. Advocation of merging Inner Mongolia with Outer Mongolia.

3. and 4. Opposition to the CPC rule and the People's Republic of China's nationality policy.

5. Proposal of general and specific policies and measures of merging Inner Mongolia with Outer Mongolia.

The final section talked about striving to unify Inner and Outer Mongolia by 1 July, 1966 and about striving to achieve a final victory on 1 July, or 26 November, 1966 if the first plan could not be accomplished.

In the Autonomous Region of Inner Mongolia, Taoketao, deputy commander of the Military Sub-District of Xilin Gol League; Songdai, deputy administrator of Xilin Gol League; and Namujilapengsike, chief of the league procuratorate, criticized the CPC's national-oppression and forced-assimilation policy of ordering Mongolians to immediately learn spoken and written Chinese and accept "transition to communism," but ended up being purged by the CPC.

There were also the "Unification Party" and "Truth Party" in the Hulun Buir Steppes in eastern Inner Mongolia, parties which advocated opposition to great-Han chauvinist national oppression and the merger and unification of Inner and Outer Mongolia. The PRC's first constitution of 1954 explicitly provided in Article 71 that minority nationalities might continue to use their languages and writing systems. As the pluralist language policy was felt by the CPC to have contributed to the segregation of the nationalities, the CPC banned the use of the Mongolian language and writing system after the 1957 Qingdao Nationality Work Conference presided over by Zhou Enlai; primary school pupils of every minority nationality region must all learn Chinese. This decision caused strong opposition from the Mongolian elite, resulting in those people being expelled.

It was not until 1973 that the CPC authorities allowed the use of the native spoken and written language. The Han people who have lived in Inner Mongolia for a long time and their offspring born in Inner Mongolia have not spoken the local language for their entire lives, and they do not want to learn the language. Their subconscious sense of superiority and disdain of the indigenous culture are impossible to hide and also serve as tools for oppressing Mongolians.