Category: South Asia

Chinese authorities have banned a book on the history of the Mongols, citing “historical nihilism” – a term indicating a version of history not in keeping with the official party line – in what appeared to be a concerted attack by Beijing on ethnic Mongolians’ identity.  Orders have been sent out to remove “A General History of the Mongols” by scholars in the Mongolian Studies department of the Inner Mongolia Institute of Education should be removed from shelves, the pro-Beijing Sing Tao Daily newspaper reported.  It cited an Aug. 25 directive from the Inner Mongolian branch of the government-backed Books and Periodicals Distribution Association. The move comes after President Xi Jinping called for renewed efforts to boost a sense of Chinese national identity in a visit to the northwestern region of Xinjiang. Xi vowed to double down on China’s hardline policies toward the 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in the region, warning that “hard-won social stability” would remain the top priority, along with making everyone speak Mandarin rather than their own languages. And his warnings seemed to apply to other regions, too. “Forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation is a focus of .. all work in areas with large ethnic minority populations,” Xi said in comments paraphrased by state media reports.  China’s President Xi Jinping delivers a speech during his visit to Urumqi in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Aug. 26, 2023. Credit: Yan Yan/Xinhua via Getty Images “Education on standard spoken and written Chinese must be resolutely carried out to enhance people’s consciousness and ability to use it,” he said. Ethnic Mongolians, who make up almost 20 percent of Inner Mongolia’s population of 23 million, increasingly complain of widespread environmental destruction and unfair development policies in the region, as well as ongoing attempts to target their traditional culture. Clashes between Chinese state-backed mining or forestry companies and herding communities are common in the region, which borders the independent country of Mongolia, with those who complain about the loss of their grazing lands frequently targeted for harassment, beatings, and detention by the authorities. Historical narrative The banned book, published in 2004, was previously lauded for its work in “connecting the history of Mongolia from ancient times to the medieval period, making the history of Mongolia more complete,” according to a Baidupedia entry still available on Friday. “Systematizing, organizing, and using a scientific approach can help the world better understand China’s five thousand years of glorious history, strengthen the unity of the Chinese nation, and make Chinese culture and history more prosperous,” said the entry, which must have once been approved by government censors.  Analysts said the book is already fairly nationalistic in tone, and describes the Mongols as part of the Chinese nation. But the ban comes as the authorities are increasingly concerned about a growing sense of Mongolian identity among ethnic Mongolians living in China. “A lot of Mongolian scholars and Mongolians in general don’t like this book because it describes the Mongols as a people of China,” Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, told Radio Free Asia. “The Mongols have never considered themselves to be a Chinese people.”  Nonetheless, the book is now considered to contribute to a pan-Mongolian identity because it didn’t go far enough in making the Mongols appear to be historically part of the Chinese nation, Yang said. “A lot of Mongolian scholars and Mongolians in general don’t like [“A General History of the Mongols”], because it describes the Mongols as a people of China,” Yang Haiying, a professor at Shizuoka University in Japan, told Radio Free Asia. Provided by Yang Haiying A pro-government comment on the social media platform Weibo hit out at the book for “historical nihilism.” “Criticizing the pan-Mongolian nationalist trend is conducive to #cultivating the consciousness of the Chinese national community, conducive to #ethnic exchanges, exchanges, and integration#, and conducive to #forging a strong sense of the Chinese nation’s community !,” user @XiMay1 wrote on Aug. 29. Ending Mongolian instruction At the start of the academic year in 2020, China announced it would end Mongolian-medium instruction in schools, prompting angry protests and a wide-ranging crackdown across the region. Taiwan-based strategic analyst Shih Chien-yu said the banning of the book sends a more general message to China’s ethnic Mongolians. “There are still a lot of Mongolian cadres in the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party of China, a lot of Mongolian intellectuals and officials, while most of the ethnic minority intellectuals in the various central nationalities colleges and university-level schools are Mongolian,” he said. Protestors hold banners and wave the Mongolian flag during a protest in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, against Chinese policies in the neighboring Chinese province of Inner Mongolia on Oct. 1, 2020. Credit: Byambasuren Byamba-Ochir/AFP “The main reason for banning the book is to warn them that they should believe they still have any clout within the regime,” Shih said. “Don’t put up any resistance behind our backs, because we can take away your power at any time.” In 2018, Chinese authorities detained Lhamjab A. Borjigin, a prominent ethnic Mongolian historian who gathered testimony of a historical genocide campaign by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, prosecuting him on charges of separatism. He was handed a one-year suspended jail term for “separatism” and “sabotaging national unity,” then released under ongoing surveillance. Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

Visiting Xinjiang for the second time in just over a year, President Xi Jinping vowed to double down on China’s hardline policies toward the 11 million mostly Muslim Uyghurs who live in the restive, far-western region. Maintaining “hard-won social stability” would remain the top priority, and that stability must be used to “guarantee development,” Xi said during a speech on Saturday in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region, state media reported. Xi said it was necessary to “combine the development of the anti-terrorism and anti-separatism struggle with the push for normalizing social stability work and the rule of law.” He also told officials to further “promote the Sinicization of Islam” and “effectively control various illegal religious activities.” Under Xi, China has clamped down hard on the Uyghurs since 2017, detaining 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in concentration camps, in reaction to sporadic terrorist attacks that Uyghurs say are fueled by years of government oppression. Beijing has also sought to destroy religious and cultural sites and eradicate the Uyghur language and its culture. The United States and legislatures of several Western countries have declared that abuses committed by China — including arbitrary detentions, torture, forced sterilizations of Uyghur women and the use of Uyghur forced labor — amount to genocide and crimes against humanity.  China denies the accusations, saying its Xinjiang policies are necessary to combat religious extremism and “terrorism.” Uyghur advocates denounced Xi’s remarks, saying they pointed to more repression. “It’s crystal clear from Xi Jinping’s speech in Urumqi that the Chinese government and he intend to continue the ongoing Uyghur genocide and crimes against humanity in East Turkestan,” said Dolkun Isa, president of the World Uyghur Congress, using Uyghurs’ preferred name for Xinjiang. Noting that Xi called for more positive propaganda on Xinjiang, Isa cautioned the international community “not to be fooled” by those false images and messages. Xi last visited Xinjiang in July 2022, before the U.N.’s human rights office issued a report concluding that China may have committed genocide and crimes against humanity.   China’s President Xi Jinping speaks during his visit to Urumqi in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Aug. 26, 2023. Credit: Yan Yan/Xinhua via Getty Images     ‘War on Islam’ On Monday, Rusha Abbas, executive director of the campaign for Uyghurs, said Xi’s use of the phrase “Sinicization of Islam” meant “war on Islam,” while “counter-terrorism measures” meant “mass imprisonment.” Xi also emphasizes security as the priority in Xinjiang followed by the region’s economic development, said Adrian Zenz, a researcher at the Washington, D.C.-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and an expert on the Xinjiang region. “In that context he strongly emphasizes cultural assimilation, Uyghurs learning Chinese, and a Sinicization of Islam,” he said.  Zenz also noted that Xi’s point on the need for Uyghurs to work in other provinces of China and along the East Coast is significant because the government has long suppressed statistics on labor transfers to other areas.  “That’s actually a very important data point — an important point of evidence — and really an argument why the United States really urgently needs to add many more Chinese companies to the blacklist” related to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.  Signed into law in December 2021, the act requires American companies that import goods from Xinjiang to prove that they have not been manufactured with Uyghur forced labor at any production stage. David Tobin, a lecturer on East Asian studies at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom, said the speech signaled that the Communist Party “will not listen to criticism on its ethnic policy in general and its policies towards the Uyghur people in particular.” “Domestically, Xi Jinping is signaling to party state officials and regional leaders that he is in command and his policies must be implemented,” he said. “So, the visit is a display and an assertion of strength, but also belies a weakness to these concerns.”