Following the implementation of the national security law in Hong Kong, communist China has ruthlessly suppressed yet another protest movement in Inner Mongolia.

Starting from this school year, the China government has forcefully put forward its bilingual education reform in Inner Mongolia. To be specific, it is to replace the existing Mongolian textbooks with Chinese ones on subjects such as literature, history and politics Obviously, it is a policy of Chinese chauvinism, an attempt to destroy minority culture by diminishing their mother language. Expectably, this has sparked off widespread protest in major cities like Hohhot, Tong Liao and Ordos.

Comparing to the unsettled Tibet and Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia used to be “reputed” as the “role model autonomous region” in China, which means ethic assimilation is effective and the ethnic minorities are relatively obedient and less opposing. Regrettably, such a “reputation” has been diverting attention away from the sustaining opposition movement of the Mongolians, and more importantly, diluting anger at the continuous brutal oppression imposed by communist China.

In the 1960s, there was the notorious “Incident of the Revolutionary Party of Inner Mongolia People”, a massive purge launched by communist China in the autonomous region and a serious case of massacre in human history. According to official figures, within the two years between 1967 and 1969, there were over a million Mongolian suffering from political persecution, 346,000 incarcerated, 16,222 tortured to death, 81,808 disabled and 20,000 to 100,000 certified death for abnormal reasons.

Though high-handed measures have browbeaten many Mongolians into silence, they have never put a real end to the opposition. In 1981, a large-scale student movement broke out in Inner Mongolia, protesting against the tightened Chinese rule and the deteriorating grassland. In 2011, Morigen, a Mongolian nomad, organized his fellow villagers to protest against the environmental destruction caused by coal mining. He was then crashed to death by a coal truck, which triggered a massive public outcry urging for a punishment on the murderer and preservation of the environment. Moreover, the restless call for independence in southern Mongolia has never ended. Related activists were forced to go into exile in the U.S. and Europe, where they re-organized themselves and kept on fighting.

Nevertheless, the perception and reality of Inner Mongolia as the “role model autonomous region” has been counter-productive to the dissidents in terms of securing broader appeal and getting international support. Ridiculously, the national security police in inner Mongolia has become jealous of the better remunerations enjoyed by their colleagues in more rebellious places like Tibet and Xinjiang. A member of an overseas Mongolian human rights organization told me that he once received a phone call from an Inner Mongolia national security police officer, demanding him to “make actual contributions to the ethnic minority”. The officer in fact encouraged the opposition to stir something up in the region so as to uplift the police’s status and facilitate the application for more stability maintenance budget.

To supplement its brutal oppression, communist China has also made an effort to manipulate political identities in Inner Mongolia. The Mongolians are allowed to be proud of Genghis Khan, their valiant worrier and ancestor, but only in the context of having his famous accomplishment, the Empire of Yuan, incorporated as an integral part of Chinese history. So even Genghis Khan comes to be both Mongolian and Chinese, why should his descendants anxious about their own identity?

And local rumors once said that Xi Jinping’s mother, Qi Xin, is from a family with Mongolian origin. It may carry some truth in it as the ancient record proves that the Mongolian clan is one of the origins of the Qi family group, and Qi is also a Chinese localized surname.

This reminds me of a similar scenario in Taiwan: at the time when Xi just rose to power, some Taiwanese were aware of the fact that Li Sin-kai, a veteran in Kuomintang, is the uncle of Xi’s wife, Peng Li Yuan. This has in turn led to a rather positive reception to Xi’s “blood is thicker than water” saying. In 2016, when Li passed away, Peng Li Yuan’s brother, Peng Lei, flew to Taiwan and attended the funeral, which also involved many remarkable figures from the two major political parties of the country.

However, as things unfolded, the so-called bondage has never eased Beijing’s threat to Taiwan. In Contrary, the former’s urge to “liberate” the latter has been intensifying every day.

In reality, neither being the role model nor claiming family bondage count in Beijing’s mind. When it comes to dealing with possible challenge to its rule, the Chinese government will never hesitate to resort to heavy-handed suppression. In Inner Mongolia, students were expelled from schools, their parents were sacked from public offices and peasants' and nomads' loans from banks were terminated. Even more, students on strike were kidnapped by the police and forcefully dragged back to schools.

The Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center headquartered in the U.S. reveals that the protest in Inner Mongolia over the last three weeks has seen 4,000 to 5,000 people arrested and a minimum of 9 casualties.

Right in the north, people in the independent Mongolia have shown sympathy and support for their compatriots' efforts in safeguarding their culture. When Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi visited the country last week, hundreds and thousands of Mongolian protesters assembled in Sukhbaatar Square, and slogans like “Protecting Our Mother Tongue!” and “Wang Xi, Get Out of Here!” were loud and clear.

However, Wang Xi was equipped with money: Committed to contributing 700 million yuans to Mongolia, the Chinese government has secured the former turning a deaf ear to its neighbor sufferers.

I know all the aforementioned facts will not stop those, be it the Hong Kong police, the Macao government or the Kuomintang here in Taiwan, from fancying becoming “role models” and reaping benefits from bondage with the powerful.

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