MONGOLIAN ISSUES, ANGER, ACTIVISM AND PROTESTS IN CHINA

COMPLAINTS BY MONGOLS IN INNER MONGOLIA

Inner Mongolia flag

Inner Mongolia is supposed to enjoy a high degree of self-rule, but Mongolians say the Han Chinese majority hold the power and have been the main beneficiaries of economic development. Mining and development has drawn more Chinese workers into the region, further degraded the grasslands where herders grazed their sheep and cattle and made Mongols feels that their ethnic identity is under threat. [Source: Reuters, June 8, 2011]

Ethnic Mongolians, have complained that their traditional grazing lands have been ruined by mining and desertification, and that the government has tried to force them to settle in permanent houses. One herder told the Southern Mongolia Human Rights Center: “We feel lost without our herds and the grassland.”

Those complaints echo ones from places like Tibet and Xinjiang. But unlike Tibetans in Tibet and Uighurs in Xinjiang, ethnic Mongolians are a small minority, fewer than 20 percent of the 24 million who live in Inner Mongolia. China's Mongolians have rarely taken to the streets, unlike Tibetans or Xinjiang's Uighurs, but they did so in protests in May 2011.

"Tensions in Inner Mongolia have been rising under the surface for many years. These are classic issues that you see in many places related to policies toward minorities," Human Rights Watch Asian researcher Nicholas Bequelin told AP. “We feel like we are being drowned by the Han,” a 21-year-old computer science student at Hohhot Nationality University told the New York Times. “The government always talks about ethnic harmony, but why do we feel so oppressed?” [Source: Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press, Andrew Jacobs, New York Times]

Social and Political Issues Involving Mongols in China

According to the e Human Relations Area Files: Besides the legal code, the state relies on a vast network of police surveillance and informants that provide information on anything that may be considered as a threat to the state. Mongolian intellectuals have been arrested over the years for talking about Mongolian rights and ethnic interests. Other Mongolian intellectuals, who hold academic positions in the United States, have also been detained and questioned concerning the tone of their writings as it pertains to ethnic issues in China. People are aware of this unofficial presence and are cautious in how they interact with strangers and what they voice in quasi-public settings. [Source: William Jankowiak and John Beierle, e Human Relations Area Files (eHRAF) World Cultures, Yale University]

Mongol sheep herder

Throughout much of the early twentieth century, the migration of Chinese peasants pushed the herders onto inferior pastureland. This led to periodic conflict. Today, many Han Chinese believe the state's affirmative-action policy provides Mongols with many benefits. The Mongols argue that the state has not provided enough benefits. Mongols tend to associate within their own community. Han-Mongolian friendships, as opposed to work related relationships, are the exception. Inner Mongolians also identify strongly with the Chinese state. For their part, they consider themselves to be members of an ethnic group as well as being Chinese citizens.

Beside ethnic conflict, other major social divisions are emerging: children without education, wealthy entrepreneurs, the unemployed. Amongst pastoralists, there is a growing differential between wealthy and poor herders. As in the case of Outer Mongolia, most Inner Mongolian herders live at the subsistence level. The emergence of social stratification has resulted in a decline in community solidarity which has also resulted in an increase in crime and violence. The enclosure conflicts are pandemic. There are arguments over fencing practices, theft of fence-wire, furious exchanges whenever animals cross into someone else's land, and outright vandalism . These new social divisions are related to restricted opportunities and unfilled aspirations. They have implications for the future integration of Chinese society.

Anger Over Chinese Government Policies Relating to Mongols

Christopher Bodeen of Associated Press wrote that government policies in some cases meant to help have further alienated many Mongolians. Limits on the size of herds intended to preserve grazing land are deeply unpopular because they reduce rural incomes, meanwhile mining concessions are given out to Chinese, said Becquelin, the Human Rights Watch researcher. Moves to fence in pastures and relocate herders to more remote areas have backfired by causing overgrazing and making it more difficult to move animal products to market, he said. [Source: Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press, May 31, 2011]

Andrew Jacobs wrote in New York Times, Here in Damao Banner — banner being the Mongolian equivalent of a county — a decade-long effort to restore grasslands to health by moving thousands of shepherds into towns and cities has helped fuel antigovernment sentiment.The reasons for the land’s decline are a matter of some debate, although many environmentalists say the damming of waterways, coal mining and overgrazing all play a role. But the government’s most ambitious solution, known as ecological migration, focuses solely on the herdsmen, providing subsidies to them — but only after they have sold off their flocks. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, June 11, 2011]

In October 2020, a French museum postponed an exhibit about Genghis Khan citing interference by the Chinese government, which it accuses of trying to rewrite history. Associated Press reportedly: “The Chateau des ducs de Bretagne history museum in the western city of Nantes said that it was putting the show about the 13th century leader on hold for over three years. The museum said the Chinese authorities demanded that certain words, including “Genghis Khan," “Empire" and “Mongol" be taken out of the show. Subsequently, it said that they asked for power over exhibition brochures, legends and maps. “The exhibit was planned in collaboration with the Inner Mongolia Museum in Hohhot, China. But tensions arose, the Nantes museum said, when the Chinese Bureau of Cultural Heritage pressured the museum for changes to the original plan, “including notably elements of biased rewriting of Mongol culture in favor of a new national narrative."[Source: Associated Press, October 14, 2020]

Removing the Mongolian Language from Schools and Television

Inner Mongolia People's Congress

Classes in Mongolian language in Inner Mongolia were stopped in 2020 in high schools in and around Tongliao City and was later expanded to other areas of Inner Mongolia. Jianli Yang and Lianchao Han wrote in The Hill:““Tongliao was chosen to begin the implementation of the language policy because nearly 1 million ethnic Mongolians live in Tongliao, making it the most Mongolian-populated area and a linguistic stronghold for the Mongolian language in China. The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region government has reasoned that since the Mongolian language, script and spoken, is more closely aligned with Central Asian and West Asian languages, it should be replaced with the Chinese language. The move, paving the way for Chinese linguistic hegemony, should be seen as part of a larger campaign to eradicate Mongolian identity, language and culture from what the CCP calls “Inner Mongolia.” [Source: Jianli Yang and Lianchao Han, The Hill, July 29, 2020]

A policy announced on August 2020 ahead of the start of the new school year, required schools to use new national textbooks in Chinese, replacing Mongolian-language textbooks. Associated Press reported: In 2017, the ruling Communist Party created a committee to overhaul textbooks for the entire country. Revised textbooks have been pushed out over the last few years. The new policy for Inner Mongolia, affects schools where Mongolian has been the principal language of instruction. Literature classes for elementary and middle school students at the Mongolian-language schools switched to a national textbook and be taught in Mandarin Chinese. In 2021 the politics and morality course also switched to Mandarin, as did history classes starting in 2022. The remaining classes, such as math, will not change their language of instruction. Students also started learning Mandarin in first grade. Previously, they started in second grade. Similar changes have taken effect in other ethnic areas. In Tibet and Xinjiang, the primary language of instruction in such schools has become Mandarin, and the minority language is a language class. [Source: Huizhong Wu, Associated Press, September 2, 2020]

Charlie Campbell wrote in Time magazine: ““It only started in schools. From January 1, 2021 Mongolian content on state media has been replaced with Chinese cultural programs that promote a “strong sense of Chinese nationality common identity.” The provincial department of education issued a 47-page internal training pamphlet quoting heavily from Xi’s seminal 2014 speech in Xin-jiang: “The Chinese cannot separate from national minorities, national minorities cannot separate from the Chinese, and national minorities cannot separate from each other either.” One trainee told the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) the pamphlet is “the bible to this new cultural genocide movement, equivalent to Mao’s red book to the Cultural Revolution.” “The slogan “Learn Chinese and become a civilized person” captures the state’s contemptuous view of Mongolian culture — now called “Chinese grassland culture.” At Tsagaan Sar, or Mongolian lunar new year, Peking operas and the high-pitched Chinese suona horn have replaced Mongolian dances and the horse-head fiddle in televised celebrations. “The goal of this policy is very clear: they want to completely eradicate Mongolian language, culture and identity,” says Enghebatu Togochog, director of the SMHRIC. [Source: Charlie Campbell, Time magazine, July 12, 2021]

Protests Over Inner Mongolia Protest Chinese Language Policy

After the Mongolian-to-Chinese language policy was announced e thnic Mongolians, including students and parents, took to the streets demonstrating their anger in rare public protests that they say is endangering the Mongolian language. Associated Press reported: “A high school student in the city of Hulunbuir said students rushed out of their school and destroyed a fence before paramilitary police swarmed in and tried to return them to class. “We senior students were talking and we thought we had to do something,” said the student, Narsu, who like most Mongolians has only one name. “Although this doesn’t directly affect us now, this will have a huge impact on us in the future.” [Source: Huizhong Wu, Associated Press, September 2, 2020]

Mongol worker in Hohhot

Protesters say they were aware of demonstrations and classroom walkouts in Hohhot, the provincial capital, as well as in the cities of Chifeng and Tongliao and Xilin Gol prefecture. Nuomin, the mother of a kindergarten student in Hulunbuir, said she saw police in places she normally wouldn't and a metal barrier in front of one school. She has kept her child home since Monday. “Many of us parents will continue to keep our kids at home, until they bring Mongolian back in those classes,” she said.

“In the city of Tongliao, parents decided to take their children home from a boarding school. Many parents only learned about the policy after they had dropped off their children at school, said Nure Zhang, a Tongliao resident. But authorities at one elementary school, backed by police, refused to let parents take back their children, according to Zhang, who attended the protest.There were multiple clashes as parents and others rushed at the police, trying to get into the school, Zhang said. “They used a human wall to block us. We kept on singing and shouting slogans,” he said. Police used pepper spray twice on the protesters, he added. At 9 p.m., the school principal and local officials said parents could take their children home.

“Tongliao police issued a call Wednesday for help with their investigation into an incident of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble" that happened on Monday, and warned that “anyone that was seen congregating in public, will be thoroughly investigated by public security organs.” Police asked the public in a WeChat post to provide information on more than 100 individuals, offering a reward of 1000 yuan ($150).

Mongol Activism

Many of ethnic Mongols in China, who have cultural and ethnic ties with the republic of Mongolia to the north, complain of political and cultural repression by China. Some refer to Inner Mongolia as “Southern Mongolia”. The US-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) is a major Mongol activist group. [Source: Agence France-Presse, South China Morning Post, December 12, 2010]

There were some protests in the early 1990s, Christopher Bodeen of Associated Press wrote, “when Mongolia sloughed off its status as a Soviet client state in a peaceful democratic revolution. Some Mongols have fled northward. Some Inner Mongolian exiles and members of an ultranationalist Mongolian political party have staged a sympathy protests in Mongolia's capital of Ulan Bator. Among their demands: protecting pasturelands and securing the indigenous rights of Mongols in Inner Mongolia, in an echo of the Inner Mongolian protesters' calls for preserving the herding lifestyle and strengthening protections for the Mongolian language and traditional Buddhist culture. [Source: Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press, May 31, 2011]

Inner Mongolians who have sought to organize politically have been ruthlessly suppressed. One of the region's best known ethnic nationalists, Hada completed a 15-year prison sentence for spying and separatism and was then detained in an undisclosed location. Hada was sentenced to prison in the after he advocated greater freedoms for China's Mongols. One of the mainland's longest-jailed prisoners of conscience, Hada fell foul of authorities after writings in which he called for Mongol rights and after organizing peaceful demonstrations as head of the underground Southern Mongolian Democracy Alliance.[Source: Agence France-Presse, South China Morning Post, December 12, 2010]

Inner Mongolia Protests in May 2011

In May 2011 in China’s Inner Mongolia region, ethnic Mongolians clashed with security officers in protests over the death of a Mongolian who had been run over by a car driven by an ethnic Han. The herder sought to halt coal trucks trespassing on grasslands and was protesting pollution caused by a nearby coal mine. His death sparked wider demonstrations by ethnic minority Mongolians demanding better protection of their rights and traditions. China normally keeps a tight grip over Inner Mongolia and other strategic border regions including Tibet and Xinjiang, which are home to large numbers of ethnic minorities, as well as being rich in natural resources.

Christopher Bodeen of Associated Press wrote: “Calls for justice by Mongols in the resource-rich, prosperous borderland of northern China have shattered the calm there to which Chinese leaders have grown accustomed. Clashes that left two Mongols dead in mid-May triggered protests in several cities and towns last week that have become the largest demonstrations in the Inner Mongolia region in 20 years. [Source: Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press, May 31, 2011]

In Xilinhot, a mining hub not far from where the herder was killed as he and others tried to block a convoy of coal trucks, as many as 2,000 people, many of them students, took to the streets on May 26. Five days later, about 150 protesters marched through the center of Hohhot, the regional capital, despite the presence of thousands of soldiers and paramilitary police officers who kept college students confined to their campuses. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, May 29, 2011]

Andrew Jacobs wrote in the New York Times, “the ethnic Mongolian protests that have swept a number of cities are a sobering reminder that government largess, assimilation or an iron fist cannot entirely extinguish the yearnings of some of China’s 55 ethnic minorities, who account for 8 percent of the country’s population. “The Mongolian situation is very worrying for the Chinese leadership because you can’t just throw money at an issue like ethnic identity,” Minxin Pei, a China expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and professor of political science at Claremont McKenna College in California, told the New York Times.

Underlying Causes of the Inner Mongolia Protests

Andrew Jacobs wrote in the New York Times, “Although the immediate trigger of the demonstrations was a homicide of a Mongolian herder, the underlying enmity can be tied to longstanding grievances; the ecological destruction wrought by an unprecedented mining boom, a perception that economic growth disproportionately benefits the Han and the rapid disappearance of Inner Mongolia’s pastoral tradition. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, May 29, 2011]

On the causes of the protests The Straits Times reported: “The protests in Inner Mongolia were the result of an unfortunate mixture of economic and ethnic grievances, which spilled into public protests after a Mongol herder was run over while trying to block a convoy of coal trucks coming in from the grasslands. The fatality galvanized latent discontent over the mining industry’s penetration of the region. Critics see this as resource exploitation that degrades the steppe environment and erodes the ethnic rights of Mongols, long tied to a nomadic and pastoral culture. The combination could not have been worse: a fatal encounter that symbolized relations between a threatened regional ethnicity and a dominant national system. “[Source: The Straits Times, June 3, 2010]

“The facts are hardly as ominous. Inner Mongolia is a part of the same trajectory of economic development that has transformed China’s fortunes vastly over the past three decades, and mostly for the better. But development has come with costs — notably over the issue of land rights — in the region as well as in the rest of the country. Resentment has led to rural protests and occasional outbursts of violence. In Inner Mongolia’s case, however, the ethnic dimension has made a land issue more volatile than it would have been otherwise. Thus, the region belongs to the same category of restive areas as Tibet and Xinjiang, where ethnic dissension escalated to bloodletting in 2008 and 2009, respectively.”

Chinese Government Response Protests in Inner Mongolia

Andrew Jacobs wrote in the New York Times, “The government response has hewed closely to the recipe used to quell the far more violent ethnic turmoil that convulsed Tibet in 2008 and the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang a year later. Internet access has been severely restricted, with most Mongolian Web sites shut down, and scores of students, professors and herders have been taken into custody... The authorities, never shy about baring their teeth, have also rolled out a formidable show of force, cordoning off parks and public squares with paramilitary police and threatening to dismiss government workers who join the rallies. Enhebatu Togochog, an exiled human rights advocate, has described the crackdown as a “witch hunt.” [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, May 29, 2011]

AP reported: “Authorities poured more police into the streets and slowed Internet service in several parts of China's Inner Mongolia, trying to head off more protests. Large numbers of police patrolled the regional capital, Hohhot, especially around the main square, where Internet messages over the weekend urged people to gather in protest Monday, people reached by phone said. In Chifeng city, where a rights group said hundreds protested Sunday, police were everywhere, residents reached by phone said. People in both cities complained that the Internet was inaccessible or slow. "We lost access to the Internet. And there's no point in going to the Internet cafes since they have suspended business because the Internet is down there too," said a waitress at the Laozhuancun restaurant around the corner from government offices in Chifeng.” [Source: AP, May 29, 2011]

The events in Inner Mongolia seem to have rattled Chinese leaders, who have long battled ethnic unrest by Tibetans and Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang but who have seen Inner Mongolia as a model, its economy booming and its Mongols integrated into the mainstream. After the early protests, President Hu Jintao gathered the Communist Party's powerful Politburo to discuss what it said is the urgent need to reduce social tensions and promote fairness.

Clampdown on Students and Martial Law in Inner Mongolia

According to the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center, police summoned students who sent out multiple text messages about the protests. Andrew Jacobs wrote in New York Times, “One student in Hohhot, who dashed off a similar note on QQ, a popular instant messaging program, was promptly picked up by the authorities, the group said. Another student who made his way to the protest said he was desperately trying to get a doctor’s note to explain his disappearance from campus. Although news about the turmoil has been scrubbed from the Web, local Communist Party officials and the police have been painting the protesters as subversives intent on fanning ethnic disunity. Asked about the demonstrations on Tuesday, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu echoed that theme, blaming unnamed overseas forces for stirring up the trouble. “Their attempts are doomed to failure,” she said during a regular news briefing. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, June 1, 2011]

Thousands of Mongolian students were penned up for five days to prevent them from taking to the streets. Authorities blocked entrances and exits to at least a half-dozen campuses. School officials promised to eject from school anyone caught protesting or even escaping from campus. One exasperated administrator at Inner Mongolia University told the New York Times no one at school knew when the sequestering might end. “Everyone just has to be patient.”

“According to the Southern Mongolia Human Rights Center: “Home to thousands of Mongolian students, major schools, colleges and universities in Hohhot have been under heavy guard by riot police and paramilitary forces. Students were closely monitored by their teachers and security personnel inside the campuses.”[Source: Southern Mongolia Human Rights Center, May 30, 2011]

“There are at least three layers of security here in my school. The first and outermost layer is the riot police and paramilitary forces encircling the entire campus; the second and middle layer is the security personnel guarding the major entrances inside and outside; the third and innermost layer is the security personnel who guard all entrances of dormitory and academic buildings,” a Mongolian professor from the Inner Mongolia University who was ordered to carry out guard duty over students told SMHRIC in a brief phone interview, “we are ordered to have our lunch inside the campus, and not allowed to leave the office until further notice.

Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee of Reuters wrote: “Chinese authorities sealed off parts of the northern region of Inner Mongolia in what residents described as martial law, to try to quell a fifth day of protests by ethnic Mongolians over the death of a herder in a hit-and-run accident. Residents in Shuluun Huh Banner, or Zheng Lan Qi in Chinese, and Left Ujumchin Banner, or Xi Wu Qi in Chinese, near Inner Mongolia's Xilinhot city, told Reuters that martial law was imposed.” [Source: Ben Blanchard and Sui-Lee Wee, Reuters, May 27 2011]

"There was martial law declared this morning," said one resident of Shuluun Huh Banner who gave her name as Tana. "It's still ongoing with fewer guards right now, but some police are on the street." Despite this, hundreds of Mongolians defied the tighter security and marched towards the government building in Shuluun Huh Banner before noon, said Enghebatu Togochog of the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre.

Truck Driver Who Triggered Inner Mongolia Protests Sentenced to Death

Andrew Jacobs wrote in the New York Times, “In an unusually prompt trial — apparently a reflection of Chinese leaders’ fears of further unrest — a Xilinhot court handed down a death sentence to the Han driver convicted of running down Mergen, the Mongolian herdsman. The trial, which lasted six hours, according to the official Xinhua news agency, also yielded stiff sentences for three other men involved in the episode. The authorities said they planned to quickly try another Han driver accused of killing an activist with a forklift during a confrontation between the two groups at a coal mine several days later. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, June 11, 2011]

State news agency Xinhua said coal truck driver Li Lindong will be executed "for using his vehicle to kill" Mergen (the herder). His co-driver, also a Han Chinese, was sentenced to life imprisonment at the court in Xilinhot. The tough sentences, announced immediately after the six-hour trial ended, underscores the government's determination to show it takes seriously the concerns of the ethnic Mongolians, and that it wants to avoid any more unrest. Xinhua The report said the trial was attended by about 160 people, including relatives of Mergen.” [Source: Reuters, June 8, 2011]

“Xinhua said local residents were "still fuming" over Mergen's death, but his wife Uzhina and brother Bayar had been satisfied with the government's response to the case. "We saw justice from the result, and I believe that herders from the West Ujimqin Banner will be happy with the result as well," Xinhua quoted Bayar as saying, referring to the epicentre of the protests. But local official Ding Ruilian expressed sympathy for Li, the driver, saying she felt "heart-struck for the lack of legal awareness of youngsters like (him)".

Addressing the Grievances of the Inner Mongolia Protesters

The swiftness of the response highlights how worried Chinese leaders are. At Politburo meeting held after the initial protests Chinese leaders said that easing social tensions and promoting fairness is critical. "Solving these problems is both urgent and demands long-term effort," they said. [Source: Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press, May 31, 2011]

Reuters reported: “Beijing, ever worried by threats to stability, is now trying to address some of the protesters' broader concerns about the damage done by coal mining to traditional grazing lands. The authorities have since launched a month-long overhaul of the lucrative coal mining industry, vowing to clean up or close polluters.” [Source: Reuters, June 8, 2011]

Andrew Jacobs wrote in New York Times, in the midst of the protests “officials of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have sought to stanch them through a classically Chinese carrot-and-stick approach to ethnic instability. They have announced a raft of lavishly financed development projects. The government this week added to the menu of appeasements, promising to spend $308 million, to promote Mongolian culture and another $200 million, on student subsidies. Officials announced a monthlong overhaul of the region’s lucrative coal industry “to ensure safe production practices, protect the environment, and address the welfare of local residents,” Xinhua, the state news agency, reported. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, June 1, 2011]

For the longer term, Andrew Jacobs wrote in the New York Times, “Officials have vowed to correct abuses of the coal industry, among them unregulated strip mining and trucks that career over the fragile steppe. The government has also committed to broader changes, promising hundreds of millions of dollars for education, environmental protection and the promotion of Mongolian culture.But it is unclear if the swift action will still resentments that have simmered despite Inner Mongolia’s fast-expanding economy — the growth rate has topped that of all other provinces since 2002 — and affirmative action policies that have provided tens of thousands of government jobs to ethnic Mongolians. [Source: Andrew Jacobs, New York Times, June 11, 2011]

52 Mongolia Internet Activists Arrested

In September 2013, 52 netizens were arrested for "spreading rumors", "sensationalizing conflicts", and "stirring up ethnic relations" in connection with Mongolian activism. According to SMHRIC: China has launched a major new “Strike Hard” campaign against Internet freedom in Southern (Inner) Mongolia. At least 52 more netizens have been arrested for “creating and spreading rumors”, according to a statement issued by the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau on August 29, 2013. [Source: Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), September 4, 2013 ^^]

“The statement was published on the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau official website under the heading “Inner Mongolian police arrested 52 criminal suspects who created and spread rumors via the Internet”. The statement calls the 52 netizens “criminal suspects” who are blamed for distributing more than 1200 pieces of information mainly of “Internet rumors and false reports of disaster, epidemic, and police emergency”. “Upholding the principle of ‘strike, investigate and punish group by group’, this round of special operation further traces the clue, deepens the investigation, digs deeper to unearth organized rumor networks, accurately strikes the major targets, strikes hard and deters these criminal activities in order to protect the legal rights of the broad masses,” the statement concludes. ^^

According to Xinhua News, of the 52 “criminal suspects” who were arrested, “21 were held in police administrative detention, 10 fined, 3 warned, 18 educated and reprimanded.” “Some even sensationalized the conflicts that occurred during the development process in Inner Mongolia, deliberately stirring up ethnic relations, encouraging the masses to appeal for their interests in a radical way such as student strikes and protest demonstrations,” the Xinhua article says. The article also reveals that this round of “Strike Hard” campaign is “implemented by the Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau in response to the request from the Autonomous Region leaders and the consolidated deployment by the Public Security Ministry”. The goal of this campaign is to “establish a long-term mechanism for suppressing Internet rumors”, according to the article. ^^

Image Sources: You Tube

Text Sources: 1) "Encyclopedia of World Cultures: Russia and Eurasia/ China", edited by Paul Friedrich and Norma Diamond (C.K. Hall & Company; 2) Liu Jun, Museum of Nationalities, Central University for Nationalities, Science of China, China virtual museums, Computer Network Information Center of Chinese Academy of Sciences, kepu.net.cn ~; 3) Ethnic China *\; 4) Chinatravel.com \=/; 5) China.org, the Chinese government news site china.org | New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Times of London, Lonely Planet Guides, Library of Congress, Chinese government, The Guardian, National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Wikipedia, BBC and various books, websites and other publications.

Last updated October 2022