cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57036724

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The law was designed to create a "shared" national identity among China's 56 ethnic groups.

"A law that brazenly pushes non-Han ethnic groups including Tibetans, Uyghurs and Mongolians toward a single, state-defined national identity rather than protecting their distinct cultures and languages," [Amnesty International's deputy regional director Sarah] Brooks said.

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The Han Chinese are China's largest and most dominant ethnic group, accounting for 17 per cent of the world's population.

But 125 million Chinese citizens belong to 55 non-Han ethnic groups, including the Zhuang, Uyghur, Hui, Manchu, Yi, Tibetans and Mongolians.

Parts of China's history were dominated by non-Han Dynasties: the Manchu Qing (1644–1912) and the Mongol Yuan (1271–1368).

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The Chinese government insists the new laws are not being implemented to suppress ethnic groups or languages, but to prevent separatism.

Following the 1911 revolution in which the Manchu Qing dynasty was overthrown, Mongolia, followed shortly afterwards by Tibet, declared independence from China.

Outer Mongolia became a communist nation in the 1920s, remaining so until the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.

Inner Mongolia has remained a part of China, while the independent state of Tibet was annexed by the Chinese in 1951.

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Life under Communist China

Initially, Inner Mongolia was organised into an autonomous region with greater political rights.

What followed was decades of persecution.

Mr Togochog said government crackdowns started in the 1950s, when tens of thousands of Mongolian elites were accused of being national separatists, suffering politic persecution and imprisonment.

This was just a taste of what came when Chairman Mao declared his decade-long "Cultural Revolution", which saw the destruction of cultural artefacts, societal upheaval and the persecution, imprisonment or death of millions.

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According to a study published by the University of Cambridge, more than 16,000 Mongols were killed and five times that many were maimed.

Mr Togochog said the Mongolian population was "completely devastated by this large-scale genocide campaign".

According to a 2020 census, Mongols have now become a minority within Inner Mongolia, representing just 18 per cent of the total population.

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Amnesty international's Tibetan advocate, Kyinzom Dhongdue, said the new ethnic unity law "unambiguously promotes and reinforces China's long-running policies that have already devastated the rights of Uyghurs, Tibetans and other non-Han ethnic groups".

"The Chinese government is pursuing a long-term project of forced assimilation. Or, as described by Tibetans, a cultural genocide.

"It seeks to fundamentally reshape how Tibetans, Uyghurs and other peoples, including Southern Mongolians speak, learn, worship and, ultimately, understand who they are."

Ms Allen said Chinese President Xi Jinping was pushing China towards a sort of monoculture.

"The very heavy-handed push towards assimilation should be seen through the lens of control and Xi Jinping's paranoia."

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In 2020, protests rocked the region of Inner Mongolia after the Chinese government ordered an end to Mongolian-language classes for first-year primary students, in favour of Mandarin.

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Authorities also began a region-wide censorship campaign, shutting down Mongolian WeChat groups and removing Mongolian-language books from the shelves of retail outlets.

"Southern Mongolians know that this is the last chance to stand as Mongolian People … if you lose your language, you lose everything," Mr Togochog said.

"What is remaining is the language, that's the last defence of the Mongolian national identity … what we call the 'final solution' to the Mongolia question."

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"This is nothing but cultural genocide … they want to make you directly Chinese," Mr Togochog said.

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Ms Allen said the new laws made her "really sad" and she said for many of the ethnic groups inside China, there was no diaspora for them to look to for cultural and linguistic preservation.

"I think it's such a shame for China to be heading in this direction when many other similarly situated countries are working very, very hard to preserve and revive their minority languages."