Sec. 2. Findings

1,077 words·~5 min read·/bill/118/s/5305/is/section-2

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Congress makes the following findings: According to the China Statistical Yearbook for 2021, more than 6,000,000 ethnic Mongolians live in the People’s Republic of China, of which some two-thirds live in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and many others in three prefectures and eight counties designated as autonomous for Mongolians by the Government of the People’s Republic of China. Over the centuries, successive central Chinese governments have promoted the migration of Chinese people into the area currently administered as the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and today only about 18 percent of the population of the Region is counted as ethnically Mongolian.

In 2020, officials in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region announced a new policy to effectively replace Mongolian as the principal language of instruction with Chinese, in the subjects of history, politics, and literature, and shut down Bainu, the only Mongolian-language-based social media website based in the country. Beginning in September 2023, schools across the region largely removed Mongolian-language instruction from elementary and secondary schools throughout the region.

Reports indicate that high school and college entrance exams will be conducted in Chinese exclusively starting in 2025 and 2028, respectively. The People’s Republic of China authorities have banned Mongolian language books from bookstores and removed signs in the unique, vertically-written Mongolian script from schools, buildings, streets, and parks. The People’s Republic of China officials launched patriotic education campaigns at schools and universities throughout the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, designed to suppress manifestations of Mongolian identity in favor of the common Chinese national identity and encourage all ethnic groups to accept the great mother country, Chinese nationality, Chinese culture, [and the] Chinese Communist Party.

In response to the new education policy, tens of thousands of Southern Mongolians in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region launched protests, in which some 300,000 Southern Mongolian students boycotted school and teachers went on strike, and some individuals reportedly committed suicide in protest. Security authorities responded harshly by arresting, beating, detaining, jailing, and placing under home confinement some estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Southern Mongolians. Chinese authorities now fully control all activities of the Chinggis Khan Mausoleum in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, including the schedule, scale, and ticketing of ritual ceremonies and approval and monitoring of gatherings, denying Southern Mongolians the ability to carry out traditional rituals and observances free of government interference and profiteering.

This has broken an eight-century-long memorial tradition at the site, which has served as an historical and cultural representation of the Mongolian identity. The People’s Republic of China policies have undermined the religious heritage of Southern Mongolians, many of whom follow Tibetan Buddhism, including through the destruction of monasteries and temples during the Cultural Revolution, and interference in the ability to choose their own religious leaders. Restrictions on travel and freedom of religion or belief inhibit the ability of Southern Mongolians to affiliate, engage, and communicate with Mongol communities around the world, especially those with cultural, linguistic and religious links to people in the country of Mongolia and the Buryatia, Kamykia, and Tuvan regions of the Russian Federation, resulting in a diminution of their common cultural heritage.

The People’s Republic of China policies have effectively ended the traditional Southern Mongolian economic livelihood of pastoralism, a key marker of Mongol identity, by forcibly resettling more than 246,000 nomadic households to urban and agricultural areas where Mandarin language and Chinese cultural elements dominate. These policies have cut off Southern Mongolians from their ancestral lands and increased their economic dependence on the state, eroding their social cohesion.

This has led to severe social and psychological impacts, including mental illness and economic deprivation. The environment of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region has degraded under the People’s Republic of China policies that have removed nomads, ending traditional stewardship of grazing lands, and exploited natural resources through mining and heavy industry without sufficient stakeholder input from local inhabitants, resulting in air and water pollution and severe health problems among local Southern Mongolians.

Bayan Obo, the largest rare earth mine in the world, is the source of toxic waste, including radioactive thorium that has been seeping into groundwater. Southern Mongolian dissidents, activists, writers, bloggers, lawyers, and their family members who have attempted to exercise their freedom of expression and defend their legal rights have been detained, arrested, imprisoned, and placed under home confinement by the People’s Republic of China authorities. Activist Yanjindulam remains under home confinement after being released from prison, artist Ashidaa is still under home confinement, lawyer Huhbulag has been detained multiple times, and dissident Almaz has been frequently harassed and detained by the authorities.

Authorities detained rights activist Hada, who promoted self-determination and democracy for Southern Mongolians, in 1995 and sentenced him to 15 years in 1996. He was held without legal basis for an additional four years following the expiration of his sentence. Hada was subsequently placed under home confinement until his disappearance in September 2020. In 2011, Hada’s wife Xinna, an outspoken critic of human rights violations in Southern Mongolia, was arrested before being sentenced to three years in prison, suspended for five years.

Their son Uiles was sentenced at the age of 17 to two years in prison on the basis of multiple fabricated charges. The family’s welfare and whereabouts have been unknown since September 2020. Chinese authorities have subjected Southern Mongolians to transnational repression. Since 2009, at least five Southern Mongolian dissidents in exile have been forcibly returned to China, including from Mongolia. On May 3, 2023, Chinese police officers detained Lhamjab Borjigin, a long-time dissident writer and historian, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and forcibly returned him to China on the same day.

Lhamjab Borjigin had escaped from home confinement on March 6, 2023, after he was sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for two years, for writing a book entitled China’s Cultural Revolution . The Congressional-Executive Commission on China reported that [d]uring the Commission’s 2023 reporting year, Chinese Communist Party and government authorities implemented policies that limited the freedom of ethnic minority groups to express their cultural and religious identities in contravention of the PRC Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law and international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights .

The Government of the People’s Republic of China's policies have undermined the ability of Southern Mongolians to exercise their rights under international law to safeguard and develop their own language, culture, religion or belief, and economic livelihoods, as part of a deliberate effort to erase their distinct Mongolian culture and Sinicize the Southern Mongolian people.