The CCP has assimilated Inner Mongolia by eroding Mongolian language, culture, and autonomy, while promoting a Han-centric identity under Xi Jinping’s ethnic affairs policy. This assimilation is less visible than in Tibet or Xinjiang, but no less profound.
Inner Mongolia was once held up as the “model autonomous region,” the first to be granted autonomous status under the PRC. Yet today, autonomy exists largely in name. The CCP has rebranded Mongolian culture as bianjiang wenhua—“northern frontier culture”—a term that deliberately strips it of distinctiveness and folds it into a broader Han narrative. This rhetorical shift mirrors the Party’s approach in Tibet and Xinjiang, where ethnic identity is reframed as a regional curiosity rather than a living tradition.
The most decisive tool of assimilation has been language policy. Mongolian-medium education has been systematically dismantled, replaced with Mandarin instruction. Parents who once sent their children to Mongolian schools now face a stark choice: accept Mandarin as the sole language of advancement or risk their children’s marginalization. This echoes policies in Xinjiang and Tibet, but in Inner Mongolia the changes have been quieter, attracting less international scrutiny.
Language is not just a medium of communication—it is the vessel of memory, poetry, and worldview. By erasing Mongolian from classrooms, the CCP ensures that future generations will think, dream, and argue in Mandarin, not Mongolian.
Xi Jinping has made ethnic assimilation a cornerstone of his governance. His call for “a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation” has been implemented most smoothly in Inner Mongolia, where the demographic balance already favours Han Chinese—nine out of ten residents are Han, and only one in ten Mongolian. This numerical dominance makes assimilation easier: Mongolians are surrounded by Han neighbors, Han teachers, Han officials. The pressure to conform is constant, subtle, and relentless.
Unlike Tibet or Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia does not provoke the same international outrage. There are no mass internment camps, no images of soldiers patrolling monasteries. Instead, assimilation is achieved through bureaucratic policies, school curricula, and cultural reframing. Analysts note that Inner Mongolia has become the CCP’s “model” for ethnic affairs—a demonstration of how to erase minority identity without the spectacle of repression. This makes Inner Mongolia particularly dangerous: it shows the CCP how to assimilate without drawing global condemnation.
The erosion of Mongolian identity is not dramatic, but it is devastating. A child who cannot read Mongolian literature, a teacher forbidden to teach in Mongolian, a festival rebranded as “frontier culture”—these are the everyday acts of erasure. Over time, they accumulate into silence.
Assimilation in Inner Mongolia is not about crushing resistance; it is about ensuring there is no resistance to crush. By making Mongolian identity invisible, the CCP has achieved what brute force in Tibet and Xinjiang has not: a population that appears compliant, even content, while its cultural soul is hollowed out.
Inner Mongolia today is a warning. Assimilation does not always wear the face of violence. Sometimes it comes dressed as policy, curriculum, and rhetoric. The CCP has shown that it can erase a people not by breaking them, but by teaching them to forget themselves.
Nephew of the Dalai Lama. Khedroob Thondup is a geopolitical analyst.
