In 2020, the Chinese regime announced that key subjects—like Language and Literature, History, and Morality—must now be taught in Mandarin Chinese, using “nationally unified textbooks.” These changes replaced textbooks written in our traditional Mongolian script, the very script our ancestors used for centuries. Schools that once taught in Mongolian have been told they must now prioritize Mandarin. Parents who resisted were threatened with job loss and their children’s right to education. Students were arrested. Protesters disappeared. Our communities were thrown into fear.

This was not just a language reform—it was a calculated attack on our culture.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses language as a political weapon. They claim this policy promotes “national unity” and “ethnic harmony,” but what they really mean is total control. The CCP has shifted from a policy of so-called multiculturalism to one of total sinicization—forcing all ethnic groups to conform to Han Chinese norms, speak Mandarin, and forget their own histories.

Xi Jinping has made it clear: ethnic minorities must become “part of the Chinese nation” in thought, culture, and language. This is not inclusion. This is ideological colonization.

What’s happening in Southern Mongolia mirrors what the Chinese state is doing in East Turkestan and Tibet—systematic cultural erasure disguised as education reform.

To us Mongols, language is not just a tool for communication. It’s who we are. It holds our songs, our stories, our way of seeing the world. When our children are forced to speak Mandarin in schools, they slowly forget how to read and write in their own mother tongue. Over time, they stop thinking in Mongolian. Then they stop dreaming in Mongolian. Eventually, they stop being Mongolian.

That is the end goal of this policy. Not integration. Not education. Elimination.

Former Mongolian president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj said it best: “To eliminate the language is to eliminate the people.”

But we have not been silent. In 2020, tens of thousands of Southern Mongolians protested, despite threats and repression. Mothers stood at school gates refusing to send their children in. Students walked out of class. Teachers risked their careers to speak out. I was there. We were there. And we are still here.

The international media paid attention—for a while. But then the headlines faded, and the crackdown continued. Today, many Southern Mongolian activists are under surveillance, in detention, or in exile. But we will not be silenced.

The Chinese government may have power, but we have something stronger: the truth. Our language, our culture, our identity is not theirs to erase. Every time we speak Mongolian, every time we teach it to our children, every time we write it online or sing it in public—we resist.

To the world: don’t let the CCP rewrite our story. We are not "Chinese Mongolians." We are Southern Mongolians, and our language is the living proof of our history, our spirit, and our right to exist as a people.

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