Ethnic Persecution

China’s policies toward ethnic minorities aim at assimilating them, while facilitating the exploitation of the natural resources found on their territories. These policies are accompanied by systematic political and cultural suppression, economic marginalization and institutionalized discrimination. Constant migration of Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, is diluting Mongolian language, culture and livelihood.

During the Cultural Revolution, ethnic Mongolians were targeted and killed by the Red Guards throughout inner Mongolia, at least 346,000 ethnic Mongols were arrested of which at least 27,900 of them were officially executed and another 120,000 were crippled. An even larger number of ethnic Mongolians were tortured or beaten to death, died of sexual violence, worked to death in labour camps or committed suicide, but were unrecorded. Recent researchers estimate that the Red Guards killed about 100,000 to 300,000 Mongols during the Cultural Revolution.

Notable figures such as Ji Yatai, 1st Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Mongolia and vice-chairman of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ha Fenge, Vice-chairman of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Darijaya, Vice-chairman of the Government of Inner Mongolia, were killed by the Chinese.