China's Mongolian Minority Facing Increased Pressure to Assimilate
SOURCE:Spiegel International
Beijing long allowed Mongols in China to live out their cultural identity. That, though, is now over. Xi Jinping has decided that they must assimilate into the culture of the Chinese majority.
His job has become more difficult under Chinese ruler Xi Jinping, says the Buddhist abbot. Laobuseng Jinpa is around 50 years old, an ethnic Mongol with a shaved head and dressed in deep red robes. He is sitting in a carved wooden chair in the reception chamber of his residence, prayer beads gliding through his right hand with quiet clicks. "In the new era,” says Laobuseng Jinpa, "monks must not only study the holy scriptures, they must also understand politics.”
The new era, that is the term used by Chinese propaganda to describe Xi’s regency. Ever since China’s head of state and party leader rose to power in 2012, pressure has been rising on the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, where the Gegen Miao Monastery is located. Almost 300 years old, it is an important place for the local population – and its abbot is an important man: Because of his religious learnedness, Laobuseng Jinpa is regarded as a "living Buddha.” But in Xi’s China, no such honorary title exempts him from the duty of political obedience.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 41/2025 (October 2nd, 2025) of DER SPIEGEL.
He laughs at the question as to whether he is a member of the Communist Party, countering: "A monk may not have any additional faiths. And the reverse also applies: A party member may not be a practicing Buddhist.” Still, when the discussion turns to the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan Buddhist leader ostracized by Beijing, the abbot heads for the rhetorical exits: "He is Tibetan. We are Mongols, though we read the Tibetan scriptures. When it comes to higher-level matters, we lack understanding.”
A Buddhist without a position on the Dalai Lama – it’s like a Catholic having no opinion about the pope. But what else should he say? Laobuseng Jinpa fulfills what is expected of him: He understands politics. And it is pressuring him both as a Buddhist and as a Mongol.
A woman praying at the Gegen Miao temple.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
There are 24 million people living in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, including more than 4 million ethnic Mongols. As such, this region of China is home to more Mongols than the independent country next door, which has a population of just 3.5 million. Mongolia – labeled as "Outer Mongolia” in old Chinese maps – was able to gain independence from the Qing Dynasty in 1911. Inner Mongolia, by contrast, remained part of China and became one of five autonomous regions.
In the diverse country of China, where almost 1.3 billion Han Chinese are joined by around 125 million members of 55 officially recognized ethnicities, the Mongols are one of the largest minorities. They have managed to retain their religiosity even in the atheist People’s Republic. The Mongol language comes from a different linguistic family than Mandarin and has its own script. The Mongols used to be nomadic herdsmen, while the Han culture is rooted in agriculture. Despite such differences, though, the Mongols are considered a "model minority”: peaceful, politically reliable and well-integrated into the majority society. Well-behaved citizens. But is that still true?
Mistrust of the Mongols appears to be building in Beijing, with the apparatus apparently intent on eroding their identity. The academic term for the process is Sinicization, essentially forced assimilation by the state. "The direction of travel is to dilute and marginalize Mongolian culture and make it less meaningful,” says James Leibold, a professor at La Trobe University in Melbourne and an expert on China’s minority policies. "In Inner Mongolia, there is hardly any distinct Mongolian culture left, but a composite that is increasingly more Han Chinese rather than Mongolian."
The Communist Party, to be sure, sought to eliminate the nomadic lifestyle long ago. But under Xi, Beijing has shown a desire to implement a more comprehensive Sinicization. What, though, is China seeking to achieve with this policy? How is daily life changing for the Mongols? And what might it mean for China’s other ethnicities – for the Hui, Manchu, Tujia, Tibetans, Uyghurs and others – if even the seemingly obedient Mongols are finding themselves at odds with the powers that be?
In front of the Gegen Miao temple complex, two gigantic, golden-tipped stupas soar into the sky. Behind them, the land starts rising, courtyard by courtyard, prayer hall by prayer hall, until a staircase leads to a hilltop. From up here, there is an expansive view of the lush, green landscape below. Of the main temple’s golden roof, of the monastery garden, where the monks grow vegetables, and of the lodgings where the pilgrims stay.
Stupas in Gegen Miao.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
The pilgrims burn incense and kneel on pillows before the golden Buddha statues. On an August morning, they line up in the hall next to the residence and slowly move forward until it is their turn to bow before the abbot and receive his blessing. He gives them a gentle tap on the head with a roll of scripture.
A monk in Gegen Miao blesses a new car.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
The faithful in Gegen Miao line up for a blessing from the abbot.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
It is not that the practice of religion is banned in China. It must, however, be practiced within the boundaries laid down by the state – and not necessarily how the faithful would like. "Under Xi, efforts are being made to tighten control over the monasteries," says Leibold.
"We are not allowed to preach to the common people,” says one of the Gegen Miao monks during an evening walk. "Even the sacred scriptures may be studied exclusively by us monks. It has been this way for a decade.”
It is Laobuseng Jinpa’s job to make sure that everyone sticks to the rules. The abbot is also the chair of the Buddhist Association in the Hinggan League, the administrative district within which Gegen Miao is located. "We are a kind of bridge between the government and the monasteries,” he says. Which means the state apparatus co-opted the cleric for its own purposes. "Our responsibilities include keeping an eye on the temple and the monks.” There isn’t a long list of rules, he says. "But in recent years, I’ve noticed that they have become stricter. We are required to register all monks, for example, to ensure that we filter out the fake ones.” Laobuseng Jinpa does not say how fake monks are identified.
"Religions are to be Sinicized,” says Leibold, "so they don’t undermine national unity and security.”
For many decades, China adhered to the Soviet policy of explicitly emphasizing ethnic belonging – noting it on identity documents, for example. In addition, the government in Moscow allowed the Tajiks, Georgians, Tatars, Chechens and others their own Soviet republics. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, however, these identities accelerated its dissolution.
"Among Chinese intellectuals, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 sparked discussions in which they pointed out that this collapse was due, among other things, to Soviet minority policy. Therefore, China also had to change," says Leibold.
![DER SPIEGEL correspondent Georg Fahrion with "living Buddha" Laobuseng Jinpa.](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/23d23124-d3fe-40d5-b347-7c8016809231_w520_r1.5010507355148603_fpx65.94_fpy55.jpg "DER SPIEGEL correspondent Georg Fahrion with "living Buddha" Laobuseng Jinpa.")
DER SPIEGEL correspondent Georg Fahrion with "living Buddha" Laobuseng Jinpa.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
Xi sees the dissolution of the Soviet state as a tragedy. He believes that blame should fall on the shoulders of an elite whose will to exert power had waned and who allowed separatism – a chilling example that China must see as a warning.
In Xi’s mission to restore China to greatness, he believes it is necessary to have a unified, obedient population that knows no other loyalties than to the party – with him at the helm. "When Xi came to power, it quickly became clear that he had sided with those who wanted a change of direction,” says Leibold. "Away from Soviet-style multiculturalism and toward Han-centric nation building.” Beijing itself refers to it as "second-generation minority policy.”
An exhibit at the Liberation Museum in Ulanhot.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
The effects can be felt in Inner Mongolia. Since 2023, the Chinese state has referred to Mongolian culture with a term that is cleansed of any ethnic flavor: "culture of the northern borderlands.” It is used by state media and in academic seminars. In addition, an academic journal and a research center were founded to focus on this "northern borderlands culture.”
The history museum in the regional capital of Hohhot and the Genghis Khan Mausoleum have reportedly adjusted their content accordingly. The conqueror Genghis Khan from Mongolia, who subjugated much of northern China in the 13th century, has been given a new, subordinate role. A planned exhibition on Inner Mongolia in France in 2020 never actually took place because the Chinese side insisted that the term "Mongolian” be removed along with references to Genghis Khan, which the museum director refused to do. Still, it is the Mongolian language that has likely suffered the most.
Dusk is falling over Gegen Miao. In the dining hall, pilgrims have finished the evening meal provided free of charge by the monastery: Corn on the cob, green beans and pickled eggplants from the garden along with rice and a bit of pork. It is now time to retire for the night in the single-story dormitory.
A Mongolian couple in traditional costume at the hostel of Gegen Miao.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
In a room for four, a mother and her two daughters, aged 10 and 19, are getting ready for bed. The pilgrims are from the nearby city of Ulanhot. They ask that their names not be used for this story.
The young woman studies Mongolian history at the university in Hohhot. She says she hardly learned anything about it in school, where the focus was exclusively on Chinese history and the rest of the world. "When I was still in school, all of the subjects were taught in Mongolian, aside from Mandarin class,” says the 19-year-old. "Now, politics and history are taught in Mandarin!” says the 10-year-old.
"Soon, math will be too,” says the mother in an indignant voice – she is a math teacher herself. "They have already switched the schoolbooks to Mandarin.” "At my school, the teachers asked parents to speak Mandarin with us at home as well,” says the 10-year-old. "But my mom isn’t very good at it.”
![A child in Gegen Miao wearing a T-shirt in Mongolian reading: "This is my Mongolian language. I am Mongolian."](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/c668f242-9b5c-4190-adb7-f7e07da7b7e8_w520_r1.5010507355148603_fpx41.96_fpy44.98.jpg "A child in Gegen Miao wearing a T-shirt in Mongolian reading: "This is my Mongolian language. I am Mongolian."")
A child in Gegen Miao wearing a T-shirt in Mongolian reading: "This is my Mongolian language. I am Mongolian."
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
For decades, a law was in place in Inner Mongolia emphasizing the use of Mongolian as an "important instrument in the expression of autonomy.” In 2017, 15 percent of schoolchildren there attended one of the 520 ethnic schools in the region. Fifty-five of those schools taught grades one through nine exclusively in Mongolian.
When the government announced just a few weeks before the start of the 2020 school year that several subjects would now be taught in Mandarin, it triggered an uproar in otherwise so patient Inner Mongolia. Many parents kept their children home and there were demonstrations in front of the school gates, including scuffles with the police – both rarities in China. The state reacted with force: According to activists, around 10,000 people were temporarily taken into custody.
"After the protests in 2020, they employed many means to silence the voices of resistance,” says Enghebatu Togochog. Born in Inner Mongolia, the human rights activist has lived in exile in the U.S. since 1998, where he is head of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center. "The Mongols knew that the new language policy was aimed at eradicating Mongolian language, culture and national identity. The state wants us to become Chinese."
A Mongolian family taking care of their sheep on the side of the road.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
The protests also had consequences for the Chinese bureaucracy: Shortly afterwards, the Mongolian director of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission – which is responsible for ensuring that the autonomy of ethnic areas is maintained – stepped down. He was replaced by Chen Xiaojiang, the first Han Chinese to occupy the role and a proponent of the new Sinicization policy. Since then, Chen has risen further up the ranks: Since July 2025, he has been the party leader of Xinjiang, the region that is home to the Muslim minority of the Uyghurs.
Both there and in Tibet, minority languages have long been marginalized, and an increasing number of Tibetan and Uyghur children are attending Chinese boarding schools. The situation in Inner Mongolia has also grown more inflexible, with a law going into power in 2022 requiring the government to spread the Mandarin language.
"We used to only speak Mandarin when we went to the city,” says the history student back in the dormitory at Gegen Miao. "A couple of sentences. As long as we could make ourselves understood, it was good enough. The fact that they are now placing so much importance on Mandarin makes me feel like we’re not equal. For the first time, I feel marginalized.”
"Listen to the Party. Feel gratitude for the Party. Follow the Party. Speak Mandarin.” This slogan is painted onto the wall of a building in a village passed by those heading northwest from the Gegen Miao monastery. The route leads through a hilly landscape of poplar forests and expansive cornfields. Before long, the horizon broadens: blue up above, seemingly endless green down below. This is where the grasslands, the grazing lands, the ancestral homelands of the Mongolian nomads, begins.
A herdsman on his motorcycle outside of Ulan Maodu.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
The car has to brake outside of the town of Ulan Maodu, with a herd of sheep blocking the road, and a man in his late 50s, wearing a baseball cap and an army jacket, chugs up on a motorcycle. The shepherd. Following a brief chat through the car window, he extends an invitation to his farm, located just a few minutes’ drive away. He leads the way.
A farmer keeps an eye on his sheep outside of Ulan Maodu.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
His wife, a 56-year-old in a flowered dress, welcomes the guests into their single-story home, which is furnished simply and immaculately clean. She serves salty milk tea and takes a seat on the kang, a brick platform bed heated by a stove. This couple, too, asks that their names not be printed.
When they were young, they say, they would wander the steppe as nomads. Once the lambs were born in spring, the entire family would head out, traveling from May to October with up to 1,000 animals. Sheep, horses, cows. Their yurts and food for half a year – including dried meat, conserved vegetables and salt – would be transported on an ox cart.
Two former nomads on a farm near Ulan Maodu.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
"How can I ever forget that freedom?” says the man. "Life as a nomad was fun. We enjoyed the nature.”
"It was hard work,” says the woman. "But the cows and sheep were fatter back then. They fed on the best grass.”
Around 30 years ago, though, the government decided to settle the nomads permanently. They put up fences through the previously open countryside and assigned distinct parcels to individual families. Officially, it was to prevent overgrazing, but that was just one reason among many, says Leibold, the China expert. "Once nomads have been settled, it isn’t just easier to control them, but also to change them.”
Their herd, says the farming couple, has now been reduced to just a couple hundred animals. "The state sets limits for how many animals we are allowed to have.” But the government also pays subsidies, they say. And many of their neighbors have also leased some of their land to a company that grows medicinal herbs.
Materially, settling down has improved their lives. "Today, everyone has money,” says the man. "Is there anything we cannot buy?” Outside are three tractors, an SUV and two combines. Electricity is provided by solar panels and a small wind turbine.
The grasslands stretching to the horizon outside of Ulan Maodu.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
The losses they have suffered are of a different kind. Their 35-year-old son, they say, moved to Xi’an, a metropolis in the Chinese heartland, where he works in real estate. He can still speak broken Mongolian, but their grandchild cannot, they say. He only speaks Mandarin. The woman says they sent the boy a deel, a traditional Mongolian tunic, which he pulls on for family events like a costume. The generations have drifted apart: "My son doesn’t like it here and only rarely visits,” the woman says. "He thinks its dirty here.”
Sinicization isn’t just progressing because of the pressure being exerted by the Chinese state, but also because the Han Chinese culture holds out a more promising future. It is seen as being synonymous with modernity.
Once a year, though, the Mongolians of the Hinggan League come together to revive their vanishing traditions. Every summer, they gather in the stadium of Ulan Maodu to celebrate the Naadam cultural festival. Boys compete in riding and archery, men and women wear leather boots and silken deels.
Two Mongolian boys riding through the grounds of the Naadam Festival.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
It is a folkloric spectacle for the tourists who travel in from other parts of China. They point their oversized camera lenses at the Mongolians in costume, traditional images that they will later post on social media. Local television has also shown up, with five camera drones buzzing around above the festival like wasps.
Mongolians in silk deels posing for a photographer.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
Musicians preparing to go on stage at the Naadam Festival.
Foto: Gilles Sabrié / DER SPIEGEL
A music group gathers onstage. Dancers in horse costumes wave red kerchiefs. Men play the horsehead fiddle. Throat singing. A driving beat. Two performers begin singing a song that a famous poet from Inner Mongolia wrote during the Mao era:
"The people here love peace
and cherish their homeland.
They sing of their new lives,
they sing of the Communist Party.”
