Dec. 31, 2020 11:23 am ET
To realize the China of his dreams, Xi Jinping wants to meld the nation’s dozens of ethnic groups into a singular national identity.
The program of aggressive cultural assimilation or “ethnic fusion,” as it’s called in government documents and speeches has gone to extremes in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, home to the largest mass detention of a minority group since World War II. The campaign has begun to spread and intensify in other ethnically diverse areas.
In Inner Mongolia, a plan to expand Mandarin-language education and mandate the use of national textbooks over local versions sparked protests and school boycotts among students and parents concerned that the Mongolian language was in danger of being erased.