The fight over Inner Mongolia's "bilingual education" policy
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 8 October 2020
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, we discuss the controversy surrounding the decision by Beijing to selectively replace Mongolian-language instruction in schools in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with Mandarin — and how people both in Inner Mongolia and in Mongolia are pushing back. We're joined by Christopher Atwood, one of the nation's leading specialists in Mongolian history and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and by Christian Sorace, an assistant professor of political science at Colorado College.
7:28: A historical overview of Mongolian history through independence
19:03: The demography of Inner Mongolia
23:09: What the bilingual education policy would actually do
35:07: The impetus for pushing language policy
Recommendations:
Jeremy: Buying books from your local bookstore. He also recommends the website bookshop.org, which allows you to support local bookstores.
Christopher: Ravelstein, by Saul Bellow, and the album At Fillmore East, by the Allman Brothers Band.
Christian: As a new father, he’s recommending a children’s book: Telephone Tales, by Gianni Rodari.
Kaiser: The Vow, a true crime documentary series available on HBO Max.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the cynical podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China produced in partnership with SubChina. |
| 0:14.7 | SubChina is simply the best way there is to keep on top of all the important news coming out of China, |
| 0:19.0 | especially if you subscribe to our daily |
| 0:21.0 | email newsletter, SubChina Access, and visit SubChina.com to check out our wide range of reported |
| 0:27.3 | pieces, op-eds, videos, and, of course, podcasts. It's a feast of business, political, and cultural |
| 0:33.8 | news about a nation that is reshaping the world. I'm Kaiser Goyle, coming to you today |
| 0:38.5 | from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Joining me from Nashville, Tennessee, is a man who not only |
| 0:42.5 | ingested hydroxychloroquine, but also injected himself with bleach and lived to tell about it. Mr. |
| 0:48.0 | Jeremy Goldcorn. Jeremy, I can't believe that after your ordeal, you're still going to cast |
| 0:53.3 | your first ever presidential ballot for Kanye West? I mean, seriously, man, you're still going to cast your first ever presidential ballot for |
| 0:55.6 | Kanye West? I mean, seriously, man, you got to get that bumper sticker off your car. You're throwing |
| 1:00.6 | your vote away, man. You know, I actually at this particular moment in history, I feel compelled |
| 1:07.0 | to just make sure everyone understands that that was a joke, you know, after somebody |
| 1:13.1 | believed that I was actually caught selling wealth management products to old ladies in Dungbe. |
| 1:21.0 | That was one of the funniest things over. |
| 1:24.3 | Okay, it's a joke, it's a joke. |
| 1:27.3 | But you should greet the people anyway in an abject tone of apology. |
| 1:30.6 | Well, if anyone has any interest in buying one of my wealth management products. |
| 1:36.5 | Well, how wealthy are you, actually? |
| 1:41.0 | Anyway, on a more series note. |
| 1:43.8 | Protests broke out in several cities in Namung, the Inter-Mongolia Autonomous Region in late August and early September, |
| 1:50.0 | after controversial moves by Beijing to substantially reduce Mongol language education in schools in the region. |
... |
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