Authorities in Inner Mongolia must “solve ethnic problems” and push the use of the Mandarin language, Chinese President Xi Jinping has said, months after the region was rocked by protests over a new rule that would reduce the use of the local language.
The region in China’s far north borders the independent nation of Mongolia, with which it shares ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties.
Tens of thousands took part in demonstrations and school boycotts last year after an edict mandated Mandarin replace Mongolian as the language of instruction, part of a nationwide drive to assimilate China’s ethnic minorities into the majority Han culture.
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