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NORTHEAST ASIA
Inner Mongolia’s cultural annihilation
Experts and activists have sounded the alarm on yet another systematic effort by mainland China to “Sinicize” Inner Mongolia amid reports of a recruitment drive for Mandarin-speaking teachers in the region’s schools.
On May 6, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on recent recruitment and job notices advertising openings for teachers in various subjects, with a strong emphasis on Mandarin, in what appears to be part of a nationwide move to eradicate the use of Mongolian in primary and secondary education.
Successful applicants for posts in Ordos City – one of the 12 major subdivisions of the region – and Xilingol Banner, which borders the independent country of Mongolia, were being offered attractive incentives, including a “resettlement allowance” and accommodations – but at the expense of ethnic Mongolian teachers who might soon face forced layoffs.
Ethnic Mongolian activists see this as a deliberate attempt to sideline Mongolian teachers, who were trained in their own language and seen as stumbling blocks to the Communist Party’s goal of making the region embrace the majority Han Chinese language, culture, and traditions.
“They want to separate them from mainstream society, because the authorities fear they will obstruct the policy when it comes to be implemented,” Japan-based ethnic Mongolian activist Haas told RFA.
The recruitment drive for Mandarin-speaking teachers completes China’s ban on Mongolian-medium education, which sparked protests across the autonomous region when it was first announced in 2020. That same year, China launched a “Training for the Firm Inculcation of the Chinese Nationality Common Identity” program targeting students, teachers, government employees, party members, and ordinary herders to make them accept “Chinese identity and Chinese culture.”
This was part of the CCP’s broader campaign to push for Han Chinese culture and language across the mainland and in its autonomous region, reversing erstwhile decades-old policies to preserve its minority traditions. It’s done the same thing in Tibet and in the Uyghur-majority Xinjiang, and in 2021 released a national program omitting a prior provision guaranteeing minority children’s right to be educated in their native language.
Apart from language, the policy also covers religions, especially Islam and Christianity, as the CCP demanded loyalty to the Party above all else. Islam has particularly taken a hard hit, as two-thirds of all mosques in Xinjiang alone were damaged or destroyed since 2017.
SOUTHEAST ASIA
Calling out Vietnam’s labor assurances
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on the United States to recognize the “false or misleading” information Vietnam has told a U.S. hearing in a bid to secure preferential trade benefits despite its glaring labor rights violations.
On May 8, HRW Asia advocacy director John Sifton slammed Vietnam for claiming that workers’ wages were “determined by free bargaining between labor and management” when “not a single independent union exists in Vietnam and no working legal frameworks exist for unions to be created or for workers to enforce labor rights.”
“Vietnam is a closed society with an authoritarian government hostile to labor rights,” Sifton said. “Workers cannot openly organize, let alone bargain with management. The US government should recognize this.”
Vietnam officials faced a U.S. Department of Commerce hearing last May 8 about the country’s trade status. The U.S. is currently deciding whether to reclassify Vietnam as a “market economy” under its tariff law, which would grant the one-party state major economic benefits.
Such trade agreements, as is the case with Vietnam’s free trade agreement with the EU, are often hinged on human rights and labor standards such as whether workers can organize and bargain their own wages.
HRW’s call is bolstered by a February report by rights group Project 88 revealing the existence of “Directive 24,” which raised concerns that the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) was planning to restrict independent labor unions despite commitments made in trade deals with democratic countries.
The sweeping directive directs party and state organizations to closely monitor those who go abroad, bar the formation of independent political and labor organizations, and prevent “complicated situations” related to security and social order.
The socialist country’s trade union law only allows government-controlled “unions,” which are under the jurisdiction of the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor (VGCL), which in turn is linked to the Communist Party.
“Insofar as the VGCL does bargain with management or at the state-wide level, it does so in the interests of the government and the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), not on behalf of workers and not in a representative capacity,” HRW said.
Just a day after the U.S. hearing, authorities arrested Nguyen Van Binh, a high-level official leading discussions on labor reform with international organizations. Notably, Binh was working on the potential ratification of Convention 87, a key document guaranteeing workers the right to form independent trade unions without government approval.
SOUTH ASIA
Protecting the region’s most vulnerable
As Nepal struggles with a blistering heat wave, wildfires and worsening air pollution, a local rights group has called on the government to protect children from the heightened dangers of these phenomena, which have gotten stronger and more frequent over the years with the worsening climate crisis.
On May 6, the Children as Zones of Peace National Campaign (CZOP), a national coalition of childrens’ rights advocates, said that the increasing heat has forced thousands of schools to declare holidays, while the series of wildfires wracking the South Asian country has been exacerbating the air pollution in most places across the country, including Kathmandu Valley.
“Children’s education and health are at risk,” the group said. “It is the responsibility of the state to protect children from dangers and risks…We sincerely appeal to the government and all related stakeholders to pay special attention to their education, health, and protection.”
CZOP’s appeal comes as Nepal – much like the rest of South and Southeast Asia – suffers from intense heat waves, leading to several schools closing down for days and stoking wildfires in the country. The heat is especially severe in the southern Tarai region, where temperatures have hit more than 40 degrees Celsius.
The lack of rainfall has also affected air quality in the region, as hospitals see a rise in cases of heatstroke, dehydration, fever and skin allergies. Children are seen as the most vulnerable to such conditions, with UNICEF in 2023 warning that three in four children in South Asia are already exposed to extreme high temperatures.
“With the world at a global boiling point, [the] lives and well-being of millions of children across South Asia are increasingly threatened by heat waves and high temperatures. Countries in the region are not the hottest in the world right now but the heat here brings life-threatening risks for millions of vulnerable children,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia.
This is on top of Nepal’s worsening problem with air pollution, as it currently ranks eighth among the world’s most polluted countries according to a 2023 air quality report by monitoring platform IQAir. Its capital Kathmandu meanwhile was named the twelfth most polluted city in the world in terms of weighted average concentration of PM2.5, a form of microscopic particulate matter.
GLOBAL / REGIONAL
Ensuring a more inclusive, binding environmental treaty
A regional indigenous group has called for a “full and effective participation” in shaping the landmark environmental framework being developed by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
On May 7, the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact Foundation (AIPPF) expressed concern that there were no “self-selected representatives of Indigenous peoples” in the process of drafting the ASEAN Declaration on Environmental Rights (ADER).
“There is nothing about us without us. Environmental rights are human rights and they are Indigenous Peoples’ rights,” added Pirawan Wongnithisathaporn. The group demanded that the declaration explicitly use the term “Indigenous peoples,” and to include provisions protecting their right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent when it comes to developmental projects.
These calls come amid concerns that the draft ADER has been weakened. Initially proposed in 2021 as a binding agreement, it has since evolved into a non-binding declaration, neglecting critical issues like corporate accountability and Indigenous rights, according to a May 8 report by Mongabay.
While Indigenous peoples contribute the least to greenhouse emissions that cause climate change, they suffer disproportionately from its impacts largely from external forces that lack their consent like development projects and resource extraction.
The ADER seeks to establish a pioneering regional framework to uphold international environmental rights standards, including those recognized in the recent U.N. General Assembly declaration acknowledging access to a safe, clean, healthy, and sustainable environment as a fundamental human right.
So far, only one other region – Latin America and the Caribbean – has adopted its own legally binding treaty that focuses on access to information, public participation, and access to justice in environmental matters.
Observers suggest that the ADER could serve as a significant instrument for environmental and Indigenous defenders across the region, particularly if it fully acknowledges their pivotal role in addressing the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.
In recent years, environmental and Indigenous defenders have faced increasing repression throughout Southeast Asia, even though it’s consistently tagged as one of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.
These defenders have encountered threats, attacks, intimidation, criminalization, and even death, with the Philippines consistently ranking among the world’s deadliest countries for environmental defenders.
