Preface    A Wide View of Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia is located in the middle of China’s northern land territory, and has a land area of 1.183 million square kilometres. It spans three geographical units—North-eastern, North, and North-western China, and is an attractive destination for businesses and tourists at home and abroad.

Changes in ocean coverage and climate over a number of geologic periods have formed the grand landscape of Inner Mongolia today, and left us with beautiful natural scenery. Broad grasslands, vast deserts, wide-open fields, and ranges of mountains and forests under clear blue skies, and landscapes dotted with countless lakes as well as the hospitable people who live on these landscapes have made Inner Mongolia a long strip of spectacular sight in China’s northern territory.

At the north of the region is a border with the countries of Russia and Mongolia, which is over 4,000 kilometres long. The geographic border doesn’t mean that it’s a separator of cultures and civilisations, however.

Inner Mongolia is one of the sources of Chinese culture. About 600,000 years ago ancient humans lived here, and the “Hetao Man” of the Sara Usu River Valley, who lived around 80,000 years ago is evidence of a formative period of modern humans in East Asia. Between 8,000 and 4,000 years ago, Neolithic cultures existed all around the area, and the Hongshan Culture of the Xiliao River basin is a left behind representative cultural ruins of a well-developed Neolithic culture, with scattered ancient agricultural settlements. These remains provide important information about ancient Chinese culture, and evidence of the dawn of the Chinese civilisation.

Entering into the age of civilisations, people living in the area that is now Inner Mongolia, such as the Huns, Xianbei, Roen, ancient Turks, Khitans and Mongolians, created a large-scale herding economy, and made important impressions on China’s long history as a multi-ethnic state. Inner Mongolia has the most and most varied remains of the Great Wall, from the Qin, Zhao and Yan Kingdoms of the Warring States Period to the Ming Dynasty. Different segments of the Great Wall exist like traces of a river with a variable path, moving north and south over the ages in central-western Inner Mongolia. This “Great Wall Zone” is suitable for both agriculture and herding, and is a place where farmers and herders came into contact with each other most frequently. With changes in climate and environment, there have been many changes between prairie and pasture over the ages in this area, which is an important link between inland areas and northern border of China. It not only added vigour and grandeur to the landscape of Chinese history, it also links the vast grasslands and wide forests closely with the core region of the country, and is an inseparable part of China in history. The Xianbei, Khitan and Mongolian people from the Greater Hinggan Range even founded the Northern Wei, Liao, and Yuan Dynasties, making huge impacts on the course of Chinese history.

Before the advent of industrial society and modern transportation, the peoples of the north, roaming a very large range of land, were an important natural bridge and link of cultural exchanges between the peoples of the east and west. The ancient peoples of Inner Mongolia were the earliest developers and participants of the “silk road on the grasslands”. In the opening of the more recent “tea road”, Inner Mongolia functioned as an important step, and a link between inland areas of China and Eastern and even the western part of Europe.

A traditional economy based on herding and a lifestyle reliant on fishing and hunting caused the people here to develop an especially reliant relationship with nature. They all have a long history of shamanist beliefs. Although their lifestyles have long since changed, among the Mongolian, Daur, Ewenki, Oroqen and other peoples these shamanistic customs still persist everywhere. They revere the sky, earth, grasses, trees, and all living spirits. Their living practices and daily behaviours show tendencies of protecting nature throughout, and they value the environment and knowledge about it—a precious aspect of the culture of the ancient peoples of Inner Mongolia. These peoples have formed some simple ecological concepts over the ages, one of the core values of the “grassland culture”.

For most of its long history, Inner Mongolia’s stage was dominated by the peoples of the north, but in more recent times people from Shandong and Hebei have come northeast and people from Shanxi and Shaanxi have come north into the area, with many more coming to support border development and forestry work after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, gradually changing the demography of the area. Out of the population of 25.2 million residents, Mongolians constitute the core and Han Chinese the majority, with Daur, Ewenki, Oroqen, Russian, Manchu, Hui, Korean and other ethnic groups existing harmoniously, too. Changes in the makeup of the population have resulted in many interactions between agricultural and traditional herding, and hunting cultures, with centuries of migration from inland areas of China bringing new cultural genes to the area. Different ethnicities and Mongolian groups have come together exchanging styles of living, languages, customs, culture and art, forming a new culture that’s rich in variety and wondrous to behold.

Inner Mongolia is the first place in China in which regional autonomy was established in an ethnic minority area, which happened during the People’s War of Liberation. The vast Inner Mongolian grasslands were thus merged with the liberated areas of North-eastern China, and became a strong supporter for the Chinese Communist Party and its army to strengthen the foothold—the revolutionary bases—they had in North-eastern China. The government of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region organised riders to participate in the strategically decisive battles in North China and North-eastern China, and many of the sons of Inner Mongolia from all groups made contributions to the establishment of People’s Republic of China.

After reform and opening up in China, especially in the 21st century, Inner Mongolia seized every opportunity for development by taking advantage of development planned for western regions in China, and participating in the rejuvenation plan of industrial base in North-eastern China, and experienced rapid growth, taking a place at the forefront in terms of development speed for several successive years. In 2016, the annual gross production for the region reached 1,863.26 billion yuan, or 74,000 yuan per capital. In general, public budget revenue and income of urban and rural residents increased faster than the national average.

In recent years, with the establishment of “Belt and Road” initiative and the cooperative development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Inner Mongolia was provided with further opportunities for development. In the foreseeable future, Inner Mongolia will become an important base for energy, new chemical industry, nonferrous metal production and processing, green agriculture and livestock production and processing, and strategic emerging industry, as well as popular tourist destination both among the Chinese and those abroad.

 

Along with the course of economic and social development, and increased contact between Inner Mongolia and China’s inland provinces and foreign countries, effects have spread to all kinds of aspects of economic life in the region as well as different layers and aspects of society—this means that almost everyone in Inner Mongolia is faced with the task introducing their homeland to those from elsewhere. The “One-Minute China” series developed by the Commercial Press has presented us with a new format for exposition.

“One-Minute China” is a series of books aimed at promoting various areas in China to foreigners. Each book contains many short articles, each the size of a micro-blog entry. They emphasise careful inspection and experience, with each article, under 140 Chinese characters in length painting a picture or conveying an emotion.

Our 420 entries in this book represent 420 different topics. These 420 disparate pieces as a whole give the reader a general picture of Inner Mongolia. A wide view composed of narrow-angle snapshots makes for a fresh and warm total image. The size of the articles, the structure of the book, and the pictures included make the book suitable for readers who have become accustomed to “micro-reading”. We hope that readers will be moved by this format and motivated to further understand and approach the region.

This book uses some text from writings and news reports by authors such as Xiao Yinong, Borjigin Yuanye, Xi Murong, Xu Qi, Liu Shurun, Ao Changfu, and Zhang Bohan. We show pieces of their perspectives and feelings to provide glimpses of their experiences in Inner Mongolia. As space is limited in the book, we can’t mark the author for each entry. Thus, we’d like to express our respect and appreciation here.

A large portion of the content of this book consists of photographs. Many individuals, including photographers and curators, graciously contributed images, such as Bai Lan, Wang Dafang, Wo Zemin, Jia Baowei, and Li Yangguang. We very much appreciate their help. Mrs. Liu Yiling and Mrs. Hua Sha directed the compilation of this book from start to finish, and for that we are most grateful.

As the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region draws near, we present this book as a gift for the celebration, hoping to give an accurate and moving picture of the region to readers in China and abroad, a representation of this beautiful and cultured place for all to enjoy.

 

 

Mo Jiuyu

April 2017