Forging unity and safeguarding our northern frontier

From the snow-clad forests of the Greater Khingan Range to the camel bells echoing across the Alxa Desert, from the boundless grasslands of Hulunbuir to the fertile fields of the Hetao Plain, more than 20 million people of diverse ethnicities in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region stand united as one, guarding with their sweat and wisdom the country's northern frontier — a bulwark of security and stability for the nation.

With a 4,200-kilometer-long border touching Russia and Mongolia, Inner Mongolia serves as China's northern gateway and a critical shield for the capital, Beijing. The stability of this northern frontier is inseparable from the stability of the north at large.

Today, the region shoulders a heavier responsibility than ever: not only to safeguard every inch of its territory, but also to reinforce its role as a strategic pillar of national security in the new era.

This endeavor draws its strength from two pillars: the unyielding solidarity of more than 20 million people of all ethnic groups, bound together as one, and a well-grounded, forward-looking system of governance for ethnic unity and progress.

The region's approach to ethnic solidarity is no overnight achievement — it is the culmination of decades of exploration and refinement guided by the Communist Party of China. Deeply rooted in both scholarly rigor and grassroots realities, it offers a dynamic and replicable model for governance in the country's border regions having ethnic diversity.

The consolidation of a shared sense of national identity serves as the engine driving ethnic unity efforts in Inner Mongolia. This principle has been translated into a comprehensive framework of legally binding institutions and culturally embedded guidance mechanisms that reach every corner of the region.

Institutional safeguards come first. Securing the northern frontier is a political responsibility of paramount importance for Inner Mongolia, one that requires balancing development with security. In recent years, the autonomous region has enacted a series of local regulations that integrate the principle of consolidating national identity into every stage and aspect of border governance.

Complementary systems have been put in place to strengthen ethnic affairs management, grassroots governance and risk prevention, tightening accountability and closing institutional gaps. The result is a steadily reinforced foundation for ethnic solidarity, social stability and frontier security.

The local government is devoted to carrying the Party's voice to every corner of the grassland. In the vast, sparsely populated Sunit grassland of the 1970s, herders were scattered across great distances, making it difficult for grassroots communities to access information about Party policies and theories.

In response, the Party branch in Sangbaolage town's Bayanwula village pioneered a mobile learning and outreach initiative known as the "Red Book Bag" — named for the canvas bags embroidered with the words "serving the people" in red thread. In 2024, the village's Party branch earned the honor of a national model collective for ethnic unity and progress.

Volunteers carried these bags, packed with study material on Party policies, children's education, and agricultural and livestock techniques, and rode on horseback across the steppe, delivering knowledge and messages from the Party directly to herders in their yurts.

What began as a local innovation in the 1970s has since evolved into a flagship model for voluntary outreach.

In the new era, the "red book bag" initiative has broadened its scope to include eight areas of service — education, health care, legal advice, technical training, financial support, policy interpretation, cultural enrichment and practical assistance — alongside a dedicated effort to tell compelling stories of ethnic unity through multimedia formats.

The "red book bag" itself has been reimagined as a multi-purpose toolkit: a vehicle for understanding Party policies, a resource for solving practical problems, a guide to better livelihoods and a vessel for cultural enrichment — all in the service of deepening the sense of shared national identity.

Only when all ethnic groups share, in a tangible manner, the fruits of growth — a genuine sense of gain, well-being, and security — can ethnic solidarity evolve from a mandated imperative into a voluntary commitment, and can the northern border defenses grow resilient.

Art troupes known as Ulan Muqir set up their stages in front of herders' yurts, on the parade grounds of border defense companies and in school classrooms. These art troupes are sowers of harmony as much as they are performers.

In the moments between shows, they help herders with the spring lambing and shearing, sit with children over their lessons, give free haircuts to the elderly — and when they spot a herder's truck lying overturned in the dirt, they rush to the rescue without a moment's hesitation.

Inner Mongolia's 360,000-square-kilometer border management zone is defined by its sparse population — some border towns and villages have a density of fewer than 0.15 people per square km, and the farthest herder households lie over 300 km from the nearest county seat.

In this terrain, every new water well, every kilometer of power line and every cellphone tower costs multiples of what it would in the interior regions.

At the nation's farthest reaches, these individual infrastructure projects — modest as they may seem — have given local people the confidence to build their futures.

Herders who once held back on expanding their livestock for fear of power shortages now face no such worries; life along the frontier is thriving. Connectivity is not just about communication, but a cornerstone of border security.

A herder named Ma Yuzhen in Ejine Banner's Wentugaole town said that in the past, their household electricity relied on wind-solar hybrid power generation. On cloudy days, appliances like rice cookers and washing machines just could not operate. Since they got a stable power supply, everything from refrigerators to televisions works perfectly. There is enough electricity for all their daily needs. It has not only made life more convenient but also brought major changes to their production.

Herders used to worry about power shortages and dared not raise too many livestock. Now, with nothing to fear, they are living prosperous lives even while staying close to the border.

In 2023, a border network project brought 4G and 5G coverage to every permanent household in Yingen town, enabling herders not only to video-call their children living in the towns but also to learn animal husbandry techniques online and sell their products to wider markets.

These infrastructure improvements may appear to address basic daily needs — water, electricity, roads, and phone service — but in reality, they are weaving a dense network of solidarity along the border, binding all ethnic groups together in shared stewardship of the northern frontier's peace and prosperity.

Creating jobs and fostering entrepreneurship

Employment and business creation are not merely an economic concern, they are more about ethnic unity and social stability.

Tongliao city, for example, has developed 39 labor service brands to date, creating jobs for a total of 109,500 people and bringing in 555 million yuan in labor service revenue.

Buhebaiyi is a 52-year-old Mongolian herder from a local village. As a major cattle raiser, he has gained modern stockbreeding skills through the city's labor service brand training and has become a member of the village's farming cooperative.

A shared spiritual homeland is the powerful bond that unites all ethnic groups in China, fostering cohesion and collective effort. Only by drawing all ethnic communities closely together can we generate the sustained strength needed to safeguard peace and stability along the northern border.

Spiritual fabric of ethnic unity

The significance of intangible cultural heritage, or ICH, extends far beyond the crafts themselves — it lies in the cultural identity and emotional connections they embody.

For example, Hainan district in Wuhai city is using ICH to paint a vivid picture of ethnic solidarity. Here, Mongolian ICH inheritors embroider traditional motifs onto sachets. Teachers patiently guide children, through the process of grinding and filtering, to make authentic stone-mill tofu. Young people from various ethnic groups sit together, learning through every pinch of dough and every stitch of thread to appreciate the richness of China's cultural heritage.

These seemingly simple handicrafts act like seeds, taking root in the hearts of children. They are not merely vessels of ethnic culture, but the threads that bind communities together.

Sharing stories of ethnic unity serves as a textbook for building a shared spiritual homeland. Inner Mongolia has delved deeply into its rich tapestry of narratives of the region, alongside contemporary examples of ethnic groups striving together for shared prosperity.

Through targeted, down-to-earth storytelling approaches, these narratives have been brought into the daily lives of communities, galvanizing broad-based public support for safeguarding national security and social stability.

As smart governance becomes the new paradigm for community-level administration, it provides the bedrock on which the seeds of ethnic solidarity can take root and flourish across the northern frontier.

Inner Mongolia has refined its grassroots governance system to address the realities of ethnic affairs management at the community level.

Service grids operate under the coordination of Party cells, with grid coordinators and building chiefs working together to form the first line of community-level administration.

Grid management is a grassroots social governance system that uses small, clearly defined neighborhoods as basic units for service delivery and public security monitoring.

These Party organizations operate at two levels: First, grid Party cells — in urban neighborhoods, micro-grids typically cover 30 to 100 households, each with a Party cell led by a Party member.

This model is more common in densely populated towns and cities, enabling one-to-one service delivery in coordination with building and unit chiefs.

In rural and pastoral areas, grid Party cells usually cover a natural village or several herder households, with Party members serving as cell leaders and working alongside household heads to address the governance challenges posed by vast, sparsely populated territories.

Second, grid Party branches — in large communities, industrial parks, or border areas where governance demands are heavier and Party membership is larger, Party branches are established directly at the grid level.

This structure is more common in mining zones, forest regions, and border villages, allowing for the coordination of greater resources to address complex issues. Full-time grid coordinators are community workers employed by subdistrict offices and deployed by community residents' committees; part-time coordinators are volunteers appointed by residents' committees to assist with grassroots governance.

In urban communities across the region, a finely tuned service model has taken shape — one that identifies needs at the neighborhood level, pools resources where they are most needed, and resolves issues before they escalate. This closed-loop system ensures that small matters are settled within the neighborhood, while larger ones are handled at the community level without being passed further up the chain.

Take Chahar Right Middle Banner in Ulaanqab, for example. There, grassroots service staff members are on call around the clock to assist elderly residents living alone — helping them with subsistence allowance verifications, utility bill payments, and other daily necessities. To the local people of all ethnic backgrounds, these workers are more than just service providers; they are trusted companions they can always count on.

Digital empowerment for a new paradigm of smart governance is upgraded in the region. Smart platforms do more than improve efficiency by responding more precisely to the distinct needs of different ethnic groups.

In Tumd Right Banner's Salaqi town, a one-stop integrated digital governance platform has been established, encompassing modules for data collection, dynamic monitoring, decision analysis and service response.

It provides real-time visibility to population distribution, mobility patterns, and community concerns, shifting the approach from reactive problem-solving to proactive service delivery.

In Horqin Left Wing Rear Banner, the local government has deepened the reform of the "one-network service" initiative, achieving a 100 percent online handling rate for all government service items across the banner. This enables full network access, end-to-end processing and real-time tracking for all administrative services.

Coordinated defense is provided by the Party, government, military, police and civilians to secure the border. Border security ultimately rests on unity of purpose.

Given the long frontier and vast, sparsely populated expanses, Inner Mongolia has strengthened its civilian border defense network — developing "fortress households" along the frontier, volunteer patrols and grassroots surveillance teams.

This has created a system where residents, households, villages all stand quietly guard over the border.

In East Ujimqin Banner of Xiliin Gol League, joint patrol teams comprising border troops, police, border guards, and militia conduct coordinated operations to maintain stability and security, forming the first line of defense along the northern frontier.

Today, the partnership between military, police and civilians in building a prosperous homeland has become a defining feature of the northern border though it's long and sparsely populated.

The author is the director of the Institute of Ethnic Studies at the Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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