Published on February 6, 2020.
This article discusses an essay by Inner Mongolian scholar Minggad Borag published in the monthly magazine Sound Argument, examining how the Chinese government has shifted responsibility for yellow sand and desertification onto nomads and overgrazing.
It describes how grazing-rest and grazing-ban policies have driven pastoralists from the grasslands, after which wind-power projects and mining development advanced, causing new environmental destruction in Inner Mongolia’s grasslands, including groundwater depletion, dried-up wells, and the use of cloud-dispersal rockets to eliminate rain clouds.

2020-02-06
When lightning strikes these wind turbines, the companies that installed them suffer major losses, so the companies collude with the local government and meteorological bureau, launch rockets loaded with chemical substances, and disperse the rain clouds.
The February 1 issue of the monthly magazine Sound Argument is a must-read not only for the Japanese people but for people throughout the world.
The following is an excerpt from an essay by Minggad Borag, an Inner Mongolian who studied at Kwansei Gakuin University, published in the special feature “China’s Human Rights Oppression: A Cry of Despair” under the title “China’s ‘Propaganda’ Distorts Understanding of Ethnic Minorities.”
The introductory passage is omitted.
The Popular Theory That Shifts Environmental Destruction Onto Nomadism
Every spring, yellow sand from the continent attacks Japan.
This is because, during this season, low-pressure systems generate strong winds, which lift dust from the inland regions of East Asia into the atmosphere, and the westerlies carry it all the way to Japan.
When one listens carefully to news about this yellow sand, words such as “Inner Mongolia” and “Gobi Desert” frequently appear.
According to such explanations, livestock raised on the “Inner Mongolian grasslands” have increased excessively, and these livestock eat not only the grass but even the roots of the grass, making it impossible for pasture grass to regenerate, destroying the grasslands, advancing desertification, and causing yellow sand.
But this is nothing other than the “official Chinese view.”
In “Inner Mongolia,” based on this view linking the excessive increase of livestock to yellow sand, regulatory policies against pastoralism have been introduced one after another since 2000.
Although the contents and implementation dates of the policies differ somewhat, they can broadly be divided into two types: “grazing-rest policies” and “grazing-ban policies.”
The “grazing-rest policy” means prohibiting the grazing of livestock on the grasslands during the season of new shoots, on the grounds that if livestock eat the new shoots, grass will not grow.
During this period, livestock are confined in barns and raised on hay and other feed.
The period differs somewhat by region, but the start date of the grazing rest is generally April 1 every year, and the grazing-rest period lasts about seventy to ninety days.
The “grazing-ban policy” means completely prohibiting grazing in areas where it is said to have become difficult to continue grazing due to desertification and other causes.
In this case, the grazing-ban area is enclosed with barbed wire, all livestock are forced to be sold, pastoralists are forcibly relocated to apartment complexes prepared around towns, and they are encouraged to make a living through jobs such as street cleaning and garbage disposal.
However, nearly twenty years are about to pass since these policies were implemented, yet the amount of yellow sand that comes flying every year has not changed.
There is even data showing that it has increased.
This means that the theory that the cause of yellow sand lies in the excessive increase of livestock is a major mistake.
Having been born and raised within pastoral culture, I believe this theory forcibly identified a “culprit,” and that the scholars who advocated this theory were amateurs when it came to Mongolian pastoral culture.
The basis for this lies in the way the livestock raised by Mongolians—cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and camels—eat grass.
This is common knowledge in the pastoral world, but normally sheep and goats bite off grass with their front teeth, while horses bite and eat grass with their lips and front teeth.
However, when grass disappears from the surface of the ground, sheep, goats, and horses can skillfully use their front legs to dig up and eat the roots of grass.
On the other hand, cattle merely wrap grass with their long tongues and pull it off, while camels only bite off grass using all their teeth.
Far from being able to use their feet to dig up and eat grass roots, cattle and camels are even poor at digging up and eating withered grass buried under snow.
Therefore, the theory that “livestock eat not only pasture grass but even the roots of grass” is, if one insists on saying so, a story limited to horses, sheep, and goats, and has nothing to do with cattle or camels.
Or rather, by the time sheep and goats dig up and eat the roots of grass, environmental destruction should already have occurred.
In fact, those who have visited the Mongolian grasslands must have felt that Mongolian pastoralists’ attachment to the grasslands and grass is astonishingly strong.
For example, in traditional Mongolian medicine, powdered medicines made from medicinal herbs, like Chinese herbal medicine, are often prescribed, but neither the roots nor seeds, nor even the stems of medicinal plants, are used.
What is used are branches, leaves, and flowers.
However, the targets of the “grazing-rest policy” and the “grazing-ban policy” were all livestock, and the government implemented these policies without listening to the opinions of pastoralists.
As a result, many pastoralists gave up the pasturelands and livestock inherited from their ancestors, flowed into urban areas, and the livestock industry, which is the foundation of Mongolian culture, began to collapse.
Correct Cultural Understanding Leads to Ecosystem Conservation
In recent years, wind turbines for wind power generation have rapidly been installed on grasslands where livestock have disappeared due to the “grazing-rest policy” and the “grazing-ban policy” implemented to prevent desertification.
The day may not be far off when a great army of wind turbines installed at intervals of about 200 meters fills the grasslands.
It is said that the electricity generated there is sent to Beijing.
Also, on the grasslands that became uninhabited due to the “grazing-ban policy,” mines have been developed one after another, and sand carried out of the mines towers here and there like mountains.
Among local pastoralists, voices are being raised that perhaps this was the true aim of the “grazing-rest policy” and the “grazing-ban policy.”
Ironically, wind turbines introduced as eco-energy are spinning on top of sand mountains created by mines.
These wind-power turbines and mining developments have brought new tragedies to the grasslands, and troubles surrounding them unfold almost daily on the summer grasslands.
Wind power generation attracts attention as a renewable energy source with a low environmental burden, but in Europe and the United States, concerns have been raised about the adverse effects of wind turbines on the human body and ecosystems, and cases of removal are often reported.
The scene taking place on the “Inner Mongolian grasslands” is not a problem of that kind.
On the Mongolian plateau in midsummer, updrafts are likely to occur, and when the rainy season comes, lightning strikes increase.
When lightning strikes these wind turbines, the companies that installed them suffer major losses, so the companies collude with the local government and meteorological bureau, launch rockets loaded with chemical substances, and disperse the rain clouds.
It is said that the “cloud-dispersal rocket” was developed for the Beijing Olympics held in 2008.
In the case of mines, when rain falls, the danger increases, as mines may collapse and heavy machinery may slip, so operations must be stopped.
Since that becomes a loss for developers, they likewise use rockets loaded with chemical substances to disperse the rain clouds.
It goes without saying that if rain does not fall during the rainy season, pasture grass will not grow.
If pasture grass does not grow, there will be no food for livestock, and as a result, pastoralists’ lives will fall into hardship.
Also, Mongolian nomads are a people who have worshipped Tenger, heaven, and Gazir, the earth, since ancient times, and even in daily life, it is forbidden to point the blade of a knife toward the sacred Tenger.
Therefore, for Mongolians, launching rockets toward the sacred Tenger is an unforgivable act.
When pastoralists petition the local government to ban the launch of “cloud-dispersal rockets,” the officials who have joined hands with the companies repeatedly reply only that they are rockets for artificial rainfall.
Having no other choice, the pastoralists formed patrol teams themselves and began cracking down on the companies that fire “cloud-dispersal rockets.”
The troubles resulting from this became even more intense.
In the summer of 2017, on the “Chahar grasslands” of “Inner Mongolia,” a patrol team seized the site where “cloud-dispersal rockets” were about to be launched and warned the operators not to launch them.
However, because the operators tried to change location and launch the rockets, the angry young people destroyed the operators’ vehicles and machines.
As expected, all members of the patrol team were arrested that very day.
At exactly that time, I had returned home and was able to listen to the local pastoralists.
“This time, we stopped them before they launched the rockets.
Nevertheless, from the next day onward, heavy rain fell on the grasslands.
This proves that those rockets were not rockets for artificial rainfall.”
“It is true that breaking the cars and machines was excessive, but it is unequal not to crack down on malicious companies that launch cloud-dispersal rockets, or on the officials who cooperate with those companies.”
“They say these wind turbines were introduced as eco-energy, but right nearby, the grasslands are being destroyed by open-pit coal mining, and the ecosystem is collapsing badly.
Why do they not stop the illegal mines?”
“Since the coal mines were created, wells have dried up one after another.
In the past, water would come out if we dug a well three to five meters deep, but from this year onward, water will not come out unless we dig 100 meters.”
“At our place, we had a well 100 meters deep dug for us, but it is all we can do to secure water for humans to drink, and we bring in water for the livestock from elsewhere.”
In this way, the pastoralists appealed one after another.
The coal mined on the Mongolian plateau is lignite, a low-grade coal with many impurities, so it must be washed to remove impurities and bad coal.
For that reason, large amounts of groundwater must be pumped up, or rivers must be dammed to create reservoirs.
It is said that about 3.6 tons of water are needed to wash one ton of lignite, and this causes the depletion of underground water sources, leading to the phenomenon of wells drying up in various places.
That is not all.
Damage caused by ground subsidence is also said to be continuing without end.
Whether it is global warming or the desertification of grasslands, all these problems are caused by human factors.
Therefore, when addressing these problems, one must begin with “people.”
Moreover, those who have lived in that land from generation to generation have more attachment to that land than anyone else, and know more than anyone else about the land and how to protect it.
That is why I believe that everything must begin by paying respect to the people who live there, protecting their culture, and stabilizing their lives.