Southern Mongolian Journalist’s PropagandaScope Reveals CCP’s Identity Erasure Campaign

A groundbreaking digital tool created by a Southern Mongolian journalist is shedding new light on how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) methodically erases cultural identities through state media. PropagandaScope, developed by Soyonbo Borjgin, now living in New York City after fleeing China, offers researchers and journalists unprecedented access to patterns in Chinese state propaganda.

The database contains over 400,000 articles from twenty provincial Party newspapers, updated daily, allowing users to track how political messaging spreads from Beijing throughout China’s regions. What makes PropagandaScope particularly valuable is its ability to reveal not just what the CCP promotes, but what it systematically removes from public discourse.

Borjgin’s motivation stems from personal experience. In 2020, he was forced to attend a political re-education class where instructors described the Mongolian language as “backward” and unsuitable for modern life or scientific discussion. This firsthand encounter with cultural suppression sparked his determination to document how the CCP delegitimizes minority identities.

The evidence uncovered through PropagandaScope is striking. When searching the entire database of over 400,000 articles for references to “Mongolians,” Borjgin found just a single mention—and that was merely in a conference title. Instead, the database revealed that ethnic Mongolian identity has been replaced with the geographic label “Northern Frontier Culture,” effectively transforming an ethnic group into a mere location on a map.

PropagandaScope also demonstrates how the CCP tests propaganda campaigns in minority regions before implementing them nationally. The phrase “forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation,” now central to China’s ethnic policy, appeared in Xinjiang’s official newspaper at seventeen times the rate it did in the People’s Daily. Similar patterns emerged in Tibet and Ningxia. By the time this language was formally adopted into law by the National People’s Congress, the propaganda machinery had already normalized the concept in targeted regions.

Even the technical development of PropagandaScope revealed the pervasiveness of CCP propaganda. When Borjgin initially used boundary data from Alibaba Cloud to create maps, the system would not render China unless it included the nine-dash line in the South China Sea and depicted Taiwan as a Chinese province. This technical constraint forced Borjgin to find neutral, public-domain mapping data to create accurate visualizations.

The platform offers multiple applications for different audiences. Researchers can track ideological shifts in real-time, activists can document cultural erasure with hard data, journalists can verify propaganda patterns, and the general public can witness firsthand how the CCP manufactures consent through language manipulation.

This digital initiative represents a new front in the effort to preserve truth in the face of authoritarian information control. It demonstrates how data science and computational methods can complement traditional reporting and personal testimony in documenting human rights concerns.

For marginalized communities like Southern Mongolians (referred to as Inner Mongolians by Chinese authorities), PropagandaScope provides quantifiable evidence of their systemic erasure from official discourse. The platform stands as both a practical research tool and a powerful statement about the resilience of those who choose documentation over silence when confronting repression.

As PropagandaScope gains recognition, it joins other initiatives working to bring transparency to China’s propaganda apparatus at a time when understanding these mechanisms has never been more crucial for researchers, policymakers, and human rights advocates worldwide.