I have written many times that the US and Anglosphere has mastered the art of lying, the Russians cannot lie by have mastered the art of bluffing (better than the Anglosphere), and China can do neither but when she attempts, she appears as an insane man making a barely veiled attempt to cover his criminal machinations. The result is that China tends to use force to “get what she wants” and in the process will be unable to cover her actions while making everybody around her both hate and fear her (in that order), and thus isolates herself to the point that when a real conflict happens, nobody will help her.
This history seems to be repeating again as China, in the middle of a vicious crackdown on all things Mongolian, is ordering a French museum to scrub the words “Genghis Khan” from an exhibit about Mongolia.
Chinese authorities have demanded a French exhibition remove the words “Genghis Khan” from its exhibition on the Mongolian warlord, the museum director said in a statement seen by the Associated Press.
The exhibition at the Château des ducs de Bretagne museum in Nantes, western France, devised in partnership with the Inner Mongolia Museum in Hohhot, China, was about the infamous Mongolian leader who conquered a huge empire in the 12th century.
The museum’s director Bertrand Guillet said in a Monday statement that the exhibition had been postponed for three years, citing “acts of censorship of the central Chinese authorities,” according to Le Monde.
Guillet said the Chinese Bureau of Cultural Heritage had demanded numerous changes, including removing the words “Genghis Khan,” “empire,” and “Mongol,” according to the AP.
The bureau also requested that it take control over exhibition brochures, maps, and legends, the AP reported.
Guillet said the bureau tried to make changes “including notably elements of biased rewriting of Mongol culture in favor of a new national narrative,” according to the AP.
Guillet said that he took the decision to postpone “in the name of the human, scientific and ethical values that we defend,” the AP reported.
According to Le Monde, he also connected the bureau’s requests to the increased persecution of ethnic Mongolians in China in recent months.
China has accelerated its crackdown on ethnic and religious culture in the country, including Uighur, Hui, and Utsul Muslims, as well as Tibetans, in recent years.
In August, the Chinese government also imposed a policy of reduced lessons in the Mongolian language in favor of more Mandarin Chinese lessons.
That move sparked widespread protests, prompting more than 300,000 students to go on strike, according to The Diplomat. The government retaliated by issuing thousands of arrest warrants for suspected ringleaders, the outlet reported. (source)
A request like this would be like asking a museum with an exhibit on American history to scrub the name “George Washington” from it. It is not possible because of the role he played in American history, and the same for Genghis Khan with Mongolian history.
China’s vicious crackdowns on the Muslim Uighurs and now Mongolians is creating a lot of hatred from them, and interestingly, the US government is championing the ’cause’ of both groups. Russia is curiously silent, for while she is a Chinese ally on paper, in reality she hates China as much as all the others do.
What we are witnessing here is China do what she does so consistently, which is to make people hate each other out of national pride, and in doing this, isolates what allies she will need so that when war comes, she will be left to defend herself, and will fail as her neighbors cheer on the invasion and historical cycle of destruction that befalls the asian nation so many times in her history.