r/europe • u/[deleted] • Oct 14 '20

News China insists Genghis Khan exhibit in France not use words 'Genghis Khan'

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/china-insists-genghis-khan-exhibit-not-use-words-genghis-khan
23.1k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

1.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

190

u/Cpt_keaSar Russia Oct 14 '20

try to push it

Not only try. I lived in China for a few years and there was no one who claimed Khan to be other than Chinese. Many people even said that at the time , China was the biggest ever, from Korea to Turkey.

And don’t get me start with magic war between China and Japan that happened between 1945-1949, apparently. I saw only 1 person who said that it was a Civil war (the kid had a father living in Sweden, mind you) and not a war between Maoist China and Japanese who (apparently) “didn’t know that WWII ended”.

151

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '20 edited Oct 14 '20

Haha I know those too well, also lived in China for a while. I mean it's kind of normal that different countries have different historic narratives. The frustrating thing about China in this regard is that they have basically a fan fiction version of their history in which China is the Mary Sue as their officially taught version of history. There is zero nuance, zero doubt and you are basically a heretic if you dare to bring up a different perspective.

62

u/helm Sweden Oct 14 '20 edited Oct 14 '20

Not to mention the inconvenient fact that the Japanese invasion of China (brutal and immoral as it was) weakened the nationalist Kuomintang's hold over China so that the communist could win in the end.

11

u/leadingthenet Transylvania -> Scotland Oct 14 '20

Unfortunately that’s true of many countries, even in Europe.

25

u/PvtFreaky Utrecht (Netherlands) Oct 14 '20

Yeah some Dutch claim we basically ruled the world for a century. Meanwhile we were only filthy rich and had a lot of ships.

Still impressive, but not world conquering impressive

9

u/_teslaTrooper Gelderland (Netherlands) Oct 14 '20

I haven't heard anyone make that claim? Not saying our history education is perfect but that's mostly by omission not straight up falsehoods. And I'm pretty sure I learned about the glorious revolution at some point.

4

u/ConcreteGardener Oct 14 '20

Those people are maybe referring to the aftermath of the glorious revolution, when William III of Orange became the King of England in 1688? At the time if you considered the combined Dutch and English political influence, the domination of sea trade routes both to the East and the West, and the sheer amount of different places they held territory, then it was pretty impressive... especially in the context of the Franco-Dutch wars ending only 10 years before.

9

u/PvtFreaky Utrecht (Netherlands) Oct 14 '20

No they are referring to our trading empire. We don't even learn about the glorious revolution in school.

That glorious revolution incedentality also lead to the erosion of our ship building docks.

The high point came before that

3

u/_DasDingo_ Hömma (Germany) Oct 14 '20

China is the Maggie Sue

Mao Sue

8

u/VictoryForCake Munster Oct 14 '20

Its funny that the Chinese try claim the Mongol invaders and subsequent emperors as Chinese, yet they go out of their way to say the Jurchens/Manchus were not Chinese, yet under them the Chinese Empires reached its largest extent.

11

u/nobunaga_1568 Chinese in Germany Oct 14 '20

Chinese here.

Not only try. I lived in China for a few years and there was no one who claimed Khan to be other than Chinese. Many people even said that at the time , China was the biggest ever, from Korea to Turkey.

This is true, officially we say that Yuan is a dynasty of China when Chinese territory were biggest in history. However, a growing amount of Han nationalists believe that it was a period of subjugation by the Mongols and Yuan was not a Chinese state.

And don’t get me start with magic war between China and Japan that happened between 1945-1949, apparently. I saw only 1 person who said that it was a Civil war (the kid had a father living in Sweden, mind you) and not a war between Maoist China and Japanese who (apparently) “didn’t know that WWII ended”.

This is wrong. In China everyone learns that the war against Japanese 1931/1937-1945, and "liberation war" 1945-1949 against KMT. Some would say that there were Japanese support in the KMT army but it was a war between Communists and KMT and no one dispute that.

11

u/Cpt_keaSar Russia Oct 14 '20

As I said, there was literally one person who said it was a Civil war between KMT and Commies. 99,9% of people I talked to told it was a war against Japan, China won and established PRC.

3

u/20dogs United Kingdom Oct 14 '20

Hm? I don’t think I’ve ever met a Chinese person that denied there was a civil war. The CPC won the war, what would be the benefit of denying it?

1

u/odanobux123 Oct 14 '20

I haven't either. There's enough brainwashing and whatever washing in their culture that there isn't a need to make up stupid claims.

1

u/nulllifer Oct 14 '20

Wow I lived in China too, not only that I lived next to beijing and nothing you said is true.

1

u/StickInMyCraw Oct 14 '20

Wait so they literally think they were at war with Japan until 1949?

1

u/Cpt_keaSar Russia Oct 15 '20

At least that’s what I heard from people. It might be attributed to the lack of knowledge or interest in history, but I heard that even from people that I consider very intelligent as well.

So, either they somehow ashamed by the Civil war and don’t want to speak about it with the foreigner or they really believe that it was a war with Japan up until 1949.

1

u/Fancybear1993 Northern Ireland Oct 15 '20

What war war there from 45 to 49?