Museums are guardians of historical narratives and play inherently political roles in shaping perceptions across time and space.
-by Inkstick Media
While visiting the Silk Roads exhibit at the British Museum, a seemingly minor detail caught my eye. On one of the plaques about Tibet, the word “Xizang” was also used. Most visitors would likely not even have noticed, but I recognized the inclusion of that word as a deeply political and controversial choice.
I had first learned of the concerted Chinese campaign to start replacing “Tibet” with the word “Xizang” — the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin word for Tibet — last year, during research for a story on Dr. Gyal Lo, a scholar and expert on the colonial-style Tibetan boarding schools. During our interview, I asked him about a video I had seen circulating on social media that said there was now a governmental push to refer to Tibet as “Xizang.” “Officially, they announced this publicly on August 14, 2023 when they hosted the International Seminar on Tibetan Studies in Beijing,” he explained. The stated goal of that event was to reshape perceptions of Tibet globally.
I asked Gyal Lo why he believes these changes are happening now. “It’s a good question,” he responded. “You have to understand the broader context.” He said that previously, China lacked the confidence it now has as the world’s second-largest economy. “Now they want to call it Xizang to show even more strongly that Tibet belongs to China. The push to use Xizang is a huge signal from China’s side to show that Tibet is fully under their control.” Click here to read more.