The Musée du Quai Branly in Paris dedicated to eradicating the time period “Xizang” — which the Chinese language authorities makes use of in place of “Tibet” — from labels for related artifacts in its assortment after allegations of cultural erasure from activists and Tibetan political management.
Activists found the establishment’s use of “Xizang” amid criticism of the Musée Guimet in Paris, which modified the identify of its Tibetan galleries to “Himalayan World.” The same choices on the two French museums triggered protests and a September 14 letter from Tibetan chief Penpa Tsering to French officers, in addition to each museums’ administrators and the French Senate’s Tibetan Help Group. An impassioned assertion printed in Le Monde by Asian research students argued that “the terminology utilized in these establishments now displays Beijing’s needs to rewrite historical past and to erase the non-Han peoples.”
Tibetan activists, Penpa, and different political leaders say using the time period appeases the Chinese language authorities. Granted solely restricted sovereignty regardless of a centuries-long wrestle, Tibet at present capabilities as an autonomous area of China reasonably than as an impartial state.
“‘Xizang’ not solely distorts the historical past of Tibet as an impartial nation but additionally aids the Chinese language authorities’s ongoing efforts to suppress Tibetan id,” the Central Tibetan Administration stated in a assertion.
In October 2023, Radio Free Asia discovered that the time period “Xizang,” originating from the Ming dynasty, had changed “Tibet” in official Chinese language state media and communications. The positioning reported that Chinese language officers referred to as the identify “Tibet” “deceptive” and changed it in an effort to “improve China’s worldwide voice” with regard to the area. Tibetan management claims the identify “Xizang” was propagated starting final fall by the United Entrance Work Division, a corporation underneath the Chinese language Communist Celebration that advances ideological affect overseas, to erase Tibet’s standing as an impartial, discrete cultural entity.
Throughout a September 25 assembly, Clemens Tougeron, worldwide affairs advisor to the director of the Musée du Quai Branly, apologized to a delegation of six Tibetan organizations, together with College students for a Free Tibet, promising to appropriate the identify inside three weeks.
In a press release to Hyperallergic, a Musée du Quai Branly spokesperson stated the time period “Xizang” had been used of their collections for years earlier than the Chinese language state formalized the identify for the area in 2023.
“It has by no means been used by itself and a point out of Tibet has all the time been current,” the spokesperson continued. “We do, nevertheless, plan to amend them: Tibet will not be in brackets, and the Xizang identify will quickly be eliminated.”
The spokesperson added that some artifacts weren’t correctly attributed to Tibet on the museum’s web site on account of a “technical drawback” which shall be resolved.
Musée Guimet has not responded to Hyperallergic’s request for remark.
Among the many works within the Musée du Quai Branly’s Tibetan assortment is “Lifetime of Milarepa,” a Nineteenth-century thangka portray depicting the legend of the titular Buddhist determine. As of this writing, the web site lists the paintings’s origin as “China, Tibet.”
In his September 14 letter, Penpa, who was elected to steer the exiled Tibetan authorities in northern India in 2021, additionally acknowledged that China is making a concerted effort “to erase the id of Tibet” and referred to as the identify adjustments at each French establishments “disheartening.”
“Such motion of pandering to the desires of the Folks’s Republic of China (PRC) authorities is deeply regrettable and that wants course correction,” Penpa wrote.
