A controversy calls into question the independence of the Musée du quai Branly and the Musée Guimet, in Paris, accused by researchers of passivity in the face of interference from the Beijing regime, determined to erase the cultures of recently annexed territories.
This year, Paris and Beijing are celebrating 60 years of diplomatic relations. On this occasion, the two partners are hosting major exhibitions in their respective national museums. On May 6, Emmanuel Macron received his counterpart Xi Jinping at the Elysée and rejoiced: “We will have the chance to welcome priceless collections to France, and in particular at the Guimet Museum, and in most of our cultural institutions.” But behind this agreement there is a standoff: China is trying to impose its vision of the world in these exhibitions.
While French museums have long carried the voice of minorities repressed by the Chinese regime, today they seem significantly more timid. Diplomatic pressure or self-censorship, how is China extending its influence into our museums?
The Guimet Museum in Paris specializes in Asian arts. In recent months, the most informed visitors have noticed some subtle changes. The gallery dedicated to Tibetan works, now called “Himalayan world”, had another name just a year ago. Just last year, it was titled “Tibet, Nepal”.
Same observation on the descriptions: a few months ago a “bodhisattva head” presented in the museum, came from “Tibet”. A name today replaced by this same Himalayan world.
The change may seem anecdotal but for Katia Buffetrille, anthropologist and Tibetologist, it is a way for the museum to get rid of a sensitive issue: that of a disputed territory, annexed by China. “You see the Himalayan world, bodhisattva head, Tibetan art, 13th century. “Tibetan art, she describes. It’s an adjective, you remove the country. Tibet goes well beyond the Himalayan world, and therefore it is a name of rather remarkable imprecision.” With the risk, ultimately according to her, of seeing Tibet erased from History.
The Guimet museum is not the only institution concerned. Further down on the banks of the Seine, the Quai Branly Jacques-Chirac museum even retains the name “Xizang autonomous region”, imposed by the Chinese government since 2023, to speak of Tibet.
The terminology in these two national museums raises questions, because it corresponds to the vocabulary adopted by Beijing, and to the vision defended by Xi Jinping since his coming to power in 2013: a China undeniably powerful on the international scene throughout its history, at the unique culture, even if it means erasing those of the Tibetan, Mongolian or Uyghur minorities.
The methods to achieve this are radical: in the local press and on Chinese social networks, the words “Tibet” and “Mongolia” are, for example, censored. The China Digital Times, an independent site, maintains a list of all terms blocked on weibothe equivalent of the social network X. Do French museums comply with this policy?
Around thirty researchers accuse these Parisian museums of complying with this policy, in a column published in Le Monde : “The terminology used in these institutions reflects Beijing’s desires in terms of rewriting history and the planned erasure of non-Han peoples who were integrated or annexed by the People’s Republic of China.”
The Quai Branly museum admits to some clumsiness in the writing of the descriptions: “The name Xizang (…) has never been placed alone, the mention of Tibet has always been present. We nevertheless plan to modify them: Tibet will no longer be in parentheses, to remove any ambiguity.” The institution also ensures “exercises[r] its missions in complete independence and with total scientific freedom”.
“Our institutions want to preserve at all costs their access to Chinese research fields, sources and archives, and to benefit from financial largesse and loans of museographic objects dependent on the goodwill of the Chinese regime.”
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The changes of words at the Guimet museum, for their part, would be due to a global rearrangement of the museum rooms, so that the descriptions of the objects are more precise. A reorganization which coincides with the launch of the sixtieth anniversary of Franco-Chinese relations, since the recognition of the People’s Republic of China by General de Gaulle in 1964, as well as the visit to Paris by Chinese President Xi Jinping last May. Enough to fuel the suspicion of researchers, of collusion between the management of the museum and the Beijing regime. “Our institutions want to preserve at all costs their access to Chinese research fields, sources and archives, and to benefit from financial largesse and loans of museographic objects dependent on the goodwill of the Chinese regime. So, we coax the threatening power that Xi Jinping’s China has become and we bow our heads to its demands for the rewriting of history and the erasure of peoples.” explain the researchers in their article.
During our interview, the President finally admits that certain subjects remain delicate and difficult to discuss with her Chinese interlocutors. “I experienced this with Morocco and with Iran, she relates. It’s never easy, but it’s exciting, because we have to enter into a story, where we respect everyone, and where we are in the historical truth.” The response is very diplomatic, but one of his colleagues from Nantes speaks much more freely about the pressures he suffered.
In 2020 Bertrand Guillet, director of the Nantes history museum, imagined an exhibition on Genghis Khan, Mongol conqueror, and founder of a rival empire to China. To furnish his rooms, he obtained the loan of two hundred and twenty-five pieces, including imperial seals and gold objects from the 13th and 14th centuries, from the Museum of Inner Mongolia in Hohhot, China. But when it came to taking the works out of the territory, Beijing became aware of the project and sent instructions to Bertrand Guillet: “The name of the exhibition must be changed because the word Genghis Khan is not authorized to be mentioned . The office gave us four days to review all the documents.”
“In the new synopsis, Mongolian culture and history no longer existed.”
Bertrand Guillet, director of the Nantes History Museumat the Eye of the 8 p.m.
The director explains: “The injunction we received was not to mention ‘Genghis Khan,’ not to mention the word ’empire,’ and the word ‘Mongol.’ It’s completely problematic because it’s as if I were doing an exhibition on Napoleon and the French Empire and I was told “No, but you don’t name Napoleon, and you don’t say French Empire”. So the interference is heavy because behind the ban they want us to say something else.” The Chinese authorities do not stop there: they ask to redraw the maps, and to rewrite the scenario of the exhibition. “In the new synopsis, Mongolian culture and history no longer existed. They had been crushed precisely by a new narrative, by a new story”says Bertrand Guillet. The exhibition will finally see the light of day in October 2023 in another form, without China, thanks to other partners, including private collectors.
In Nantes, it’s Beijing who put pressure directly, but sometimes it is the French authorities who seem to play self-censorship. Collector, François Panier is convinced that he has paid the price. This specialist in Mongolian and Tibetan arts regularly offers projects to Parisian museums. In 2020, his film dedicated to the Dalai Lama won over the Musée du Quai Branly. All that’s missing is a broadcast date to be fixed, but at the last moment, a manager at the museum sent him this letter: “Our authorities provided a negative opinion on this screening and I am very sorry. Thank you for not blaming me, you know I had nothing to do with it”. The gallery owner analyzes this refusal: “A supervisory decision is still something that comes from above and which disrupts the project or which completely cancels it.” Was the authority, in other words the Ministry of Culture, afraid of offending China? He did not wish to answer us.
But at the Arab World Institute, a seasoned exhibition curator agreed to testify. Special advisor to IMA President Jack Lang, Claude Mollard has been ambitious since 2017 to tell the story of the Silk Roads, using objects lent by Beijing. China offers to finance the entire project, but also asks to review the chronology. “It’s true that they sometimes tend to start the world with China, smiles Claude Mollard. So you have to know how to resist.” Failing to agree on the scenario, he tries a plan B, which he knows is diplomatically risky. “Since we couldn’t reach an agreement with the mainland Chinese, could we reach an agreement with Taiwan? But there, well, the Quai d’Orsay, or others immediately told us: Be careful: that’s digging up the hatchet! reports the exhibition curator. We are independent, we are free, but we are obliged to take into account the diplomatic relations that exist.”
Contacted, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies any intervention in the programming of museums. The Chinese embassy in France, for its part, writes “the French museums in question have only adopted good gestures” in terms of rewriting the descriptions. She adds that she opposes “to any free speculation” on his interventionism in French museums.
Among our sources:
Tribune of researchers around the world