By visiting the Silk Roads Exhibition at the British Museum, a seemingly minor detail caught my attention. On one of the plaques about Tibet, the word “Xizang” was also used. Most visitors probably wouldn’t even have noticed it, but I recognized the inclusion of this word as a deeply political and controversial choice.
I had first heard of the concerted Chinese campaign to replace “Tibet” with the word “Xizang” – the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin word for Tibet – last year, while researching an article 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 government pressure to refer to Tibet as “Xizang.” “Officially, they announced it publicly on August 14, 2023, during the organization of the International Seminar on Tibetan Studies in Beijing“, he explained. The stated aim of this event was to reshape the world’s perception of Tibet.
I asked Gyal Lo why he thought these changes were happening now. “That’s a good question,” he replied. “You have to understand the broader context.” He said that previously China lacked the confidence it has today as the world’s second-largest economy. “Now they want to call it Xizang to show even more clearly that Tibet belongs to China. The desire to use Xizang is a strong signal from China to show that Tibet is entirely under its control.”
Gyal Lo pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not only advocating for the replacement of the word Tibet among Chinese people, but also around the world. “Not only do they want to use it in China, but they also want the international community to follow suit and start using the term Xizang. » It seems that this strategy is now starting to have its effects.
What’s in a name?
Gyal Lo was clearly alarmed by this development, remarking: “The word Tibet has a long history of over 200 years – long before the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949. They are playing a word game, and this will not work. » However, he also acknowledged his concerns. “At the same time, it worries me a little, because if other countries have good relations with China, their media will follow what China says. They will say “Xizang” instead of “Tibet”. I hope they don’t do that.
“There is no longer Tibet in the official documents of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
United Front Work Department
Gyal Lo made it clear that when he and other Tibet advocates talk about Tibet, they are referring to the entire Tibetan region, including the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), the ten Tibetan Autonomous Prefectures and the two Tibetan autonomous counties. This includes parts of provinces like Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan. “What China is trying to do is use the term ‘Tibet’ to refer only to TAR. So now China uses Xizang to refer only to TAR. »
One of the people who uses the broadest definition of Tibet is the Dalai Lama. China’s fear of the charismatic spiritual leader’s political power also contributed to the CCP’s desire to redefine Tibet. The United Front Work Department (UFWD) — a CPC organization responsible for building influence and managing relations with individuals and groups domestically and internationally to advance the party’s goals — declared on its official WeChat account, that the word “Tibet” was misleading, because it gave the community, some of whom advocate independence and their own state, a broader geographic scope. As early as 2014, Chinese officials expressed concern that using the term could benefit the exiled leader.
Since 2019, Chinese state media has used Xizang rather than Tibet, and in 2023 the official UFWD account stated that Tibet is no longer used in official documents of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Highlighting the greater intentions behind the re-nomination, UWFD explains declared: “There is no longer Tibet in the official documents of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
As Dawa Tsering, director of the Tibet Policy Institute, noted: “The most important thing is not what China does. It’s a question of whether the international community will accept it.”
Museums as sites of conflict
The British Museum is not the only Western cultural institution to have used this term. Two museums in France faced controversy for replacing the word “Tibet” with “Xizang”, prompting local authorities to demonstrations in Parisa message in response from the president of the Tibetan government in exile to French governmentand ultimately resulting in a change of practice and an apology from one of the museums.
This institute was the Quai Branly Museumwhose spokesperson said the museum used the word “Xizang” before China made it official last year, and that “it was never used alone and a mention of Tibet was always present… .(But) Tibet will no longer be in brackets and the name Xizang will soon be removed.
In the British Museum the two words were used side by side. However, Tibetan activists in London, such as Tsering Passang, say the decision is not objective. “The choice of terminology here is far from neutral; it is a political position that rejects Tibet’s unique identity and subtly reinforces China’s disputed claim that Tibet is an integral part of its territory. Highlighting the efforts of initiatives like the Xizang International Communication Centerhe worries about the extent to which European cultural institutions “are prepared to bend to political pressure”.
Tsering Passang’s organization, the Global Alliance for Tibet and Persecuted Minorities, received a letter from the British Museum stating that it did not intend to replace “Xizang” with “Tibet” on labels. Activists did not find this satisfactory in addressing concerns they had raised. For activists, it is the very inclusion of the word itself that is provocative. The British Museum did not respond when I contacted it for comment on this matter.
This case raises broader questions about the ethical practices of museums and highlights their importance as guardians of historical narratives, emphasizing their inherently political role in shaping perceptions across time and space. Nations use these institutions as tools to advance their agendas and eliminate parts of history that they wish to be dismissed in order to control and manipulate the collective consciousness. This dynamic becomes even more critical when it comes to highly contested regions – not just Tibet, but many others, such as Ukraine And Palestine – where museums become powerful weapons in the battle for memory.
As Phuntsok Norbu, president of the Tibetan Community of Great Britain, explains: the example of the Silk Roads concerns “the role of the museum in forming a comprehensive understanding of a culture that is actively repressed.”
The word “Xizang” is largely unknown to the international public, which benefits China precisely. Tibet carries a level of familiarity with popular culture and international discourse, attracting associations with the Dalai Lama and the struggle for autonomy and human rights – exactly what Beijing wants to avoid. By pushing Xizang into global discourse, the CCP aims to redefine Tibet’s identity as distinctly Chinese, erasing its unique history – and it will be up to foreign cultural institutions to decide whether or not they are willing to accept this revisionism.