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China’s Xi Jinping And The Map of China From the 18th Century — “Time to realise what a true re-emergence of China means.”
April 8, 2014
Poisonous gift: a map of China without annexed and oppressed nations (Tibet, East Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria).
By Rachel Lu
German Chancellor Angela Merkel presents Xi Jinping with a map of China from the 18th century in Berlin, Germany.
Hong Kong — Last week German Chancellor
Angela Merkel hosted visiting
Xi Jinping at a dinner where they exchanged gifts.
Merkel presented to Xi a 1735 map of China made by prolific French cartographer
Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville and printed by a German publishing house.
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According to an antique-maps website, d’Anville’s map was based on earlier geographical surveys done by Jesuit missionaries in China and represented the “summation of European knowledge on China in the 18th-century.”
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The map showed China without annexed and oppressed nations (Tibet, East Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria).
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The islands of Taiwan and Hainan — the latter clearly part of modern China, the former very much disputed — are shown with a different colour border.
The 1735 map of China made by French cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville
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Historical maps are sensitive business in China.
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Every schoolchild in China learns that Tibet, East Turkestan, Taiwan, and the Senkaku Islands have been “inalienable parts of China since ancient times.”
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The d’Anville map, at least visually,
is a rejection of that narrative.
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Unsurprisingly, China’s official media outlets don’t seem to have appreciated Merkel’s gift.
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The
People’s Daily, which has given meticulous accounts of Xi’s European tour, elided any coverage of the
offending map.
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More curiously,
when news of the map’s presentation reached the Chinese heartland, it had somehow morphed into a completely different one.
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A map published in many Chinese-language media reports about Merkel’s gift-giving shows the Chinese empire at its territorial zenith, including Tibet, East Turkestan, Mongolia and large swaths of Siberia.
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This larger map was the handiwork of British mapmaker
John Dower, published in 1844 by Henry Teesdale & Co. in London, and was certainly not the gift from Merkel to Xi.
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But this mistake was not noted or explained in Chinese reports.
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Both versions of the Merkel map have made appearances on Chinese social media, eliciting vastly different interpretations.
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Those who saw the d’Anville map seemed shocked by its limited territories.
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Hao Qian, a finance reporter, remarked that the map is “quite an awkward gift.”
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Writer
Xiao Zheng blasted Merkel for trying to “legitimise the Tibet and East Turkestan independence movements.”
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Architect
Liu Kun wrote, “The Germans definitely have ulterior motives.”
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One Internet user asked, “How is this possible? Where is Tibet, East Turkestan, the Northeast? How did Xi react?”
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The Dower map, on the other hand, seemed to stoke nostalgia for large territories and imperial power.
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An advertising executive enthused, “Our Manchu ‘ancestors’ are [awesome].”
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Another Internet user hoped Xi would feel “encouraged” by the map to “realise what a true [re-emergence] of China means.”
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Some suspected that Merkel tried to send Xi a subtle reminder that Russia had helped Mongolia declare independence from China in the mid-20th century, somewhat like what Russia did in Crimea in March 2014.
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All the cartographic brouhaha may be overblown.
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One Internet user refused to “overinterpret” the d’Anville map as a message about Tibet or East Turkestan.
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After all, “You can’t use a map of the 13 colonies of the United States made in 1776 to tell Americans that Texas or California is not US territory.”
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Chính's news: Angela Merkel's historical China map flap
German Chancellor Angela Merkel presents Xi Jinping with a map of China from the 18th century in Berlin | Peace and Freedom