Tibetans in France have been sounding the alarm over the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts' relabelling of its art and artefacts from Tibet, saying it has caved to pressure from China to "erase" Tibetan culture.
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A demonstrator wrapped in a Tibetan flag outside the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts in Paris, 18 December, 2024. © Sarah Elzas/RFI
By: Sarah Elzas
RFI
03/01/2025 -
Each week since September, a group of Tibetans in Paris have been gathering across the street from the city's Guimet Museum of Asian Arts to protest against its decision to change the name of its Tibet Nepal collection to the more general – and they say, inaccurate – term, "Himalayan World".
On a day in mid-December, Yangchen, president of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) France, which has been organising the weekly demonstrations, picked up a megaphone and turned to face the museum building, starting a call-and-response chant with the protesters around her.
“Shame on...” she shouted. “Guimet!” the other demonstrators, many wrapped in Tibetan flags, answered.
“Tibetan art...” she yelled. "Deserves its real name!” they called back. “Tibetan culture is not negotiable.”
Each week since September, a group of Tibetans in Paris have been gathering across the street from the city's Guimet Museum of Asian Arts to protest against its decision to change the name of its Tibet Nepal collection to the more general – and they say, inaccurate – term, "Himalayan World".
On a day in mid-December, Yangchen, president of Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) France, which has been organising the weekly demonstrations, picked up a megaphone and turned to face the museum building, starting a call-and-response chant with the protesters around her.
“Shame on...” she shouted. “Guimet!” the other demonstrators, many wrapped in Tibetan flags, answered.
“Tibetan art...” she yelled. "Deserves its real name!” they called back. “Tibetan culture is not negotiable.”
More on this story in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 121, listen here:
Spotlight on France, episode 121 © RFI
Yangchen said there is more at stake than just a label in a museum.
“It's a very subtle erasure," she said of the name change, which she found shocking in France. “We are in a free country here in France, and Chinese pressure comes even here.”
'Erasing' Tibet
The Tibetan independence movement dates back to 1913, although China has claimed control over the region for centuries.
After the 1949 Communist takeover of China, the army became more heavy-handed with Tibet, triggering protests that were met with a brutal crackdown. Chinese troops then invaded Tibet in 1950.
Despite 70 years of Chinese oppression, Tibet continues to resist
Tens of thousands of Tibetans left, and today live in exile, while in Tibet the Chinese government has been accused of trying to erase the culture and language through mandatory Mandarin Chinese education.
China has recently shifted to using the Chinese term "Xizang Autonomous Region" instead of Tibet in official documents.
Tibet scholar Katia Buffetrille noticed in March 2024 that the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, a public museum dedicated to non-European art, had started using the term Xizang to identify its Tibetan objects.
This was around the same time that the Guimet Museum – also a public museum, which houses Europe’s largest collection of Asian art – changed its labels, which coincided with commemorations of the 60th anniversary of Franco-Chinese relations and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Paris in May 2024.
Yangchen said there is more at stake than just a label in a museum.
“It's a very subtle erasure," she said of the name change, which she found shocking in France. “We are in a free country here in France, and Chinese pressure comes even here.”
'Erasing' Tibet
The Tibetan independence movement dates back to 1913, although China has claimed control over the region for centuries.
After the 1949 Communist takeover of China, the army became more heavy-handed with Tibet, triggering protests that were met with a brutal crackdown. Chinese troops then invaded Tibet in 1950.
Despite 70 years of Chinese oppression, Tibet continues to resist
Tens of thousands of Tibetans left, and today live in exile, while in Tibet the Chinese government has been accused of trying to erase the culture and language through mandatory Mandarin Chinese education.
China has recently shifted to using the Chinese term "Xizang Autonomous Region" instead of Tibet in official documents.
Tibet scholar Katia Buffetrille noticed in March 2024 that the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, a public museum dedicated to non-European art, had started using the term Xizang to identify its Tibetan objects.
This was around the same time that the Guimet Museum – also a public museum, which houses Europe’s largest collection of Asian art – changed its labels, which coincided with commemorations of the 60th anniversary of Franco-Chinese relations and Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s visit to Paris in May 2024.
The Guimet Museum in Paris, home to Europe's largest collection of Asian art.
© Siegfried Forster/RFI
Franco-Chinese relations
“I’m not privy to insider knowledge, but there was the coincidence that the change occurred just before Xi Jinping came, and we know that Xi Jinping does not want to see the name Tibet,” Buffetrille said.
She and her colleagues wrote an open letter criticising the name changes and denouncing what they believe to be China’s influence.
The Musée du Quai Branly eventually backtracked and went back to using the name Tibet, but the Guimet Museum has continued to use the term "Himalayan World".
In an email to RFI, the museum dismissed “unfounded accusations” of China’s influence on its decision to change the term used, and defended its use of the term "Himalayan World" as this includes Tibet.
Director Yannick Lintz said that the term has been used in other museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Chinese minorities fear Beijing's efforts to crush local languages, cultures
Supporters of China
However, Buffetrille considers including Tibet under the umbrella term "Himalayan World" to be inaccurate.
“Tibet is not the Himalayan world,” she insists. “The Himalayan world is countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, and includes the southern range of Tibet, but Tibet is 2.5 million kilometers long, and it doesn't belong to the Himalayan world.”
“The word Tibet has not disappeared from the Guimet Museum,” Lintz told Radio France, which investigated claims that China was pressuring museums to change their labels.
Their reporting pointed to Lintz’s appointing of well-known supporters of China to the museum’s board – including Henri Giscard d'Estaing, the son of former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and president of Club Med, which is now owned by a Chinese company, and former French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Raffarin has had close ties to China for decades, with Xi Jinping awarding him China's Friendship Medal in 2019.
Tibet’s exiled leaders visit Paris as Chinese repression continues
In November the Chinese embassy in Paris published its response to the Radio France investigation, saying that while Xi Jinping agreed to cultural exchanges and mutual exhibitions with the Guimet Museum, the Chinese government does not interfere with France's "internal affairs" and is not involved in the details of the exchanges.
"Nevertheless, a cooperation on exhibitions must respect the will of the party that provides the collections to put on display," it wrote.
'Tubo'
Buffetrille points out that the name Tibet has also been erased from the Tang China exhibition currently running at the Guimet Museum, which features “works from more than 30 Chinese museums” and, according to the Radio France investigation, was financed in large part by China.
The Tibetan Empire, which was a rival to the Tang Dynasty at the time, is referred to as “Tubo” – the ancient Chinese term for Tibet.
Buffetrille says that while it might be historically accurate, using the term is another way of erasing Tibet. “Nobody knows what Tubo is,” she said. “Ask anyone in the street, and they will not know. So it effectively erases Tibet.”
A mural from the Tang Dynasty in 708, displayed as part of the exhibition at the Guimet Museum. © Siegfried Forster/RFI
'Who benefits from these changes?'
“This change from Tibet to Himalayan World... Tibet experts are not happy about it, Tibetans – who are the first to be concerned about these things – are not happy about it, French people are confused by it. So in the end, who benefits from these changes? The only one who is happy is China. That's why I ask these questions,” said Tenam, a Tibetan who has been living in France since 2005.
The Tibetan community in France has grown from a few hundred people two decades ago to around 20,000, many of whom arrived from India, where a large Tibetan diaspora settled with the Dalai Lama in exile in 1959.
Even if, like Tenam, they are not regular visitors to the Guimet Museum, the idea of the objects – some of them centuries-old sacred artefacts – being stripped of their Tibetan name is another reminder of what is facing those who are still in Tibet.
Uyghurs, Tibetans urge France to tackle human rights with Chinese president
Tenam found out about the name changes from the open letter signed by Buffetrille, and he and other Tibetans subsequently wrote to the museum demanding it revert to using the name Tibet, and requesting a meeting.
This took place in December, but the director, Lintz, told those present that the labels would remain and that her decisions were not influenced by China.
The demonstrators have vowed to continue their protests.
“To see the name of my country in a cultural institution like this one, it represents not just the art from Tibet, but also the entire Tibetan people,” said SFT president Yangchen.
“This is not just about a museum,” added Tenam. “If we are not able to stop this kind of thing here, it could be too late. There is a Tibetan saying that you have to build the dyke before the flood comes. I think this is what it is about.”
Find more on this story in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 121. Listen here.
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