One Belt - Many Roads: The People's Republic of China's Rhetoric Surrounding the Silk Road and the Minzu (民族) That Helped Build It

Abstract

This Thesis ties together the history of the silk road at its peak during the Golden Horde's Yuan Dynasty and goes on to analyse what practices from that period have been co-opted by the Chinese government to promote the Belt And Road initiative. This tool is used to evaluate why the Mongols are never credited in any official capacity by the Chinese government as they release policy and press regarding the Belt and Road Initiative and mention the Silk Road as inspiration. The current issues with Tibetans, Uighurs, Manchus, and Mongols are directly related to the state's attempt to create a nationalistic ethno-majority via the han minzhu despite there being 55 legally recognized minorities. This comes in the form of removing native languages from schools, teleologically reading the current map of China onto the past dynasties, and refusing to acknowledge the accomplishments, historically and currently, of these territories sand communities. It is an interdisciplinary thesis that covers politics, economics, history, and sociological manipulation on the part of the People's Republic of China, West and East African developing countries, Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, and other special territories.