为什么很多中国人总把成吉思汗当成中国人而不是蒙古人？（上） [美国媒体]

 Why do many Chinese people consider Genghis Khan as Chinese rather than Mongol? Was he Mongol or Chinese?

为什么很多中国人总把成吉思汗当成中国人而不是蒙古人？（上）




Uuganbayar Baasanjaw
I was just going to pass the question. There were too many answers, so I thought by now, probably all possible answers are here. Then I see so many answers regarding Chinggis(that’s how you pronounce his name correctly in MONGOLIAN) as Chinese or it all depends on what criteria you use.
That’s not right. 
Most claims are based on Inner Mongolians as chinese citizens. They belong to PRC now but their nationality is different. They are descendants from Ancient Mongol tribes, they are part of the reason the Great wall of china had to be built in the first place.
I don’t understand why chinese want Chinggis khan to be chinese. China has great history, they had great empires spanning through thousands of years. They have one of the richest, most advanced culture in the world. They are great people descended from great nations. But one thing they are not is the claim that they are Mongols. Mongols and Chinese probably share same ancestors if we look to the very early humans but at that point, everyone has same ancestors.
The great wall of china wasn’t built to protect against Mongols. At the time it was being built(226–206BC), Mongols were only small part of the Huns(209BC). There was no historical evidence the name Mongol existed until around 700AD but they might be descended from Nirun(Rouran). At the time Temujin named Chingis khan(1206AD), the great wall was already there and expanded significantly.

我本来想无视这个问题。因为答案太多了，所以我想，所有可能的答案应该都在这里了。然后我看到很多关于成吉思汗的答案，都是不正确的。大多数答案都基于将内蒙古人作为中国公民。他们现在属于中华人民共和国，但他们的民族其实是不同的。他们是古代蒙古部落的后裔，他们是中国长城最初建造的原因之一。

我不明白为什么中国人老想让成吉思汗成为中国人。中国有伟大的历史，他们有跨越数千年的伟大帝国。他们拥有世界上最丰富、最先进的文化。他们是伟大民族的后裔。但有一点是他们并不是蒙古人。蒙古人和中国人的祖先很可能是相同的，如果我们观察早期的人类迁徙的话，但在那时，每个人都有相同的祖先。

中国的长城并不只是为了抵御蒙古人而修建的。在建造时(公元前226 - 206年)，蒙古人只是匈奴的一小部分(公元前209年)。直到公元700年左右，还没有历史证据证明蒙古人这个名字的存在，但他们可能是楼兰人的后裔。在铁木真命名成吉思汗(公元1206年)的时候，长城已经在那里了，长度也有了显着的扩展。

Qianl
I agree with some of the answers that whether Genghis Khan is Chinese or not depends on which criteria you use. You know in thousands years of Chinese history, we usually presented ourselves as the Han. Until the last two dynastys, Ming and Qing, the Chinese were officially mixed. In the Republic of China era, the founder Sun Yat-sen claimed that the Chinese should unit, and an idea of five nationalities. The five were Han, Mongol, Manch, Tibetan, Hui (I’m not certain with the name). Pesonally, I think this is a very dangerous idea, from a modern perspective.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the CHINESE officially consist 56 ethnic groups. We live in the same country, a great and ancient one. After the war, we understand if we want to survive, we must stand together.
I do understand the confusion, because some of the Mongols are Chinese, some are not, becuase they are from Mongolia. However, there is no doubt that they share the same history, have the same ancestor and culture.

我同意一些答案，即成吉思汗是否是中国人，取决于你自己使用的标准。你知道的，在中国几千年的历史中，人们通常以汉人的身份统治中国。直到最后两个朝代明清，中国人都成了混血儿。在民国时期，国父孙中山主张中华民族应该是一个整体，要有五个民族的观念。这五个人分别是汉族、蒙古族、满族、藏族、回族(我不是很确定他们的名字)。但从现代的角度来看，我认为这是一个非常危险的想法。中华人民共和国成立后，中国正式由56个民族组成。我们生活在同一个国家，一个伟大而古老的国家。战后，我们明白，如果我们想要生存，就必须团结起来。

我理解这种困惑，因为有些蒙古人是中国人，有些蒙古人却不是，因为他们来自外蒙古。然而，毫无疑问，他们有着相同的历史，有着相同的祖先和文化。

B.T. 
Many of us “consider” something to be a common fact simply we were educated to believe so. Like in the west, people were educated to believe that Greco-Roman civilization is the common denominator of all western civilizations, even the Germans whose were never a part of the Greco-Roman sphere.
Chinese wish to think that their history is a continuous one, without any dynastic interruptions. So they enlisted Mongol rule as a “Yuan” dynasty, which ,in some way, is not too far from the truth as the Mongol quickly learned the advantage of ruling the vast territory with the endless supply of bureaucrats through China’s civil examination system. Also, Yuan Dynasty could not possibly rule without Han Chinese sophisticated commercial and logistics system that were entirely based on Chinese written language and moral codes. After Mongols were expelled, the following Ming Dynasty kept an ancient honorary tradition of composing an official version of the “Yuan History” to commemorate a passing of another Dynasty.
So you may say Han Chinese adopted Mongols as one of their own. Nothing wrong with it. I thought it was quite a nice gesture.
A passing note: Manchu Dynasty was also not a Han-Chinese Daynasty. But It was again also adopted as a part of Chinese history.  

我们中许多人想当然地“认为”某件事是一个普遍的事实，事实上那只不过是我们被教育去相信它而已。就像在西方一样，人们接受的教育是相信希腊罗马文明是所有西方文明的共同特征，即便是德国人也是如此，但事实上他们从来都不是希腊古罗马文明的一部分。

中国人希望他们的历史是连续的，没有任何外来王朝的干扰。因此，他们把蒙古统治列为“元朝”，在某种程度上，这与事实并无二致，因为蒙古人很快就学会了通过中国的科举考试制度来统治广袤的疆土，提供源源不断的官僚。此外，元朝的统治离不开汉代复杂的商业和物流体系，而这些体系完全建立在汉语言和道德规范的基础之上。

在蒙古人被驱逐之后，继任的明朝也保留了这种古老的传统，即将之纳入官方的“元代历史”，以纪念另一个朝代的逝去。所以你可以说汉人把蒙古人当作自己的一部分，这没有任何错误。我认为这是一个很好的姿态。
顺便说一句:满清也不是汉人王朝。但它也被作为中国历史的一部分。 

Constantine 
Genghis Khan is a great arsonist in history, he burned down so many civilized cultures so that they could rebuild it. Which directly led to the prosperity of Europe rather than the always prosperous East and Central Asia.
He’s like Joker, insane yet a brilliant strategist and a fearsome leader. No one in 1000 years could have redone the things he did.
But this is my personal view on this historic figure, I studied Mongol history. He’s controversial, just like Stalin and Mao.
“Khan” is a title, not the actual name. Khan could be given to leaders of tribes on the Great Steppe. His real name is Temujin.
As in how Chinese view the title Khan, that would be how people view Mongolian rulers later in Yuan Dynasty. That would be a long long list on how people think of the dynasty and its rulers.
One thing about the Mongolian invasion before Yuan Dynasty. Most Chinese have learned the fact in public education, but none of them seem to express any hatred towards Mongolians.
Mongolians in 13th century had killed millions of Chinese, the number was even higher than the Chinese killed in WW2. (This may not be accurate in reality but it’s what historical books wrote.)
A common thing in China is that many people resent Japanese, at least, there’s a fair amount of Chinese hate Japanese because of their evil deeds in WW2. But nobody gives a crap about Mongolian.
I personally hold a bit grudge towards Mongolians because of this part of history.

成吉思汗是历史上头号纵火者，他烧毁了非常多文明的文化，以便他们可以重建它。这直接导致了欧洲的繁荣，而不是导致东亚和中亚的繁荣。他是一个小丑，是一个疯狂但聪明的战略家，也是一个可怕的领导者。最近1000年时间里没有人能重复他所做的事。但这都是我对这位历史人物的个人看法，我研究了蒙古历史。他是有争议的，就像斯大林一样。

“可汗”是一个头衔，而不是真正的名字。可汗可以赋予给大草原上的部落首领。他的真名是铁木真。就像中国人对可汗的看法一样，这也是后来元朝时，人们对蒙古统治者的看法。关于人们对王朝及其统治者的看法，可以组成一个长长的清单。

元朝前的蒙古人入侵中原。大多数中国人在基础教育中了解到这一事实，但似乎没有人对蒙古人表示任何仇恨。13世纪的蒙古人曾经杀死了数百万中原人，这个数字甚至比在二战中被杀害的中国人还要高。(现实中可能并不准确，但历史书就是这么写的。)在中国很常见的一件事，就是很多人讨厌日本人，至少有相当一部分中国人因为他们在二战中的恶行而讨厌日本人。但是没有人会对蒙古人说三道四。由于这段历史，我个人对蒙古人没有什么好感。

Jianhui Hong 
Genghis Khan is of course Mongolian. However, China is now home to much more Chinese nationals that are ethnic Mongolians. The province of Inner Mongolia has a population several times that of Mongolia.
Some minor ethnic groups in China today came to China as invaders and conquerors. Instead of assimilating the local Han people, the conquerors were assimilated culturally, typically within several generations. Case in point: the Man people are today indistinguishable from Han people. Today only a couple hundreds of persons in the world can read the Man scripts from the early Qing Dynasty.
The mongolians ruled China for a long period of time during the Yuan Dynasty. You would naturally call them Chinese if they called China their home. Maybe I should give an analogy. The British came to North America in the Mayflower and settled. Then they and their descendents call themselves American. Today we consider them American, even though USA was not in existence when the early settlers arrived.

成吉思汗当然是蒙古人。然而，现在中国有更多的蒙古族中国人。内蒙古的人口是蒙古的几倍。
今天，中国的一些少数民族以侵略者和征服者的身份来到中国。征服者并没有同化当地的汉人，而是在文化上被同化，通常是在几代人之内。举个例子:今天的汉人与汉人没有什么区别。今天，世界上只有几百人能读懂清初的男人剧本。
元朝期间，蒙古人统治中国很长一段时间。如果他们称中国为他们的家，你自然会叫他们中国人。也许我应该打个比方。英国人乘五月花号来到北美定居。然后他们和他们的后代称自己是美国人。今天我们认为他们是美国人，尽管早期的移民来到美国并不存在。

Benjamin Marre 
Technically, it is not right to consider Genghis Khan as Chinese, when he was alive, Mongols was a hostile nation that attempted to conquer Song Dynasty China (and they finally succeeded), but many people have such a delusion due to the below reasons.
1. Genghis Khan was the founder of Mongol Empire, and his grandson? Kublai Khan ended South Song Dynasty China, and crowned himself the Emperor of China, therefore Genghis Khan was mentioned in History Schoolbooks quite a lot, in the section of Chinese History, which creates the wrong image that he was a historical figure of China.
2. Inner Mongolia is a province of China, and many Mongol people are Chinese citizens exactly the same as the rest, so many people forget the fact that there is an independent Mongolian country and a Mongol guy may be technically a foreigner.
3. China has been a multi-ethnic country for a long time, Chinese people won't pay particular attention to an ethnically-different guy and regard him as 'Foreigner', as long as he/she looks like East Asian. Korean, Mongol, all have their own independent country, but a Korean or Mongol is very likely to be native Chinese and speak Mandarin better than me.

从技术上讲，把成吉思汗当作中国人是不对的，在他活着的时候，蒙古是一个充满敌意的国家，他们试图征服宋朝(他们最终成功了)，但是由于以下原因，很多人都有这样的错觉。

1.成吉思汗是蒙古帝国的创始人，他的孙子忽必烈结束了南宋的中国，自封为中国的皇帝，因此成吉思汗在中国历史教科书中被多次提及，造成了他是中国历史人物的错误印象。

2.内蒙古是中国的一个省，很多蒙古族人都是中国公民，所以很多人都忘记了还有一个独立的蒙古国，从技术上讲，一个蒙古族人可能是外国人。3.长期以来，中国是一个多民族国家，只要他/她长得像东亚人，中国人就不会特别在意他是不是一个不同民族的人，也不会把他当作“外国人”。朝鲜语、蒙古语都有自己的独立国家，但朝鲜族人或蒙古族人也很可能是地道的中国人，普通话比我说得好的多。

Davaadagva Ulamsaikhan
As a mongolian I've read the Secret history of the Mongols countless times.
Ethnically Genghis was undoubtedly a Mongol and the empire he built was named the “Mongol” Empire. Claiming Genghis for themselves will never change the fact that he is ethnically Mongol and was the founder and ruler of the Mongol Empire.
But the Mongol Empire was wide. It’s borders expanded from “sun rise to sun set”. So it included a lot of nations and that includes China. Meaning he was a Mongol ruler and a Chinese ruler. Heck he ruled most of Eurasia so he was also the ruler of Iran, almost all of the stans and some parts of Russia. He’s pretty much the ruler of 10s of nations. So yeah… I won’t say anything if a citizen of any of the nations that was a part of the Mongol empire say Genghis was ALSO their ruler. It is true after all.
But Claiming him to be ONLY theirs is impractical and just plain dumb.

作为一个外蒙古人，我无数次读过蒙古人的秘史。在民族上，成吉思汗无疑是一个蒙古人，他建立的帝国被命名为“蒙古”帝国。成吉思汗自己声称自己是蒙古族，这是永远不会改变事实，他是蒙古帝国的创始人和统治者。

但蒙古帝国很广。它的边界跨越“太阳升起的地方到太阳落下的地方”。它包括很多国家，包括中国。意思是他是蒙古统治者，也是中国统治者。他统治了欧亚大陆的大部分地区，所以他也是伊朗的统治者，几乎所有的斯坦和俄罗斯的都被他统治过。他几乎是十个国家的统治者。所以，如果蒙古帝国的一部分国家的公民说成吉思汗也是他们的统治者，我也不予置评。毕竟这也是真的。
但声称成吉思汗只属于他们的国家，这就是不切实际，而且完全是愚蠢的了。

SuCha  
This concept mentioned in the question is a modern construct, or even European originated.
Chinese is the state, and her people. Mongol is the tribe, and her people.
Now, after giving some historic background, back to the question.
Allow me to rephrase the question as:
1, Do modern Chinese consider Genghis Khan Chinese? ROC probably agrees more with this question than PRC, since ROC today still claims the old Qing dynasty borders, containing Mongolia. Like I said earlier, once you hold the land, anything starts and ends here, is yours. In that aspect, Genghis Khan is Chinese. However, since Mongolia is not part of PRC, and Genghis Khan didn’t start and end within today’s PRC territories, directly associating the Great Khan with PRC fails.
There is another method of association, (I believe there is no argument that the Yuan dynasty is a Chinese dynasty, since it started and ended within modern China’s territories. ). Basically, when someone ascend the throne, he would claim posthumously his father and grandfather’s rights to the throne, and the lineage. By that token, Kublai Khan made Genghis Khan a Chinese emperor, thus a Chinese Genghis Khan.
2, Was he Mongol or Chinese? Both.

这个问题中提到的概念是一个现代化的，甚至是起源于欧洲的概念。在这种情况下，蒙古语和汉语的范围是完全不同的。

当民族国家的概念第一次出现在晚清时期时，学者们很难理解中国的定义到底是什么。在19世纪的那个时候，清朝的臣民都称自己为中国人。如果按照部落的归属划分，可以大致有满族人、蒙古人、汉族、回族人和西藏人。

现代中国人认为成吉思汗是中国人吗?中华民国可能比中华人民共和国更认同这个概念，因为中华民国至今仍宣称拥有包括蒙古在内的清朝边境。就像我之前说过的，一旦你占有了这块土地，那么它从一切开始到结束都是你的。

在这方面，成吉思汗是中国人。然而，由于蒙古不是中华人民共和国的一部分，所以成吉思汗在今天的中华人民共和国领土内并没有开始和结束，直接将成吉思汗与中华人民共和国联系在一起是不对的。

还有另一种思考方式(我认为，元朝是中国的王朝，因为元朝是在现代中国的领土上建立并消亡的。)基本上，当一个人登上王位，他会在死后宣称他的父亲和祖父对王位的权利，以及他血统的正当性。因此，忽必烈追封成吉思汗成为中国的皇帝，因而他成为中国的成吉思汗。他是蒙古人还是中国人?我认为两者都是。

Anonymous
In the history, Mongolian and Chinese are two groups that closely resemble Muslims and Christians. They belong to completely different cultural spheres, speak different branch of language and had been war for 5000 years. The mongols were nomads while the Chinese were agricultural farmers. Mongolian is an altaic language while Chinese is a Sino-tibetan language. Both of them are distant from each other. Some Mongolian tribes did ally with China against other Mongolian tribes, but other Mongolian tribes did not treat Chinese as human beings, they killed and slaughtered many Chinese.
Although both are mongoloid, the Mongolians and Chinese have completely different cultures: Mongols are nomads; Chinese are farmers. Chinese and Mongols also have different cuisines, customs, beliefs — just like Middle East and Europe.
At last, the Qin Dynasty has decided to build a wall to defend against Mongolians. However, Mongols were so capable that they took over China, and set up the Yuan Dynasty — which was short-lived and brutal. The mongols killed many Chinese ancestors in the North or raped their women. Because of this, many Northern Chinese actually share some Mongolian blood.

在历史上，蒙古族和中国人是两个与穆斯林和基督徒非常相似的群体。他们属于完全不同的文化领域，说着不同的语言分支，并且已经打了五千年的仗。蒙古人是游牧民族，而中国人是农耕民族。蒙古语是阿尔泰语，汉语是汉藏语。他们彼此都很疏远。一些蒙古部落与中国结盟反对其他蒙古部落，但其他蒙古部落不把中国人当作人类，他们杀害和屠杀了许多中国人。

虽然他们都是蒙古人，但蒙古人和中国人有着完全不同的文化:中国和蒙古也有不同的美食、习俗和信仰——就像中东和欧洲一样。最后，秦朝决定修建长城以抵御蒙古人。然而，蒙古人是很有能力的民族，他们接管中国，建立了元朝——这是一个短暂而残酷的王朝。蒙古人在北方杀害了许多中国人，或强奸了他们的妇女。正因为如此，许多北方人实际上都有一些蒙古血统。


Dan Kim 
Since the founding of Republic of China in early 20th century, China has adopted a different definition of Chinese than in the past. This position was later adopted by CCP after they ousted ROC to Taiwan. However, the classic definition of Chinese has always been the Han Chinese people. That was the definition adopted by Chinese themselves . Starting in the newly established Chinese Republic era in early 20th century, with its national integrity seriously threatened, Sun Yatsen and the early founders of ROC adopted so called the five tribes of China policy. This formally incorporated Mongols, Uighurs, Tibetans, and Manchus into the definition of “Chinese”. This was a political move to make it easier to keep the former Qing territory together, remember that at this time, Japan was already trying to split Manchuria off from China, Tibet was effectively independent, Xinjiang and Mongolia were falling under Russian influence. It was a politically expedient move that had lasting impact on Chinese identity and the way it looks at its own history. So, now technically Mongolian history is also a part of Chinese history, and so is Manchurian, Korean (also designated as one of Chinese minority tribes), etc. This seemingly confusing state of Chinese identity combined with nationalism has created quite a job making sense of China’s past for average Chinese. So may be some Chinese are confused enough to consider Genghis Khan as being a Chinese hero, but no one seriously thinks its China’s history. Chinese people take their history seriously, and this kind of shenanigans don’t fly.
But, if you’re a gov’t official or one of gov’t sponsored historian though, you’ll have to sing the party line and say Genghis Khan is a Chinese emperor. Never mind the fact that this would make Mongol invasion of Song dynasty a civil war and invalidates China’s countless wars against the northern barbarians as a misguided struggle against unification.
In reality though, most educated Han Chinese don’t consider Genghis Khan as Chinese, even ethnic Mongol Chinese don’t consider Genghis Khan a Chinese hero, a revered leader of Mongols absolutely, but not considered a Chinese leader. Most Chinese know how to distinguish political identity of Chinese and historical definition of Chinese. Han Chinese history and culture is the core of China, most Chinese view Manchurian or Mongolian history as white Americans view Native American history - they understand how it can technically be considered part of their history, but not really.

自20世纪初中华民国成立以来，中国对中国人的定义与以往不同。这一立场后来在中国共产党将中华民国驱逐到台湾后被共产党采纳。然而中国人的经典定义一直是汉人，这也曾是中国人自己的定义。

从20世纪初新成立的中华民国时期开始，随着民族整体性受到严重威胁，孙中山和建国初期的建国先贤采取了所谓的“中国五族政策”。这正式地将蒙古人、维吾尔人、西藏人和满族人纳入了“中国人”的定义。这是一种政治行动目的是为了让这片前清朝的领土更容易团结在一起。

请记住，当时日本已经在试图将满洲从中国分裂出去，西藏实际上已经是独立的了，新疆和蒙古也正处于俄罗斯的影响之下。这虽然是一个政治上的权宜之计，但它对中国人的身份和看待自己历史的方式产生了持久的影响。

所以，从技术上讲，蒙古族历史也是中国历史的一部分，满洲、朝鲜族(也被称为中国少数民族之一)等也是如此。这种看似令人困惑的中国身份与民族主义相结合的状态，为普通中国人理解中国的过去创造了相当大的就业机会。因此，一些中国人可能会感到困惑，认为成吉思汗是中国的英雄，但没有人会认真思考中国的历史。中国人对待自己的历史很认真，这种恶作剧是不会飞的。

但是，如果你是一个政府官员，或者是一个政府资助的历史学家，你就必须符合国家的路线，说成吉思汗是中国的皇帝。这将使蒙古人对宋朝的入侵成为一场内战，并使中国和北方野蛮人之间的无数战争成为一场反对统一的误入歧途的斗争。

但事实上，不少受过教育的汉人并不认为成吉思汗是中国人，蒙古人也不认为成吉思汗是中国的英雄，而是蒙古人尊敬的领袖。大多数中国人都知道如何区分中国人的政治身份，和中国人的历史定义。汉人的历史和文化是中华文明的核心，大多数中国人对待满洲或蒙古的历史，就像美国白人看待美洲原住民的历史一样——他们明白，从技术上讲，这是他们历史的一部分，但内心上并非完全如此。