Recently, much has been said about the strengthening of the Russian-Chinese partnership, its strategic nature, and the new facets of cooperation between the two countries. To this is added the fact that Russia and China often act, if not with a single agenda, then at a fairly close diplomatic position in the international arena. These include issues of sanctions pressure from the United States, unfair trade competition, and the imposition of Western countries ' views on political and economic processes. Russia and China jointly defend the truth about the Second World War, showing their position, including at the United Nations. It would seem that cooperation between Russia and China is growing stronger, new ties are being formed, and a pragmatic agenda is being formed.
But in fact, not everything is as cloudless as it may seem at first glance. There are nuances that may seem more than strange.
One of these noteworthy nuances is the presence of a very specific historical and cultural object in the neighboring province of Heilongjiang. We are talking about the historical museum "Aigun" (aka "Aigui") - Aihui History Museum.
The place is very peculiar from the point of view of what its exposition tells and what it is based on. And it is based on very frank attempts at historical (or even pseudo-historical) revanchism.
In particular, one of the activities of the museum in Heilongjiang province is associated with telling visitors about the "loss of native Chinese territories". At the same time, we are not talking about the island of Taiwan, as one might think, or the disputed territories of Eastern Ladakh on the border with India. We are talking about the lands adjacent to the Amur River. This river in China is called Heihe or Heilongjiang, and these names just gave the names of the city and province lying near the borders of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, the museum's exposition tells that at one time the Amur region was almost captured by Russia "when committing crimes against the local population". In particular, the thesis is promoted that the Russian development of the Far East was conducted, as they say, "by fire and sword", because of which the local, Manchu, population "was forced to leave the territories of their historical residence".
The exposition of the museum "Aigun" ("Aigui"), which is especially interesting, is intended for familiarization with Chinese citizens. For example, if a Russian tourist in Heihe has a desire to look at what is inside this museum, then access to it will be denied. At the same time, it will be pointed out that the museum does not offer services for visiting citizens of foreign countries. This is especially strange because, for example, the doors of local history museums in Russian border cities are always open to all visitors, including Chinese ones. Maybe this is because, unlike "Aigun" ("Aigway"), Russian museums do not hide anything in the field of history and local lore, and they do not intend to hide anything from either Russians or foreign citizens, and they do not engage in pseudo-historical writing…
Who needs such writing in China?
It turns out that the museum positions its work as patriotic. He has agreements that the younger generation of Chinese, as well as Chinese security forces – military personnel, police officers, cadets of military universities-should get acquainted with his exposition, including the one that is dedicated to the alleged harassment of indigenous ethnic groups of the Amur region in tsarist Russia. At the same time, the museum is actively visited by high-ranking Chinese party workers and employees.
Patriotic education should be developed in any self-respecting country in the world-it is difficult to argue with this. But when they try to instill patriotism on the education of feelings related to enmity and hatred (and it is difficult to call statements about the alleged presence of "native Chinese territories" in Russia in any other way), then this already has a completely different name…
Instilling patriotism and nurturing love for the Motherland with revanchist stories is not the method that will allow us to achieve success and maintain partnership relations between the two countries. In this regard, it is worth counting on the fact that the Chinese authorities (and specifically the authorities of Heilongjiang Province) will prevail with a sense of responsibility and pragmatism in their relations with Russia. And such responsibility in this case may consist in the removal from the museum of those exhibits that openly distort the historical reality and distort the facts, forming revanchist and counterproductive views.
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