The Tang era of imperial China is regarded by historians as the golden age of arts and culture, a period spanning nearly 300 years, recorded over a millennium ago, when some of its most celebrated poets and inventors lived. But what if it wasn’t real? That’s the bizarre and apparently irresistible internet theory the Chinese government’s cyber police have been trying to shut down since the summer.
Beijing has mobilized state media and public university resources to combat the conspiracy—and for good reason. Nihilism is a deep skepticism about meaning, morality and truth; it can grow among society's marginalized and disillusioned. The West has seen some of the worst forms of this post-truth phenomenon, from Holocaust denial and 9/11 “truthism” to the glorification of the Paris terror attacks.
It’s happening in China, too. China’s leaders fear alternative interpretations of the past because anyone who turns their back on history can turn their back on the party. It was started by a vlogger on the video-sharing site Bilibili.
The user, whose accounts have since been banned, told his viewers that historians and politicians fabricated hundreds of years of Chinese history to create the Tang era of 618-907, based on his study of astronomy and calendars. Everyone loves a good story, but the best storytellers weave in the zeitgeist too. The conspiracy took off by tapping into the nationalist sentiments of modern China and its majority Han ethnic group, which represents over 90 percent of its population today.
Historical accounts suggest the Tang dynasty’s Han rulers had mixed ancestry. Some of China’s ultranationalist Han supremacists may consider this impure and therefore easy to repudiate. After all, why shouldn’t they believe that a dynasty of intermarrying cultures and religions, often hailed as the peak of China’s art and literary history, was faked?
In case there’s any doubt: the Tang dynasty was real. A large body of historical records supports that, as do accounts from neighboring foreign powers at the time. Although Han Chinese are the majority ethnic group today, the truth is that China’s long history was dotted with fiefdoms, kingdoms and entire dynasties that were ruled by people who Han nationalists would consider non-Chinese outsiders, colonists even.
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