NANTES, France -- Bertrand Guillet, director of the Nantes History Museum in the western French city, was shocked by the news he received from China in 2020. It was not about COVID-19, but an inexplicable demand from a partner museum in northern China. It said the artifacts it was sending to Nantes for an exhibition on Genghis Khan, the 13th-century Mongol emperor, could be displayed only if he or the empire he established was not mentioned.
There was no room for negotiation. After years of research and preparation for the museum's exhibition in the imposing castle that once belonged to the Dukes of Brittany, Guillet decided he had no choice but to call the whole thing off.
