The Yuan dynasty, regardless of how they have assimilated into Chinese culture, did officially made the Mongols part of Chinese civilization. When the Golden Horde was broken apart, the Yuan declared themselves as the next Chinese dynasty. Genghis and Kublai Khan were given temple names. This had effectively sinicized themselves as a Chinese dynasty.The Mongols of the Yuan never assimilated or adopted Chinese culture to the degree that the Manchus/Jurchens or the Turkic tribes and Khitans before them did. What makes Mongols Chinese is the fact that all Mongol lands were conquered by the Qing and incorporated into China.
The Yuan did made important changes to the Chinese map. They were the first to establish Beijing as a capital. They have included Mongolia into greater China. This laid the foundation for the assimilation of Mongolians into Chinese civilization when the Qing conquered Mongolia later. And they had officially incorporated Xizang into the greater Chinese nation. Now I don't want to bring up modern Mongolia, as that was a Russian-made problem. That is a whole other topic of discussion to chew on.
Sure the Yuan and Qing had treated the Han as lower caste citizens. Yet the Han-based dynasties had not been shining beacons of egalitarianism too. We cannot judge ancient China through the lens of modern day human rights. This kind of thinking plays into Western attempts to gaslight everyone about the idea of China. The Yuan and Qing dynasties had already gone through the process of sinicizing themselves and their people into the Chinese civilization. That should settle any doubts about their Chinese identities.
This is not the same as the Western powers, Russians, and Japanese when they came and took pieces of China. They had never sinicized and had instead tried to displace Chinese civilization with their imperial subjugation. For example, the Japanese had forced Taiwanese collaborators to denounce their Chinese ancestry and adopt Japanese ones.
Last edited:

