Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Khubilai Khan achieves through political means what no Mongol ruler before him could: the control of China as a part of the Mongol Empire. Where other rulers had failed to hold onto China through military power, Khubilai does so by manipulating his public image and maintaining the right appearance to his subjects. He wins control “by appearing to be more Chinese than the Chinese, or at least more Chinese than the Sung [Dynasty]” (196). Khubilai’s political strategy intentionally centers China instead of Mongolia as the empire’s “core cultural identity” (196). He takes a Chinese name and embarks on a revisionist campaign to “sinicize” (“make Chinese”) his family and their image. He builds a new capital on the site of Zhongdu, the old Jurched capital, and names it Khanbalik. Weatherford describes it as “a true world capital and fit to be capital of the world,” and founded on the Mongols’ “internationalist principles” (198).

Though he carefully curates a Chinese public image, Khubilai builds a walled-off percent inside his capital in which to continue living a traditional Mongol lifestyle. He reforms the laws to be more lenient than the laws of the Sung and limits the use of torture. Instead of the old Sung system of government which employed a large class of Chinese bureaucrats, Khubilai employs many educated Muslims while ensuring the overall diversity of his administration.