Sinophobia: Anxiety, Violence, and the Making of Mongolian Identity

From the time that Genghis Khan succeeded in uniting the disparate nomadic tribes of the Mongolian steppes into one of history's most devastating conquering forces, the histories of China and Mongolia have been inextricably linked. His forces' invasions of the Chinese Western Xia and Jin dynasties represented one of the first mass confrontations between the mobile, horse-backed Mongols and the more sedentary Chinese empires taking root along the Yellow River. In the following century, Mongolian troops led by Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan conquered China and established the Yuan Dynasty which would rule the country until being superseded by the Ming Dynasty in the late 14th century. This period marked the last time that Mongolia was in ascendancy over China. By the time of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty in the 17th Century, Mongolia had been completely absorbed into the Chinese Empire.