If you want to convicnce your partner of something here, its probably best not to. This is obviously a sensitive subject. You said your piece and they said theirs. Sounds like your partner went through graduate school brainwashing and came out being a mega lib. Now, it's totally reasonable to be upset about the destruction of artifacts. It's understandable that they really value art artifacts.

The destruction of artifacts wasn't done by an alien force, it was done by the Chinese people. The CPC central committee didn't want destruction of objects and worked to preserve archeological findings - but the did instruct people to get rid of the "Four Olds" and members of the red guard and various student movements really did destroy a shitload of art and artifacts. This is a common sinophobic meme, that the CPC is actually a sinister alien force and the Chinese people yearn for their liberation - and while the communist party of China has made mistakes and makes them today, they are the party of the Chinese people and the Chinese people in general support and agree with decision made by the party. They aren't an outside settler force

I am also indigenous, I'm dene and metis. Your partners tribe, my people, and first nations all over turtle island suffered under a process of settler colonialism who undertook a process of genocide and cultural genocide from outside forces for the benefit of the settlers. This is materially different from what happened during the Cultural Revolution and your partner is conflating the two likely owing to these liberal brainworms they picked up from the academia and university and the wider propoganda effort against China.

Native Americans are human and therefore just as capable of libbing out as anyone. You could try comparing China’s support for indigenous languages / the number of people there who speak indigenous languages compared with the USA / how the cultural revolution (while perhaps excessive) was pretty different from the ongoing indigenous genocide in the USA since the cultural treasures destroyed in China were symbols of feudalism. But if they’re getting angry about this stuff it seems like they’ve already picked which side they’re on.

First and foremost: don't be a debate-dipshit with your partner.

Then you can discuss the chinese people choosing to burn down historical shit, and then you can ask her what is she talking about the Nepalese thing

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Sorry bud, your girlfriend is an idealist who is on the losing end of the 'culture war'. The fact that she values cultural artifacts over human lives means that she has already accepted defeat, as humans who are alive can always make more cultural artifacts, therefore their lives and causes always take presidence. Isis was bad because they were commiting religious terrorism against the people, not because they were blowing up Persian monuments (although historically that sucks too). Fighting to preserve the past is an academics game, not one of an activist who believes in the future.

As for the tibetans (not nepalese). There was no 'cultural genocide', there was a protracted civil war between the tibetan monarchists and the tibetan maoists, in which the maoists ended up making a deal to bring China in on their side and advocate for annexation (as it makes more sense economically to be connected with a country with a coast line than be landlocked and impoverished). Equating it to the actual genocide and shuffling of the Native Americans done by the U.S. is a gross misinterpretation of both histories. China often does have shitty foreign policy, often supporting stronger conservative factions over weaker, more strictly maoist ones, but the annexation of Tibet is arguably one of the few things they did that was good and was revolutionary correct, and the poverty reduction that has occured in Tibet as a result is a testament to that correct choice.

Firstly, I have no idea what they mean by Nepalese Cultural genocide. There was one in Bhutan but not in China. Maybe she is thinking of Tibet, in which case the counter arguments are easy?

Secondly, as an art historian, she will be aware that the purpose of most art is the reinforcement of cultural hegemony, the dictatorship of a social class and structure.

Ask her what should be done with art that has oppressive or otherwise negative cultural meaning? Should the Chinese have tolerated the existence of their equivalent of a Jefferson Davis statue? Should the French have kept up the statues of Louis XVI because some guy 300 years later might want to look at them, when Habsburg armies were breathing down their neck?

Perhaps closer to home, point out how she might feel about important western works that, despite having real artistic value are deeply racist to Native Americans (the opera Les Indes Galantes is one I can think of off the top of my head.) Should that still be performed as a historic artifact? Now imagine how Han Chinese and other Chinese peoples might feel about the Manchu dynasty, which was, after all, an occupying force over most of its territory, and then collaborated with the Fascists. Or about the many later warlords, most of whom were not native to the areas they controlled. Or, in the case of Tibet, the artistry and culture used to justify a bloody, horrifying theocracy that whatever mistakes China may have made afterwards, desperately needed to go.

As a general rule of thumb from my dumb ass who wouldn't exactly point to their own relationships as bona fides, nobody is asking you to change their mind. The most effective and easy change you can make is in your own approach and strategy. You'd probably have a happier relationship if you just listened to what they had to say with active listening and follow up questions instead of trying to be right at all and only give an opinion upon request. Do I think there's a piece of cultural memorabilia that's worth more than a human life? Fuck no, don't be ridiculous. Do I want a significant other? Yeah, kinda. Would I love you if you were a worm? Of course, babe.

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I’m not aware of accusations of a genocide against Nepalese but there are a wide range of accusations about a genocide against the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang province.

The accusation keeps changing over time being variously millions in gulag concentration camps, mass sterilizations, and claims of a “cultural genocide” or of assimilationist ethnic policies.

These are all false. When you look into these claims the evidence just isn’t there (eg you can’t actually hide millions of prisoners in concentration camps and it turns out there’s no sign of them), or sometimes there’s a kernel of truth that was grossly distorted (eg the claims of mass sterilization turned out to actually be the provision of free birth control aka providing healthcare).

Almost all of these claims are traced back to a religious zealot named Adrian Zenz in Germany who believes he was given a mission directly from God who he believes spoke to him telling him to free the Chinese from evil atheist communism and convert them to Christianity.

So this guy just makes shit up the BBC prints it because it’s state run media by a state that is seeking to defame China, and similarly these claims are run uncritically in the USA where the council on foreign affairs is nominally independent but functionally an arm of the state department.

Put simply, it’s propaganda and almost completely invented.

There was a heavy handed police crackdown against far right Islamic separatism in the region as Xinjiang province is located very near to Afghanistan, so a lot of the Al Qaida and ISIS style Islamic extremism merged with Uyghur separatism and so China did crack down pretty hard on Islamic extremists back in the 2000s and you could perhaps criticize this action as heavy handed or even authoritarian but it wasn’t a genocide. It was against Islamic extremism in the 2000s and you can read about it in the UN report, only around 10,000 were imprisoned which sounds about accurate for that kind of police action.

Anyway Adrian Zenz takes 10,000 or so people imprisoned and rounds that up to “millions”, and he takes the fact the Chinese government provides free healthcare services such as birth control and that’s “mass sterilizations”. The BBC and the council on foreign affairs are waging a propaganda war against their geopolitical enemy China and BAM you have 90% of the west convinced China is a genocidal regime.

They are motivated to make you think of China in the same sense as Nazi germany because they are building political support for military action against China. It’s the drums of war. That’s what it is. They want to get your blood up with righteous anger and demand that they destroy China. They want to attack China and so therefore they want you to demand they attack China.

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I'm just gonna play devil's advocate here and say the underlying sentiment to your girlfriend's opinion is valid because of their history between the settler state and First Nations. I think they're just missing some historical context to the difference between the current Chinese state and the US because there was no colonial project in the origins of modern China (arguably irridentist if you wanna be generous) and the popular origin of the Cultural Revolution being in youth movements' rejection of the policies of the state catering towards reactionary social/cultural institutions.

This maybe leads to a broader conversation to have about the nature of global imperialist capitalism eroding traditional cultural institutions in to fit the hegemonic culture (the US bloc) for economic security, similar to how in industrial capitalism the countryside moved to the cities and made people less religious or "traditional" but on a larger scale.

So do you like her, otherwise? I don't think there's a point where you could convince someone who is drawing genocide parallels of the opposite here. You either stick with this, people have their sore spots, or you bail.

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Uh what Nepalese genocide are they on about?

No offense to your gf but she shouldn't be talking about other groups without knowing bullcrap.