It was only a couple of short years ago that Chinese people smashed Japanese businesses in Shanghai and marched on the embassy in Beijing over former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine and the use of school history textbooks that Chinese people felt washed over Japanese atrocities during World War II.

Well, how the tables have turned. While we know certain facets of Chinese history (ahem... like a little demonstration in a big square in 1989) are omitted from local history textbooks, the Chinese government is taking it one step further.

China is getting ready to open a museum on Tibetan history, and one in which the Dalai Lama will be edited out:

"He will not appear after 1959," said Lian Xiangmin, a Chinese scholar involved in the museum, referring to the year the Tibetan spiritual leader fled to India after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. "This is a Tibet museum, and we don't recognize him as part of Tibet anymore."

The problem with this, of course, is China's version of "history" and "reality" are becoming far more distant and isolated from the rest of the world. And that leads to misunderstandings like we're witnessing now.

(Photo of Chairman Mao with the Dalai Lama (right) and Panchen Lama from the New York Times)