Sir, Mure Dickie's discussion of the "Sinification" of Genghis Khan, in his report on the redevelopment as a tourist site of the emperor's "mausoleum" in Inner Mongolia's Ordos prefecture ("China claims Genghis Khan as one of its own", December 29) could be misleading if readers assume the Mongol ruler was buried there. In fact, the true location of his final resting place remains unknown.

Legend has it that while riding with his command one glorious day over the Ordos steppeland, the khan dropped his quirt, and when someone made to retrieve it, ordered it to be left where it fell, declaring he wished to be buried here where his heart was most at home.

Though he died on his final campaign against the Xixia, his body was not carried off until a month later, after they had been utterly destroyed.

It was summer and the Mongol forces were far from home. Because some source records indicate that Genghis Khan's people descended from one of the tribes resident originally in north-eastern China, it is comprehensible that scholars today will claim Chinese origin for him.

What is topsyturvy about Mr Dickie's commentary is its argument that Beijing is pouring subsidies into Inner Mongolia to "communise" it, when what seems rather the case, so far as those have had on-the-spot dealings for projects have learned, is that the Inner Mongolian autonomous region is wagging the dog, extracting funds from the central government to promote its own interest, much as is the case with modern countries around the globe.

Jascha Kessler,

Professor of English and Modern Literature, 

UCLA,

Los Angeles, CA 90095, US

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