I have two questions

1) Is this revisionism?
2) Would the US ever accept that it's history (at least the columbus bit) is wrong?

I'm not saying, not even by a long shot, that this map is real (it's as fake as my 99 cent copy of Lord of the Rings), but even if China could produce the original map, on Carbon dateable material, made with carbon dateable ink, and accompanied by who knows what else that would be indesputable to modern science, is there even a remote chance that America would accept it as being genuine?

One of the giveaways is that the Zheng He's ships have a golden M on the sails

Re: ABC's comment. 1. History is always subject to revisionism.
2. Why wouldn't "America" accept it as real if it was proven to be so beyond a scientific doubt? Few, if any, Americans have no problem with the fact that the Norse predated Columbus's discovery, for instance.
Many of us are more educated and open-minded than you may suspect.
Of course, I have to admit that there are also the boneheads in the US who think the world is 6,000 years old and that it was created in 6 days...I don't think they'd be comfortable with a Chinese Columbus.

why does it matter, even if the map is true, zheng he is just someone between the nativs american and the white.
either judge by the first discoverer (native american) or the current occupiers (mainly whites, and more recent immigrant), zhenghe's alleged trip bears no implication whether it is incorporated by the US textbook or not.
it is no different than a bird fly by without laying egg or even some dropping.

I am with Sun Bin on this one. China's rise today has very little to do indeed with Zheng He or indeed any other notables of the Ming dynasty.

Please make the Zheng He issue go away! Why does everyone think this is so important, even if the proof is there that he globetrotted (which he didn't?)

I would like everyone to read an excellent book - the Adventures of Ibn Battuta, a 14th century Muslim traveler that visited much of the known old world, which at that time, a great deal of it was under Islamic influence. A fascinating book. travelling by land and sea, in total distance he must have covered the world.

Justin:

My comment comes because, in my experience, America tends to intensly dislike any attempts at revisionism, no matter how justified.

I hold up the example of 'Native Americans' (indians, or whatever you like to call them). American history records them as coming over on land bridges from Asia around the end of the ice age, yet there is indisputable scientific evidence (including Carbon 14 dating and forensic reconstructions) that non Asians were present in the US long before the end of the ice age.

During the 90s, they dug up a skeleton of a non-Asian human male in a river, it carbon dated back to significantly earlier than any known Asian-Indian remains and did not match up to the facial or genetic structure of any known native American tribes of Asian decent. A Revelation in history? No.

Federal authoriteis confiscated the body and presented it to a local native American tribe for berial, despite it pre-dating them by thousends of years and having no genetic relationship to them.

Similarly, there is pretty good evidence to show that George Washington had a number of black children with a servent, yet most of their decendents are denied official recognition despite DNA evidence.

The list goes on.

No offense, but American hisotry is full of events where it should have been revised, but it wasn't and those who tried to revise it were denounced.

I just can't see Columbus day being scrapped for Zheng day.

Imagine that, America celebrating a Chinese eunec, it'd never happen in a millien years.

opps, maybe I should add that the argument wasn't whether native Americans are not decended from Asians who crossed over on a land bridge near the end of the ice age, but whether or not they were the first human settlers in America.

I think that the earliest accepted date in Us books is 13,000 years ago, but the true (revisionist) date is 16,000 years ago.

Don't forget he was a Muslim, too. Makes it even more unlikely.

ACB, your point is irrelevent and seems to betray an irrational disdain for the US.

First off, most people don't give a damn about Columbus day in the US, except that it gives them a day off from school. Furthermore, the historical perception of Columbus in the US has been in a steady state of revision.

But regardless of whether a Chinese guy set foot on the Americas, Columbus would still be the guy who brought that knowledge back to Europe, which led the way to the European exploration and colonies that ultimately drastically changed the continent and led to the creation of the US.

It's like, if you could prove that some guy invented a silicon chip in his barn in 1824 and then buried it, it wouldn't really change the significance of its development in the 20th century.