“The production team was also banned from wearing traditional Mongolian dress in public.”

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The shutdown follows growing restrictions on Mongolian culture in China by Beijing.

Inner Mongolian activists say the Chinese government is systematically wiping out Mongolian culture and assimilating its shrinking population into the Han Chinese majority.

Beijing says it has lifted education and living standards across a region that has seen double-digit economic growth for most of the past two decades.

In May, activists claim Chinese police arrested prominent Inner Mongolian writer Lhamjab Borjigin, who had been living in exile in Mongolia’s capital Ulaanbaatar, and deported him to China.

In June, herders in Zaruud region were run over when they attempted to block the takeover of their pastures by a Chinese company.

Then in September, all Mongolian-language schools in Inner Mongolia were ordered to switch to teaching in Chinese. The order followed years of Mongolian language classes being reduced and teachers being forced into exile.

“War and killing is one thing, but losing one’s own identity, that’s worse,” former Mongolian language teacher Balijinima Bai told this masthead in exile in Ulaanbaatar in July.

Regional officials told local leaders earlier this year that schools must “build Chinese national consciousness and community, and deepen education in national unity”.

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The dispute over The Mongol Khan now threatens to further strain relations between China and Mongolia.

Ulaanbaatar has been careful to manage its relationship with its superpower neighbour and largest trading partner as it attempts to diversify its economic partnerships and grows wary of Beijing’s crackdown on ethnic Mongolians living in China.

The Mongolian government has invested heavily in The Mongol Khan as part of an international public relations campaign to pull in investment and tourism.

So far, the reviews have been positive, with the London Telegraph suggesting it might be “the next Lion King”.

But the showcase of Mongolian culture angered Chinese authorities which requested the removal of references to the Hun (Hunnu Empire) and Khan (which means king in Mongolian) from the script.

The Mongol leader Genghis Khan conquered Beijing in 1215, leading to the largest contiguous land empire in history.

It ushered in a period of Mongol rule that is also viewed as a historical blight on the nation by some Han Chinese nationalists who have been emboldened by growing patriotism under President Xi Jinping.

In 2020, Chinese authorities demanded that a museum in the French city of Nantes delete words, including Genghis Khan, empire and Mongol from their exhibition on Genghis Khan.

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The show was put on hold for three years but is due to open in Nantes next month.

The director of The Mongol Khan, Hero Baatar, said despite the setbacks in China he was now more determined than ever to bring the production to London.

“This will be the first time any Mongolian production has been performed anywhere in Europe,” he said.