he NEVER made it to china

What is being overlooked here is the ENORMOUS language barrier which existed in any type of long distant travel especially at that time. This took place almost a MILLENNIUM ago. The vast majority of people in the world at that time were illiterate
and most could barley speak their own language properly. That alone would account for a large portion of misrepresentations. The accounts of anybody doing something which no other person has ever done are always subject to question, even often now. The leaders of large groups at that time, pretty much had the power too say and interpret anything they wanted to. Meaning, who knows what the Khan or other high ranking people said or directed to Polo about a lot of things and their word would not be challenged. Because of the language problem Polo may have become confused about many things he experienced or looked into on his own. Things like how long he stayed their and who he encounted would be up for question no matter what.

I live in China and I can tell that every Chinese know about Marco Polo. His book, written by Rustichello, reports travels made by him and by his father and uncle before him.
May be there are not official reports in the Chinese history about him because he was considered a low level person and because he was at the court of Mongols and not Chinese but every city in China has an Hotel called Marco Polo and many Cities have a statue with Marco Polo see https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVvy13TRVfnQAER0nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N25ndmVnBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwNF8x?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-mozilla-004&va=marco+polo+china+statue&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-004e

I live in China and I can tell that every Chinese know about Marco Polo. His book, written by Rustichello, reports travels made by him and by his father and uncle before him.
May be there are not official reports in the Chinese history about him because he was considered a low level person and because he was at the court of Mongols and not Chinese but every city in China has an Hotel called Marco Polo and many Cities have a statue with Marco Polo see https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVvy13TRVfnQAER0nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0N25ndmVnBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwNF8x?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-mozilla-004&va=marco+polo+china+statue&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-004e

Marco Polo got far too many things right for his account to be discarded out of hand. Furthermore, his travel account was not written as a scholarly account, it was written as a novel for entertainment purposes and even this was not authored by himself but by a professional writer in his name.

We have no transcript of Polo's and Rustichello's conversations on the subject of China, we have no surviving early drafts made by Rustichello, we have in other words absolutely no friggin' idea what else Marco Polo could have said to Rustichello that for whatever reason did not make it into the published book.

For all that we know, Marco Polo may have mentioned both chopsticks and tea (in fact, some manuscripts variants do apparently mention tea) but our assumption that this should have been included in any description of China is a modern one which is a result of our contemporary knowledge and familiarity of Chinese culture that may not have been so obvious to a European in the 13th century.

As for Marco Polo not being mentioned in official records, well, we do as a matter of fact know that there were other Venetian traders active in China around the same time who never got mentioned either. Possibly either Marco Polo himself, or Rustichello in his name, exaggerated his importance at the court (as one would expect, tbh) and either way this was a turbulent time of warfare, among which Marco Polo's presence would have seemed like a minor detail.

As for Chinese archives, in a culture of wooden buildings, amidst decades-long warfare, how can anyone be so certain that a document with his name should have survived all natural and man-made calamities? The Chinese may have been meticulous record-keepers but surely there must be a heck of a lot that's lost even to them.

Nevertheless, although Marco Polo isn't explicitly mentioned by name in any surviving Chinese document, the mention of three Europeans (i.e. Marco Polo, his father and his uncle) and their mission to deliver the Mongolian princess Kokachin to Persia does actually survive in an extant document and fits perfectly with Marco Polo's story. Also, let's not forget that Marco Polo's account is the first ever European account to mention the existence of Japan, which would only make sense if he had actually been at the Mongol court during the time period when invasion attempts were contemplated and attempted.

This article is absolute *beep* I don't know rather or not Marco Polo made it to Asia but the article you linked has nothing to do with anything. The section (as in the single paragraph) on Polo doesn't even say anything specific, it's a diatribe on how facts get lost through history and some *beep* that supposedly happens never happens.
It rests it's entire case on a single sentence. "Some scholars say.." And that's it. It literally says nothing about Marco Polo other than some scholars think he stole other merchants word-of-mouth tales and inserted himself into it so he could sell it. Maybe he did, but this article is stupid as hell. The entire paragraph has two sentences relating to Marco Polo and the rest is basically gibberish. The rest of the 'chapters' seem equally useless and void of any actual facts or evidence.

And what do the photos even have to do with anything? This article is gibberish no wonder people are so dumb these days.

I'm only basing this off of the show, but he did go to some of China (those parts the Mongols had conquered) and spied on that last stronghold, wherever that was. I'm sure the second season stuff about him finding the boy emperor were b.s., but who knows?

Yes, he may have gone and got stuff wrong or he may have never set foot there and just guessed or repeated what he was told as if he had experienced it himself. Who will know? History has a way of getting lost or told by only the victors.