China Awakens

In the early 19th century when China was still admired by intellectuals in the West, Napoleon remarked, "China is a sleeping giant. Let it sleep, for when it awakens, it will astonish the world." That moment has finally arrived, and the nations of the West are not sure whether China is ultimately a friend or a foe.

Answering that question must take into account both China's past unhappy relations with the West (resentments) and some aspects of its brilliant 2,000-year-old Confucian culture (lingering heritage.) Without such considerations, any analysis of future relations looks essentially at the future as mere questions of economic tensions, military power and hegemonic ambitions.

Understanding China's resentments requires an examination of two factors that together (the "Western Impact") make that nation's relations with the West unique: 1) the distinctive mistreatment of China by Western nations beginning in the 19th century and 2) the consequent quasi-destruction of a remarkable civilization developed over 4,000 years. Both contribute to China's psychological sense of grievance.

The most egregious example of Western mistreatment is Britain's attack on China in 1842 to force it to permit unlimited importation of opium, reaching the astounding cumulative total of 800,000,000 pounds by 1899. In that period, China experienced a full share of the negative aspects of colonialism but none of the positive ones. The contrast with India is instructive. In India, the British took control of the country and exploited it. In China, no one took control, but the Western nations individually extorted concessions from the Chinese by treaty, and thanks to most favored nation clauses, whatever one nation extorted from the hapless Chinese redounded to the benefit of all.

Both India and China suffered exploitation, but only India gained some benefits. When the British departed from India, they left behind, for instance, a well-trained modern civil service and an extensive railway system. No Western nation trained Chinese civil servants, and none built a large railroad system. On balance it was probably more advantageous to be an outright colony than to retain a powerless national independence. The abuse that China experienced in the 19th century still rankles the proud Chinese.

Although many historians capably describe the Western mistreatment of China, they hardly mention the resentment some Chinese feel from the quasi-destruction of a culture that had stood at the forefront of world civilization for millennia. (The term "quasi" is used deliberately. Those aspects of the culture not destroyed by the Western Impact are the lingering heritage that statesmen today should also take into account in analyzing China–to which we turn three paragraphs below.)

Chinese civilization had usually been in the vanguard of world civilization for over 2,000 years–the richest, most populous of civilizations. Statesmen today need an understanding of the nature of that civilization, significantly dismantled by Western arms and the introduction of culture more appropriate to a modern society than to a traditional agricultural society like China. Western political creeds, education, science, mathematics and industrialism rendered China's own way of life obsolete. Here the contrast with Islamic civilization is instructive. The Islamic Golden Age of advances in philosophy, science, art, and architecture ended with the Mongol conquest of Baghdad hundreds of years before Islamic lands suffered Western exploitation. The West did not cause the decline of Islamic civilization. The West was, by contrast, a major cause of the rapid decline of Chinese civilization from power and splendor to impotence and derision.

Both Western exploitation and cultural destruction reverberate, consciously and unconsciously, in the Chinese psyche today and are likely to influence future decisions of Chinese leaders. China suffered a compound fracture. In this respect, it is unique in the present world. The West should be very careful not to aggravate those feelings of resentment. Welcoming China into a significant role in peace-keeping in the modern world is likely to prove more rewarding than viewing China as a potential threat. China's reaching great power status is now inevitable.

In addition, some aspects of China's brilliant civilization–the lingering heritage–may also play a role in the decisions of China's leaders. An evaluation of China's political stance, for example, should take into account China's long tradition of authoritarian government. Democracy has essentially never existed in China; yet China was long perhaps the most sophisticated of civilized nations. China's great contribution to political theory, the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven, the first theory of justifiable revolution against tyranny, serves today as a warning to China's leaders that present rampant corruption threatens the regime. Thus, the lingering heritage serves as a backdrop to contemporary anti-corruption campaigns.

Lingering heritage affects the economy as well. An evaluation of the future nature of China's economy should recognize that after thousands of years of experience with government monopolies, particularly in the salt and iron industries, there is little likelihood that China will develop a totally market economy. An evaluation of China's future financial strength should also take into account the traditional reliance on family for one's security in old age. China has already taken modest steps to liberalize its one-child policy, allowing the creation of families of larger size. Such an event could lift a significant financial burden from the government in the future if the next generation of elderly can count on larger families, nuclear and extended, to support them.

An evaluation of China's traditional attitudes toward other countries should also help inform policy makers as to prospects of war between China and the United States. China has not aggressively annexed territory for the last 1,500 years without ostensibly legitimate reasons.

The themes of China's resentments and lingering heritage appear throughout this account, though to differing degrees in different parts of the book.

The first part of the book surveys the first 4,000 years of Chinese history (2070 B.C.E. to 1911 C.E.), elucidating China's extraordinary heritage. Knowledge of China's civilization, especially the last 2,000 years, is important today to statesmen and businessmen, for many features of and attitudes derived from that civilization endure and potentially influence the actions and attitudes of China's leaders and people today. Many aspects of culture are slow to change.

The second part of the book examines China's...