China Insight - January-February 2008

China: The Big Picture

Edited by Tony Lambert, OMF Director for China Research

China is now a global player, economically and politically. She has finally emerged from two centuries of weakness and humiliation to take her place in the world. Now, as America and Europe seem poised on the brink of a recession, China, with her vast currency and gold reserves, seems in a far healthier position than the profligate West, mired in debt. Now may be an opportune time to stand back and see the big picture.

To do this we need to go back a long time historically. China is not the most ancient civilization. If we accept that Shang dynasty civilization began to flourish about 1,750 bc, then both Egypt and Sumer are some two thousand years older. However, China has the distinction of being the oldest continuous civilization which has lasted nearly 4,000 years. Chinese characters in use today can be traced back to the Shang dynasty characters scratched on oracle bones and later inscribed on magnificent bronze vessels. Egyptian hieroglyphics have been extinct for nearly 2,000 years and cuneiform for even longer. In contrast, the Chinese written language has evolved and survived major changes in technology—from being written on turtle shells, to bronzes, to bamboo slats, to paper, and now to the Internet. Every attempt to replace the characters with romanization has failed, and some believe Chinese will soon take over from English as the majority language on the World Wide Web.

China is also the most ancient major nation state still in existence. In 221 bc Qin Shi Huangdi united the many warring states into one nation, ruthlessly unifying law, weights, writing and customs. Although that unity has often been dissolved since, it has always been recovered. The Roman Empire in the West established a vast empire which lasted 400-500 years, but was shattered by barbarian invasions, never to recover. Britain and France emerged as nations during the Dark Ages which followed, and their history can be traced back well over a thousand years. In 1987 Russia celebrated its millennium since Prince Vladimir of Kiev received the Christian faith. But Italy and Germany were not fully united until the 19th century. The United States has only just over 200 years of history as an independent nation. In contrast, the nation of China as a united country can boast of 2,200 years of history. Although the country often fractured into warring kingdoms (such as the famous Three Kingdoms of Wei, Wu and Shu after the collapse of the Later Han dynasty), strong rulers always eventually re-established centralized control.

During those long centuries, China defined itself against the many barbarian tribes from north of the Great Wall who periodically invaded. Sometimes they occupied only the north of the country (as during the Southern Song dynasty). At other times they occupied the entire country, as during the Mongol period. In fact, the last foreign dynasty, the Qing, set up by the Manchus in 1644, lasted until 1911. However, the northern nomads of the vast Mongolian steppe always eventually succumbed to the more sophisticated culture of their southern neighbor. This long struggle has etched itself deep into the national psyche. The concept of “Zhongguo”—the Central Kingdom—defines the national consciousness. Those dynasties, such as the Han, Tang and Ming, when China was strong and independent, evoke national pride. Conversely, the century (1840-1949) when China was weak and bullied by the Western powers stirs up anger and resentment. The Opium War and the burning of the Summer Palace have not been forgotten, nor forgiven.

Chinese culture, philosophy and religion date back to even before the country was united in 221 bc. Confucius (551-479 bc) founded a school of philosophy which formed the ideological foundation for the Chinese Empire for more than 2,000 years. Confucianism, with its innate conservatism and respect for tradition and authority, has molded the Chinese character and appears to be re-asserting itself after the onslaught it suffered during the Mao years. China’s literary culture is also very much alive. An Englishman may quote Shakespeare’s works, a mere 400 years old, and much less frequently Chaucer, some 600 years ago. But Chinese regularly refer to poetry, stories and histories dating back over 2,000 years. The Shiji (Historical Annals) of Sima Qian written c120 bc established a pattern of historiography and moral judgement on corrupt rulers which extended even into the Mao period. This literary and cultural heritage is extraordinarily rich. It created a highly literate Confucian scholar class, whose heirs are the present-day Chinese intellectuals. They are conscious of their responsibility to the nation in a way perhaps not shared by intellectuals elsewhere.

China exported this Confucian culture to other Far Eastern nations, notably Japan, Korea and Vietnam, and created a much wider sphere of cultural and political influence with many nations such as Siam, Burma etc. who sent regular tribute and engaged in trade. Expansion to the West along the Silk Road brought Buddhist, later Muslim, kingdoms in Central Asia into the Chinese political orbit. Today China is re-asserting its interest in Central Asia for its vast mineral wealth and strategic location. The many trade and cultural treaties established by China with modern Central Asian and East Asian states follow a long tradition which can be traced back to the Tang and even Han emperors.

If one takes a birdseye view of the last 2,000 years of human history, China was often at the forefront in terms of cultural and political influence. In the first two centuries after Christ, the Han dynasty was easily comparable to the Roman Empire in the West in terms of area of political influence and cultural sophistication. This is too often ignored by Western scholars.

In 221 ad the Han dynasty collapsed, and in 410 ad Rome was sacked by the Goths. However, in 589 ad China was re-united under the short-lived Sui dynasty which was followed by the three glorious centuries of the Tang dynasty (618-906 ad). During those centuries the Tang was rivaled in the West only by the glories of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire, and of Baghdad, capital of the resurgent Muslim Abbasid caliphate which flourished roughly simultaneously to the Tang. Western Europe, in contrast, was only slowly and painfully emerging from the catastrophic collapse of the Roman Empire of the West and the barbarian invasions.

The Tang Emperors at their apogee conducted an “open door” policy in regard to trade and foreign religion and culture. Chang’an, the capital and starting point for the Silk Road, was “probably the world’s greatest and most cosmopolitan city” (to quote a British China scholar) during those centuries. Zoroastrians, Manichaeans, Muslims, Buddhists and Nestorian Christians mingled with merchants from the Central Asian kingdoms of Bactria, Sogdiana and Persia and Baghdad.

The Tang collapsed in 906 ad to be followed by three centuries of war, barbarian invasion and competing minor dynasties. The Song dynasty (960-1279 ad) only partially united the country. After 1127 ad it controlled only the southern part of the country, with the north ruled by the Juchen invaders. However, although politically weak, Song China with its capital at Hangzhou was the wonder of the world. Even in its decadence on the eve of the Mongol invasions, Marco Polo was amazed by the glories of Chinese culture. Venice had little to compare, and when he returned and wrote his famous Travels, many Europeans refused to believe him.

Marco Polo also witnessed the court of the Great Khan Khublai after the Mongols had conquered all of China. The Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279-1368 ad), although from the “barbarian” north, soon adapted to Chinese culture and customs. Under their rule, Beijing first became the capital of the whole of China and already one of the greatest cities in the world.

The Ming dynasty (1368-1643 ad) was roughly contemporary to the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe. At its start, China was still probably ahead of Europe in terms of cultural achievement, but by its close, Europe was ahead in terms of science and technology. When the eunuch Zheng He led his famous fleet of giant ships around the South China Sea and Indian Ocean as far as Zanzibar in seven voyages between 1405 and 1433, he went with imperial patronage. His first voyage to Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka and India consisted of 28,000 men in 62 huge vessels. The scale of these vessels and voyages dwarfed the more famous voyage of Columbus to the New World some 90 years later.

By 1450 Zheng He’s fleet were rotting hulks and the Ming emperors forbade further voyages. Some have speculated that if Zheng He had been permitted to travel further, the Chinese would have “discovered” Europe. Their huge treasure junks sailing up the Thames or the Seine would have astonished the citizens of late medieval Europe. However, it was not to be. We may take the failure of China to capitalize upon Zheng He’s voyages as a symbolic sign of a greater underlying weakness which led China into a period of catastrophic decline just when the West was poised to forge ahead through the Age of Exploration into the Industrial Revolution. Why did the West storm ahead to world domination in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, leaving China lagging behind? We turn to this important question in our next edition of China Insight.
Copyright 2007 OMF International