Book review: Wealth and Power
How you understand and translate the Chinese phrase zhongguo says much about what you think about China, and the presuppositions and biases you entertain about it. Quite simply, it means "China". But if you analyse the two constituent characters that make it up, it may be translated either as "the Chinese nation" or "the middle kingdom".
How you understand and translate the Chinese phrase zhongguo says much about what you think about China, and the presuppositions and biases you entertain about it. Quite simply, it means "China". But if you analyse the two constituent characters that make it up, it may be translated either as "the Chinese nation" or "the middle kingdom".
The former translation is modern and politically neutral, just another country's name, such as Britain, Japan or the United States. However, quite often, "the middle kingdom" is used in the western media to hint at Chinese chauvinism and isolationism.
In Wealth and Power, zhongguo is translated as "the central kingdom". You could argue "central" is a more accurate translation for zhong than "middle" because it is not geographic centrality, but political and civilisational centrality that is key to understanding the exalted position in which Chinese rulers had over the centuries placed their empire in relation to the rest of the world.
It was from this exalted height that China fell after its defeat in the First Opium War. The resulting psychic trauma inflicted on generations of the nation's ruling elite and intelligentsia form the main themes of this book: the humiliation by the western powers and Japan, and the self-belief in national rejuvenation through wealth and power.
This is a familiar tale. But what is different here is that Orville Schell and John Delury pick 11 Chinese whom they identify as "reformers" from the time of the Qing dynasty to China today to tell this story of national collapse and revival.