Despite ominous pronouncements made about “foreign forces” supporting the Occupy movement in Hong Kong, we still don’t know who or what these shady individuals and/or organisations are.
China’s history is replete with cases of its own people seeking foreign help to settle scores with a fellow countryman, often with disastrous results.
In 771BC, the lord of the state of Shen invited the Quanrong to attack the capital of the Zhou dynasty, Haojing (in modern-day Shaanxi province), promising them a share in the spoils of war. The Shen lord, who was the father-in-law of King You, of the Zhou, wanted to avenge his disgraced daughter and grandson, who had been stripped of their royal titles, and reinstate them as queen and crown prince, respectively. The Shen lord believed that with the help of the fierce Quanrong, or “dog marauders”, so-named for their canine tribal totem, he could press the king into meeting his demands. What he had not counted on, however, was that the Quanrong, once unleashed, could not be controlled. They killed the king and plundered the capital, reducing it to waste. The new Zhou king, the Shen lord’s grandson, had no choice but to relocate his capital to Luoyang, in the east.