Source:
https://scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3011650/cathay-pacifics-link-once-powerful-people
Post Magazine/ Short Reads

Cathay Pacific’s link to once powerful people of northern China – how the mighty have fallen

The Liao dynasty was ruled by the Khitan people, a great and mighty nomadic group whose name was passed on to medieval Europe as Cathay

The logo of Cathay Pacific Airways, Hong Kong’s flag carrier. Photo: AFP

Given that I am based in southern China, I often avail myself of the services of Cathay Pacific Airways to, well, “move beyond”. The choice is made more by default rather than preference. Cathay Pacific is a fairly good airline that doesn’t stand out in any particular way in terms of service or comfort, but it does offer the greatest connectivity to other parts of the world.

Although a household name in Hong Kong, the collocation of the two words “Cathay” and “Pacific” is rather incongruous if one delves into the origins of the word “Cathay”, an old English name for China. It originates from the word “Khitan”, the name of a seminomadic people infamous in Chinese history for their warlike savagery, a people for whom the word “Pacific” is patently ill-suited.

The Khitan regarded the Liao River, in the present-day province of Liaoning, as their ancestral homeland. They are mentioned in early Chinese records but it was in 916, when their leader, Yelü Abaoji, crushed his foes and unified the tribes of his people, that the Khitan people rose to prominence. In that year, Yelü Abaoji declared himself emperor of the Great State of Khitan.

Subsequently, the Khitan state, also known as the Liao dynasty, expanded its territories by waging war on its neighbours. The Khitan were feared, especially among the Chinese to the south, for their ferocity on the battlefield and their cruelty as captors. Their repeated raids on Chinese civilians across the border, and the carnage that they caused, also made them a hated enemy nation.

Khitan eagle hunters.
Khitan eagle hunters.

One can therefore imagine the shame suffered by the Chinese in 936, when their ruler, the Later Jin dynasty’s Emperor Gaozu, ceded a large swathe of land in northern China known as the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun to the Khitan, and worse, debased the entire Chinese nation by referring to himself as “son-emperor” vis-à-vis his “father-emperor”, Yelü Deguang, the son and successor of Abaoji.

Based on their military might and the inspired leadership of their rulers, a few of whom were women, the Khitan became such a powerful state that their name spread far and wide. Muslim writers in Central Asia and Persia referred to them as Khitai or Khitay, a name that passed on to medieval Europe as Cathay. Although the Khitan ruled only the northern half of China, Cathay was often used as a name for China in Europe, even after the fall of the Khitan state, which came in early 12th century.

The Khitan state was by then imploding with inept rulers and internecine strife. Just as they had risen in the north and became a threat to the Chinese nation two hundred years before, a new group of people, the Jurchen, were now becoming powerful to Khitan’s north, in what is now the northeast provinces of China. In 1125, its last emperor was captured by the Jurchen, putting an end to the once powerful Khitan state. Remnants of the royal family fled westwards, where they founded the state of Qara Khitai, or Western Liao, with its capital in present-day Kyrgyzstan. That, too, was eventually vanquished by the Mongols in 1218.

The Khitan people were largely assimilated into other nations like the Han Chinese, Mongols and peoples of Central Asia, but DNA tests have shown that the Daur people, numbering only about 132,000, in present-day Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang are likely the direct descendants of the Khitan. A once great and mighty people, which once inspired fear in the hearts of men, are today a tiny ethnic minority, and live on in the name of an insipid airline based out of Hong Kong. How the mighty have fallen indeed.