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- China’s collective memory of a century of humiliation by foreign powers, beginning with the First Opium War, has steeled its resolve
- American politicians just do not understand the power of national self-esteem that underpins China’s resilience, writes Leslie Fong
I would argue that it is their collective memory of the century of humiliation by foreign powers that began with the First Opium War (1839-1842), a period of unforgettable injury to national pride best captured in that infamous sign “Dogs and Chinese not allowed” which was hung at the entrance of a park in the so-called British concession inside Shanghai.
American politicians who think of relations between nations only in terms of transactions and deal-making just do not understand the power of national self-esteem that underpins China’s resilience – or the strength that the Chinese can draw from the depths of their soul.
Perhaps some of the hawks in the American establishment do get it, but just do not care. Doubtless, they believe America might will prevail, as it seems to have over the past few decades when the US rode roughshod over other countries.
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China’s leaders will fight this full-frontal assault on its sovereignty – to the bitter end, if need be. They have little choice. They know capitulation will undermine their rule. Worse, history will judge them harshly as sinners who have betrayed their nation just as it is poised to resume its rightful place in the world.
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They are not surprised that the West, especially the US, has acted, finally and with a vengeance, on its perception of China’s rise as a grave threat to its dominance of the world order. For the better part of two decades, they have been at pains to tell the world that China is not out to challenge anyone, and hope they will be believed. It is inconceivable that they have also not prepared for the worst.
Well, the worst has arrived – as proponents of American hegemony have decided that it is now or never to take China down while it is still vulnerable. And in the present occupant of the White House they have found their useful idiot, to use the Leninist term, to lead the battering, and take the blame if all hell breaks loose.
So what gives when the seemingly irresistible meets the immovable?
For the Americans, it is either doubling down or coming around, however reluctantly, to accepting that China will never cave in and that working out an arrangement in which both countries can cooperate as well as compete without disrupting the entire global economy and order is the next best option.
On the Chinese side, I think they think they can wait if they cannot find a compromise they can live with. Meanwhile, they will continue to look into history, if they have not already done so, for pointers to guide their future action.
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Apart from the First and Second Opium Wars – from which the chief lesson is that the weak must suffer what they must – there is also much to learn from the first Sino-Japanese war (July 1894 to April 1895). In that encounter, China under the Qing dynasty fought Japan after the latter invaded Korea, at that time a Chinese protectorate.
Despite numerical superiority in terms of fighting men and ships, China’s Beiyang Fleet was trounced. China ended up suing for peace and in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceded Taiwan and Penghu Island to Japan in perpetuity.
In addition, China had to pay 13,600 tonnes of silver to Japan as war reparations, equivalent to 4.6 times the Japanese government’s total annual revenue at that time.
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The second lesson is that China cannot hope to take on an encroaching foreign power if its own government is divided and corrupt, as the Qing court had long been at the time. Li Hongzhang, the leading official charged with warding off the Japanese, did not have the support of the still-influential Manchu princes as well as other officials, who carried on in their corrupt ways as though the war had nothing to do with them.
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Further, Li was then in his 70s, did not have the stamina necessary for so immense a task as going to war with a powerful enemy, knew little about strategy and foreign affairs, and had no planning and support staff to assist him in making decisions.
Further, Xi, who appears to be full of vigour and can call on the best minds in the nation of 1.4 billion, is not likely to repeat Li’s three grave mistakes. The first was Li’s forlorn hope for British and Russian intervention to stop the Japanese in Korea. Xi is not going to wait for any country to come openly to China’s aid in the fight against American hegemony.
Second, Li dillied and dallied when it came to dispatching the Beiyang Fleet as well as land forces to the Korean theatre, even when he knew war was going to be inevitable. That delay cost China dearly. And third, when forces were indeed deployed, his order was to preserve China’s battleships, not repel the Japanese armada before it came anywhere near Korean shores.
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Leslie Fong is a former editor of Singapore’s The Straits Times
