On China (71 page)

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Authors: Henry Kissinger

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20
Ross Terrill,
The New Chinese Empire
(New York: Basic Books, 2003), 46.
21
Fairbank and Goldman,
China
, 28, 68–69.
22
Masataka Banno,
China and the West, 1858–1861: The Origins of the Tsungli Yamen
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964), 224–25; Mancall,
China at the Center,
16–17.
23
Banno,
China and the West,
224–28; Jonathan Spence,
The Search for Modern China
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 197.
24
Owen Lattimore, “China and the Barbarians,” in Joseph Barnes, ed.,
Empire in the East
(New York: Doubleday, 1934), 22.
25
Lien-sheng Yang, “Historical Notes on the Chinese World Order,” in Fairbank, ed.,
The Chinese World Order,
33.
26
As excerpted in G. V. Melikhov, “Ming Policy Toward the Nüzhen (1402–1413),” in S. L. Tikhvinsky, ed.,
China and Her Neighbors: From Ancient Times to the Middle Ages
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1981), 209.
27
Ying-shih Yü,
Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 37.
28
Immanuel C. Y. Hsü,
China’s Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858–1880
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 9.
29
Thus the extension of Chinese sovereignty over Mongolia (both “Inner” and, at various points of Chinese history, “Outer”) and Manchuria, the respective founts of the foreign conquerors that founded the Yuan and Qing Dynasties.
30
For enlightening discussions of these themes, and a fuller explanation of the rules of
wei qi,
see David Lai, “Learning from the Stones: A
Go
Approach to Mastering China’s Strategic Concept,
Shi
” (Carlisle, Pa.: United States Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2004); and David Lai and Gary W. Hamby, “East Meets West: An Ancient Game Sheds New Light on U.S.-Asian Strategic Relations,”
Korean Journal of Defense Analysis
14, no. 1 (Spring 2002).
31
A convincing case has been made that
The Art of War
is the work of a later (though still ancient) author during the Warring States period, and that he sought to imbue his ideas with greater legitimacy by backdating them to the era of Confucius. These arguments are summarized in Sun Tzu,
The Art of War
, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), Introduction, 1–12; and Andrew Meyer and Andrew Wilson, “
Sunzi Bingfa
as History and Theory,” in Bradford A. Lee and Karl F. Walling, eds.,
Strategic Logic and Political Rationality: Essays in Honor of Michael Handel
(London: Frank Cass, 2003).
32
Sun Tzu,
The Art of War,
trans. John Minford (New York: Viking, 2002), 3.
33
Ibid., 87–88.
34
Ibid., 14–16.
35
Ibid., 23.
36
Ibid., 6.
37
In Mandarin Chinese, “
shi
” is pronounced roughly the same as “sir” with a “sh.” The Chinese character combines the elements of “cultivate” and “strength.”
38
Kidder Smith, “The Military Texts: The
Sunzi
,” in Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom, eds.,
Sources of Chinese Tradition,
vol. 1,
From Earliest Times to 1600
, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 215. The Chinese author Lin Yutang explained
shi
as an aesthetic and philosophic notion of what a situation “is going to become . . . the way the wind, rain, flood or battle looks for the future, whether increasing or decreasing in force, stopping soon or continuing indefinitely, gaining or losing, in what direction [and] with what force.” Lin Yutang,
The Importance of Living
(New York: Harper, 1937), 442.
39
See Joseph Needham and Robin D. S. Yates,
Science and Civilisation in China
, vol. 5, part 6: “Military Technology Missiles and Sieges” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 33–35, 67–79.
40
See Lai and Hamby, “East Meets West,” 275.
41
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
The Philosophy of History
, trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances Simon, as quoted in Spence,
The Search for Modern China
, 135–36.
Chapter 2: The Kowtow Question and the Opium War
1
The story of Qing expansion in “inner Asia” under a series of exceptionally able Emperors is related in rich detail in Peter Perdue,
China Marches West: The Qing Conquest of Central Eurasia
(Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2005).
2
See J. L. Cranmer-Byng, ed.,
An Embassy to China: Being the journal kept by Lord Macartney during his embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793–1794
(London: Longmans, Green, 1962), Introduction, 7–9 (citing the
Collected Statutes
of the Qing dynasty).
3
“Lord Macartney’s Commission from Henry Dundas” (September 8, 1792), in Pei-kai Cheng, Michael Lestz, and Jonathan Spence, eds.,
The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 93–96.
4
Ibid., 95.
5
Macartney’s Journal, in
An Embassy to China,
87–88.
6
Ibid., 84–85.
7
Alain Peyrefitte,
The Immobile Empire
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 508.
8
Macartney’s Journal, in
An Embassy to China
, 105.
9
Ibid., 90.
10
Ibid., 123.
11
Ibid.
12
See Chapter 1, “The Singularity of China,” page 21.
13
Macartney’s Journal, in
An Embassy to China
, 137.
14
Qianlong’s First Edict to King George III (September 1793), in Cheng, Lestz, and Spence, eds.,
The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection
, 104–6.
15
Qianlong’s Second Edict to King George III (September 1793), in Cheng, Lestz, and Spence, eds.,
The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection
, 109.
16
Macartney’s Journal, in
An Embassy to China,
170.
17
Angus Maddison,
The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective
(Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2006), Appendix B, 261, Table B–18, “World GDP, 20 Countries and Regional Totals, 0–1998 A.D.”
18
See Jonathan Spence,
The Search for Modern China
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 149–50 ; Peyrefitte,
The Immobile Empire
, 509–11; Dennis Bloodworth and Ching Ping Bloodworth,
The Chinese Machiavelli: 3000 Years of Chinese Statecraft
(New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976), 280.
19
Peter Ward Fay,
The Opium War, 1840–1842
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), 68.
20
Peyrefitte,
The Immobile Empire
, xxii.
21
“Lin Tse-hsü’s Moral Advice to Queen Victoria, 1839,” in Ssu-yü Teng and John K. Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 26.
22
Ibid., 26–27.
23
Ibid., 25–26.
24
“Lord Palmerston to the Minister of the Emperor of China” (London, February 20, 1840), as reprinted in Hosea Ballou Morse,
The International Relations of the Chinese Empire
, vol. 1,
The Period of Conflict, 1834–1860
, part 2 (London: Longmans, Green, 1910), 621–24.
25
Ibid., 625.
26
Memorial to the Emperor, as translated and excerpted in Franz Schurmann and Orville Schell, eds.,
Imperial China: The Decline of the Last Dynasty and the Origins of Modern China, the 18th and 19th Centuries
(New York: Vintage, 1967), 146–47.
27
E. Backhouse and J. O. P. Bland,
Annals and Memoirs of the Court of Peking
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), 396.
28
Tsiang Ting-fu,
Chung-kuo chin tai shih
[
China’s Modern History
] (Hong Kong: Li-ta Publishers, 1955), as translated and excerpted in Schurmann and Schell, eds.,
Imperial China
, 139.
29
Ibid., 139–40.
30
Maurice Collis,
Foreign Mud: Being an Account of the Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the Anglo-Chinese War That Followed
(New York: New Directions, 1946), 297.
31
See Teng and Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West
, 27–29.
32
Immanuel C. Y. Hsü,
The Rise of Modern China
, 6th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 187–88.
33
Spence,
The Search for Modern China
, 158.
34
John King Fairbank,
Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842–1854
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969), 109–12.
35
“Ch’i-ying’s Method for Handling the Barbarians, 1844,” as translated in Teng and Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West
, 38–39.
36
Ibid., 38. See also Hsü,
The Rise of Modern China
, 208–9. A copy of this memorial was discovered years later in the British capture of an official residence in Guangzhou. Disgraced by its revelation during an 1858 negotiation with British representatives, Qiying fled. For fleeing an official negotiation without authorization, Qiying was sentenced to death. Deference to his elite stature was made, and he was “permitted” to perform the deed himself with a silken bowstring.
37
Meadows,
Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China
, in Schurmann and Schell, eds.,
Imperial China,
148–49.
38
See Morse,
The International Relations of the Chinese Empire
, vol. 1, part 2, 632–36.
39
See ibid., part 1, 309–10 ; Qianlong’s Second Edict to King George III, in Cheng, Lestz, and Spence,
The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection
, 109.
Chapter 3: From Preeminence to Decline
1
“Wei Yuan’s Statement of a Policy for Maritime Defense, 1842,” in Ssu-yü Teng and John K. Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1839–1923
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 30.
2
Ibid., 31–34.
3
Ibid., 34.
4
Opinion differs as to whether the inclusion of Most Favored Nation clauses in these initial treaties represented a concerted Chinese strategy or a tactical oversight. One scholar notes that in some respects it curtailed the Qing court’s scope of maneuver in subsequent negotiations with the foreign powers, since any Western power could be sure it would gain the benefits afforded to its rivals. On the other hand, the practical effect was to prevent any one colonizer from attaining a dominant economic position—a contrast to the experience of many neighboring countries during this period. See Immanuel C. Y. Hsü,
The Rise of Modern China
, 6th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 190–92.
5
“Wei Yuan’s Statement of a Policy for Maritime Defense,” in Teng and Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West
, 34.
6
Prince Gong (Yixin), “The New Foreign Policy of January 1861,” in Teng and Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West
, 48.
7
Macartney’s Journal, in J. L. Cranmer-Byng, ed.,
An Embassy to China: Being the journal kept by Lord Macartney during his embassy to the Emperor Ch’ien-lung, 1793–1794
(London: Longmans, Green, 1962), 191, 239.
8
John King Fairbank and Merle Goldman,
China: A New History
, 2nd enlarged ed. (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2006), 216. For an account of the Taiping Rebellion and the career of its charismatic leader Hong Xiuquan, see Jonathan Spence,
God’s Chinese Son
(New York: W. W. Norton 1996).
9
Hsü,
The Rise of Modern China
, 209.
10
Ibid., 209–11.
11
Bruce Elleman,
Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795–1989
(New York: Routledge, 2001), 48–50; Hsü,
The Rise of Modern China
, 212–15.
12
Mary C. Wright,
The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration, 1862–1874
, 2nd ed. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 233–36.
13
Hsü,
The Rise of Modern China
, 215–18.
14
Commenting acidly on the loss of Vladivostok 115 years later (and on President Ford’s summit with Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev in that city), Deng Xiaoping told me that the different names given to the city by the Chinese and the Russians reflected their respective purposes: the Chinese name translated roughly as “Sea Slug,” while the Russian name meant “Rule of the East.” “I don’t think it has any other meaning except what it means at face value,” he added.
15
“The New Foreign Policy of January 1861,” in Teng and Fairbank, eds.,
China’s Response to the West
, 48. For consistency within the present volume, the spelling of “Nian” has been changed in this passage from “Nien,” the spelling more common at the time of the quoted book’s publication. The underlying Chinese word is the same.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid.
19
Christopher A. Ford,
The Mind of Empire: China’s History and Modern Foreign Relations
(Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2010), 142–43.

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