Jottings from the Granite Studio

From the September/October issue of Foreign Policy: Niall Ferguson, of the Hoover Institute and Harvard University, argues that imperialism is not dead, it’s not just not as easy as it once was. 20th century empires didn’t last nearly as long as those of centuries past, but that doesn’t mean that if the strategic and economic equations balance in favor of the powerful, new empires won’t arise. (“Empires with Expiration Dates”)

From the historian’s perspective, Ferguson’s take on the fate of recent empires is worth noting:

“Why did the new empires of the 20th century prove so ephemeral? The answer lies partly in the unprecedented degrees of centralized power, economic control, and social homogeneity to which they aspired.

The new empires that arose in the wake of the First World War were not content with the successful but haphazard administrative arrangements that had characterized the old empires, including the messy mixtures of imperial and local law and the delegation of powers and status to certain indigenous groups. They inherited from the 19th-century nation-builders an insatiable appetite for uniformity; these were more like “empire states” than traditional empires. The new empires repudiated traditional religious and legal constraints on the use of force. They insisted on the creation of new hierarchies in place of existing social structures. They delighted in sweeping away old political institutions. Above all, they made a virtue of ruthlessness. In pursuit of their objectives, they were willing to make war on whole categories of people, at home and abroad, rather than merely the armed and trained representatives of an identified enemy state. It was entirely typical of the new generation of would-be emperors that Hitler accused the British of excessive softness in their treatment of Indian nationalists.”

The Qing court ruled over a multi-ethnic empire for 270 years in part because of their “messy mixture of imperial and local law and delegation of powers and status to certain indigenous groups.” The PRC, by contrast, for ideological reasons, seeks not merely to impose loyalty but instead wishes to create a new national identity. The Manchus, hairdressing aside, had no desire to make everybody “Manchu.” The PRC, however, wishes to create a Chinese identity for all–an answer to the American melting pot: A “中国人民共和酸辣汤,” if you will.*
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* “Chinese People’s Rebublican Soup”>