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There have been several discussions of the book by Wang Xiaodong & friends Unhappy China. While most of the book features the sort of puerile lack of self awareness usually associated with teenage males and reality TV stars, I had to give props to this excerpt on China Digital Times:
Τibet: Don’t Play Games With Archeology! 1959 Is All That Needs to Be Said
Was Tibet anciently a part of China? Did it become a part of China during the Yuan dynasty or Qing dynasty? Or, did it become a part of China in 1959? Westerners insist that it became a part of China in 1959. Once, when interviewed by reporters about the Tibet issue, I stated, “In actuality, there is probably no dispute that during the Qing dynasty, Τibet was a part of China if not earlier. But, I can tell you Westerners: after 1959, what more needs to be said? If you have a problem with that, then come over and fight us! Quit blowing hot air. If you go back and ponder over this carefully you’ll learn a lot.” It’s proper for the Chinese government as well as scholars to argue over which year Τibet became a
In Tuesday’s Pearl Harbor post, I appended a little shout out to my home state’s role in ending the Russo-Japanese War. Well, just when you thought China had a monopoly on specious historical claims, here comes Maine and their splittist propaganda:
Really enjoyed your recent post on Pearl Harbor and historical absolutism. It’s somewhat difficult for me to hear anyone even suggest that the number of historical absolutists in America is fewer than elsewhere, because as an American living in the UK essentially all I hear about is how skewed our view of this or that historical event is. It breeds apologists of my fellow American expats, which I don’t love (when do Brits ever apologize for the situation they had such a hand in creating in Africa, to pick an atrocity out of a hat?).
I’m writing to note, however, that in fact you New Hampshire people–well, you can try to claim the Treaty of Portsmouth all you want, but the site of its signing in fact is in my home state across the border from Portsmouth. It’s somewhat confusing, but the Treaty of Portsmouth was signed at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, located in Kittery, Maine.
I know, I know,
As most Americans and a few Japanese (or should that be reversed?) know, yesterday was the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor once seemed to be one of those few events in history that seemed impervious to my rule about there being no absolutes in history. The Japanese bombed us so we went to war. But historians have a way of screwing with even the most sacrosanct of national memories and it should come as no surprise that in the past six decades a few works have sought to, if not challenge then, shall we say, complicate the neat Capra-esque narratives of the Pacific War.
Writing in the New York Times yesterday, author and historian James Bradley, (Flags of Our Fathers and The Imperial Cruise) takes the long view when looking at the origins of conflict in the Pacific, blaming Teddy (not Franklin) Roosevelt for not doing enough to discourage Japanese imperialist ambitions in the wake of the Russo-Japanese War.*
This is territory Mr. Bradley has covered before in The Imperial Cruise, but needless to say all of this TR-bashing and attempts at historical myth-busting is sitting poorly with those who take a more orthodox view
It’s Sunday in the hutong, and at this time of the year that means college football and paper grading. But I took some time out to have a laugh at this atrociously hysterical piece by publishing magnate Conrad Black on Stephen Harper’s recent visit to Beijing. The whole thing is pretty funny, but fellow fans of Chinese history will be particularly tickled by this section, in which Black waxes historical:
Educated Chinese never forget that China was the most powerful and advanced empire in the world in the seventh and eighth centuries (Tang Dynasty), the 13th century (under the Mongols), and the fifteenth century (Ming Dynasty), and feel their turn is coming again. At the time of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, China had hundreds of nine-masted “treasure ships,” (whose rudders were longer than Columbus’s flagship, the Nina), which carried huge iron cannons and up to 3,000 tons of cargo. They were 10 times the size of analogous Western vessels, the Queen Mary or Normandie compared to the Noronic.
The Chinese navy contained over 4,000 ships, commanded by Muslim Arab eunuch-admirals, and was vastly greater than Western navies. (Henry V invaded France with four fishing ships, which carried a
Today is the birthday of Zhu Yunwen, the second emperor of the Ming dynasty, born December 5, 1377. The first son of the first son of the Ming dynastic founder Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Taizu/The Hongwu Emperor), Zhu Yunwen took the throne following the death of his grandfather in 1398. Not that everybody was happy about the arrangement. Zhu Yuanzhang had decreed that imperial succession would automatically fall to the first son of the emperor or, as in the case of Zhu Yunwen, if the first son was no longer living then the crown would pass to the first son of the first son.
As might be expected, ancestral injunctions notwithstanding, Zhu Yunwen’s ascension to the throne as the Jianwen Emperor at the tender age of 21 was going to cause some grumbling in the ranks, particularly from Zhu Yuanzhang’s fourth son, Zhu Di (1360-1424). Zhu Di was a capable general and had been charged with commanding the Ming northern defenses around Beijing and generally keeping an eye on those pesky Mongols. (Apparently, Zhu Yuanzhang didn’t get the memo from CCP propaganda HQ that the Mongols and the Ming were really part of one united family – either that, or he
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