Five great reads about the Qing Dynasty.
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You can build concessions, sell opium, and burn a few palaces and people might be pissed off about it, but there are few quicker ways to get a man to take action and do battle than to mess with his kids. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has come to China and in the Telegraph this morning, Malcom Moore writes about the debate over China’s military capabilities. It has been a month to remember for the top brass of China’s People’s Liberation Army. While other armies fret about their funding, China’s generals have unveiled three major new weapons that could challenge the military supremacy of the United States and provide the firepower to underline China’s superpower status. Stealth fighters that may or may not be all that stealthy with pilots of dubious quality, a killer land-sea anti-carrier missile that may or may not be flying blind, gauging the state of the Chinese military these days seems more Ouija Board than Jane’s Defense Weekly, but one asset which has been fairly well documented is the former Soviet wannabe aircraft carrier Varyag, purchased several years ago for the low low price of $20 million and towed to China after a close out sale by the Ukrainian navy. (Hmmm, which would I rather have: a luxury apartment in Beijing or an aircraft carrier…?) The carrier now is in Dalian and, if rumors swirling since at least last year are correct, has been dubbed the This is a longish post… A long time ago, self-congratulatory citizens and academics of Western Europe and the United States would explain the ludicrous assault on Qing Imperial sovereignty in the 19th century as the simple and sad story of the emperor who said no. Poor deluded Qianlong missed an opportunity to liberalize his trade policies and join the ‘comity of nations’ when he dismissed the noble, upstanding diplomat MacCartney with a sniff, a wave, and a haughty letter to His Royal Majesty King George III which boasted that, “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own products.” Of course this narrative was a poppycock fairy tale to justify the armed expansion of trading and other privileges by the North Atlantic powers in the 19th century. The Qianlong Emperor wasn’t declaring a new policy, rather he was describing an economic reality: The Qing Empire at the end of the 18th century was a continent-sized trading network of markets and hubs, mines, farms, plantations, factories, merchants, banks, guilds, and relatively sophisticated systems of finance and 150 years ago this month, troops from an Anglo-French expedition torched the imperial gardens located in Northwest Beijing. The multiplicity of meanings associated with the site and the complicated circumstances of its destruction make for fascinating history as well as an opportunity for the CCP’s educational minions to leech that history of any real substance — other than as a crude device to teach ‘patriotism.’ Author, scholar, and fellow IES faculty member Sheila Melvin has a great piece in last week’s New York Times discussing the history of the Yuanmingyuan. She writes: On the low end of the scale was a free performance called “The Legend of Yuanmingyuan,” which was held weekend evenings on the Yuanmingyuan grounds last summer. Staged by the Beijing Dragon in the Sky Shadow Puppet Troupe and considered “patriotic education” for children, the show alternated shadow puppets and costumed dwarfs in a reenactment that saw invading troops bravely staved off by local villagers using kung fu and bayonets. Foreigners — played by dwarfs wearing curly yellow-wool wigs — were depicted as venal and stupid barbarians who could not even speak their own languages. Eager to aid the emperor, the brave Chinese villagers repeatedly shouted, “Kill the foreign |
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