Deconstructing the Chinese Myth
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Book: Restless Empire China and the World Since 1750
Author: Odd Arne Westad
Publisher: Bodley Head
Price: £14.99
Pages: 515
The amazing story of the rise of China is being briskly — even recklessly — complemented by an equally amazing rise of the number of books on China. The world wants to know whether China will be benign or malignant, play by the rules or be the revisionist hegemon upsetting the globalising applecart; become more transparent and, dare I say it, democratic, or remain stubbornly dictatorial — above all, will it stay united or implode? Hundreds of books have emerged over the past few years, ranging from the interesting to the bizarre and the ridiculous.
It is with some expectation, therefore, that one opens this book aimed at the general readership by Prof. Odd Arne Westad, the prolific, award-winning historian and international relations scholar at the London School of Economics. Pausing at the title, we learn that this is an account of an Empire and its relations with the world, taking the perspective of the people through the prism of hybridity rather than centralising uniformity. The motivation, laudably, is to deconstruct the myth of Qing China's insularity, which Prof. Westad demolishes with great gusto and erudition. However, the fact that there is history in the myth remains unacknowledged. The myth is not history, but it is necessary to understand the linkage between the two, for it is a myth that is deeply intertwined in the "white man's burden". But we shall set that aside for the moment.
"The history of modern China's foreign relations," says the author, "began with the Qing dynasty," which established total control by 1750. We thus embark on an account of "intense conflict" and rapid "change in the modern era and China's unique ability to absorb such change," as it gradually moved to the centre stage of global affairs. It is a veritable tour de force, covering the expansion of the Qing empire, its extensive trading relationships, the forcible opening up by the western powers and the imposition of free trade and western values, the colonial exploitation in cahoots with the ruling elite, the internal schisms and the great intellectual debates of the late 19th and early 20th century. The book has been imaginatively structured by fusing the thematic and the chronological — no mean feat considering the intertwining and overlapping that is involved. The chapter titles are engagingly epigrammatic —'Imperialisms', 'Republic', 'Foreigners', 'Abroad', 'China Alone', 'China's Asia' etc. There is also 'Japan', easily one of the best chapters. For those seeking an understanding of this crucial relationship, it would be instructive to learn that just before the Qing empire collapsed, it embarked on administrative and constitutional reforms and sent delegations to study the systems in Europe, US and Japan — it was the Japanese model which won out. Tucked throughout the text are such interesting and beguiling facts. One such, an irony of history, is that part of the US share of the Boxer indemnity helped establish the college that later became Qinghua University, which was to produce so many of the top Communist Party leadership.
... contd.
Chinese Whispers
