China: The Influence of History.

[JaiMin]

As China’s power and influence continue to grow in Asia and beyond, many analysts look to Chinese history to understand how a strong China will behave and view the world in the future. Many of these attempts to apply an historical lens engage in gross simplifications and misreadings of the relevance and meaning of hundreds of years of Chinese thought and behavior. China is often viewed, incorrectly, as if it existed as a monolithic whole over centuries, possessed the same political and security outlook at each stage of its development, and behaved as a modern nation state does today. In particular, some observers blithely assert that China always sought to dominate its world in hard power terms, often succeeded in doing so, and will naturally seek such a position of dominance in the future.

The reality is much more complex and nuanced. In the pre-modern era, Chinese security behavior varied enormously from dynasty to dynasty and between periods of strength and weakness. The variation was so extensive that some China historians believe it is impossible to make any meaningful generalizations about traditional Chinese foreign policy and security behavior, much less apply those lessons to the present and future. Indeed, many historians firmly believe that the emergence of nation states and the rise of nationalism in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the effort to build a strong, prosperous, and modern state and society together offer a far more relevant and reliable context for understanding current and future Chinese security behavior than does the pre-modern era.

So, how does history influence Chinese thought and behavior today, and how it might it do so as Chinese power and influence grow in the future? The lessons of history are reflected in three sets of attitudes: national pride alongside a strong fear of chaos; an inculcated image of a peace-loving and defensive polity alongside a strong and virtuous central government; and a unique, hierarchical yet mutually beneficial view of inter-state relations.

Regarding the first area, most Chinese are very proud of China’s long history as a strong and vibrant culture and as a highly influential political and social entity. They believe that China belongs in the front ranks of the major powers, certainly in Asia, and in some respects globally as well. They are also extremely proud of China’s accomplishments during the market-driven economic reform era inaugurated in the late seventies, and place a very high value on national growth and continued increases in Chinese living standards, as well as the respect that China’s accomplishments are engendering in the world. While many Chinese value the greater freedoms they are enjoying under the reforms, many, probably most, remain acutely fearful of domestic political and social chaos of the type experienced in the modern era, i.e., since the mid-19th century.

For many Chinese, the experience of domestic chaos is closely associated with the depredations inflicted on China by the imperialist Western powers and Japan in the 19th and early 20th centuries (the so-called century of humiliation). Moreover, for many Chinese, Western personal and political freedoms, in a huge country like China, with massive numbers of low income and poorly educated citizens, high levels of corruption and a weak civil society, can spell chaos. As a result of these concerns, and the desire for China to again become a strong and wealthy nation, most Chinese value a strong, unified, and proudly nationalistic central government led by “virtuous” individuals who keep the people’s interests in mind. They are not inclined, either historically or culturally, to endorse a Western, liberal democratic, divided-power political system. This belief is changing among some elements of the more educated urban class in China, but only gradually. For most Chinese, the West still offers only tools for advancements in power and prosperity, not political and social models.

Regarding the second set of traits, many years of PRC propaganda and an interpretation of Chinese history provided by statist nationalists (whether communist or Chinese nationalist) have inculcated in most Chinese the view of a China in the world that is largely peace-loving and non-threatening, oriented toward the defense of its territory and internal development, and more aligned, in its basic interests, with developing states, rather than the advanced industrial democracies. Moreover, a long pre-modern history of unstable borders and vulnerability to attacks from the periphery, combined with the century of humiliation experience, have inculcated a strong suspicion toward the possible manipulation of China’s domestic scene by outsiders. As a result, many Chinese often see Western (and especially American) “hegemony” or dominance in the world today as part of a long historical proclivity for stronger powers to interfere in and prey upon weaker powers. For many Chinese, the West thus assists China’s growth for personal profit (and perhaps to undermine China), not primarily to “help” the Chinese people.

Third, China is a nation of contradictions. Alongside the above views and sentiments, many Chinese admire the accomplishments of the West and in many ways seek to emulate Western practices, especially in the economic and some social realms. And significant numbers of Chinese admire American freedoms and generally like the American people. For some of the older, educated generation, the pre-1949 history of Sino-American relations provides many examples of positive American behavior toward China. In addition, despite identification with the developing world and a strong suspicion of the supposedly arrogant and hegemonistic West, many Chinese take the historical view that the international system is in many ways hierarchical, and that larger, more imposing powers have a duty and responsibility to both guide and shape smaller powers in mutually beneficial directions. This is especially true for China’s relations with its smaller peripheral neighbors. For many Chinese, mutual respect, deference, and responsibility are a significant part of desired interstate behavior. This partly reflects not only China’s historical place in Asia, but also the general belief of many Chinese that adherence to proper principles of conduct should define relations in a hierarchical world. Hegemonic powers by definition don’t adhere to such proper principles.

Of course, some Chinese seek to manipulate this concept to serve more pragmatic, sometimes selfish ends. And at least some Chinese believe that all major powers, including China, have hegemonic inclinations. But overall, most Chinese apparently believe that China’s rightful place in the international order is as a major (not singularly dominant) power whose views must be respected but who exists in general harmony with other nations. This is a far cry from the notion of China as a resurgent leviathan bent on dominating Asia and the world beyond.

Michael D. Swaine is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


[to be cont...]
Nice analysis of Chinese general population. Do you think so?
@TaiShang , @AndrewJin , @Shotgunner51 , @Chinese Bamboo, @Place Of Space, @FairAndUnbiased, @Chinese-Dragon, @LeveragedBuyout , @Nihonjin1051 , @Yorozuya , @cirr, @Cossack25A1, @Viet, @Carlosa , @ChineseTiger1986, @mike2000 is back, @yoshi.oda

 

[JaiMin]

Some Chinese scholars point to the 5th century BC as possible model that “under a virtuous China one could return to the golden age,” explains political science professor June Teufel Dreyer in her excerpt from a longer paper to be published by The Journal of Contemporary China. As suggested by Confucius, “To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue … gravity generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.” Shorthand versions of history suggest that the arrival of explorers from the West, along with exploitive capitalism, commercialism and expansionism, ruined a potentially idyllic system. Even China’s President Xi has referred to tianxia in speeches and some conjecture that a supreme, benevolent arbiter could bring harmony to a contentious world – or at least Asia. Dreyer concludes, “Supporters of the revival of tianxia as model for today’s world are essentially misrepresenting the past to reconfigure the future, distorting it to advance a political agenda that is at best disingenuous and at worst dangerous.” – YaleGlobal

China’s Tianxia: Do All Under Heaven Need One Arbiter?

A few Chinese scholars anticipate China’s rise and possible role as arbiter in a troubled world
June Teufel Dreyer
YaleGlobal, 30 October 2014

Search for harmony under the heaven: Western image of China's imperial court (top); Ming emperor Hongwu, though, did not get the horses he wanted the Koreans to send as tribute
MIAMI: With China reemerging as a dominating economic and military power in the world, some Chinese scholars have wistfully harkened back to another era, circa the 5th century BC, when under a virtuous and benign Confucian emperor, all was well under heaven. The implicit suggestion in this historical retrospective – under a virtuous China one could return to the golden age.

In this narrative, the benign emperor maintained a pax sinica and ruled tianxia, all under heaven. This was symbolized by the tribute system, under which rulers of lands surrounding the Celestial Kingdom visited the imperial court, performed ketou, or obseisance, and presented gifts of local produce. In return, their legitimacy as rulers was affirmed. They were presented with the dynasty’s calendar and received costly items emblematic of the superior Sinitic civilization. The result was datong, or great harmony.

However, this idyllic setting was purportedly destroyed by the arrival of rapacious capitalist powers who were eager to expand their commercial empires and imposed the trading system and the Westphalian notion of sovereignty, with its notion of the equality of nation states answering to no higher authority. Since this leaves states free to act according to their perception of their own best interests, the result has been a Hobbesian war of all against all and a failed world. The solution to this baleful situation, suggest scholars like Zhao Tingyang,, is to reinstate tianxia, presumably with Chinese leadership performing the role of adjudicator for all under heaven.(1)

The problem is that the golden age never existed and is likely to prove ineffective for the modern era. The late Harvard sinologist Yang Lien-sheng stated flatly that “the sinocentric world order was a myth backed up at different times by realities of varying degree, sometimes approaching nil.”(2) As other Chinese scholars have pointed out, force was needed, both to keep the empire together and protect it from external enemies. In Wang Gungwu’s formulation, the reality of empire was that of a hard core of wei, or force, surrounded by a soft pulp of de, virtue.(3) Astute statecraft lay in finding the right balance. Although court records praise the Confucian wisdom of emperors, they in fact behaved like Legalists, who suggested that the well-ordered society depended on clear rules and punishment for violators rather than benevolence. Others have noted that the superiority of the Chinese model in preventing war is ludicrous to anyone familiar with the details of Chinese history replete with conflict.(4)

Failed world? Should tianxia be reinstated? Could China step into the role of adjudicator for all under heaven?
Nor is Confucianism a suitable paradigm for a cosmopolitan world. The Great Wall, one of the glories of ancient Sinitic civilization, is also a symbol of the empire’s isolationism: It was built to keep the barbarians out.(5) Moreover, nowhere in the Confucian canon does one find that ties to others should be as strong as ties to kinfolk. In Confucius’ conception of the well-ordered kingdom, relationships should be extended from family members outward, with progressively diminishing intensity. The concept of filial piety has little meaning if one is expected to treat everyone as a sibling.(6) As well, his views on the subordination of women and diminution of the entrepreneur would find little resonance today.

In yet another dissonance between theory and reality, those who accepted the status of vassal to the Chinese empire did not necessarily accept the notion of their inequality and conducted negotiations much as equals. In the mid-15th century, the ruler of Ayudhya refused the Ming dynasty envoy’s demand that he ketou to show respect to the emperor. For this ruler and others, recognition served a utilitarian purpose – in this case, obtaining the dynasty’s backing to counterbalance other aspiring hegemons.(7)

Confucius’ views on subordination of women and diminution of entrepreneurs would find little resonance today.
Differences in power between the Chinese ruler and the rest could even result in role reversal: In 1138, the founder of the Southern Song dynasty, accepted vassal status to the barbarian Jin dynasty.(8) In the 18th century, in response to pressure from Japan, the Ryukyus sent tribute to both the Tokugawa shogun and to Beijing.(9) Even the Koreans, the most faithful of those professing allegiance to tianxia, repeatedly balked at Ming Emperor Hongwu’s requests to send horses, apparently because they wanted to reserve their stock for use in possible conflicts with the Ming in Manchuria. During the Qing dynasty, though continuing to send tribute, Korean rulers looked down on the Qing and pointedly retained the rival Ming dynasty calendar.(10)

Well before the arrival of the westerners, there had been a gradual shift away from tribute to trade. During the Ming dynasty, commercial transactions existed between the Ryukyus and parts of Southeast Asia.(11) Private trade existed between China and Japan, even during the so-called sakokuperiod of the 17th century when Japan was theoretically closed to foreign commerce.(12) Chinese court records from the late 1400s indicate concern about trade growth. Despite serious consequences, including decapitation, by the 15th century, a trading system had evolved that encompassed Southeast and North Asia. Since the earliest western power, the Portuguese, did not arrive until 1524, this undermines the contention that trade was imposed from the Occident.

The presence of a supreme arbiter might be useful in dispute settlement, yet few would cede that role to Beijing.
Moreover, the imposition of treaty trade did not necessarily result in a worsening of the fortunes of states that were notionally or actually part of the tianxia system. Research by Hamashita Takeshi shows that, far from being passive victims of avaricious foreign powers, the western arrivals brought new opportunities. Never actually powerless within the system, these states further increased their autonomy. In one case, in 1884, an envoy from Guangdong told the consul of Siam that stopping its tribute embassies to China was not justified under international law, thereby invoking both tribute and trade systems. The consul replied by suggesting negotiations. Both parties saw their states as in a tributary relationship while simultaneously discussing a treaty between equals. The Koreans likewise combined elements of treaty and trade systems to benefit their best interests.(13)

If tianxia has its problems, what of Westphalian sovereignty? While it is evident that all states are not equal in size and power, and that the presence of a supreme arbiter might be helpful in dispute settlement, few seem willing to cede that role to Beijing. The myth of equality is more attractive to most decision-makers than the myth of subordination to a benevolent ruler. There is also a question of how benevolent a ruler China would be: It is difficult to see Xi Jinping, his predecessors or likely successors in this role. The possibility that the Beijing leadership will become rule-maker to the world to ensure a global pax sinica raises the same concerns expressed by the 1st century AD Roman satirist Juvenal: “Quis custodiet ipso custodes” – Who will watch the watchmen?

Supporters of the revival of tianxia as model for today’s world are essentially misrepresenting the past to reconfigure the future, distorting it to advance a political agenda that is at best disingenuous and at worst dangerous. For all its deficiencies, sovereignty would be preferred option bymost. To rephrase Winston Churchill’s words on democracy, sovereignty may be the worst of all forms of world government, save for all the others.



(1) See, for example, Tingyang Zhao, “A Political World Philosophy in Terms of All-Under-Heaven (Tian-xia), Diogenes, 221 (2009), pp. 155.
(2) Lien-sheng Yang, “Historical Notes on the Chinese World Order,” in John K. Fairbank, ed., The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), p.20.

(3) Gungwu Wang, “Early Ming Relations With Southeast Asia: A Background Essay,” in Fairbank, p. 49

(4) See, for example, Alistair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998). Johnston argues persuasively on the basis of copious data that the Chinese are no less concerned with the use of military power than any other civilization. Previous scholars thought otherwise because they misread the Chinese classics.

(5) Arthur Waldron, The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990), passim.

(6) Daniel Bell, “War, Peace, and China’s Soft Power: A Confucian Approach,” Diogenes, 221 (2009), p. 31.

(7) Geoff Wade, Ming China and Southeast Asia in 15th Century: A Reappraisal, (Singapore: Asian Research Institute Working Paper No. 28, July 2004), p.2

(8) Feng Zhang, “Rethinking the ‘Tribute System’: Broadening the Conceptual Horizon of Historical East Asian Politics,” Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 2, 2009, p. 555.

(9) Feng Zhang, p. 565.

(10) Peter Perdue, “Rethinking the Chinese World Order: Historical Perspectives on the Rise of China,”Journal of Contemporary China, forthcoming, p. 12.

(11) Takeshi Hamashita “China and Japan in an Asian Perspective,” (2007), http://www.india-seminar.com/20070573-takeshi-hamashita.htm, pp. 22-23; 34.

(12) Kwan-wai So, Japanese Piracy in Ming China During the 16th Century (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1975), p. 214; Ronald Toby, State and Society in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 200.

(13) Takeshi Hamashita, East Asia and the Global Economy: Regional and Historical Perspectives(New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 136.


June Teufel Dreyer is professor of political science at the University of Miami. She is a senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute and previously served as commissioner of the US-China Economic and Security Commission established by Congress. This article is excerpted, with the kind permission of the editor, from a longer paper which will appear in The Journal of Contemporary China.


Rights:Copyright © 2014 The Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale

Source: China’s Tianxia: Do All Under Heaven Need One Arbiter?

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

China is a nation of contradictions

yet another dissonance between theory and reality

These are the two most important points. That is to say, China is a complex nation, and cannot easily be understood by Western linear thinking. Nineteen Eighty-Four provides a better framework through which to understand how China uses history: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." It is only in that parallel universe that we can have the CCP defeat Japan in WWII, while the US becomes the great oppressor of China.

 

[Zsari]

"Do All Under Heaven Need One Arbiter?"
That question should instead be posed to the so call US lead world order which the author obviously subscribe to. The Chinese concept of TianXia is far less encompassing than the author lead to believe. The Chinese dynasties hardly ever concern itself with the affair of those that are foreign or what deemed barbarians, nor seek to be an arbitrator of those. TianXia is very much limited to the Sinosphere, or those who share the same view of TianXia and its proper governance.

 

[Sanchez]

Are you guys from Mars? If you are interested to know China study more facts. Or just because of the size of your brain can you not comprehend such a long existing culture?

As long as WWII concerned China admitted the minor role of Chinese resistance and recognized the decisive roles of US and Soviet in the victory of anti-jap facists. Btw China was the only country to resist Japanese invasion from 1931 - 1941, while US and British were supporting Japanese war machine with supplies of oil, ore and other strategic materials. Were it not attacked by Japan US could have made a good fortune again as you did from WWI.

If China would be at war with Japan again we won't need any US. It's a fact!

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

Btw China was the only country to resist Japanese invasion from 1931 - 1941, while US and British were supporting Japanese war machine with supplies of oil, ore and other strategic materials. Were it not attacked by Japan US could have made a good fortune again as you did from WWI.

Genuine question: in the Chinese version of WWII history, what is Phase III?

Phase I: US trades with Japan
Phase II: Japan invades China
Phase III: ??????
Phase IV: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

In the version of events that actually happened, the US placed an embargo on Japan as a punishment for invading China in Phase III. The alternate-reality CCP version must be quite interesting for you to conclude that the US supported Japan's war machine. I'd love to hear it.

 

[somsak]

Genuine question: in the Chinese version of WWII history, what is Phase III?

Phase I: US trades with Japan
Phase II: Japan invades China
Phase III: ??????
Phase IV: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

In the version of events that actually happened, the US placed an embargo on Japan as a punishment for invading China in Phase III. The alternate-reality CCP version must be quite interesting for you to conclude that the US supported Japan's war machine. I'd love to hear it.

Long time no see @Lev!
Phase 3 was US oil embago to empire of Japan.
Thats why China today need to thanx US million times.
I hope US and China stop seeing each other as competitor.
US has been helping China by FDI and by allowing China to join US led Free market economy.
Obama admin is seeing China as competitor, and that is a mistake.

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

Long time no see @Lev!
Phase 3 was US oil embago to empire of Japan.
Thats why China today need to thanx US million times.
I hope US and China stop seeing each other as competitor.
US has been helping China by FDI and by allowing China to join US led Free market economy.
Obama admin is seeing China as competitor, and that is a mistake.

Hey @somsak , it's been a while. I wonder why we haven't crossed paths on PDF recently. I've missed your intellectually-stimulating topics, which are rare enough on PDF these days.

As far as the US-China relationship, I agree that we have great opportunities for friendship. I've said several times on PDF that I have great affection for the Chinese people, and feel that the US and China have much in common. That's one reason why I scorn the CCP, as I see it as the main factor preserving the current hostilities (e.g. through its distortion of history, as seen above). On the other side, it's beyond me that Clown Prince Obama can achieve some form of rapprochement with terrorist-sponsoring Iran, but not China.

We'll probably have to wait for a change of leadership on both sides before we see improvement.

 

[Zsari]

Genuine question: in the Chinese version of WWII history, what is Phase III?

Phase I: US trades with Japan
Phase II: Japan invades China
Phase III: ??????
Phase IV: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

In the version of events that actually happened, the US placed an embargo on Japan as a punishment for invading China in Phase III. The alternate-reality CCP version must be quite interesting for you to conclude that the US supported Japan's war machine. I'd love to hear it.

Actually a major event is missing from your chornical that prompted the oil embargo, the invasion of French Indo-China in 1940. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China proper in 1937, and from 1931 to 1940, there was no embargo.

 

[LeveragedBuyout]

Actually a major event is missing from your chornical that prompted the oil embargo, the invasion of French Indo-China in 1940. Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and China proper in 1937, and from 1931 to 1940, there was no embargo.

You are incorrect in applying contemporary mores in judging the Depression-era US. Comparatively speaking, the US went above and beyond for China, a country to which it owed nothing and shared no cultural, linguistic, or historical bonds.

The United States didn't even embargo Nazi Germany in response to its blitzkrieg in Europe, concurrent with Japan's aggression in China. Why do you feel that the Depression-ravaged, isolationist US failed China when it did more for China than it did for Europe?

It pains me that the US wasn't able to save China, but considering the situation of the time, it's hard to see how China could have asked for anything more of the US (again, especially when the US refused to intervene in the wars engulfing its cultural cousin, Europe). The US role as global policeman came after the war, so to use that anachronistic standard and claim that the US failed China, or worse, that by maintaining neutrality the US implicitly aided Japan, is absolutely incorrect.

It's becoming clearer now how the CCP has convinced so many Chinese to hate the US, when history tells the opposite story.

 

[TaiShang]

Hey @somsak , it's been a while. I wonder why we haven't crossed paths on PDF recently. I've missed your intellectually-stimulating topics, which are rare enough on PDF these days.

As far as the US-China relationship, I agree that we have great opportunities for friendship. I've said several times on PDF that I have great affection for the Chinese people, and feel that the US and China have much in common. That's one reason why I scorn the CCP, as I see it as the main factor preserving the current hostilities (e.g. through its distortion of history, as seen above). On the other side, it's beyond me that Clown Prince Obama can achieve some form of rapprochement with terrorist-sponsoring Iran, but not China.

We'll probably have to wait for a change of leadership on both sides before we see improvement.

I have great affection for US people. Especially for those who are poor and taken advantage of and have almost zero influence on the system that directly affects their lives, including putting them in wars.

The surging ranks of America's ultrapoor

That's why I scorn the US government because it is the main perpetrator of the current hostilities between China and the US, ignoring the fact that the threat US faces is not China but its myriad of homegrown problems, including systemic corruption and nepotism.

From the militarily engaging China to launching spying and cyber attacks on China and
destabilizing China's neighbors; the US is unfortunately perceived as the greatest threat.

I do not know what your regime teaches you in school. But we learn critical thinking and historical consciousness.

Iran is a great country and probably the only non-terrorist sponsoring regime in the Middle East. An anchor for stabilization.

That's unlike the closest US allies, those traditional global terrorist hotbeds of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. That's why what Obama did was surprisingly constructive and China and Russia supported it.

.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

You are incorrect in applying contemporary mores in judging the Depression-era US. Comparatively speaking, the US went above and beyond for China, a country to which it owed nothing and shared no cultural, linguistic, or historical bonds.

The United States didn't even embargo Nazi Germany in response to its blitzkrieg in Europe, concurrent with Japan's aggression in China. Why do you feel that the Depression-ravaged, isolationist US failed China when it did more for China than it did for Europe?

It pains me that the US wasn't able to save China, but considering the situation of the time, it's hard to see how China could have asked for anything more of the US (again, especially when the US refused to intervene in the wars engulfing its cultural cousin, Europe). The US role as global policeman came after the war, so to use that anachronistic standard and claim that the US failed China, or worse, that by maintaining neutrality the US implicitly aided Japan, is absolutely incorrect.

It's becoming clearer now how the CCP has convinced so many Chinese to hate the US, when history tells the opposite story.

I don't have any problems with ordinary American people. However the American people are not the regime and its supporters. I have great respect for and sympathy with the real Americans who struggle on minimum wage jobs while trying to put themselves through school, since I deal with them all the time.

The US today is not the US of the 1940's and the China of today is not the China of 1940's. We don't owe the US anything and the US doesn't owe us anything. Judging from contemporary actions, the US views China as a competitor for resources. For the US to maintain its way of life it is not sufficient that the US is rich and strong - others must be poor and weak. When it is unable to force others to be poor and weak, the US economy suffers setbacks until the next technological breakthrough that it owns. See 2008-today. However, with rising innovation elsewhere, the US sees less and less monopoly of future technological breakthroughs.

 

[Sanchez]

Genuine question: in the Chinese version of WWII history, what is Phase III?

Phase I: US trades with Japan
Phase II: Japan invades China
Phase III: ??????
Phase IV: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

In the version of events that actually happened, the US placed an embargo on Japan as a punishment for invading China in Phase III. The alternate-reality CCP version must be quite interesting for you to conclude that the US supported Japan's war machine. I'd love to hear it.

Full scale embargo was in place in July 1941. Before that US supplied 80% of Japan oil imports, iron and steel. Was it not a support of Japanese war machine?

US involvement in the Asia-Pacific war was largely a revenge of Japanese attack on Pear Harbor. Secondly US may want to rescue the colonies of your European cousins that were miserable after Japan's occupation. US did China a favour by supplying large amounts of military materials since 1942 and the US trained/equipped Chinese soldiers were exclusively used to fight Japanese in Burma to save the defeated British troops.

 

[Sanchez]

Genuine question: in the Chinese version of WWII history, what is Phase III?

Phase I: US trades with Japan
Phase II: Japan invades China
Phase III: ??????
Phase IV: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor

In the version of events that actually happened, the US placed an embargo on Japan as a punishment for invading China in Phase III. The alternate-reality CCP version must be quite interesting for you to conclude that the US supported Japan's war machine. I'd love to hear it.

I thought it might be educational for you to watch the US propaganda film dated 1944:

Why We Fight_ The Battle of China - WW2 Film_土豆_高清视频在线观看

If the link is broken the film might also be available somewhere around your home. It's called "Why We Fight" episode 6 "The Battle of China“.

As China’s power and influence continue to grow in Asia and beyond, many analysts look to Chinese history to understand how a strong China will behave and view the world in the future. Many of these attempts to apply an historical lens engage in gross simplifications and misreadings of the relevance and meaning of hundreds of years of Chinese thought and behavior. China is often viewed, incorrectly, as if it existed as a monolithic whole over centuries, possessed the same political and security outlook at each stage of its development, and behaved as a modern nation state does today. In particular, some observers blithely assert that China always sought to dominate its world in hard power terms, often succeeded in doing so, and will naturally seek such a position of dominance in the future.

The reality is much more complex and nuanced. In the pre-modern era, Chinese security behavior varied enormously from dynasty to dynasty and between periods of strength and weakness. The variation was so extensive that some China historians believe it is impossible to make any meaningful generalizations about traditional Chinese foreign policy and security behavior, much less apply those lessons to the present and future. Indeed, many historians firmly believe that the emergence of nation states and the rise of nationalism in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the effort to build a strong, prosperous, and modern state and society together offer a far more relevant and reliable context for understanding current and future Chinese security behavior than does the pre-modern era.

So, how does history influence Chinese thought and behavior today, and how it might it do so as Chinese power and influence grow in the future? The lessons of history are reflected in three sets of attitudes: national pride alongside a strong fear of chaos; an inculcated image of a peace-loving and defensive polity alongside a strong and virtuous central government; and a unique, hierarchical yet mutually beneficial view of inter-state relations.

Regarding the first area, most Chinese are very proud of China’s long history as a strong and vibrant culture and as a highly influential political and social entity. They believe that China belongs in the front ranks of the major powers, certainly in Asia, and in some respects globally as well. They are also extremely proud of China’s accomplishments during the market-driven economic reform era inaugurated in the late seventies, and place a very high value on national growth and continued increases in Chinese living standards, as well as the respect that China’s accomplishments are engendering in the world. While many Chinese value the greater freedoms they are enjoying under the reforms, many, probably most, remain acutely fearful of domestic political and social chaos of the type experienced in the modern era, i.e., since the mid-19th century.

For many Chinese, the experience of domestic chaos is closely associated with the depredations inflicted on China by the imperialist Western powers and Japan in the 19th and early 20th centuries (the so-called century of humiliation). Moreover, for many Chinese, Western personal and political freedoms, in a huge country like China, with massive numbers of low income and poorly educated citizens, high levels of corruption and a weak civil society, can spell chaos. As a result of these concerns, and the desire for China to again become a strong and wealthy nation, most Chinese value a strong, unified, and proudly nationalistic central government led by “virtuous” individuals who keep the people’s interests in mind. They are not inclined, either historically or culturally, to endorse a Western, liberal democratic, divided-power political system. This belief is changing among some elements of the more educated urban class in China, but only gradually. For most Chinese, the West still offers only tools for advancements in power and prosperity, not political and social models.

Regarding the second set of traits, many years of PRC propaganda and an interpretation of Chinese history provided by statist nationalists (whether communist or Chinese nationalist) have inculcated in most Chinese the view of a China in the world that is largely peace-loving and non-threatening, oriented toward the defense of its territory and internal development, and more aligned, in its basic interests, with developing states, rather than the advanced industrial democracies. Moreover, a long pre-modern history of unstable borders and vulnerability to attacks from the periphery, combined with the century of humiliation experience, have inculcated a strong suspicion toward the possible manipulation of China’s domestic scene by outsiders. As a result, many Chinese often see Western (and especially American) “hegemony” or dominance in the world today as part of a long historical proclivity for stronger powers to interfere in and prey upon weaker powers. For many Chinese, the West thus assists China’s growth for personal profit (and perhaps to undermine China), not primarily to “help” the Chinese people.

Third, China is a nation of contradictions. Alongside the above views and sentiments, many Chinese admire the accomplishments of the West and in many ways seek to emulate Western practices, especially in the economic and some social realms. And significant numbers of Chinese admire American freedoms and generally like the American people. For some of the older, educated generation, the pre-1949 history of Sino-American relations provides many examples of positive American behavior toward China. In addition, despite identification with the developing world and a strong suspicion of the supposedly arrogant and hegemonistic West, many Chinese take the historical view that the international system is in many ways hierarchical, and that larger, more imposing powers have a duty and responsibility to both guide and shape smaller powers in mutually beneficial directions. This is especially true for China’s relations with its smaller peripheral neighbors. For many Chinese, mutual respect, deference, and responsibility are a significant part of desired interstate behavior. This partly reflects not only China’s historical place in Asia, but also the general belief of many Chinese that adherence to proper principles of conduct should define relations in a hierarchical world. Hegemonic powers by definition don’t adhere to such proper principles.

Of course, some Chinese seek to manipulate this concept to serve more pragmatic, sometimes selfish ends. And at least some Chinese believe that all major powers, including China, have hegemonic inclinations. But overall, most Chinese apparently believe that China’s rightful place in the international order is as a major (not singularly dominant) power whose views must be respected but who exists in general harmony with other nations. This is a far cry from the notion of China as a resurgent leviathan bent on dominating Asia and the world beyond.

Michael D. Swaine is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.


[to be cont...]
Nice analysis of Chinese general population. Do you think so?
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There are a few countries in this world that one could say it's without China without history. Vietnam is one of them. Learn Chinese before you talk about your history and China's.

 

[Beidou2020]

US role in WW2 is only destroying the Japanese navy. The Japanese army was defeated by the PLA and the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany. US role in WW2 is not as big as the American propaganda machine wants everyone to believe.