The Story Of China
The saga of a grand civilisation in 10 points
Hello reader,
Just like Bharat, the Chinese have a legacy of multiple millennia and boast a culture, history, and civilization unlike any other in the world.
The civilizational state has fascinated people across the globe with its ancient ideas, intriguing history, and the rapid growth it has witnessed in recent decades.
Getting a deep sense of how the national consciousness and culture works might take many, many years of serious reading. Till then, let me share what I’ve learned about this curious country and its legacy in 10 short & fascinating points:
Name: The Chinese know their country as Zongghuo (or Zongghua)- the middle kingdom between earth and heaven. So where did the word ‘China’ come from? It first came up in a Spanish book in the 17th Century, and ultimately finds its origin in the Sanskrit word Cheen, used to refer to the Qin dynasty that reigned supreme in the 2nd Century BC.
Dynastic cycle: If there’s one big lesson from taking a macro view of the last 3000 years, it is the undeniable fact that empires kept rising and falling every couple of centuries on average. And these cycles of growth and decay were almost always precipitated by the same cocktail of combinations. The Qin Dynasty went down after rebellions, the Yuan Dynasty collapsed after facing famines, locusts, and rampant inflation, and the same causal factors can be identified in the collapse of one dynasty after the other- this is called the dynastic cycle, and was even discussed in the book Changing World Order.
Philosophy: China witnessed a flourishing of thought in its 100 schools of philosophy period (similar to our own age of ferment), from which Confucianism and Daoism emerged. Chinese history is a back-and-forth between Confucianism (emphasis on commitment to family) & Legalism (allegiance to the state, iron-fisted rule of law). Legalism was a doctrine that treated humans as objects who responded to incentives/punishments and whose only purpose was to serve the state. Emerging in the Qin dynasty, this idea led to one of the first totalitarian states in the world.
Unity and centralization: There are many reasons why China was never divided into many different states like Europe. First is geography. EU is full of mountains, rivers, and other natural borders that made consolidation by 1 empire extremely difficult and led to the emergence of different cultures. But there are no such obstacles in China. Secondly, since people across the land had the same ethnicity, language, and a common culture (Confucian values, literary canon, & the bureaucratic system), it was natural for people across the entire land to be integrated into one centralized (and absolutist) state.
Tech flourishing: The Chinese are the source of some of the world’s most important technologies. 3 big ones that made the modern world- gunpowder, printing, and compasses- all were invented here and taken to Europe by the Mongols when they presided over the nation. They even introduced the Yuan, the world’s first fiat currency: the paper currency that we use even today (that is backed by nothing but the government’s word- usually quite a shaky promise).
Naval adventures: The Chinese Admiral Zheng He built a giant armada and set sail with his ships to Africa and the Middle East, plying Chinese wares, and exercising naval diplomacy in far-flung lands. So what’s special about it? The fact that this swashbuckling navy was operating in international waters in the early 1400s- more than a century before the European colonizers got into the naval game. But these expeditions came to an abrupt end thanks to court politics. Imperial advisors put a stop to these expeditions (because they hated eunuchs and Zheng was one), and one wonders what could have happened if the Chinese hadn’t prematurely ended their naval expeditions and ambitions.
Encounter with the West: The British sent an envoy to the Qing emperor in 1793 to demand trade concessions and ease of doing business because of an insatiable demand for numerous Chinese products like tea, porcelain, and silk. (This is reminiscent of the encounter between Thomas Roe & Jehangir). But the emperor wasn’t interested- they had abundant goods of their own and the Europeans made nothing of use that they could offer to the Chinese! Such was the state of affairs a mere 3 centuries ago. But the British did have something that a few Chinese people needed: opium grown in India. This brings us to a sad chapter in their history.
The Century of Humiliation: The British began smuggling opium into the country as more and more people turned into addicts, creating a major social upheaval. To put an end to the menace, the government banned opium, and raided all opium businesses, draining their entire supply into the ocean. In retaliation, the British pummelled the Chinese navy and blockaded maritime trade, bringing the Chinese to submission. This is remembered as the First Opium War which ended in 1842, and it led to a series of agreements called the Unequal Treaties, which allowed the British to continue the opium trade in addition to exacting onerous damage payments. The pattern of strongarming and exploiting the Chinese continued as other Western nations joined in, and this is painfully remembered as the Century of Humiliation. “Never forget, and never again” is the lens with which today’s citizens look at those shameful years.
The Mao Era: After a valiant struggle, Mao emerged as the ruler of China in the middle of the 20th Century, and he became a cult personality around which the Chinese Communist Party revolved. He believed in constant revolution and took great pains to eradicate counterrevolutionaries and anybody who criticized the regime. It was during Mao’s rule that China experienced one of its worst famines in history, wiping out tens of millions in the country. He was also the architect of the Cultural Revolution- an initiative to do away with old ideas that turned into a bloodbath of epic proportions. This was a period of great tumult and disillusion.
The Chinese Miracle: In the late 1970s, Deng Xiaoping came to power and opened up the economy, ushering in a period of “capitalism with Chinese characteristics”. Private enterprises grew and China soon turned into the factory of the world, experiencing growth at a breakneck pace and turning into the giant that it is today. Ironically, he was targeted as a "capitalist roader” during the Mao years and became a victim of several purges. When he finally ascended to pole position, he showed everyone how much of a capitalist he was, architecting a kind of growth that nobody in the world had imagined.
This was but a brief look at thousands of years of Chinese history. If you’re interested in reading more about it, books like The Shortest History Of China and The Origins Of Political Order may be good starting points.
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