The television series The Rise of Great Nations, shown on China's state network CCTV across twelve episodes on 13-24 November 2006, has stirred up a lively media debate in China. Much of the heated public discussion that followed the transmission has focused on the defining terms of the series; "great nation" and "rising".
In particular, the trigger of the controversy stems from the adoption by the series of a new standpoint towards China's history: a move away from the condemnation (familiar in Chinese history textbooks) of "imperialist sin" and foreign powers which "get rich from the blood of others", and towards a more generally positive appraisal of other countries' national experiences. In this revised interpretation, the "sin" of the past has become rather a driving force and a condition for the rise of nations to global status.
Li Datong is a Chinese journalist and formerly editor of Freezing Point, a weekly supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper
Also by Li Datong in openDemocracy:
"The story of Freezing Point"
(12 September 2006)
What's interesting is that this total reversal of the conventional viewpoint did not receive the same negative response as Yuan Weishi's article on "modernisation and history textbooks" in the publication Freezing Point in January 2006. Whereas that article was accused of being "an arrow aimed straight at the Communist Party leaders and the socialist system", The Rise of Great Nations was repeatedly shown on the most widely received form of media. This could be interpreted as a sign that the series was implicitly in line with the current aims of the ruling party.
It could equally be argued that throughout history, China has been a great nation; starting from as early as the Tang dynasty, China was already a "superpower". From this time, China had established a modern civil official system and imperial civil service examination system. Even in world trade, until the opium war in 1840, China showed disdain for independent warlords. At that time too, even post-industrial-revolution Britain could not provide commodities that China was prepared to exchange its goods for, and Britain had only hard currency and silver rather than goods to purchase China's own commodities.
From the middle of the 19th century, the big western powers started using military force to enter China. It was only at this time that China's emperor and her ministers discovered that the Chinese empire, which had always posed as the centre of the world, could simply collapse after one blow. Although magnificent on the surface, the country has long been submerged by the decay of its interior. What does this interior refer to? It refers to its system.
Unfortunately the series The Rise of Great Nations inadvertently managed to evade a fundamental point. Each great western nation achieved its status under various different historical conditions, many of which could not be reproduced today; but all had one thing in common, namely that their rise entailed a constant improvement in the rights of their people, and a severe restriction in the power of their rulers. Without such a foundation, "the rise of great nations" can be dangerous. Hitler's rule over Germany, militarist Japan and Stalinism in the Soviet Union are all examples of mistakes that should be learned from.
How to re-establish China's great national glory of the past is a question that political leaders and intellectuals have been anxiously thinking about for some time. Mao Tse-tung's way of dealing with it was to attack the west; without hesitation, he exhausted China's national strength in order to support this "world revolution". The attempt to keep pace with the rival superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, caused China to suffer a huge famine in the 1950s. As more than 30 million people were dying, huge sums of financial resources were still being used to develop nuclear weapons. The creation of a façade of "great nationhood" to mobilise such a national project can produce fear, but not respect.
Deng Xiaoping was much more prudent than Mao Zedong. He saw that without a developed economy, the lives of the people wouldn't be able to improve, let alone the possibility of establishing a great nation.
When the CCP's ruling legitimacy was on the brink of threat, he encouraged the development of the economy. However, this still did not give the people political rights; during this period the Tiananmen Square massacre happened, shaking the world. Can China, a country that mercilessly massacres its own people become a great nation that commands people's respect? Not in this way it can't.
In any case, for most Chinese people, talk of whether or not China is a great nation and whether or not it is rising is meaningless. What these people are concerned about is the improvement of their own living conditions, their rights, the increase of freedom and the reduction of terror. The size of the country a people belong to has no bearing on its happiness. Making the people pay a heavy price in order to satisfy political leaders' desire to create a great nation is the development pitfall that China's intellectual circles need to be looking at face on right now.
, 
Comments
One causes a series of sweeping generalisations and the other seems to probe the question from a western perspective thus truely limiting the articles use and substance.
The author's view expressed in the last paragraph is somewhat too simplified to make sense. China is not run by a team of people bent over backwards to restore a great nation status per se.
There is no doubt that improving the living conditions after the trauma of 60s and 70s was a genuine cause for reform. That departure from political movements was entirely positive.
Once the market is open, some of its momentums have become hard to control, in particular, now we have a rich class of people trying to get richer, a government class that is rent seeking in addition to secure survival, a rural poor that is desperate precisely because their voice is deminishing by with their relative economic status particularly after get used to be the "owner" of the communist state.
Most people are toleratingt this state of affair because their absolute economic wellbeing has been growing by and large over the past 20 years. Urban China has become economically very mobile, which is the root cause of such a fierce University entrance exam system. Rural Chinese are seeing unprecendented economic opportunities in the cities and the educated ones are largely on a level playing field with their urban fellows after graduation.
By saying "What these people are concerned about is the improvement of their own living conditions, their rights, the increase of freedom and the reduction of terror", what the author ingnore is precisely the trade-off above.
I'm not playing down the many instances of corruption and repression that befall the most on the economically disadvantaged, however there is just no way they can be expected to get organised to deliver any movements. So far we can only rely on the more educated people to speak on their behalf and on the law's behalf.
The CCP's bigwigs are more aware of this tension than any Western observers. However, their implicity mandate from the people is to deliver a broad based growth in economics, otherwise, their survival will be threatened. Knowing this bottom line, the CCP is sensibly refrained from introducing more measurements of its rule, such as freedom and rights.
This is not to say freedom and rights are not important. Economic growth confers a lot of freedom and rights previously denied to all.
I realise I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but I couldn't resist putting the other side of story.
One last point on the documentory itself, one article appeared on Mindmeters.com, a Chinese blog equivalent of openDemocracy quite sensibly reminded everyone any reductionist, mass-education approach to understanding history on such a grand scale. Talking to my family, what impressed them the most about this documentory seemed to be the theme that all great powers had sinned on their way to reach greatness. To me, this could be a dangerous preparation to a more nationalistic approach to foreign policy. The flip side of course, is to show everyone the great temptations we must all resist!
When a group of economists from the USA went to the China about five years ago they were 'surprised' at the level of questioning. The Harvard economic indoctrination forced on the 3rd world by the IMF and the World Bank has been shown to be wrong especially when there is free flow of capital that can kill economies within weeks for the vulturous USA to then pick up the juicy pieces. Most of the press against China and its economic miracle is because it chose to isolate itself from the USA power in its country while taking advantage of liberal world markets.
China has managed to do in 25 years what the 1st world could not do in 150 years BECAUSE it has had no property rights and few human rights. It would be impossible for the 1st world to have growth of 10% over an extended period without hiper inflation because the 1st world starts with consumer growth that is then fed into industrial and infrastructure growth because the capitalists need to see the market before investing whereas the communist model has been to invest in infrastructure first and then allow the consumer to grow. China has been planned from the top down and now it is a position to give consumer loans, consumer protection, property rights and human rights and very very importantly ecology. The 1st world has been too late to realise the enormity of what China has done and it now controls the world in basic industrial goods and could control the financial markets with its holdings of foreign, especially, USA bonds. The USA still thinks that it has the control through the military, the internet, the banking systems, the control of foreign pension funds, the IMF and World Bank, the oil markets, and now the creeping control of the foreign stock markets. It obviously failed through Worldcom and Enron for the telecom and energy markets and it will fail with the rest. The USA has also found it easy to buy foreign Governments with the promises of lucrative lecture tours or future contracts with the likes of the Carlyle Group but it mostly concentrated on developed countries and left some of the really rich pickings to the Chinese.
The big fight is not the Middle East it will be seen that the fight is between the people and money, the trends show that the people are winning - I back China not the USA.
The real irony though is that it is not the USA, it is the people that control the USA through the likes of the Bildemberg Group and they have recently orchestrated the huge share buybacks and mergers spree to allow them to take their monies out of the market and buy position and power round the world to leave the unsuspecting USA democracy with worthless shares,pension funds, houses and bank accounts when the financial collapse caused by the housing crash hits home. How is it that Federal Reserve backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could lend nearly 10% of world net worth? How is it that the Federal Reserve is a private company and the major 'close' brokerage houses can't fail to make huge amounts of money without conspicuous mistakes? How many dollars really exist?
How is it that the CIA is not prosecuted for paying to quieten Pinochet enemies in Chile? How is it that after a recent agreement with Kirchner of Argentina, Argentina starts an unwarranted action against Iran and drops the Croatian and Ecuadorian arms smuggling case that would have shown the CIA involvement?
It is not possible to discuss economies without discussing the political influence and hence the conspiracy theory.
It is a mystery, and you will not find the answers from the people or companies that you are induced to trust. If you are willing to pay a multiple of the real value of a consumer good due to its marketing then please read 'the Emperor has no clothes'and think how controlled and vulnerable you really are.
Human Rights are good, but they also "pay", at least from the point of view of the nation. An encouraging thought...
people are purpose!
Post new comment