Book 1: Kissinger’s “On China”

I took several classics with me, mainly to learn something about Japan while I’m here:

戴季陶’s 日本论

新都户稻造’s 武士道

Ruth Benedict’s The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (菊与刀), and

Andrew Gordon’s A Modern History of Japan (standard text for university)

Ironically, it’s Kissinger’s “On China”, a book I didn’t initially intend to bring (because it is thick and not about Japan), that’s completely engrossed me in the past few days. Back in college, I had read 2/3 of Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” as required reading for Harvard’s Hist A12, the well-known “Conflict and Cooperation” class. I recall at the time being awe-struck by Kissinger’s fluid prose, intricate analysis, and succinct yet penetrating summaries. Particularly the early chapters on European balance of power politics until the outbreak of World War I, more than any other author I’ve read, Kissinger made the theory and practice of politics and diplomacy at once accessible and enlightening.

”On China” has all the hallmark of a Kissinger masterpiece, and again, the early chapters I believe are the highlights. Tracing the origins of Chinese political worldview from the myth of the Yellow Emperor, to the empire’s rise to preeminence and subsequent decline, to Mao’s declaration in 1949 that the Chinese people “have stood up”, the first 90 pages is a concise primer on modern Chinese history and a penetrating appraisal of the Chinese political psyche, written with a familiarity, available only to someone who has practiced at the highest levels of Sino-US relations for five decades.

Building on this foundation, the next 450 pages mainly analyse and account the evolution of Sino-US relations from Mao to Deng to Jiang on the Chinese side and Nixon to Bush (senior) presidencies on the US side. The best parts here were his account of the intricacies of US-China détente, Mao and Deng’s motivations for war in Korea and Vietnam, and Sino-Soviet split. It’s been typical to view 1949 as a break in China’s historical development. Kissinger, however, deftly show and repeatedly emphasize that continuities in self perception and world view among Chinese statesmen are crucial to understanding the Chinese concept of world order and their strategic decision making. These pages are well written also, but maybe these events are relatively recent, or others have written prolifically on similar topics, I came away still thinking the first 90 pages were the best.

Some quotes which I thought were illuminating:

Unlike conventional states, which “cherish a tale of their origin, a special feature of Chinese civilization is that it seems to have no beginning… The Yellow Emperor has gone down in history as a founding hero; yet in the founding myth, he is reestablishing, not creating, and empire. China predated him; it strides in to the historical consciousness as an established state requiring only restoration, not creation.”

On the nature of the Chinese state: “the borders between China and the surrounding peoples were not so much political and territorial demarcations as cultural differentiations… in the modern age, China remains a ‘civilization pretending to be a nation-state’.”

On Chinese relationship to religion: “China produced no religious themes in the Western sense at all. The Chinese never generated a myth of cosmic creation. Their universe was created by the Chinese themselves, whose values, even when declared of universal applicability, were conceived of as Chinese in origin.”

On China’s historical geopolitical situation, and remarkably relevant still today: “Individually, neighboring peoples could pose formidable threats; with any degree of unity, they would be overwhelming… The Great Wall, so prominent in Western iconography of China, was a reflection of this basic vulnerability, though rarely a successful solution to it. Instead, Chinese statesmen relied on a rich array of diplomatic and economic instruments to draw potentially hostile foreigners into relationships the Chinese could manage.”

And commenting on China’s depredation in the later Qing years: “Chinese statesmen played their weak hand with considerable skill … From the point of view of the balance of power, the objective configuration of forces would have suggested the impossibility of China’s survival as a unitary, continent-sized state. But … China eventually overcame its travails by its own efforts. Through a painful and often humiliating process, China’s statesmen in the end preserved the moral and territorial claims of their disintegrating world order.”

After reading the book, one can clearly see Kissinger’s respect for Mao (“philosopher-king”) is close to being on par with his veneration of Sun Tze’s “Art of War” (whom he credits also for providing Vietnam with tactical and strategic advantages in the Second Vietnam War). Next in the rung is Deng (“battle-hardened guardian of the national interest”. Then Zhou (“the mandarin” who “conducted conversations with … effortless grace and superior intelligence”). Kissinger had also high praises for Jiang, Zhu Rongji and Qian Qichen for following through with Deng’s vision and building up China’s modern economy.

The upheavals since 1840 severely challenged the Middle Kingdom’s traditional notion of political ‘singularity’, cultural superiority, economic independence, and aloof isolation. In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the primary forces were military and the devastating defeats coalesced a modern nationalism and prompted generations of deep and painful soul-searching.

While the China that emerged post 1949 is a more conventional nation state that has let go of much of the pretensions of the Middle Kingdom, it has not abdicated the notion of the its exceptionalism. To a large extent, the exceptionalism espoused by the Middle Kingdom, was made possible by its regional preeminence and sustained by distances insurmountable by then available technology. As those barriers broke down in the early 19^th century, China descended into 100 years of chaos and deprivation.

The question could be asked in today’s vastly more interconnected world, to what extent is exceptionalism as a concept sustainable, not just for China, but also for other nations espousing similar ideals. China’s lesson is perhaps that exceptionalism made possible by preeminence, however long and secure it may seem, is nevertheless a shaky foundation for a modern nation state. As we observe our condition with humility and see through to those patterns of our shared humanity, the future for all of us is more alike than different.