新研究洗脫了是那個女人導致王朝覆滅的罪名（2/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

New Research Absolves the Woman Blamed for a Dynasty’s Ruin (2/2)

A Chinese king’s infatuation with a woman was seen as the reason that a golden age collapsed. Evidence suggests climate change and internal strife played bigger roles.

By Andrew Higgins - Reporting from Hejia Village and Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, China

Feb. 14, 2026

Updated 4:05 a.m. ET

(continue)

Professor Shaughnessy said he had long believed that climactic events before Western Zhou collapsed “probably contributed to the fall, but there were many other reasons for it as well.”

Volcanoes spew out aerosol particles that cut sunlight and can play havoc with farming thousands of miles away. Whether an eruption “tips a dynasty over the edge,” however, depends heavily on the extent at the time of warfare and instability, Mr. Ludlow said.

“Our most interesting finding,” he said, “is not that volcanoes are implicated in dynastic change but that the impact of climatic shock depends on how stable a society was in the lead up to that shock.”

Mr. Chong, the archaeology institute director, also said that Western Zhou’s own “internal and external contradictions” were key to its downfall.

These included a steady weakening of the royal court’s control over regional rulers as ties of blood to the center were diluted by time, and also a growing conflict with rival “barbarian” powers to the northwest and southeast.

For centuries, Chinese scholars have struggled to square the Western Zhou’s sudden collapse with the glowing praise heaped upon it by Confucius. “If the Western Zhou dynasty was so perfect an age of good politics and institutions as Confucius tended to suggest, then why had it to fall, and to give rise to a time of political disorder and moral decline?” asked Li Feng, a professor of early Chinese history at Columbia University, in a 2006 book.

Yan Yongqian, a young archaeologist who is part of a team now digging up what is believed to be a side gate to the Western Zhou capital, said the excavation work had revealed evidence of the dynasty’s highly stratified and sophisticated society, as well as its darker side, including human sacrifices.

The collapse of the Western Zhou, Mr. Yan said, seems to have happened quickly, accelerated by military attack from outside against defenses weakened by internal discord. An earlier round of excavation uncovered the remains of burned ancient buildings, suggesting a violent end.

“The fall of this state was likely a very sudden event,” Mr. Yan said. Whether Bao Si, the beautiful consort, who, according to ancient legend, was conceived from dragon spittle, existed is unclear and even if she did, he added, “a single person cannot destroy a dynasty.”

Since Sima Qian wrote “Historical Records,” each new Chinese dynasty has traditionally commissioned an official history of its predecessor, enumerating supposed moral and other failings that led to its demise.

Though widely dismissed by modern scholars as fairy tales, stories about the Western Zhou king’s dynasty-destroying infatuation with Bao Si still sometimes crowd out other explanations. At a museum near the excavation site showcasing Western Zhou’s cultural achievements and its sudden demise, exhibits recount how the king grappled with natural disasters and other problems but lost power largely because of his wayward love life.

To entertain Bao Si, who was famous for her great but unsmiling beauty, the story goes, he lit beacon fires that were supposed to be used to summon help in times of emergency, a stunt that cost him his life and kingdom when a real attack came in 771 B.C.

Whether such beacons even existed, however, is disputed and Mr. Yan, the archaeologist, said the story had probably been fabricated to demonize Bao Si and cover up the dynasty’s real problems.

Mr. Chong, the Shaanxi province archaeology institute director, said: “When things go wrong you have to find someone to take responsibility,” and, in China’s patriarchal society, that person “is always a woman.” He added, “The real collapse of a society is caused by the system and its mechanisms.”

Translation

新研究洗脫了是那個女人導致王朝覆滅的罪名（2/2）

一位中國君王對一位女子的迷戀曾被認為是導致王朝鼎盛時期終結的原因。但有證據表明，氣候變遷和內部紛爭才是更重要的因素。

（繼續）

Shaughnessy教授表示，他一直認為西周滅亡前的氣候事件「可能促成了王朝的覆滅，但還有許多其他原因」。

火山爆發會噴出氣溶膠粒子，阻擋陽光，可能對數千英里外的農業造成嚴重破壞。Ludlow先生表示，火山爆發是否“足以壓垮一個王朝”，很大程度上取決於當時戰爭和動盪的程度。

他說:“我們最有趣的發現並非火山活動與王朝更迭有關，而是氣候衝擊的影響取決於社會在衝擊發生前的穩定性。”

考古研究所所長Chong先生也表示，西周自身的「內外矛盾」是其滅亡的關鍵。

這些矛盾包括：隨著血緣關係的淡化，皇室對地方統治者的控制力逐漸減弱；以及與西北和東南方的「蠻夷」勢力日益加劇的衝突。

幾個世紀以來，中國學者一直試圖拆解西周的突然滅亡與孔子對其極力讚揚的矛盾。 哥倫比亞大學早期中國歷史教授Li Feng在2006年出版的一本書中提出了這個問題:「如果西周真如孔子所言，是一個政治和制度都臻於完美的時代，那麼它為何會滅亡，並導致政治混亂和道德淪喪的局面呢？」

年輕的考古學家Yan Yongqian是目前正在挖掘相信是西周首都側門一處遺址的考古學家成員之一。他表示，挖掘工作揭示了西周社會高度分層且複雜的一面，同時也暴露了其陰暗面，例如人祭。

Yan說，西周的滅亡似乎發生得很快，外部軍事進攻加速了這一進程，而內部紛爭削弱了其防禦。先前的一輪挖掘工作發現了被焚毀的古代建築遺跡，顯示西周的滅亡是一場暴力事件。

Yan說: 「這個國家的滅亡很可能是一場非常突然的事件」。至於傳說中由龍唾液孕育而成的絕世美人褒姒是否真實存在，尚不清楚。即使褒姒存在，Yan補充道: “一個人不可能摧毀一個王朝。”

自從司馬遷寫《史記》以來，每個新的中國王朝都會按慣例委託編纂前朝的官方史書，列舉前朝的種種道德敗壞和其他導致其滅亡的罪狀。

儘管現代學者普遍認為西周王與褒姒的戀情是無稽之談，但這些故事至今仍佔據主導地位，有時甚至蓋過了其他解釋。在西周遺址附近的一座博物館裡，展出了西周的文化成就及其突然滅亡的原因，其中也講述了西周王如何應對自然災害和其他問題，最終卻因其放蕩不羈的愛情生活而失去權力。

據說，為了取悅以絕世美貌著稱卻不苟言笑的褒姒，西周王點燃了原本用於在緊急情況下求援的烽火台。西元前771年，一場真正的戰爭爆發，西周王的這一舉動最終讓他付出了生命的代價，並失去了王國。

然而，這些烽火台是否真的存在尚存爭議。考古學家Yan先生表示，這個故事很可能是為了妖魔化褒姒、掩蓋其王朝的真正問題而編造的。

陝西省考古研究所所長Chong先生說：「出了問題，總得有人承擔責任」。在中國的父權社會裡，這個人”總是女性”。他還補充說：「一個社會的真正崩潰是由其制度及其運作機制所造成的」。

              So, new researches suggest that the collapse of the Western Zhou seems to have happened quickly, accelerated by military attack from outside and weakened defenses due to internal discord. This suggestion has a wider implication in that conclusions made by previous historians in medieval China in explaining causes of a dynasty change etc. might not be as trustworthy as has been previously thought. Their conclusions might have been clouded by moral judgment held by Chinese scholars who wrote history privately or officially. Probably, their level of logical thinking was not as sophisticated as their counterparts in modern time, apparently after the arrival of Western learning in China.  Education received by scholars in those days focused more of literature learning and memorization rather than logical thinking. Also, modern historians have the benefit in getting more archeological tools to help understand historical events from different perspectives.

Note:

1. An aerosol 氣溶膠is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another gas. Aerosols can be generated from natural or human causes. The scientific term aerosol refers to the mixture of particulates in gas, and not to the particulate matter alone. The liquid or solid particles in an aerosol have diameters typically less than 1 μm. (Wikipedia)

新研究洗脫了是那個女人導致王朝覆滅的罪名（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

New Research Absolves the Woman Blamed for a Dynasty’s Ruin (1/2)

A Chinese king’s infatuation with a woman was seen as the reason that a golden age collapsed. Evidence suggests climate change and internal strife played bigger roles.

By Andrew Higgins - Reporting from Hejia Village and Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, China

Feb. 14, 2026

Updated 4:05 a.m. ET

Digging deep into a field in northwestern China, archaeologists recently uncovered chariot tracks, plumbing and the remnants of an elaborate city gate dating back more than 3,000 years — all traces of an early Chinese dynasty that has been celebrated by Confucian scholars, and also by the Communist Party, as a model of political and social harmony.

The discoveries suggest that the area that is now farmland west of the city of Xi’an, in Shaanxi Province, is part of the long-vanished capital of the Western Zhou, a dynasty exalted throughout Chinese history as the acme of good governance.

The digging, part of decades-long excavation work in the area, has also shed new light on a bigger question: If the ancient dynasty was so perfect, why did it collapse in chaos, unable to contain external and internal threats? It lasted nearly 300 years but still fell apart in 771 B.C. under pressure from “barbarian” invaders and estranged former allies.

Why seemingly robust political systems crumble has been a central preoccupation of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, since the 1991 downfall of the Soviet Union. An avid fan of ancient history and archaeology, he visited a museum in Baoji, a city in Shaanxi near the excavation site, in 2024 and inspected ancient bronzes from the Western Zhou dynasty, including one inscribed with “zhongguo,” meaning “middle kingdom,” the earliest known written record of China’s name.

The traditional explanation for the downfall of the Western Zhou, enshrined in the first century B.C. by Sima Qian, the father of Chinese history, is that the dynasty unraveled because of a beautiful woman who bewitched and led astray its ruler, King You.

Recent archaeological and other evidence, however, has debunked this reading of dynastic decline as a morality play. Instead, the new findings highlight the frailties of a rigidly hierarchical political system grown brittle over time that could not withstand disruptions caused by climate change and internal division.

Chong Jianrong, the director of the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology, who been hunting traces of Western Zhou’s rise and fall for decades, said the woman often blamed for the dynasty’s demise — a concubine named Bao Si — was “just a scapegoat” to explain the ruin of a supposedly golden age.

Edward L. Shaughnessy, a leading American authority on ancient China, said Bao Si’s role in the end of the dynasty “is of course just a fairy tale,” possibly concocted as part of “some sort of factional strife at the Zhou court.”

Hailed by Confucius and his followers as a model undone by lust, the dynasty produced many of the core concepts of Chinese civilization, like the “mandate of heaven,” the idea that a ruler holds power because of good governance and loses it through immoral misbehavior.

But, Mr. Chong said of the fall of Western Zhou, “this is not about a beautiful woman causing trouble.”

A recent study led by Chinese scientists in Beijing has now provided what many historians see as a more plausible theory. Using evidence collected from stalagmites, it blamed rapid climate change. Drought and unusual cold caused by a sudden change in the climate 2,800 years ago — just before the collapse of Western Zhou — played a “critical role” in the dynasty’s demise, according to a study published in Communications Earth & Environment, a sister publication to the British scientific journal Nature.

A separate study based on the analysis of ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, which provided a chronology of volcanic activity over two millenniums, found that 62 of 68 Chinese dynastic houses over that period fell after one or more volcanic eruptions — a major cause of short-term climatic shocks throughout history.

Francis Ludlow, an associate professor of medieval environment history at Trinity College, Dublin, who carried out the research with Chinese and other scholars, said in a telephone interview that he had been surprised by the close correlation between volcanic activity and dynastic decline. “There were way too many eruptions just before collapse dates to be just random coincidences,” he said.

(to be continued)

Translation

新研究洗脫了是那個女人導致王朝覆滅的罪名（1/2）

一位中國皇帝對一位女性的迷戀曾被認為是導致一個黃金時代終結的原因。但有證據表明，氣候變遷和內部紛爭才是更大的因素。

考古學家近日在中國西北部的一片田野中挖掘，發現了距今3000多年的戰車痕跡、管道設施以及一座精美城門的遺跡 - 所有這些都是早期中國王朝的痕跡，該王朝曾被儒家學者和中國共產黨譽為政治和社會和諧的典範。

這些發現表明，如今位於陝西省西安市西部的農田，是早已消失的西周王朝都城的一部分。西周王朝在中國歷史上被譽為治國理政的巔峰。

這次發掘是該地區長達數十年的考古發掘工作的一部分，同時也為一個更宏大的問題提供了新的線索：如果這個古代王朝如此完美，為何最終會在混亂中崩潰，無法抵禦內外威脅？西周王朝延續了近300年，卻在西元前771年因「蠻族」入侵者和昔日盟友的關係疏遠而瓦解。

自1991年蘇聯解體以來，看似穩固的政治體系為何會崩潰，一直是中國最高領導人習近平關注的核心議題。作為一名古代歷史和考古學的狂熱愛好者，他於2024年參觀了位於陝西省寶雞市（靠近發掘現場）的一家博物館，並仔細研究了西周時期的青銅器，其中包括一件刻有“中國”字樣的青銅器，這是目前已知最早的“中國”國名文字記載。

司馬遷，這位中國歷史之父，於西元前一世紀確立了對西周衰落的傳統解釋：王朝的瓦解是因為被一位美女迷惑並帶領其統治者周幽王走向歧途。

然而，近期的考古發現和其他證據駁斥了這種將朝代衰落視為一齣道德劇。相反，新的研究成果凸顯等級森嚴的政治體系隨著時間的推移而變得脆弱不堪，無法抵禦氣候變遷和內部紛爭帶來的衝擊。

陝西考古研究所所長Chong Jianrong數十年來致力於研究西周興衰的遺跡。他表示，常被指責為導致西周滅亡的嬪妃褒姒(Bao Si)“只過是個代罪羔羊”，用她來解釋這個所謂黃金時代的覆滅。

美國古代中國研究權威專家Edward L. Shaughnessy則認為，褒姒在西周滅亡中所扮演的角色 “當然只是個傳說” ， 很可能是 “周朝宮廷內部派系鬥爭” 的捏造產物。

西周被孔子及其追隨者譽為因貪欲而覆滅的典範，西周孕育了中國文明的諸多核心概念，例如“天命論”，即統治者因政績卓著而掌權，因不道德的行為而失勢。

但Chong先生談到西周的滅亡時說：“這不是關於一個美女惹麻煩的事。”

北京的中國科學家最近進行的一項研究提出了許多歷史學家認為更合理的理論。該研究利用從石筍中收集的證據，將西周王朝的滅亡歸咎於氣候的快速變化。發表在《通訊地球與環境》（Communications Earth & Environment），英國科學期刊《自然》的姊妹刊）上的這項研究指出，2800年前 就在西周王朝滅亡前夕 - 氣候的突然變化導致出現乾旱和異常寒冷，這對西周王朝的滅亡起到了「關鍵作用」。

另一項則是基於格陵蘭島和南極洲冰芯分析的研究，提供了兩千年來火山活動的年表，發現這段時期中國68個王朝中有62個王朝在一次或多次火山爆發後滅亡 - 火山爆發是歷史上做成短期氣候衝擊的主要原因之一。

都柏林聖三一學院中世紀環境史副教授Francis Ludlow與中國及其他國家的學者共同進行了這項研究。他在電話訪問中表示，火山活動與王朝衰落之間的密切關聯令他感到驚訝。 他說:「在王朝崩潰之前都發生如此多的火山爆發，事情絕非偶然巧合」。

（待續）

'Clash of Civilizations' Has No Place in U.S. Foreign Policy

Yahoo On-line recently reported the following:

Yahoo Finance

'Clash of Civilizations' Has No Place in U.S. Foreign Policy

Bloomberg  Hal Brands,Bloomberg Sat, May 4 8:00 AM PDT

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- It isn’t often that high-ranking U.S. diplomats publicly invoke the ideas of ivory-tower academics. But earlier this week, the director of policy planning at the State Department, Kiron Skinner, used a controversial concept created by Harvard professor Samuel Huntington to describe America’s unfolding rivalry with China. Speaking at a Washington think tank, Skinner said that China’s rise constitutes a generational challenge that will require a generational response. She also argued that the rivalry represents a great “clash of civilizations,” the term Huntington, who died in 2008, coined in predicting what would take place after the end of the Cold War.

The Trump administration is undoubtedly right that competition with China will be a decades-long affair. Yet the Clash of Civilizations model won’t help the U.S win that competition, because it actually supports Beijing’s strategy better than America’s.

Huntington introduced the clash thesis in a famous Foreign Affairs essay written in 1993. He argued that, with the collapse of communism, ideological rivalries would no longer drive global affairs. Rather, conflict would occur between groups defined by culture, religion and identity. Among the clashing groups would be a Western civilization in Europe and North America, and a “Sinic” civilization made up of China and many of its Asian neighbors.

The clash thesis gained popularity amid bloody struggles between Muslim and Christian communities in the former Yugoslavia, and particularly after the eruption of the war on terror after 9/11. The U.S. government always rejected Huntington’s framing, though: the George W. Bush administration argued that the war on terror was a product of a clash within a civilization — between the tolerant and intolerant parts of the Muslim world — rather than a clash between the Muslim world and the West.

Today, there are profound cultural differences between the U.S. and China, in addition to myriad economic and geopolitical strains. But critics of the Trump administration will hear talk of a civilizational conflict as an echo of the idea, promoted by the controversial former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, that the world has reached a confrontation pitting the Christian West against the rest. And even leaving that loaded issue aside, the concept is ideologically and geopolitically counterproductive.

For one thing, “clash” rhetoric sacrifices the moral high ground in the U.S.-China competition. America has long claimed that democratic values and human rights are not distinctly Western ideas. Instead, they are universal ideas that people everywhere deserve to enjoy — and that no government has a right to deny its people.

This argument, although sometimes selectively applied, represents a fundamental foreign policy strength because it allows the U.S. to identify itself with the aspirations of people around the world — even in countries that are controlled by hostile regimes. Moreover, U.S. officials have used the idea that human rights and democratic values are universal as an ideological bludgeon against authoritarian governments, as it did to great effect against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Chinese government, by contrast, has embraced the concept of civilizational difference as a means of autocratic self-protection. Beijing has long rejected the idea that it should liberalize its political system — or simply stop throwing dissidents in jail — on grounds that “Western” concepts of democracy and individual rights are incompatible with the traditions of China’s unique civilization.

The U.S. should not be supporting this idea, even implicitly; it should not be affirming the civilizational wall the Chinese regime has sought to build between its citizens and the democratic world.

The clash thesis is also geopolitically dangerous, because here, too, it plays into China’s hands. The Chinese government has long argued that the world should, in fact, be divided along civilizational lines: That Asians have more in common with each other than they do with the U.S., and that Washington should therefore leave Asia to the Asians — meaning that it should allow China to dominate that part of the world. This argument provides an intellectual underpinning for everything Beijing is doing to push the U.S. out of the Western Pacific: Undermining U.S. alliances, building up its military, and weaving webs of economic dependence around its neighbors.

The idea of drawing sharp boundaries between East and West is thus critical to China’s strategy — and it is lethal to America’s. To counter China, the U.S. will need to rally a coalition that cuts across civilizations. This includes, but is not limited to, the democracies of the Western Hemisphere and Europe and an array of Asian countries that are troubled by China’s rise. Yet talking about civilizational clashes merely highlights the cultural and racial differences between the U.S. and Vietnam or India, at precisely the moment when common geopolitical interests need to be brought to the fore.

To hold together a diverse balancing coalition against an ambitious China will be hard enough. American diplomats shouldn’t make that task any more challenging than it has to be.

(To contact the author of this story: Hal Brands at Hal.Brands@jhu.edu

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Tobin Harshaw at tharshaw@bloomberg.net

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Hal Brands is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, the Henry Kissinger Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Most recently, he is the co-author of "The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order."

For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.)

My translation

（彭博意見） - 高級別的美國外交官通常不會公開援引象牙塔學者的觀點。但本週早些時候，美國國務院政策規劃主任姫朗斯金納 (Kiron Skinner) 利用哈佛大學教授塞繆爾亨廷頓(Samuel Huntington) 所創建的一個有爭議概念來描述美國與中國正在展開的競爭。斯金納在華盛頓的一個智囊團發表講話說，中國的崛起​​是一代人的挑戰，需要一代人的回應。她還認為，這場競爭代表了一場偉大的“文化衝突”, “文化衝突”這一詞是已於2008年去世的亨廷頓所創出，用作是預測冷戰結束後將發生的事情。

特朗普 (Trump) 政府毫無疑問是正確的，與中國的競爭將會是一個長達數十年的事件。然而，“文化衝突”模式無助美國贏得這場競爭，因為它實際上支持北京的戰略多於美國。

亨廷頓在1993年撰寫的著名外交文章中介紹了衝突論點。他認為隨著共產主義的崩潰，意識形態的競爭將不再是全球事務的推動力。相反，在文化，宗教和身份所定義的群體之間會發生衝突。衝突群體中包括歐洲和北美的西方文明，以及由中國和許多亞洲鄰國組成的“中國”文明。

在前南斯拉夫的穆斯林和基督教社區之間的血腥鬥爭中，特別是在911事件後的反恐戰爭爆發後，衝突論文得到了普及。儘管如此，美國政府總是拒絕亨廷頓的框架：喬治布殊(George W. Bush) 政府認為，反恐戰爭是文化衝突的產物 - 是穆斯林世界的寬容和不寬容两派之間衝突 - 而不是穆斯林和西方世界的衝突。

今天，除了無數的經濟和地緣政治壓力之外，美國和中國之間存在深刻的文化差異。但特朗普政府的批評者將聽到關於文明衝突言論的迴聲，這是具有爭議的前特朗普顧問史蒂夫班農 (Steve Bannon) 提出的這一想法，即世界已經達到西方基督徒對抗其餘所有的人。即使撇開其中付加意思，這個概念在意識形態和地緣政治上都會帶來消極效應。

一方面，“衝突”言論犧牲了美中競爭中的道德制高點。美國長期以來一直聲稱民主價值觀和人權並非西方的特有觀念。相反，它們是世界各地人民應該享有的普遍觀念 - 並且任何政府都沒有權利否認其人民應該享有。

這一論點雖然有時被選擇性地應用，但它代表了一種基本的外交政策力量，因為它允許美國認同世界各地人民的願望 - 即使在受敵對政權控制的國家。此外，美國官員使用的觀點是，人權和民主價值觀是普遍的，是反對威權政府的意識形態打擊，因為它在冷戰期間對蘇聯產生了巨大影響。

相比之下，中國政府已經接受了文明差異作為專制,自我保護手段的概念。北京長期以來一直拒絕接受它及應該放開政治體制這一觀點 - 或者只是停止將持不同政見者投入監獄 - 理由是 “西方” 的民主和個人權利概念與中國獨特文明的傳統不相容。

美國不應該支持這個想法, 就算在不经意之中; 它不應該認同中國政權在其公民和民主世界之間尋求建立一幅分隔文明的牆。

衝突論也具有地緣政治危險性，因為在這裡，在中國的手中它也會被發揮作用。中國政府長期以來一直認為世界應該按照文明的方式劃分：亞洲人彼此之間的共同點多於對美國的共同點，華盛頓因此應該把亞洲留給亞洲人 - 這意味著它應該讓中國主宰世界這一地區。這一論點為北京為推動美國脫離西太平洋所做的一切提供了知性的支持：削弱美國聯盟，建立軍事力量，並圍繞鄰國編織一個互相依賴經濟網。

因此，在東西方之間劃清界限的想法對中國的戰略至關重要 - 而且它對美國來說是致命的。為了對抗中國，美國需要團結一個跨越文化的聯盟。這包括但不限於西半球和歐洲的民主國家以及一系列受中國崛起困擾的亞洲國家。文化衝突論只會突出了美國與越南或印度之間的文化和種族差異。

將一個多元化的平衡聯盟與雄心勃勃的中國团结起来將是非常困難的。 美國外交官不應該讓這項任務變得更具挑戰性。

My comments

I think the present conflict could be understood as a regional conflict of interest between China and the US.  When China became the world’ second largest economic entity about a decade ago, it began to flex its economic muscle towards its Asia neighbors, and started to advocate its territorial rights in Asia in general, and in the South China Sea in particular. China’s leader is trying to realize its “China Dream” (中國夢) in bringing China back to a strong country (for more information on 中國夢 please see the same hashtag in my blog). China is challenging the US’s presence in the South China sea and causing the conflicts. There are little cultural elements in the present conflict, it is mainly about economic interests. Yet economic power of a country can easily be transformed into political and military power. To find out an answer on the cause of the present conflict, one may try to ask why this conflict sudden appeared starting a few years ago while cultural different between East and West has existed for over several hundreds if not several thousands of years.

While CCP practices ideological control inside its country on grounds that “Western” concepts of democracy and individual rights are incompatible with the traditions of China’s unique civilization, yet one could find it difficult to define what is meant by “the traditions of China’s unique civilization”. Tradition and civilization are cultural components of a nation which are always changing over time. It is absurd for a country to always adhere to its past tradition in charting its future course in development. For CCP, the only reason to advocate the uniqueness in tradition and civilization is to use it as a pretext to say no to freedom of speech and thinking etc. One way to understand the present conflict between the West (mainly the US and EU) is that it is a competition between two political systems: China that advocates state control for high efficiency at the expenses of democracy verses the West that advocates democracy at the expenses of efficiency. Chances are that usually a highly efficient political system could have a higher chance to win conflicts with other countries. For example, Nazi Germany in Europe before the US joining WWII.

Japan in late 1960s became the world’s second biggest economy. Its soft power was reflected in its high-quality consumer and household products, for example cars and cameras; and in cultural goods such pop music, cartoon and TV drama. Contrasting this, China’s present soft power is money, in the form of a huge consumer market at home and exporting construction projects abroad. This is further supplemented by its the ability to give out easy loans to other countries. China's  ambitions are wrapped in its  “One Belt One Road” thinking.

The only way for the US to check China is to use trading power; and to build up a strong alliance by outreaching to new friends such as Vietnam who has a worry over an expansive China. On the ideological front, the US should continue to advocate that human rights and democratic values are universal and to use it as an ideological tool against authoritarian governments, as it was done in fighting against the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

So, a “clash of civilizations” is not relevant to the present conflicts between China and the US. Rather I love to liken the present confrontational situation to the national relationship between Imperial Japan and the US before WWII when Japan was under a totalitarian regime and tried to dominate Asia.  If there were no Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941 that dragged the US into a war,  I think Imperial Japan would continue enjoying a much longer prosperity by relying on its military superiority over its Asian neighbors.

Nationalism and Nation

The meaning of nationalism can vary temporally and spatially. In Europe in early 19th century nationalism was associated with democracy, liberalism, and demand for civil and constitutional liberties. Later in the century, nationalism assumed a more aggressive role which was tied to military rivalries and national expansion at the expenses of other people. In a general term, nationalism can be "the feeling of belonging to a group united by common racial, linguistic, and historical ties, and usually identified with a particular territory".1

In 1983 Benedict Anderson in his book Imagined Community theorized that a nation is an imagined political community.2 According to Anderson it is imagined because members will never know most of their fellow-members. Second, the nation is imagined as limited because beyond the imagined boundaries lie other nations. Thirdly, nation is imagined as a sovereign because the concept of nation was born in an age which Enlightenment and revolutions were undermining the legitimacy of the divine-ordained, hierarchical dynastic realm. Lastly, nation is imagined as a community which has a deep, horizontal comradeship. It is this comradeship that many people were willingly to die for such an imagined community. In Western Europe, the 18th century marked not only the dawn of age of nationalism but also the dusk of the traditional religious mode of thinking. The doubt on paradise and the uncertainty of salvation had created a void that helped a secular transformation of mortality into continuity, and contingency into meaning. New nations of the 18th century always loom out of an immortal past and move towards a limitless future, it is eternal.3 It is by historical chance that nationalism in Europe came into being following a changing perception on religion.

According to Henrietta Harrison, China was an imagined community long before the 19th century. It was a centralized state, beneath the emperor there was a bureaucracy run by elites who were forming the cultural community that was shared by the majority of the people. With the arrival of the Western powers in 1840s, China was forced to change from culturalism to nationalism.4 So, next time when someone asks you about patriotism, you may think deeper before answering.


Note
1. Alan Bullock et al edit, The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought (New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977), page 409.
2. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Community: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London[England]: Verso Editions, 1983), page 15.
3. Ibid., page 19.
4. Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911-1929 (Oxford University Press, 1999), page 7.

Guofu (國父)

After the death of Sun Yat-sen on March 12th in 1925, there were voices that request to call him as Guofu(國父). Among the first popular open request was from an article on March 15th, 1925 in the Shenbao (申報). This marked a major shift in the attitudes during the lifetime when Sun was often addressed as Sun Wen (孫文), or by referring to his office title of zongli (總理), or dayuanshuai (大元帥). The title of Guofu was commonly used as a standard epithet. Soon it became an adopted phrase. This new title was used in telegrams about the funeral of Sun, and also in propaganda sheets. But for the moment this was a new title on top of Sun's name, rather then replacing it. Sun's funeral party in Beijing was a huge gathering, we could see slogans such as "Long live Sun Zhongshan's thought!", "Long live the people's revolution!", "Down with imperialism!", and "Down with the warlords!". The popular acceptance of Sun as a national hero was part of a new and radical way to look at society and politics of the time when there were warlords, imperialism and factional competition inside the contemporary National Party. Later this party used the imperialism-warlord analysis of society as a framework to legitimize itself and gather support. Sun's death had attracted public enthusiasm and recognition that he was unable to gather earlier. His death, often attributed to overwork, and his final testament, which put emphasis on the revolution, had added to public enthusiasm. It was against such a background that Nationalist Party continued to build up its popular support. Sun's death hastened thousands to join the Party, in particular during the period of the May Thirtieth Movement that would soon take place and push popular nationalism to a new high. For various reasons Sun's spirit lived on. Any connection with him as a relative or a former comrade would become an invaluable asset for a political figure. Sun also became central to the Nationalist's Party's claims to political legitimacy.

Reference
1.Henrietta Harrison. The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China 1911-1929 .NY:Oxford University Press, 2000