By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

China’s Past And Xi’s Future

Yesterday, China President Xi refused to shake hands with Olaf Scholz, the chancellor of Germany. A little joke was made suggesting that as the new emperor, Xi may have wanted Scholz to Kowtow.

To explain the joke, the importance of kowtowing or kowtow, among others, is central to "The Last Embassy" by (the experienced Sinologist) Tonio Andrade, whose book explains the need for foreigners who submitted themselves to the emperor’s presence needed to kowtow, thus confirming that Qianlong was indeed the ruler of ‘all under heaven’ (tianxia). His status as the emperor of the central state, the 'zhong guo', had been reinforced by the kowtow of the visitors from abroad. They confirmed the legitimacy of the emperor, his empire, his officials, and their Confucian ideology. The ruler of China claimed the Mandate of Heaven to rule all mankind.

 

The Long March

Xi’s first big public move after the National People’s Congress his effective coronation was to travel to Yan’an, in northwest China, arguably the most critical site in the CCP’s history. This is where Mao Zedong led his retreating forces at the end of the Long March, rebasing his movement there after a series of military routs at the hands of the Nationalists and plotting what would become the eventual triumph of his revolution. Yan’an is also where all doubts disappeared about Mao’s utter preeminence among the Chinese communists. There, his cult of personality fully flowered, and a tradition of treating him as nearly infallible took root. For years afterward, it was Mao, seemingly alone, who determined what was red or black, as the Chinese said—meaning what was left and what was right, who was up or down, in or out. With Mao’s decisions, often brutally implemented, the fates of innumerable people were decided.

For some experts, this confirmed that Xi was the most powerful leader China had seen since Mao. But whatever one makes of him, Mao was indisputably a revolutionary whereas Xi has put himself above the party, even though he is merely a sort of bureaucrat par excellence who’s played the bureaucratic game to its final end.

Few expected that this would mean a return to some of Mao’s most extreme policies, including radical egalitarianism, economic autarky, or economic isolation from the capitalist world—not to mention the chaos and disaster of movements such as the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, each of which destroyed millions of Chinese lives and created economic devastation that took years to repair.

Yinzhen ruled China under the title of the Yongzheng emperor during the Qing dynasty in the early 18th century. Today, although many scholars believe that he was indeed his father’s intended successor, disputes and contests among Yinzhen’s brothers and their backers ensued, partly because Yinzhen was neither the oldest nor considered the ablest of the possible male heirs. Insecure over perceptions of his legitimacy, with rumors saying that he had forged his father’s will, the Yongzheng emperor had some of his brothers put in prison, where several died.

Yongzheng forbade Chinese scholars from forming associations or poetry societies because these could become political. And again also looking for echoes of Xi Jinping’s crackdown on dissent and his public morality campaigns: cracking down on any difference in society. This echoes the anxieties of Yongzheng, who was quite worried about being seen as illegitimate. For Xi, the source of anxiety may stem from his power play itself, having overturned the rules of his succession both this time and indefinitely into the future.

The degree of the institutionalization of the succession rules dates from Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao and devised a set of informal rules that established a two-term, or 10-year, a limit on leading the Communist Party. Deng lorded it over his successor, Jiang Zemin, even after surrendering all his ruling titles. Jiang did much the same with his successor. 

In Chinese tradition, much more common than rules-bound leaders have been long-term emperors, generalissimos, and, you know, Chairman Mao. Anyone who did not fit this mold is pretty much forgotten. But Nobody is ever going to forget Mao or Chiang Kai-shek, or the Qianlong mentioned above, the ruler of ‘all under heaven who, as detailed in Tonio Andrade's The Last Embassy, ruled China for 61 years.

Yuan Shikai in 1915

As described by us in China's new map, the ‘Provisional Constitution’ written by Sun Yat-sen’s allies immediately after the revolution and approved by the freshly-installed president, Yuan Shikai, on 11 March 1912, set out in relatively precise detail what it believed the territory of the Republic should be. In effect, it said that the new state inherited the boundaries of the Qing Great State as they stood when the revolution broke out. Article 3 stated simply that ‘The territory of the Chinese Republic consists of 22 provinces, Inner and Outer Mongolia, and Tibet. The choice of ‘22’ provinces was highly significant since Taiwan was the twenty-third. Given that the constitution text was still laying claim to Outer Mongolia, despite its declaration of independence three months earlier, Tibet, despite the ongoing insurrection there, and Xinjiang, despite its de facto independence at the time, this seems to be clear proof that the Republic had formally abandoned any claim to Taiwan.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (who, while all smiles, even others claimed it was a gaffe probably knew well about the hidden message gave her counterpart, Chinese President Xi Jinping, a 1735 map of China made by esteemed French cartographer Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville (1697–1782). The map, part of a series by d’Anville, was based partly on information gleaned by Jesuit missionaries. It was well-regarded at the time and republished for decades to come.

The 1735 d’Anville map shows “China proper” as a landmass separate from Xinjiang, Tibet, Mongolia, and Manchuria. The island of Hainan is drawn in a different color, as is Taiwan. This depiction is utterly at odds with how history is taught here.

Chinese students learn that these areas are inalienable parts of China and have been for a long time. One netizen described the map as a “slap” from Merkel. "We always say some regions are inalienable parts of China since ancient times, but Merkel told us that even in the 18th century, those regions still did not belong to China.”

Instead, Xi Jinping's People's Republic of China (PRC) has added Taiwan reintroducing a new allegiance to the unchanging never-never land of a timeless past Xi claims to be eternal and perpetually “Chinese.”

Yesterday, a New book also presented the Xi party’s rationale for adding ‘opposing and containing Taiwan independence’ to the constitution last month. It says some forces in US ‘try their hardest to contain and suppress China, using Taiwan to subdue China.’

Only by unifying with Taiwan “can Taiwan avoid being occupied by foreign countries again, and can we defeat the attempts of external forces to contain China and safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests.”

 

 

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