The furor with which the West brutalized China in the fading lights of the Qing dynasty underscores presumptuousness and blatant ignorance
By the late 19th century and well into the last century, indifference, lack of attention and the conviction that ‘anything goes’ has been standard in the twisted relations with China and the West
Power politics was the norm around the world in 1900 – the British global expansion showcased the immense benefits of trade ensconced behind pre-dreadnought battleships, cruisers and armory
On continental Europe, Bismarck had declared that the great questions of the day would be decided "not by speeches and majority decisions... but by blood and iron”
The poet could lament China’s dark destiny to no avail
“How shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wreckful siege of battering days?”
By early 1900, during those times of fire and fury, a Chinese diplomat, looking from the outside in and a Belgian priest, looking from inside China out, dedicated their lives to dialogue and mutual understanding
Both men saw confrontation as a real possibility
On the chessboard of geopolitical interests, Western distraction and plain ignorance misplaced a strident Chinese sense of aggrievement
Only a sense of humanity, fostering moderation in the spirit of Confucius, nurturing the universal meaning of Faith, would bridge the chasm between East and West
Such was their hope...
Both men, late in their lives, stood watch as forces larger than life broke civilizations in the slip stream of two World Wars and murderous campaigns ravaging China
Both men had China’s interest deep at heart
Born just 6 years apart, they were witnesses and committed participants in China’s hardships during the first half of the 20th century
Both held true the belief that Western arrogance in full display in 1900 would crumble
And both believed steadfastly in the promise of a dialogue between equals – between East and West, in diplomacy and, no less significantly, in religion
From his diplomatic perch in Saint Petersburg and with dark foreboding, Lu Zhengxiang witnessed Russia's grubby imperialistic ambitions in the Far East
The scene was set in Northeast China for a showdown between Russia's aging empire and 'the blood and the iron' of Japan's rising sun
China's diplomacy will be left in shambles and its once powerful Manchu Dynasty , the Qing, brought to heel in the first innings of a century of unbridled violence
China's people would suffer most as I will show in a forthcoming note
Diplomatic service in twilight
Lu Zhengxiang, born in 1871, started his diplomatic career in the dangerous twilight of the Qing dynasty
Assaulted and brutalized by the Western powers, the Qing’s grew more defensive and more ossified until the collapse of the dynasty in 1911
The Court was bound to fall but, in what seemed to be an ‘interregnum’ between the great Qianlong reign (1735–1796) and the young Republic of China (from 1911), the Qing’s clung stubbornly to ancient traditions and everyday cruelty
In his Memoirs – Souvenirs et Pensées (1947) – Lu is anecdotal in his dismay of all that is wrong with the dynasty he is dutybound to serve
Time and again, Lu makes us feel the absurdity, with a sense of imminent disaster
At the Russian Court, to Lu's delight, the Tsar and the Tsarina themselves open the ball for 3000 guests...
...while in Peking, the highest civil servants of the Court will prostrate themselves to the ground when in presence of the Emperor
And by the Tifayifu decrees of 1645, Han Chinese men were forced to shave the fronts of their heads and grow the remaining back hair into a long-braided queue…. having Lu, who had rejected this accoutrement, dress up with a false queue when encountering the regent of Pu-Yi, the child emperor, in 1908 - 263 years later...
The long shadow of Russian imperialism
Any weakness would be turned into opportunity for Western Powers, eager to trade (and to profit) on their own terms and for Russia to advance its imperial ambitions in the Far East
In an undignified scramble, after the concessions from the First Opium Wars (from 1839 to 1842), Western powers demanded that China make additional territorial and railway concessions, following the Second Opium War (1856-1860)
Power grab by France, Germany, and Britain was all about trade concessions, underpinned by legal protection over land and ports
More strategically, Russia gained the all-important access to the Sea of Japan with control over Outer Manchuria in 1860 , establishing a military outpost named Vladivostok on the Pacific….
In the early years of his diplomatic service, in Saint-Petersburg from 1893 until 1906, Lu learned professional resilience, under the guidance of Shu King-Shen, liberal-minded influential diplomat at the Qing Court
In 1894-1895, war with Japan over control of the Korean peninsula had been a crushing blow delivered by Meiji modernity, shattering the illusion of Qing military strength
As a diplomat, Lu suffered from the front row the indignities of the Qing dynasty's inept and outdated governance
In 1896, Lu assisted powerless to the signature of the secret and unequal treaty with Russia - the Li-Lobanov Treaty, structured as a military alliance against possible future aggression by Japan, tightening effectively Russia's economic and military grip on China's borders and beyond
Significantly, China granted the Russian-backed Russo-Chinese Bank permission to build the China Eastern Railway through the Chinese provinces of Heilongjiang and Jilin directly to Vladivostok
Given the strategic importance of the track, Russia secured extraterritorial jurisdiction over large portions of Northeast China, the permission to station troops to protect the railway and freedom of Russian troop movements and munitions
In all but name, the Treaty was an annexation of Chinese territory, extending Russian dominance with the massive influx of Russian engineers, laborers, and soldiers to build and guard the railway
It still was not enough and Lu labored through another round of negotiations by 1898
The Russia–Qing Convention forced China into a 25-year lease of the Liaodong Peninsula to Russia, including the key military and naval port of Port-Arthur at the southern tip of the Peninsula and allowing an extension of Russia's China Eastern Railway to the commercial port city of Dalian on the Yellow Sea
From Saint Petersburg, Lu surely recognized how Russia’s military and economic build-up in the Far East would lead to confrontation with the rising power of Japan
Soon enough, by 1905, Russia’s vainglorious defeat from warfare with Japan led to cession of the Liaodong lease and Japanese influence over Manchuria was going to set the stage for 20th century tragedy
Game, Set, Match ?
Looking back at the fight over the spoils of the Qing dynasty, all the pieces had been set on the geopolitical chessboard
The game was going to play out over the span of the XXth century
And the policies which troubled Lu in Saint Petersburg and later on in Peking are still roiling world geopolitics
Who exactly has won the sets...at least for a time ?
Russia, recovering its footing after the defeats from Japan and the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, has never really been absent, with undiminished expansionist ambitions in the Far East
Japan, nemesis of Russia and imperial conqueror of resource-rich Manchuria, paid dearly for militaristic overreach, in the 1930's and 1940's; recovering from self-inflicted tragedy, Japan stands perhaps more powerful than the country lets on...it is hard to say
The Western powers insist on looking at Asia through one lens promising great trade opportunities (in true continuity since the Opium Wars) and through another lens defining power balance in Western terms, not Asia’s
Both Western lenses are foggy...we should know by now, but did dire experience teach us anything, collectively ?
It is vain to anticipate how the game will be played in the 21st century
The United States of America emerged as major player, the former 'Western powers' withdrew, Japan recovered and Russia still stands proud, with imperial ambition unsatiated
The terms of confrontation on the Asian theater have not changed as much as is sometimes claimed
The West is ever eager to trade, Russia is anxious to preserve the territoral gains of the 1850 unequal treaties and Japan is constantly scrutinizing the guarantees of its security
The lessons of history cannot be erased from memory
The three contenders (or four with Europe, the embarrassed heir of the old Western powers) are hesitant, borderline paranoid
The view from China, with its massive population looking from the inside out, will almost surely be decisive in the showdown
The expectations, the resentments and the advocacies moving the Chinese are suspended in time
There is no answer, definite and unique, but insights will be gained from the multi-facetted aspirations of the Chinese people
In my next note, the Chinese people need to find their voice