Xi Jinping talks about the extraordinary achievements of the Communist Party and the unbreakable bond of the party and the people. It reveals the paradox of China: at once powerful yet fragile. It isn't a show of strength but a reminder of humiliation. It comes from a time of defeat, when China lost its place in the world. When Xi Jinping this week wore a Mao suit and warned that anyone that dares oppose China "will find their heads bashed bloody against a great wall of steel", we should know where that comes from. In 1949, Mao crowned victory in the Communist Revolution with the words "the Chinese people have stood up". But he was perhaps the greatest influence on a young emerging revolutionary, Mao Zedong. He grew disillusioned with politics in China and retreated to study and writing. Liang Qichao now believed following Western faith in science and progress would lead China to catastrophe. As historian Jerome Ch'en writes, "from 1842 to 1942, China had been treated by the West with distrust, ridicule, and disdain, mingled from time to time with pity and charity, only occasionally sympathy and friendliness". He was stunned by the devastation of the war and returned embittered as the European powers handed Japan control of former German occupied territory in China.Ĭhinese resentment of the West only deepened. The thinker who had travelled widely began to turn on the West.Īfter World War I he was sent by China as an observer to the Paris Peace conference. Liang preferred what he called "enlightened despotism." When China lost its place in the world If we were to adopt a democratic system of government now, it would be nothing less than committing national suicide." "We can only accept despotism and cannot enjoy freedom. In today's terms, we might call it "make China great again".īut Liang's vision for this new China did not include democracy. based upon common ties of place, blood, custom and culture". He began to talk of what he called "hsin min"' - a "new people".Ĭhina historian Charlotte Furth says it was the birth of a new "definition of the Chinese people as a nation. He coined a term "minzu" to describe the people of the nation. He advocated the unity of the "yellow race". He coined the phrase "the sick man of Asia" to describe China's fallen state.īeing defeated in war by Japan in 1895, Liang said "awoke our nation from its four thousand year old dream". Liang believed the Chinese people were not capable of democracy. Liang looked at his nation, and saw defeat, humiliation and weakness. But it only reinforced his view that China was morally corrupt. Liang embraced the West, soaking up new ideas. He visited Australia, meeting our first prime minister, Edmund Barton. He campaigned for reform of the Qing Empire, making him a target, and fled overseas, living in Japan and Canada. He was a writer and activist, one of the most significant thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in China. It was Liang Qichao who helped popularise the idea of "humiliation" that Xi now uses as a mantra to bind Chinese people to a militant identity that pits China against the world. When he warned that no foreign force "will bully, oppress or subjugate us", he was echoing the words of Liang. When Xi Jinping talked about "national rejuvenation", "sovereignty and territorial integrity", he was channelling Liang Qichao. The idea of modern China, the identity of Chinese people, can be traced directly to Liang and this tumultuous period of war, revolution, mass slaughter and political upheaval.
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