BEIJING, 22 March 2005 — The country had been battered and conquered for centuries, until it finally pulled itself together, politically, militarily and economically. Flexing its newly developed muscles, the rising empire threatened its neighbors, motivating a counteralliance.
If that sounds like China today, it also sounds like Germany yesterday. The parallels are instructive — and depressing.
Starting in the 16th century, Germany was devastated by chronic conflict. Finally strongly unified after 1871, the nation compensated for past humiliations, and then overcompensated. The Germans said they merely wanted to find “a place in the sun,’’ but under Kaiser Wilhelm II, German power grew rapidly and was handled recklessly. As a result, other European powers lined up against the Second Reich, and war was inevitable. It became actual in 1914.
Yet, even though Germany was defeated and the kaiser deposed at the end of World War I, the arc of its power was so great that its expansionism continued, under a completely political system, until it was checked for good in World War II.
Now it seems that China is retracing at least some of Germany’s fateful steps: First its decline, then its rise. China slipped into economic and cultural decay in the 15th century. After 1839, it lost a string of wars — to Britain, France, Russia and Japan — that left it with a massive chip on its national shoulder. Reunified under the Communists in 1949, the country since developed a system of guided capitalism that has astonished and rattled the rest of the world.
As part of its rising riches, China has built a state-controlled mediaplex that accentuates the positive about the Beijing government and the negative about everyone else. China Central TV, broadcasting in English as well as in Chinese, includes at least a small tub-thump for China in every story, and often a dig at the United States.
Other countries are judged to be deficient relative to China. On the front page of the March 3 Shanghai Daily was this headline: “Lonely life, lonely death in alien land.’’ The article told the sad story of a Shanghai-born woman found murdered in her apartment near the campus of the University of Canberra, Australia, where she had been a student. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is busy setting up agencies to look out for the interests of overseas Chinese, who number in the tens of millions.
There’s nothing wrong with the Chinese using some of their newfound wealth to look out for their own. However, ominously, they insist that “looking out for their own’’ includes solicitude for the Chinese of Taiwan. Beijing regards that island state as a renegade province, while America and Japan regard Taiwan, for the most part, as an independent country.
When great military powers and great national egos are in tension, it doesn’t take much to start a war. In Beijing’s worldview, Taiwan’s continuing “rebel’’ status is made possible only because of foreign intervention. Hence the March 7 headline in China Daily, yet another government publication: “Lay off Taiwan, US and Japan told.’’ And now a headline from The Associated Press, just on Monday: “China’s president tells army to be prepared for war.’’ Like Germany in the 19th century, China in the 21st century is demanding its place in the sun. Today the world is witnessing a clash of national interests with no easy, peaceful solution. And it’s a reminder that sometimes calamities are obvious as they go rushing down the rails, long before they reach their collision point.
