Political Tendencies in Chinese Culture.
1. Revolutions in Chinese History.
The Chinese are ever proud of the Tangs (A.C. 618-905) and the Mings (1368-1628) among their indigenous dynasties. It was under the Tang emperors that the Chinese empire comprised for the first time all the outlying regions called Greater China (Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan and Tibet). And the Ming dynasty is specially dear to the Chinese heart because its founder, a poor Buddhist monk, succeeded in overthrowing the "foreign" Mongols.
But, what is the political character of the Tang regime? Twenty-one emperors belonged to this dynasty. Of these, sixteen were nominal rulers. For two-thirds of the period of about three hundred years the country was disturbed by civil wars or revolts within and invasions from abroad. Rivalry between minister and minister, or general and general, and inter-provincial struggles constitute the history of these two hundred years. The emperors, those "sons of Heaven", had to live under the protection of king-makers, powerful potentates, or successful generals. Not more than one, Tai Tsung (627-50), had the Napoleonic might to hold together a consolidated empire.
The history of the Mings repeats the same tale. Tai Tsu (1368-99), the founder, proved to be a strong military man. He was real emperor of a United China, but of his sixteen successors none but Young-lo (1403-25) was powerful or lucky enough to maintain Tai Tsu's imperialistic tradition. Young-lo himself became emperor by leading a successful revolt against his own nephew. On the whole, the period was punctuated with Tartar invasions from the north and raids of Japanese pirates from the east. It ended with violent intrigues and seditious movements which ultimately led to Manchu conquest.
The revolutionary unrest that marked the Ming dynasty's administration may be gathered from the biography of the great "heretic" philosopher Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529). He had not been a favorite with the court because of his heresy. But in the posthumous defence of his character by the Imperial Director of Education, we read of his "fourfold merit". It is interesting that all the items refer to disorder in the empire.
"First, Prince Ning was disorderly . . . . . Within the Court the Wei Pin clique, favorites, . . . . and their associates . . . . were perfidious. Outside, such guards as Pi Chen Liu and Lan were treacherous, and the Court officials throughout the country nearly all looked on. Had it not been that Shou-jen (Wang Yang-ming) was loyal . . . . took upon himself the responsibility of punishing the rebel, it would be hard to tell whether the country would be now at peace or in danger."
Wang's second merit was described thus:
"The camps of Tamao, Cha-jiao, Liton, and Tungkang represented the combined force of four provinces. Soldiers had collected there for a number of years. When Shou-jen reached the place as guard he subjugated them all."
The third merit was the quelling of a rebellion.
"At Tienchou and Ssuen confusion had reigned for years, so that quiet could not be restored, nor could the people be pacified. In consequence Shou-jen was sent there and caused Prince Lu's followers to bow their heads in submission."
The fourth merit was as follows:
"Originally the eight military posts were the disgrace of the interior of the two Kwangs (provinces of Kwangtung and Kwang-si). The Government soldiers co-operated with the rebels and there was no way of getting at them; . . . . By a surprise attack he exterminated them as quickly and as easily as though they had been wood. It accrues to the merit of Shou-jen that he averted great calamity and was ready to work unto death."1
The contemporary statement of the qualifications of a Ming celebrity thus opens up the normal disquiet to which China was a victim even under her indigenous rulers. Similarly under the Han dynasty (B. C. 202-A. C. 190) also, rendered illustrious through the powerful Wu-ti (B. C. 140-87), China never maintained her integrity for more than two successive generations. And the still earlier Chou period (B. C. 1122-255), during which flourished Laotsze (c. B. C. 604) and Confucius (B. C. 551-479), was the period of feudalistic disintegration, of innumerable regicides, of baronial wars, and raids of Huns, Scythians or Tartars and of the aboriginal hill tribes. It was the epoch of fifty, sixty, seventy-five, and even one hundred and twenty five lesser Chinese maintaining their sovereignty alongside of one another.
The unrest and turmoil of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries B. C., found adequate expression in the verses of the period. Some of these were collected by Confucius in his Shi-king (The Book of Poetry).
In Part I, Book X, Ode VIII,2 the soldiers are describing the sufferings of the parents as they are called to the front and are eager to return to peaceful agriculture. We read:—
"Suh-suh go the feathers of the wild geese,
As they settle on the bushy oaks.
The king's affairs must not be slackly discharged,
And so we cannot plant our sacrificial millet and millet.
What will our parents have to rely on?
O thou distant and azure Heaven!
When shall we be in our place again?
When shall (our service) have an end?"
In Part II, Book VIII, Ode X, the soldiers are complaining that the kingdom is seared and scorched like.the vegetable world, burnt yellow and then nearly black, thus:—
"Every plant is yellow;
Every day we march.
Every man is moving about,
Doing service in some quarter of the kingdom.
Every plant is purple;
Every man is torn from his wife.
Alas for us employed on these expeditions!
How are we alone dealt with as if we were not men?
We are not rhinoceros, we are not tigers
To be kept in these desolate wilds.
Alas for us employed on these expeditions!
Morning and night we have no leisure."
This is the story of China under the Chinese. China came under an alleged foreign rule during two periods of her history: (1) the Mongol (1260-1368) and (2) the Manchu (1644-1911). Both these periods were, as usual, marked by intrigues, conspiracies, civil wars and revolutions. Some of these were led by secret societies, a few by individual generals and governors, and others by Mohammedans.
2. The Logic of the Fish.
Disruption is then the norm in the history of Chinese politics, As with the Holy Roman Empire in Europe and the Moghul Empire in India, in China also the de facto independence of the Provinces and the formal vassals was never regarded as inconsistent with the de jure imperium of the hwangti, sârva-bhauma or "world-sovereign". Besides, anarchic periods of complete disintegration extending sometimes over centuries, during which no one dynasty enjoyed even nominal hegemony over the rest, intervened between the fall of one and the rise of another mighty Power.
China, like India, is, in Realpolitik, a geographical expression. It is a "pluralistic universe," in spite of the "fundamental unity" of cultural "ideals" pervading the entire area. China is one country only in the sense in which Europe is one. But neither in ancient and mediaeval ages nor in modern times has it been possible to postulate the "unity of Europe" for purposes of international politics. The "unity of China" and the "unity of India" are equally unreal terms in the diplomatic history of Asia. There have been many Chinas and many Indias at the same time during almost every century.
Disruptive tendencies are not, however, specifically oriental characteristics. The "confusions and revolutions of governments" described by Anthony Ascham of the English Civil War period have not been less marked features of the Occident than of the Orient.
The Imperial dynasties of China, whether indigenous or foreign, have not indeed been long-lived. But where on earth have the ruling houses had greater longevity than in China? The boundaries of the Chinese empire as well as the territorial limits of the lesser Chinas have changed every now and then. But have not the extent and area of kingdoms, city-states, duchies, and markgrafates of Europe exhibited the same kaleidoscopic character? There have been anarchies, conspiracies, intrigues, and regicides in China; but where has mankind known continuous peace for any length of time?
The following picture of the Roman empire is furnished by an anti-monarchist in Engelbert's De Ortu et Fine Romani Imperii (c. 1325):
"The Roman empire was and is always troubled by wars and rebellions; hardly ever were the gates of the temple of Janus shut; the greater number of Roman emperors have died violent deaths; and the Roman empire has been the cause rather of disorder than of peace."3
This is an accurate picture of every period of European history. It is true as much of Machiavellian Italy as of Germany during the Thirty Years' War. It describes the Napoleonic era as exactly as the great armageddon initiated by Kaiser William II.
China is thus not the only country or continent where revolutions and changes of rulers have been plentiful in all ages. The phenomenon of stable equilibrium has never been experienced by man either in the East or in the West. The political centre of gravity has been always on the move from organism to organism, from class to class, leading to the subversion of the old and the ringing in of the new.
Revolutions constitute the assertion of new stronger forces, and all history is the document of these assertions. The record of human achievements in the political sphere is the illustration of but one logic. This is what in Hindu political philosophy is called mâtsyâ-nyâya or the "logic of the fish." Larger fishes swallow up the smaller, the stronger overpower the weaker. This "struggle for existence" is the law of the "state of nature" as described by Spinoza and Hōbbes, or Naturprozess as Gumplowicz calls it in Der Rassenkampf.
The operation of the logic of the fish is "the golden rule," "the simple plan," observable in all organic relations. China has been no exception to the universal sway of the cosmic doctrine of might and the survival of the fittest.
3. Achievements and Failures of the Manchus.
In Young China's terminology the anti-Manchu revolution of September 1911, has been characterised as anti-foreign. But, were the Chinese really a subject race under the Manchus? To be more general, we may even ask the question: "Were the Mongols and Manchus foreigners in China?"
If the Mongols and the Manchus are to be treated as aliens, and foreign usurpers, every other Imperial dynasty would have to be called almost equally foreign. Ethnologically speaking, nearly every "national" dynasty of China had more or less an intermixture of non-Chinese blood. The old civilization of the Chinese was built up by people who had come from outside, viz., from the north-west, and were thus aliens in China. The influx of new-comers, generally known as Tartars (of various denominations), from the north and north-west, and the assimilation of aborigines and hill tribes, especially in the south and south-west, have never ceased in Chinese history. The continent of China is a genuine museum of humanity, and has been a real melting-pot of races. "Foreign" influence has thus to be detected in every epoch of Chinese culture.
Where indeed on earth is to be found an alleged pure race with its institutions and ideals untouched by extraneous races? In this respect China does not differ at all from England, France, Germany, India, the United States or any other country of the ancient and modern world. If foreign influence in blood, language, or ideas of life is to be regarded as an instance of foreign subjection, no race of men has ever been really free. The diversity of races in China has undoubtedly led to the transfer of political hegemony from house to house and province to province. But this is exactly what has happened, for instance, in Germany, the land of heterogeneous peoples. And yet in Germany, as Bryce remarks in The Holy Roman Empire, the diversity was "not greater than in France, where intruding Franks, Goths, Burgundians, and Northmen are mingled with primitive Kelts and Basques, nor so great as in Spain or Italy or Britain."
It is true that the Mongols and the Manchus came into China from outside. But it is also true that they never left China again "homeward bound." They did not enter China to exploit it in the economic or cultural interests of another land, an alien mother-country. They did not regard China as their "colony", but made it their patrie, or Vaterland, the centre of all their affections and dreams, their own, their "native land". They lived and worked only to make China the real "middle kingdom" of the world. Their sole ambition consisted in carving out for China "a place in the Sun".
The Mongols and the Manchus did not come to impose any foreign customs and laws upon the "natives" but became part and parcel of the indigenous social life. They assimilated themselves in every possible way to the manners, superstitions, prejudices, and sentiments that already existed among the people. Here, as in many other instances in world-history, "captive Greece captured Rome."
We do not, therefore, hear of a so-called Mongol or Manchu culture in China. The Mongol and the Manchu periods have been, like other periods, but two links in a growing chain of the same Chinese civilization. In language, literature, the fine arts, philosophy, or religion, these periods do not represent any hiatus between the preceding and the succeeding ages, except what is inevitable in a continuous evolution. The same Lao-tsze, the same Confucius, the same Buddha, that had governed Chinese life under the mighty Tangs and the brilliant Sungs, governed Chinese life under the Mongols and the Manchus also.
Did the Chinese under the so-called foreign rulers suffer anything like the Spanish inquisitions, or the anti-Jewish "pogroms" associated with such Russian cities as Kishineff, Kovno, Vilna, or Kiev? Could any Chinese justly cry to his comrade as the Russian Jew could lament to his, in the language of Max Weber?—"Is it not in Egypt still and under Pharaoh's hand that we live?" Or, could a picture like the following in regard to the Romanoff regime be called up about the Mongol and the Manchu administrations?—
"Egypt only a myth, and Russia real,
Egypt a legend, Russia tyrant to-day."
Were the autochthonous men and women of China treated by the Mongol and the Manchu rulers as mere hewers of wood and drawers of water? Were they appointed only to the subordinate posts and clerical offices as but second fiddles to the "superiors" imported from the ruling races? The questions must be answered in the emphatic negative.
The history of the Chinese administrative system does not, as a rule, furnish instances of the "colour-bar" in public offices, whether in the village service or in Council work. Appointments to government posts in Imperial China had been made on the results of public examinations since Han times (B. 'C. 29). These service regulations were generally kept up by the Mongols, though put in abeyance for a short time by some of the degenerates. The system was maintained throughout by the Manchus. Impartiality and fair play were thus ensured. The highest officials in the army, the ministry, the education department, and provincial civil service came in this way as much from the children of the soil as from the naturalized new-comers. Examination sifted the fit from the unfit without race-prejudice. Besides, the five honorific titles of nobility, viz., duke, count, viscount, baron, and baronet, were conferred without distinction on the Manchus, Mongols and the Chinese. What greater facilities for self-development or opportunities to nurture their genius along lines of advance had the Chinese obtained, say, during the golden age of the Hans or of the Tangs?
Of course, as the Mongols and the Manchus settled down in China, the Chinese found in them fresh competitors for the loaves and fishes. Their field of ambition was circumscribed to that extent. But these competitors were then no longer Mongols or Manchus but as good Chinese as the original inhabitants could possibly be.
Signs of foreign subjection are not wanting, however, to indicate that China was a conquered country during the two periods.
In 1289 Kubla Khan, the great Mongol, issued an ordinance to disarm the entire Chinese population. The measure must have been a temporary political necessity, but it did not succeed. And in view of the fact that the Mongols were making themselves Chinese in all respects, the regulation cannot be taken exclusively as the mark of "alien" domination. It was more the tyranny of an oligarchy than coercion by a foreigner.
The Manchu emperors stationed garrisons of Manchu soldiers at Peking and at seven or eight other important cities of the empire. These Manchu "colonies", howsoever small they might be in size, were always detested by the Chinese. But to a certain extent they should be regarded rather as the "praetorian guards" of all despots than specifically as the visible embodiments of a foreign rule. Taking all other circumstances into consideration, the Manchu garrisons must be treated as essentially distinct in character from the French army and navy in Indo-China since 1885 and the Japanese army and navy in Korea since 1910.
Another fact of Chinese subjection to the Manchus is universally known. It is the queue or "pig-tail" at the back of the head with the front clean shaved. The Chinese never tolerated it and always smarted under the compulsion to keep it. It was however really a "fashion" with the men of light and leading among the Manchus themselves. But as it was abhorrent to the taste, and sentiment of the Chinese, the imposition of the Manchu style must be regarded as sheer despotism. But, here, again, should it be called the tyranny of a foreigner, or rather the bigotry and arbitrary rule of an English Charles II in England or a French Louis XIV in France or the Russian Czars in Russia?
An interesting parallel to the Mongol and Manchu periods can be furnished from the history of India. The Mohammedan (the so-called Pathan, 1206-1526; and Moghul, 1526-1764) regime in India is similar to that of the Mongol's and Manchus in China, because the first Mohammedans came into India as conquerors. But though they have maintained their religious antithesis practically intact, there has been ultimately a great rapprochement between the Hindus and the Mohammedans in language, music, painting, architecture, folk customs, etiquette, and phases of social life.
In political and military affairs the distinction between the original inhabitants of India and the new-comers (and the converts to the new faith) was all but obliterated. Hindu finance ministers were at the head of the Imperial treasury of the Great Moghul. The land revenue of the Mohammedan empire was organized by Hindu statesmen. Hindus were appointed equally with Mohammedans as governors of the provinces. The highest commissions in the army also were conferred on Hindus. Hindu commanders were trusted with Mohammedan troops against Mohammedan princes and governors. Expert Hindu chiefs were despatched to put down the revolts of Mohammedan generals and viceroys.
The "Pathan" (Mohammedan) provinces of Bengal in the east and the Deccan in the south were annexed to the Moghul (Mohammedan) territory with the help of Hindu soldiers and generals. The emperor Jahangir (1605-27) sent the Hindus, Rao Ratan and Raj Singh, even against his own son Shah Jahan when he was a rebel (1623-25). Similarly the Hindu commanders Pahar Singh, Badal Singh and others were appointed by the emperor Shah Jahan (1628-58) along with Prince Aurangzib to take charge of the expeditionary force against Balkh and Badaksan (in Central Asia). Hindus thus co-operated with Mohammedans in the Imperial attempt (1646-47) to found a Greater India. In the wars against the Persian Mohammedans, also, in Afghanistan, the buffer between India and Persia, the Moghuls and the Hindus fought shoulder to shoulder (1648-53) for the expansion of their common Motherland.
The wars of mediaeval India were thus neither racial' nor religious, but fundamentally territorial or provincial. Hindus and Mohammedans on one side could thus be arrayed against Hindus and Mohammedans on the other. There was genuine identity of political and economic interests, so far as the "local" units were concerned.
Mohammedan rule in India was in no respects the "government of one people by another". It was not an alien rule like that of the Hohenstaufens, and later of the Habsburgs, in Italy, or of the French in Indo-China, or of the Americans in the Philippines. The rule of the Mongols and the Manchus in China was likewise not a foreign rule.
Besides, from the standpoint of national glory, the Mongol and the Manchu regimes were not behind the Han, the Tang, and the Ming. The Chinese can be as proud of their country's achievements during these periods of alleged "foreign" rule as during the others.
Kubla, the Grand Mongol, developed the material resources of China, deepened the Great Canal, patronized letters and faiths, and was in every way one of the best "enlightened despots" of the eighteenth century European type. Further, it was under him that in 1281 a Chinese "armada" was on the point of making Japan an island-province of Greater China. It was, again, through him and his feudatories in Central Asia and Russia that the Chinese had the credit of extending the western frontiers of Asia into the very heart of Europe, as far as the Carpathian Mountains. This Mongol-Chinese empire was the medium through which Europeans got gun-powder, the mariner's compass and the art of printing.
And the latter-day degeneracy of the Manchus must not blind one to the fact that during at least the first century and a half of their rule down to Kien-lung (1735-96) their records both in war and peace could vie with those of the "Augustan age" of Chinese culture represented by the Tangs and the Sungs. Kanghi (1661-1722), the second emperor of this House, suppressed rebellions, annexed Turkestan and Tibet to the empire, introduced social reforms, and promoted sciences and arts. It was his humanitarian legislation that put a stop to the traditional "sacrifice" of women in the tombs of the aristocrats. He also attempted, with partial success, the suppression of "foot-binding" among Chinese women. The monumental Dictionary of the Chinese language and Encyclopaedia of Chinese culture owe their 'origin to his patronage.
Kanghi was altogether the peer of China's greatest and the world's most distinguished sovereigns. In intrinsic merit he was greater than any of the Mings. And the China of his days could, like India under his contemporary Aurangzib the Great Moghul (1658-1907) as described by Bernier, the French traveller, stand honorable comparison with the Europe dominated by Louis XIV (1661-1715), le grand monarque, of France.
To understand the Asia of the seventeenth century in the background of contemporary Europe it is necessary to forget the nineteenth century and recent developments in governmental theories and institutions as well as in material science and general culture. The public and private morals of the English people during the age of Kanghi are thus described by Macaulay: "Then came those days never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot and the slave. The king cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her 'degrading insult and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the policy of the state. The Government had just ability enough to deceive and just religion enough to persecute."
And in France Louis XIV's dictum was: "I am the State". He carried this absolutism to its furthest logical consequence both in home and foreign policies. He led aggressive wars against the Netherlands and the German states, and brought about the War of the Spanish Succession. His taxation was arbitrary. He suppressed the Huguenots. Nationality, rights of the people, freedom of conscience were things unknown in Europe.
It is in the light of these facts of Occidental history that modern students of political science ought to read the Asian achievements of the time. Internecine warfare, raids of military adventurers, and religious persecution were not more rampant in China or in India than in Europe. The conception of civil and religious liberty was not more highly developed among the subjects of the Habsburg emperors than among the peoples of Asia. The Manchu regime can thus easily bear the critical examination of Comparative History.
Moreover, the decay of the later Manchus is not a phenomenon special to this House. The mighty Tangs had not been mighty for long, nor had the "nationalist" Mings been wielders of strength for any length of time. Similarly the Manchus failed but to produce legion of Kanghi the Greats. In Europe also not every monarch has been a Caesar or a Charlemagne.
4. The Chinese Herodotus on the Law of Revolutions.
To what, then, is the passing of the Manchus due? We have to detect here the same causes as led to the decline and fall of the "national" Houses of China. The revolution of 1911 does not differ from those of the previous ages in any significant sense except that this was initiated, if not conducted, by intellectuals like Kang Yu-wei, Sun Yat-sen, and Liang Chi-chao.
The fundamental reason of revolutions in China, the land of perpetual insurrections and civil wars, is not far to seek. It is as universal as humanity itself. It is akin in character to the forces that down to the epoch of the French revolution kept Europe in eternal strife whether through dynastic ambitions or corrupt administrations. It is essentially what Polybius traces in the links or transitions between the "normal" and the "abnormal" in his "cycle of the forms of government."
The same Polybian dictum is stated by Sze Ma-chien (B. C. 90), the Herodotus of China, in his chapter on the closing period of the Han dynasty. "At length under lax laws," as the historian goes on, "the wealthy began to use their riches for evil purposes of pride and self-aggrandisement and oppression of the weak. Members of the Imperial family received grants of land, while from the highest to the lowest, every one vied with his neighbour in lavishing money on houses, and appointments, and apparel, although beyond the limit of his means. Such is the everlasting law of the sequence of prosperity and decay."
The founder of the Manchu dynasty, also, in his inaugural proclamation (1644) bore testimony to the real causes of Chinese revolutions. Said he:
"The Mings having become corrupt, rebels rose everywhere and oppressed the people. China being without government, I, faithful to the beneficent traditions of my family, have destroyed its oppressors, saved its people, after which, yielding to the universal request, I have fixed the seat of the empire at Peking. Crowned with the blessings of Heaven, I announce that I have ascended the throne ... I beg respectfully that Heaven and Earth may aid in to remove the misfortunes of my country."
The Manchus conquered China at the invitation of the Chinese general Wu Sankwei. The complete subjugation was effected with Manchu armies but under Chinese generals. The Manchu conquest was thus almost a "national" undertaking. The founder, of the Manchus was, like the Buddhist beggar who had overthrown the last Mongol, a real Yugâvatâra, "deliverer" or political Messiah. He began by calling China "my country". He came to remove its "misfortunes", and could thus sincerely issue the proclamation as a genuine "Chinese" patriot.
The Manchu dynasty was, therefore, as "legitimate" in origin as the Ming. Nor had the Han dynasty any more valid claims. Its founder is described by Du Halde as "a private soldier who became a freebooter and captain of a troop of vagabonds."
Like the founder of all other Imperial dynasties, Shunchi (1644-61) was in reality putting an end to the "state of nature", which, according to the great Chinese philosopher Moh Ti (B. C. (500-420?), is, as Su Hu points out in the Development of Logical Method in Ancient China, an "anarchy of birds and beasts." He suppressed the operation of mâtsya-nyâya or the "logic of the fish", and "unified the people's diversified notions of what is right."