Carve-Up: 120 years after the Eight-Power Intervention of 1900 the racist assumptions of the Western powers vis-à-vis China have hardly changed at all. They still arrogate to themselves the right to dispose of the future of the Chinese people as they see fit. There remains the same racist assumption that the West’s values and institutions are superior in every way to those of a civilisation that has endured for 3,000 years. The same hunger for profits that drove the British to force their opium into the lungs of the Chinese people at the point of a gun, continues to drive the Western capitalist elites.
ANTI-RACISM IS BIG at the moment – very big. Why, then, are
so many on the left of politics, both here and overseas, climbing aboard the
Western powers’ New Cold War Express? The European nations that profited most
from the trans-Atlantic slave trade; the ruthless beneficiaries of the
plantation system; the peoples who introduced the terms “white” and “black” to
the world’s vocabulary; these are the racist capitalist imperialists the Left
is lining up with against the Peoples Republic of China. Given that the Old
Cold War brought the world to the very brink of nuclear annihilation, the idea
of joining in the creation of a new one seems ever-so-slightly daft. Why can’t
the Left see that?
The answer, sadly, is that the contemporary Left is almost
entirely ignorant of geopolitics and the strict limitations it places on
diplomatic action. Even when it comes to basic economics and its decisive
influence on politics, the Left’s powers of analysis have atrophied to an
astonishing degree. All that remains to those who still identify themselves as
“left-wing” is the ersatz “morality” with which the Western powers are so adept
at cloaking their attacks on geopolitical and economic rivals. China must
become our enemy because of its treatment of Tibet, the persecution of the
Uighurs, and the suppression of political dissent in Hong Kong.
Let’s deconstruct this analysis piece by piece – starting
with Tibet.
In geopolitical terms, Tibet constitutes the “high ground”
of Eurasia. Whenever the Chinese Empire was strong enough to assert its
suzerainty over Tibet (which was most of the time) the Tibetan theocracy
willingly paid homage to Beijing. In the nineteenth century, however, the
British transformed Tibet into one of its many “protectorates”. In the “Great
Game” (the euphemistic term employed to describe the imperial moves and
counter-moves of the British and Russian empires for control of Central Asia)
Tibet was seen by London as crucial to the protection of India’s northern
flank. China, humbled in the same wars that secured the island of Hong Kong for
Her Britannic Majesty, was in no position to resist.
Fast-forward to the middle of the twentieth century. The
British Empire is in full retreat. India has won its independence. The Chinese
Communist Party has driven the nationalist Kuomintang regime off the Chinese
mainland and, with the support of its Soviet ally, is well-positioned to
restore China’s suzerainty over Tibet. In geopolitical terms, the CCP has
little choice. Acknowledging Tibet’s “independence”, would be interpreted by
the Indians and the Soviets as an invitation to fill the power vacuum
themselves. Accordingly, the Peoples Liberation Army occupies Tibet, dismantles
its feudal Buddhist theocracy, and drives the Dalai Lama over the Himalayas to
exile in India.
While the Communist Party retains power in Beijing, Tibet
will remain under Chinese control. And, for as long as well-meaning new-agers
in the West demand the restoration of the Dalai Lama, Beijing will do
everything it can to smother Tibetan nationalism. Tragically, that means
smothering the ancient religious culture which inspires the nationalists’
resistance. The louder the international clamour for an independent Tibet, the
more determined the CCP becomes to transform the territory into just another
Chinese province. Perhaps Richard Gere and his fellow travellers might like to
think about that the next time they feel moved to raise the flag of “Free
Tibet”?
An equal determination to crush the forces of religious nationalism
is evident in Xinjiang, where the CCP has launched a massive campaign to
neutralise the ability of the Islamic faith to arm – both literally and
figuratively – the nascent movement for Uighur independence. With Xinjiang
sharing its western border with five Islamic states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Beijing’s nervousness is understandable.
The concentration of upwards of a million “suspect” Uighurs in massive
high-rise complexes reflects the CCP’s longstanding belief in the superiority
of coercive social-engineering over the much more costly alternative (in every
sense) of full-scale military engagement and “pacification”.
Beijing has observed the philosophical cul-de-sacs into
which the West’s policies of multicultural diversity and religious tolerance
have driven it, and remains committed to enforcing a single, Han
Chinese-derived definition of citizenship. That China’s official communist
ideology now finds itself engaged in a no-holds-barred, hearts-and-minds struggle
with the Islamic religion is in no way considered wrong or unfortunate. Rather,
it is seen as a necessary and unavoidable confrontation between progressive and
reactionary thinking. A vast “struggle session” from which, it is confidently
assumed, the Chinese state will emerge stronger and more united than ever.
Beijing is no more willing to countenance a challenge to its
sovereignty from the eastern extremity of the Peoples Republic than it is from
its uttermost west. Indeed, the threat of an Islamic jihad breaking out in
Xinjiang, and the year-long protests bedevilling the “Special Administrative
Region” of Hong Kong, are viewed as evidence of a single, US-led, effort to
divert and delay China’s re-emergence as the world’s dominant power. From the CCP’s
perspective, the slightest indication of weakness on the part of the Chinese
state will only encourage the West to apply new and greater pressures at other
points of perceived vulnerability.
The story of Hong Kong is illustrative of the West’s long-term
Chinese strategy. It has been an article of faith in Western capitals for many
decades that the adoption of what they considered “capitalism” by Deng Xiaoping
in 1979 would lead China inexorably towards “liberal democracy”. Far from being
seen as proof that Beijing will do whatever it takes to avoid the fate of the
Soviet Union, the West interpreted the 1989 massacre in Tiananmen Square as
merely the first act in a drama that would expand and intensify until the
inevitable triumph of human rights and freedoms. Hong Kong was supposed to show
Beijing the way. In time the whole of China would embrace free speech and the
rule of law.
What China saw was something quite different. “Liberal
democracy”, as applied in what had been the Soviet Union, brought only
territorial disintegration, corruption and Nato’s relentless advance to
Russia’s suddenly buffer-less and strategically vulnerable borders. Boris
Yeltsin, a boorish drunkard, epitomised the humiliation of the once proud
Soviet state. He presided over a vicious kleptocracy while the life expectancy
of the Russian people plummeted. That he won re-election was due almost
entirely to the shameless intervention of American political fixers. If these
were the blessings of liberal democracy, Beijing wanted none of them!
China’s national security apparatus was particularly
determined to ward off any hint of the so-called “colour revolutions” which had
swept Europe’s former socialist states. It familiarised itself with the tactics
of these initially student-based “non-violent” protest movements. They noted
how, when met with brutal state repression, these movements were able to
blossom into society-wide uprisings. They also tracked the involvement of
foreign advisers and their American funders.
What had worked in Belgrade, Tbilisi and Kiev would not be
permitted to work in Hong Kong. While Washington waited impatiently for the
arrival of the PLA – and another Tiananmen bloodbath – Beijing quietly prepared
its new Security Law. Slowly, but unmistakably, the yellow ribbons and
umbrellas of Hong Kong’s year of living dangerously are melting away.
In 1900, an eight-nation alliance of Western powers mounted
a military intervention to suppress the popular revolutionary movement which
was threatening to end foreign influence in China. Comprised of British,
French, German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian, Italian, United States and Japanese
military units (along with state contingents from Australia) this 45,000-strong
force subdued the revolutionaries, pillaged Beijing, and forced the Imperial
Chinese government to meet the costs of their punitive expedition.
The moral tenor of this frankly and unapologetically
imperialist intervention is best captured in the message sent to his troops by
the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II:
“A great task awaits you: You must see to it that a serious
injustice is expiated. The Chinese have overturned the law of nations. Never
before in world history have the sanctity of diplomats and the obligations of
hospitality been subjected to such contempt. It is all the more outrageous that
these crimes have been committed by a nation which prides itself on its ancient
culture ….. When you come upon him, know this: Pardon will not be
given. Prisoners will not be taken. Bear your weapons so that for a thousand
years no Chinaman will dare even to squint at a German.”
120 years later, the racist assumptions of the Western
powers vis-à-vis China have hardly changed at all. They still arrogate to
themselves the right to dispose of the future of the Chinese people as they see
fit. There remains the same racist assumption that the West’s values and
institutions are superior in every way to those of a civilisation that has
endured for 3,000 years. The same hunger for profits that drove the British to
force their opium into the lungs of the Chinese people at the point of a gun,
continues to drive the Western capitalist elites. Nothing is forbidden to those
whose skins are white.
Such is the historical force alongside which the Western
Left has chosen to position itself.
This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog
of Friday, 24 July 2020.
