The first source examined was the address delivered by Yosuke Matsuoka, the Japanese delegate to the League of Nations, the second an analysis of the creation of the mythology of the Boxer Rebellion.
A proper understanding can only be achieved if the context of historical sources is examined carefully. Each of the sources presented attempt to address the causes of social disorder and political fragmentation in Chinese history. The sources deal with the effect that external powers had on China, the internal system of governance and state-society relationships in regards to the rural urban divide and inequalities in income and access to social benefits.
The first source examined was the address delivered by Yosuke Matsuoka, the Japanese delegate to the League of Nations. The League was set up after World War One as a forum for countries to address conflicts before they escalated into war. The Japanese delegate was speaking before the League was to vote on the findings of the Lytton Report in regard to the Japanese invasion and installment of the Mankuko puppet government in Manchuria.
The Japanese delegate addressed three issues in his speech. First, that the situation in China is quickly disintegrating into anarchy, second, Japan has a lot at stake in the future of China, and third that because Japan ultimately has China’s best interest at heart, it is not necessary for the League to intervene on China’s behalf.
The delegate makes many valid points in asserting that the situation was very bad in China. He correctly points out that for the previous twenty years a revolution had ripped through China. He goes on to talk about how tens of millions have lost their lives in the fighting, and that as a result of this fighting, tyranny, banditry, famine and flood has caused the lives of hundreds of millions to plunge into despair. He correctly points out that chaos reigns in China. The fundamental causes of the problems is the lawless condition and that the population was suffering under warlords. An objective observer would not dispute thisi. Furthermore, the delegate argues that China has lost sovereignty and control of its territory, and is not doing its part of meeting its obligations to its neighbors.
The delegate is not only addressing the current issues, but also their long history. These arguments would resonate well with the audience at the League meeting, because each of the problems addressed was one of the main causes for rebellion in China during the previous 100 years. These rebellions targeted the source of trouble for the Chinese, which included the foreign presence. The other country’s delegates would be aware that these rebellions often targeted foreigners, required large military forces to defeat, and were costly in both lives and moneyii. Taking into account the audience, which included European countries with vast experience in China ranging from the Unequal Treaties to the Boxer Protocol, this would have been the most compelling part of the speech.
The delegate also claims that Japan has a lot at stake in China, especially Manchuria. Again, Japan’s heavy investment in Manchuria would not be disputed by anyone. Matsuko himself would go on to head the Japanese Railroad in Manchuria after Japan withdrew itself from the league. For a state to be in the League, the delegate argues, it has to be sovereign. Because China could not meet this requirement, it should have not been allowed to file a complaint against Japan in the League. Also, Japan claimed that Manchuria is not a part of China and the people living there are not Chinese. Therefore Japan wants to maintain independent Manchouko in the interests of the people living there. This was contrary to the Lytton report and repeated the standard colonial arguments made by othersiii.
When one finally arrives at the third contention, Japan’s argument quickly unravels. The basic argument that the delegate makes was that Japan wants Manchuria to become a land of law order, peace and abundance and that the ultimate aim of Japan is to help China. Unfortunately for the delegate, this falls into the standard colonial pattern. The address mirrored speeches by Napoleon when he invaded Egypt in 1798, the British when they invaded Iraq in 1920. Undoubtedly, each of these professions of good intentions was revealed to be false, just as history revealed Japan’s were. Simply, this is what one would expect from an invading army; these arguments can be dismissed. When one looks at Japan’s history in China, it is no different than that of the European powers. Seeing itself as their equal, Japan had used the same arguments these powers historically had used to establish itself as a colonial power in China, exploiting the countries resources and people just as its Western counterparts had. Naturally, the bloody history of Japanese intervention in China was omitted in the speech.
The result of this weakness of the speech complimented that the audience at the League were imperial countries themselves, and would be all too familiar with such talk. Therefore they would be able to see the transparent hypocrisy, which helped lead them to an unsurprising unanimous vote against the Japanese that followed the delegate’s speech.
The next source examined is also study in the construction of selective history, but this time, it originates from the Cultural Revolution. In Cohen’s analysis of mythologization of the Boxers, the author examines three critical periods of this construction of history: the attacks on Liu Shaoqi, on Confucianism and Soviet Revisionism. As Cohen points out in the article, history was used as a tool to reaffirm the revolution and because the Cultural Revolution was a factional struggle, by appealing to the past, the powerful arguments were made for discrediting state enemies.
A different enemy threatened the state in each of phases of the Cultural Revolution. In order to discredit the enemy, the Boxers were mythologized in order to create symbols of different revolutionary qualities. Then the enemy would be revealed as traitors or counterrevolutionaries for supposedly opposing these values.
To discredit Liu Shaoqi, it was alleged that he praised a film that negatively portrayed the Boxers. This made him a traitor because the film portrayed deep-rooted class hatred and imperialists as envoys of civilization while it made the boxers out to be “barbarous rioters”. Soon the Red Guards, vanguards of the revolution, joined the fray by inventing the idea that the Red Lanterns were a major historical force. As Perry points out, this was most likely done because of the number of similarities that existed between the portrayal of the Lanterns and the Guards (264). Once the connection between the Red Lanterns and Red Guards was established, anyone who disparaged the Red Lanterns was doing the same to the Red Guards, thereby criticizing the revolution. This “made point that one’s attitude toward the Boxers and the Red Lanterns was an indicator if one was a true revolutionary or a fake one.” This was in reference to the manufactured image, which had little relation to historical fact.
Later in the Cultural Revolution when the official target became Confucianism, the image of the Boxers was again molded to suit the purpose of discrediting the enemy. Confucianism adhered to strict beliefs that women were inferior to men. So, in this case, a story about a female Red Lantern leader Lin Hei’er was concocted in which she took on the corrupt a male authority figure. So when she attacked him in a tirade, wasn’t “just [the standard story of] a working class person talking up to a member of a ruling class, it is also a female in a patriarchal society talking down to a male”. Similarly, when her Red Lanterns [engaged] the imperialistic forces in battle, “it is not simply a case of primitively armed Chinese fighting against foreigners, but also of women fighting with men (273)”.
When, as a pretext for a renewed military presence Soviet historians tried to fabricate the historical role of the Russian army in Asia, the Chinese responded in kind to discredit this idea. The Soviets made the Boxers out to be ignorant, superstitious, and blindly anti-foreign. This was done while heaping praise on Czarist armies for helping civilize and modernize China. In response, Chinese historians did their own reconstruction, selectively and liberally quoting sources to make the Russians seem like the ones who were truly ignorant and barbarous. As part of the Chinese reconstruction, the sources were cited accurately, but with no attempt to deal with them critically, in context or objectively. For example, the Chinese omitted mention of the Boxer’s supernatural powers because this would not go along with the pre-selected image.
Mao used propaganda was used to mobilize the masses in an effort to consolidate control of the government away from the Communist Party. This addressed the gap between urban and rural dwellers by glorifying the proletariat and attacking symbols of their historic class struggle: against both ineffective, corrupt bureaucracy and imperialism. Similarly, the Communist Party had agitated the apathetic poor farmers during the revolutioniv. Because the Boxers were presented as an example of the poor rising up in revolution, it appealed to rural Chinese masses, which constituted the majority of the population. It recognized that addressing their needs was necessary for a Chinese government to be legitimate and to retain power. Mao was able to harness and attempted to benefit from this by making the state enemies out to be the enemies of the masses and empowering the masses to rise up against their oppressors.
The third article deals with recent attempts to address historical injustices that have existed against farmers throughout Chinese historyv. The Chinese farmer has historically been the subject of exploitation, a depressed agricultural system, lack of good arable land, and among the most severally effected by natural disasters. Discontent peasants have often risen up and fought their back against perceived oppressors when conditions become intolerable. Reforms in the Chinese government have in recent years created outlets for this frustration and empowered the rural poor to address their grievances to prevent disorder and lawlessness from breaking out.
Due to various changing conditions, lodging complaints is now a viable way to correct these wrongs. The authors emphasize that this process is not simple, easy or always successful. Villagers have become more defiant since the end of the communal system because the taxes and grain that the village takes now comes directly from the farmer’s pockets, and due to this, Village cadres sometimes have to use force. Villagers freed from commune question why they need cadres who take so much but offer little benefits.
Also, villagers more aware of prices in cities and know the prices that their goods are being sold for elsewhere. Villagers are more connected then ever with other communities, and realize that they are not isolated in their plightvi. News of successful lodging of complaints travels fast and news of success motivates others. Electoral reforms also help empower villagers, who are increasingly aware of two laws in particular the Organic Law and the Administrative Litigation Law that gives villagers the right to sue officials for wrongdoing. Previously protected Cadres also make themselves venerable when they have violated a hard to ignore sate policy or law.
Despite of these new opportunities, only well organized are complaints successful. Also, despite the new vulnerabilities, protections for village cadres from higher authorities remain. Villagers use a variety of tactics to respond to this. They use traditional forms of protests combined with symbolic and modern proactive methods. Ultimately, a complaint won’t be successful unless one can persuade other villagers and get public support.
Lodging complaints is now viable because higher-ups in the Communist party are acting on the knowledge that throughout Chinese history, unrest in poor populations has destroyed the prosperity of the country. Also, they understand the difficulties of administering the enormous and diverse Chinese countryside is no easy task. While steps have been made to increase reform, the overall authority of the village cadre has been maintained to preserve order.
The fourth and final source used was the Qiu Ju Film. This film’s topic is how the average peasant in China could seek redress. This is a story of the main character fighting bureaucracy. One hundred, or even fifty years ago, this would have been impossible. But now living in the 1990s, in a different China, Qui Ju had an alternative: she could take on the system. This, of course, was going to prove to be not easy, partially because China is so huge and diverse and partially because its not supposed to be simple. The reality of the complaint system proved that only a dedicated and impassioned effort, such as Qiu Ju’s, could be settled acceptably.
In the film Qiu Ju shows the attempt of a young couple to actually use the system to lodge a complaint because of a transgression committed against them by the village cadre. The movie showed her journey in getting justice, as the village cadre attacked her husband over a misunderstanding and caused him to suffer a severe injury. For Qiu Ju, the compensation had to come in the form of an apology. She was offered a cash compensation, which was thrown at her, but she took this as an insult. All she wanted was to humble the man that had brought her husband so much pain, in the form an apology.
The movie was testimony about the system described in the O’Brien and Li piece. As that article pointed out, a complaint had a much better chance to succeed if I was done collectively with the backing of large numbers of villagers. Unfortunately for her, Qiu u did not have this. Instead she was armed with a sense of justice and a never dying perseverance.
Qiu Ju was pitted against many challenges. First, she had to face corruption at local level. Then, as she persisted, and went into a city to appeal further, she was confronted with China’s enormous rural-urban divide. She was in a foreign land- a land totally she was completely unfamiliar with and unprepared to deal with. This confrontation pitted the China of the past, the rural farmer, with the China of the future- that of cities and capitalism. The result of this was that they were taken advantage of, over-charged for a taxi for example. Adapting to this new environment was one of her biggest challenges.
Furthermore, Qiu Ju was confronted with the Chinese disconnect between state and individual. Of course this had come a long way since the days of the Imperial Rule in China, but for people living there, the movie argues, that there is still plenty of space for improvement. Throughout this time, she and her husband were victims of the powerful prejudice that is prevalent throughout Chinese. Yue Daiyun described it in To the Storm; despite the enormous contributions they give to society, people from urban areas look down at people from rural areas. Lastly, Qiu Ju’s trip into the city highlights one of modern China’s failures, a booming economy for the middle and upper-classes, with a peasant backbone of the country that have not seen their lives change much in the last hundred years. With the end of the Imperial system though, and the establishment of the Communist system, the movie shows what greater government penetration into villages accomplished and what it has done to address the age long issues of the role of the rural farmer in Chinese society.
As the saying goes, one who doesn’t learn from history is bound to repeat its mistakes, and so defines the task of historians: to learn from this and affect positive change where we are able to. The first two sources examined historical wrongs, while the second two look at ways of addressing them.
The final two sources examine how China is finally addressing the greatest historical challenge it has faced, its own discontented poor. One has to respect the progress that has been made by the Chinese government in the areas of rural reform. While one can argue things have improved, the reality on the ground shows that much work is still left to be done if one takes into account the lives of rural farmer. Even though China’s population is becoming more and more urban, it still relies on its farmers for its most basic need: food. If history has shown that the Chinese poor can rise up and cause great disorder when the pressure put on them is too great, one would have to immediately look to the future. The pressures that the future holds for the farmer will be greater than they have ever faced. Already faced with competition from urban developments, this problem will only get worse. Furthermore, as China’s population continues to increase at a rapid pace, another pressure being applied to the farmers is the question of how the country will feed itself in thirty years. If one is to have an understanding of such problems, how the government will responded to them, and how to evaluate the government’s words and actions, one has to look at the past.
The first source is important because it does just that. It demonstrates that concentrations of power, such as an imperial power, will profess the best of intentions and attempt to construct a history that absolves them of any responsibility. The contemporary example that one could relate this is the speech Donald Rumsfeld’s gave in Iraq after the US invadedvii; his arguments are strikingly similar to those of the Japanese. The irony of course, is lost on the US government and not pointed out by press. This takes the reader to the Perry article, which examines the effect of propaganda on a society in which dissent is suppressed. A parallel can be drawn to again to America in the 1930s when the only mainstream alternative to the corporate owned press, was destroyed. To quote a study on this period,
When true alternatives to mainstream commercial newspapers and electronic media are not available, however, the legitimization of existing authority and power relations is more readily maintained, and the myths that act to place primary reason in abeyance (i.e., the inherent good of the “free market,” economic competition, U.S. nationalism) are invariably perpetuated by the powers that control the means of discursive exchange and dissemination.viii
History long ago proved the immense power of propaganda, but as the world’s experience with the Holocaust proves, this alone does not absolve one of their responsibilities as human being. With the greater than ever concentration of control of the world’s media in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations which have increasingly close ties to the government, this raises serious questions and needs to be addressed in the context of the Cultural Revolution, and other similar historical phenomenon.
If one lesson can be taken from this, criticizing one’s country or party is the hardest thing to do. One has to be aware of the power in the construction of history. One needs to be critical, and detached from loyalties if truly after history. Chinese historians, for example, must understand what to expect when their government prepares to deal with its, for example, looming confrontation between farmers and land developers. One also has to draw a parallel, and examine our own society. Do intellectuals continue to push the party line in the mainstream press? Many outside of the mainstream would say no, but this is a discussion for another day.
i McCord, Edward “Burn, Kill, Rape and Rob: Military Atrocities, Warlordism, and Anti-Warlordism, in Republican China,” Scars of War, 18-47.
ii “ A Western Account of the Boxer Rebellion” http://unx1.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/bxr2.html
iii Duara, Prasenjit, “Manchukuo: An Historical Overview,” Sovereignty and Authenticity, 41-86
iv Bianco, “Peasant Responses to Chinese Communist Party Mobilization Policies, 1937-1945,” Peasants without the party, 231-243.
v Berstein and Lu, “Burdens and Resistance: Peasant Collective Action,” 116-165.
vi Lewis, John and Xue Litai, “Social Change and Political Reform in China” Meeting the Challenge of Success,” The China Quarterly, 2003, 926-942
vii Khalidi, Rashid, "The United States and Palestine" in Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East(Boston: Beacon Press, 2004) pg 37.
viiiTracy, James F. "Smile While I Cut Your Throat:" Mass Media, Myth, and the Contested "Harmonization" of the Working Class. Journal of Communication Inquiry, Vol. 25, No. 3, 298-325 (2001) © 2001 SAGE Publications
