The Foreign Service Journal, September 2007

members of a student group that grew out of Tehran University, had spent time in his prisons. Let’s now apply these same criteria to China a century ago. Too-rapid economic change. The 19th century was the great age of railroads, mines and telegraph lines, which nearly all of us regard as signs of progress. For the Chinese, how- ever, such innovations not only flew in the face of venerable traditions but were foreign imports. Moreover, bur- ial grounds were everywhere, so scarcely a mile of track could be laid or a mine dug without desecrating the graves of someone’s ancestors. Cultural conflict. Roman Catholic missionaries were singled out for abuse because they were officially protected by the French govern- ment, as guaranteed by a treaty of 1860, but the same privileges were extended to Protestants. Nearly all Western missionaries offended Chin- ese sensibilities in ways that they were not always aware of. For instance, the spires of churches, like railroads and telegraph lines, offended the feng-shui of the spirits of wind and water. It has been said that the Chinese, beyond a vague faith, are not naturally religious. Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism all mix. But what is distinctively Chinese is ancestor wor- ship, which the missionaries — and not only the Roman Catholics — resolutely opposed. Converts to Christianity were forbidden to take part in such idolatry. This meant that converts not only did not participate in village rites, but refused to pay for them, thereby increasing the financial burden on the ancestor worshippers. For these and other reasons, mis- sionaries and their converts were widely hated, not because of theolo- gical differences but because they were foreigners, and protected by foreign governments. And these deep-seated xenophobic feelings were exacerbated by the behavior of foreign governments. Foreign intervention/imperialist misconduct . Let me give just a few examples. In 1842, in order to rectify an adverse balance of trade, and over strong Chinese objections, the British enforced the importation of opium into China. This led to the Opium Wars and the Treaty of Nanking, from which the British gained Hong Kong, among other concessions. During the Second Opium War, the British and French seized Peking and destroyed the Summer Palace in 1860. After the disastrous and humilia- ting defeat of China by Japan in 1894- 1895, in a war over Korea, China’s weakness became even more ap- parent, and foreign rapacity greater. In 1897, capitalizing on the murder of two missionaries, the Germans forced Peking to sign a 99-year lease of Kiaochow Bay and city of Tsingtao, and grant extensive railway conces- sions, all in Shantung province. The next year, under the threat of hostile measures, Russia forced a lease of Port Arthur and Darien, and railroad connections to both, in Man- churia. And France forced the con- cession of a naval base in South- eastern China, and acquired spheres of influence in Kwantung, Kwangsi and Yunnan provinces. Spheres of influence became all the rage. Germany claimed exclusive privileges in Shantung province, and Japan did the same in Fukien pro- vince opposite Taiwan (which it had seized in the 1894 war). For its part, Britain demanded a zone of control in the Yangtse Valley. And the Americans? Of course, we disapproved of such immoral conduct. Yet throughout this period, we nego- tiated and got, without territorial ac- quisition, many of the concessions that other powers had forced from the Chinese. In the words of a somewhat acidulous Brit: “If American idealism was quick to condemn the imperial- ists for summarily shaking the tree, American opportunism was not far behind in picking up the fruit.” Chinese sovereignty was violated in humiliating ways. The foreign settle- ments in Shanghai, Tientsin and other treaty ports were all under Wes- tern — not Chinese — jurisdiction. The sign reportedly erected in the main park in Shanghai is telling: “No dogs or Chinese allowed.” It is no coincidence that the Boxers came out of Shantung province, where the most egregious violations of Chinese sover- eignty and self-respect had recently taken place. Channeling discontent against the foreigners, while expressing strident support for the Manchu Dynasty, the Boxers were exploited to divert at- tention away from where blame really belonged: within the Forbidden City, in the person of the Dowager Em- press and the mandarins who sur- rounded her. It was a time of des- peration. China seemed about to be carved up by foreign powers, just like Africa. The imperial government was in no position to resist them. Corruption, oppression and in- competence in the ruling institution. Important as the first three factors I’ve listed were, the utter failure of govern- ance contributed significantly to the mounting unrest. Two successive harvests had failed and the Yellow River had flooded. The new Chinese 60 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 7 The British and, later, the Americans viewed themselves, not the Iranians, as the prime actors in the country.