Kaufman explains rise of China

The Chinese Revolution of 1911, Kaufman explained, was critical to the formation of these national aspirations. The authority of the Qing dynasty, which ruled China from 1644 to 1912, had been severely undermined in the previous century by lost conflicts with Western imperial powers, unfavorable trade arrangements and shrinking territorial holdings. The revolution overthrew two millennia of imperial rule and was followed by a series of failed and chaotic experiments with government that made people doubt whether a unified country would continue to exist. After the revolution, it “was unclear whether China would become a single, united and sovereign nation state,” she said.

By 1911, China had become “the sick man of Asia,” Kaufman said. The imperialist government’s ability to control its territorial holdings had crumbled, and it had to been forced into unfair international agreements that many Chinese elites found humiliating. Having been forced into openness by western powers, China now confronted a new world of competitive international politics with which it was not well-equipped to interact, she said.

This new world, she explained, caused Chinese elites to question the country’s national goals. “They showed a pretty high degree of consensus: Nearly everybody asserted that it was imperative to save the country,” she said. If China’s people were to be united, these elites reasoned, perhaps China could regain its territorial losses, re-establish its sovereignty and protect its dignity from further humiliation by Western powers.

“Rejuvenation, prosperity and strength” emerged as the new goals of post-revolutionary China, she said. Along with these aspirations, Kaufman added, China hoped to attain some measure of equality in its dealings with other nations.

The elites of the immediate post-Qing period attributed China’s weak and humiliating international stature to its inability to cope with the external system of international relations. This system, Kaufman explained, was thought to be governed by “certain immutable laws” of competition that favored Western powers, because their cultures were more amenable to aggression. Chinese culture, these elites reasoned, was based on principles of peace and harmony that were not as easily compatible with the system. “China’s problem,” Kaufman noted, “was that it needed to change itself.”

The rhetoric used by different Chinese leaders to describe China’s national goals has remained remarkably similar over time, Kaufman explained. “By most accounts China has done very well in invigorating and reviving themselves,” she said, noting the country’s meteoric economic growth, territorial expansion and growing presence in international organizations in recent years. But today’s leaders of the Communist Party continue to use the same language to describe national aims, which suggests that they see the present day as part of the “same story” of 100 years ago, where “humiliation [and] subjugation is always a possibility for China,” she added.

These goals of rejuvenation and revival have become “a moving target than can’t ever actually be reached,” Kaufman explained. Consequently, “there is a persistent feeling of insecurity and incompletion” in China’s self-presentation that has no clear expiration date, she said. However, she added, such terms constitute a powerful narrative and may be politically advantageous to those in power.

China’s conception of itself as an impediment to these goals, however, has shifted markedly: Modern elites blame “a biased West” and “a bad international system,” which by its very nature keeps the weak nations weak and the strong nations dominant, Kaufman said. In contrast to Western nations’ rapacious and expansionist tendencies, these elites argue, China is disposed toward harmony, and so its rise will not involve the subjugation or oppression of other nations.

How China views itself and its possibilities matters, Kaufman added, because it is likely to affect how willing China is to work with the United States and other Western powers in the future.

Kaufman delivered the lecture in Robertson Hall on Wednesday evening. Titled “Continuities in Chinese Foreign Policy Thinking Since the Late Qing,” it was sponsored by the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program.