SOME EXTRACTS ON CHINA
Created | Updated May 21, 2011
BEHIND THE COURTS OF KUBLAI KHAN
There is no reason, however, to expect China to live up to the cherished western vision of the era of Kublai Khan. Even if we take Marco Polo's story-telling as unvarnished and factual reporting, the 'Cathay' that Polo knew was a very particular and unique period of Chinese history, in effect a fusion of two great powers.
If it was the case, as Polo stated, that a beautiful girl could walk naked with a gold brick on her head in perfect safety from one end of the Silk Road to the other, then that security owed more to the legacy of Genghis Khan and the Tartars than to any outreach of purely Chinese authority. Our European idea of Genghis Khan, of course, is bound up with our fears that this uncivilized 'barbarian' would overrun Europe. So all Europe gave thanks to God when the great Horde he commanded decided to over-run China instead.
Genghis Khan, however, clearly knew a thing or two about the practicalities of life, for he stands out as one of the great individual achievers in history. Perhaps he knew enough to understand the most important truth that there is so much more in Heaven and Earth than anyone can ever understand. For, though the Khans decided to settle in possibly the most civilized place on Earth, it did not mean that they had decided that the Chinese possessed the whole truth.
All of this helps to explain Kublai Khan's self-confidence and his openness to outsiders like the Polos from far away Venice. But, as Eileen Power brought out in her 1924 account of Marco Polo as one of her "Medieval People", this situation did not last: "But a change came over everything in the middle of the fourteenth century. Darkness fell again and swallowed up Peking and Hangchow, the great ports, the crowding junks, the noble civilization. No longer was the great trade route sichurissimo, and no longer did Christian friars chant their Masses in Zaiton. The Tartar dynasty fell and the new rulers of China reverted to the old anti-foreign policy; moreover Islam spread its conquests all over Central Asia and lay like a rampart between the Far East and the West, a great wall of intolerance and hatred stronger by far than the great wall of stone which the Chinese had once built to keep out the Tartars. All Marco Polo's marvels became no more than a legend, a traveler's tale" ( page 66)
The story of the Manchu dynasty, though in some ways similar to that of the Tartars, was nevertheless significantly different. The Muslim rampart across Central Asia scaled down the potential scale of operations for future Golden Hordes. So the Manchu had a much more local impact. Nevertheless, they were invited into China as military competent barbarians, who could make good the military weakness of the existing dynasty.
For the Manchu taking over China must have been like winning the lottery, and they had little hesitation in adopting the Chinese system of government and administration 'as seen'. The second Manchu Emperor, K'angshi, was a kind of Manchu equivalent of Kublai Khan. He made the adaptation from 'barbarian' to 'civilized', and during his sixty years on the throne he set about pacifying the country. But, whereas Kublai Khan had been open -minded, K'angshi found Chinese civilization to be ‘sufficient unto itself’. He became a great scholar in his own right and organized the printing of a great encyclopedia of Chinese knowledge that ran to 5,020 volumes. This studiousness equipped K'angshi to hold his own within a governmental system that was in theory at least a meritocracy, run by mandarins, who only gained entrance to their administrative functions by means of a very demanding examination procedure. But, as R.K Douglas observed in his 1904 study of "Europe and the Far East"- "The circle of knowledge required is narrow, but so much more is it thorough. It is always easier to remember than to think; and by the help of naturally tenacious memories, perfected by exercise, young and ripe scholars face their examiners thoroughly possessed of every subject which can be presented to them." ( page 40)
The existence of this ancient system of government run by Confucian scholars makes it easier to understand why Kublai Khan should have been so keen to make good use Marco Polo. The Polo's republican city-state of Venice was not yet part of the Italy of the "Universal Man" of the Italian Renaissance, but, as in ancient Athens, citizens were expected to be able to turn their hand to whatever task was necessary. Moreover, like Khan's own ancestors, the several generations of the Polo family had experienced the travel "that broadens the mind". Marco was very different, therefore, from the Mandarins, who had spent long years in mastering the complexities of the Chinese alphabet, Chinese calligraphy, and the prescribed texts. Travel promotes self-reliance, thinking for your self, and using common sense.
An isolated China, however, returned a mechanism of government that was essentially divorced from the dynamics of change. To quote Professor Douglas once again- "The Chinese recognize four classes of society, namely, scholars, farmers, mechanics, and traders. But practically the constituents are officials and people". And the officials were guided by "The Institutes of the Dynasty", ancient rules that governed every single governmental act from the top to the bottom. Consequently the main task of the Emperor and his Council of State was merely to oversee the work of the 18 provincial administrations. It was the provincial viceroys who were expected to govern.
In theory the system should have worked well. "The code of laws in force is excellently devised and provides penalties for every conceivable crime and offence. If only administered righteously it would meet every requirement and would combine justice with discretion." ( page 38)
A CHINA CAPABLE OF BEING REFORMED
Of course in 1904 Professor Douglas was writing in an age when the belief in liberal progress was still strong. Even Great Britain was only just beginning to get adjusted to the idea that a government might have to assume a responsibility for the everyday life of its citizens. Previously it had been as true of England, as it still was of China, that the main function of government in quiet times was "to see that......the town and village elders govern the people in harmony with their traditions... Thus the country is to a certain extent self-governing; and with much wisdom the people are allowed full latitude in the arrangement of their own affairs, and in the performance of their social and clannish customs, so long as they do not come into conflict with the laws of the State. " ( page 40)
This grass-roots level of life, however, was far from anarchic. In China it was based upon ancient systems and traditions that sought to promote harmony, including the ideas of "Feng'shui" that promoted riots in the late nineteenth century, when the proposed railway constructions cut their way across the landscape in accordance with the demands of engineering and in violation of ancient wisdom. It was the strength of this rural Chinese society that encouraged Mao Tse Tung to base his revolution and his resistance to the Japanese invaders on the countryside.
Traditional China was woven together by complex traditions that had often been vital to surviving disastrous times. Han Suyin rushing from her medical training in England to 'do her bit', when the Japanese attacked China itself, was astonished to be met by a total stranger on a remote railway station. He turned out to be one of her father's students, who was, therefore, under a lifetime obligation to his teacher's descendents. Having somehow found out what she was doing, he had come to help her on her way. Frank Ching discovered that his own family was bound up with a bundle of fifty families that were expected to look out for each other across the generations.
It was at this level that the Chinese people dealt with life, so, as the philosopher Mencius, put it- "the people are the most important element in a nation and the sovereign is the lightest". The Emperor and the mandarin class were expected to promote the welfare of the people and administer the law righteously. But the ideal situation was one in which the Emperor just 'did his thing' in the Imperial City, while his empire flourished. For in China it is often the case that 'less is more', and a mandarin whose forceful actions made his people openly rebel against his rule had failed and would be moved to another post. In the same way, if the Emperor failed to promote the wellbeing of his people, they had the right to dispossess him and even, according to Mencius, put him to death. But, in times of famine and pestilence, when the gods are against man, and the Emperor could not be blamed, he would be expected to humble himself before the gods: and then degrade the administrators in the affected areas.
Much has changed in China since 1904, but it could be argued that the ‘mandarin class’ in modern China is the Communist Party.
There is no reason, however, to expect China to live up to the cherished western vision of the era of Kublai Khan. Even if we take Marco Polo's story-telling as unvarnished and factual reporting, the 'Cathay' that Polo knew was a very particular and unique period of Chinese history, in effect a fusion of two great powers.
If it was the case, as Polo stated, that a beautiful girl could walk naked with a gold brick on her head in perfect safety from one end of the Silk Road to the other, then that security owed more to the legacy of Genghis Khan and the Tartars than to any outreach of purely Chinese authority. Our European idea of Genghis Khan, of course, is bound up with our fears that this uncivilized 'barbarian' would overrun Europe. So all Europe gave thanks to God when the great Horde he commanded decided to over-run China instead.
Genghis Khan, however, clearly knew a thing or two about the practicalities of life, for he stands out as one of the great individual achievers in history. Perhaps he knew enough to understand the most important truth that there is so much more in Heaven and Earth than anyone can ever understand. For, though the Khans decided to settle in possibly the most civilized place on Earth, it did not mean that they had decided that the Chinese possessed the whole truth.
All of this helps to explain Kublai Khan's self-confidence and his openness to outsiders like the Polos from far away Venice. But, as Eileen Power brought out in her 1924 account of Marco Polo as one of her "Medieval People", this situation did not last: "But a change came over everything in the middle of the fourteenth century. Darkness fell again and swallowed up Peking and Hangchow, the great ports, the crowding junks, the noble civilization. No longer was the great trade route sichurissimo, and no longer did Christian friars chant their Masses in Zaiton. The Tartar dynasty fell and the new rulers of China reverted to the old anti-foreign policy; moreover Islam spread its conquests all over Central Asia and lay like a rampart between the Far East and the West, a great wall of intolerance and hatred stronger by far than the great wall of stone which the Chinese had once built to keep out the Tartars. All Marco Polo's marvels became no more than a legend, a traveler's tale" ( page 66)
The story of the Manchu dynasty, though in some ways similar to that of the Tartars, was nevertheless significantly different. The Muslim rampart across Central Asia scaled down the potential scale of operations for future Golden Hordes. So the Manchu had a much more local impact. Nevertheless, they were invited into China as military competent barbarians, who could make good the military weakness of the existing dynasty.
For the Manchu taking over China must have been like winning the lottery, and they had little hesitation in adopting the Chinese system of government and administration 'as seen'. The second Manchu Emperor, K'angshi, was a kind of Manchu equivalent of Kublai Khan. He made the adaptation from 'barbarian' to 'civilized', and during his sixty years on the throne he set about pacifying the country. But, whereas Kublai Khan had been open -minded, K'angshi found Chinese civilization to be ‘sufficient unto itself’. He became a great scholar in his own right and organized the printing of a great encyclopedia of Chinese knowledge that ran to 5,020 volumes. This studiousness equipped K'angshi to hold his own within a governmental system that was in theory at least a meritocracy, run by mandarins, who only gained entrance to their administrative functions by means of a very demanding examination procedure. But, as R.K Douglas observed in his 1904 study of "Europe and the Far East"- "The circle of knowledge required is narrow, but so much more is it thorough. It is always easier to remember than to think; and by the help of naturally tenacious memories, perfected by exercise, young and ripe scholars face their examiners thoroughly possessed of every subject which can be presented to them." ( page 40)
The existence of this ancient system of government run by Confucian scholars makes it easier to understand why Kublai Khan should have been so keen to make good use Marco Polo. The Polo's republican city-state of Venice was not yet part of the Italy of the "Universal Man" of the Italian Renaissance, but, as in ancient Athens, citizens were expected to be able to turn their hand to whatever task was necessary. Moreover, like Khan's own ancestors, the several generations of the Polo family had experienced the travel "that broadens the mind". Marco was very different, therefore, from the Mandarins, who had spent long years in mastering the complexities of the Chinese alphabet, Chinese calligraphy, and the prescribed texts. Travel promotes self-reliance, thinking for your self, and using common sense.
An isolated China, however, returned a mechanism of government that was essentially divorced from the dynamics of change. To quote Professor Douglas once again- "The Chinese recognize four classes of society, namely, scholars, farmers, mechanics, and traders. But practically the constituents are officials and people". And the officials were guided by "The Institutes of the Dynasty", ancient rules that governed every single governmental act from the top to the bottom. Consequently the main task of the Emperor and his Council of State was merely to oversee the work of the 18 provincial administrations. It was the provincial viceroys who were expected to govern.
In theory the system should have worked well. "The code of laws in force is excellently devised and provides penalties for every conceivable crime and offence. If only administered righteously it would meet every requirement and would combine justice with discretion." ( page 38)
A CHINA CAPABLE OF BEING REFORMED
Of course in 1904 Professor Douglas was writing in an age when the belief in liberal progress was still strong. Even Great Britain was only just beginning to get adjusted to the idea that a government might have to assume a responsibility for the everyday life of its citizens. Previously it had been as true of England, as it still was of China, that the main function of government in quiet times was "to see that......the town and village elders govern the people in harmony with their traditions... Thus the country is to a certain extent self-governing; and with much wisdom the people are allowed full latitude in the arrangement of their own affairs, and in the performance of their social and clannish customs, so long as they do not come into conflict with the laws of the State. " ( page 40)
This grass-roots level of life, however, was far from anarchic. In China it was based upon ancient systems and traditions that sought to promote harmony, including the ideas of "Feng'shui" that promoted riots in the late nineteenth century, when the proposed railway constructions cut their way across the landscape in accordance with the demands of engineering and in violation of ancient wisdom. It was the strength of this rural Chinese society that encouraged Mao Tse Tung to base his revolution and his resistance to the Japanese invaders on the countryside.
Traditional China was woven together by complex traditions that had often been vital to surviving disastrous times. Han Suyin rushing from her medical training in England to 'do her bit', when the Japanese attacked China itself, was astonished to be met by a total stranger on a remote railway station. He turned out to be one of her father's students, who was, therefore, under a lifetime obligation to his teacher's descendents. Having somehow found out what she was doing, he had come to help her on her way. Frank Ching discovered that his own family was bound up with a bundle of fifty families that were expected to look out for each other across the generations.
It was at this level that the Chinese people dealt with life, so, as the philosopher Mencius, put it- "the people are the most important element in a nation and the sovereign is the lightest". The Emperor and the mandarin class were expected to promote the welfare of the people and administer the law righteously. But the ideal situation was one in which the Emperor just 'did his thing' in the Imperial City, while his empire flourished. For in China it is often the case that 'less is more', and a mandarin whose forceful actions made his people openly rebel against his rule had failed and would be moved to another post. In the same way, if the Emperor failed to promote the wellbeing of his people, they had the right to dispossess him and even, according to Mencius, put him to death. But, in times of famine and pestilence, when the gods are against man, and the Emperor could not be blamed, he would be expected to humble himself before the gods: and then degrade the administrators in the affected areas.
Much has changed in China since 1904, but it could be argued that the ‘mandarin class’ in modern China is the Communist Party.
