China’s Leaders Draw Lessons From War of ‘Humiliation’
Imagine China beset by
domestic and external menaces, its rulers and commanders complacent,
decadent and corrupt, humiliated by Japan in a war that pushes the once
indomitable power closer to collapse.
This image of China
from over a century ago, in the twilight of the Qing dynasty, remains a
potent nightmare for Communist Party leaders, and the 120th anniversary
of the start of a war with Japan has unleashed a spate of images, speeches and official commentary drawing lessons from the defeat.
The lessons from that time have become all the more pointed today, when Chinese-Japanese ties are tenser than they have been for decades, and President Xi Jinping of China has embarked on an ambitious program to overhaul the military and to curtail corruption throughout the military and the party.
“The victory of the
aggressors was a humiliation for the Chinese nation,” Chu Yimin, a
People’s Liberation Army general and political commissar, said in an interview
published on Monday in Study Times, a party newspaper. “The wounds are
increasingly healed over, but the scars remain, and what we need most of
all nowadays is to awaken an intense sense of humiliation, so that we
never forget the humiliation of our country and military, and turn
knowledge of this into courage.”
This Friday will mark
the anniversary of the formal start of the war, called the Jiawu War in
Chinese, and often called the First Sino-Japanese War in English.
“Jiawu” refers to the year in the 60-year cycle of the traditional
Chinese calendar; 2014 marks another Jiawu year, adding weight to the
anniversary.
As if to reinforce the
martial message, the Chinese military has announced exercises,
extending off the east coast of China, which the civilian aviation
authorities have indicated are already causing severe delays for commercial flights.
A professor from
China’s National Defense University, Gong Fangbin, said the disruption
of air traffic would be a test of citizens’ patriotic support for a
stronger military.
“It’s foreseeable
that, as long as the international threats to our country persist,
large-scale, and even larger-scale, military exercises will happen,” he wrote
on Monday in Global Times, a widely read tabloid. “Each time will be
yet another test of the public’s awareness of national defense and its
willingness to bear a burden.”
The clash between
Japan and China’s Manchu rulers started as a contest for dominance of
Korea. The Manchu court assumed its forces would overwhelm Japan, but
instead the Japanese naval and army forces humbled their opponents,
pushed into northeastern China, and isolated Taiwan.
The war ended in April
1895, when the Qing court agreed to a treaty that ended China’s hold
over Korea and ceded Taiwan and territory in northern China to Japan.
The humiliation exposed the brittleness of China’s military power, which
a bout of policy changes failed to overcome, and the dynasty collapsed
in 1911.
At the time, Chinese
advocates of bold change said the defeat showed the success of Japan’s
outward-looking Meiji Restoration, and the contrasting sclerosis of the
Qing court. But the Communist Party leadership has turned the
anniversary into a template for reinforcing its own theme of patriotic
revival and military readiness.
“2014 is another Jiawu year,” China’s main military newspaper, The People’s Liberation Army Daily, said
on its front page on Monday. It said the army was using the anniversary
to reinforce the need for readiness against any external threats.
“For China now, the
goal of national rejuvenation has never been closer, and the obstacles
to national rejuvenation have never been clearer,” said the paper.
“Around our country’s
periphery, hot spots are increasing and the ignition point is lower.
Certain major powers are fanning the flames in the Asia-Pacific region,
the ghost of Japanese militarism has stirred back to life,” it said,
also noting the territorial disputes in the South China Sea. “The
chances of chaos and war on our doorstep are growing.”
But not all the
lessons from the Jiawu War are directed abroad. Chinese textbooks
present the defeat of 1895 as the price of corruption and decadence that
fatally weakened Qing rule and left its military ill equipped and ill
trained. Mr. Xi has extended his campaign against graft into the high ranks of the military, and again the lessons of 120 years ago are not far away.
“For a military, corruption and defeat are twin brothers,” General Chu wrote in Study Times. “Corruption breeds fear of dying.”
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