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Myth-Making for the Empire: Germany's Myth-Making for the Empire GERMANY’S COLONY IN CHINA 1897–1914 » YIXU LU My topic is the role of China in the German Germany as a senile state, sunk in decadence. popular imagination in the decades around the A shift in this perspective was largely brought turn of the twentieth century. The focus will about by the efforts of the pioneering geographer be on Qingdao (Tsingtau), Germany’s ‘model Ferdinand von Richthofen, whose writings colony’, as it was widely celebrated in political stressed the enormous economic potential to be discourses and popular literature at the time. It unlocked in China by Western intervention. Von existed from 1897 till 1914, was lavishly supported Richthofen saw China as a pre-industrial nation, by the German Naval Office, and sustained an needing only to profit from Western know-how emotional charge that was out of proportion to to make the transition to modernity.1 In the its very modest size and economic performance. wake of the Sino-Japanese war of 1895, there was I shall illustrate in what way the discourses on acute rivalry among Western powers to acquire Qingdao can be seen as part of a myth-making a colonial outpost in China. The German Naval process for the German Empire under Emperor Office had been on the lookout for a base in East Wilhelm II (fig. 1). Asia since the middle of the 1890s, and Admiral On 14 November 1897 marines of the East Alfred von Tirpitz, the relevant secretary of state, Asian cruiser squadron under the command had personally intervened to have the choice fall of Rear Admiral Otto von Diderichs occupied on the site of Qingdao. Kiautschou Bay on the northern coast of Thus, Qingdao was from the outset a focal China. On 14 November 1914, the seventeenth point of various ambitions. Although the colony anniversary of the occupation, Alfred Meyer- was never to achieve the exalted goals its Waldeck, Governor of the German protectorate, founders cherished, the city remained an icon left the city of Qingdao with his staff as Japanese of German culture in the midst of Asia. In the prisoners of war. In these 17 years, Qingdao following, I shall analyse the image of Qingdao in had embodied lofty symbolic values in German German popular discourses during the seventeen public discourse, and these became more intense years of its existence and — above all — in the through the colony’s downfall. drama of its downfall. I shall show how the The foundation of Qingdao was the fulfilment unique status of Qingdao derived from the fact of a long-cherished wish on the part of German that it was a convenient instrument for the explorers and bureaucrats. The dream of an staging of Kaiser Wilhelm’s ‘Weltpolitik’. For this (above) industrialised China, one created by the German made possible the transfiguration of the city after Detail, fig. 4, p. 65, Map of spirit, had been current since the 1860s. Earlier its inevitable capitulation in November 1914. Qingdao circa 1906. in the century, China had been perceived within 60 Humanities Australia The unique status of Qingdao had its (left) origin in a coincidence of images of Germany Fig. 1. Head and as a ‘world power’, committed to realising shoulders portrait of Kaiser Wilhelm II by ‘world politics’, and of the demands for the Court Photographer creation of a German battle fleet. The murder T. H. Voigt of of two German missionaries in Shandong on Frankfurt, 1902. 1 November 1897 provided the longed-for pretext IMAGE: IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, IWM NON- for action. On 14 November, the Kaiser ordered COMMERCIAL LICENSE HTTPS://WWW.IWM.ORG. German troops to occupy Kiautschou Bay. From UK/COLLECTIONS/ITEM/ the outset, the creation of Qingdao had its OBJECT/205124138 theatrical aspects. A letter from Wilhelm to the Foreign Secretary von Bülow on 7 November testifies to the Kaiser’s hectic frame of mind at the occupation of Chinese territory: Hundreds of German merchants will rejoice in their awareness that at long last the German Empire has gained a firm foothold in Asia. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese will tremble when they feel the iron fist of the German Empire upon their necks, and the entire German people will be happy that its government has done a virile deed.2 Those times are past when Germans left to The vision of the Chinese masses trembling one neighbour the earth, another the sea beneath the iron fist of Germany is indicative and kept the heavens, where pure doctrine of Wilhelm’s propensity for mythical thought reigns, for themselves. […] In short, we and bombastic utterances, and I shall address wish to put no other nation in the shade, this issue shortly. The Kaiser issued a personal but we also demand our place in the sun.4 decree that ‘atonement’ for the murder of the On the basis of this cliché — ‘our place in the missionaries should be demanded in the form sun’ — Qingdao henceforth becomes the symbol of the ceding of Chinese territory: ‘Go with all of Wilhelmenian ‘world politics’. Ironically, it was speed to Kiautschou with the whole squadron, not to survive the events of 1914. occupy suitable positions and localities and The founding of the first and only German compel the Chinese in whatever way you will colony in China did, in fact, represent something to make atonement’.3 new, namely the only tangible result of Wilhelm But in the Reichstag there was no longer any II’s ‘Weltpolitik’ — a most ambitious if very talk of atonement when von Bülow informed diffuse set of doctrines.5 One of Wilhelm’s senior the members of the occupation of Kiautschou. officers, Alfred Graf von Waldersee — later to Rather, it was seen as the triumphant entry command the Western allied troops in China of Germany as a colonial power onto the in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising — was world stage: sceptical of the worth of the Chinese colony, Germany now stands at the inception and, indeed, of what ‘world politics’ might mean, of its development into an international confiding in his diary of 13 July 1900: ‘We are world power. Taking possession of supposed to be engaging in “world politics”. If I Kiautschou Bay represents the first only knew what they were meant to be.’6 In fact, initiative in securing a firm basis for our they meant a good deal more than protecting trade and industry to exploit China, and I German trade with China, as becomes clear if we hope this will bring us rich rewards from look at other speeches of the Kaiser regarding the those lands where our goods are sold. […] occupation of Qingdao, for example: Humanities Australia 61 Let it be clear to any European out there, of strategic ports, so that the outbreak of the that the good German has planted his First World War saw it hopelessly isolated. In shield — with its emblem of the Imperial the year 1907 there was even a public debate in eagle — firmly on the ground so as to Germany on the question of whether it would protect anyone who seeks his protection. not be better — given what the colony was […] But should anyone make so bold as costing — to return it to China. So what was to infringe upon our rights or seek to Qingdao good for? It was good for morale — in diminish them, then we shall defend them other words: it could represent. with a mailed fist!7 This brings us to the issue of just what constitutes political myth. I cannot begin to sift The warlike tone that Wilhelm here adopts the enormous literature on the topic, so offer reveals a somewhat paranoid attitude towards here a minimalist approach. In the words of the other colonial powers, especially England. For anthropologist Pierre Maranda, myths — at their these powers were busy trying to carve up China most fundamental — ‘display the structured, to their own advantage. Thus, the celebrated predominantly culture-specific, and shared, ‘model colony’ of Qingdao was from the outset semantic systems which enable the members embedded in a power play in the service of the of a culture area to understand each other […] ambitions of the German Empire. It bore a heavy More strictly, myths are stylistically definable symbolic burden which did not cease to exist discourses that express the strong components when Japanese and British troops conquered the of semantic systems.’8 It is important here to colony in November 1914. Qingdao always had note that the emphasis is on ‘semantic systems’, a function in a discourse of power, whether real rather than the more conventional one on or imaginary. THE OFFICIAL RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE FOUNDATION OF THE COLONY PROCLAIMED THAT THIS WAS THE INCEPTION OF A GRANDIOSE EXPANSION OF THE EMPIRE. The official rhetoric surrounding the ‘narratives’. The semantic system in question foundation of the colony proclaimed that this here is that of German nationalism in the wake was the inception of a grandiose expansion of of the foundation of the Reich in 1870. Such the Empire. Qingdao was seen as the beginning semantic systems produce ‘discourses’ which of a fresh push towards imperial equality often take the form of past-tense narratives, but with France and Britain. The acquisition of this is not essential. The same semantic system Qingdao was thus part of a wider discourse can produce discourses that are in conflict with in which Germany sought to catch up with one another. The consistency required of a single the other European powers by becoming a coherent narrative need not be present in a major colonial nation and world power in its nexus of mythical elements.
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