& Globalization

Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Abstract: In recent decades, China has become increasingly enmeshed in global institutions and global flows. This article places that phenomenon into historical perspective via a look back to important globalizing trends of a key earlier period: the late 1800s through early 1900s. The essay draws heavily on C. A. Bayly’s discussion of that period, which emphasizes the way that moves toward uniformity do not necessarily produce homogeneity. Bayly’s work is used both to illustrate the limitations of some competing ideas about contemporary globalization and how China is or is not being transformed by it, and to provide a basis for arguing that we are again seeing, now in China, important moves toward uniformity that are not erasing important differences between cultures and countries.

How far back in time should one begin in an essay on China and globalization? The term global- ization may have gained widespread purchase in its current sense only beginning in the 1960s, but ideas, objects, and people have been circulating across the planet for millennia. This has led some analysts to identify precursors to, or even earlier stages of, globalization in eras much before our own. More- over, it is commonplace to describe China as having a very long history. And recent scholarship–on topics ranging from Silk Road travelers of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) to voyages of exploration and visits to Beijing by Jesuits during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)–has clearly shown that for much of that extended past, clichés of Chinese isolation and self-containment notwithstanding, China has been continually influenced by, and in turn has had a con - tinual influence on, populations and developments JEFFREY WASSERSTROM is the outside its ever-shifting borders.1 Chancellor’s Professor of History Still, given the current interest in making sense at the University of California, Ir - of China’s rise during a new stage of globalization, vine. His publications include China one historical period stands out as a particularly in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (rev. ed., 2013), Global appealing point of departure: the mid-nineteenth Shanghai, 1850–2010 (2009), and century to early twentieth century. The appeal of Student Protests in Twentieth-Century using this period to frame contemporary dilemmas China: The View from Shanghai (1991). is twofold. First, in that era, as in ours, new tech-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 China & nologies of communication and trans- ing powers, in short, much as China is Global - portation were sources of fascination and viewed by some in this early part of the ization concern. Second, it was a time, like the twenty-½rst century. present, when China’s place in the world The pre–World War I period, Bayly ar - was generating anxiety–though the con- gues, was on many fronts characterized by cern was primarily domestic, due to Chi - a push toward uniformity, but not homoge- na’s decline from a position of centrality, nization. Countries across the globe became as opposed to today’s international con- tightly enmeshed in an international or - cern about its resurgence. der rooted in new kinds of standardiza- British historian C. A. Bayly’s magisterial tion that decreased the variation between work, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780 places. This new order affected many do - –1914: Global Connections and Comparisons, mains, was registered in many ways, and is an ideal launching point for introducing can be appreciated through the investiga- that earlier period into a discussion of tion of many different historical develop- China’s rise and the contemporary period ments, including the founding of new of globalization. Taking the long view of kinds of globally minded organizations globalization, Bayly describes the decades and the growth of new kinds of globally leading up to World War I–during which minded events, in which countries were China’s fortunes declined dramatically as represented as homologous but distinc- the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) suffered a tive units. The clothes worn by powerful series of losses in wars with foreign pow- men across the globe during this period is ers and struggled to contain devastating one telling example of uniformity with- domestic insurrections–as host to a “great out homogenization. In earlier periods, acceleration” of globalizing processes. elite men dressed radically different from These were not new processes, but they each other, with styles varying by location took on a decidedly modern character.2 and cultural orientation. But by the early Here, the similarities with our own era are twentieth century, men of power tended striking. Then, as now, people had an ex - to wear the same kinds of clothing, even hilarating yet worrisome sense of a world if, for example, a Japanese leader might add becoming ever more tightly intercon- a samurai sash to his frock coat and top nected, of a planet shrinking as goods, hat ensemble. people, fashions, and cultural forms, but Today as well, it is useful to see global- also violence, moved across borders in ization as leading to standardization with- novel ways and at faster speeds. Then, as out eclipsing difference. As venues that now, the leading states of the status quo emphasize both the basic homologies be - ante (Britain and France) worried (as the tween and differences among countries, United States does today) about being international expositions during the ear- displaced from their positions atop the lier period of “great acceleration” and the global hierarchy. It was a time when lead- Olympic Games today prove useful in il - ing thinkers within less powerful polities lustrating the parallels between the two viewed the rise of new powers–such as periods. The country-speci½c exhibitions Germany and Japan, as well as the United at the great World’s Fairs of the 1800s and States–with a mix of envy, concern, and early 1900s, like the opening ceremonies a desire to ½gure out how to adapt to their of contemporary Olympic Games, encour- home states the characteristics and growth aged states to present themselves as mutu- strategies of the new ascendants in the ally intelligible entities, with a similar set global hierarchy. They viewed these ris- of markers (flags of a basic shape), while

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 also drawing attention to what sets them flected and carried forward what Bayly Jeffrey apart from one another (colors and sym- calls the era’s tendency toward the “bu- Wasser - strom bols on those flags). Hierarchical status reau cratization of belief.” The goal of this was also plainly marked: whether a coun- parliament was to bring together repre- try was the sort that might host a World’s sentatives of the world’s “ten great reli- Fair or simply host an exhibition at one; gions” who would together explore the and whether a country’s exhibition includ- characteristics that these creeds held in ed its manufactures and machines (signs common, as well as the features that made of power and often military might, with them distinctive.3 Christianity, Judaism, large artillery pieces, for example, among Islam, and Zoroastrianism were represent- the objects displayed) or simply included ed, in addition to six other creeds, all with its handicrafts and antiquities (a sign of a Asian roots. Among these was Confucian- lower place in the global order). ism, which has long de½ed easy classi½ca - The great international expositions were tion as either a religion or a philosophy, but initially held only in the leading Euro- was then, in fact, designated as a religious pean capitals, but by the late nineteenth faith by influential ½gures in the novel ½eld century, the United States was taking the of religious studies.4 occasional turn at hosting full-fledged Prior to the late nineteenth century, World’s Fairs. At this time, Japan also some of these ten spiritual schools lacked began holding smaller-scale exposition many of the features that we now associate events, becoming the ½rst non-Western with leading religions. Not all were orga - country to do so and the ½rst Asian country nized around clearly speci½ed canonical to be represented by its advanced manu- texts, nor did they all have recognizable factures, as opposed to simply its exotic hierarchies of leaders. But just as countries wares. When the United States hosted were expected to present themselves in World’s Fairs, it generally followed the mutually recognizable ways, religions were template established by the exposition pushed toward standardization. Religious spec tacles staged in Europe, but it also ex - traditions associated with the leading glob- perimented by adding novel features, il- al powers set the model for what a “prop- lustrating one of the many ways that rising er” system of belief was supposed to con- powers both adapt to and leave their mark sist of; thus, Hinduism and Buddhism, on the global order. which had been structured quite differ- The ½rst major non-European World’s ently from one another and from Chris- Fair, the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibi- tianity, made moves to be less completely tion in 1876, was the largest event of its out of step with European expectations. kind ever held in any country, signaling Representatives also made efforts to bring an American ambition not simply to fol- in line with expectations low in the footsteps of London and Paris, for a standard “religion,” even though it but to do things on an even greater scale, may have been better classi½ed as a philo- in turn inspiring others to borrow from sophical tradition or secular school of the American playbook. Of particular in - thought.5 These “world religions” remain- terest to Bayly, however, is the second great ed different from one another in beliefs, American World’s Fair: the 1893 Co- but became increasingly homologous in lumbian Exposition. The “World Parlia- form, with their core “sacred” texts likened ment of Religions,” held in conjunction to the Bible (even if, as in the case of Con- with the Columbian Exposition, was a nov- fucianism, these texts stressed the need elty of this World’s Fair, an event that re - to focus on concerns of this world), their

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 China & leaders at times referred to as “priests,” they wanted to adopt and others they Global - and their ritual spaces dubbed “temples.” wanted to avoid. Signi½cant to our dis- ization The ways in which states organized cussion, much of the Japanese model of them selves politically tell a similar tale, selective adoption and internal adaptation and also remind us that as new powers can now be said of contemporary China. rose, ½tting into global patterns while maintaining distinctive elements, the Though these speci½c details of Japan’s number of possible models to emulate emergence as a world power with a dis- increased. Just as the United States pro- tinctive identity may be new to some read- vided a model for hosting international ers, the lessons I have drawn–that there events that could inspire imitation, Ja- is value in looking back at the preceding pan’s remaking of its political order, via a century or two when trying to make sense mix-and-match approach that both bor- of the present, and that rising powers rowed from the outside world and adapt- both adapt to and play a role in reshaping ed from its own distinctive past, offered a international systems–are common sense. possible script upon which other states Curiously, however, the approach outlined could improvise. Japan’s rise toward above is revisionist, going against the world power status was facilitated by its grain of both an influential theoretical adoption of a constitution and its reor- approach to globalization (with implica- ganization of its educational and military tions for understanding China’s rise) and systems, undertakings that sometimes an influential way of thinking about China drew heavily from what one or more West- (with implications for understanding ern countries had done before. The result globalization). This influential concep- was something unique on the world stage, tion of globalization emphasizes the im - both because of how imported elements portance of the end of the Cold War and were combined and because of the carry- the birth of the Internet, suggesting that over of elements from the Japanese impe- only events that took place within the last rial line. three decades really matter. The influen- When Japan began to be recognized by tial approach to understanding modern the European powers and the United States China, meanwhile, presumes that with as a nation that deserved a seat on leading this peculiar “ancient” country, it is cru- international bodies and as a military and cial, when using history to frame our view economic force to be reckoned with– of the present, to go back millennia, not especially after it defeated Russia in 1905 just a century or even several centuries to in the Russo-Japanese War–the Japanese the Song Dynasty (760–1279) or the Ming model began to interest leaders and think- or early Qing Dynasties–all points that ers in many countries outside of the West, some scholars of China point to as the a phenomenon explored most recently in birth of China’s modernity. This ancient- essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra’s From minded approach is often invoked by writ- the Ruins of Empire.6 As that work reminds ers who worry that China will soon “rule us, the story of Japan’s rise was one of the world” (to borrow a phrase from a re- adapting to, but also in the process influ- cent bestseller), or will do so unless de - encing, the global order. When other coun- termined interventionist action is taken tries looked to Japan for inspiration, they to prevent it. Using a famous writer to rep- often did so in the same kind of mix-and- resent each approach (for convenience’s match manner that Japan had used to look sake), I will refer here to the Friedman Fal- toward the West, identifying features lacy and the Kissinger Confusion as two mis-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 leading schools of thought about China son: the views of the two authors overlap Jeffrey and globalization that put undue emphasis with those of other influential writers on Wasser - strom on very recent trends and millennia-old the subjects of globalization and China. patterns, respectively. When Friedman posits an epochal shift Why Thomas Friedman and Henry Kis- in world affairs beginning in 1989, and singer? Each is proli½c, widely read, and foretells mass convergences for countries often cited in general interest publications that formerly took divergent paths, we and even at times in scholarly ones. In the can hear a clear echo of political scientist 2005 Wired magazine pro½le “Why the Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” for- World Is Flat,” Daniel H. Pink describes mulations. Similarly, Friedman’s “flat Friedman as the “most influential Amer- world” visions of a seamless melding of ican newspaper columnist since Walter once very different cultures align with Lippman.”7 Kissinger, meanwhile, is wide- arguments made in such works as China ly acknowledged by critics and supporters scholar Edward Steinfeld’s Playing Our alike as a singularly powerful voice within Game and the earlier, less sophisticated the U.S. policy establishment. Friedman’s work of political scientist Bruce Giley, Chi- most famous book, The World is Flat, has na’s Democratic Future.11 Nor is Kissinger’s sold more copies in its many editions and emphasis on ancient history and “The Sin- translations than any other book on glob- gularity of China” (the title of On China’s alization. His two previous, closely related opening chapter) entirely original. His books also sold well.8 Kissinger’s most re- view dovetails with the vision that under- cent book, On China, has also enjoyed very girds former Nixon staffer Stefan Halper’s high sales ½gures, and is one of the princi- The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authori- pal works that generally educated readers tarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First are most likely to consult before taking a Century–a fearful book about a future of ½rst trip to China. Chinese domination, which comes with Friedman and Kissinger are also extraor- an endorsement by Kissinger–and with dinarily well known and influential within political scientist Samuel Huntington’s China. They are among the Americans The Clash of Civilizations.12 most often quoted in the Chinese media, In a chapter titled the “New System,” and Chinese bookstores stock not only featured in his work The Lexus and the Olive translations of their books, but also sec- Tree: Understanding Globalization, Fried- ondary works, often by academics, that dis- man offers a clear sense of the Friedman cuss the texts and their ideas. Kissinger Fallacy: has been famous in China since he accom- Globalization is not just an economic fad, panied Nixon there in the early 1970s, and and it is not just a passing trend. It is an in - he continues to meet periodically with Chi - ternational system–the dominant interna- na’s current leaders and visit its retired tional system that replaced the Cold War sys- elder statesmen.9 Friedman’s standing in tem after the fall of the Berlin Wall.. . . [T]he China, though of more recent vintage, Cold War system was dominated by one attracted global attention when reporters over-arching feature–division . . . [and] was for the Economist traced the likely role that symbolized by a single word: the wall–the a Friedman column had played in Presi- Berlin Wall. . . . The globalization system . . . dent ’s choice of the “Chinese also has one overarching feature–integra- Dream” for his ½rst major public slogan.10 tion. . . . The globalization system is also The Friedman Fallacy and the Kissinger characterized by a single word: the Web.. . . Confusion also matter for another rea- [W]e have gone from a system built around

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 China & divisions and walls to a system built in- [T]his phenomenon we call “globalization” Global - creasingly around integration and webs.13 –the integration of markets, trade, ½nance, ization information and corporate ownership In his later books, Friedman returns to around the globe–is actually a very Amer- this same view of globalization. In Longi- ican phenomenon: it wears Mickey Mouse tudes and Attitudes, after making a near- ears, eats Big Macs . . . tracks its investments identical argument to that quoted above, with Merrill Lynch using Windows 95. . . . he writes that he is a “big believer in the [C]ountries that plug into globalization are idea of the super-story,” by which he really plugging into a high degree of Amer- means a tale that serves as a framework icanization.14 for making sense of the world (what aca- demics sometimes call a “grand narra- Friedman does not posit easy, swift, tive”). Friedman makes it clear that he and complete Americanization, but he perceives a key super story in the rapid and does think in terms of an overall trend in epochal shift now under way. This shift is that direction. This vision colors even his due to a mixture of geopolitical changes, criticisms of the United States, as illus- especially resulting from the Soviet em - trated by the very title of his recent book, pire’s collapse, and the development of That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind new technologies, especially the Internet. in the World It Invented and How We Can Come The World is Flat insists that Cold War as - Back. When writing on China, he notes the sumptions instantly became outmoded irony of now having to cross the Paci½c to when the Berlin Wall fell, and that an in - ½nd the kind of ambitious can-do attitude exorable trend toward convergence started and tendency to think big that formerly to trump heterogeneity, as exempli½ed by de½ned the United States, and cites ex - global chains serving interchangeable amples of Chinese appropriation of once Big Macs. distinctively American processes and in- The implications of this framework for dustries.15 thinking about China and globalization But what’s wrong with this picture? are twofold. First, there is no need to go Many things, as it turns out. Post–Cold back any further than 1989 to understand War developments do not represent the contemporary issues. Second, while every complete and radical departure from all state is bound to become part of the new previous geopolitical trends, as Friedman global order in a distinctive manner, the suggests they do. Even the Internet is not zeitgeist will make China, like all other completely without precedent, given how countries, more and more like other the telegraph was ½rst announced as a me - nations, and in particular more like the dium that “annihilated” time and space. United States. The Internet is not the sole Consider, for example, how Prince Albert’s driver of this process–Friedman allows 1850 speech promoting the upcoming for assists from jet plane travel, outsourc- Crystal Palace Exhibition, the ½rst great ing, FedEx, and other global connectors World’s Fair, reads today like an outline –but he sees the Internet as the new sys- of a Friedman column: tem’s emblematic technology, just as free Nobody . . . who has paid any attention to market capitalism is its de½ning economic the particular features of our present era, practice. Friedman knows local differences will doubt for a moment that we are living will persist, but emphasizes a kind of in a period of wonderful transition. . . . The homogenization that should come with a distances which separated the different na - “Made in the usa” logo: tions and parts of the globe are gradually

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 vanishing before the achievement of mod- lists–of Filipino, Japanese, British, and Jeffrey ern invention, and we can traverse them American influences, and indeed African Wasser - strom with incredible ease . . . thought is communi- influences as well. cated with the rapidity and even by the pow - er of lightning . . . the products of all quarters Turning to the Kissinger Confusion, we of the globe are placed at our disposal.16 see that he is attracted by a different The Friedman Fallacy also challenges super-story, at least about China. His On us to understand why so many countries China encourages readers to be deeply have resisted the wholesale embrace of skeptical about the Chinese state’s poten- the allegedly natural and inevitable free- tial to become easily integrated into any market principles of the United States. global order not of its own creation. This One can even identify a bloc–admittedly is due to its deep indebtedness to speci½c one quite different from the Cold War vin- ideas, many tied to Confucianism (or Kis- tage, given the lack of professed allegiance singer’s conception of that creed), that to a formal ideology–that stands apart keep China not just distinctive, but radical- from the type of liberal free-market trends ly so. To Kissinger, the country has always Friedman seeks to chart and champion. stood apart and always will. The issue be- This at least is one way to read American comes one of managing this difference, journalist William J. Dobson’s impressive not expecting it to disappear or even to book, The Dictator’s Learning Curve.17 And lessen dramatically on account of the In - when it comes to the Internet in particu- ternet, a rising middle class, or any other lar, that bloc is de½ned not just by webs, factor. Rather than wait for China to be but also walls–the ½rewalls that limit reshaped by globalization, the goal should worldwide digital connectivity not just be to minimize the likelihood that China within China, but also within other author- will take charge of de½ning the interna- itarian countries.18 tional order. Even China’s shift to Com- There is a rich literature that, contra munist party-state rule is seen by Kis- Fried man, questions the notion that a Big singer as in some senses epiphenomenal, Mac is a Big Mac is a Big Mac, given how due to the number of assumptions con- vastly different the menus and meanings temporary Chinese leaders share with of the Golden Arches become as they trav- their predecessors, including an unusually el.19 Cultural globalization is about hybrid intense familiarity and identi½cation with forms, as opposed to simple American- the ancient past. ization, meaning a more apt symbol for To illustrate this, Kissinger analyzes one twenty-½rst-century globalization than of Mao’s speeches addressed to a gather- the McDonald’s franchise might be the ing of high-level cadres. Kissinger notes karaoke bar, which arrived in China that despite Mao’s party’s of½cial view that around the same time as McDonald’s. the pre-revolution past was to be discred- While karaoke bars rarely get the same ited and forgotten, when the Chairman media attention as the burger behemoth, needed to convey a strategic point, he was there are now many more locations in wont to refer to ancient battles in China’s China to sing karaoke than there are to history. What lesson does Kissinger draw order a Big Mac. McDonald’s outlets have about China’s singularity from this kind American roots, but karaoke bars have a of behavior? more complex origin story that speaks In no other country is it conceivable that a more effectively to our era: they bear traces modern leader would initiate a major –via their organization, look, and play-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 China & national undertaking by invoking strategic tage point from which to see the relation- Global - principles from a millennium-old event– ship between China and contemporary ization nor that he could con½dently expect his globalization in a new way. We can ap - colleagues to understand the signi½cance of preciate traits that today’s China shares his allusions. Yet China is singular. No other with the United States and Japan of a cen- country can claim so long a continuous civ- tury ago, especially when it comes to Chi - ilization, or such an intimate relationship to na’s adaptation to and impact on interna- its ancient past and classical principles.20 tional practices, as well as the way that other countries look to it less as a model One problem with the Kissinger Con- for wholesale emulation than as a state fusion is that those in its sway tend to from whose toolkit it may be worth selec- ignore evidence that might contradict the tively borrowing. We can also see some view that China’s distant past has left it recent moves made by the Chinese state with a “cultural dna” that is virtually im - as a re start of abortive processes that pervious to change.21 In On China, for ex - began to transform the country during ample, Kissinger mentions but dismisses the late 1800s and early 1900s. the relevance of Zhou Enlai (the ½rst pre- First, take the idea of a Chinese “presi- mier of the People’s Republic of China) dent,” past and present. China’s ½rst pres- telling him that the United States should ident, Sun Yat-sen, was a poster child for be seen as an older country than China, his era in many ways. Sun’s political life since China’s current political incarnation depended on new modes of transporta- goes back only to 1949. Those who focus tion and communication that allowed him on China’s supposedly “singular” cultural to travel between China, Japan, and the dna gloss over the fact that, while the West to raise funds, and also let him cir- mainland and Taiwan had strikingly sim- culate his ideas with expedience via tele- ilar political cultures circa 1960 (they graph wires. As the country’s ½rst post- even shared a cult of personality around dynastic leader, Sun took on an imported Chiang Kai-shek, the former president of moniker, that of president, which brought the Republic of China), within a few de - him in step with political trends of the day cades, the island country had become a for the heads of new nations, as the Re - lively democracy, while the mainland re- public of China (established in 1912) was tained its Leninist political system. As for then. Sun also participated in an inaugu- Kissinger’s interpretation of the suppos- ration ceremony that borrowed heavily edly singular ability of Chinese leaders to from Western traditions of political ritual. make use of analogies from the distant Yet one of his earliest acts was to visit the past, Mao’s reaching back more than a graves of the emperors of the Ming Dy - millennium for a tale that would make a nasty, the last ethnically Han Chinese readily understood strategic point brings rulers of the country. Through this act, he to mind obvious counter-examples. For symbolically tied himself to a past Chi- one, Mao’s Western counterparts could nese group that had been overthrown by just as easily refer to “Trojan Horse” the Manchus of the Qing, thus acknowl- strategies and take for granted that every- edging and capitalizing on the role that one in the room would get the point. anti-Manchu passions, as well as globally circulating republican ideas, played in What do we gain by casting off the dis- bringing him to power. torting lenses of the Friedman Fallacy and Chinese radicals of Sun’s day were in - the Kissinger Confusion? We gain a van- spired by many domestic and international

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 precedents, citing parallels for their cause tion was aided by the fact that Sun, just be- Jeffrey in the actions of rebels who had challenged fore his death in 1925, had overseen an al - Wasser - strom unjust dynasties in China, the French in - liance of the Communists and the Nation - surgents of 1789, and other revolutionaries alists, and had expressed admiration for with righteous causes. Particularly popu- the Soviet Union. The link to Sun was re - lar among Chinese radicals were analogies inforced sartorially, via people of all walks to either the revolution the American col - of life wearing the type of suit he promoted onists waged against Britain in 1776, –though small alterations were made to which led to the formation of a new re - the design in Mao’s day, and Soviet sarto- public, or the efforts that led to Japan’s rial styles also later made their mark.23 Meiji Restoration, which resulted in the It is typical now to see China’s political creation of a constitutional monarchy. system as an outlier–sticking to Commu- Sun, while admiring of Japan, relied prima- nist Party rule at a time when it had been rily on analogies with the American Rev- abandoned by all but three other coun- olution, and was sometimes called his tries–yet Sun reminds us that this is the country’s answer to George Washington. case only in some regards. In Mao’s China, The constitution of Sun’s new republic the powerful did not dress like their coun- featured some elements that were homol - terparts in other parts of the world, nor ogous to sections of the U.S. Constitution; was “president” or “premier” the desig- but it also described a system of govern- nation of the country’s leader. Flash for- ment with ½ve branches, two of them tied ward to the present, and we ½nd a new set to China’s unique past. So in its very of moves toward uniformity without eclecticism, the Chinese constitution also homogeneity leaving their imprint on Chi- paralleled the new constitution that Japan na’s political system. For the last two de - had adopted, exhibiting Bayly’s underly- cades or so, China’s most powerful men ing theme of moving toward uniformity (the holders of top posts have overwhelm- without homogenization. ingly been male) have dressed just like Sun’s eclecticism even showed through their counterparts in most other coun- in his choice of clothing. Early in his po - tries.24 And the top Chinese leader, while litical career, he conformed to global still holding the post of General Secretary norms, dressing for major political rituals of the Communist Party, is routinely re - in the sort of suit expected of powerful ferred to as the country’s “president” (we men of the time, often accompanied by a do not often hear of “Chairman Xi”). Even top hat. Later, however, Sun championed Mao’s appearance on Chinese banknotes, what he saw as a distinctively Chinese yet frequently cited as evidence of China’s modern form of apparel. What is now inability to move decisively away from its called a “Mao Suit” is actually an adapta- outlier past, has in some ways conformed tion of what was once called the “Sun Yat- to international norms. The faces of past sen Suit”: a form of dress that was influ- leaders grace the currency of many mod- enced by a mix of Western and Asian mod- ern countries; the currency in Mao’s own els, bearing, for example, some links to the day, which featured anonymous repre- student uniforms worn in Japan.22 sentatives of ethnic or other social groups, When the People’s Republic of China was more unusual. was founded in 1949, its leaders claimed that they, not Chiang Kai-shek and his Na - My second set of comments relates to tionalist Party across the strait, were the global spectacles, in particular China’s true inheritors of Sun’s legacy. This asser - hosting of the 2008 Olympics. In the

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 China & lead-up to that event, the potential for the revival in a different light, however, let us Global - Olympics to bring China into step with look back to the 1893 World Parliament of ization global norms was a source of lengthy dis- Religions, as well as to a 1902 story frag- cussion, though from the beginning, Susan ment by Liang Qichao, often described as Brownell, a prominent scholar of Chinese the leading Chinese intellectual of that era. sports and the Olympic Movement, sug- In Liang’s story “The Future of New gested that rather than only asking “how China”–which was inspired in part by the Olympics will change China,” we the 1893 Parliament of Religions as well should also question “how China will as an awareness that Japan’s rise above change the Olympics.” In the end, Brownell China in the global hierarchy had been proved prescient, as there are ways in marked, among other causes, by its in- which China both conformed to expecta- creasingly signi½cant role in various in- tions for a host country and altered ex- ternational organizations and spectacles pectations for future Summer Games, of various kinds–Liang imagines a future raising the bar for eye-popping high-tech when China’s status as a world power performances in the games’ opening cer- would allow it to host, rather than merely emony, for example. This unusually brash participate in, a World’s Fair. He describes Olympics, followed by China holding its such a Chinese-run international exhibi- ½rst World’s Fair in 2010 (which was the tion taking place in Shanghai in 1962, fea- biggest event of its kind to date), brings turing elements of the World Parliament to mind America’s bold entrance into the of Religions, such as a lineal descendant club of international exhibition-hosting of addressing dignitaries and countries in the late 1800s. These modern thinkers from across the globe.25 events in China also stirred the global Liang clearly foreshadowed what would imagination in ways that paralleled Japan take place during the next great accelera- during its own period of great acceleration. tion. At the World Parliament of Religions, Japan’s surge inspired a desire among a kind of revamped Confucianism 2.0– other ambitious peoples to borrow tricks made as legible as possible to religious from the Japanese approach, even if the leaders in the West–took its place among aim was not strictly to mirror Japan’s path, a family of spiritual creeds in a robustly as was the case with Chinese revolution- international setting. Over a century later, aries wishing to modernize their country the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olym - in a Japanese fashion without introducing pic Games were, in part, a chance for China a Meiji-style constitutional monarchy. And to give global audiences a sense of a Con- for all the talk of a “Chinese model” today, fucianism 3.0, of½cially de½ned not as an it is important to consider an example like indigenous religion (the status accorded Brazil, which in hosting the World Cup in to Daoism) but as a philosophy and a sym- 2014 and the Summer Olympic Games in bolically potent state ethos. The event 2016, will ½nd much to emulate in China’s began with a quote by the sage himself, handling of the global spotlight in 2008, now cast as a secular but revered embod- without necessarily reproducing China’s iment of national wisdom whose views do political disposition. not contradict those of the development- Finally, let us consider the current re - driven Communist Party, which until the vival of Confucianism, which would seem 1970s had reviled Confucius as a feudal to add force to the argument that all Chi- ½gure whose ideas were largely responsible nese state actions are rooted in the dis- for the country’s backwardness. One part tant past. To begin to see the Confucianist of the lavish performance that followed

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 featured a large number of actors onstage current era as they pertain to both global- Jeffrey dressed as Confucius’s disciples. Confu- ization and China. For example, the un- Wasser - strom cius’s new status in the People’s Republic precedented degree to which educational of China–which dovetails with the way institutions have become globally minded he has been or still is venerated in Taiwan would need to be addressed. So, too, would and Singapore–has also been marked in the related phenomenon of an unprece- other ways, most notably in the founding dented number of Chinese people spend- of state-supported and controlled “Con- ing time abroad, whether as tourists, as fucius Institutes” in foreign countries. workers, or perhaps most signi½cantly, as When searching for meaning in the Con- students; the paths taken abroad by all fucius Institutes, as with so many topics these Chinese citizens could affect the associated with China and globalization, country in profound ways. And there are we should not choose between thinking several important questions about how only in terms of the distant past or another modern China’s rise to global power time frame, nor should we choose between should be contextualized. For example, thinking of the Chinese state as only either contrast the United States, whose rise to being reshaped by international forces or global dominance was without precedent itself reshaping the global structure. We in North American history, with China, are instead better off drawing from all of which can be seen as reclaiming a position these perspectives at once. Confucius is a of influence it once had but then lost. ½gure from the distant past, but he has My relatively modest aim here has been gone through reinventions before, with the to show how focusing on one particularly most recent precon½gured not only by Li - interesting medium-term historical frame- ang Qichao’s work of speculative ½ction, work, in addition to presenting the Chi- but also by Chiang Kai-shek’s celebration nese state as both a shaper of the global of “Confucian values” in his New Life order and an entity being reshaped by it, Movement of the 1930s. Confucius is a takes us much further toward an accurate Chinese ½gure, but in classic uniformity- view of the contemporary terrain than without-homogeneity fashion, Confucius Friedman’s riffs on Beijing Big Macs or Institutes are modeled in part on what Kissinger’s wonderment at Mao’s knowl- Western nations, such as Germany via its edge of ancient battles. China’s rise is one Goethe Institutes, have accomplished in of the most important and complex sto- the arena of nationally minded cultural dis - ries of our time, and there are parts of this semination. In addition, Confucius Insti- tale that are truly unprecedented. Making tutes bear the influence of recent efforts sense of this critical and intrinsically fas- in Singapore–a country whose economic cinating tale is likely to remain one of the success and political stability has been ad- great intellectual challenges of our time. mired by Chinese leaders–to combine ap- This essay, if successful, will not have peals to traditional “Asian values” with provided a magic key for unraveling the authoritarian politics, in a setting where mysteries involved in its telling. Rather, it the Internet is de½ned by walls as much will have clearly shown how focusing too as by webs. tightly on the novelty of the now, or as - suming that all the answers lie in the dis- This essay is not meant to offer a com- tant past and its imagined hold of ancient plete alternative vision of China and glob - patterns on a fast-changing present, is to alization. To do that, much more would distort the story we seek to bring into need to be said about the novelties of the focus.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 China & endnotes Global - 1 ization Two appealing introductions to China’s past that emphasize far flung geographical connec- tions and encourage a long view of globalization are Joanna Waley Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (New York: Norton, 2000); and James Millward, The Silk Road: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 2 C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2003). 3 On the Parliament of Religions, see the documents, including texts of the speeches given by representatives of different creeds, gathered together online at http://www.parliamentof religions.org/_includes/history/archive.swf (accessed July 23, 2013). 4 For background on the debates over how Confucianism should be classi½ed, as well as references to important late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century works on comparative reli- gion, such as those of sociologist Max Weber, see Anna Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Reality (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2013). 5 Moves toward making Confucianism conform more closely to a standard “religion” include terminological efforts, such as translations of the Analects that dubbed it one of China’s key “sacred” texts, as well as abortive efforts in the late 1800s and again in the early 1900s, most famously by the Chinese scholar Kang Youwei, to transform Confucianism into a state religion with parallels to Christianity in form and Japan’s Shinto in function. On these efforts and the resistance to them, see Sun, Confucianism as a World Religion; and Yong Chen, Confucianism as Religion: Controversies and Consequences (Boston: Brill, 2013). 6 Pankaj Mishra, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). 7 Daniel H. Pink, “Why the World Is Flat,” Wired, May 2005, http://www.wired.com/wired/ archive/13.05/friedman.html (accessed May 29, 2013). 8 Thomas Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999); Thomas Friedman, Longitudes and Attitudes (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002); and Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005). 9 In April of 2013, for example, Kissinger met with current President Xi Jinping, and then in July of the same year, he met with former President Jiang Zemin. 10 “The Chinese Dream: The Role of Thomas Friedman,” The Economist, May 6, 2013; http:// www.economist.com/blogs/analects/2013/05/chinese-dream-0 (accessed June 3, 2013). 11 Bruce Gilley, China’s Democratic Future (New York: Press, 2005); and Edward Steinfled, Playing Our Game: Why China’s Rise Doesn’t Threaten the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 12 Juan Pablo Cardenal and Heriberto Araujo, China’s Silent Army: The Pioneers, Traders, Fixers, and Workers Who are Remaking the World in Beijing’s Image (New York: Crown, 2013); and Stefan Halper, The Beijing Consensus: How China’s Authoritarian Model Will Dominate the Twenty-First Century (New York: Basic Books, 2010). Contrast the ½nal words of the subtitle of Cardenal and Araujo’s work (“remaking the world in Beijing’s image”) with the ½nal words of Halpern’s (“authoritarian model will dominate the twenty-½rst century”). See also Perry Anderson “Sinomania,” London Review of Books 32 (2) (January 2010), which includes a review of Martin Jacques, When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order (New York: Penguin, 2009). 13 Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, 7–9. 14 Thomas Friedman, “Big Mac II,” , December 11, 1996, http://www .nytimes.com/1996/12/11/opinion/big-mac-ii.html (accessed May 29, 2013). 15 Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, That Used to be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back (New York: Picador, 2011). See also Fried-

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DAED_a_00280 by guest on 28 September 2021 man’s use of quotations in his work, such as this, from author Joe Romm: “China is going Jeffrey to eat our lunch and take our jobs on clean energy–an industry that we largely invented,” Wasser - quoted in Thomas Friedman, “Our One-Party Democracy,” The New York Times, September strom 8, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=2&. 16 Quoted in The Economist, March 23, 1850, 310. 17 William J. Dobson, The Dictator’s Learning Curve (New York: Doubleday, 2012). 18 It seems likely that these ½rewalls will become even sturdier, and not only in China, given recent accusations and leaks concerning cyber espionage against and by the United States. 19 James L. Watson, ed., Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia, 2nd ed. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006). 20 Henry Kissinger, On China (New York, Penguin Press, 2011), 2. 21 This term even shows up in very sophisticated works, such as David Shambaugh’s China Goes Global: The Partial Power (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); a work that, overall, takes a much more nuanced approach to Chinese continuities than does On China, yet at times falls into the trap (as political scientist Lucian Pye, who Shambaugh cites approvingly, often did) of presenting the country as having a political culture virtually impervious to change, with features hard-wired into its dna. Another admirable recent work, which refers to dna in a similar fashion and alludes to a recessive “Confucian gene” that colors the ideas of important Chinese thinkers, is and John Delury, Wealth and Power: China’s Long March to the Twenty-First Century (New York: Random House, 2013). 22 On Sun Yat-sen, see Henrietta Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen (Oxford: Claren - don, 2000); Joseph Esherick, “Founding a Republic, Electing a President: How Sun Yat-sen Became Guofu,” in China’s Republican Revolution, ed. Harold Shiffrin and Eto Shinkichi (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1994): 129–152; and especially David Strand, An Un½nished Republic: Leading by Word and Deed in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 33–35 (which notes Sun’s dress) and p. 205 (which notes various Chinese senators wearing Western- style dress in 1912). 23 See the illustrated discussion “Mao Suit,” provided by the Powerhouse Museum, http://www .powerhousemuseum.com/hsc/evrev/mao_suit.htm (accessed July 22, 2013). 24 For more details on the symbolism of clothing in recent meetings between Chinese and foreign leaders, see Jeffrey Wasserstrom, “What Obama and Xi’s Shirt Sleeves Summit Means,” His- tory News Network, June 17, 2013, http://hnn.us/articles/what-obama-and-xis-shirt-sleeves -summit-means (accessed July 23, 2013). 25 On Liang Qichao’s story, see John Fitzgerald, “The Un½nished ’s Future,” Thesis Eleven, May 1999, 17–31.

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