The Century of Humiliation (China 1839-1952) “Should you encounter the enemy, he will be defeated! No quarter will be given! Prisoners will not be taken! Whoever falls into your hands is forfeited. Just as a thousand years ago the Huns under their King Attila made a name for themselves, one that even today makes them seem mighty in history and legend, may the name German be affirmed by you in such a way in China that no Chinese will ever again dare to look cross-eyed at a German.”
- Wilhelm II, Emperor of Germany in a speech to his soldiers departing for China, 1902
“The white population of the world will soon cease to increase. The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence…. Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary.”
- Bertrand Russell, 1923
“Our spirits soar and we find we can even make jokes; Taels I win, Heads you lose.”
- Mark Twain
Before the War on Drugs, Britain fought two Land Wars in Asia to enforce the Opium trade on China. Why was this worth so much? Because half a century into the Industrial Revolution Britain didn't produce anything China wanted.
We will start with a long look at the High Qing era which comes before this sordid tragedy. An age of peace and stability, featuring an industrial revolution which ran parallel to the one in Britain, where China had consistently higher economic growth than Europe, where a developed welfare state and marvels of civic and hydraulic engineering found nowhere else made famine - still endemic in Europe – unknown.
Voltaire and the other Enlightenment thinkers dreamed of a peaceful Europe with society remodelled on the image of China. Picking up where the French Revolution talk finished, this dream lies in ashes, broken in 23 years of unending war. France acts out Les Miserables with the King back on the Throne. The forces of militarism and philistine reaction hold Europe in an unchallenged grip. And a victorious Britain turns her guns on the last major society outside her economic orbit.
In a China reeling from Britain's first Smack War, Nanjing is illuminated by the fires of book burning. We will follow the armies of Hong Xiaquan – Gods Chinese Son, younger brother to Jesus Christ – who use European weapons to impose a far deadlier opiate on China. Their Taiping Kingdom of Heavenly Peace brings China 24 years of war on a truly European scale and enough carnage to enable a much larger British invasion – this time with France in tow.
German, Russian, Japanese and American armies will follow. 113 years is a long time, there is a lot we will be covering and these are Interesting Times. Fair warning, this talk is set to be my darkest yet.
I present a tale of Gunboats and Messiahs, Big Sticks and Unequal Treaties, Rice Christians and Hungry Ghosts. Come expecting Millenarian Revelations, Massive Uprisings and the Nanjing Massacres – all 3 of them. The usual suspects will be on parade - War, Famine, Plague and Death - European Barbarism comes for the world's oldest Civilisation.
We will finish by looking at how all this forged the Nationalism that informs contemporary Chinese policy.
If my Germany talk wasn't dark enough and you want to know why early 20th century journalists called Germans 'Huns', this talk is for you.
* Note on the quotes, the Mark Twain one is of course satire, the Bertrand Russell one is completely sincere
Event Venue
The Warehouse Cafe, 54-57 Allison Street, Birmingham, United Kingdom