- Lelièvre, Domnique. L'Empire américain en échec sous l'éclairage
de la Chine impériale. Chatou, France: Editions Carnot,
2004. ISBN 2-84855-097-X.
- This is a very odd book. About one third
of the text is a fairly conventional indictment of the
emerging U.S. “virtuous empire” along the lines of America the Virtuous
(earlier this month), along with the evils of globalisation,
laissez-faire capitalism, cultural imperialism, and the usual scélérats du jour. But the author, who has published
three earlier books of Chinese history, anchors his analysis of
current events in parallels between the present day United States
and the early Ming dynasty in China, particularly the reign of Zhu
Di (朱棣), the Emperor Yongle
(永樂), A.D.
1403-1424. (Windows users: if you
didn't see the Chinese characters in the last sentence and wish
to, you'll need to install Chinese language support using the
Control Panel / Regional Options / Language Settings item, enabling
“Simplified Chinese”. This may require you to load the original
Windows install CD, reboot your machine after the installation is
complete, and doubtless will differ in detail from one version
of Windows to another. It may be a global village, but it can
sure take a lot of work to get from one hut to the next.)
Similarities certainly exist, some of them striking: both nations
had overwhelming naval superiority and command of the seas, believed
themselves to be the pinnacle of civilisation, sought large-scale
hegemony (from the west coast of Africa to east Asia in the case
of China, global for the U.S.), preferred docile vassal states to
allies, were willing to intervene militarily to preserve order
and their own self-interests, but for the most part renounced
colonisation, annexation, territorial expansion, and religious
proselytising. Both were tolerant, multi-cultural, multi-racial
societies which believed their values universal and applicable
to all humanity. Both suffered attacks from Islamic raiders,
the Mongols under Tamerlane (Timur)
and his successors in the case of Ming China. And both even fought
unsuccessful wars in what is now Vietnam which ended in ignominious
withdrawals. All of this is interesting, but how useful it is in
pondering the contemporary situation is problematic, for along with
the parallels, there are striking differences in addition to the six
centuries of separation in time and all that implies for cultural
and technological development including communications, weapons,
and forms of government. Ming dynasty China was the archetypal
oriental despotism, where the emperor's word was law, and the
administrative and military bureaucracy was in the hands of eunuchs.
The U.S., on the other hand, seems split right about down the middle
regarding its imperial destiny, and many observers of U.S. foreign
and military policy believe it suffers a surfeit of balls, not their
absence. Fifteenth century China was self-sufficient in everything
except horses, and its trade with vassal states consisted of symbolic
potlatch-type tribute payments in luxury goods. The U.S., on the other
hand, is the world's largest debtor nation, whose economy is dependent
not only on an assured supply of imported petroleum, but also a wide
variety of manufactured goods, access to cheap offshore labour, and
the capital flows which permit financing its chronic trade deficits.
I could go on listing fundamental differences which make any argument
by analogy between these two nations highly suspect, but I'll close by
noting that China's entire career as would-be hegemon began with Yongle
and barely outlasted his reign—six of the seven expeditions of the
great Ming fleet occurred during his years on the throne. Afterward
China turned inward and largely ignored the rest of the world until
the Europeans came knocking in the 19th century. Is it likely the
U.S. drift toward empire which occupied most of the last century
will end so suddenly and permanently? Stranger things have happened,
but I wouldn't bet on it.
August 2004 