{"id":375,"date":"2008-03-07T02:32:14","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T07:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.froginawell.net\/china\/2008\/03\/five-things-that-didn%e2%80%99t-happen-but-might-have\/"},"modified":"2014-08-30T13:38:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-30T13:38:50","slug":"five-things-that-didnt-happen-but-might-have","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/froginawell.net\/frog\/2008\/03\/five-things-that-didnt-happen-but-might-have\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Things That Didn\u2019t Happen (But Might Have)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate Merkel-Hess at China Beat had an intriguing list last month, Five Chinese Historical Events That Don\u2019t Get Much Attention<\/span><\/a>, (2\/ 11\/08) which was in turn inspired by Jeremiah Jenne\u2019s piece<\/span><\/a> at Jottings From the Granite Studio about the most important Chinese historical figure most people have never heard of.<\/o><\/p>\n

That got me to thinking \u2013 why discriminate against an event just because it didn\u2019t happen? Very un-Daoist. So to kick things off, here are five things that didn\u2019t happen. We don\u2019t mean alleged \u201cfailure\u201d to follow European models, such as the once common \u201cfailure to modernize,\u201d but turns not taken. You\u2019ll see that they fall into different ontological categories, since there is a lot of wiggle room when it comes to things that don\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/o><\/p>\n

<\/span>I.<\/span> <\/span><\/span> <\/span>The Tay Son Re-Unification of Historic Vietnam<\/st1><\/strong>: We talk about the \u201cunification of <\/st1>China<\/st1>\u201d in 221 BCE as if that decided things once and for all, but there were any number of chances for re-unification not to happen:<\/o><\/p>\n

\n

\u2219<\/span> <\/span>The Han Empire might have gone the way of the Roman. Chuck Holcombe nicely discusses this arc of history in The Genesis of East Asia 221 B.C.-A.D. 907 <\/span><\/a> <\/span>(Hawaii 2001). S.A.M. Adshead\u2019s T\u2019ang China: The Rise of the East in World History <\/span><\/a>(Palgrave 2004) makes a polemical but more abstruse use of the Sui-Tang \u201cre-foundation\u201d and the \u201crestoration\u201d at the height of the Tang to discuss Andre Gunder Frank\u2019s Re-Orient: Global Economy in the Asian Age <\/span><\/a>(California 1998). <\/o><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u2219<\/span> <\/span>The Mongols might not have unified and preserved a territory for the Ming to take over and set a standard for the Manchus to aspire to. <\/o><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u2219<\/span> <\/span>The Manchus might not have unified the territory now known as \u201c<\/st1>China<\/st1>.<\/o><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Or, what if the Manchu unification had been successfully challenged? In the 1770s and 1780s, the Tay Son brothers led a great rebellion which destroyed the old regimes in the north and south of what is now <\/st1>Vietnam<\/st1> by mobilizing the populace into mass armies. The Qian Long Emperor dispatched troops to support the old regime, which had been loyal to <\/st1>Beijing<\/st1>, but in the \u201cFirst Tet offensive of 1789<\/span><\/a>\u201d the Vietnamese sent them packing. Tay Son dynamic rule replaced Chinese model government with a more indigenous style. Vietnamese brag that the Quang Trung Emperor thought seriously of incorporating the south of present day <\/st1>China<\/st1>, which had been ruled by Vietnamese towards the end of the Han Dynasty. There were to be two capitals, one Hanoi<\/st1>, the other <\/st1>Guangzhou<\/st1>. <\/o><\/p>\n

<\/blockquote>\n

Well, it didn\u2019t happen. But some Vietnamese will insist, at least in mood of patriotic optimism, that only the untimely death of the Quang Trung Emperor in 1792 deprived us of a quite different map and a different history of the following century.<\/o><\/p>\n

What if a vigorous and competitive government had controlled <\/st1>Guangzhou<\/st1> at the time of what would not have been the Opium War?<\/o><\/p>\n

<\/span>II.<\/span> <\/span><\/span> <\/span>American Recognition of the PRC in 1949<\/strong>: In 1948 it became clear that Mao\u2019s armies would control most of <\/st1>China<\/st1>. American policy did not start from the refusal to recognize the new government, only to \u201cwait for the dust to settle.\u201d What if the <\/st1>US<\/st1> had recognized the PRC in 1949?<\/o><\/p>\n

I agree that the \u201clost chance\u201d theory is wishful thinking if the \u201cchance\u201d was to become friends. Decisive factions in Beijing<\/st1> and <\/st1>Washington<\/st1> each saw conflict with the other as likely if not inevitable. The Korean War put the fat in the fire.<\/o><\/p>\n

But maintaining diplomatic relations does not mean being friends: \u201cgreat nations,\u201d Henry Kissinger reminds us, \u201chave only interests, not friends.\u201d Would diplomatic relations have lessened <\/span>Cold War fear of China<\/st1> that lured the US<\/st1> into first Korea<\/st1> and then <\/st1>Vietnam<\/st1>? <\/o><\/p>\n

Maybe. <\/o><\/p>\n

On the other hand, the Soviets recognized Mao, gave crucial though grudging support, and had close ties. It didn\u2019t do much good. And they were supposed to be friends, just like Liu Shaoqui and Lin Biao were supposed to be Mao\u2019s successors. So maybe there were some advantages to the <\/st1>U.S.<\/st1> not being there. Imagine if the American Ambassador had been trapped by the Red Guards in 1966.<\/o><\/p>\n

But taking one consideration with another, would the two countries have been better off if there had been direct representation? You have to like the odds.<\/o><\/p>\n

<\/span>III.<\/span> <\/span><\/span> <\/span>The People\u2019s Liberation Army Invasion of Taiwan in the spring of 1950<\/strong>. The PLA was poised. The American Secretary of State and Joint Chiefs of Staff had declared <\/st1>Taiwan<\/st1> outside the perimeter of defense (though it now appears that the PRC leadership did not notice). <\/o><\/p>\n

What stopped it? Malaria among northern troops unfit for southern duty? Truman responding to the invasion of <\/st1>South Korea<\/st1> by stationing the Fifth Fleet in the Taiwan Straights? Whatever. If the PLA had taken the island it might have been hell for Democratic candidates \u2013 it was pretty bad in any case \u2013 but diplomatic relations with the PRC would have been quite different in the 1950s (see above #2).<\/o><\/p>\n

<\/span>IV.<\/span> <\/span><\/span> <\/span>They Never Said It<\/strong>. Yogi Berra has a book, \u201cI Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said.\u201d OK, this is a different category from events that didn\u2019t happen, but a blog is show biz, not a blue book.<\/o><\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost too easy to list the great things people didn\u2019t say about <\/st1>China<\/st1>, or at least that nobody can find a reliable source for. Did they not say it? You can\u2019t prove a negative, but I like the odds.<\/o><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a few:<\/o><\/p>\n

<\/span>A.<\/span> <\/span>Napoleon: \u201cBehold the Chinese empire. Let it sleep, for when this dragon wakes, she will shake the world.\u201d Any number of books use the line, ranging from Jack Belden\u2019s China Shakes the World<\/strong> to Nicholas Kristoff and Cheryl WuDunn\u2019s China Wakes<\/strong>, which uses the Napoleon quote on the cover.<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>B.<\/span> <\/span>\u201cWe will lift Shanghai<\/st1> up, ever up, until, God willing, it will be just like <\/st1>Kansas city<\/st1> (American Senator Kenneth Wherry).\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> <\/span>I searched the online archives of Time Magazine, the NY Times, and Washington Post for combinations of terms \u201cWherry,\u201d \u201cShanghai,\u201d \u201cKansas City,\u201d and \u201cuplift\u201d to no avail. I cannot prove that Wherry did not say this or that no Senator ever said it, but I await a citation.<\/span><\/o><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>C.<\/span> <\/span>\u201cNo Dogs or Chinese (sign at the entrance to park in colonial <\/st1>Shanghai<\/st1>).\u201d Robert Bickers and Jeff Wasserstrom have demonstrated that there was no sign with these words, though the results may have been the same as if there had been.2<\/a><\/sup><\/o><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>D.<\/span> <\/span> And the all time favorite, \u201cMay you live in interesting times. (Old Chinese Proverb).\u201d The Wikipedia article <\/span><\/a>summarizes and supplement the research conducted by Stephen deLong, \u201cGet a(n interesting) Life!<\/span><\/a>, which traces usage to a 1950 story in Astounding Science Fiction, now supplemented with a possible use as early as 1936 by an Englishman to a friend about to leave for China.<\/o><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>V.<\/span> <\/span><\/span> <\/span>Zheng He\u2019s Eighth Voyage<\/strong>. This is tricky. Old Zheng, in spite of possibly singing soprano<\/span><\/a>, was one of the great explorers of all time and his seven voyages <\/span><\/a>from 1405- 1433 one of the great feats. Nonetheless, Gavin Menzies 1421 hypothesis<\/span><\/a> is empty, so to dismiss his claim that Zheng discovered the New World<\/st1> does not produce a legitimate \u201cthing that didn\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/o><\/p>\n

But Zheng He\u2019s eighth voyage didn\u2019t happen, which is remarkable. Edward Dreyer\u2019s Zheng He: China and the Oceans in the Early Ming Dynasty, 1405-1433 <\/strong><\/span><\/a>(2006)3<\/a><\/sup> is readable and sound. He quite rightly doesn\u2019t talk about what <\/st1>China<\/st1> \u201cfailed\u201d to do but he does share some ideas about why they didn\u2019t keep on exploring. If the Chinese had maintained their great armadas, \u201cVasco da Gama and his successors would have found a powerful navy in control of the Indian Ocean<\/st1>.\u201d<\/p>\n

***************<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/span>\u201cWu Wei\u201d? \u201cDo nothing and nothing will be undone\u201d? No way? Somebody said recently \u201cjust because it didn\u2019t happen doesn\u2019t mean I can\u2019t remember it.\u201d<\/o><\/p>\n

What if these \u201cthings that didn\u2019t happen\u201d had happened? Would things had been different? Well, as they used to say down on the farm, \u201cIf!? If my foot was your grandmother, would you kiss the old lady?\u201d 4<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

NOTES <\/strong><\/p>\n

  1. Neither Stephen J. Whitfield, The Culture of the Cold War <\/strong>(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2nd ed., 1996). , p. 43 nor James C. Thomson, Jr., Peter W. Stanley and John Curtis Perry, Sentimental Imperialists: The American Experience in East Asia <\/strong>(New York: Harper & Row, 1981), p. 308, give a source; T. Christopher Jespersen, American Images of China, 1931-1949 <\/strong>(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), p 164, cites Eric Goldman, Crucial Decade and After<\/strong> (Knopf 1966), p. 116, which does not give a specific reference, simply \u201cPrinceton University Archives.\u201d  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

  2. Robert Bickers Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, “Shanghai‘s ‘Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted’ Sign,” China<\/strong> Quarterly<\/strong> 142 (1995): 444-466.  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

  3. Sadly, Ed recently passed away, but left us a great deal of solid and useful scholarship.  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li>

  4. Only in the original, the part of the anatomy wasn’t “foot.”  ↩<\/a><\/p><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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