MCLC: lessons from Jiawu humiliation

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: lessons from Jiawu humiliation
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Source: Sinsophere blog, NYT (7/28/14):
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/chinas-leaders-draw-lessons-
from-war-of-humiliation/

China’s Leaders Draw Lessons From War of ‘Humiliation’
By CHRIS BUCKLEY 

Imagine China beset by domestic and external menaces, its rulers and
commanders complacent, decadent and corrupt, humiliated by Japan in a war
that pushes the once indomitable power closer to collapse.

This image of China from over a century ago, in the twilight of the Qing
dynasty, remains a potent nightmare for Communist Party leaders, and the
120th anniversary of the start of a war with Japan has unleashed a spate
of images <http://news.xinhuanet.com/photo/2014-07/25/c_126795368_2.htm>,
speeches and official commentary drawing lessons from the defeat.

The lessons from that time have become all the more pointed today, when
Chinese-Japanese ties are tenser than they have been for decades, and
President Xi Jinping of China has embarked on an ambitious program to
overhaul the military and to curtail corruption throughout the military
and the party.

“The victory of the aggressors was a humiliation for the Chinese nation,”
Chu Yimin, a People’s Liberation Army general and political commissar,
said in an interview
<http://www.studytimes.cn/shtml/xxsb/20140728/5878.shtml> published on
Monday in Study Times, a party newspaper. “The wounds are increasingly
healed over, but the scars remain, and what we need most of all nowadays
is to awaken an intense sense of humiliation, so that we never forget the
humiliation of our country and military, and turn knowledge of this into
courage.”

This Friday will mark the anniversary of the formal start of the war,
called the Jiawu War in Chinese, and often called the First Sino-Japanese
War in English. “Jiawu” refers to the year in the 60-year cycle of the
traditional Chinese calendar; 2014 marks another Jiawu year, adding weight
to the anniversary.

As if to reinforce the martial message, the Chinese military has announced
exercises, extending off the east coast of China, which the civilian
aviation authorities have indicated are already causing severe delays for
commercial flights.

A professor from China’s National Defense University, Gong Fangbin, said
the disruption of air traffic would be a test of citizens’ patriotic
support for a stronger military.

“It’s foreseeable that, as long as the international threats to our
country persist, large-scale, and even larger-scale, military exercises
will happen,” he wrote
<http://opinion.huanqiu.com/opinion_china/2014-07/5085448.html> on Monday
in Global Times, a widely read tabloid. “Each time will be yet another
test of the public’s awareness of national defense and its willingness to
bear a burden.”

The clash between Japan and China’s Manchu rulers started as a contest for
dominance of Korea. The Manchu court assumed its forces would overwhelm
Japan, but instead the Japanese naval and army forces humbled their
opponents, pushed into northeastern China, and isolated Taiwan.

The war ended in April 1895, when the Qing court agreed to a treaty that
ended China’s hold over Korea and ceded Taiwan and territory in northern
China to Japan. The humiliation exposed the brittleness of China’s
military power, which a bout of policy changes failed to overcome, and the
dynasty collapsed in 1911.

At the time, Chinese advocates of bold change said the defeat showed the
success of Japan’s outward-looking Meiji Restoration, and the contrasting
sclerosis of the Qing court. But the Communist Party leadership has turned
the anniversary into a template for reinforcing its own theme of patriotic
revival and military readiness.

“2014 is another Jiawu year,” China’s main military newspaper, The
People’s Liberation Army Daily, said
<http://www.chinamil.com.cn/jfjbmap/content/2014-07/28/content_83031.htm>
on its front page on Monday. It said the army was using the anniversary to
reinforce the need for readiness against any external threats.

“For China now, the goal of national rejuvenation has never been closer,
and the obstacles to national rejuvenation have never been clearer,” said
the paper.

“Around our country’s periphery, hot spots are increasing and the ignition
point is lower. Certain major powers are fanning the flames in the
Asia-Pacific region, the ghost of Japanese militarism has stirred back to
life,” it said, also noting the territorial disputes in the South China
Sea. “The chances of chaos and war on our doorstep are growing.”

But not all the lessons from the Jiawu War are directed abroad. Chinese
textbooks present the defeat of 1895 as the price of corruption and
decadence that fatally weakened Qing rule and left its military ill
equipped and ill trained. Mr. Xi has extended hiscampaign against graft
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/world/asia/china-moves-against-one-of-it
s-top-leaders.html> into the high ranks of the military, and again the
lessons of 120 years ago are not far away.

“For a military, corruption and defeat are twin brothers,” General Chu
wrote in Study Times. “Corruption breeds fear of dying.