- This brilliant little book deserves to be widely read. From the very beginnings nearly 3000 years ago, through the Ancient Era, the Imperial Era and to the Modern Era, Jaivin gives us a clear and lucid account of the social, political and economic forces, trends and rhythms of this huge and complex nation.
- The three major streams of thought that would inspire society and governance in China for millennia were embedded very early: Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism - together with other different schools and variations, collectively known as the 'One Hundred Schools of Thought', would compete, interact and inspire society and governance in China for millennia.
- Multiple dynasties ruled right up until the Modern Era beginning in 1912. As inevitable as night follows day, political decay always set in once corruption and favouritism became commonplace, as they always did. What I found striking was the horrendous and vicious cruelty that regimes inflicted, not just on enemies but on ordinary workers and citizens.
- Jaivin fully describes the ugly colonialism that China was forced to bear from the mid 19th century. It was reluctantly pressured into signing the Treaty of Nanjing in 1842 which began a century of China’s humiliation at the hands of various imperialist powers, most notably Britain and Japan. In effect the British stole Hong Kong, the Portuguese stole Macau, and the Japanese stole Taiwan. Thus began a century of humiliation, and we wonder today why China under autocrat Xi Jinping is determined to get them back.
Just a century earlier, Voltaire and other European philosophers had considered China to represent civilisation at its best. The racialist logic of imperialism, which justified exploitation and colonisation on the basis of supposed white superiority, changed all that...
- Jaivin tells the story of Chiang Kai-Shek and the birth of contemporary Taiwan particularly well. She doesn't hold back on Chiang...a committed anti-Communist with vaunting personal ambitions and underworld connections. His party, the Kuomintang, and their corruption, ineptitude and reluctance to fight the Japanese radicalised a great many intellectuals, artists and filmmakers, rallying them to the Communist cause. After Mao's successful Long March and the installation of his regime Chiang retreated to Taiwan. (Decades later, in 1981, Taiwan refused to negotiate a peaceful reunification with the CCP).
- Mao gets very little sympathy. In the first decade after 1949 the people suffered appalling hunger and millions died. The Great Leap Forward had been ruinous, as was the cruel, 'cleansing', Cultural Revolution (1966-1969).
- Jaivin places Xi's 'New Era' in context. After the Tiananmen protests, religious and ethnic unrest in Xinjiang, the rise of disaffected cults such as Falungong, Xi emerges as an autocratic and ruthless rule enforcer who will not brook any protest or dissent.
- But what seems obvious from everything we're previously encountered in Jaivin's story of this ancient, huge and vital nation, the constant, powerful currents underpinning Chinese regimes will ensure Xi’s is eventually replaced by a more progressive and tolerant one. Everything is just a matter of time.
The publisher Black Inc has done an exceptionally good job here. The editing is superb (there's not one typo as far as I can see), there are hundreds of Chinese characters sprinkled throughout which would have demanded a highly professional typesetting effort, there are heaps of photos, maps, footnotes, a very comprehensive index, and to top it off there's an author photo. Phew! It's a handsome and very well produced little gem. And it retails for only $24.99.
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