Jul 7, 2020
On this episode of the Resistance Library Podcast Dan and Sam
discuss the iconic
“Tank
Man” and the Tiananmen Square Massacre as well as the recent Hong
Kong protests.
China is often described as the next superpower to top America
within the next few decades. At first glance, such an assertion
makes sense. The country’s vast geography, natural resources, rich
history, and tech-savvy populace puts it in a position to thrive in
the 21st century. However, China’s rise as a superpower is not one
of an overnight success, nor is it filled with pretty
rainbows.
Indeed, China is one of the world’s longest lasting civilizations,
with cultural and political traditions that have been passed down
to succeeding generations effortlessly. With such a vast history,
China had gone through its own zeniths and nadirs. As is the nature
of any civilization. However, China’s modern history has been a
rollercoaster ride to say the least.
Despite having a massive formal governing apparatus that would put
many empires to shame, China has not always had full control of its
territorial jurisdiction. Once European powers reached Chinese
shores in search of riches, they soon wanted their piece of pie.
That meant slowly whittling away at Chinese territory. As the first
movers in the Age of Exploration, the Portuguese and their
missionaries colonized Macau.
Although the Portuguese’s venture was not exclusively about riches,
it inspired other European actors such as the British to go and
exploit China’s vast resources. Naturally, the Qing dynasty and
Britain’s interests clashed once the British wanted to expand trade
inside the country. What was originally a trade dispute between a
Qing government wanting to maintain trade that overwhelmingly
favored China, soon turned into a full-blown conflict as seen in
the Opium War.
China was handed a humiliating defeat, which saw it turn over Hong
Kong to the British. This marked a turning point in Chinese
history. The once mighty country slowly deteriorated both
internally and externally. China soon became a punching bag for
smaller, yet more militarily advanced countries that started
setting up trading outposts in Shanghai. Indeed, these moves were
not welcome by the Chinese and many in the Qing court, but due to
the country’s decaying institutions, it could do nothing to prevent
further predations.
Even empires on the Western periphery, like Imperial Russia,
started to prey on China when it annexed all of the Chinese land
north of the Amur River in 1858, exploiting Chinese weakness along
a border that was, at the time, 4,650 miles long. As if China’s
foreign reversals weren’t enough, Imperial Japan also jumped in the
mix and picked apart China like other European powers. Japan put
the world on notice when it crushed China in the Sino-Japanese War
of 1894.
As a result of this humiliation, Japan added the island of
modern-day Taiwan, the Liaodong Peninsula, and the Korean peninsula
into its sphere of influence. Japan’s exploitation of its weaker
mainland rival did not stop there.
Even after the Qing dynasty collapsed, nationalist leader Chiang
Kai-Shek tried to put the political pieces back together during the
1920s, in an attempt to unify the country and restore Chinese
greatness. However, Imperial Japan was ready to humiliate China yet
again, when it invaded Manchuria in 1931, and occupied it until
1945, in an attempt to expand their industrialization
efforts.
All in all, the mid-19th century up until the mid-20th century was
a rocky period. It took game-changing events after World War II for
China to finally get its political house in order and build itself
up on its own terms.
You can read the full article “The
Tiananmen Square Massacre: From China's Authoritarian Roots to the
Iconic
‘Tank
Man’” at Ammo.com.
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