China, a tale of civilisation: Part - II

One of the key characteristics of the Chinese civilisation was the role of philosophers who provided moral and ethical guidance to society. Religion did not play any role in this trend. The ritual of ancestor worship existed to connect the past to the present and people often looked to their departed ancestors for guidance.

Although Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Islam and Buddhism came to China, neither of these religions – except Buddhism – could gain any ground in its society. Buddhism played a pivotal role in building relations with India. Chinese Buddhist scholars used to visit India in order to collect the religious manuscripts and texts. They would bring back these manuscripts to China where they were translated from Sanskrit into Chinese. From China, Buddhism went to Japan, Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.

Since China was a vast country, it was ruled by a number of small states from time to time. Some ruling dynasties made an attempt to unify it after defeating and eliminating the small states. The Qin Dynasty was the first to unite the country and name it as China. Later on, the Han and Ming dynasties continued the unity of the empire. The Chinese ruler was regarded as superior. As a result, when foreign ambassadors brought gifts for the emperor, these gestures were considered to be tributes. In the earlier period, the European envoys were addressed as barbarians and their gifts were treated as tributes in order to show their inferior status.

During the Song Dynasty (420AD-479AD), China went through radical changes. First, it reformed the irrigation system, which resulted in an agricultural revolution and produced a large quantity of different crops to feed its growing population. Second, the rulers weakened the army to promote bureaucracy and strengthen its own power. Third, the process of industrialisation began in China during this period.

Trade and commerce flourished and the navy especially played a role in protecting the commercial ships that exported Chinese goods to South East Asia and the Far East. A number of inventions were made, including gun powder and the compass. Although paper had been invented in 100 BC and block printing began during the Han period, movable type printing during the Song Dynasty resulted in a large number of books being printed.

For the first time, it introduced paper currency and established a bank for financial dealings. The age was revolutionised when it produced steel, which helped to make different types of machines. However, this industrial revolution could not be completed owing to political change and disorder. The Mongols occupied China and discontinued its traditions and systems.

Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler who ruled from 1260 to 1294, brought his own Persian bureaucracy to China. He encouraged trade and commercial activities. Italian traveller Marco Polo visited China during his reign and left a vivid and graphic account of China in its travelogue. The Chinese customs, traditions and institutions were revived by the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) after expelling the Mongols.

The dynasty reorganised the bureaucracy on the moral and ethical values of Confucius. It restored the court ceremonies and rituals. It built a great naval power comprising 62 ships that contained 27,000 people who belonged to different professions under the leadership of Zheng He. However, this navy could not play any substantial political role and merely introduced China to the Asian and African countries by bringing back rare items from these countries. The whole system of shipbuilding and naval power came to an end on the criticism of the bureaucracy who regarded it as a waste of finances that brought no profit. Historians have pointed out that China lost the opportunity to check the growing naval power of the Europeans.

During the 18th century, when the European traders started to come to China, they were only permitted to stay at the port of Canton till summer. The Chinese officials were ordered not to develop any social relationship with them. They were also not allowed to teach them Chinese and give them any Chinese books. When the European powers requested China’s permission to open their embassies in Beijing where they could appoint permanent ambassadors, they were turned down. China would neither have any diplomatic relations with the European powers nor would it allow them to have diplomatic contacts with it.

Since China closed its borders as well as its mind from other civilisations and firmly believed in the superiority and refinement of its own culture, it did not understand the political, social and technological changes of Europe. Consequently, when it was defeated by the European powers and had to sign humiliating treaties whereby it had to pay a hefty amount as reparation and surrender its ports, the civilisation collapsed. This ended the magnificent role China had played in world history.

After its civilisation collapsed, China learnt a lesson from history about its own weaknesses and myopic vision of the world. It discontinued its obsolete customs and practices and adopted new emerging thoughts that regenerated its society and built it along the line of the new ideology of socialism, which changed the destiny of China in the modern world.

Concluded

The writer is a veteran historian and scholar.