Chung Kuo

by Doug Casey
International Man

This article is entitled Chung Kuo, which means Middle Kingdom.

The Chinese have long seen themselves as superior to every other race (like almost every race does) and the center of the world. It’s because they were so confident of this that they never ventured out as Europeans did, with a brief exception in the 15th century when a gigantic Chinese fleet, composed of ships vastly superior to those of Europe, ventured as far as Africa. Since dropping the ball on world conquest back then, or at least exporting their culture wholesale, they’ve been in stasis, and on the receiving end of what Europe had to dish out.

The Chinese resent the “gweilo”, or “laowai” (loosely translated in Cantonese and Mandarin respectively as “foreign devil”) for appropriating places like Hong Kong, Macau, Shanghai, and numerous other enclaves. They resent episodes like the Opium Wars, which resolved whether they were to be used as a market for narcotics. They never learned to appreciate lots of foreign soldiers running around their countryside, even though Westerners felt it was a birthright.

Rent 55 Days at Peking for the conventional European view of imperialism during the Boxer Rebellion. Better yet, buy or rent The Sand Pebbles, in my opinion one of the best movies out there—and the book is even more entertaining and educational.

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