Why Tibet? Why Palestine? The Rational Choices of Protest

Dennis Prager draws attention to the differing treatment of Tibet and Palestine by the world: the Tibetans have been arguably more oppressed than the Palestinians and have behaved in some ways better than the Palestinians in resisting that oppression. Prager uses some rather extremist language to make his case- but some of what he says is true. Afterall anti-semitism is more prominent in the imagination of the world than anti-sinoism (at least the world excluding places east of Pakistan). Some of what he says is daft: apparantly the world's left dominates the world's media and politics, living with George Bush and Rupert Murdoch, I have to say I'm not sure I agree. Whenever I socialise with the 'left' they don't seem that happy that they are controlling the world- indeed there are reasons why rightwingers are happier with China than with Israel- to come back to Mr Murdoch, there is a market there whereas Israel is a much smaller and less economically important place.

But there is one reason that Prager completely misses and that is the rationality of protest. One of the most salient points made by George Orwell was that Gandhi would have been of little aid against Stalin: indeed one could say that for similar reasons the Dalai Lama hasn't succeeded against Beijing. But what Orwell said points to something really important- its politics not just political languages which govern the way that we respond to crises. The simple truth is there is not that much anyone can do to help Tibet. The government in China is a nasty despotic and tyrannical regime, it does not respond to persuasion and as a Westerner we can only hope that it falls swiftly. A protest in a foreign capital or a letter in a newspaper isn't going to hit the Chinese government, and isn't going to get through, given the censorship in China to the Chinese people. China's regime is opaque and hard to understand- but many of these cadres served the most murderous leader in world history- Mao Tse Tung, and participated in the regime that cracked down under Tianaman. The world's leaders have cravenly kowtowed to China over Tibet and Taiwan- but the truth is that we don't have much wiggle room with the Chinese- military threats and media tirades are unlikely to work so the West has put its hope in engaging with the Chinese and seeking to build a Chinese middle class which could at some point build an alternative regime. The hope with China is that economic growth will create the opportunity for a new regime to emerge, in stability, and that that regime will make progress towards solving issues like Tibet and Taiwan. The hope is that a Gorbachev or De Klerk will come to aid that movement. Its a long shot, but its quite possibly the only chance for the people of Tibet.

Israel though is a completely different case. Israel is a weak democracy. There are levers the West's governments and peoples can use to help the Palestinians that just are not available to us with the Tibetan situation. In my judgement we should not weaken Israel- that would isolate Israel as a uniquely bad country which is insane given the atrocities that others are committing. But that doesn't mean that protests and articles won't work in the Israeli context, Israelis consume the international media, they know what the view of other countries is of their position in the world. Fundementally the Chinese government is not open to persuasion, it is a semi-fascist despotism. The Israeli government is open to persuasion- just like say the American government is open to persuasion ultimately over Iraq. In that sense protesting about an Israeli occupation, even if its less worse than the Chinese occupation makes sense. There is a greater chance of your protest having an effect on Israeli policy because the Israeli government fundementally cares more about human rights than the Chinese government. Protests work best when they are directed at exposing actions that the governments concerned are themselves secretly ashamed of: the Israeli government has done some horrible things over the years, but in reality it is a different beast entirely from the Chinese government (and from many Arab governments.) It is a democracy with a free press and with free access to the global press. Prager is right what China is doing in Tibet (or for that matter what Russia is doing in Chechnya for that matter and we could go on) is worse than what is happening in Palestine, but ultimately because of the constitution of Israel's government and the exposure to international media of its population, thinking about persuading the Israelis through investigations and protests is worth while (whether those tactics work is a different matter). With China protesting about Tibet is likely to have about as much effect on the politburo as Gandhi might have had on Stalin.

This is a rough outline- but there is something here. The real reason why Mr Prager's point is true is that there is a chance of changing the Israeli public and hence the Israeli government's mind because of the nature of the Israeli regime- there isn't such a chance with China. If you really want an analogous case to the Palestinians which identifies the fact that the West treats them as a special case, you should look at another Middle Eastern democracy with a minority population- Turkey and the Kurds.

The Tomb of an Emperor

The first Emperor of China is a historical character and his legacy defines in many ways what China is today. He originally was not Emperor of China, but the Prince of a powerful western Kingdom Qin. During his reign as King of Qin, he conquered the other kingdoms which constituted ancient China. The King of Qin became an emperor in 221BC over a vast landmass, stretching perhaps over a third of what is modern China today. His power was extensive- Chinese histories credit him with an almost totalitarian ideology, an aim of unification which stretched to the elimination of any possible rival, including the massacre of 460 scholars and the destruction of older feudal patterns of service and government. He brought in a single currency and connected together the walls that previous Chinese governments had constructed to the north, to build the first defensive Great Wall. The Emperor's dynasty lasted a very short time- within years of his death in 210BC, his son the second Emperor was killed and chaos descended before the rise of the Han Emperors beggining in 202BC.

The Emperor though left much behind him. The Han reigned to some extent in conformity with his principles especially of unity- and the shape of the currency that he had originally drafted remained the same right up until the early 20th Century. Much of our account of his acheivement comes from the Han historian, Sima Qian, who was born in 145BC and whose histories cover the whole of Chinese history from its mythical origins to his own lifetime. Sima Qian was hostile to the Qin Emperor partly because his dynasty replaced that of the Qin, and his history is not a history as we would recognise it in modern terms. Sima Qian writes fables and chronicles and treatises on subjects, the past for him is a set of exempla and a set of dates. He doesn't dwell as we might like him to on subjects relevant to us, but rather has the preoccupations of a Han civil servant: so his book tells us of stories about assassins, stories about how to govern and how not to govern, chronicles of dates and all from a perspective that denegrates the Qin. Despite that Sima Qian is one of the great historians of the ancient world- his name deserves to be up there with the great classical historians.

However we are incredibly lucky when it comes to the Qin Emperor, for in the mid-1970s a peasant in China came across a stupendous find. In the soil his spade hit a terracotta head, and archaeologists coming across to work on the site found not one but thousands of terracotta bodies and artefacts scattered in the soil. Having reconstructed what the site must have been, they worked out that these terracotta bodies constituted a seperate state that the Qin Emperor hoped to rule in his afterlife. At the British Museum in London at the moment, some of those finds are being exhibited. You see all sorts of people that the Emperor required in his afterlife: he has strong men, acrobats, musicians, civil servants, soldiers of all types and even a royal charioteer. Some of these artefacts bring to life stories from Sima Qian's accounts. For example on the Emperor's death, his senior civil servant Li Si kept the Imperial demise secret. He did so by maintaining the illusion that the Emperor was still alive giving orders from his Imperial chariot- and to some extent when one sees the chariot, one can imagine how that worked. The Emperor closeted and secretive and Li Si and a couple of others conspicuously running in and out to receive orders.

The terracotta army itself is shown in all its glory. It is incredible what the craftsmen (probably conscripted) could do. The skill with which the faces in particular are rendered is stunning- the visual impressiveness of what you see makes you reel back, considering that these are faces looking straight at you from thousands of years ago. The picture in particular of a fiery Turkish looking light infantryman stayed in my mind all of last night. The Museum have organised the exhibition in a very proffessional way- first they show you some Qin artefacts and describe the role of the Qin Emperor in Chinese history, avoiding much of the detail but trying to give a non-sinologist a good understanding of what this man was and what he represents. Then you proceed to see the terracotta army and court itself- which is a stunning experience and having it put in context before you see it, it becomes more impressive. The Emperor constructed this army to protect him in his afterlife- it appears they were stationed on the only open access route to his tomb in order to guard it. His tomb itself has never been opened and apart from Sima Qian's fantastic descriptions and some scientific work above the site on concentrations of metals found underneath, noone knows what is there. What we have though is these soldiers- we know they were painted and so their rather mundane colours today aren't as impressive as the gaudy way they were decorated- we know that irises for instance were painted in the eyes and we can tell all this thanks to chemical analysis of the surface of the statues. They are beautifully vibrant and vital. Each has its own character and facial expression, beard and overall look.

China is one of the hardest societies I have ever tried to understand. I have only been there once- but that's once more than most Westerners. Reading its literature and looking at its art is a very foreign experience in the way that reading Islamic literature or even Indian literature is not. Through accidents of history, China seems like another region of the earth from Europe. But its an increasingly powerful and important place- from films by great directors like Zhang Yimou to its economic importance, China is not merely an object of curious interest for the West, it is a place we have to understand. This exhibition therefore is a wonderful opportunity to learn something about China and the way that it was created and its history. The terracotta warriors are so impressive that they are a reminder of the grandeur of Chinese civilisation. They are also an incentive because of their beauty to try and understand more about the culture from which they sprang, seeing their beauty inspired me to buy translated fragments from Sima Qian's history. An exhibition like this is precisely the thing that the world's museums should increasingly engage in- if there is to be dialogue between our cultures then this is a wonderful way of expressing it and I hope some British treasures make their way temporarily to Beijing.

The Museum's exhibition reminds one of the importance of Chinese civilisation and the importance of cultivating an understanding of it. It also reminded me very visibly of the difficulties of historical research. There is so much that we do not know and will never know about the first Emperor. The history that we have is fragmented and written long after the Emperor's death. We have these artefacts but with many of them we are not sure of their use- and we have not yet seen inside the tomb of the Emperor to see what clues lie there.

One thing I do regret about the museum's exhibition is that there was not more outside or inside from historians of the era, Chinese and Western, discussing the Emperor. There wasn't even a good academic biography for sale- an unpardonable lapse! Another gap was that the First Emperor's attitude to religion was left untouched. We were invited to see the army as a simplistic guard for the afterlife or as a manifestation of the Emperor's meglamania: but I would have liked to see something more about what Chinese people of that time beleived about the afterlife and how that connected to what the Emperor did. One interesting question that wasn't touched upon was why none of his successors made this kind of tomb- it could be that they did and the tombs are lost waiting a farmer to discover them, it could be that his example discredited the practice, it could be that beliefs had shifted, it could be that this is one of many such tombs, leaving the exhibition I was none the wiser. One felt like screaming for more information. But having said that, that is possibly the churlish attitude to take. The exhibition is wonderful- the fact that these statues have left China must have been a great diplomatic acheivement and the museum has arranged them suitably well.

The First Emperor is one of those figures whose actions had momentous consequences spreading out through time, doubling and redoubling until his creation, a unified China, became one of the great powers of a globalised world in the 20th Century. Seeing the terracotta warriors, seeing the artefacts he collected around himself in his afterlife, one gets a sense of the immense power that he wielded, the creative wills that bent to his commanding will and the strength of his shortlived imperium.

Chinese Gracchi

Not sure how I should react to this but I've just discovered that the Chinese censors are letting Gracchi slip through their net- obviously Turkish tobacco smoke and Imperial sex scandals in Rome aren't undermining communist rule. Its quite cool to have a look at this, though I'm not sure how reliable it is, anyway if anyone wants to check this website again (who knows it may be banned in the morning) or check their own- this website purports to tell you whether you are banned or not.

Hattip to Not Saussure who is blocked- to be honest I feel a bit left out- I think the server must be wrong or the censors haven't discovered how subversive film reviews can be!

China and Taiwan

Matt Sinclair has posted an interesting argument about China and Taiwan. I don't want to take on the main focus on his argument but from the perspective of having been to Taiwan want to discuss something else- Taiwan's history as I understand it and what that means for Chinese Taiwanese relations.

Taiwanese history is easily summed up though any broad summation is going to include vast inaccuracies for which I apologise. For centuries Taiwan was an area claimed but not governed by successive Chinese governments. Normally it was a refuge for pirates and a place where a fairly tribal society flourished with little if any contact with Beijing. The Dutch invasion in the 17th Century exported Chinese workers into Taiwan and used the island as a naval base to maintain relations with China and after that the island was exchanged between China and Japan. In 1945 following the end of the second world war and the expulsion of the Japanese from Taiwan, Taiwan was awarded to China. However after the end of the Chinese civil war in 1948, the Nationalists (KMT) led by their leader Chiang Kai Shek were expelled from the mainland and fled to and invaded Taiwan. Approximately 1.3 million Chinese fled with the KMT to the island and from 1949 until the 1990s a nationalist dictatorship ruled Taiwan in the interest of the emigres. There were clashes between the local population and the emigres- especially in the 1960s- but it was only in the 1990s that democracy was conceded and in 2000 that the majority indigenous population were given the chance to elect an indigenous President.

The ethnic divide feeds into politics- the Democratic Party and their allies represent largely the Taiwanese who were there in 1949 and the KMT and its allies represent the new elites who invaded- is also a divide in attitudes to China. The successors of Chiang Kai Shek interestingly were the first Taiwanese politicians to meet their Chinese Communist counterparts in 2005 and the status quo suits them because it holds out the prospect of eventual unification with China under either the one country, two systems model or even a democratic reunification. The Democratic Party on the other hand never want to unify with China- but want Taiwan to become an independent state. They have gained in support over the last twenty years and given the democratic nature of Taiwan's system, their interests will have to be represented if any eventual settlement of the issue is to be just.

Focusing as Matt does on the greater issues of relations between the West and China is a worthwhile exercise- though its also worth reminding ourselves that there are many Taiwanese- the majority probably- who don't consider themselves Chinese at all but think of themselves as Taiwanese.

(I have to say that much of the evidence for this article is stuff I gathered from my visits there and discussions with Taiwanese friends and I recognise that I've actually been highly inaccurate here, skating over vast issues and vast periods of time in paragraphs so I apologise for that.)

The uses and abuses of Genghis Khan in History and Politics: A theme explored in the Granite Studio

Staying on the theme of my last post about Kirkuk, I've just come across this wonderful post about the use of the memory of Genghis Khan to legitimate Chinese imperialism. Its not often I do this and won't make a habit of it but this post illustrates the way that history can be used by political groups in such an interesting and convincing way that it is indispensible. I have heard lectures on the subject which draw back the use of Genghis Khan through the centuries, the Japanese in World War Two used him as an icon of their empire and China does today. I would add only one note to the Granite Studio's description- that Genghis is a conqueror who overawed the West, consequently to Asian powers, insecure in what they see as a recent world of Western imperialism, turn to him to reinforce their credentials as great powers as against the West. Its a fascinating post on a subject which intrigues me- go and read it.

The Cosmopolitans of Medieval China

Rightly there is a good post over here which points out that China has always been a cosmopolitan and open place- many of the links on the Asian history carnival I posted yesterday would back that up. The author at Granite Studio provides some good evidence of Chinese openness and the way that would indicate that China has never been this hermetically sealed place that people imagine it to be- the interesting thing is how more and more historical research posits that we have more in common than we have as differences. As we discover more about the ancient and medieval world, we discover more links binding civilisations together.

We can use civilisations to explain each other. That the Fall of Rome which I referred to in my last post was not inevitable is proved by the fact that a similar empire survived similar pressures in the East- China maybe was more lucky than Rome was but its example proves that Rome might have survived. Equally China has for years as in Erik Ringmar's work on giraffes- see the Asian Carnival below- formed an interesting comparitor for European development. Recent studies of Chinese modernisation have argued convincingly that Chinese intellectuals as far back as the reign of the Qianlong emperor (1735-1796) looked to Europe. European intellectuals in the eighteenth century also looked to China and more and more will in the future look to China.

The world of Samuel Huntington with the inevitable conflict of civilisations was described by Bernard Henri-Levy on Radio 4 as really rather stupid and actually rather disgusting recently- seldom has a judgement been more appropriately true than Henri-Levy's on Huntington and the Granite Journal makes that clear in his post on Chinese openness.

Asian History Carnival

This blog has the honour this month of hosting the Asian History Carnival- and honour it is. I am not an Asian historian though I am a historian and have been shocked by the sheer quality and quantity of writing about Asia out there on the net- we have for you today all kinds of history, from the longue duree to the tightly focused study, from contemporary history to ancient history, representatives from every geographical area, Russia, China, Japan, India, South East Asia they are all represented here. We have all kinds of article, many different types of issue and history. There isn't as much medieval history as I'd like and not as much ancient history- my digging was obviously not good enough- but what there are are some of the best articles on the web about history I've read.

So to begin let's take in those parts of Asia and topics which few of us think about much if at all- Kazakhstan has unusually been in the news thanks to Borat recently- more interestingly though Ben at NewEurasia suggests it might have been amongst the first places to domesticate horses. Despite the prominence of Iraq in the News, the Kurds seem yet again to be ignored, something that R.D. Gasti at Ahuyevashi has tried to resist with this fantastic post about Kurdish nationalism. The Kazakhs and the Kurds are at least sometimes heard of by most of us, but as for the Tatars never- something that Garth Trinkl is keen to redress at his blog Renaissance Research. Coming closer to traditional history, but still as a society within a society, largely impervious to historical study we find the Assassins- a useful introduction to them is provided over at the World History Blog by Miland.

The other thing that we all tend to underrate when it comes to the history of various countries and continents is the importance of cultural exchange and comparative history. Well luckily the bloggers have been busy again. Alan Baulmer takes time out at Frog in a Well to remind us how Chinese ruling families have been attracted by other civilisations and even religions. Stephen Zavestoski notes at the Curious Stall that how present day Americans find inspiration from Indian TV heroes (ok its not history but it fits the theme). Dave and Stefan wonder about American interraction with Asia more generally- they use comparisons of Japan and China's contacts with the West in the nineteenth century to come to some interesting conclusions about why the countries have different attitudes to the US today. Comparative history has gone through a boom this month- Erik Ringmar is thinking about the reception of giraffes in China and in Europe and what it says about colonialism, I've criticised some of his conclusions here. Ringmar's work and the work of Tonio Andrade on Taiwanese and Dutch colonialism form the basis of this meditation on the differences between Chinese and European colonial policies. Colonialism is only one way for societies to interract though: as the Mutant Frog records here by showing the first attempted adoption from China to the US. That contact may have proved abortive, but the experience of Japanese prisoners in Kazakhstan during the second world war was as Leila shows at Neweurasia very genuine.

Contact leads to communication and there has been a real discussion this month in the blogosphere about the way that Asia and the West communicate with each other. Kotaji points out based on a translated Korean article the difficulties of applying simplistic models of Stalinism from the past to the present in the case of North Korea. Mohammed Fadel is also irritated by Western misinterpretations of the East and comes to the defence of Edward Said's orientalism, pointing out how Said's theory improved studies of early Islamic law. Adam Valve is also unhappy, he can't find Martin Amis's analysis of Russia or of Islam convincing. Using Asian history as a resource for Western politics or identity has always been common though, Morgan Pitelka brings a fascinating new light to this with a small collection of photographs of Japan taken by American GIs in 1951. G. Willow Wilson though isn't so unhappy, she finds solace in a group of thinkers who she thinks were genuinely open to Indian influence in the later Raj. Over at the Sepia Mutiny western intellectual trends specifically the economics of Milton Freidman are being used to analyse Indian economic development.

If the West has a political interest in Asian history, then so do many within the continent and a fair number of bloggers have picked up this month on examples of this. Xiaode for instance discusses how China is looking back at the mid nineties from the perspective of today and what the comparrison says about Modern China. The anonymous Qing historian looking at the Chinese papers sees more though, he sees the the modern Chinese start to reinterpret their history, thinking not about decline but about the restoration of the ancient Chinese empire. Any instability in Eastern Asia though is dwarfed at present by the instability in Western Asia- Juan Cole on his blog carries a link to a radio program he did about Shia and Sunni historical tensions in Iraq. Tensions within civilisations and regions are at least as strong as tensions from them to the outer world- Pass the Roti shows how those tensions can have a real impact on the evidence of the past that we have, leading to the destruction of ancient monuments in India. That wouldn't come as a surprise to Synchroni-Cities, for him ruins in a city like Delhi, can be the only indications left of past suffering and trauma.

Away from such gloomy notes of forboding and memories of destruction, away, let us merely revel in the past. I have a passing weakness for the history of crime- well Dave and Stefan fill that need by providing evidence of the plot discovered by James Legge amongst others to use the drains of Hong Kong to attack the city's infrastructure in the 19th Century. If you prefer less vicious enjoyment, then why not come over and read the Mutant Frog about the First Car introduced to Japan. Ah but don't get complacent because those boys at Blogging Walk the Talk, Dave and Stefan will bring you right down again with the tale of Eu Tong-Sen, the Hong Kong millionaire, his houses, mistresses, children, legal squabbles and atrocities committed during World War Two. Away from stories of murders, millionaires and cars, its worth considering with Alan Baumler at Frog in a Well the intellectual lineage of modern Asian society- in particular the teacher who framed Mao Tse Tung and other leading communists' ideas about the world.

Intellectual history becomes a bit of a trend as soon as we look at the blogosphere's contributions to knowledge about the old and famous Asian civilisational centres this month. Chandrahas one of my favourite literary bloggers, takes the time to consider and quote the exquisite poetry of the Turkish poet Orhan Veli Kanik. At Chinalyst, they too are interested in intellectual history, over there Absurd fool considers in a deeply thought through essay what relevance the concepts of humanism and enlightenment have to Chinese history. At the Qahwa Sada, the authors (academics concerned with the Middle East) are more interested with the structures of Saudi oil production and the way that the Americans have exploited it over the years. Garret Johnson wants us to think about Russian democracy and the events of 1991 all over again as a way to explain present problems. Jonathan Dresner (the onlie begetter of this carnival) is also concerned with the longue duree, he wants us to look at Pearl Harbour as the end of a process of American Japanese relations stretching back to Commodore Perry. What Jonathan wants to do for American Japanese relations, Professor Cutler does every day for the contemporary Middle East, thinking about politics in an incredibly historical way, look for example at this post about the Middle East, the Democrats and the tensions in the region. Moving back to culture, Abu Sahajj reminds us of how different various cultures are, by thinking about how we define a Japanese geisha. The Axis of Evil Kneivel though reminds us that no matter what our cultural peculiarities there are some tragedies that all of us can empathise with across our boundaries, he brings up the horrible case of the disaster in a factory in Bhopal.

Its a rather grim note to end upon- but this carnival attests to some of the richness of the blogosphere concerning Asian history that's out there. Blog after blog is filled with interesting ideas, novel facts and good thought about this vast continent and impressive history- I've learnt a hell of a lot from collating these entries- so everyone keep writing. More than that submit your articles to the next Asian history chronicle and volunteer to host, its great fun- and I hope its fun to read these links!

LATER Typically I left off the list a crucial link- for all Asian historians and wannabe Asian historians (the category I fit into!) this is a link to the Carnival Homepage itself where you can volunteer to submit articles and also to host one of these carnivals- honestly its great fun, not too difficult and you will come across some truly wonderful writing.

Giraffes

Erik Ringmar in December's issue of the Journal of World History approaches one of the most interesting questions in World History- why China didn't want to explore the world, but Europe did- by looking at different countries and how they reacted to the first import of giraffes into their midst. He takes three giraffes- one that was exported to the Florentine Medici regime in the 15th Century, another that arrived in China in the same century and a third that arrived in France in the 19th Century. From the reactions to these relocated giraffes, Ringmar hypothesizes three models of looking at the outside world- the first medieval Florentine of exoticist curiosity, the second Confucian of analogising the world to refer to China and the third scientific of using the giraffe to constitute an instance of a new law. From these three outlooks, he argues warily we might suggest why China didn't attempt to conquer the world- with neither the curiosity of the Florentines nor the universalism of the European scientist, the outer world simply became an extended metaphor for the Middle Kingdom.

There is much to rejoice in in this delightfully lighthearted article. But there are also things to criticise. He himself recognises that three giraffes or even three reactions to three giraffes do not a history of civilisation consist, they indicate but do not prove. More seriously, Ringmar is too happy with a postmodernist view of the world, too happy with Florentine medievalists and too unhappy with western scientists to completely understand the importance of his giraffes. Western science was never a method to exclude people, rather by universalising knowledge it was far more inclusive than the Florentine or Chinese model. The key difference between the two fifteenth century giraffes and the 19th Century one, is that whereas in principle noone who was not Florentine or Chinese could understand or appreciate the Florentine or Chinese reaction to the giraffe there, in 19th Century Paris, noone who was not a scientist could understand the reaction- science as it knows no colour boundary is a far more inclusive category than Florentine or Chinese which definitely did know colour boundaries. Furthermore by separating out a good enlightenment led by Diderot from a bad scientific enlightenment, Ringmar fails to understand how both enlightenments were the same enlightenment. As Isaiah Berlin made clear the monist attitudes of the enlightenment were held by reformers like Diderot as much as by conservatives like Paley. A racist scientific movement did exist, but perhaps it is a testament to the strength of universalism even in Paris in 1829 that its racism faded as we enter the twentieth century.

The most important and least stressed (obviously its comparative history!) part of Ringmar's article though is how similar our giraffes were. Not in themselves, though no doubt they were similar giraffes (probably slightly confused at being involved in a historiographical experiment let alone at travelling several thousand miles to be stared at!) but in the reactions they provoked. Ringmar's work shows us thousands of human faces, delighted and excited, staring at these giraffes, trying to work them out. The mechanics of astonishment seem to be culturally indeterminate- though the elite understandings of the giraffe may not be. There is something as well in his idea of an inward looking China and an outward looking Europe during these centuries- though warnings from hoary history Proffessors about generalisations flood through my mind at that point (Tang China was definitely more adventurous than dark age Europe etc etc)- and maybe its worth stressing in that context the fact that the Florentine and French regime were involved in an international competition which the vast and swelling Chinese empire never was involved in until the 19th Century, or never involved in with as many other developed states. This is a wonderful article and a true breath of fresh air to find amidst all the scholarly articles which take themselves too seriously- for anyone who is interested in the curious detail and even the comparison of curious details in history go over and read particularly in this article curious details illuminate the whole of a vast question- that's what a farsighted giraffe would do I am sure.

Incidentally if people want to think more about some of the issues raised here (though not unfortunately the travel journals of Giraffes- unfortunately the Internet which doeth all things has not yet provided that essential resource)- Radio 4 did a fascinating program on Chinese science earlier this year- for those merely interested and amused by our giraffes striding through history- we ought to remember as a last thought what Ringmar's research shows- the French were right, a giraffe is a giraffe and more interestingly so is a human a human, the funny thing is that giraffes see humans and humans see giraffes in much the same way when they are introduced for the first time.

LATER AND THANKS TO DAVE IN THE COMMENTS I ought to say as well that beyond giraffes, Ringmar has his own blog which is one of the best on the net- really good fun- though by having such a blog he has selfishly ruined the perfect ending to my article- anyway its well worth a read and has lots of good stuff on it- including a post about a new book which I am sure takes the whole subject of the west, Europe and China onto a new level- my guess is that its a level so high that Erik is the first to survey it, apart from that is the giraffes.

MUCH LATER- on a similar theme I've just written an article on Bits of News which analyses a different approach from Ringmar's to the problem of the reasons for China's relative disinterest in global empire in the early modern period.