China After Mao

Abstract

History rarely gives civilizations a second chance. The record of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mohenjo-Daro, the Incas, the Khmers, Spain, Turkey, Britain, and many other nations suggests that civilizational excellence is impermanent and, once lost, remains beyond resurrection. Of all these great societies China appeared the most enduring. For close to two thousand years, from the Han Dynasty at the turn of the Christian era to the early Ch'ing Dynasty about two hundred years ago, the Middle Kingdom was one of the best governed and most advanced countries on earth. Cultural and technological achievements combined to make China a superpower among states for a longer period than that experienced by any other major nation. Eventually, however, the norms of history prevailed. Foreign intrusion and internal confusion brought decline throughout the nineteenth century. By the time China entered the twentieth century the Confucian order had collapsed—its greatness an historic memory, its claim to empire a semantic fiction.