Japanese modernity is an extraordinary achievement: the only non-Western country to industrialize in the nineteenth century, by far the most advanced country in East Asia, the world’s second largest economy (measured by GDP according to market exchange rates), an enviably high standard of living, arguably the best public transport system in the world; but at the same time it has succeeded in remaining highly distinctive, both culturally and socially. [189] Yet for three reasons the novelty and scale of its achievement have never received the recognition either in the West or in Asia that they deserve. First, ever since 1945 Japan has been at pains to stress its similarity with the West rather than its difference from it. Following its defeat, Japan entered the American sphere of influence, lost any independent foreign-policy voice, and became to all intents and purposes an American protectorate: under such circumstances, its approach was sotto voce, and it had no desire to emphasize its distinctiveness. Second, its deeply troubled relationship with East Asia has meant that Japan has never enjoyed anything like the political and cultural influence in the region its economic strength would suggest. In varying degrees, Japan remains problematic and tainted. Third, as Japan has always seen itself in particularistic rather than universal terms, it has not regarded itself as a model for others.

The fact remains that Japan was the first East Asian country to modernize, and much of the region has now followed in its wake. Without Japan, it is doubtful whether the Asian tigers would have begun to roar; and without the Asian tigers, China ’s modernization would certainly have been even further delayed. Japan might have been, in a host of ways, an exception, but it has been the exception that has eventually proved the rule: it is now surrounded by countries that are, in various different ways, following its example, at times to its acute discomfort. If Britain was Europe’s pioneer in modernity, so Japan has been Asia ’s.

4. China’s Ignominy

On the orders of King George III, the first British trade delegation to China left London in September 1792, bearing numerous gifts including telescopes, clocks, barometers, a spring-suspension coach and airguns. They sailed in a man-of-war equipped with sixty-six guns, accompanied by two support vessels, on a mission whose purpose was to impress and seduce the Chinese Emperor Qianlong with Britain ’s growing industrial and technological prowess. The 700-strong party, comprising diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, scientists, painters, gardeners and others, was led by Lord George Macartney, an experienced diplomat with an eye for the main chance, whether personal or national. The British government, represented by the East India Company, which organized the mission (and which acted as Britain’s de facto corporate overseas persona, ruling India until 1858), was anxious to open up the Chinese market to trade, its previous efforts having been rebuffed. The preparation was meticulous and protracted. The British mission arrived at Macao, the Portuguese enclave on the south coast of China, and then took four months to crawl northwards, as negotiations with the Emperor’s representatives dragged on, eventually reaching Beijing for the long-awaited and much-postponed audience with the Emperor.

When the meeting was finally held in September 1793, Macartney asked the Emperor for British diplomatic representation in Beijing, the ending of the system whereby foreigners were only allowed to use Canton (Guangzhou) as their point of entry and for trade, the opening up of new ports for trade, and the provision of fair and equitable tariffs. The Emperor was unmoved, his mind made up long before the mission ever arrived. Instead of informing Macartney, he sent an edict to George III, explaining that China would not increase its foreign trade because it required nothing from other countries. As Qianlong wrote:

We have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your country’s manufactures. Therefore, O King, as regards your request to send someone to remain at the capital, while it is not in harmony with the regulations of the Celestial Empire we also feel very much that it is of no advantage to your country.

To the British, possessed of the hubris of a rising power and flush with the early fruits of the Industrial Revolution — by then well under way, though unbeknown to the 81-year-old Emperor, it would appear — the Chinese reaction was incomprehensible. Duly spurned, Macartney was obliged to leave China empty-handed by the only route available to him: over land to Canton. During the course of his journey he kept a copious journal. One entry reads, ‘The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first rate man-of-war, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers has contrived to keep afloat for these one hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by bulk and appearance.’ He was thoroughly bleak about the prospects for the Celestial Empire, which he saw as destined to be ‘dashed to pieces on the shore’. In Macartney’s opinion, it was futile for China to resist the British demands because it was ‘in vain to attempt arresting the progress of human knowledge’. The sense of one era closing and another beginning was apparent not only in Macartney’s over-weaning self-confidence but also in the Emperor’s blinkered failure to recognize the potential represented by Britain’s new manufactures. Meanwhile the clash of civilizations was graphically illustrated by the lengthy and tortuous argument over diplomatic protocol for the audience with the Emperor. From a full six weeks before, the Chinese had pressured Macartney with growing intensity that he should perform the kowtow, the required gesture of deference to the Emperor: a set of three genuflections, each containing three full prostrations with the head touching the ground. Macartney offered to doff his hat, go down on one knee and even kiss the Emperor’s hand, but he declined to kowtow unless a Chinese official of similar position kneeled before a portrait of George III. For the Chinese, this was out of the question: the Emperor was the ruler of ‘all under Heaven’ and therefore could not possibly be regarded as of equal status to a mere king. Even the status of the goods that the British had brought was the subject of dispute: as required by more than a millennium and a half of Chinese convention, foreigners could only visit China as inferior vassals bearing tribute. In the eyes of the Chinese, Macartney was simply a subordinate ‘conveyor of tribute’: Macartney, for his part, insisted that they were presents from the ambassador of a diplomatic equal. No compromise was reached. Two eras and two civilizations collided without a hint of mutual understanding.

The mission ended in dismal failure. Macartney’s prediction of the fate that awaited China was to be borne out more fully than the Chinese could ever have imagined, though the British — filled with the testosterone of growing power and well versed in aggressive intent — clearly had some inkling. Already at the time of Macartney’s embassy to Beijing, the East India Company had started to export opium from India to China and this was rapidly to prove a highly profitable trade. In 1829 the Chinese government banned the import of opium, much to the fury of the British. As relations deteriorated, the British launched the First Opium War (1839-42) and bombarded south China into submission. In the Treaty of Nanjing, the Chinese were forced to hand over Hong Kong, open the first five treaty ports and pay reparations. China ’s ‘century of humiliation had begun’. [190]