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In 2005, Victoria Hui published her book, War and State Formation in Ancient
China and Early Modern Europe, which is regarded as a rare endeavor in the field of
sinology and world politics. It represents an important contribution to social science and
is valuable reading for those who are interested European and Chinese history. She
compares ancient China from 656 to 221 BC with modern Europe from 1495 to 1815.
She concentrates her analysis on the dynamics of interstate systems and state formation,
aiming to answer the question: Why did China end with a united empire but not Europe?
Both China and Europe had numerous independent states interacting in an interdependent
system of security relations, which means that one state’s security depended on other
states. Barry Buzan and Richard Little argue that “a set of states that cannot pose each
World History: Remarking the Study of International Relations. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2000) Therefore, Hui chooses 656 BC when State Qi came to invade
State Chu, and 1495 when the French invaded Italy as the starting points, since both
ended with an international treaty, the Treaty of Venice and the Treaty League headed by
State Qi.
Traditionally the professional circus of social sciences holds a common view that
the system of sovereign territorial states and the roots of liberal democracy are unique to
European civilization and alien to non-Western cultures. War and competition among
states eventually gave birth to democracy. Hui’s work shows that the political situation of
ancient China was almost identical to that of modern Europe. In fact, pressed by security
issues, ancient Chinese state governments also adapted more democratic and people-
friendly policies. They also made efforts to balance power against domination. But China
In the same year, 2005, in the book A New Interpretation of Chinese Taoist
Philosophy, I compared the Axial China with modern Europe and found amazing
similarities between the two. I focused on the history of culture and social/political
thought but Hui focused on the mechanism of state formation and world politics. My
starting points were when the authority of the Pope or the Chou dynasty was formally
challenged, and my ending point was the same, 221 BC for China but 1945 for Europe.
monopolization of the means of coercion, namely the state only has the right to commit
ancient China and modern Europe went through dramatic yet successful social
transformations which finally delivered the three elements to form the first state.
To Hui, states were motivated to dominate and thus achieved balance against
neighboring states in both China and Europe. Domination means swallowing up other
states and balance was achieved when neither state could swallow the other. During this
warring period, every state had to seek self-strengthening strategies, which eventually led
to the emergence of the modern state with the above three elements.
According to Hui, the difference between ancient China and modern Europe was
that ancient China was always able to strengthen itself by national conscription, national
Europe tended to rely on self-weakening strategies such as loans and credits to build
mercenary troops, the sale of public offices to private capital holders and so on.
After Europeans sailed to Asia, Jesuits took great pains to learn about Chinese
civilization. A book by Matteo Ricci, a pioneer of the Jesuit mission to China, appeared
in five European languages by 1648. Chinese influence was particularly strong in Prussia,
which became the first state to establish a centralized hierarchy of salaried officials and a
national conscription in the late 1600s and early 1700s. The complete adaptation of
especially during the Napoleonic era. A hierarchy of meritocratic and salaried officials
under the central control was established, and universal conscription was introduced. The
French army quickly swelled from about 200,000 before the Revolution to 650,000 in
1973 but there were 2.4 millions in the period 1804-1813. For the first time, the French
army was able to become self-strengthening by exploiting the vast conquered land. For
years, the French Army was ever-victorious and invincible. If conquest always leads a
more powerful state, a universal empire would eventually appear in Europe, just like in
China.
Unfortunately the French army finally met some impassable obstacles. The
Spanish guerrillas turned Spain into a nightmare to France. The French occupying army
could not get supplies locally but had to transport them from home at a cost of one billion
francs. To achieve a similar effect, the Russians did not fight but let Napoleon’s troops in
while adopting a “scorched earth” tactic. Unable to access the local supplies because of
the vast burned land, Napoleon was forced to retreat in October19, 1812. Because of
Thus the defeat of the French army was technical or accidental. Instead of
following a fixed pathway dictated by social evolution or the balance of power, history is
also often determined by accidents. The same applies to the unification of China by State
Qin. Seven major states and a dozen smaller states had been balanced to a relatively
stable political coexistence though war and fighting were continuous. The turning point
was 284 BC when an accidental event happened. States Qin and Qi, located at the west
border and the east coast respectively, were the two major rival states to balance against
each other with their own allies. State Qi once invaded State Yan when Yan was in an
internal tumult. Yan and its people kept hatred toward Qi for years. State Yan sent a spy
to persuade Qi to conquer its neighbor Song, a medium sized state. The elimination of
State Song alarmed all other states and they formed an allied army to devastate the land
and army of State Qi in 284 BC. From now on, the only superpower left was State Qin,
and Qin sensibly adapted the most ruthless strategy: aiming at killing the men of the other
states. At one incident, a Qin general buried 400,000 captive soldiers alive and only let
some 240 children soldiers go. Qin made the decision to unite China by force in 237 BC.
Thus, the process of uniting China lasted barely more than a decade while the seven
major states coexisted for more than two hundred years. To make their success a more
accidental one, the Qin deployed the most shameless diplomacy: bribing other states’
during the long process of war and conquest was critical, though many scholars deem this
a provocative argument. Among those who came to this realization are such notable
political philosophers as Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes in Europe and Fan Sui,
Han Fei in China. Like a situation in which several men are holding guns to each other,
the first one who shoots most indiscriminatingly and with the most deadly accuracy will
be the only survivor, though everybody knows they are all nice people who hold guns
There were many factors that contributed to the different outcomes of ancient
China in comparison with modern Europe, which Hui failed to mention or discuss in
detail: The original united force was a cultural institution, Christianity for Europe but a
political authority, the Chou Dynasty, in China; The European citizens or peasants
formed strong alliance to the vassals and other middle class powers while Chinese
peasants lived mainly in villages; The French Revolution was the driving force for social
reform while Chinese social reform was carried out by kings and ministers; Ancient
China and modern Europe were at different stages of cultural evolution, and Europeans
had much broader and clearer minds. In the analogy of several men holding guns, if a
society has a clear understanding or even develop a moral code regarding such a
To me, the most critical difference was that ancient China was a relatively
isolated world while modern Europe was connected with and opened to the outside
world. As in the situation where a group of men hold guns and point to each other, if
there are many people surrounding them, they will then be much more reluctant to shoot
indiscriminately, since nobody could shoot all the surrounding people dead and the
surviving shooter will be subjected to the judgment of the surrounding people. Compared
to Napoleon France, the Nazi Germany was much more like State Qin in cruelty. That’s
why my comparison of the two ended with the years 221 BC and 1945.
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Book Review: War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern
If a set of states cannot pose a military threat to each other and thus fail to
constitute an international system, then such a system of states tends to accelerate into an
amoral anarchy with victory going to whoever wields the cruelest and deadly strategy.
Like a group of men pointing guns to each other, the one who shoots first and fastest will
be the only glorious survivor. Any slight moral consideration may turn out to be fatal. If
there is someone who is somewhat immune to the shots, the outcome will be quite
those murdered by him. In the European system, this immune man was Britain, the
United Kingdom that was uniquely immune to conflagrations of war on the continent. In
the Chinese system, there had never been a state like Britain. To me, Britain played an
irreplaceable role in European history, serving as the major checking power to balance
against the dominant powers that were trying to build a united European empire.
Britain is an island that makes it much more difficult for either Britain to occupy
Europe or a European power to conquer Britain. For its own safety, Britain built the most
powerful navy in the world, which offered the relative immunity to conquest by other
European powers. In the warring age of dominance and conquest, Britain directed its
interest to explore other worlds such as the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Their
origin of democracy, some scholars point to military democracy during war, and some
point to commercial trade. In a trade, both sides are on equal terms. Bordered by much
less developed ethnic groups, ancient China never had the industrial and commercial base
of modern Europe to strengthen itself by exploiting those ethnic groups through trade. As
the result, there was no opening to the isolated Chinese world. They stayed with
government go back to Britain (1707 - 1800) and the Parliamentary System in Sweden
(1721 - 1772). They coincided with each other. During the reign of King George I, as he
could not speak English, the responsibility for chairing cabinet fell on the leading
minister or the prime minister. The gradual democratisation of the parliament with the
government, and in deciding who the king could ask to form a government. Other
The Seven Year War, which began in 1756, was the first war waged on a global
scale in human history, fought in Europe, India, North America, the Caribbean, the
Philippines, and coastal Africa. When the war ended in 1763, Britain defeated the
European continental power France everywhere around the globe. But Britain allowed
France to remain as a major power in Europe as Britain had no intention to turn the
continent of Europe into its territory. The American Revolution and the subsequent
During the French Revolution and the subsequent Napoleonic era, Britain was the
only European country that was neither subdued by nor allied with France. Britain was
literally immune to the all-conquering power of Napoleonic France, which once
In any sense, World War I and II carried forward the same dream of Napoleonic
France, to unite Europe by force. Along the road of cruelty and amorality, the two world
wars went much further, especially Nazi Germany. Unlike Napoleonic France that started
as a revolution to voice liberty and human rights, Nazi Germany sought only revenge and
expansion. So did State Qin that united China in 221 BC. The Nazis have been
condemned by the world ever since but it remains a controversial issue how to judge
State Qin in Chinese history. I joined those who condemn the Qin, and regard Qin as the
Chinese counterpart of Nazi Germany but not of revolutionary and Napoleonic France, as
The bible story of Adam and Eve and the Christian concept of original sin well
illustrate that Western and Chinese civilizations started differently: The former began as a
chaotic secondary society while the latter, an orderly system of primary society. As the
warring chaos required the sacrifice of human nature in the name of God, subsequent
Western history was a process to restore human nature, or humanism. Chinese history
went almost an opposite way. It started with a primary society system that was based on
human nature while subsequent Chinese history has veered sharply away from human
nature.
In ancient China, the emergence of secondary society during the late Axial Age
was greatly influenced and limited by the cultural tradition inherited from the period of
the super state of primary society from 2200-476 BC. An important assumption of a
secondary society is that human nature is not trustworthy and therefore a society cannot
trust humans themselves. Due to such a belief, the system of parliament and voting were
developed. The voice of the ordinary people was also eventually heard, for nobody could
stop his rival party from enrolling peasants and workers for support. As a primary society
is based on human nature, the Chinese lacked the concept that the social order of a
secondary society had to be based on law. Lao Tzu’s advocacy of the separation of
primary and secondary society, namely the separation of the ruling elites from their
peasants in Chinese history, prevented any strong connection between the two. The only
way for Chinese peasants to enter the horizon of the secondary society was often through
uprisings.
In modern Europe, the First and Second Peace Conferences were held at Hague,
Netherlands in 1899 and 1907, respectively. The Hague Conventions were signed. It was
only a few years before the First World War but long after modern states had emerged. It
was because the parliamentary system allowed people to voice their concern, and they did
not care much which state was going to conquer Europe. What about China? Two similar
international peace conferences were held in 579 and 546 BC. It was long before states in
modern terms emerged. It was because the elites were able to think from human nature,
or from all of humanity. When the states accelerated into an upward spiral of ever
expanding war, no such conferences were held again, as the Chinese had said goodbye to
human nature by that time. Everyone may cite their own reasons for this difference, but I
think the presence of Britain was critical. Britain was the inerasable connection of
warring Europe with the outside world. Without a country like Britain, the seven ancient
Chinese superpowers all had to think and act as quickly as those men who were pointing
guns at each other, “Remember, only one of us will survive, and nobody can judge the