If You Fall Behind, Do You Get Beaten?

“Backwardness” means getting beaten! Only when a country is strong can it avoid foreign aggression and truly achieve independence and autonomy……these are phrases we all know by heart. This principle inspires us to strive diligently and make China prosperous and strong, and of course that is a very good thing. But let us examine it carefully: is this principle really sound?

In fact, the very first sentence of this article is problematic—saying that those who are “backward” get beaten, while those who are “strong” do not—I have paired “backwardness” with “strength,” and that pairing is misaligned! The concept opposite to “backward” should be “advanced,” and the concept opposite to “strong” should be “weak.” If you say, “the weak are easily beaten, the strong are not easily beaten,” there is absolutely no problem. What I want to question is this: are the strong necessarily advanced? Are the backward necessarily weak?

What do backward and advanced mean? Most of us would agree that nomadic civilization is “more advanced” than fishing-and-hunting civilization, and yet “backward” compared with agricultural civilization. So, looking at history, are “backward” civilizations more likely to be beaten? No matter which ancient civilization’s history we consult, we can easily discover that the facts are exactly the opposite! In ancient China, there was Emperor Wu of Han’s campaign against the Xiongnu, Emperor Yang of Sui’s expedition against Korea, and so on; but what we see far more often is that China’s agricultural civilization could not withstand the harassment of the northern nomadic peoples, and so had to keep “pacifying” those barbarian tribes by means such as enfeoffment and bestowal of titles, gifts of gold and silver as compensation, conciliation, and marriage alliances. Indeed, many times China’s agricultural civilization was nearly overturned wholesale by the “backward” nomadic peoples. And the other great ancient civilizations—Sumer, ancient Babylon, ancient India, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, ancient Persia……all of these, without exception, were broken up and destroyed by nomadic peoples, or even primitive tribes, that were far less advanced in civilization! “Backward” barbarians and “advanced” civilization—who is more likely to be beaten? The answer is already plain.

 Since there are so many such obvious historical facts, why is it that when we hear the claim “backwardness means getting beaten,” a claim that is simply untenable in history, we actually feel that it “makes sense”? The real reason is that from the frenzied expansion after the Industrial Revolution in Western Europe, to the dark slave trade and the bloody plunder of colonies, all the way to the Second World War, imperialism, hegemonism……all of this has given people a profound lesson in the blood-soaked truth of “the weak are prey to the strong”!

Was it Europe’s rise that overturned historical convention and created a new rule that “backwardness means getting beaten,” or was Europe’s expansion still merely akin to the belligerent, bloodthirsty barbarian tribes of the past?

I have already distinguished this: “backward” and “weak,” “advanced” and “strong,” are not the same thing. In history, nomadic tribes with culturally backward ways often possessed warhorses far superior to those of agricultural civilizations and sharper iron weapons. Before the age of firearms, no army from any agricultural civilization could possibly confront head-on a well-trained, fully armed, swift-moving barbarian cavalry force. Genghis Khan proved by facts the powerful strength of steppe civilization. China’s ability to avoid the fate of other ancient countries, which ultimately perished at the hands of barbarians, owed much to its large population, vast territory, and resilient culture, not to a reliance on strength. And what Western conquest relied upon was in fact no different from the barbarians of old—sharp weapons, plus greed and ferocity!

Of course, the modern civilization in which we live is unquestionably much more “advanced” than agricultural civilization, but that does not mean that Western Europe, in the period of expansion that forged this modern civilization, was necessarily “advanced.” For example, the Arab peoples originated in primitive clan tribes, and after rapid expansion eventually formed the great Islamic civilization. We may say that the Islamic civilization after its rise was highly advanced in that era, but we cannot say that those primitive clans at the beginning of its expansion were advanced! Likewise, the rise of Western Europe and the fact that peoples all over the world were “beaten” do not prove that “backwardness means getting beaten”; on the contrary, one might as well say that Western Europe during its period of expansion was precisely barbaric and backward in cultural and moral terms!

Many people worry that a resurgent China will become a threat to the world, and many Chinese people think so as well. The idea that “the backward must get beaten, and the strong must beat others” has already taken deep root in people’s minds, and that is very bad indeed! We should seriously experience and reflect on real history. I think that if we preserve the glorious tradition of Chinese civilization, and pursue not only technical “strength” but also place greater emphasis on cultural and moral “advancement,” the so-called China threat theory will naturally have nowhere to stand.

 December 7, 2005

Latest Comments
 

zxr 2006-06-19 20:02:43

Your “backwardness” is too vague. Actually, “backwardness means getting beaten” is a very simple phrase; it means military backwardness. And today, military backwardness reflects a country’s backwardness in all respects of technology. In ancient times, that is a different matter altogether; the Mongols’ military, however you put it, would not have been inferior to that of other peoples, would it?

 Gu Dǔ:

Who says that “backwardness means getting beaten” refers to military backwardness? Is that how people understand it when they talk about and use this phrase? And come to think of it, if we really interpret backwardness as military backwardness, then it is even worse—that would mean that in order not to get beaten, one must vigorously develop military power? Although in the real world this is an unavoidable necessity, military power must absolutely not be advocated as a slogan.
Professor Wu Guosheng seems to have an essay on “backwardness means getting beaten,” collected in Modernization’s Anxieties, but I have forgotten whether I read that essay, since that volume was one I leafed through quite some time ago.

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.