VOLUME V, CHAPTER 12
The Depth of International Behavior, the Taker and the Taken
This is the first chapter of Part Five. The last chapter, at its close, opened the line between nations and set its first foundation firmly, that between nations there is no supreme enforcer. This chapter follows that line three steps further, first sorting a strong nation's conduct toward a weak one by depth, then turning the lens to the side that strikes and to the side that is struck, to see what position pushes a nation into the taker's seat, and what position leaves a nation fallen into the taken's.
The first section sorts international conduct into five depths, from shallow to deep. Readers of history easily call everything between strong and weak colonization, which is like calling a scraped knee and a ruptured organ both simply an injury. Colonization means you have arrived but remain a foreigner, and it carries a natural end point. However long the British ruled India, Indians remained Indian. Seizing resources and people is the most naked, the transatlantic slave trade carrying off twelve to fifteen million people. Seizing territory moves the map, the Treaty of Nanjing ceding Hong Kong, the Treaty of Shimonoseki ceding Taiwan. Legislating treaties and rules is the most hidden, extraterritoriality, tariff agreements, and most-favored-nation clauses moving not a single soldier. The deepest, occupying a position, is the outsider becoming you, the Yuan and Qing dynasties both written into China's official history, a new term set down here, setting the thirty-fifth layer. Once occupying a position succeeds, what is rewritten is history itself.
The second section looks at the taker's position, stripping away heroes and ambition until a structure surfaces, insufficient output joined with a strong army. Insufficient output supplies the motive, and a strong army supplies the capacity. The Mongol steppe's output was insufficient by its own nature, and it raised the fiercest army the age of cold steel ever saw. The Manchus, cut off from trade with Ming, were forced into the mobilization system of the Eight Banners. The Mongols' strong army was a gift of geography, and the Manchus' strong army was forged by hand across two generations. Britain's surplus output pushed it outward just the same, and the Opium War and the Mongol cavalry riding south are the same logic wearing two coats. One fears starvation, the other fears spoiled stock, opposite directions, one root. Meiji Japan's output could not keep pace with its military ambition, and the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War, the occupation of Manchuria, and the full-scale invasion of China rolled larger step by step. The Atlantic slave ships took people. Han Fei spoke of scarcity breeding contest, setting the thirty-sixth layer. "Today people fight over them, not out of baseness, but because goods are scarce." Contest does not come from hearts turning bad, it comes from there not being enough to go around.
The third section looks at the taken's position, a hall filled with gold and jade joined with no one able to keep it safe. The Northern Song's economy accounted for twenty-two percent of the world's, and in the Humiliation of Jingkang two emperors were carried off captive. Meng Yuanlao recorded the night market of Kaifeng. "The night market runs until the third watch, and by the fifth watch it has opened again." Yet Ouyang Xiu lamented that of seven or eight hundred thousand soldiers, scarcely seventy or eighty thousand could be used. In the late Ming, silver inflows led the world while the political structure had already rotted through, Li Zicheng broke into Beijing, and Qing forces entered through the pass. Qianlong wrote that the Celestial Empire possesses all things in abundance and lacks nothing, and in the Opium War a few thousand British troops forced the Treaty of Nanjing. Mughal India, at Plassey, saw three thousand troops rout an army of tens of thousands. Zheng He's fleet was deliberately abandoned. Other taken nations failed to hold their defenses, but this time the Ming had the means to defend itself and chose, on its own, not to. The Mali Empire's gold was scattered all over Cairo, and in the end Africa was divided at the Berlin Conference. Laozi spoke of a hall filled with gold and jade that no one can keep safe, setting the thirty-seventh layer. "A hall filled with gold and jade, no one can keep it safe." The thicker the wealth and the emptier the defense, the greater the chance of being taken from.
Three sections, building from the thirty-fifth layer to the thirty-seventh. Laozi's a hall filled with gold and jade, no one can keep it safe speaks to the taken, Han Fei's scarcity breeds contest speaks to the taker, and joined together, the reasoning behind why the same story keeps replaying itself between nations stands complete. This chapter holds one discipline with special care, the taker is not born a villain, and the taken is not born innocent, it depends entirely on which position each stands in at that moment, laying out structure only, passing no verdict of good or evil, and leaving the judgment to the reader. Today's taker may well be yesterday's taken. The next chapter unfolds the deepest depth, occupying a position, directly, and then looks at the treaty after the taking, and at the turning over of the taken.
Contents
Section One. The Five Depths of International Behavior.
Section Two. The Position of the Taker, Output Falling Short and a Strong Army.
Section Three. The Position of the Taken, Gold and Jade That None Can Keep.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.