Beijing may face challenges in using history to advance its claims, while the US may face them regarding its future standing in the world
China likes to use history to make its political points. But it may no longer work.
History is helpful as an example to tell contemporary people that something from the past may happen again, but it’s not evidence. Aristotle already saw the point 25 centuries ago.
Vietnam and the Korean Peninsula were under Chinese rule longer and more firmly than Tibet, Xinjiang, or Mongolia. In fact, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea used or still use Chinese script, while Tibet, Xinjiang, or Mongolia didn’t — leaving aside what was “Chinese” rule, as even the Manchu elite ruling Beijing didn’t employ Chinese in its internal documents. Yet these regions are now part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), whereas Vietnam, North Korea, and South Korea are three independent states.
The point China may be trying to make in its recent controversies with Japan is: if you dispute my sovereignty over Taiwan (the island, de facto independent but de jure part of one China), I will challenge your sovereignty over the Ryukyu Islands. It’s a propaganda war for public consumption.
The problem with the Chinese position on the Ryukyu and Taiwan is that neither is part of the PRC. Changing their status will require more than a few articles in the Chinese press.
Furthermore, playing with history is dangerous because the same game could be played over more than half of the PRC’s territory. Or the game could be stretched to claim sovereignty over Vietnam, the Korean peninsula, and (why not?) Japan. The stretch could be even more irksome and dangerous for Beijing than defending the present PRC’s borders.
China should try to develop stronger arguments to advance its position. But can it do it? And without arguments, what shall it do?
Still, the argument could stick if, according to the University of Miami’s June Teufel Dreyer:
1. Repeating historically shaky arguments again and again (see Goebbels ‘big lie), and large numbers of people will believe them.
2. Repeated exertion of pressure, typically using salami tactics (see Diaoyu/Senkaku islands) and calibrated kinetic action (disputed islands with Vietnam, the Philippines).
So, because of this, someone believes it. However, Goebbels works only on a monopoly of information, and pressure becomes reason only if no one opposes it. If there’s no information monopoly and pressure is resisted, then everything may blowback.
In the past, both tactics worked because there was a global belief that China would turn “like us,” so it was: “Okay, let them play their little game; they are, or will become, like us.” So, both yielded some results.
However, at present, the dominant belief (outside China) is that China doesn’t want to become “like us”; thus, Beijing’s propaganda is increasingly opposed, as is kinetic pressure. Both are backfiring, and this could be even more so in the future unless China changes course.
Then the main problem is that in Beijing, some may be starting to believe their own half-baked stories. This could be bad because it could make reasonable dialogue with China more difficult.
Moreover, the US capture of Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, and the ongoing spreading protests in Iran prove that the United States’ great asset and strength is its appeal to liberty. Here, there are lessons for both Beijing and Washington.
Beijing may worry that people in China may itch for protests, too. A similar situation occurred during the COVID lockdown in China in 2022. Then, while watching crowds at the World Cup, the Chinese observed that the epidemic had ended elsewhere. At the same time, they remained confined to their homes, which triggered a widespread subterranean upheaval that eventually led to the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. Something similar may happen if Iranians manage to topple the Ayatollah’s regime. If Beijing supports a failing regime, it doubles down on the senseless and wasteful effort in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The lesson for Washington is more straightforward. If the US abandons its decade-long patronage of freedom, it loses its most effective weapon. This patronage can’t mean support for many senseless causes, but without it, there is no America, and dialogue with Beijing comes on the back foot.
