Stagnant Empire

Author: Alain Peyrefitte
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-01-01
Features: The French writer, Mr. Alain Peyrefitte, published the book The Stagnant Empire in May 1989. Upon its release, the book quickly entered the bestseller list, selling 200,000 copies within six months. To write The Stagnant Empire, the author visited China six times between 1980 and 1988, visited the main places visited by the Macartney Embassy, collected over 120,000 pages of primary materials; he opened the gates of the Forbidden City and studied all the files related to the Qing court's reception of the British envoy. At the same time, he read a large number of unpublished internal archives from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Japan, South Africa, and other places. Two hundred years ago, the British Empire sent a large embassy led by Lord Macartney to China under the pretext of celebrating the birthday of Emperor Qianlong. The embassy traveled in five ships, arriving in the waters outside Dagukou in Tianjin after a 10-month journey, and met Emperor Qianlong in the Chengde Mountain Resort in September 1793. After leading the Industrial Revolution, Britain had become a power in the West at that time. It had colonies all over the world, forming a vast colonial empire. China, however, had always been an emperor in the East, although its heyday had passed, it still ruled over vast territories, and many surrounding countries had to bow to this powerful neighbor. The rapidly developing capitalist Britain was eager to expand outward to seek raw materials and markets, naturally coveting this fertile land in the Far East. Under this expansionist strategy, Britain sent an embassy to China, hoping to negotiate with the Qing government to improve trade between the two countries, and further establish regular diplomatic relations. From China's perspective, due to cultural backgrounds and political concepts, the relationship between the "Central Empire" and foreign countries could only be that of a suzerain and vassal state, with foreign countries needing to come in person every year and bow in submission. Long-term isolation had left the rulers of China at that time unaware of the progress of the outside world and Western science and civilization, while being proud of their own "prosperous era." They believed that Britain sent the embassy across the ocean to celebrate the emperor's birthday out of admiration for Chinese civilization. This deaf-mute dialogue was doomed to fail even before it began. The academic debate that has long been going on about whether Lord Macartney knelt when he met the emperor is not simply a question of etiquette, but a clash of two civilizations with profound symbolic meaning. The French writer, Mr. Alain Peyrefitte, published a book on this theme titled The Stagnant Empire in May 1989. Upon its release, the book quickly entered the bestseller list, selling 200,000 copies within six months. Mr. Peyrefitte was born in 1925 and served as a minister seven times during the presidencies of the first three presidents of the Fifth Republic—Charles de Gaulle, Georges Pompidou, and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. In 1977, he was elected as a member of the French Academy, and ten years later, he was elected to the Historical Section of the Académie des Morals et Politiques with unanimous approval. In 1981, he served as the chairman of the editorial board of Le Figaro, France's largest newspaper, while also being a member of the National Assembly and the mayor of Provence. He had a significant influence in both France's political and academic circles. Peyrefitte had long wanted to write a book about Macartney in the 1950s. By chance, he purchased a set of travelogues collected by Count Potocki, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Tsar Alexander I, from an old bookstore in Kraków, Poland, which included books by Staunton and Barrow about their journey to China with Macartney. The French view of China had long been influenced by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire in the 18th century, who believed China was a well-ordered country ruled by an enlightened monarch. However, the travelogues written by British authors made Peyrefitte see another China, and he wanted to introduce this China to his compatriots. In 1971, he led a French parliamentary delegation to China and, upon returning, published the book When China Awakens (1973). By 1980, when a new edition of the book was released, the French version alone had sold 1.5 million copies. This book was considered the most substantial work on China written by a non-Chinese scholar in France and established Peyrefitte's reputation as an expert on China. To write The Stagnant Empire, the author visited China six times between 1980 and 1988, visited the main places visited by the Macartney Embassy, collected over 120,000 pages of primary materials; he opened the gates of the Forbidden City and studied all the files related to the Qing court's reception of the British envoy. At the same time, he read a large number of unpublished internal archives from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Japan, South Africa, and other places. As an appendix to this book, he prepared three collections of materials: the first is Qing court archives, which were fully translated into French by the end of 1991 and published under the title The Chinese Perspective; the other two are archives from the British Foreign Office, the East India Company, and the Catholic Church, which are currently being compiled. As a politician and historian, Peyrefitte made the following comment on Lord Macartney's visit to China: "If these two worlds could increase their contact with each other and learn from each other's most successful experiences; if the country that invented printing and papermaking, the compass and the rudder, gunpowder and firearms centuries before other nations, combined its discoveries with the country that tamed steam and was about to harness electricity, then the cultural exchange between the Chinese and Europeans would undoubtedly lead both to rapid progress, what a cultural revolution that would be!" Isolationism could only lead to the decline of civilization and the nation, making it unable to resist the aggression of imperialist powers. Learning from this historical lesson can also make us more firmly committed to the path of reform and opening up today.