CHINA: With Modern Day Issues in Mind, China Retraces its Past

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Oct 21 1996 (IPS) - The Chinese government’s decision to invest more than 1.5 million dollars for the documentation of China’s 5,000 year history, may have implications for modern day territorial disputes in the East Asian region.

Earlier this year, Beijing announced that the government would finance a three-year project aimed at determining the chronology of early Chinese dynasties.

“We can’t go on saying that we have a 5,000-year-old history while denying its existence,” said project brainchild State Counselor Song Jian in an interview with ‘China Daily’, an English language newspaper.

The huge chronological project aims to resolve discrepancies among existing records, some of which cite the 21st century BC as the beginning of Chinese history without any scientific or archaeological evidence.

It involves China’s leading archaeologists, historians, astronomers and geographers who begin their work at the time of the Asian Kingdom of Xia (first legendary dynasty of China) which is believed to have existed between 21 and 16 BC.

“To love the country,” argues Song, “one should read the history, hence the necessity for a clear and readable account of China’s historical past.”

He said similar efforts to reconstruct the historical past of other ancient civilizations had proven successful and in China it should not be any different.

Song is reported to have got the idea during a visit to Egypt two years ago. He was impressed with the work of Egyptian and European scholars who had delved into the North African nation’s history and come up with empirical evidence of its ancient civilization.

“There are people in the West who state that Chinese ancient history is built on tales and legends and lacks scientific background,” he said, explaining that this project aimed to dispel such doubts.

“Unlike Egypt, Babylon and India, Chinese civilization has been stretching continuous and unbroken for 5,000 years,” he said when the project was announced in May. “Neither chaos of wars, tyrannies or foreign invasion, nor floods and droughts have been able to stop its continuous development and progress.”

The project has been widely trumpeted by the official media for its historical and cultural value, but there would appear as well to be unstated present day political motives for the 13 million yuan (about 1.6 million dollars) project.

China is locked in a number of territorial disputes with its neighbours in East and South-east Asia over islands believed to be sitting on vast oil and gas reserves in the East China and South China Seas.

In retracing its history, China may thus seek to re-inforce its territorial claims, or at the very least win sympathy for such claims, through historical accounts showing the disputed territory was once under the rule of past dynasties.

A related case in point in modern day history were reports carried in the official media of Beijing’s plans to salvage four warships from the Beiyang Fleet that were sunk more than 100 years ago when the Chinese navy suffered a humiliating defeat against the Japanese in a Yellow Sea battle in 1894.

The report surfaced right in the heat of a current Sino-Japanese dispute over rival claims to the Diaoyu islands (known in Japan as Senkaku) in the East China Sea to the south of the Yellow Sea.

The defeat against the Japanese, forced China to cede Taiwan (another rival claimant to the islands), the Diaoyu islands and southern Manchuria to Japan in 1895.

After the Asia-Pacific war ended in 1945, China recovered most of the territories but the United States occupied the Diaoyu islands and in 1972, returned them to Japan.

In announcing that it would undertake the salvage operation for the sunken warships and erect a memorial site in the coastal town of Donggang to commemorate that battle, Beijing would appear to be adding a sympathetic note to its otherwise strident claims to the islands.

The political or territorial overtones in the decision by the Beijing authorities to give the greenlight to the chronological project, may also be borne out by the government’s priorities when it comes to preserving its history and culture.

Authorities have for example cocked a deaf ear to the desperate cries of archaelogists who warn that key Chinese artefacts and sites will be destroyed if no state funds are forthcoming to protect them during construction of the world’s largest hydroelectric project — The Three Gorges Dam.

The multi-billion dollar dam will flood huge tracks of land in central China when completed, scheduled for 2009.

A scenic landscape, dotted with more than 1,200 priceless and irreplaceable monuments of Chinese civilization will disappear from China’s map, while some 130 of 1,200 threatened historical sites, could be submerged as soon as next year.

A group of more than 50 scholars, archaeologists, historians and former officials have petitioned President Jiang Zemin with an urgent plea for funds to be allocated for preservation of these cultural sites.

Among the signatories of a letter, sent to the president’s office on Aug. 8, were renowned writer 95-year-old Bing Xin, former minister of culture Wang Meng, and former ambassador to the United States Chai Zemin.

They wrote that their hearts were “burning with 10,000 worries” because of a sore shortage of funds to protect the ancient relics that will be submerged along with huge tracts of land in the central Hubei and Sichuan provinces.

Among the threatened ancient relics are stone carvings from the Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220), entire preserved streets from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911); and a Memorial Temple dedicated to the hero of the Three Kingdoms, Zhang Fei.

Hubei province is earmarked for a major reservoir as part of the project’s aims to ease perennial flooding in China’s central plains. These areas have been the scene of devastating floods since the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BC). In July, this year heavy downpours claimed at least 2,000 lives.

Beijing says the dam, to be located on the upper stretch of the 3,500-mile Yangtze River, would when completed, protect millions from flooding, increase China’s electrical output by 10 per cent, and, through the construction of locks, bring ship-borne commerce to an area where 400 million people live.

Signatories of the letter do not question the government’s wisdom in the construction of the dam — though international environmentalists do — but are rather concerned about the shortage of government funds to protect the threatened monuments and historical sites.

“An irreversible error” will be made if (these sites) are not rescued in a timely fashion, the signatories wrote in August. Till now, the government has not responded to their petition.

Archaeologist Li Boqian, one of the leading experts working on the chronology project, tries to explain government’s position by saying the issue is not a question of priorities alone — but one of money.

The money allocated by the government to retrace Chinese history and the money needed to salvage relics that may be destroyed with the construction of the Three Gorges Dam are “two incomparable dimensions”, says Li.

“About three billion yuan (360 million dollars) is necessary to preserve and relocate only 10 per cent of the The Three Gorges Dam relics, while the money granted for our project amounts only to 13 million yuan,” Li says.