Would Qing China done better as a colony by foreigners?

[Burton K Wheeler]

I've mostly stayed out of this discussion, since I have no strong feelings one way or another. Yes, exploitation of another country's resources to enrich the homeland is bad. Yes, countries that were colonized certainly did benefit to some degree, but not out of the goodness of the colonizers' hearts, and how much they would have benefitted had things been different is debateable.

Apparently, however, some people believe colonialism of the British variety is a completely good thing with occasional lapses, rather than an overall mixed bag, and are willing to go to great lengths of intellectual dishonesty to justify that. Faeelin and Abdul Hadi Pasha both made excellent points about the British Empire compared to other historical alternatives, and were responded to with accusations of revisionism, complaints of unfairness, broad statements without justification, and not one coherent counter-argument. The response to the post about Indian mutineers being forced to lick up blood before their execution was actually responded to with "I've never heard of that!"

There are contemporary apologists for imperialism. Niall Ferguson, of course, comes to mind. But these scholars defend imperialism of all stripes, not just as done by the British, which, while not universally accepted, is at least intellectually coherent. The notion of British exceptionalism in colonial matters is bizarre to me. I understand that the British Empire (in general) was better than its contemporaries, but that to me is no excuse for justification of everything it did without recourse to fact or reason.

 

[Keenir]

Queen Victoria was German.

who ruled over an empire that was decidedly not German.

though if the origins of the rulers decide the flavor of the empire, then we need to know if you mean the French British Empire, or the German British Empire.

 

[Othniel]

Actually you do, since Turkey contains Thrace, which is not in Asia Minor, and also extends further East than does Asia Minor, which is a peninsula. Should I stop calling Utah "misshapen square"?

Squares have four sides, Utah has six..thus its a misshapen hexagon!

But you may continue calling it that if it pleases you...

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

Faeelin makes points about the Japanese versus the British, and Abdul later makes points about the Mughal and Ottoman Empires. The Japanese, whatever faults their empire may have had, at least saw their empire as a unified political entity. Even if Koreans and Taiwanese were second class citizens, the Japanese went to great efforts to build up Korea and Taiwan.

A British/American/German empire's aim in China would be economic exploitation. Any development in China would be carried out with the aim of making China profit the motherland more.

A Japanese or Russian empire would be more interested in integrating China, for simple geographic reasons. China would be built up with Chinese interests in mind, rather than for mercantilist resource exploitation, for the simple reason that China would be considered part of Japan or Russia.

Do I think the Japanese or Russians would be more humane in their occupation of China than British or Americans? Probably less so. Do I think Japanese or Russian China would be developed to a higher standard than British or American China? Almost certainly.

 

[MrP]

I've mostly stayed out of this discussion, since I have no strong feelings one way or another. Yes, exploitation of another country's resources to enrich the homeland is bad. Yes, countries that were colonized certainly did benefit to some degree, but not out of the goodness of the colonizers' hearts, and how much they would have benefitted had things been different is debateable.

Apparently, however, some people believe colonialism of the British variety is a completely good thing with occasional lapses, rather than an overall mixed bag, and are willing to go to great lengths of intellectual dishonesty to justify that. Faeelin and Abdul Hadi Pasha both made excellent points about the British Empire compared to other historical alternatives, and were responded to with accusations of revisionism, complaints of unfairness, broad statements without justification, and not one coherent counter-argument. The response to the post about Indian mutineers being forced to lick up blood before their execution was actually responded to with "I've never heard of that!"

There are contemporary apologists for imperialism. Niall Ferguson, of course, comes to mind. But these scholars defend imperialism of all stripes, not just as done by the British, which, while not universally accepted, is at least intellectually coherent. The notion of British exceptionalism in colonial matters is bizarre to me. I understand that the British Empire (in general) was better than its contemporaries, but that to me is no excuse for justification of everything it did without recourse to fact or reason.

I think there's a thread about twenty-plus pages long lurking somewhere about an ueber-British Empire. I think it started off with people debating, then people who disliked the Empire got bored, then those of us who regard it as a mixture of good and bad things gave up - except for Benedict XVII, who gamely yet vainly tried to convince its supporters that the Empire perhaps wasn't always great. I can't recall whether he eventually gave up or not . . .

 

[Tyr]

I've mostly stayed out of this discussion, since I have no strong feelings one way or another. Yes, exploitation of another country's resources to enrich the homeland is bad. Yes, countries that were colonized certainly did benefit to some degree, but not out of the goodness of the colonizers' hearts, and how much they would have benefitted had things been different is debateable.

Apparently, however, some people believe colonialism of the British variety is a completely good thing with occasional lapses, rather than an overall mixed bag, and are willing to go to great lengths of intellectual dishonesty to justify that. Faeelin and Abdul Hadi Pasha both made excellent points about the British Empire compared to other historical alternatives, and were responded to with accusations of revisionism, complaints of unfairness, broad statements without justification, and not one coherent counter-argument. The response to the post about Indian mutineers being forced to lick up blood before their execution was actually responded to with "I've never heard of that!"

erm wtf?
Abdul has been the one with the accusations and the incoherant arguments.
And did you miss his wonderful reply of 'Whatever' and subsequent ignorance of everything I said?

You are really twisting my words here.

Yes, I said I'd never heard of that specific licking up blood incident, I didn't say anything remotely near to 'I never heard of it so it didn't happen', I then went on to recognise that bad things did happen in the period.

And how many times must you people whine about that one statement of 'there was no Indian education system pre Brits'?
Of course there was something, you should assume that's common knowledge. In context however we were talking about the modern Indian university system.
Also looking back you will see as part of that statement I said

The parts of India Britain took over were mainly under the control of other foreigners before hand./

which Abdul willfully overlooked. It was in reply to the horribly widespread misconception of India being a nice free nation before the nasty British came and started killing everyone.

And 'accusations of revisionism'? Excuse me? IT IS REVISIONST. The whole 'the empire was entirely bad' thing is the corner stone of revisionist histography. I myself prefer post-revisionism however and favour taking a look at the way things actually were without the post-colonial guilt trip so many historians in the 20th century took.

I understand that the British Empire (in general) was better than its contemporaries, but that to me is no excuse for justification of everything it did without recourse to fact or reason.

I agree.

 

[Burton K Wheeler]

erm wtf?
Abdul has been the one with the accusations and the incoherant arguments.
And did you miss his wonderful reply of 'Whatever' and subsequent ignorance of everything I said?

As a neutral on the subject, I can say that Abdul and Faeelin's arguments made a lot more sense to me than yours or Darkling's. I think Abdul has as much emotional investment in anti-imperialism as you do in defense of the British Empire, but his arguments did a lot more to convince me.

And how many times must you people whine about that one statement of 'there was no Indian education system pre Brits'?
Of course there was something, you should assume that's common knowledge. In context however we were talking about the modern Indian university system.

"You people whining"?
That's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. For the record, I said the British Empire did some good things, among which you could number the Indian university system.

And 'accusations of revisionism'? Excuse me? IT IS REVISIONST. The whole 'the empire was entirely bad' thing is the corner stone of revisionist histography. I myself prefer post-revisionism however and favour taking a look at the way things actually were without the post-colonial guilt trip so many historians in the 20th century took.

I understand that the British school system goes a long way in its discussion of the Empire as evil, and I agree with the intellectual approach you suggest. I just pointed out that some people on both sides seem to have a lot of emotional investment in the subject, and making arguments from an emotional standpoint does a disservice to truth.

 

[Tyr]

"You people whining"?
That's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about. For the record, I said the British Empire did some good things, among which you could number the Indian university system.
.

Sorry, its late and I'm overworked. I reflected him onto you.
But you did repeat his very selective way of reading what I'd wrote.

As a neutral on the subject, I can say that Abdul and Faeelin's arguments made a lot more sense to me than yours or Darkling's. I think Abdul has as much emotional investment in anti-imperialism as you do in defense of the British Empire, but his arguments did a lot more to convince me.

"It takes a month of hard work to build a wall,
it takes a night of cannon fire to knock it down"

 

[Sargon]

I'd love to know who voted for Japan, and I'd love to be able to send 'em back in a time machine to China or Corea under Japanese occupation and see how they like it.....I have a feeling they'd probably change their vote rather sharpish....


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose

 

[Keenir]

Abdul:

how is corruption among the East India Company any different from corruption among the Jannesaries?

 

[Faeelin]

I'd love to know who voted for Japan, and I'd love to be able to send 'em back in a time machine to China or Corea under Japanese occupation and see how they like it.....I have a feeling they'd probably change their vote rather sharpish....

Hrmm.

Bet I'd prefer it to being an African in Kenya or Rhodesia.

 

[Sargon]

Hrmm.

Bet I'd prefer it to being an African in Kenya or Rhodesia.

Aha, there's the culprit

Are you quite sure? The Japanese treated them like subhumans and worse...and this comes from both sides...ex-soldiers I talked to in Japan in the course of research, freely admitted they thought of them as scum to be bayoneted if they caused the slightest trouble: they told me that was how they thought of them back then, and it was common too.

Probably the only worse place to be was a Jewish person in Hitler's Germany, or a critic of the government in Stalin's Russia.


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose

 

[Faeelin]

Aha, there's the culprit

Actually, I voted for the "No, it's probably best if Nanjing isn't being burned by anyone" option.

Are you quite sure? The Japanese treated them like subhumans and worse...and this comes from both sides...ex-soldiers I talked to in Japan, freely admitted they thought of them as scum to be bayoneted if they caused the slightest trouble., they told me that was how they thought of them back then, and it was common too.

Again, depends on the period.

But, yea. It's not as if the British were gentle with tribes like the Nandi, after all.

 

[Sargon]

Actually, I voted for the "No, it's probably best if Nanjing isn't being burned by anyone" option.




Again, depends on the period.

But, yea. It's not as if the British were gentle with tribes like the Nandi, after all.

Hmm, so you're not the one. Apologies then.

Indigenous rule is probably the best option.

Yes,the British did a lot of bad things, but so did all imperial powers, that's the nature of the way things were unfortunately. Nothing to be proud of there at all where such things are concerned. However, it was a regular thing in China over a long period of time.

Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of things about Japan, but some of the things they did in the past were terrible by anyone's standards.


Sargon

A Timeline of mine: The Roman Emperor Who Lost His Nose

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

who ruled over an empire that was decidedly not German.

though if the origins of the rulers decide the flavor of the empire, then we need to know if you mean the French British Empire, or the German British Empire.

I was being flippant. I would think I mean EIC until the mutiny, and the Raj after that.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

I overlooked you statement that the parts of India that the British took over was ruled by foreigners before they got there because it is so obviously false that it needed no response.

I have also not said in the least that India was some kind of utopia before the British, just that 19th c imperialism was about sucking money and resources out of colonies, whereas empires like the Ottomans, Hapsburgs, Mughals, etc are the actual indigenous states of the regions they rule (even if at some point in the past they came from somewhere else [like the Normans, for instance], and thus are concerned with building them up and using their wealth internally rather than shipping it all off to Britain, France, etc.

If you can point to where I have ever said "the British Empire was entirely bad" I'll be happy to retract it. You seem convinced that the empire was entirely good and have an intense reaction to any criticism of it at all.

You are also willfully missing my point that the British totally dismantled an ancient, well-functioning education system that had produced a very literate population, which resulted in dramatically LOWER literacy, and replaced it not with a functioning university (the University you referenced as the first in India was not a teaching school, it was a regulatory body that had sole right to grant degrees), and decided that all instruction was to be in ENGLISH. Also you refuse to even consider that India's... non-modern? indigenous system had great value - as if somehow labelling something "modern" makes it superior or more desirable. Genocidal nationalism are modern, so are massive pollution, nuclear weapons and global warming.

20th c historians (actually only the last few decades) are not dominated by guilt trips, they are just finally starting to use sources from the places (like the Ottoman Empire, China, etc) that have been maligned as decadent, fatalist, and oriental. As an example, I just read Arthur Marder "The Anatomy of British Sea Power", which discusses British concern that the Russians could seize Istanbul (called Constantinople, of course) whenever they wished with the Black Sea Fleet and the Turks (not Ottomans, of course) could and would do nothing to defend themselves. The author accepts this at face value. In reality, Ottoman intelligence was quite better informed about Russian military potential in the Black Sea region, knew exactly how long it would take Russian troops to mobilize and be ready for transport, and had a complex network of agents to watch for any such preparations, and also had detailed plans to deal with it if it happened.

Almost all histories prior to the 60s treat the entire non-European world as something that just sat around declining or being barbaric until it had something done to it my Europeans. The definitive history of the Scramble for Africa is Packenham's book of that name. You will find no African or Arab sources in his bibliography. The role of the Ottomans or the Sufi orders in African resistance movements is not so much as mentioned despite their enormous impact. Histories accept without question that the British invaded Egypt because it was dissolving into anarchy (it was not in the slightest) and to save the canal (which was not threatened in the slightest), but do not question whether the crisis was manufactured an/or exploited by men with enormous investments in Egypt, including Gladstone who had half his wealth in Egyptian bonds.

Likewise, you need to read Indian sources to understand how the EIC or Raj impacted India, not works written by the very people who ran it.

In any case, congratulations on your certainty that you know how things really were in the past. Now you don't have to read any more books. I certainly don't, and I plan to spend the rest of my life trying to understand it as best I can.

erm wtf?
Abdul has been the one with the accusations and the incoherant arguments.
And did you miss his wonderful reply of 'Whatever' and subsequent ignorance of everything I said?

You are really twisting my words here.

Yes, I said I'd never heard of that specific licking up blood incident, I didn't say anything remotely near to 'I never heard of it so it didn't happen', I then went on to recognise that bad things did happen in the period.

And how many times must you people whine about that one statement of 'there was no Indian education system pre Brits'?
Of course there was something, you should assume that's common knowledge. In context however we were talking about the modern Indian university system.
Also looking back you will see as part of that statement I said "The parts of India Britain took over were mainly under the control of other foreigners before hand." which Abdul willfully overlooked. It was in reply to the horribly widespread misconception of India being a nice free nation before the nasty British came and started killing everyone.

And 'accusations of revisionism'? Excuse me? IT IS REVISIONST. The whole 'the empire was entirely bad' thing is the corner stone of revisionist histography. I myself prefer post-revisionism however and favour taking a look at the way things actually were without the post-colonial guilt trip so many historians in the 20th century took.


I agree.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

A quote from a speech given by Thomas Babington Macaulay, who served as a member of the Supreme Council for India, regarding Indian education and why it should all be conducted in English.

All parties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India, contain neither literary nor scientific information, and are, moreover, so poor and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it will not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be admitted on all sides, that the intellectual improvement of those classes of the people who have the means of pursuing higher studies can at present be effected only by means of some language not vernacular amongst them.

What then shall that language be? One-half of the Committee maintain that it should be the English. The other half strongly recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me to be, which language is the best worth knowing?

I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic.-But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their value. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. The intrinsic superiority of the Western literature is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who support the Oriental plan of education.

From that you can get a sense of where people's minds were in the period.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Abdul:

how is corruption among the East India Company any different from corruption among the Jannesaries?

Are you interested in discussion or picking a fight? I'm interested in the former but not the latter. If you have a point, make it.

 

[Abdul Hadi Pasha]

Don't get me wrong, I like a lot of things about Japan, but some of the things they did in the past were terrible by anyone's standards.


Sargon

To be fair, some of it was a twisted way of imitating Western imperialism.

Interestingly on that subject, Japan and the Ottoman Empire, despite very friendly and cordial relations, had no formal dipomatic relationship until the Republic. This is because the Ottomans would not grant Capitulatory priviledges to Japan (who had no means of making them do so), and the Japanese could not afford to be in an arrangement where they were less than equal to the other powers. Thus all diplomacy was handled informally through one Japanese businessman resident in Istanbul.

 

[Keenir]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Keenir
Abdul:

how is corruption among the East India Company any different from corruption among the Jannesaries?

Are you interested in discussion or picking a fight? I'm interested in the former but not the latter. If you have a point, make it.

your point appears to be that native governments have only the welfare of the people they rule at heart.

yet the Jannesaries looked out for only themselves. (after their first century of loyalty, at least)

and none of the Mughals ended the practices of widow-burning, thugee, or Untouchability.