What is the real rise of great powers?
Text | Qin Hui
A brief history of the evolution of modern great powers
What is a big country in the modern sense? Ancient Ottoman, ancient Rome, ancient China? Neither. England, right? Yes But Britain is a weak country, with few resources and a small population. Anyone who knows a little about European history knows that Britain was once a bully.
The arrival of the era of great navigation has changed the previous rules.
In the past, not only ancient China, but also other places were dominated by "land civilization", and local resources and population were the key to a country's prosperity. In the East, ancient China has always been a well-deserved leader. At the junction of Eurasia, there are ancient Greece, ancient Rome and ancient Arab Empire. In particular, the Arab Empire with Islamic civilization is not only vast in territory, but also prosperous for a long time. There was a brief confrontation with the Tang Dynasty Empire in the east, but neither the Tang Dynasty nor Arabia was interested in it. Because the climate, resources and geography of Central Asia are not very attractive.
Because of geographical factors, the Arab Empire had limited contact with ancient China and few direct imperial conflicts, but it fought several wars with the West. However, later, like Daming and Qing in ancient China, they closed their doors to the outside world. When the Ottoman Empire of Islamic civilization conquered Constantinople, Islamic civilization reached an extremely strong peak, but it also completely closed the trade channels between East and West.
It is against this background that European countries are forced to go to sea. Otherwise, why can Columbus, who has no background, fool the royal aristocrats of western European countries to contribute money again and again?
When the new American continent was discovered, the rules of the world changed. Since then, local resources and population are no longer the key to national prosperity. The resources of the new world are like the plug-ins of the game, and the golden fingers that get the plug-ins are the navy and merchant ships: this has created small world powers such as Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Britain. However, China and Islamic countries in West Asia have fallen behind, and the balance of power in the world has changed since then.
Because the ocean is too big to be crossed by manpower alone, marine civilization has a great feature: extroversion and cooperation. This has led to the rapid development of technology and finance-this development model has no secrets, only thinking, and the rapid rise of Japan in the East lies in its integration with the thinking of marine civilization.
As a result, in the fierce competition, the capital, science and technology and social development of these European countries have gradually surpassed the Islamic civilization of China in East Asia and Central Asia. The backward American civilization and African civilization have been tragically extinct-the American continent has become the back garden of Europeans, and now South America basically speaks Portuguese, while North America is basically descended from Britain and France, especially the United States, which is mainly descended from Britain, and has become the biggest beneficiary of the development of marine civilization-in the process of hegemony between Britain and France, the United States, as a pawn in France's global strategy, eventually replaced Britain and France.
With the rise of the United States, Russia has also risen. Russia, which is also far behind by the west, has a great leader-Peter the Great. He didn't stand still like the monarchs of ancient China and Islamic civilization, but went to the West to study marine civilization and technology. On the issue of sea passage, the most prominent player who often fights day and night is our northern neighbor Russia. In order to get the road to the ocean, get an ice-free port and become a maritime country, we have to move the capital, invade, annex, cheat and cooperate by all means. You go and see the history of St. Petersburg, Sevastopol, Tallinn and Dalian, all of which are related to it.
1840 when the door of the Qing dynasty was knocked open, it was faced with the British empire that had developed into the steam engine era. The world's first power in the era of land civilization is vulnerable to the world's first power in the era of marine civilization-although the GDP of the Qing Empire once accounted for half of the world.
The earth was carved up, the development of traditional maritime powers such as Britain and France slowed down, and the popularization of science and technology made the unified Germany aggressive. The world began to change again.
When the plug-in of geographical discovery fails, the golden key of navy and merchant fleet becomes less dazzling, and technology becomes the strongest competitiveness. Whoever climbs higher in science and technology and wins in high-end technology will have a little advantage. At this time, the resources, population and land in the agricultural era have become important again-provided that the concept is updated and the world view of marine civilization is possessed.
The development of Germany needs more resources, and the monopolists of earth resources such as Britain and France suppressed Germany, and finally the war broke out. The biggest beneficiaries are the United States and Russia-a typical "struggle between snipes and mussels, and the fisherman gains."
Although Britain and France won the first world war, the price was huge. The United States and Russia, two countries with vast territory and leading technology, have begun to show their potential.
World War I put the United States and the British Empire on an equal footing, and World War II completely reduced the British Empire to a second-rate country. When Europe was defeated, the colonies that enjoyed exclusive resources and markets naturally disappeared. Under the guise of free trade, Britain, France and the Netherlands, once maritime powers, lost their territorial resources and population, and their former glory is gone forever.
The United States took the opportunity to acquire European talent technology. What really made the United States far surpass other countries was the Cold War.
Technology needs not only capital, but also demand. When the United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony, the United States gained wealth by controlling global trade and monetary power. The crisis stimulated demand and finally developed high-end technology far beyond other countries. The Soviet Union also developed high-end technology second only to the United States, but the cost was too high, the economy was unbalanced and eventually disintegrated.
The other two victims of the Cold War were Britain and France: in the name of the Cold War, the United States completely wiped out the global power of Britain and France and monopolized the whole earth except the Soviet Union and China. At this time, Germany had restrained itself, but Japan, which took refuge under the wings of the United States, developed rapidly and became one of the world's technological powers. In the 1990 s, he even said that he would buy America, but it was made by his American father and he never changed his mind. You know, Japan is not an independent country yet, and its every move is closely monitored by the United States.
In addition to the United States, another big beneficiary of the Cold War was China, which, like the United States, benefited from the hegemony between Britain and France. China has kept its territory, population and resources in troubled times, and the only difference is science and technology-we have long been aware of this. Since 1949, we haven't relaxed our climbing skills. As long as we climb faster, it may not take much time to go from a century of humiliation to a superpower.
In short, it is still too early to say that it is a real world power, but China is already on the road to becoming a power.
What is the real rise of great powers?
As we all know, there are many great powers throughout the ages, and there are also many empires throughout the ages. They always span Europe, Asia and Africa, and there are many such stories in history. However, the TV series "The Rise of Great Powers" did not choose these great powers in history. My understanding is that this TV series aims to examine the rise of great powers from a modern perspective, so it does not put these ancient military powers into this perspective.
In other words, it is worth studying whether some big countries are big countries in modern vision. For example, at the beginning of modernization, in Europe, Asia and Africa, a big country, the Ottoman Empire, rose at that time. As we know, the rise of the Ottoman Empire with Islamic civilization almost coincided with the great geographical discovery in the West and the era of great navigation. Moreover, the occupation of Byzantium by Turkey in 1453 has always been regarded as the two major signs of the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern times in European traditional historiography.
As we all know, today's history books understand medieval and modern times as changes in social forms, from feudal society to capitalist society, so we set its dividing line at the British Revolution. But according to the traditional European concept, they did not have the concept of the evolution of social forms at that time. In traditional European historiography, the so-called Middle Ages refers to before Byzantium was occupied by Turks. The fall of Byzantium and the discovery of the New World are the beginning of modern times and the end of the Middle Ages. That is to say, this incident is very important, and from the fall of Byzantium in 1453 to the most severe expansion of the Ottoman Empire in17th century, it has been hitting the door of Vienna, which can be said to occupy a large part of West Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, forming a great empire across Europe, Asia and Africa. It can be said that the maritime hegemony of Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands and the land hegemony of Ottoman are two things that coexist.
But in the series "The Rise of Great Powers", Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands are talked about, and Turkey is not talked about. According to my understanding, this is because the editor thinks that the expansion of the Ottoman Empire is essentially the same as the expansion of these military empires in pre-modern times, that is to say, it is basically a type of traditional military empire similar to the Persian Empire, the Arab Empire and the Mongolian Empire, and there is no modern significance of the rise of the so-called western, Portuguese and Dutch countries.
Why is the Ottoman Empire a traditional big country, and later rising countries such as Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands are modern big countries? I think there are two main differences. One lies in the influence of the founding "system" on the world and future generations. Simply put, it is the significance embodied by the establishment of modern social systems, including economic systems. But more importantly, we know that the key to evaluating the quality of a system is what people get from it. First of all, it lies in the relationship between China and its people, and of course its own people. Many people say that in the process of the rise of western powers, the conquered and the invaded suffered a lot, and we in China certainly have a deep understanding of this. But in the exaggeration of the traditional military empire, this situation is also very serious, even worse, which is not the difference between modern and traditional. There are many bullying facts in modern colonial expansion, including the expansion of ancient military empires, including Genghis Khan's generation, which we often mention. Power politics has existed since ancient times, not in modern times.
But what is the difference between modern times? The first is the institutional background I just mentioned, and the second is the relationship that this system brings to the people. First, it refers to the relationship it brought to its own people-the suffering that colonial conquest brought to the conquered areas is another problem.
Now discuss the rise of great powers, what will our people get? In this regard, I would like to say that under a certain social system and a certain system, a country's strength will certainly benefit its citizens, but we cannot conversely say that citizens of a country can only benefit when the country and territory are in a period of great expansion. We have seen many examples in history, that is, under this national-oriented institutional arrangement, the country can benefit from expanding its nationals, and the country can still benefit from stopping expanding its nationals. Therefore, in this sense, the rise and fall of so-called great powers is not just the size of territory and the strength of force. The most important thing is how much people's rights, welfare and interests can be improved.
On this issue, I think the great powers listed in the movie The Rise of Great Powers are quite interesting. For example, many commentators have suggested that some of these countries mentioned in The Rise of Great Powers are hardly big countries, such as the Netherlands, whether in terms of force or national territory. Holland has always been a small country. Some people say that Spain and Portugal are also small, but they have huge colonies, but even in this sense, the Netherlands is hardly a big country. Although the Netherlands has expanded overseas, to be honest, it is still quite limited.
The truly meaningful colony in Dutch history is the central Netherlands India, which is today's Indonesia. Of course, some places have been occupied in history, but few places can be stably occupied, such as the Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands Guiana. Although we say that the Netherlands has maritime hegemony, it mainly refers to commercial hegemony. As far as war is concerned, the Dutch are actually very bad.
China people have a deep understanding of this, because it was our China people who drove the Dutch away, not the Qing army, but Zheng Chenggong who was driven to the sea by the Qing army. Zheng Chenggong is a maritime business group, and this power is based on maritime business power. Was Zheng Chenggong's army strong at that time? We know it is not strong. He is untenable on the mainland. To tell the truth, if he could stand on the mainland, he wouldn't fight Taiwan Province Province. At that time, it was because the anti-Qing campaign in mainland China was defeated, and the base areas were only Jinmen and Xiamen, which were already in jeopardy. However, such an army, which has been repeatedly defeated in the mainland, defeated the Netherlands at sea.
Holland lost to Zheng Chenggong in East Asia, and so did other places.
Today's new york, whose earliest name was New Amsterdam, was defeated by Holland and soon became new york. If the Netherlands is a big country, it is not in the military sense, let alone in the sense of territorial population. Even the Dutch do not have a strong sense of the motherland. Dutch immigrants to a place often don't have much concept of the motherland. Typical examples are these Dutch who went to Africa. Soon after they went to Africa, they called themselves "Africans" and their language was "African dialect". But we know that they are actually Dutch South Africans, and others call them "Boers". There is a "Boer goat" in the sheep industry in China, which is a very famous breed and cultivated by these "Boer people". These people never said they were Dutch. Soon after they arrived in South Africa, they left their motherland and established their own country. They were very United and fought many wars for Britain. In the end, Britain made great efforts to defeat them. However, it is strange to say that although the Boer country has been defeated and has since perished, the Boers in British South Africa can still be said to be masters of their own affairs, while the British South Africans have always been relatively weak.
I want to interject here. Some of our current history books interpret "Ying Bu War" as an imperialist war between Britain and the Netherlands for South Africa. I think this formulation is a bit puzzling. It can be said that Britain is fighting for South Africa, and the Netherlands is not here to fight for South Africa. There are a group of Dutch people, but these Dutch people don't admit that they are Dutch nationals at all.
Therefore, the Netherlands can't be called a big country either from the mainland or from the sphere of influence. What makes us say that the Netherlands is a big country? But there is no doubt that the Netherlands was undoubtedly a great country with world influence at that time, and it should be said that it is still like this until now. Not only some systems created by the Dutch, such as joint-stock companies, joint-stock companies and joint-stock provinces, have great influence on later generations and far-reaching commercial power, but also their cultural influence has been widely spread around the world, so that Japanese Lan Xue has long been synonymous with western learning and all modern knowledge.
Moreover, there is a very interesting phenomenon. China people's translation of barbarians is often regarded as a derogatory term, but there are some good words in modern times, such as Britain, the United States and Germany, which are all positive translations. Some people say that the Ming Dynasty actually has a more positive formulation, referring to the Netherlands. I want to say that the translation of Holland was not popular in China at that time. Just look at the Ming history. In the history of the Ming Dynasty, today's Holland is not called Holland, but a country with red hair. What really called Holland was the Japanese at that time and the later Qing people. The Qing government joined forces with the Netherlands to fight against Zheng Chenggong. At that time, the Dutch were enemies of Zheng Chenggong, but they were allies of the Qing Dynasty. So the Qing Dynasty introduced Holland, a beautiful name, Lotus and Orchid, from the Japanese into Chinese, but no one said so in the Ming Dynasty, and there was no such name in the Ming history.
I mainly talked about the influence of the Netherlands in the world at that time, so that in Japan, the Netherlands was regarded as synonymous with the West. Now, according to the rise of great powers, the hegemony of the Netherlands has long since ended. However, although the hegemony of the Netherlands has long ended, today's Netherlands is still a rich and civilized country, still admired by the world, and the Dutch people's national and national pride is no less than in the past.
There are some interesting countries, such as Sweden.
Sweden is very interesting. At the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Sweden's military and political power was once very strong. At that time, it was probably second only to Britain in Europe, comparable to Russia, and defeated Russia several times. During this period, it has defeated many powerful countries in Europe, including Russia, Poland, Denmark and Germany. As we all know, Germany was not unified at that time. At that time, some governors in Germany were more powerful, such as Austria and Proust.
At that time, the Baltic Sea was called Lake Sweden because the whole Baltic Sea was conquered by Sweden. The Swedish army once pushed Moscow, turned Poland into its vassal, intervened in the succession of the Austrian throne, swept Europe and Asia, and fought against Peter the Great in poltava, Ukraine. But in the end, Sweden was defeated here, and the king did not escape to Sweden, but finally fled to Turkey, which is very close to Turkey, and their army was far away from Sweden because of expansion.
The poltava War ended Sweden's military hegemony, but before poltava, Sweden had great military and political power, which can be said to be a big country. But at that time, Sweden had no place among the people of the world, but 1708, poltava was defeated and the king fled to Turkey. The peace treaty signed after the war made Sweden lose ground and its hegemony completely collapsed, and it never recovered. Sweden's position in world civilization really rose after that. After the defeat, Sweden abolished the autocratic system, opened a famous "free era" in Swedish history, and established a modern social system with political stability and social harmony that was at the forefront of Europe.
Under the support of this system, Sweden has no colonies and no sphere of influence. Now some people say that the western powers started by plundering colonies. I want to say here that the plundering of colonies does occupy a certain position in primitive accumulation of capital, which is undeniable. But it should be said that this is not the most important factor, because many modern industrialized countries have no colonies, including Germany and of course Sweden. Sweden has no colony and no sphere of influence, but its industrialization has come from behind, and its per capita output value and income now even surpass Britain and the United States, making it one of the highest countries in the world. Needless to say, Swedish culture is the highest prize in almost all disciplines in the world, except mathematics.
Does anyone in Sweden today miss the glory of the great king before poltava's defeat? Of course, but very few. The glory and pride of Swedes today can be compared with their subjects in those days. So I said that as long as the citizens of a country can really stand up and the country is strong, they are standing. Even in the so-called national decline period, Sweden and the Netherlands as hegemony can be said to have declined, but their nationals still have dignity.
Of course, after the baptism of marine civilization, a modern social system and a strong country will bring national dignity, which is no problem. But in the past, autocracy was not like this. On the contrary, the people are even more humiliated because the country is strong. Just look at the history yourself, so I won't talk about it here. I think this is the biggest difference between "marine civilization" and "land civilization" and the biggest progress.