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Comment by gerdesj | Hacker News Reader

When I got here I saw the girzel thread below, shuddered and then read the article. It is actually well worth reading. It gives a real flavour of going into the great unknown from the perspective of one side, with some pretty decent insights from the other side. I think.

“Grand Choulaa” - this looks to me like the locals taking the piss.

Initially Macartney did not realize that he was supposed to prostrate himself before the emperor. Nor, when it was explained to him, was he willing to do so. Despite his great admiration for the prosperity and civilization of the Qing Empire, he viewed Qianlong as an equal to the king of England

Macartney would never have really considered Quianlong as equal to the King of Britain (England and Scotland became Britain a little earlier). I am also sure that Quianlong's people would have had exactly the same notion in reverse for exactly the same reason.

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Both sides came out of the meeting thinking the other was a bunch of arrogant pricks, and both were kind of right. For the Chinese, they were astonished that a foreign power had the gall to ask for favors while at the same time demanding special treatment without clear justification. For the British, they were astonished that the Chinese were so short-sighted and resolute in their view that they were justifiable global hegemons. The difference is that the British came away realizing that they didn't actually have to put up with it, not with their military prowess.

Undoubtedly, Macartney wanted equality only in the polite diplomatic fiction sense; his demand to have a Chinese official reciprocate to a portrait of King George III had no other purposes than to exalt the achievement of equality to the Chinese. Even had the Qing acquiesced, it would likely have only been a prelude to future downgrading of status.

>Macartney would never have really considered Quianlong as equal to the King of Britain (England and Scotland became Britain a little earlier). I am also sure that Quianlong's people would have had exactly the same notion in reverse for exactly the same reason.

Only one side would be justified, being an ancient civilization (as opposed to a recent-ish tribe that entered written history only after the Roman conquest), and the biggest economy of the world for many millennia...

Neither side would be justified making someone prostrate themselves in front of anyone.

Heads of states should be treat of equals, no matter if one country has been around for a couple of thousands of years, or only a bit over one thousand. Also whether it is a stagnant declining empire being left in the dust by other countries, or one of those countries leaving everyone else in the dust, sound also not matter.

>Heads of states should be treat of equals, no matter if one country has been around for a couple of thousands of years, or only a bit over one thousand.

Well, tell that to the British first...

Our colonial history to paraphrase Orwell was "all countries are created equal, it's just some are more equal than others".

During the age of empires British foreign policy was swaggering arrogance backed up by gun boat diplomacy.

It's weird been British in 2018, we are now a small damp mostly irrelevant island in the North Atlantic.

"It's weird been British in 2018, we are now a small damp mostly irrelevant island in the North Atlantic."

It's always been a bit weird being British - get used to it! As to irrelevance, you might like to reflect on the fact that around two billion people across the world watched a recent marriage in this parish.

Yes it is a bit damp here but on the bright side the weather rarely tries to kill you, nor does the land and nor does the flora and fauna. The nearest thing to a volcano is Castle Rock in Edinburgh OK - Dartmoor int al was formed from a pluton but that was some time ago as well. Our earthquakes are on the sad end of the log base seismic scale. The last tsunami (controversial but there was a major flood) might have been near Bristol and S Wales 100s of years ago. We have precisely one poisonous snake - the adder and they are very rare and keep well away and probably wont even kill you anyway (but it will smart a lot). We have a few poisonous plants but again you would have to be pretty stupid. Funnily enough I had to warn a Floridian about our stinging nettles - they laughed. They stopped laughing after brushing past a patch on a run.

Weird: yep. Irrelevent: no more than anyone else. Damp: I prefer "moist".

The idea that all states (or their heads) are nominally equal is pretty recent. It came from the treaty of Westphalia, ~1650. I'm no expert, but I think that model wasn't really applied to states outside Western Europe until ~20th century.

Given that “China” is an amorphous and ill-defined entity historically and the Quynh Empire only started in 1644... you’re on pretty shaky ground here.

At best you can say that there were civilizations in the China area. But it wasn’t until ~220BC that the area was any sort of unified civilization (under the Qin dynasty).

While that is a couple of hundred years before Britons were unified under the Romans it still makes the Chinese at that time “a recent-ish tribe that entered history only after the Qin conquest”.

At least as much entering history as you appear to be crediting the British Isles - given that it was well known back to 1600BC for its strong tin economy and trading culture. That’s not even including the massive amount of known, detailed, and extensive historical evidence of civilization back to 4400BC (Stonehenge is ~3300BC, FYI).

Now were these things like post-Roman Britain? No, but neither was pre-Qin “China”, instead being a collection of warring competing civilizations... much like the Celtic states in England.

Long story short: you’ve bought into the mythology of China.

>But it wasn’t until ~220BC that the area was any sort of unified civilization (under the Qin dynasty).

We have excellent arts and artifacts and poetry and philosophy of great sophistication from China centuries before that. Whether that was a single state or different kingdoms is as beside the point, as whether e.g. some British poets are English, others Scottish, etc.

Absolutely - I'm not denigrating what the people and civilizations in that area did, I'm saying that the previous statements have heavy qualifiers.

I mean we have records and arts and artifacts in England before it was called that and unified back to the 6th century BC. We have evidence of massive sophisticated construction back to 3300 BC!

But are those "British"? If not then the point about the Qin dynasty is valid. If so then Britain has the same storied history as China (though not the volume of artifacts). It can't be selective standards for each.

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