The Qing Dynasty: China’s Crash Course in Foreign Policy

China is unique among contemporary nations in the longevity of its civilization, boasting thousands of years of history. As a newly powerful China grows more assertive and engaged in the global community, the question of its role in the world becomes more pressing and perplexing. Its history, especially the events to which it assigns significant import, gives context to its present worldview and can help inform U.S. response to Chinese challenges.

Qing China: A Major Chapter in History

One period of great importance in China’s historical memory is the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). A great deal can be learned from the way China’s institutions deftly negotiated this period of immense change. Regarding contemporary developments, even more can be learned from considering how the Chinese people view this time in their history and how it informs China’s unique interpretations of sovereignty, its understanding of global economics, and its jaded view of the rules-based international order.

The Qing Dynasty was China’s last imperial dynasty and spanned nearly three centuries. It was during this dynamic era that China was first exposed to a modern, mercantilist Europe, with its own rules for international relations. It saw Japan, a former tributary state, rise as an economic and military powerhouse during the Meiji Restoration. It experienced a withering of its regional influence that, when considering the scale of China’s history, occurred with dizzying speed.

The Chinese people view this period with pain, as a time when China’s sovereignty was stolen—a time when its legacy as the steward of Asia was tarnished by myopic foreign powers, divvying the nation’s treasure among themselves at the expense of its rightful heirs. For this reason, China refers to the period from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries as its Century of Humiliation. The Chinese view these years as lessons in the necessity of Chinese regional hegemony, the advantages of economic relations defined by dominance, and the importance of dictating the rules that nations play by.

Sovereignty: A New and Troublesome Term

International observers often balk at China’s fluid concept of sovereignty, which seems to change based on convenience and is applied to situations where its relevance is questionable. When challenged on the militarization of the Spratly Islands, for example, China cited its “natural right as a sovereign nation,” despite a lack of international consensus regarding its claims to the islands, many of which were artificially created.¹ Right or wrong, some observers allege a Machiavellian manipulation of the concept of sovereignty without understanding China’s unique relationship to the notion.

China was introduced to the idea of sovereignty centuries after it had been established elsewhere as a diplomatic norm. As sinologist Dr. Sow Keat Tok of the University of Melbourne writes, “A construct of the historical legacy of European Christendom, sovereignty only spread through expansion of the West to other parts of the world. For China, that defining period was the 19th century.”²

The prevailing concept prior to the introduction of sovereignty was tianxia, a sinocentric cosmic order that translates to “all under heaven.” This philosophy recognizes China as the cultural, geographic, and political center of the world. In theory, the entire world was under China’s yoke, and the rest of the world was “civilized” to the extent of its geographic and political proximity to China. In practice, this claim to global hegemony yielded a constellation of tributary states in China’s periphery. It was a huge leap from tianxia to the concept of sovereign nations operating, at least nominally, as equals.

Ironically, the arrival of Europeans introduced sovereignty as a central concept of political philosophy while largely robbing China of its own sovereignty. The infamous Unequal Treaties saw the semivoluntary abdication of much of China’s political and economic autonomy. The Opium Wars and Sino-Japanese Wars further eroded China’s influence and leverage as a negotiating partner in this new treaty-based system.³ China suffered a loss of both prestige and real territory, including control of Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Informed by these experiences, and key to China’s perception of sovereignty, is the idea that potential threats to China’s sovereignty are explicit threats to its sovereignty. A fear of enclosure is central to China’s foreign policy and national security calculus. China is surrounded by countries, with virtually all of which it has had conflicts. Some level of control over these neighboring countries always has meant the difference between chaos and prosperity, and therefore China reacts to perceived threats preemptively and aggressively.

The Qing Dynasty revealed three key regions as harbingers of Chinese power or subjugation: Taiwan, Korea, and Hong Kong. China views these regions, all of which left its sphere of control during the late Qing Dynasty, as barometers of China’s exposure to foreign dominance. The British gained control of Hong Kong in 1841, technically through the Convention of Chuenpi but much to the chagrin of the imperial court. Both Taiwan and Korea were ceded to Japan following China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95.

To put it simply, China views dominance of its periphery, especially maritime periphery, as both an extension of its sovereignty and protection thereof. China interprets its recent history as proof that these three regions determine the balance of power and give foreign nations a foothold from which to displace its role as the Asian center of political gravity. For this reason, China does not consider itself a fully sovereign nation while there is a foreign presence in these regions.

China’s interpretation of sovereignty informs three conjectures:

1. China likely will accelerate integration of Hong Kong into its political system beyond the parameters agreed to in the Sino-British Joint Declaration, as evidenced by China’s further crackdown on Hong Kong’s democracy and steady implementation of Mandarin as the province’s language.⁴
2. China will continue to defy pleas from the United States and the rest of the world to “crack down” on North Korea as long at the United States maintains a significant presence on the peninsula.
3. China will never recognize Taiwan’s status as an independent political entity.

The third point likely is of greatest interest to the world. China will not consider its rise from the ashes of foreign dominance complete until full territorial integrity is restored. China’s monolithic historical context gives it unusual patience in foreign affairs, but it will continue to ratchet up pressure in an effort to annex Taiwan. This partly is due to Taiwan’s strategic significance, but largely it is because an independent Taiwan, with its close military ties to the United States and its history as a Chinese sovereign, is viewed as a symbol of continued foreign subjugation and Chinese weakness.

A Mercantilist in Communist’s Clothing

Into the 1800s, China was an unrivaled economic power in terms of sheer size. As Henry Kissinger notes in his 2011 book, On China, “As late as 1820, [China] produced over 30 percent of the world GDP—an amount exceeding the GDP of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and the United States combined.”⁵

China, however, was behind the curve regarding the contemporary machinations of global trade. The prevailing economic system in Europe was mercantilism. Mercantilism is a variant of capitalism that views trade as a quasi-zero-sum game in which the nation that exports more has the upper hand, effectively exploiting the other nation over time. By the early 19th century, Europe was fully engaged in brutal competition for trade surplus, and China was pulled into this economic battle with little prior knowledge. The result was catastrophic for China. Coerced treaties, of which China was skeptical to begin with, caused its capital base to dwindle as European nations enjoyed increasing leverage over the nation.⁶

China views the Century of Humiliation as a traumatic semester at the Mercantilist School of Hard Knocks. The main lesson: The country with the larger economy, that exports more, is the winner; the other country is the loser. This idea currently dominates the discourse of both of the world’s largest economies, with the Unites States subscribing more and more to the idea as well. 

China’s infrastructure deals in foreign countries certainly display a mercantilist bent. They typically follow the model of infrastructure projects in return for debt or natural resources. The deals normally are carried out by state-owned Chinese companies, and the labor is virtually all Chinese. An interesting case study is the Port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka, a debt-financed port constructed by China that, following a default on the debt, it acquired under a 100-year lease.⁷ This is becoming a common trope in Chinese investment stories and bears a striking resemblance to British control of Hong Kong.

China as a mercantilist adherent can shed light on the question U.S. pundits have been asking since the Nixon administration: As China develops and joins the global trade order, will it adhere to international norms on trade policy? Since the opening of China, conventional U.S. wisdom generally has answered yes. However, based on historical evidence, the answer is no. China will continue to use all available levers to ensure a favorable trade relationship with its partners, defined by trade surplus, disproportionate influence, and net capital outflows. As with its notion of sovereignty, China will not cede its perceived national interest to any international rules-based order, with regard to trade or anything else.

Who Made the Rules?

This brings us to the crux of the Chinese worldview. Both trade and territorial disputes, key areas of conflict between the United States and China, relate to a key Chinese idea: China loses if it adheres to an international system in whose creation it had little part. In the 18th century, European powers arrived in China with a set of international norms based on equality among nations. Although in practice the system was exploitative and favored the more powerful party in any negotiation, there was a set of norms agreed to by participating states. It was a system marked by treaties, negotiations, and nominal equality, in stark contrast to China’s historic tianxia paradigm. This system, both objectively and in the view of contemporary Chinese scholars, took Qing China for a ride.

A century later, a new rules-based international order rose from the ashes of World War II. From the United Nations to the Bretton-Woods System, China once again found itself looking on as the new rules were written. While the United States championed free trade, a stable monetary system, and a departure from the colonial model, China was grappling with a civil war from which the emerging victor was ardently opposed to the United States and its philosophy.

As a result, China often shows contempt for the United Nations’ authority and strongly favors bilateral solutions to disputes with neighboring countries. A well-known example is its rejection of the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s 2016 ruling regarding its claims in the South China Sea. While the ruling found in favor of the Philippines, China declared that it would not affect China’s “territorial sovereignty and marine rights,” while affirming its commitment to resolving the dispute directly with the Philippines.⁸ Tearing a page out of the 19th-century European mercantilist playbook, China seeks to be on the winning side of any Unequal Treaty.

Fool me Once . . . 

The late Qing Dynasty was a difficult time for China, both as a state and as a cohesive cultural entity. The scars of this period have had a lasting impact on Chinese memory and the country’s views of the modern world. Specifically, China has demonstrated a preference for mercantilism and bilateral dispute settlement and a distrust in an international order it did not help create.

Rather than a contempt for the dynamics at play during the Qing Dynasty, China today displays a desire to apply those same dynamics from the dominant side. As a result of this historical context, one can expect China to continue to define and protect sovereignty based on perceived national interests, to pursue trade surpluses and economic dominance with its trade partners, and to circumvent the rules-based international order in favor of negotiating unilaterally from a position of strength.