A study of the genesis and transformation of the narratives about the conflict between China and Western countries

Koshmarov Mikhail ORCID: 0000-0001-6166-5186 PhD in Technical Science Director for the Development of Innovative Technologies, Russian Social Business Promotion Centre 101000, Russia, Moscow, Luchnikov, 2 mk69@ya.ru Other publications by this author

Gongs and drums, banners and flags allow the army to hear with one ear 

and to see with one eye – this is how a common understanding arises in the troops. 

The art of war. Sun Tzu. ^{[1, p. 68]}

The contradictions between China and the United States, which have become increasingly apparent in the last decade, allow us to talk about this confrontation in a broader sense. This determines the expediency and relevance of the study of the genesis and development of conflicts between China and Western countries. It is generally recognized that the beginning of this conflict was the demands of British traders to compensate for losses in connection with the confiscation and destruction of an industrial batch of opium, after the official ban on the importation of this narcotic substance into China, which eventually led to three Opium wars. Although the name of these wars speaks for itself, there is a certain narrative about the causes of these wars, which includes a message about China's rejection of the progressive British free trade system. Or in other words: the isolationism of archaic China, as an excuse for British aggression. The conflict with the "progressive Western civilization" has cost China dearly. More than a hundred years of chaos of Chinese statehood ended only in the second half of the twentieth century. The final conflict of this period can well be called the Korean War, where the West was represented mainly by US army troops, and more than a million Chinese fighters fought on the side of North Korea (many times more than Koreans) ^{[2, p. 105]}. The events preceding the Opium Wars and the Korean War will be discussed in this article, including through the optics of propaganda theory. The article will also consider more subtle mechanisms and technologies for introducing propaganda narratives to specified target groups.

Background and development of the conflict between the Chinese and British Empires

The colonization of the Dutch and British East India Companies was a reflection of the then European political economic paradigm. It can be said that mercantilism, as it was called by critics (A. Smith, among others), was the ideology of these first TNCs. From the point of view of European international relations, mercantilism, according to M. Foucault, was based on three pillars: enrichment through monetary accumulation, strengthening through population growth, competition with other major players. ^{[3, p.108]} 

Regarding the root causes of British aggression against China, there is a propaganda narrative, the deconstruction of which is one of the purposes of this article. The starting point of this narrative is the arrival in Beijing in 1793 of the embassy of Lord Macartney (Macartney Embassy) and the corresponding correspondence between King George III and Emperor Canlong. There are at least three interpretations of this correspondence, which will be discussed below.

To begin with, it is necessary to briefly describe the background of this conflict, taking into account the historical, political and economic context. Employees of the British East India Company (EIC) understood mercantilism primarily as the maximum accumulation of gold and silver, which is possible only in the case of positive trade balances. But for centuries, since ancient times, spices of the East and later tea and in general all Oriental goods were exchanged only for silver, and not for European goods. Such a negative trade balance caused an outflow of silver, which was unacceptable from the point of view of the mercantilist concept. The idea was to organize a scheme that would guarantee the concentration of values in the metropolis. This was achieved with India only a hundred years after the opening of the first trade missions on the island of Bombay, donated by the Portuguese in 1662, and only after the organization of the civil war. China was significantly different from India and here the task for the British was much more difficult. According to Fernand Braudel, China in the 18th century was a world economy that surpassed the British Empire in both population and GDP. ^{[4, pp. 449-551]} This is a well-known fact today, confirmed by both economists and historians, Braudel can act as a benchmark here, as one of the most meticulous researchers, time-tested, who collected and analyzed a huge array of data. The Chinese Empire with thousands of years of tradition, with centralized and efficiently organized management and meritocratic elevators, with a well-developed transport infrastructure, including a complex network of canals, was huge on the scale of Europe, in area and in mono-national population. The political structure of China, according to the classification of Plato and Aristotle, is the most effective for public administration: the monarchy. 

Although there was a certain cyclical specificity here. The change of dynasties did not occur often, but turbulently: the weakening of the state for any reason plunged the country into chaos; curbing chaos legitimized the next dynasty. The transit of power within dynasties took place taking into account meritocratic principles, the legitimacy of power was based not on elections, but on a certain metaphysical entity called the Command of Heaven. 

The Command of Heaven or the Heavenly Mandate is the concept of the legitimacy of supreme power in China, was formulated around 1000 BC and became the basis of Chinese ideology and political philosophy. The concept of the Heavenly Mandate is widely used in Western scientific literature about China, in particular, in the widely cited book by Henry Kissinger, which we will discuss in more detail below. 

According to Confucius, the Divine Heaven gives the command, the mandate to rule the emperor. In case of improper performance of authority duties, Heaven can take away the mandate and transfer it to a worthy one. A quote from Confucius would be quite appropriate to illustrate here. "Yao said: Oh you, Shun! The heaven-appointed succession of power has fallen on you. In matters of management, stick firmly to the middle. If the people within the four seas experience hardships, then you will forever lose the blessing of Heaven." ^{[5, p. 163.]} That is, the Command of heaven is the confidence of both the elites and the masses that the most worthy person is at the head of the state, whom Heaven (a higher power, deity) has endowed with grace, including economic and military-political luck and at the same time appointed a conductor of this grace to spread to every member of society. It should be noted that the same understanding of the concept of supreme power in China has been preserved to this day. Harmony and harmony in society is a grace bestowed by Heaven. Granted because the leader of the Celestial Empire is recognized by Heaven as worthy of this grace. 

Consequently, the protester /dissenter himself, by default, "disconnects" from the channel through which Heavenly grace flows, which significantly exceeds the limits of the material. The antithesis of grace in the Chinese understanding is chaos. A sign of the loss of such a mandate is a series of failures. The huge size of the country ensured its economic self–sufficiency - everything necessary was produced in China and most of what was produced could be sold inside China. Highly educated elites, guided by the traditional unified policy towards foreigners, clearly understood the importance of a positive trade balance and the danger of dependence on foreign goods. The export of goods was organized through the only port of Canton (Guangzhou) under the close supervision of government officials. In fact, the state-owned Gunhan Trading Corporation was monopolistically engaged in export-import. The state interest conditioned the maintenance of a positive trade balance, and therefore only silver was accepted for payment, while preventing foreign goods from entering China's domestic markets, so as not to create unnecessary desires and needs among the common population and not to stimulate excessive consumption and luxury. 

Moreover, the Confucian ethical and philosophical traditions of China place honor, justice and tradition above any commercial success. 

The methods of the British caused the Chinese to despise "barbarians", "low people", who always need to be shown their place and "receive tribute from them", rather than cooperate on equal terms.  As well as the outflow of silver, this could not be accepted by the colonialists, proud of their victories, who saw the Chinese and Indians standing a step below themselves. The schemes by which the British managed to corrupt and conquer India were not effective in monolithic China. In addition, the Chinese themselves, at the first opportunity, tried to enslave, Sinalize the aliens using the method of the "five temptations". The five temptations of aliens are: "Give them... fine clothes and carriages to bribe their eyesight; give them delicious food to bribe their mouths; give music and women to bribe their ears; provide them with large houses, granaries and slaves to bribe their bellies. [...] As for those who want to surrender, the emperor will show them favor and He will arrange an imperial reception in their honor, where the emperor will personally serve them wine and food to bribe their minds. This is what can be called the five temptations" ^{[6, p.37]} In this situation, the EIC found a rather radical solution. It is difficult to assume that it was originally planned to make a quarter of the country's population addicted to opium, rather they acted step by step. At first, according to a template, trying to organize a triangular trade, and then, after seeing more than "300% profit", aggressively developing the success of the drug trade. (300% is a reference to Marx, who quoted the work of Thomas Dunning: "at 300 percent, there is no crime that he [Capital] would not risk, at least on pain of the gallows." ^{[7 , p. 36.]}) 

Over time, the opium trade proved to be a very effective means of undermining Chinese statehood and became part of the EIC's long-term strategy. The prohibitive measures taken by China have led to retaliatory actions by British traders: organizing large-scale smuggling and bribery. Which both corrupted officials and corrupted the people, causing an erosion of consent in society. At the same time, by weakening China with drug trafficking, the British were preparing for war, waiting for the most favorable moment. The described planned and centralized drug trafficking of the British began in the XVIII century, gradually gaining momentum. For example, Adam Smith in his main book on the causes of the wealth of nations published in 1776. describes the EIC opium business as a well-established part of the colonial economy. The quote will give interesting details: "The British company has not yet managed to install such a perfect destructive system in Bengal. But their management system was characterized by exactly the same tendency. As I was assured, it often happened that the boss, i.e. the chief clerk of a trading post, ordered a peasant to plow a blooming poppy field and sow it with rice or some other cereal. The pretext was to warn of a shortage of food, but the actual reason was the desire to give the boss the opportunity to sell at a better price the large amount of opium he had on hand. In other cases, an order of the opposite nature was given, and a good field of rice or other bread was plowed to give way to a poppy plantation; this was done when the chief envisaged the possibility of obtaining an extremely large profit from opium." ^{[8, p. 603.]} 

At the same time, Smith was by no means an apologist for China, rather on the contrary, he wrote in particular that the Chinese show little respect for foreign trade, despise foreign merchants, the country is at a standstill ^{[8, p.124]}, and the living conditions of the lower strata of the people are so difficult that "as they say" in large cities"children are left on the street or drowned like puppies in the river." ^{[8, p.641]} Smith's remark "as claimed" without reference to the source indicates his desire of a real scientist to double-check this information, since they could not be accurate for the simple reason that at the end of the XVIII century, the British and foreigners in general were not allowed in Chinese cities. (With very few exceptions in the form of the Russian Orthodox mission in Beijing.)

The first Opium War of 1840-1842 ended with the defeat of China, which seemed absolutely impossible to the Emperor and his advisers; they were forced to sign a humiliating peace, but did not fully realize the scale of the conflict. This was not the end of the war, but its beginning. All the serious problems for the Chinese Empire were ahead.

The Nanjing Peace Treaty of 1842 opened the gates to the invasion of traders and missionaries. Next, the British began to act according to a proven scheme – they calculated the political gap, figuring out that China is ruled by the militant national minority of the Manchus, the northeastern people of China, who picked up the falling power, replacing the previous Ming Dynasty, decaying under the influence of eunuchs. The Manchus once stopped the chaos that had begun in the country, observed Confucian traditions, followed the ritual, proclaimed the new Qin Dynasty, significantly improved the economic situation in the country and thereby ensured their legitimacy, that is, they certainly possessed the Heavenly command. ^{[9, pp. 714-719]} But still, the Manchus are not the titular nation of China – Han, which means there are always more questions for them. (The Han nationality has always made up the vast majority of the Chinese population, today it is more than 90%). Thus, there was a high probability that the people would accept their rule conditionally, before the first serious problems. Having created political and/or economic chaos, it was possible to count on the fact that the situation of discontent could be escalated to riots and further, combined with an alternative ideology, inflamed to the scale of civil war.

One of the causes of riots and civil wars is a sharp demographic growth and, as a result, a youth age disparity, i.e. the dominance of the 15-25 age group in society, which can be conditionally called "unsettled". As in the whole world, in the period 1790-1850, the population of China grew significantly: from 300 to 430 million people. ^{[9, p.577]} Accordingly, the number of unsettled youth has increased by a multiple. The work of Protestant missionaries was started even before the first opium War and as a result there was a translation of the Bible into Chinese published in 1835, with Protestant commentaries. The author of the translation is a certain Lutheran Karl Gutzlaf. After the opium War, the number of Protestant missionaries increased, but there was a political connotation to their activities. The syncretic Protestant-Taoist-Buddhist, totalitarian sect of Hong Xiuquan became the source of an armed uprising against the current government. The leader of the sect proclaimed himself emperor of the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping Tianguo and led the uprising of 1850, which escalated into a 13-year civil war, which killed tens of millions of people. After waiting for China to weaken as much as possible, the British (and their allies in the Crimean War, the French) decided that it was time to finish off the ancient empire. The second 1856-1858 and the third 1859-1560. The opium wars dealt China a blow that marked the beginning of a long period of the fall of Chinese statehood: rebellions, lost local wars, loss of control over limitrophic territories, revolutions, the abdication of the Empress, occupation, civil wars, multimillion human losses. China managed to fully recover from the British knockout only by the second half of the twentieth century. The period 1842-1945. In China, it is officially called the century of unequal treaties or the century of humiliation. 

Macartney Embassy

The beginning of such a hybrid war of the British Empire against the Chinese Empire should probably be counted most correctly from the arrival in 1793 of the embassy of Lord Macartney (Macartney Embassy), who brought a letter from King George III and a reply from Emperor Canlong. As mentioned above, there are at least three interpretations of this correspondence. Lord Macartney acted as an intermediary in this case. King George III suffered from periodic mental disorders and is therefore better known as "mad George" or "the mad King". Emperor Canlun is the most successful emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The period of his reign is called the High Qing era or High Qing era, meaning that the Chinese Empire reached the peak of territorial and economic power under Canlong.

 A variant of the correspondence, indirectly justifying the subsequent actions of the British to destroy Chinese statehood, is cited by Henry Kissinger in the aforementioned book "On China", published in 2011. In the chapter "Ceremonial Issues and the Opium Wars", Kissinger retells, selectively quotes, comments and interprets this correspondence, referring to the following primary source first published in 1999: Cheng P. Lestz M. The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection. ^[10] The book has not been translated into Russian. 

According to Kissinger, the Chinese mockingly insulted both the ambassador and the King, and the ideas of Enlightenment and free global trade that noble Britain brought to the peoples of the world. The second interpretation under consideration belongs to Arnold Toynbee, who considered the victory of the Anglo-Saxon Protestants "the greatest tragedy for humanity" ^{[11, p.136]} 

Moreover, Toynbee, following Nikolai Yakovlevich Danilevsky, argued that the unification of the world on the basis of the Western economic system and considering the history of mankind as the history of Europe is an erroneous paradigm, referring specifically to China as the oldest and largest civilization in the world that preserved both language and statehood and competed on equal terms with Europe until the wars with Britain. Also, Samuel Huntington, in his magnus opus "Clash of Civilizations", quite correctly pointed out the correct approach of Arnold Toynbee – not to consider the West as a universal civilization: "What for the West is universalism, for the rest is imperialism." ^{[12, p. 282]} 

According to Toynbee, the Emperor politely and diplomatically refused the ambassadors' request to bring goods from Europe to China. A big quote would be appropriate here: "Laughter is the best medicine, so let's see how funny the "Anglo–Saxon manner" looks when meeting other people. Here, for example, is an excerpt from an official letter that was handed over by the philosophically minded Jianlong Emperor to the British envoy for transmission to his patron, the feeble-minded King of Britain George III in 1793: "You, O king, live beyond many seas; nevertheless, driven by a humble desire to contribute to the good of our civilization, you sent a mission with with your loyal message… I found in him a noble self-deprecation that deserves high praise. Considering the fact that your Ambassador and representative have come a long way with the memorandum and gifts, I have given them the highest honor by allowing them to attend the reception. To show them my favor, I hosted a dinner in their honor and generously gifted them... As for your request to accredit them to my heavenly Court in order to control trade with China, it is contrary to the practice of my Dynasty and is hardly feasible… Even if, as you claim, reverence for our Divine Dynasty inspires you with a desire to familiarize yourself with our civilization, then our ceremonies and laws are so different from yours that even if your messenger learns any of them, you still will not be able to instill them in your alien soil for us. Therefore, no matter how learned your messenger is, nothing will come of it. Governing the whole world, I pursue one goal, namely: to preserve good governance and fulfill my duty to the State. I am not interested in other people's and expensive goals. If I ordered you to accept the gifts you sent, O King, it was only because they were sent from afar. The royal virtue of our Dynasty has penetrated into all the countries of the Celestial Empire, and the kings of all nations send us their gifts by land and sea. We have everything, and your ambassador can testify to that. I do not attach much importance to exotic or primitive things, and we do not need the goods of your country." ^{[11, p.121.]} Toynbee points out the research of Sir A. F. Whyte, a British civil servant who worked in India and China, among others, as his source. The study was first published in 1927 and was called China and Foreign Powers. ^[13] The book has not been translated into Russian. We note the following linguistic constructions in the text: "... driven by a humble desire to contribute to the good of our civilization, you sent a mission with your loyal message...", "Ruling the whole world, I pursue one goal ...", "... the kings of all nations send us their gifts..." These phrases add up to the patronizing tone of the author, and Also, the main meaning of the message indicates that the translation of the Emperor's letter from Sir White's research, used by Toynbee, definitely looks like an appeal from a superior to a subordinate.

 Archival texts published by Dr. N.V. Morse

The third version of the Macartney Embassy and diplomatic correspondence episode under consideration is a collection of texts from the EIC archive. The author of this collection of documents, Honorary LL.D. from Harvard Hosea Ballou Morse (1855-1934), who worked for a long time as a customs official, Honorary Doctor of Law at Harvard, author of several voluminous and detailed scientific works, the most famous of which are: "International Relations of the Chinese Empire", 3-volume "Chronicles of relations of the Qing Dynasty with Western countries" and the 5-volume "Chronicles of the trading activities of the East India Company in China in 1635-1834" cited in this article. ^[14] The first publication in 1926. The RSL has this publication, but the author's name in the library card is not translated and is indicated only in the original language.  The source is also in the public domain https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.503979/page/223/mode/2up (accessed 15.12.23.)

In the introductory note to the five-volume book, N.V. Morse writes that he worked directly with the archives of the British East India Company: "The preparation of this work became possible thanks to the generosity of the Indian Office, which gave me access to all the surviving documents of the Venerable East India Company related to China." ^{[15, p. vii. It should be noted at once that the interpretations of both the outstanding historian Arnold Toynbee and the respected politician Henry Kissinger differ markedly from the "naked" correspondence presented in the study by Dr. N.V. Morse. These significant differences may be the subject of a separate scientific study on the appearance of documents similar in content, but very different in form. The most likely option seems to be two or more different translations, one of which was adapted by Lord Macartney himself after the failure of his mission, which he had long and carefully prepared and the success of which he probably saw as the crowning achievement of his public service (he was 55 when he headed the embassy to China). This translation is completely in tune with Macartney's diaries, where he describes his numerous humiliations by Chinese officials and courtiers, long waits for audiences, etc. There are also several versions of whether Macartney did the "kou tou" rite or not, whether he got on all fours to bow and touch the floor with his forehead or only on one knee (which is unlikely, since it contradicted the protocol for admission to the emperor). In any case, no matter how humiliating and insulting he considered his stay in China, he did not fulfill his mission – to convince the Emperor of China to accept European (almost British in 1793) rules of the game and values; which of course could affect his interpretation of events upon his return to London. Moreover, it should be noted that from the moment of departure from Beijing to arrival in London, Macartney spent almost a year on the road, according to the chronology of the embassy route given by N.V. Morse, [14, p.224]} and he had time to analyze the failure in detail. At the same time, a copy of the initial literal translation was preserved in the company's archive in Canton, which could have been made by the company's translator in Canton immediately after the embassy returned from Beijing, on behalf of the ambassador. Or, more likely, upon arrival from England to Canton, a clerk-translator was attached to the embassy as staff, having not academic, but applied, relevant, practical experience in translating official texts from Chinese into English. And it was this "translator-referent" who made this primary "naked" translation without adaptations, a copy of which was carefully stored in the company's archive until it was extracted by N.V. Morse, Honorary Doctor of Law at Harvard. It is difficult to imagine another version of the appearance of this version of the translation of the letter of Emperor Canlong in the archive of the British East India Company. It is even more difficult to suspect the pedantic and meticulous Dr. N.V. Morse of manipulation. After analyzing all the circumstances, let's turn to the texts themselves. Here are two fragments of a letter from King George III of England to Emperor Canlong. "Being under the impression of such sentiments from the very beginning of our reign, when we discovered that our people were involved in the war, we granted our enemies, having won victories over them in four parts of the world, the blessings of peace on the most just terms. Since that period, not content with contributing to the prosperity of our own subjects in all respects, and unlike any previous times, we have used various opportunities to equip ships and send on them some of the wisest and most educated representatives of our own people to discover remote and unexplored regions, not with the aim of conquering or expanding our possessions that are already vast enough to satisfy all our desires, not for the purpose of acquiring wealth or even facilitating the trade of our subjects, but in order to expand our knowledge of the habitable globe, get acquainted with the various industries of the Earth and bring the art and amenities of life to those parts where they still exist the pores were little known;[…] And now that, through prudence and justice, we have avoided the calamities of the war into which strife and ambition have plunged most of the other kingdoms of Europe, and by enlisting our allies in Hindustan, we have put an end to hostilities caused by the attack of an ambitious neighbor, even when it was in our power to destroy him, we have the happiness to be at peace with the whole world No time could be more favorable for expanding the boundaries of friendship and benevolence, as well as for offering to communicate and receive the benefits that should be the result of unconditional and friendly communication between such great and civilized nations as China and Great Britain." ^{[14, pp.245-245]} 

It should be noted that the word "war" is used twice in the introductory part of the letter, the first time in the paragraph about victories in the four quarters of the world, the second time in the paragraph about the possibilities of destroying enemies (In Our power to destroy him). After such an introduction and subsequent discussions about the benefits of trade between nations and a long description of the merits of the ambassador who brought this letter to the Emperor, a request for "fair" access for British merchants to "your markets" follows. One can argue about the translations of the Emperor's reply, but the text of the letter of George III, whoever wrote it (due to the King's illness), was originally written in English and, of course, in such an authentic form and is kept in the archives. The diplomat Kissinger did not mention the belligerence of this text in his book. The letter was accompanied by an 11-point request from the ambassador and additions listing specific privileges that should be granted to British merchants, including a request not to confuse them with "other English speakers." ^{[14, pp.252-254]} 

The word "war" used twice at the beginning of the letter of cooperation in combination with the 11-point petition can still be interpreted today only as a threat to use force in case of refusal. And in the Chinese-centric world of the Emperor and his courtiers, this could not be perceived any other way. At that moment, China might not have known about the revolution in France, the guillotining of elites, the war between Britain and France, but there was certainly information about the actions of the British in neighboring India. For example, about the Great Bengal Famine of 1770. Here are a few quotes from the response of Emperor Canlong, who has just celebrated his 80th birthday: "The products of our empire are diverse and in great abundance; we do not need the products of other countries in the slightest. China, in particular, offers tea, fine pottery, silk and other materials. All this is very much in demand, both in your own and in other kingdoms of Europe. Out of a desire to do you a favor, I have ordered that public warehouses of these various goods be opened in Canton. But your ambassador's proposals are aimed at overthrowing this long-established method of trade, at replacing it with another, but this new method would be very incompatible with the goodwill that we profess towards all foreign nations. Our constant rule is to treat everyone equally well, without any bias. The British are not the only people who trade in Canton. Now, if all of them, following your example, made the same requests, could I give satisfactory answers to each of them? [...] For centuries you have followed what you considered to be the true religion. In the Chinese Empire, from the earliest period of its existence to the present day, thanks to the wisdom of its Emperors, a Doctrine was established and passed on to descendants, in which the four parts of the Empire were brought to agreement over several centuries. Therefore, it is wrong to prevent them from professing their ancient teachings. [...] It is not difficult to distinguish good intentions from malicious ones; now your ambassador seems to be planning to promote your English religion, which I will not allow in any case. However, I cannot convince myself that the above-mentioned requests came from your own initiative; apparently, O king, they came from the ambassador himself. My rule is to receive all ambassadors in the most friendly manner, whoever they are sent by, and to readily agree to their proposals, if they do not contradict the laws of the Empire. In fact, I have responded to the gifts made to me by Your Majesty's ambassador, larger and more significant than it is customary to give to the ambassadors of other sovereigns. In conclusion, since the requests made by your ambassador are contrary to the laws and customs of our Empire and at the same time completely useless for the proposed purpose, I cannot agree with them and again exhort you, O King, to act according to my intentions so that we can maintain peace and friendliness on each side and thereby thereby contribute to our mutual happiness. After this official warning from me, if Your Majesty, in accordance with the requirements of your ambassadors, equips ships with orders to try to trade either in Ningpo, Chusan, Tianxing, or elsewhere, due to the extreme severity of our laws, I will be under the necessity of instructing my Mandarins to force your ships to leave these ports, reducing no huge hassle and effort from your merchants. However, then you won't be able to complain that I obviously didn't warn you. Therefore, let's live in peace and friendship and do not take my words lightly." ^{[14, pp. 247-252]} 

It should be noted that Emperor Canlong's reply is written in the tone of peace and friendliness, not wars and threats, without a shadow of disregard for other peoples, but firmly insisting on China's sovereignty. Nevertheless, the result of the McCartney embassy was lobbying for the interests of the EIC, which in the future require military action, substantial support for the navy. The final result was the choice of a long-term strategy to further weaken China, in order to conquer and subjugate it at a convenient moment, as India had been subordinated before. It is quite possible to say that this was a victory for the international trading corporation, which managed to send the British state navy against China, which refused "free trade" with the EIC.

Concluding with the correspondence of the top officials of the two largest empires of that time, it should also be added that Toynbee, describing Macartney's mission, mentions the madness of King George. This is a fairly well-known historical fact, reflected in literature and cinema, among other things. Mad George was king from 1760 to 1820 and despite his illness remained on the throne (only in 1811 his son George IV was appointed regent). The fact that it was during this period that Great Britain defeated its main rival in Europe, France, and became the largest world empire and the economic center of the world, indicates two circumstances. Firstly, the political structure of Britain already at that time did not need a monarch as a national leader – all of London knew that the king was ill, but the empire reached the peak of its power, actually ruled from behind a screen and perhaps because of this. Secondly, in this regard, as a hypothesis, we can take a different look at the separation of the North American colonies in 1776. One of the main rules of big capital is diversification. 

So, despite the preserved archives, the Macartney embassy went down in history as China's insult to the ideas of Enlightenment, free trade, and a challenge to European civilization. And thus, indirectly legitimizes and justifies in the eyes of the world community the drug trade of the British and Americans and the subsequent Opium Wars.

Mao Zedong's two-month visit to Moscow on the eve of the Korean War

The second important message that Kissinger casually "embedded" in his book is the circumstances of Mao Zedong's arrival in Moscow on the eve of the Korean War. The initial facts are as follows: December 16, 1949. Chairman Mao came to the USSR, invited to the 70th anniversary of Stalin and lived in Moscow for more than two months, briefly visiting Leningrad in January. On January 20, 1950, Chairman of the State Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China Zhou Enlai arrived in Moscow together with a large group of officials and service personnel.On February 14, 1950, an agreement on friendship and mutual assistance, including military assistance, was signed. On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began. Since October 1950, the PRC and the USSR have actually been at war with the United States. (Officially, the West was represented by UN forces, 90% consisting of American troops). For more than two years, neither side has achieved significant success in the war, but America, unlike China, was not ready for heavy losses. The victory of North Korea was a matter of time when Stalin died suddenly on March 5, 1953. The new administration of the USSR stopped the supply of weapons and in April military operations were suspended. On July 27, 1953, an armistice was established, signed by the Americans, South Korea has not signed it to this day. It should also be noted that the NATO treaty was signed on 04.04.1949.

From the listed facts, it is quite obvious that the leaders of the PRC and the USSR discussed the prospects and possibilities of confrontation with the new world hegemon for two months; first on principle, and after the arrival of Ch. Enlaya - in detail. According to Kissinger, Stalin accepted Mao as a subordinate, not giving him an audience for weeks, and here Kissinger definitely creates a parallel with the two-month wait for an audience with the British ambassador Macartney. To clarify this thesis, which is discordant with the facts, it is enough to look at several December issues of any central newspapers of the USSR that are in the public domain and see editorials about the solemn meeting of the Chinese delegation or about the grand reception, where Mao is sitting in the presidium next to Stalin in photographs. [Reception in the Kremlin in honor of Comrade I. V. Stalin's seventieth birthday. tass. Truth. No.357. 12/23/1949. https://marxism-leninism.info/paper/pravda_1949_357-1658 (accessed 15.12.23.) Such discrepancies with reality are quite explicable by the fact that Kissinger draws his conclusions on the basis of Khrushchev's memoirs. [6, p.134] Taking into account the historical context, Kissinger chose a clearly biased source. 

And in general, the visit of Mao Zedong and the representative delegation of the People's Republic of China to the USSR is shown by Kissinger to be secondary, insignificant, although in reality it was a strategic meeting between two allies who constructively and in detail discussed a number of political, military and economic issues; determined a joint path of implementation for each of them.^[16] Kissinger gives a lot of secondary facts about the Korean War and also casually comments on the strategic military alliance of the PRC and the USSR, although this is the main and perhaps the only threat of defeat for the United States both then and today. 

Kissinger's book "On China" was first published in 2011. It was a time of rethinking reality after the shock of the 2008 global financial crisis, or GFC, the extreme of globalization. A shock that requires change, as it became clear to all major players that supranational international financial structures have tilted the global playing field in their interests. This understanding marked the beginning of the process of deglobalization and regionalization of China. The symbiotic relationship of Chimerica was disrupted, and the process of economic disintegration began, consolidated in 2013 by an agreement between the Fed and "other Central Banks", without the participation of China. ^[17] 

In this regard, it seems quite logical to assume that Kissinger's book was created primarily (but not only) for a certain target audience – young educated people of Han nationality living both in China and throughout Southeast Asia (also for Chinese students and graduate students around the world). The goal is to leave young people inside the globalist, Western agenda, in view of the "divorce" of civilizations that has begun; to create presuppositions against the potential future union of the PRC and the Russian Federation.

Kissinger's Thesis and secret Propaganda Memorandum

The twenty-eight-year-old Kissinger's thesis at Harvard was titled "The Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler, Toynbee and Kant." ^[18] Before Harvard, he served in military intelligence and later in counterintelligence.

The website of the Nobel Committee contains a biography of this outstanding political practitioner and scientist, which in particular indicates that in 1952 Kissinger worked as a consultant for the Council on Psychological Strategy. (Psychological Strategy Board). ^[19]

It is important to note that working with the elites is an instruction directly from the memorandum of the PSB D—33 Psychological Strategy Council dated 06/29/1953.^[20], which is declassified today and is freely available for download, including on the CIA website cia.gov . 

This memorandum is extremely frank, here are a few key quotes:

"The doctrinal program (in general, and not just the Doctrinal Program of the United States): a planned and systematic attack on a hostile doctrinal system, conducted simultaneously with the positive propaganda of the basic philosophy of one's own system. Basically, the Doctrinal Program is aimed at a specific group, not at the mass.

Doctrinal system (as a whole, not the system in force in the United States): An interconnected set of ideas, whether consciously organized or not, that reflects the manner or content of thinking characteristic of individuals or classes, justifies a certain type of social beliefs and structures, and provides a set of principles for human aspirations.

U.S. Doctrinal Program Task Force: The composition of the task force will vary from country to country and from region to region. In general, the US doctrinal program will aim to effectively reach those individuals who would be interested in doctrinal issues and who will actively participate in and influence political and intellectual, including scientific, activities in their respective countries and regions. […] 

Educated people are usually intellectually curious. They want to know more if they can have available materials whose objective value they respect. The US doctrinal program should develop such materials and, through improved dissemination methods, ensure that the target audience learns that this material is easily and economically available."^[20]

In 1952, the main task of the US leadership was to combat socialist and communist doctrines both at home and "in the countries of the free world", as well as in those countries that the US planned to "liberate" in the future.  It is quite appropriate to assume that if Kissinger was not a co-author of this memorandum on the processing of "intellectually curious" elites, then being a consultant to this organization and taking into account his experience in intelligence and counterintelligence, he was familiar with this document. 

And thus, taking into account his 400-page diploma on the meaning of history, the book "About China" looks exactly like a collection of propaganda narratives for the upbringing/education of the ruling elite of the West and substantiation/confirmation of the globalist liberal worldview among the intellectuals of the planet, primarily the Han nationality. 

And one last important point. After the 1960s, Arnold Toynbee's books in English were republished with significant cuts. The new editions abridged many important conclusions of the author, in particular, Toynbee's thesis about the attitude of the Anglo-Saxons to the colonized peoples as natives who have no rights to the land where they were born and live. The above-mentioned quote by Toynbee about the tragic victories of the Anglo-Saxon Protestants for humanity also came under reduction. Today, Toynbee's original texts can still be found in electronic archives, if you know what to look for, since the contents of the archives are not indexed by search engines. 

Conclusion

Over the course of several millennia of the development of its statehood, China has developed a special attitude to traditions, seeing this as one of its main advantages. And in this traditional paradigm, the Western countries that colonized the planet are the direct culprits of the "century of humiliation." Such a vision of history is easily read in the concept of the Community of the common destiny of mankind, proposed by China in 2015 at the UN, which speaks of the historical responsibility of developed countries and the obligatory equality of all civilizations as a fundamental condition for a new multipolar world.^[21] 

China today is the main global player claiming to reconstruct the existing world order. China's modernization has not become Westernization. According to the official national strategy, the United States calls China the main global rival seeking to change the existing world order. In the introductory speech to the US National Security Strategy 2022, it says: "In the struggle for the future of our world, the administration is clearly aware of the scale and seriousness of this challenge. The People's Republic of China has the intention and, increasingly, the ability to change the international order in favor of one that will change the global playing field in its favor [...]". ^[22]

The creation of the Anglo-Saxon military alliance AUKUS in 2021, directed against China, under which Australia, which does not possess nuclear weapons today, will receive a nuclear-powered military submarine fleet, is completely in line with this strategy. The agenda actively promoted by China for the reunification of Taiwan and China, inhabited by people of the same blood and speaking the same language, is currently the main problem for the West, due to the unexpected situation of Taiwan's technological leap over the past 10 years in the field of microchip production. The goal of the United States, declared in 2022 in two acts (on chips and on inflation) in conditions of critical technological lag, is to export technologies to its territory in order to gain an absolute global advantage in the field of IT, to create technological unipolarity. 

The United States is in many ways the successor of the British EIC, and in order to understand the history, philosophy and metaphysics of the conflict between these two civilizations, it is definitely necessary to study modern realities in a historical context in more detail, which will eventually make it possible to more accurately model the development options for the main civilizational conflict today, the outcome of which will determine the future of mankind. 

In the modern information society, the formation of public opinion is much more important than what is actually happening, so the main weapon of modern conflicts is information. With the advent of new media – search engines, social networks, blogs, etc. – the possibilities of propaganda have increased by orders of magnitude. Information encapsulation technologies allow us to programmatically create unique worldviews for the mass user based on personal big data. The gongs and drums of the time of Sun Tzu, indicated in the epigraph of the article, are needed today exclusively for synchronizing groups acting together. Books by heavyweight political practitioners, Gatekeepers who define the boundaries of discourse, in the terminology of the Herman-Chomsky propaganda theory, such as Henry Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski, are the scientific mainstream of the West; these are "gongs and drums" used in the educational process of their own elites, widely quoted and actively promoted through all scientific and information channels. Such books are "bricks" in the picture of the world of the Western ruling elite – politicians, military, economists, in the coordinate system of Charles Mills. All the narratives contained within these books become part of their knowledge and competencies. What makes these books "classics" and means the need for researchers from all over the world to get to know them. Such scientific bestsellers are not a new scientific paradigm in Kuhn's terminology, but a certain coordinate system, and in some matters a ready–made template methodology, and here the reader's programming for a certain result should be clearly distinguished. A result that means a win for one side and a loss for the other. 

The conflict between China and the West, as recognized to a greater or lesser extent by all researchers, is a civilizational conflict. Since 2015, this civilizational conflict has reached a new level. The Hegelian slave, in the process of fulfilling the will of his master, changed the world to such an extent that he offers a new world order – the rejection of the dichotomy of the zero-sum game. Therefore, the revision of any studies devoted to this conflict is quite justified and relevant today. In particular, the conflict between Western and Chinese civilizations, in which the West declares plans for technological, informational and financial dominance, and China consistently promotes the concept of multipolarity and a common destiny of mankind.@

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