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Out of China: Chinese Nationalism and the West, from the First World War to the Return of Hong Kong
Even at the high noon of Europe's empires China managed to be one of the handful of countries not to succumb. Invaded, humiliated and looted, China nonetheless kept its sovereignty.
Robert Bickers' major new book is the first to describe fully what has proved to be one of the twentieth-century's most important stories: the long, often agonising process by which the Chinese regained control of their own country.
The range of threats was close to overwhelming, with the Soviets, Japanese, British, Americans and many other European powers all hypnotized by visions of conquest or exploitation.
Out of China uses a brilliant array of unusual, strange and vivid sources to recreate a now fantastically remote world: the corrupt, lurid modernity of pre-War Shanghai, the often tiny patches of 'extra-territorial' land controlled by European powers (one of which, unnoticed, had mostly toppled into a river), the entrepôts of Hong Kong and Macao, and the myriad means, through armed threats, technology and legal chicanery, by which China was kept subservient. Yet China and its peoples embraced the West as they rejected it; loved it as they hated it, and embraced its ideas, goods, practices and styles as they successfully contested is power. This was a conflict fought across the century in conference chambers, and in museums and exhibitions, on battlefields and in the pages of books and magazines, on screen and through radio.
Even in the darkest days of the Second World War, the Chinese government battled to expel all outsiders, whether Allied or not, and many of the most brutal policies of Mao's policies shared the same motives.
Today Chinese nationalism stays firmly rooted in memories of its degraded past- the quest for self-sufficiency, a determination both to assert China's standing in the world and its outstanding territorial claims, and never to be vulnerable to renewed attack. History matters deeply to Beijing's current rulers - and Out of China explains why.
Robert Bickers' major new book is the first to describe fully what has proved to be one of the twentieth-century's most important stories: the long, often agonising process by which the Chinese regained control of their own country.
The range of threats was close to overwhelming, with the Soviets, Japanese, British, Americans and many other European powers all hypnotized by visions of conquest or exploitation.
Out of China uses a brilliant array of unusual, strange and vivid sources to recreate a now fantastically remote world: the corrupt, lurid modernity of pre-War Shanghai, the often tiny patches of 'extra-territorial' land controlled by European powers (one of which, unnoticed, had mostly toppled into a river), the entrepôts of Hong Kong and Macao, and the myriad means, through armed threats, technology and legal chicanery, by which China was kept subservient. Yet China and its peoples embraced the West as they rejected it; loved it as they hated it, and embraced its ideas, goods, practices and styles as they successfully contested is power. This was a conflict fought across the century in conference chambers, and in museums and exhibitions, on battlefields and in the pages of books and magazines, on screen and through radio.
Even in the darkest days of the Second World War, the Chinese government battled to expel all outsiders, whether Allied or not, and many of the most brutal policies of Mao's policies shared the same motives.
Today Chinese nationalism stays firmly rooted in memories of its degraded past- the quest for self-sufficiency, a determination both to assert China's standing in the world and its outstanding territorial claims, and never to be vulnerable to renewed attack. History matters deeply to Beijing's current rulers - and Out of China explains why.
560 pages, Hardcover
First published May 23, 2017
34 people are currently reading
742 people want to read
About the author
Robert Bickers
18 books27 followersRobert Bickers is Professor of History and Director of the 'Historical Photographs of China' project at the University of Bristol.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
November 12, 2024
Robert Bickers continues his earlier history 'Scramble for China: 1832-1914', picking up in 1918-1949 during the Republic of China through the founding of the People's Republic of China. Bickers is an academic, but this is not a textbook. It's not a military history either although it spans the Northern Expedition, WWII and the Chinese Civil War. It studies international relations after imperial powers forced unequal trade treaties, extra-territoriality clauses and port concessions on the Qing dynasty in the late 19th century. The focus is on the last thirty years during the 'Century of Humiliation', taught to every Chinese child and repeated by politicians and people today.
The story opens in 1918 with WWI V-Day celebrations in Shanghai and across China. During the war Japan seized parts of Shandong and Manchuria from the Germans, and commanded control of Fujian seaports in it's 21 Demands. China expected the return of German held territories in the 1919 Paris Peace talks, but Britain and France had a secret deal with Japan, as did China's militarist leaders. The Treaty of Versailles sparked the May 4 Movement, protests against government treachery and boycotts of foreign trade. A civil war began between the Republican administration in Beijing and Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) in Guangzhou founded by the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
Sun hosted a colorful and complex cast of foreign characters and concerns. China's many overseas workers hoped to be freed from exclusionary laws in America, Europe and their colonies. Soviets gave Sun aid and established communist cells. He shuttled between power, exile and intermittent military action. Diplomats dangled prospects of amendments to treaties with little actual change. Sun's death in 1925 left a legacy of failed aspirations but an organized and armed KMT. Labor union strikes were now in their purview and protests met with a hail of British bullets. General Chiang Kai-shek succeeded Sun as leader of the KMT and set forth with 150,000 soldiers to reunify China.
Chiang's army swept away all before it. Communist factions in the KMT split the leadership, with conservatives led by Chiang. Across China concessions and missions were attacked. Foreign navies were called in for defense and Churchill advocated nerve gas. At stake were colonies all over the world. In a strange alliance the anti-imperialist KMT sought aid from foreign powers to expunge the red threat. Efforts by Mao on land reform in rural Hunan revealed the potential of peasants for revolution. Stalin ordered bloody insurrections until the Soviets were expelled. Chiang established a Nationalist government in Nanjing during 1928 that lasted twenty years on the mainland.
Japan had wrested Taiwan from China in 1895, Manchuria from Russia in 1905, Korea from the Koreans in 1910, and established a puppet state with deposed Qing heir Puyi as emperor in 1932. European opinion initially condoned the actions. When the League of Nations determined Manchuria should be returned Japan walked away. Social Darwinism paved the way for China's dismemberment. Western myths, perpetuated in popular culture, depicted China as backward and unworthy of survival. The New Culture Movement begun in 1915 to modernize and rehabilitate China's esteem in the world culminated in a 1935 London art exhibition and the 1937 Hollywood movie 'The Good Earth'.
In summer that year at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing a skirmish ignited war between China and Japan. In six months Nanjing fell to a horrific massacre. Within a year Chiang retreated to Chongqing as Japan invaded the eastern provinces. A quarter million troops died and a half million civilians drowned as Chiang breached dykes on the Yellow River. A specialist in China's concessions, particularly the British in Shanghai, Bickers gives a detailed account of wartime life. Prior to 1941 not much changed. Prostitution, gambling and dancing were in full swing. After Pearl Harbor Japanese occupied Hong Kong and Macau with foreign settlements faring better than colonies.
One result of British failure to defend the ports was customs revenue and trade itself was cut off, causing great concern in Chongqing. The KMT had moved the rump capital by boat up the Yangtze and suffered terrible air raids. Once Burma fell Chiang's only lifeline was American airlifts and loans. A stream of western writers, film makers and photographers documented the bastion of 'Free China' as US bombers took flight. Panda bear diplomats were dispatched to London and New York and Madame Chiang charmed in Washington DC. Nehru visited offering alliance against empire. Back in China voices were speaking loudly as Chiang's corrupt cronies and murderous secret police stalked the land.
At the 1943 Cairo Conference, Chiang was promised return of Manchuria and Taiwan. Britain relinquished extra-territorial rights but Hong Kong was off the table. Churchill intended "to keep our own". Roosevelt agreed and offered Chiang French Indochina instead. He declined and requests for more cash were rebuffed. Distracted by Soviets in the west Chiang ignored Japanese in the east. The devastation was so bad the US pushed for reinforcements. Chased north by Chiang years earlier Mao impressed American envoys. Visiting journalists were treated to dog and pony shows assuming Nationalists unwilling to fight but Communists ready. Neither view was correct as both waited to fight each other.
Once WWII had ended Bickers tells how foreign powers tried to prolong their hold on China. Reparation 'debts' from the 1901 Boxer Rebellion were converted to 'credits' for relief. When Mao won the Civil War Britain thought it was back in business. The US wanted a refund from Chiang and swore not to defend Taiwan. Communist priorities were to be rid of the imperialists. When Mao shelled the Royal Navy in 1949 the British packed up and sailed home with Americans close behind. Mao ordered capitalists to keep working and raise wages. In the 1950 Korean war embargo foreign industry was seized. The last hundred pages sketch international affairs through the return of Hong Kong in 1997.
The theme of this book is how China tried in various ways to get from under the yoke of a century of foreign intervention. Military, political, diplomatic, and cultural initiatives were all tried, at times alone or in concert. Both the periods of imperial domination and domestic repression are testament to human resilience. The challenges Chinese face today are less than what was endured but are significant nonetheless. Much of the book is excellent while parts get bogged down in detail. Bickers has done deep research and demonstrates how he reached his conclusions. This fault does not overtake the narrative which is interesting and articulate, explaining how current Chinese views were shaped.
The story opens in 1918 with WWI V-Day celebrations in Shanghai and across China. During the war Japan seized parts of Shandong and Manchuria from the Germans, and commanded control of Fujian seaports in it's 21 Demands. China expected the return of German held territories in the 1919 Paris Peace talks, but Britain and France had a secret deal with Japan, as did China's militarist leaders. The Treaty of Versailles sparked the May 4 Movement, protests against government treachery and boycotts of foreign trade. A civil war began between the Republican administration in Beijing and Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) in Guangzhou founded by the revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
Sun hosted a colorful and complex cast of foreign characters and concerns. China's many overseas workers hoped to be freed from exclusionary laws in America, Europe and their colonies. Soviets gave Sun aid and established communist cells. He shuttled between power, exile and intermittent military action. Diplomats dangled prospects of amendments to treaties with little actual change. Sun's death in 1925 left a legacy of failed aspirations but an organized and armed KMT. Labor union strikes were now in their purview and protests met with a hail of British bullets. General Chiang Kai-shek succeeded Sun as leader of the KMT and set forth with 150,000 soldiers to reunify China.
Chiang's army swept away all before it. Communist factions in the KMT split the leadership, with conservatives led by Chiang. Across China concessions and missions were attacked. Foreign navies were called in for defense and Churchill advocated nerve gas. At stake were colonies all over the world. In a strange alliance the anti-imperialist KMT sought aid from foreign powers to expunge the red threat. Efforts by Mao on land reform in rural Hunan revealed the potential of peasants for revolution. Stalin ordered bloody insurrections until the Soviets were expelled. Chiang established a Nationalist government in Nanjing during 1928 that lasted twenty years on the mainland.
Japan had wrested Taiwan from China in 1895, Manchuria from Russia in 1905, Korea from the Koreans in 1910, and established a puppet state with deposed Qing heir Puyi as emperor in 1932. European opinion initially condoned the actions. When the League of Nations determined Manchuria should be returned Japan walked away. Social Darwinism paved the way for China's dismemberment. Western myths, perpetuated in popular culture, depicted China as backward and unworthy of survival. The New Culture Movement begun in 1915 to modernize and rehabilitate China's esteem in the world culminated in a 1935 London art exhibition and the 1937 Hollywood movie 'The Good Earth'.
In summer that year at the Marco Polo Bridge near Beijing a skirmish ignited war between China and Japan. In six months Nanjing fell to a horrific massacre. Within a year Chiang retreated to Chongqing as Japan invaded the eastern provinces. A quarter million troops died and a half million civilians drowned as Chiang breached dykes on the Yellow River. A specialist in China's concessions, particularly the British in Shanghai, Bickers gives a detailed account of wartime life. Prior to 1941 not much changed. Prostitution, gambling and dancing were in full swing. After Pearl Harbor Japanese occupied Hong Kong and Macau with foreign settlements faring better than colonies.
One result of British failure to defend the ports was customs revenue and trade itself was cut off, causing great concern in Chongqing. The KMT had moved the rump capital by boat up the Yangtze and suffered terrible air raids. Once Burma fell Chiang's only lifeline was American airlifts and loans. A stream of western writers, film makers and photographers documented the bastion of 'Free China' as US bombers took flight. Panda bear diplomats were dispatched to London and New York and Madame Chiang charmed in Washington DC. Nehru visited offering alliance against empire. Back in China voices were speaking loudly as Chiang's corrupt cronies and murderous secret police stalked the land.
At the 1943 Cairo Conference, Chiang was promised return of Manchuria and Taiwan. Britain relinquished extra-territorial rights but Hong Kong was off the table. Churchill intended "to keep our own". Roosevelt agreed and offered Chiang French Indochina instead. He declined and requests for more cash were rebuffed. Distracted by Soviets in the west Chiang ignored Japanese in the east. The devastation was so bad the US pushed for reinforcements. Chased north by Chiang years earlier Mao impressed American envoys. Visiting journalists were treated to dog and pony shows assuming Nationalists unwilling to fight but Communists ready. Neither view was correct as both waited to fight each other.
Once WWII had ended Bickers tells how foreign powers tried to prolong their hold on China. Reparation 'debts' from the 1901 Boxer Rebellion were converted to 'credits' for relief. When Mao won the Civil War Britain thought it was back in business. The US wanted a refund from Chiang and swore not to defend Taiwan. Communist priorities were to be rid of the imperialists. When Mao shelled the Royal Navy in 1949 the British packed up and sailed home with Americans close behind. Mao ordered capitalists to keep working and raise wages. In the 1950 Korean war embargo foreign industry was seized. The last hundred pages sketch international affairs through the return of Hong Kong in 1997.
The theme of this book is how China tried in various ways to get from under the yoke of a century of foreign intervention. Military, political, diplomatic, and cultural initiatives were all tried, at times alone or in concert. Both the periods of imperial domination and domestic repression are testament to human resilience. The challenges Chinese face today are less than what was endured but are significant nonetheless. Much of the book is excellent while parts get bogged down in detail. Bickers has done deep research and demonstrates how he reached his conclusions. This fault does not overtake the narrative which is interesting and articulate, explaining how current Chinese views were shaped.
August 19, 2018
Although China is indisputably today among the world’s greatest powers — diplomatically, economically, and militarily – many Westerners are unaware of what an incredible transformation this represents in less than 70 years.
China’s long civil war, most of it waged at the same time that China was also fighting to repel Japanese invaders, ended in 1949 with the defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist forces. But it was a poor nation, its people and resources exhausted from decades of war. It was also still largely a rural, agriculture-oriented society. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, and aided in the early years by the Soviet Union under Stalin, China began to rapidly industrialize and urbanize, achieving the kind of makeover in mere decades that took most other nations a century.
If we are to understand China’s deep reservations about Western — and US — motives and intentions we must be mindful of the two centuries of interactions between China and the West before our present time. China is a very ancient society with around 5,000 years of history, and her memory runs deep.
Two excellent books by Robert Bickers that cover the often unhappy relations between China and the West from the early 19th century to the present day are The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, and Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination).
Bickers reveals how the West in the 19th century — Great Britain being the chief offender — repeatedly insulted China by firing upon her territory, occupying large portions of her coastal regions around key trading ports, and forcing her to agree to commercial terms far more favorable to them than to China. While it is customary for nations to regard others’ diplomatic stations as representing their nations’ own soil, the British — soon followed by the French, the Dutch and the Americans — took over entire neighborhoods as if they were their own; Chinese streets, alleyways and boulevards therein often became dangerous for Chinese ignoring posted notices warning against “trespassing.”
To be sure, this behavior was typical of how, in the latter part of the 19th century, Western nations also behaved towards other nations they deemed “lesser” as they competed among themselves for commercial advantage and colonial possessions. This hardly made the offenses less so in the eyes of the Chinese, though.
In addition to the impact that trade backed up by force had on China, it quickly became a magnet for another, in many ways even more unsettling, intrusion: the arrival of Christian missionaries. Some of these came, with similar faulty assumptions about China’s alleged “backwardness,” to “save the heathen natives,” still others to both share their faith and study the differences between their own societies and China’s. They often had a positive impact by their habit of establishing schools for local children and interested adults and in offering health care services that clearly helped more isolated areas. But their proselytizing, combined with their ignorance of Chinese religious practices, also offended many, especially when they interpreted Chinese reverence for their ancestors as a form of idolatry, calling it ancestor-worship.
From the early 19th century onward, however, many foreigners who journeyed to China quickly learned to admire and respect it for its culture, arts, and remarkable historical longevity. Whether they were missionaries, traders, soldiers, or diplomatic personnel, they did all they could to act as a buffer against the more vile or forceful intrusions of their own governments.
Nonetheless, in many ways, China’s earliest experiences with “the West” were both unhappy and destabilizing – for Chinese authorities as well as some of their institutions. Ever since there has been a back and forth between those in China who admire at least some of the institutions and practices of the West and, therefore, who push for China to adapt them itself and those who loath substantial elements of Western values and institutions because they undermine valued traditions and threaten Chinese interests.
Since there is a similar contest in the West, too, between those who admire China and wish to develop all possible friendly relations with her and those who regard her as the preeminent threat to the “order” established by the United States. This helps explain the repeating alternating cycles of hot and cold in the relations between China and the West.
The record in the 20th century remained a mixed one.
On the one hand, for example, the United States repeatedly sought to support Chinese independence from foreign interference, especially that posed by Japan. But, on the other, China’s delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference formalizing the end of World War I found that its pleas for assistance were overridden by the both West’s infatuation with Japan’s rapid rise and, because of Japan’s military power, inclination to appease Japan in order to keep the Pacific region stable. (Frances Wood and Christopher Arnander have examined the relations between China and the West during World War I in their book, Betrayed Ally: China in the Great War.)
Even the US’s much-praised Open Door Policy was designed as much to keep trade with China open to it on an equal footing with other great powers as to prevent predatory nations from reverting to their behavior earlier in the 19th century.
China also found that her own hopes during the Second World War for more vigorous Allied assistance in pushing back Japanese armies within her borders were subordinated to the West’s priorities, including Great Britain’s resource-squandering attempts to keep the Japanese out of other Southeast Asian countries in their hope to maintain their colonies there after the war’s conclusion.
With the end of World War II realizing the long goal of removing Japanese forces from Chinese territory, and the victory of the Communists over Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist forces in 1949, China embarked on a new phase of rapid industrialization and urbanization, dramatically transforming the country in less than 50 years.
With China's rapid ascension to great power status, economically and militarily, some old questions are once again new. Can China and the West find a way to live together in mutual respect without reigniting the territorial wars that characterized so much of the globe for most of the 19th and 20th centuries?
And can each side throw off old suspicions about the other to allow the reality of our current day to influence key decisions?
Only time -- and considerable luck -- will tell!
China’s long civil war, most of it waged at the same time that China was also fighting to repel Japanese invaders, ended in 1949 with the defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist forces. But it was a poor nation, its people and resources exhausted from decades of war. It was also still largely a rural, agriculture-oriented society. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, and aided in the early years by the Soviet Union under Stalin, China began to rapidly industrialize and urbanize, achieving the kind of makeover in mere decades that took most other nations a century.
If we are to understand China’s deep reservations about Western — and US — motives and intentions we must be mindful of the two centuries of interactions between China and the West before our present time. China is a very ancient society with around 5,000 years of history, and her memory runs deep.
Two excellent books by Robert Bickers that cover the often unhappy relations between China and the West from the early 19th century to the present day are The Scramble for China: Foreign Devils in the Qing Empire, and Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination).
Bickers reveals how the West in the 19th century — Great Britain being the chief offender — repeatedly insulted China by firing upon her territory, occupying large portions of her coastal regions around key trading ports, and forcing her to agree to commercial terms far more favorable to them than to China. While it is customary for nations to regard others’ diplomatic stations as representing their nations’ own soil, the British — soon followed by the French, the Dutch and the Americans — took over entire neighborhoods as if they were their own; Chinese streets, alleyways and boulevards therein often became dangerous for Chinese ignoring posted notices warning against “trespassing.”
To be sure, this behavior was typical of how, in the latter part of the 19th century, Western nations also behaved towards other nations they deemed “lesser” as they competed among themselves for commercial advantage and colonial possessions. This hardly made the offenses less so in the eyes of the Chinese, though.
In addition to the impact that trade backed up by force had on China, it quickly became a magnet for another, in many ways even more unsettling, intrusion: the arrival of Christian missionaries. Some of these came, with similar faulty assumptions about China’s alleged “backwardness,” to “save the heathen natives,” still others to both share their faith and study the differences between their own societies and China’s. They often had a positive impact by their habit of establishing schools for local children and interested adults and in offering health care services that clearly helped more isolated areas. But their proselytizing, combined with their ignorance of Chinese religious practices, also offended many, especially when they interpreted Chinese reverence for their ancestors as a form of idolatry, calling it ancestor-worship.
From the early 19th century onward, however, many foreigners who journeyed to China quickly learned to admire and respect it for its culture, arts, and remarkable historical longevity. Whether they were missionaries, traders, soldiers, or diplomatic personnel, they did all they could to act as a buffer against the more vile or forceful intrusions of their own governments.
Nonetheless, in many ways, China’s earliest experiences with “the West” were both unhappy and destabilizing – for Chinese authorities as well as some of their institutions. Ever since there has been a back and forth between those in China who admire at least some of the institutions and practices of the West and, therefore, who push for China to adapt them itself and those who loath substantial elements of Western values and institutions because they undermine valued traditions and threaten Chinese interests.
Since there is a similar contest in the West, too, between those who admire China and wish to develop all possible friendly relations with her and those who regard her as the preeminent threat to the “order” established by the United States. This helps explain the repeating alternating cycles of hot and cold in the relations between China and the West.
The record in the 20th century remained a mixed one.
On the one hand, for example, the United States repeatedly sought to support Chinese independence from foreign interference, especially that posed by Japan. But, on the other, China’s delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference formalizing the end of World War I found that its pleas for assistance were overridden by the both West’s infatuation with Japan’s rapid rise and, because of Japan’s military power, inclination to appease Japan in order to keep the Pacific region stable. (Frances Wood and Christopher Arnander have examined the relations between China and the West during World War I in their book, Betrayed Ally: China in the Great War.)
Even the US’s much-praised Open Door Policy was designed as much to keep trade with China open to it on an equal footing with other great powers as to prevent predatory nations from reverting to their behavior earlier in the 19th century.
China also found that her own hopes during the Second World War for more vigorous Allied assistance in pushing back Japanese armies within her borders were subordinated to the West’s priorities, including Great Britain’s resource-squandering attempts to keep the Japanese out of other Southeast Asian countries in their hope to maintain their colonies there after the war’s conclusion.
With the end of World War II realizing the long goal of removing Japanese forces from Chinese territory, and the victory of the Communists over Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist forces in 1949, China embarked on a new phase of rapid industrialization and urbanization, dramatically transforming the country in less than 50 years.
With China's rapid ascension to great power status, economically and militarily, some old questions are once again new. Can China and the West find a way to live together in mutual respect without reigniting the territorial wars that characterized so much of the globe for most of the 19th and 20th centuries?
And can each side throw off old suspicions about the other to allow the reality of our current day to influence key decisions?
Only time -- and considerable luck -- will tell!
July 18, 2020
“For China the past is becoming more important.” A richly detailed, assiduously complied and cogently crafted history of China since 1917, this does much to restore balance in how the Nationalist period is to be seen, and also to identify the ebbs and flows in the country’s history. I enjoyed the author’s previous book “The Scramble for China”, but this is better. The writing is less self-consciously clever, whilst still retaining elegancies and fruitfulnesses. It is less indulgent in its own picturesqueness, which makes its structure clearer and its messaging less opaque.
This is to be highly recommended: for students of modern China and for those who want to understand the shoulders on which the country’s current leaders stand and the wind which directs their programmes. More than many other countries, China continues to relive their past, or at least the version of the past they present to themselves.
This is to be highly recommended: for students of modern China and for those who want to understand the shoulders on which the country’s current leaders stand and the wind which directs their programmes. More than many other countries, China continues to relive their past, or at least the version of the past they present to themselves.
January 9, 2019
I have no doubt Robert Bickers deserves his recognition as a historian, for his ability to collate information is excellent. As a writer, he leaves very much to be desired. This book is chronologically disjointed, leaving readers to do much of our own research about the exact causation of certain events. It is also common to find rambling sentences that go on for five or more lines with innumerable commas that render the text incoherent.
Much as a result of the above deficiencies, Bickers' analysis lacks the substance you'd expect from a subject matter expert. This may be a great book for a juvenal history undergraduate student to pick out some useful quotes for a short essay, but in no way should this book be considered a go-to if one wants to learn about foreign interventions in China and its impact.
Much as a result of the above deficiencies, Bickers' analysis lacks the substance you'd expect from a subject matter expert. This may be a great book for a juvenal history undergraduate student to pick out some useful quotes for a short essay, but in no way should this book be considered a go-to if one wants to learn about foreign interventions in China and its impact.
February 14, 2018
Bickers would have earned five stars from me had he stopped writing after the 250 or so pages that bring this history to 1949. Until that point, he does a brilliant job of illuminating Chinese nationalism, artfully mixing the perspective of foreigners (which is dominant, but never approved of, thus useful) and that of Chinese. However, his account of the People's Republic didn't do it for me. He spends more time talking about how few foreigners there were in Shanghai than the Bandung Conference and generally ignores China's foreign policy after that point. When foreign voices become basically irrelevant, he starts talking about Maoist faux-radicals in the West in the '60s and '70s. He also began to overplay his arguments about the impact of Chinese nationalism.
November 16, 2022
I didn't read the whole book as it is very scholarly (deep) over many decades, more than I needed but each section jaw dropping. Bickers is thorough and honest as history cavorts from skirmish to atrocity over and over. But Bickers also writes with humour and wry storytelling so it's very very entertaining.
If you want to have a basic understanding of China's century of humiliation and how that may shape the next few decades, this will cement in your mind, not just in the age of colonialism, that no country can ever do anything other than act in its own self interest. In the case of China, they are playing a very long game where the events chronicalled here will ultimately be repaid.
If this interests you, then review Xie's Thought first speech. Nationalism is not an idle it is a key defence against revolt.
If you want to have a basic understanding of China's century of humiliation and how that may shape the next few decades, this will cement in your mind, not just in the age of colonialism, that no country can ever do anything other than act in its own self interest. In the case of China, they are playing a very long game where the events chronicalled here will ultimately be repaid.
If this interests you, then review Xie's Thought first speech. Nationalism is not an idle it is a key defence against revolt.
Read
September 8, 2025Exceptionally written study of foreign exploitation in China, and how it is used by the current regime to buttress and justify their own interests. Love the anecdote at the beginning about the sign on the Bund. Some great analysis of Hong Kong here too.
September 25, 2021
Out of China documents the process by which the Chinese recovered the sovereignty of their territory from foreign imperialist powers. It covers the era 1918 to 2000, picking up where Bickers’ previous book, The Scramble for China, left off. Bickers is a British historian who is not sentimental about British rule, but neither is he indulgent as to the current Chinese government’s use of the era of imperialism for its own nationalist purposes. He sticks to his subject most of his time, but he also covers general Chinese history of the twentieth century, such as the victory of the Communist Party and its aftermath, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution.
Bickers starts with the situation at the end of WW I. China was divided: there was a republic in the north under President Xu Shichang, and there was a rival Guomindang (Nationalist) government in the south, which had won nationwide elections but not been allowed to take power. There were foreign concessions in many major cities, Shanghai, Tianjin and other places. These were pieces of America or Britain or France or Italy in China, managed by the foreigners who lived there through Municipal Councils with their own laws, courts, police, governments, American Marines, self-defense forces, or British Sikhs. These were often regressive and racist and out of the control of, for example, the British Foreign Office. There were foreign Christian missionaries all over China. Hong Kong and Macao were British and Portuguese colonies respectively.
The Japanese had been getting stronger and stronger since 1905, when they beat the Russians in the Russo-Japanese war. They had handed China 21 demands in 1915, in a bid for more power. Also, the Japanese had taken over Germany’s concession at Tianjin.
The Chinese sent a delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, hoping for the Japanese to be told to leave Tianjin. However, China had been sold out by its warlords. In 1915, in return for a Japanese loan, the local warlords had acquiesced in the Japanese takeover. Therefore, the Chinese claim was rejected, although the Germans were expelled from their other possessions and these were taken over by the Republic.
At this time, foreigners worked for various warlords, the Chinese republican government, and the Guomindang at all levels, as political and military advisors, customs officials, legal and technical experts, even bodyguards. Foreigners ran the Customs Office, which contributed the most funds of any department in the Chinese government.
However, China was beginning to change and modernize. The May 4 movement, as the movement against the Versailles rejection of Chinese claims became known, led to student demonstrations in Beijing and a countrywide anti-Japanese boycott movement. The propaganda teams and links between organizations strengthened and became more effective over time, and they expanded their targets to the other imperialists as well.
During the republic, there were two great victories for this movement against the British. There was a Hong Kong Seaman’s strike in 1922. The British tried to crush it and killed some of the strikers. This resulted in a general strike of one hundred thousand, including the staff at Government House. The British backed down and the strikers won. In 1925 in the Shanghai International settlement, the British killed 12 violent demonstrators and this turned into a nationwide anti-British movement. More than fifty armed Chinese demonstrators were killed in Guangzhou as they demonstrated against the International Settlement there. This turned into a 16-month long boycott and general strike against the British that crippled their trade at Hong Kong. “[T]he single biggest wound suffered by the British in China before 1941.”
Bickers follows the twists and turns in the story and tries to tell it from both sides, In 1923, the Soviets agreed to back Sun Yat Sen and the Guomindang with money, advisors and munitions to create a unified Chinese government. Communists had been active in China for a few years, and the Comintern promoted a United Front policy, so that by 1926 many Communists had joined the Guomindang. They brought lots of discipline. After Sun Yat Sen died, Chiang Kai-shek came to prominence. He led a “Northern Expedition”: a 150,000-strong army swept north and carried all before it. They had Beijing by 1927.
As the Guomindang were real nationalists who wished the foreigners out, the safety of the international settlements was questioned. Two smaller British concessions were abandoned., while 20,000 British reinforcements were sent to China. However, at the same time, the Nationalist movement split, with Chiang Kai-shek and the right allying with the imperialists and cracking down on the Communists. Thousands were killed, Soviet advisors fled, and Chiang stood triumphant.
Bickers details also how, from the 1920s, the Communists started building bases among the peasants and Mao got his start. On the other hand, there was also an important liberal reform movement that saw education as the key to increasing living standards for Chinese farmers. Also, from the 1920s, Chinese Christians consciously began to take control of their communities and foreign missionaries started to leave. In 1928, the Guomindang passed a law putting all educational institutes under Chinese, not foreign control. Foreign teachers could still teach, but they were no longer in control.
The Guomindang government did not have perfect control of the country. They were a reforming, nationalist movement, but the warlords were still around. The Guomindang wanted the “unequal treaties” revised and the imperialists out but they wanted to do it in an orderly fashion through negotiations. Two British outposts were formally abandoned in negotiations and these were the first colonial possessions given up by the British in the 20th Century retreat from Empire. The International Settlements (Shanghai, Tianjin) were gradually reformed. The Municipal Councils were made to open up to the majority of the population who lived there.
The situation changed dramatically in September 1931, when junior officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria engineered an incident near Mukden and used it as a pretext to attack troops loyal to the Nationalist government. They were not supported by the larger army or the civilian government in Tokyo, but they held the initiative and pressed forward. In December, the government in Tokyo fell and was replaced by a more hawkish one, and by the end of 1932, Manchuria was in their hands. It was renamed Manchukuo and the former Emperor Piyi was installed as the Emperor of this Japanese puppet state. The League of Nations called on the Japanese to vacate and so the Japanese left the League of Nations. Also, because of clashes between Chinese and Japanese in Shanghai, the Japanese bombed and fought and destroyed the district of Zhabei in the north of the city for five weeks. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians moved into Manchukuo, the cities were modernized and industry was encouraged and developed.
Still, the Nationalist government was trying to change attitudes in the wider world. The Chinese government sent cultural exhibitions abroad and criticized racist portrayals in Hollywood movies. Bickers argues this all had some effect.
In 1937, Japan invaded China proper. The violence started at Shanghai, and the Japanese advanced down the coast and hundreds of miles inland. They took the Nationalist capital of Nanjing. This meant that the ten International settlements, concessions and leased territories had very ambiguous status. The Japanese wanted control of them, particularly Shanghai and so they exerted more and more pressure. The Nationalists hated the western outposts in theory but in reality these were used as centers of resistance to Japan and bases of espionage. They were packed with refugees, lots of gambling, drugs, disorder and political murders. Shanghai danced as China burned.
1941 was the year the Japanese overturned the British. Hong Kong was invaded and surrendered. The British were put in internment camps and ritually and publicly humiliated by the Japanese. The Japanese also formally took over Shanghai but actually left most things in place until 1943, when they put the British and Americans in internment camps there, too.
In the rump of China still controlled by the Guomindang government, the Head of the Customs Service was still a Britain. However, as revenue had shrunk because of the war, now the Revenue Service only produced 1% of government revenues. There was a passing of the torch. The Americans came to predominate as the British had lost all credibility with their loss to Japan. In 1943, the British signed a treaty with the Nationalist government in which they gave up their extraterritorial rights, the settlements and concessions, and their hold on the Customs service. By the end of the war there were 60,000 Americans in China, including bomber bases from which to attack Japan and Japan-occupied China.
At the end of the war, the majority of foreigners who were released from the internment camps got out of China, but a few stayed to work at the few businesses or UN jobs that remained.
After the Communist takeover in 1949, most of the remaining foreign missionaries were squeezed out, the Protestants mostly orderly. The Catholics resisted and were crushed. As the Communists squeezed business generally, so as well with foreign businesses. At least foreign businessmen weren’t executed, but they left. At the same time, Bickers tells the story of the 20,000 Russian and East European advisors who were brought in from 1949 to1969.
Bickers also goes into some detail about how the Chinese survived or didn’t especially the Cultural Revolution, when all things foreign were derided as imperialist, and then the death of Mao and the rise of the more pragmatic Deng Xiaoping.
Finally, the British had their illusions shattered in 1984 regarding Hong Kong. Hong Kong had grown into an international financial and trade hub, rich and well-governed. Margaret Thatcher went to China to make a deal to keep it going when Hong Kong’s “lease” ran out in 1997. She was summarily rebuffed, with the Chinese openly declaring that the projection of Chinese power was much more important than the rule of law or prosperity. As Hong Kong was no more defensible in 1997 than in 1941, it was duly surrendered, and that was the end of that. Macao, the last European protectorate, under the Portuguese, was handed over in 1999,
And that leaves only Taiwan.
Bickers documents how the contemporary Chinese government uses this nationalist history for its own purposes. They really don’t trust the Japanese, and in turn the Japanese don’t much like them. There are countless museums to this or that humiliation or victory by or over foreigners. The government uses the history to legitimize itself, but it is riding a tiger that it really can’t control. Also, the Chinese government seems blind to its nationalist contradictions. Imperialism is bad when done to us, but we have designs on Tibet, Mongolia, and SE Asia. Also, we can criticize China but foreigners can’t. Well, how is that different from Chinese criticizing Japanese?
The book is worth a read if you are interested in this sort of thing. Bickers is a professional historian and the book is well-documented. He has his biases but so does everyone else and he is at least trying to be objective. The problem with this book is that he goes off topic when he doesn’t seem to have much more to say. The Communist takeover, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, China after Mao are all interesting topics, but they are only tangentially connected to his thesis, which is how the Chinese recovered their territory from the imperialists. As well, I don’t know why he didn’t cover two stories that are very interesting and both directly related to his thesis. The first is how hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians and military were repatriated to Japan after World War Two. That was a tragedy of human suffering of immense proportions. The other is the story of the American military in China after World War Two. There were Marines guarding railways, the Army logistics core was moving around Nationalist troops, and there were firefights with the Communists. Again, this is directly relevant to his thesis and he didn’t even mention it. Anyway, there is a book by Ronald Spector called In The Ruins of Empire that will tell you about these.
Bickers starts with the situation at the end of WW I. China was divided: there was a republic in the north under President Xu Shichang, and there was a rival Guomindang (Nationalist) government in the south, which had won nationwide elections but not been allowed to take power. There were foreign concessions in many major cities, Shanghai, Tianjin and other places. These were pieces of America or Britain or France or Italy in China, managed by the foreigners who lived there through Municipal Councils with their own laws, courts, police, governments, American Marines, self-defense forces, or British Sikhs. These were often regressive and racist and out of the control of, for example, the British Foreign Office. There were foreign Christian missionaries all over China. Hong Kong and Macao were British and Portuguese colonies respectively.
The Japanese had been getting stronger and stronger since 1905, when they beat the Russians in the Russo-Japanese war. They had handed China 21 demands in 1915, in a bid for more power. Also, the Japanese had taken over Germany’s concession at Tianjin.
The Chinese sent a delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, hoping for the Japanese to be told to leave Tianjin. However, China had been sold out by its warlords. In 1915, in return for a Japanese loan, the local warlords had acquiesced in the Japanese takeover. Therefore, the Chinese claim was rejected, although the Germans were expelled from their other possessions and these were taken over by the Republic.
At this time, foreigners worked for various warlords, the Chinese republican government, and the Guomindang at all levels, as political and military advisors, customs officials, legal and technical experts, even bodyguards. Foreigners ran the Customs Office, which contributed the most funds of any department in the Chinese government.
However, China was beginning to change and modernize. The May 4 movement, as the movement against the Versailles rejection of Chinese claims became known, led to student demonstrations in Beijing and a countrywide anti-Japanese boycott movement. The propaganda teams and links between organizations strengthened and became more effective over time, and they expanded their targets to the other imperialists as well.
During the republic, there were two great victories for this movement against the British. There was a Hong Kong Seaman’s strike in 1922. The British tried to crush it and killed some of the strikers. This resulted in a general strike of one hundred thousand, including the staff at Government House. The British backed down and the strikers won. In 1925 in the Shanghai International settlement, the British killed 12 violent demonstrators and this turned into a nationwide anti-British movement. More than fifty armed Chinese demonstrators were killed in Guangzhou as they demonstrated against the International Settlement there. This turned into a 16-month long boycott and general strike against the British that crippled their trade at Hong Kong. “[T]he single biggest wound suffered by the British in China before 1941.”
Bickers follows the twists and turns in the story and tries to tell it from both sides, In 1923, the Soviets agreed to back Sun Yat Sen and the Guomindang with money, advisors and munitions to create a unified Chinese government. Communists had been active in China for a few years, and the Comintern promoted a United Front policy, so that by 1926 many Communists had joined the Guomindang. They brought lots of discipline. After Sun Yat Sen died, Chiang Kai-shek came to prominence. He led a “Northern Expedition”: a 150,000-strong army swept north and carried all before it. They had Beijing by 1927.
As the Guomindang were real nationalists who wished the foreigners out, the safety of the international settlements was questioned. Two smaller British concessions were abandoned., while 20,000 British reinforcements were sent to China. However, at the same time, the Nationalist movement split, with Chiang Kai-shek and the right allying with the imperialists and cracking down on the Communists. Thousands were killed, Soviet advisors fled, and Chiang stood triumphant.
Bickers details also how, from the 1920s, the Communists started building bases among the peasants and Mao got his start. On the other hand, there was also an important liberal reform movement that saw education as the key to increasing living standards for Chinese farmers. Also, from the 1920s, Chinese Christians consciously began to take control of their communities and foreign missionaries started to leave. In 1928, the Guomindang passed a law putting all educational institutes under Chinese, not foreign control. Foreign teachers could still teach, but they were no longer in control.
The Guomindang government did not have perfect control of the country. They were a reforming, nationalist movement, but the warlords were still around. The Guomindang wanted the “unequal treaties” revised and the imperialists out but they wanted to do it in an orderly fashion through negotiations. Two British outposts were formally abandoned in negotiations and these were the first colonial possessions given up by the British in the 20th Century retreat from Empire. The International Settlements (Shanghai, Tianjin) were gradually reformed. The Municipal Councils were made to open up to the majority of the population who lived there.
The situation changed dramatically in September 1931, when junior officers of the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria engineered an incident near Mukden and used it as a pretext to attack troops loyal to the Nationalist government. They were not supported by the larger army or the civilian government in Tokyo, but they held the initiative and pressed forward. In December, the government in Tokyo fell and was replaced by a more hawkish one, and by the end of 1932, Manchuria was in their hands. It was renamed Manchukuo and the former Emperor Piyi was installed as the Emperor of this Japanese puppet state. The League of Nations called on the Japanese to vacate and so the Japanese left the League of Nations. Also, because of clashes between Chinese and Japanese in Shanghai, the Japanese bombed and fought and destroyed the district of Zhabei in the north of the city for five weeks. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians moved into Manchukuo, the cities were modernized and industry was encouraged and developed.
Still, the Nationalist government was trying to change attitudes in the wider world. The Chinese government sent cultural exhibitions abroad and criticized racist portrayals in Hollywood movies. Bickers argues this all had some effect.
In 1937, Japan invaded China proper. The violence started at Shanghai, and the Japanese advanced down the coast and hundreds of miles inland. They took the Nationalist capital of Nanjing. This meant that the ten International settlements, concessions and leased territories had very ambiguous status. The Japanese wanted control of them, particularly Shanghai and so they exerted more and more pressure. The Nationalists hated the western outposts in theory but in reality these were used as centers of resistance to Japan and bases of espionage. They were packed with refugees, lots of gambling, drugs, disorder and political murders. Shanghai danced as China burned.
1941 was the year the Japanese overturned the British. Hong Kong was invaded and surrendered. The British were put in internment camps and ritually and publicly humiliated by the Japanese. The Japanese also formally took over Shanghai but actually left most things in place until 1943, when they put the British and Americans in internment camps there, too.
In the rump of China still controlled by the Guomindang government, the Head of the Customs Service was still a Britain. However, as revenue had shrunk because of the war, now the Revenue Service only produced 1% of government revenues. There was a passing of the torch. The Americans came to predominate as the British had lost all credibility with their loss to Japan. In 1943, the British signed a treaty with the Nationalist government in which they gave up their extraterritorial rights, the settlements and concessions, and their hold on the Customs service. By the end of the war there were 60,000 Americans in China, including bomber bases from which to attack Japan and Japan-occupied China.
At the end of the war, the majority of foreigners who were released from the internment camps got out of China, but a few stayed to work at the few businesses or UN jobs that remained.
After the Communist takeover in 1949, most of the remaining foreign missionaries were squeezed out, the Protestants mostly orderly. The Catholics resisted and were crushed. As the Communists squeezed business generally, so as well with foreign businesses. At least foreign businessmen weren’t executed, but they left. At the same time, Bickers tells the story of the 20,000 Russian and East European advisors who were brought in from 1949 to1969.
Bickers also goes into some detail about how the Chinese survived or didn’t especially the Cultural Revolution, when all things foreign were derided as imperialist, and then the death of Mao and the rise of the more pragmatic Deng Xiaoping.
Finally, the British had their illusions shattered in 1984 regarding Hong Kong. Hong Kong had grown into an international financial and trade hub, rich and well-governed. Margaret Thatcher went to China to make a deal to keep it going when Hong Kong’s “lease” ran out in 1997. She was summarily rebuffed, with the Chinese openly declaring that the projection of Chinese power was much more important than the rule of law or prosperity. As Hong Kong was no more defensible in 1997 than in 1941, it was duly surrendered, and that was the end of that. Macao, the last European protectorate, under the Portuguese, was handed over in 1999,
And that leaves only Taiwan.
Bickers documents how the contemporary Chinese government uses this nationalist history for its own purposes. They really don’t trust the Japanese, and in turn the Japanese don’t much like them. There are countless museums to this or that humiliation or victory by or over foreigners. The government uses the history to legitimize itself, but it is riding a tiger that it really can’t control. Also, the Chinese government seems blind to its nationalist contradictions. Imperialism is bad when done to us, but we have designs on Tibet, Mongolia, and SE Asia. Also, we can criticize China but foreigners can’t. Well, how is that different from Chinese criticizing Japanese?
The book is worth a read if you are interested in this sort of thing. Bickers is a professional historian and the book is well-documented. He has his biases but so does everyone else and he is at least trying to be objective. The problem with this book is that he goes off topic when he doesn’t seem to have much more to say. The Communist takeover, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, China after Mao are all interesting topics, but they are only tangentially connected to his thesis, which is how the Chinese recovered their territory from the imperialists. As well, I don’t know why he didn’t cover two stories that are very interesting and both directly related to his thesis. The first is how hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians and military were repatriated to Japan after World War Two. That was a tragedy of human suffering of immense proportions. The other is the story of the American military in China after World War Two. There were Marines guarding railways, the Army logistics core was moving around Nationalist troops, and there were firefights with the Communists. Again, this is directly relevant to his thesis and he didn’t even mention it. Anyway, there is a book by Ronald Spector called In The Ruins of Empire that will tell you about these.
February 20, 2022
Detailed look at modern China. Half way between a 'one damned thing after another' history and an account with the ambition of giving answers.
Many questions remain.
Many questions remain.
December 8, 2024
Was China's escape from being incorporated into one of Europe's expansionist empires a poisoned chalice? Bickers examines the colonial encounter in China from the 'century of humiliation', to the moment at midnight when the Britannia slipped its moorings, fireworks rather than gunshots went off in Tiananmen Square and the rains of Hong Kong washed this all away. Or did it? Mao's 'Never Forget Class Struggle' had found its twin: 'Never Forget National Humiliation', open and carefully tended wounds.
I loved his concluding account of contemporary China's leadership and their relationship to this past: 'Xi Jinping and members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo paid homage to the past’ in 2012 when they visited the National Museum of China and its permanent display ‘The Road to rejuvenation.’ ‘The design aesthetic in the first galleries is darkness. Art works and artefacts illustrate a narrative of China’s story of humiliation and weakness from 1840 onwards. But then comes the light, and in the second set of galleries a different aesthetic decorates a record of events and triumphs since 1949.’ Ends with focus on China’s space programme and a display of mobile phones. ‘A story of release from the shame of the past. The promise at the end of the black tunnel of history is a smartphone.’
Also a contribution to understanding around Hong Kong. Discusses racism and exclusion in the colony, that the British preferred to call a 'territory' and highlights the vast wealth inequality of this futuristic capitalist success story. Thatcher's over-the-top admiration of its laissez-faire elements is entertaining. Lloyd George's description of the Chinese as 'like the Arabs, a very talented race, but unable to progress right now' is less so and fits with Said's analysis of Orientalism. For revisionist and nostalgic accounts of its history - this is important. I particularly liked his use of the example of there being a large Cricket ground at the heart of a city where almost no-one played it - until 1978 when it was finally turned into a park: colonial exclusion had a long farewell. And like Shimla or Kololo Hill, the early colonial British homes clung to the higher slopes of the Island, while a statue of Victoria stood at the pier, as in Toronto or Kimberly. One of my friends described arriving in Hong Kong, and how it felt like being back in the Caribbean, at least the British were consistent! The fears of 'Boxerism' reminded me so much of the spectre of 'The Mutiny' that haunted the psyche of white British colonials in India.
The image of a British governor being inaugurated in a city of 5 million subjects wearing Ostrich feathers in his hat in 1987 is almost funny. Madonna’s Open Your Heart was topping the charts and the British were still boogying like it was 1897.
Also recognised the development of a distinct Hong Kong identity, young, Cantonese, confident, urban and outward looking. Having watched some of the films and seen some of the music and icons who emerged from this period - who can doubt this!! And that story is the real one that seems to be obscured by a strange collaboration between British and Chinese narratives.
‘Would you like to go to China’ Paul McCartney was asked when the Beatles visited Hong Kong in 1964, ‘I thought this was China’ he replied, but increasingly it wasn’t.
Also someone who was v kind to a slightly distraught PhD applicant :)
I loved his concluding account of contemporary China's leadership and their relationship to this past: 'Xi Jinping and members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo paid homage to the past’ in 2012 when they visited the National Museum of China and its permanent display ‘The Road to rejuvenation.’ ‘The design aesthetic in the first galleries is darkness. Art works and artefacts illustrate a narrative of China’s story of humiliation and weakness from 1840 onwards. But then comes the light, and in the second set of galleries a different aesthetic decorates a record of events and triumphs since 1949.’ Ends with focus on China’s space programme and a display of mobile phones. ‘A story of release from the shame of the past. The promise at the end of the black tunnel of history is a smartphone.’
Also a contribution to understanding around Hong Kong. Discusses racism and exclusion in the colony, that the British preferred to call a 'territory' and highlights the vast wealth inequality of this futuristic capitalist success story. Thatcher's over-the-top admiration of its laissez-faire elements is entertaining. Lloyd George's description of the Chinese as 'like the Arabs, a very talented race, but unable to progress right now' is less so and fits with Said's analysis of Orientalism. For revisionist and nostalgic accounts of its history - this is important. I particularly liked his use of the example of there being a large Cricket ground at the heart of a city where almost no-one played it - until 1978 when it was finally turned into a park: colonial exclusion had a long farewell. And like Shimla or Kololo Hill, the early colonial British homes clung to the higher slopes of the Island, while a statue of Victoria stood at the pier, as in Toronto or Kimberly. One of my friends described arriving in Hong Kong, and how it felt like being back in the Caribbean, at least the British were consistent! The fears of 'Boxerism' reminded me so much of the spectre of 'The Mutiny' that haunted the psyche of white British colonials in India.
The image of a British governor being inaugurated in a city of 5 million subjects wearing Ostrich feathers in his hat in 1987 is almost funny. Madonna’s Open Your Heart was topping the charts and the British were still boogying like it was 1897.
Also recognised the development of a distinct Hong Kong identity, young, Cantonese, confident, urban and outward looking. Having watched some of the films and seen some of the music and icons who emerged from this period - who can doubt this!! And that story is the real one that seems to be obscured by a strange collaboration between British and Chinese narratives.
‘Would you like to go to China’ Paul McCartney was asked when the Beatles visited Hong Kong in 1964, ‘I thought this was China’ he replied, but increasingly it wasn’t.
Also someone who was v kind to a slightly distraught PhD applicant :)
June 4, 2018
A lively chronicle of China's relationship with imperialists and foreign advisors. Decent recounting of how China pushed out the missionary, commercial, and eventually Soviet influences over the past 200 years.
Still, would have preferred a much deeper account of China's recent economic moves that effectively canceled communism and plugged the country into the world market and international capital flow. Bickers concentrates mainly on geopolitics, post-war beefs, Hong Kong and the British, etc.
Still, would have preferred a much deeper account of China's recent economic moves that effectively canceled communism and plugged the country into the world market and international capital flow. Bickers concentrates mainly on geopolitics, post-war beefs, Hong Kong and the British, etc.
November 24, 2025
Out Of China focuses on the Chinese state in the 20th century period post the Qing dynasty. Particular attention is given to how this country's sense of self was fundamentally transformed in these years and had major consequences for the world order that we take for granted today. It covers an intensely rich period of convulsion with: the struggle against embedded Western imperial foreign powers and their prosperous but heretical treaty ports; suffering at the hands of the belligerent Japanese, particularly during the WW2 occupation; a flirting with the Soviet Union and eventual discord over ideologies; internal strife between governments vying for control and legitimacy; and the vast, bloody horrors inflicted by revolutionary fervour. All this and more combine to inform China's nationalist identity today with a commitment to never again suffering humiliation at the hands of foreign powers.
As the above may indicate, I am largely convinced by Bickers and the argument he has put forward. His dedication to honouring the boundaries of the work's key question is commendable as he resists straying into other tempting neighbouring areas of history (even if they may have been useful for a non-specialist like myself). This ruthlessness in addressing the subtitle, 'How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination', makes for an informative and compelling narrative.
This was a challenging but rewarding read. Admittedly, part of the challenge arose from the author's habit of writing in overly long-winded, multi-clause sentences. In fairness, this problem did abate as I read on, aided either by his change in style or my familiarity with it.
All in all, the book posed and addressed a fascinating question. It drew from a wide source of evidence, referencing the importance of films and books on the popular imagination alongside the practical changes achieved through politics and diplomacy. I felt Bickers took a fair, objective outlook on a state that is infamous for its recent attempts to rewrite history. As Bickers himself says, it is necessary for us to understand how China presents itself and why, but that doesn't mean we have to believe it.
As the above may indicate, I am largely convinced by Bickers and the argument he has put forward. His dedication to honouring the boundaries of the work's key question is commendable as he resists straying into other tempting neighbouring areas of history (even if they may have been useful for a non-specialist like myself). This ruthlessness in addressing the subtitle, 'How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination', makes for an informative and compelling narrative.
This was a challenging but rewarding read. Admittedly, part of the challenge arose from the author's habit of writing in overly long-winded, multi-clause sentences. In fairness, this problem did abate as I read on, aided either by his change in style or my familiarity with it.
All in all, the book posed and addressed a fascinating question. It drew from a wide source of evidence, referencing the importance of films and books on the popular imagination alongside the practical changes achieved through politics and diplomacy. I felt Bickers took a fair, objective outlook on a state that is infamous for its recent attempts to rewrite history. As Bickers himself says, it is necessary for us to understand how China presents itself and why, but that doesn't mean we have to believe it.
October 27, 2019
History of China from 19th to 21st century
Robert Bickers has written extensively about the history of China under foreign powers and the struggle to form a national identity by various regimes and nationalists. Its a good read for ordinary laymen who are not well versed on the history of China but it may provoke controversy among China experts. There are comprehensive accounts on foreign legations in large cities and on Cultural Revolution but accounts of Japanese invasion of the country is sparse. Chinese people suffered tremendously from the invasion but in my opinion few were mentioned. The battles that took the lives of millions on both sides are given a few lines. I am also surprised by the scarce mentioning of activities by the Communists and the subsequent Long March to escape he Guomingtang. And another economic disaster that the author wrote in a few lines was the rampant inflation that led to the victory of Mao's Communists. These have greater consequences on the migration of Chinese diaspora to South East Asia and the rest of the world. Anyway the book is a good read for those studying foreign presence in China from 19th to 20th centuries.
Robert Bickers has written extensively about the history of China under foreign powers and the struggle to form a national identity by various regimes and nationalists. Its a good read for ordinary laymen who are not well versed on the history of China but it may provoke controversy among China experts. There are comprehensive accounts on foreign legations in large cities and on Cultural Revolution but accounts of Japanese invasion of the country is sparse. Chinese people suffered tremendously from the invasion but in my opinion few were mentioned. The battles that took the lives of millions on both sides are given a few lines. I am also surprised by the scarce mentioning of activities by the Communists and the subsequent Long March to escape he Guomingtang. And another economic disaster that the author wrote in a few lines was the rampant inflation that led to the victory of Mao's Communists. These have greater consequences on the migration of Chinese diaspora to South East Asia and the rest of the world. Anyway the book is a good read for those studying foreign presence in China from 19th to 20th centuries.
February 2, 2019
Bickers' narrative is a coherent bird's eye view skilfully collating a multitude of perspectives. Its impartial objectivity highlights a litany of insolent ignorance that permeates the history of twentieth-century China. The interplay between imperialism and nationalism was complex, malleable, and ambiguous. It is a tale of borrowed time, of hypocrisy and folly, of humanity and brutality, and also of the loss of innocence accompanied by a gain of dignity. To a person born and raised in British Hong Kong, I find this book particularly enlightening as it demystifies so delectably the intricate Sino-British relationship during the death throes of colonialism that my childhood witnessed. The sense of inevitability saturates the whole account. So do the force of destiny and the prowess of Fortuna. By debunking propagandist and apologist fictions and fantasies, the prose is highly informative and refreshing. Four stars.
August 5, 2018
Robert Bickers work looks at the cultural aspects of the China throughout and after the Western domination of China. I found the work to remarkable in that aspect. A lot of the historical events and milestones are less significant in the book. It will be disappointment to a reader to look relay on this work as sole source for the history of the period.
December 13, 2021
Belabored writing style, very dry, perhaps very well researched but god damn boring. DID NOT FINISH
December 31, 2022
Excellent book on China.
China's history of being ruled by imperial leaders has left a scar. Most people don't understand or appreciate this fact. This book helps explain this history and give non-Chinese people a better understanding of how important this is to Chinese people.
I'd highly recommend reading this book to better understand China.
China's history of being ruled by imperial leaders has left a scar. Most people don't understand or appreciate this fact. This book helps explain this history and give non-Chinese people a better understanding of how important this is to Chinese people.
I'd highly recommend reading this book to better understand China.
March 5, 2020
Instagram @elle_reads
BOOK REVIEW
[Out of China] A historical account of China’s foreign and domestic policy.
//
WHAT I LIKED
Robert Bickers balances all the pieces of history. I always found adequate explanations of policy, culture, historical figures, etc as necessary to understand the plotline. General world context, such as the implications of the Vietnam War, are included when his argument believe the event significantly impacted China’s relations.
//
Within the timeline, Bickers focuses on the continuation of imperialistic themes. I enjoyed his focus on China’s lens of the world in contract with western views of China. He focused on our need to understand, not necessarily agree, with each countries’ choices.
//
WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Everything red in China’s history is sensationalized. For my taste, Bicker’s metaphors stringing together the cultural revolution are a touch excessive. They made me take a step back and reevaluate his facts and world play.
//
Another small issue - I couldn’t easily tell which were citations or the images present at certain points in the book.
//
Out of China (Robert Bickers) ⚡⚡⚡⚡✨4.5/5
//
BOOK REVIEW
[Out of China] A historical account of China’s foreign and domestic policy.
//
WHAT I LIKED
Robert Bickers balances all the pieces of history. I always found adequate explanations of policy, culture, historical figures, etc as necessary to understand the plotline. General world context, such as the implications of the Vietnam War, are included when his argument believe the event significantly impacted China’s relations.
//
Within the timeline, Bickers focuses on the continuation of imperialistic themes. I enjoyed his focus on China’s lens of the world in contract with western views of China. He focused on our need to understand, not necessarily agree, with each countries’ choices.
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WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE
Everything red in China’s history is sensationalized. For my taste, Bicker’s metaphors stringing together the cultural revolution are a touch excessive. They made me take a step back and reevaluate his facts and world play.
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Another small issue - I couldn’t easily tell which were citations or the images present at certain points in the book.
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Out of China (Robert Bickers) ⚡⚡⚡⚡✨4.5/5
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December 5, 2019
An insightful read that explains significant changes to Chinese state and society under the pressure of Western Domination and how the country managed to come out the other side intact.
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