The Lion and the Dragon: Britain and China: A History of Conflict

by Lawrence James

Napoleon warned 'Let China sleep; when she wakes, she will shake the world'. Lawrence James's magisterial history analyses the relationship between Britain and China between the beginning of the Opium Wars in 1839 and the transfer of power in Hong Kong in 1997.

The Lion and the Dragon reveals the part that Britain played in the awakening of China, then covers relations between the two countries during the period when an aroused China did indeed shake the world. Lawrence James also follows the parallel trajectories of four competitive empires - the British, the Chinese, the Russian and the Japanese - during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and then the fortunes of a fifth imperial power, the United States.

Successive British governments saw China as a source of wealth which needed to be protected. Local objections were seen off by force (the 'Opium' wars of 1839-42, 1856-7 and 1859-60) whose results proved that the Qing emperors could not protect their country. Indian troops were deployed in each campaign and manned Britain's small garrisons in Hong Kong, Shanghai and other Treaty ports. Yet Britain never sought to make China into another India. Rather it allowed the emperors and their officials to govern, so long as they were docile and amenable to British needs. Paramount were the internal stability and fiscal responsibility that were the lubricants of trade.

A unified nation with economic and military muscle, and aware of its distant past as one of the great nations of the world, has been intent on reversing her recent history. Lawrence James vividly chronicles a time when this huge nation's divisions encouraged foreigners to treat her as a treasure-house to be plundered at will. This warning from history explains why China's present rulers brook neither dissent nor popular unrest.

Genres: China, History, Nonfiction, Politics, British Literature

272 pages, Hardcover

First published August 3, 2023

About the author

Edwin James Lawrence, most commonly known as Lawrence James, is an English historian and writer.

James graduated with a BA in English & History from the University of York in 1966, and subsequently undertook a research degree at Merton College, Oxford. Following a career as a teacher, James became a full-time writer in 1985.

James has written several works of popular history about the British Empire, and has contributed pieces for Daily Mail, The Times and the Literary Review.

Reviews

[Geevee · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is in essence two books neatly stitched together. Lawrence James explores Britain and China's relationship from the First Opium War of 1839-42 and beyond to 2022, but this story, naturally and rightly, incorporates a wider cast of characters, including Russia, Germany, France, USA and Japan, and hence my lead sentence.

The modern history of China - here taking the start as 1839 - sees Britain fight a war against China and its Qing Dynasty that gained traders commercial and legal privileges and territories for British merchants. The second war (1856-60) saw France ally with Britain and gain further benefits.
Thereafter, the history of China and Britain is also intertwined with the great powers, France, Russia and Germany, and the newly emerging goliath, America and a Japan who turn from British ally to enemy and back to ally again.

What we read of is how these nations treat and indeed feed off China's resources and people. How they exert their military strength against China and also against each other. There is much politicking with border incursions (Russia and Japan for example) as well as alliances and military treaties along with commercial agreements. There are some interesting aspects of a China that is nervous of new technologies such as photography, and also Christian missionary work, notably British and American, as well as introducing rickshaws and encouraging brothels.
Equally, there is much resentment of how the Western nations and Japan treat Chinese. Often in racially derogatory and that intelligence is not a gift Chinese possess and as such need Japan or western nations to educate, guide and indeed tell them how to manage. There is also much competition to see who can use China for their own purposes and in some cases, again Russia and Japan, to collect territory.

At the same time, this book provides a stimulating and very well put together overview of China and its history during the period of the book. Therefore we read about the Qings, how China fought on the allied side in WWI and was ignored at Versailles, and again how it fought with the allies against Japan in WWII with detail on Chang Kai-shek and Mao. And then post WWII with Mao and his vice like grip on China, including the land reforms, the cultural revolution and Red Guards and the Great leap forward and mass starvation (The Great Famine). There is also much on rising China as a power so the the Korean war is covered as is its stand on Formosa now Taiwan as well as the US removing its veto to China joining the UN, to help manage Russia during the Cold War.

The final stages of the book mention Belt and Road and the recent Chinese trade disputes with the US. Post-Covid the Western stance on globalisation and how China is stretching its tentacles far and wide, including the Western worries around technology theft, human rights and Chinese investment and influence in politics, trade, national infrastructure etc. Oddly the book makes no mention of Covid as a disease, impact on the British/Chinese relationship or with others.

To any reader who wishes to learn more about China's history in the last couple of hundred years, and how Britain and those other nations interacted with China I would certainly recommend. It is quite surprising how much is covered by Mr James and how easy for the general reader to keep abreast of the events in what is a relatively short book. I have two complaints, however. There are no photos and worse, not a single map.

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/opium-w...

[Globe Trotter · Rating 3 out of 5]

China understands "Britain's reputation for intrigue and cunning" wrote the author. If you have read Peter Frankopan's "The Silk Road" he offered an explanation of its originality. In the 1600s and 1700s mainland Europe saw an never ending war as states fought amongst themselves in every possible permutation. "The British learnt to intervene judiciously, taking advantage of circumstances that were in their favour, but staying out of it when the dice were loaded against them". The author of the current book wrote "Patience of subtlety distinguished British diplomacy, qualities that were lacking in the State department and the Pentagon". This is then followed by the brilliant quote from Sir Malcolm Macdonald addressing America's potential use of atomic bombs in the Korean war: "Americans possessed a fundamental generosity which was hampered by the clumsiness of their efforts"

Such is the ingenuity of British subtlety that is famous across the world. A Brit would insult you in the politest way possible that at the same time cuts you into the bone. It is here that I would like to start my review, and in particular the author's own cunning subtlety as he wrote this book.

Lawrence James, born in 1943 is a typical white educated Englishman growing up towards the end of the second world war in a still white dominated society when the British Empire was still a force to be reckoned with, and yet witnessed its recent dissolution. As a result such authors are nostalgic about the once great British Empire and at the same time harbour an unspoken sense of entitlement and superiority. I do feel he tried his best to be objective and factual in his writings, however at times it is evident the hypocrisy and that sense of superiority surfaces. What I find the most unsatisfactory are his writings at the start of the book on the coverage of the opium war. It is understandable being a Brit he is unwilling to admit the crimes of the British empire and the amount of suffering inflicted onto the chinese people, and the later the plunder and burning of chinese property. This is no different to Julia Lovell's book on the Opium War. The entire section from the Opium War to the end of the Qing dynasty is unsatisfactory. Without an honest admission of history the reader would not be able to appreciate fully the century of humiliation of China, the painful memories that still resides in her population, and the level of mistrust and antagonism the Chinese has towards the British government. Nor will the reader then be able to put into perspective modern day UK-China relations to this day.

The book opened with the Brits being the victims of the Opium trade, with the destruction of their opium at the hands of the chinese and the subsequent justification of vote in favour of war back in the UK Parliament. The author does not mention that Opium was banned 40 years before the Opium war, and that it was continuously smuggled by the British into China illegally. The author tried to misleadingly justify Opium wasn't just directed at China by stating in a single line that "opium consumption was legal in Britain". He failed to explain that opium was only used for medical treatment back home in the UK where as it was smuggled on a massive scale into China to encourage drug addiction, bring back silver at the expense of the lives of the chinese. Parallels can be seen in today's society where marijuana is legally a medical drug but can not be used to justify the addiction that is banned. The Brits were in fact the world's biggest drug dealer.

The author is subtle in his writings. In order to lessen Britain's crimes, on the very first page of the chapter, he first set the tone of a just Britain "It was unthinkable that a humane nation already engaged in a global war against slavery should condone, let alone actively encourage, drug addiction". Followed the next line with "Paradoxically, opium consumption was legal in Britain".
The subtle implication is that Britain was an humane nation that saw nothing wrong selling opium to China because it was also legal back home.

The justification of the burning of the Summer Palace during the second opium war was also deliberately misleading. The burning of the Summer Palace is perhaps the most sensitive issue today amongst the chinese and is the microcosm of the entire opium war, and perhaps the entire century of humiliation of the chinese nation. No explanation was given with regards to the background and the authors justification was that "retaliation would be directed against Xianfeng (the emperor) rather than the Chinese people.....the alternative was collective vengeance against the people of Beijing, which would have involved Allied soldiers running amok, killing and robbing its citizens". Such falsification of history is extremely perverse and offensive. Killing was common place and robbing was not limited to the palace, but everywhere from temples to private homes. One simply needs to step into the British Museum today to see the level and looting and theft.

On p45, the author claimed that "the Qing dynasty was compelled to accept Britain as its protector and the guarantor of what remained of its empire's integrity". The sense of entitlement and superiority has surfaced from the author. This is a common theme that comes out in various forms as a justification of the British rule and imposition onto others. However such claimed "protector and guarantor" is utterly false. Britain did not protect China's integrity when Japan invaded Taiwan in 1895 and on p65 "at the end of 1895 Japan had ordered six battleships and six cruisers, nearly all from British yards". On p109 the author still talked about the dilemma Britain faced potentially replacing Japan with America in the early 1900s and that it "was a leap in the dark that would have painful consequences for Britain and China". It is perverse to associate China being a beneficiary of Britain and her consequences of Britain's choice of alliance. Britain was already an alliance of Japan that had already invaded China at that time.

Following the theme earlier of Britain as the protector and the guarantor of her colonises as claimed by the author, on p141, it was written that "the heavily outnumbered garrison put up a gallant defence of Hong Kong" against the Japanese during WWII. What the book did not tell you is that only 28 British soldiers died in the defence. It is hard to say that such was a "gallant defence" and instead should be categorised as run at first opportunity. There had never been any interests towards the defence of benefit of the local population from the British empire. As stated in the book, and be seen from history, Britain failed to defend any of her colony in the Fat East from HK to Singapore to Malaysia and Burmar.

The hypocrisy of the West are everywhere throughout the book. on p125 America was selling oil that fuelled Japan's invasion of China, and iron that made Japanese bombs. "As the heroically taciturn President Calvin Coolidge has observed a decade before:" The Business of America is Business"" . What can one say about modern day Ukrainian war. Should China not sell weapons to Russia? Afterall the Business of China is also Business.

British subtlety of the author can again be seen on p143 when Chiang Kai-shek's attempted to reclaim HK after WWII with the support of Roosevelt who persuaded Churchill to agree to sign the Atlantic Charter, a death warrant for Europe's colonies. What I find interesting is the way the author angled his writings. First he wrote a paragraph above with Chiang Kai-shek and his wife "continued to urge the British government to grant immediate independence to India and attempted to enlist Roosevelt". Instead of praising Chiang Kai-shek's fight against freedom and colonialism, the author subtly described his "pretensions as a champion of Asian nationalist movements", after which only followed his attempt to reclaim HK back from Britain. The author portrayed the man as someone insincere instead of an outspoken hero when it comes to matters important at the expense of the British government. Again typical British subtlety.

On p154 in order to avoid the chinese taking back HK, Britain's deputy prime minster Attlee announced that HK would shortly be "reoccupied" by British forces on the 23rd August. The author opened the following chapter starting with "When British forces liberated Hong Kong in 1945...". I personally find his choice of word "liberate" perverse. It was never defended "gallantly" as claimed by the author and certainly Britain did nothing to help the liberation of Hong Kong from the Japanese. They simply moved back and "reoccupied" it as later written by the author on the same page p 157.

One interesting perspective offered by the author that I found particularly interesting was the claim by Zhou Enlai that HK "was an instrument to divide the British from the Americans in their Asian problems". In 1950 Britain recognised the People's Republic as the legitimate government of China, whereas the US only did so in 1979. It is true that after WWII "China had little to fear from Britain even though the two countries were ideological antagonists" where as "the United States was actively Hostile". The wedge between Britain and US is an interesting point of view that deserves to be explored further. The antagonism shown by the US towards China is not new and well documents in the excellent book "The China Mirage" by James Bradley detailing how the US "lost China".

Overall the book is very well written in terms of ease of reading, the author is fluid in his writing. I was hoping to learn something deeper but soon realised the book offers no new insights. What the book is useful is a very relevant summary of history between Britain and China and can be used as a "revision" of one's historical knowledge. It can be thought of as a readable advanced revision material for a school boy's history exam. I read the book in a single sitting in a day and it was a pleasure to refresh one's history despite the sense of Western entitlement and superiority from a very subtle British author.

[Chris Nixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems to be two short books in one. A proper in depth look at the relationship between the British Empire and China, then a short analysis of the relationship between the modern UK and China. Not a bad thing but I was expecting more post-war content, much of which seemed to be more about the American relationship with China than the British one. I definitely learned more in the first half. Still, what I did learn was absolutely worth the read and the second half is still solid.

[Readracoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

it was a good book overall and wasnt as dry as other history books. for me i found it a good starting point to understand chinese history but it definetly isnt a one stop shop. i found the biggest problem with this book is its focus on britian and chinas relationship which in my oppinion was reather tenuios by the end.

[Peter Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellant book following UK involvement in China from the opium wars to modern day Hong Kong. Nice short chapters focusing on specific time periods with real insight in characters participating in the history. Difficult to put down unlike some books on China

[Ignacio Sanvicens Zilles · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazingly focused and concise account of the conflicts between Britain and China, that also documents the rise and fall of each country in their own rights.

[P J LUFF · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive canter through an important but surprisngly overlooked part of UK history

Lawrence James packs a lot of colour along with a proliferation of facts into this useful and engaging history. An enjoyable and informative read.