China Can't Escape Its History

Americans are accustomed to looking to our history for guidance in handling external and internal threats. We are not the only ones. Beijing’s approach to international trade is deeply informed by the history of China in the mid-19th century. So is its attitude toward the country’s domestic Christian and Muslim religious minorities, and toward Hong Kong. The great crisis of the Qing Dynasty, which came to a head in the 1860s, is every bit as traumatic and still relevant to modern-day China as the American Civil War is to us. More so, in fact: Xi Jinping’s regime is deeply invested in historical narratives that give a central place to those turbulent and bloody years.