China John Keay HarperPress An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF This HarperPress paperback edition published 2009 First published in Great Britain by HarperPress in 2008 Copyright © John Keay 2008 and 2009 John Keay asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007221783 Ebook Edition © MARCH 2010 ISBN: 9780007372089 Version: 2019-02-01
For Julia
The Master said, ‘Is it not a pleasure, having learned something, to try it out at due intervals? Is it not a joy to have like-minded friends come from afar? Is it not gentlemanly not to take offence when others fail to appreciate your abilities?’ Confucius, The Analects, Book I, i1 He who does not forget the past is master of the present. Sima Qian, Shiji2 Contents
6 WANG MANG AND THE HAN REPRISE
7 FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OF VICISSITUDE
8 SUI, TANG AND THE SECOND EMPIRE
16 REPUBLICANS AND NATIONALISTS
REWRITING THE PAST CHINA’S ECONOMIC RESURGENCE IN THE POST-MAO era has not been without its casualties. Gone are the Chairman’s portraits, the mass parades of flag-waving workers and the hoe-toting brigades on their collectivised farms. Apartment blocks, tightly mustered and regimentally aligned, perform the new choreography; flyovers vault the rice paddies, cable cars abseil the
