Why did China unite and Europe fail to?
Posted: 2013-05-27 01:41pm
Curious as to what people's opinions might be on the different historical outcomes.
For the purposes of this thread I am referring to the arguments presented in:
War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe by Victoria Hui
http://www.amazon.com/State-Formation-A ... ctoria+hui
In short, she posits that the ancient kingdom of Qin in Warring States China succeeded in conquering its rivals and forming a unified state (and subsequently taken over by the Han dynasty) because of "self-strengthening" reforms and "ruthless strategies", by which she defines as:
1. Extension of the state apparatus as far as possible to the lowest level of society, the household, in order to extract maximum taxes, productivity, labor, and manpower for war, thereby removing the need to gain funds through merchant loans or tax farming.
2. Lack of intermediary or competing centers of power, such as the medieval church or nobility. After the Shang Yang reforms, Qin had implemented a centralized bureaucracy with the head of state at the top, and broken the power of the old nobility
3. Ruthless strategems such as wholesale slaughter of defeated armies to irreversibly sap the manpower of competing states, as well as state sponsored subversion and bribery of other state officials in order to influence policy or military strategy.
4. Taking advantage of the short-term opportunism of other rival states to bandwagon on top of Qin's successes, in order to prevent them from allying together to maintain a balance of power.
5. Late monetization of the economy (which occurred in China after the Qin dynasty) which meant there was no easy means to raise funds (like merchant loans) short of directly taxing the population.
6. Territories directly adjacent to Qin were targeted for conquest and absorption, rather than piecemeal holdings that could be separated geographically (which sometimes occurred in the past due to noble fiefs). Conquered territories were also directly absorbed into the existing Qin state structure, with dismantling of the conquered state's structure.
In contrast, she felt Europe (up to and including Napoleon's era) failed to unite due to essentially "self-weakening" reforms, which were short-term expedients that led to long term bad consequences. The most severe of these was:
1. Reliance on mercenaries which were expensive and unreliable instead of national armies.
2. Fund raising methods. Instead of trying to rationalize and extend the tax gathering apparatus both in breadth and in depth, monarchs sold public offices, took out loans, or secured immediate funds through selling rights to tax farm from their lands. This was posited to be due to the stage of monetization of the economy, which took place and offered easier ways to raise money and troops in the short term in Europe, whereas Qin was not a heavily monetized economy.
4. Wars pursued with short term goals such as piecemeal territorial gains (which could be discontinuous with the main state) or settling succession questions, rather than ultimate wars of national annihilation and absorption of rival states.
5. Competing centers of power such as local nobility and the Church, which counterbalanced the power of the ruler.
6. The balance of power mechanism being different in that one state (Britain) was separated by water and thus its core territory and economy unable to be permanently damaged by the wars on the continent. Intact Britain therefore was able to preserve its strength and play one continental power off another.
These she theorized had left such a legacy (such as crippling debts and recalcitrant nobles) for European monarchs that even when they did attempt self-strengthening reforms, they were of limited effect.
She discounted terrain as reasons through comparing the territories of continental Europe versus the territories of China. Likewise she dismissed the claim of culture, citing the different national identities and cultures of the Chinese Warring States, despite a shared culture, and said this is analogous to the separate identities of post-Roman Europe (despite the use of a common scholarly language and Roman legacy).
Essentially she argued that while balance of power was one outcome of a multi-state system, another outcome was what she called "the universal Leviathan" whereby a tipping point is reached that results in one state overwhelming all others. The author for China points to the Battle of Changping as the final tipping point whereby the last realistic military rival to Qin was decisively defeated, and after which everything else became essentially a matter of time and mop up.
I realize not everyone will have read nor be necessarily interested in reading that work, but I am still curious as to what people's opinion or what might be debated as to the reason for the difference in outcomes. I am not saying one is necessarily better or worse as an outcome.
For the purposes of this thread I am referring to the arguments presented in:
War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe by Victoria Hui
http://www.amazon.com/State-Formation-A ... ctoria+hui
In short, she posits that the ancient kingdom of Qin in Warring States China succeeded in conquering its rivals and forming a unified state (and subsequently taken over by the Han dynasty) because of "self-strengthening" reforms and "ruthless strategies", by which she defines as:
1. Extension of the state apparatus as far as possible to the lowest level of society, the household, in order to extract maximum taxes, productivity, labor, and manpower for war, thereby removing the need to gain funds through merchant loans or tax farming.
2. Lack of intermediary or competing centers of power, such as the medieval church or nobility. After the Shang Yang reforms, Qin had implemented a centralized bureaucracy with the head of state at the top, and broken the power of the old nobility
3. Ruthless strategems such as wholesale slaughter of defeated armies to irreversibly sap the manpower of competing states, as well as state sponsored subversion and bribery of other state officials in order to influence policy or military strategy.
4. Taking advantage of the short-term opportunism of other rival states to bandwagon on top of Qin's successes, in order to prevent them from allying together to maintain a balance of power.
5. Late monetization of the economy (which occurred in China after the Qin dynasty) which meant there was no easy means to raise funds (like merchant loans) short of directly taxing the population.
6. Territories directly adjacent to Qin were targeted for conquest and absorption, rather than piecemeal holdings that could be separated geographically (which sometimes occurred in the past due to noble fiefs). Conquered territories were also directly absorbed into the existing Qin state structure, with dismantling of the conquered state's structure.
In contrast, she felt Europe (up to and including Napoleon's era) failed to unite due to essentially "self-weakening" reforms, which were short-term expedients that led to long term bad consequences. The most severe of these was:
1. Reliance on mercenaries which were expensive and unreliable instead of national armies.
2. Fund raising methods. Instead of trying to rationalize and extend the tax gathering apparatus both in breadth and in depth, monarchs sold public offices, took out loans, or secured immediate funds through selling rights to tax farm from their lands. This was posited to be due to the stage of monetization of the economy, which took place and offered easier ways to raise money and troops in the short term in Europe, whereas Qin was not a heavily monetized economy.
4. Wars pursued with short term goals such as piecemeal territorial gains (which could be discontinuous with the main state) or settling succession questions, rather than ultimate wars of national annihilation and absorption of rival states.
5. Competing centers of power such as local nobility and the Church, which counterbalanced the power of the ruler.
6. The balance of power mechanism being different in that one state (Britain) was separated by water and thus its core territory and economy unable to be permanently damaged by the wars on the continent. Intact Britain therefore was able to preserve its strength and play one continental power off another.
These she theorized had left such a legacy (such as crippling debts and recalcitrant nobles) for European monarchs that even when they did attempt self-strengthening reforms, they were of limited effect.
She discounted terrain as reasons through comparing the territories of continental Europe versus the territories of China. Likewise she dismissed the claim of culture, citing the different national identities and cultures of the Chinese Warring States, despite a shared culture, and said this is analogous to the separate identities of post-Roman Europe (despite the use of a common scholarly language and Roman legacy).
Essentially she argued that while balance of power was one outcome of a multi-state system, another outcome was what she called "the universal Leviathan" whereby a tipping point is reached that results in one state overwhelming all others. The author for China points to the Battle of Changping as the final tipping point whereby the last realistic military rival to Qin was decisively defeated, and after which everything else became essentially a matter of time and mop up.
I realize not everyone will have read nor be necessarily interested in reading that work, but I am still curious as to what people's opinion or what might be debated as to the reason for the difference in outcomes. I am not saying one is necessarily better or worse as an outcome.