In the period 1911-49, the possibility of China dividing was very real: on three occasions between 1911 and 1916 provinces actually declared independence from the central government. This, however, was done in response to particular actions by central government rather than as a matter of principle. In practice there were no alternative identities strong enough to provide a viable basis for the formation of breakaway states. There were two exceptions to this: the ultimately successful pressure for an independent Outer Mongolia between 1933 and 1941, and the de facto independence enjoyed by parts of Tibet between 1913 and 1933. But in the vast heartlands of China no such movement for separatism or independence ever acquired any serious strength. The Han Chinese identity, bolstered by new forms of anti-Manchu expression from the late nineteenth century, was simply too strong and too exclusive, while provincial identities remained ill-formed and never acquired any nationalist aspirations. Furthermore, as China entered the Western-dominated modern nation-state system, it was to experience the binding effects of modern nationalism: the centuries-old sense of cultural identity and cohesion, born of a unique kind of agrarian civilization, was reinforced by a profound feeling of grievance engendered by foreign occupation. [268]
Finally, why were the effects of foreign occupation relatively limited when elsewhere – Africa and the Middle East most obviously – they were to prove so enduring? China ’s vastness made colonizing the whole of it, or even the majority of it, a huge task which Britain and the United States saw no advantage in, although Japan and some of the other European nations favoured such an approach; [269] as a consequence, most of the country remained under Chinese sovereignty. Apart from Manchuria, it was largely the many treaty ports that experienced sustained foreign occupation and these were, in effect, small enclaves (albeit, by far the most advanced parts of the country) surrounded by China’s huge rural hinterland. This is not to detract from or underestimate the extent to which the country was undermined and dismembered by foreign occupation, but it fell far short of the kind of colonization experienced in Africa, for example. The fact that prior to 1800 China was an advanced agrarian economy, with widespread rural industrialization, considerable commercialization and sophisticated markets, meant that once foreign occupation came to an end, China could draw on this culture, knowledge and tradition for its industrialization. Furthermore, China enjoyed the world’s oldest and most sophisticated state and statecraft, a huge resource that post- 1949 China was able to utilize with great effect. This was in striking contrast to post-colonial Africa and the Middle East, where modern states had to be created more or less from scratch. Finally, the powerful sense of Chinese identity helped China resist many of the most negative cultural and psychological effects of Western and Japanese colonialism. [270] The Chinese remained bitterly hostile towards the presence of the Western powers and the Japanese, and felt deeply humiliated by the concessions they were forced to make; this was quite different from India, for example, which learnt to accommodate the presence of the British. [271] Despite everything, the Chinese never lost their inner sense of self-confidence – or feeling of superiority – about their own history and civilization. [272] This notwithstanding, the scale of China ’s suffering and dislocation in the century of humiliation has had a profound and long-term effect on Chinese consciousness, which remains to this day.
