Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London. He recently spoke about his important new book, “The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400 Year Contest for Power” (Yale University Press, 2024) with Richard Cullen. A fundamental reality, which this stimulating book stresses, is how significant British interaction with China pre-dates the British takeover of Hong Kong Island, in 1842, by around 250 years. The British colonisation of Hong Kong was an important turning-point during the 400-year contest captured in the title – but not more than that.
And here is one way to take a measure of the Great Reversal.
By the early 19th century, British traders were forcing themselves upon the Middle Kingdom. Most dominant was the British East India Company, which was profiting massively from the opium trade with China.
Still, the ruling Qing Dynasty in China enjoyed a huge, prima-facie home ground advantage at that time. China was a vast contiguous empire, with a very large population and it was, in many respects, exceptionally wealthy compared to far smaller Britain. Yet, the British, remarkably, were able, very far from home, to assert their demands and extract compliance from this massively important empire. Ultimately, Britain’s advanced military might and skill were used, repeatedly and fiercely, to secure these outcomes.
The contrast between how poorly defended China was 200 years ago and today could hardly be more stark. Now China is a nuclear armed superpower, home, using a Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) economic measure, to the world largest economy. It is both a technology powerhouse and the primary global trading giant – outpacing, the US, EU and UK combined – and leading the world across a raft of key manufacturing sectors, including shipping, motor vehicles, and green technology. Although its annual military expenditure is still dwarfed by the US, it is huge. And it is growing. As reversals go, nothing else in modern world history compares.
The modern historical timeline
Kerry Brown’s book also explains how British influence in China reached a peak around 1900. By then, American influence was accelerating. Next, Japanese influence, culminating in a vast, exceptionally savage invasion, was dominant until Japan’s defeat in World War II.
After that defeat, the Chinese Civil War resumed. In 1949, The Communist Party of China (CPC) led by Mao Zedong, established the new People’s Republic of China (PRC) after winning the Civil War. The PRC replaced the Republic of China (ROC) led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT). The KMT (and the ROC) retreated to the island province of Taiwan.
The US was, as World War II drew to a close, against the idea of Britain resuming colonial control over Hong Kong (which Japan had swiftly overrun in late 1941). Brown argues that, had US President Roosevelt not died in April 1945, the US may have insisted that this control be relinquished. In the event, the UK resumed full control over Hong Kong after the defeat of Japan.
This helps explain why the UK was the first major Western country to recognise the new PRC and the CPC as its legitimate governing party, in 1950. In 1972 full Sino-British diplomatic relations were established after the PRC took over the permanent Chinese seat on the UN Security Council (replacing the ROC), following a vote by the UN General Assembly recognising the PRC as the sole government of China.
Primary actors and informing perspectives
Brown argues persuasively that the long relationship with China has been largely shaped by three crucial British geopolitical-actors: first, traders and business people; next government and diplomats; and third missionaries (and today, democracy and human rights activists). Each has formed sceptical views of the other members of this troika, though they have also regularly worked together.
The Taiping Rebellion, also known as the Taiping Civil War was a major internal Hakka-led insurrection against the Qing Dynasty, which began in 1850 in Guangxi Province, and lasted for well over a decade. Its Hakka leader, Hong Xiuquan, proclaimed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. The British did not hold the Qing Government in particularly high regard and the Taiping movement claimed to be Christian. However, the British, as Brown explains, in due course found themselves supporting the Chinese government in this conflict. Without stability everyone suffers (not least those doing business) and the Taiping movement fostered lethal instability on a vast scale.
Kerry Brown also observed that the British were not greatly impressed with the father of the Chinese republican revolution, Sun Yat-sen, nor Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT. Although they initially were unsure what to make of Mao Zedong and the CPC.
Most would regard it as comprehensively fanciful if Beijing were to declare that Britain’s political-social-economic structure was centrally flawed and that China had key universalist solutions which should be applied to put this right. One reason this notion is so odd, is that this is simply not the Chinese way of looking at the world and its neighbours around the globe. It is equally misguided, Brown argues, to think that the West (and, in particular Britain) can decree how China needs to reorganise in order to comport itself in accordance with declared, universal Western political, economic and social precepts. He notes, moreover, that the Rise of China is now so conclusively underway that it comprises an epoch-shaping process which is plainly set to continue long-term.
Ultimately, both Britain and China have, Brown says, their own deep, historically embedded impressions of themselves and one-another. Yet, over the last 400 years, outbreaks of unequal warfare notwithstanding, deep, pragmatic thinking, drawing on their own separate historical traditions, has enabled both Britain and China to secure significant, ongoing mutual advantage. This has delivered many major benefits, especially to Britain in the first place, but also, increasingly to China. For China, today, trade beats war virtually every time. As it happens, between regular spasms of Imperial war-making, Britain was also firmly guided by this axiom.
Looking forward
As our interview was drawing to a close, I asked Brown to comment, based on his work for this book, where he thought the British relationship with China may stand in 10 to 20 years.
A somewhat bold interrogation – but after gently rolling his eyes, Brown generously engaged with the question. First, he noted how it was likely that, over such a time-span, the flow of high-achieving Chinese students into British universities would likely shrink significantly below current levels; the main reason being the remarkable rise in the global-ranking of an increasing number of PRC universities.
Next he wondered if, Britain may come to find that dealing with Washington will prove, by then, to be measurably more challenging than dealing with Beijing.
Indeed. The US-led project to contain the rise of China seems set to intensify no matter who wins the coming presidential election. It is also interesting to reflect on an acute observation by one commentator several years ago, noting how China has a single, enduring paramount concern where military might may be crucial: securing re-unification with Taiwan. The US, meanwhile, has some 750 offshore military-related bases spread around the entire globe and countless, self-chosen, massively costly and recurrently disastrous military engagements have dominated its geopolitical posture for decades on end.
Moreover, that Chinese focus is squarely within China itself: the constitution of the PRC and the constitution of the ROC (on Taiwan) each separately claim to apply to all of China – including Taiwan.
Thus, if Beijing is provoked into any military confrontation over Taiwan it will enjoy a home ground advantage (see above) while the US and any ill-fated allies – Britain included – who may be persuaded or arm-twisted into joining another American-led, gruesome martial-enforcement project will once again be playing away.
Conclusion
Kerry Brown has written around 20 books related to modern Chinese politics. He explained that he felt this latest book was needed to enhance British-Sino understanding by analysing the changing essence, over time, of their long complex relationship, in order to provide better foundations to inform the future shaping of this pivotal relationship.
This is how certain reviewers see the book:
“For the reader who wants a highly readable and thoroughly reliable account of the Sino-British relationship over the longer term, Brown’s book is an excellent choice.”—Rana Mitter, Literary Review.
“Kerry Brown has constructed a concise and clear history of the exchange between Britain and China over 400 years. Readers will be amazed by its rich historical material and meticulous conception. Sure to become a classic work.”—Xinran, author of China Witness and The Book of Secrets.
“This scintillating book tells the story of a relationship which has shaped the modern world- Britain and China. Ranging from the Tudors to Xi Jinping, The Great Reversal is beautifully written, clear, accessible and unstuffy, full of an astonishing wealth of anecdote. This is narrative history at its best, and will no doubt become the indispensable guide.”—Michael Wood, author of The Story of China.
“Brown lays bare the tortured history of Britain’s 400-year entanglement with China and brings this dramatic and largely forgotten past to new life. The narrative beckons the reader to consider anew the importance of artful diplomacy and empathy in adjusting to the throes of change in our ever-shrinking world. A must-read for serious students of our modern age.”—Susan Thornton, Yale University.
Kerry Brown is surely right when he argues that, given the paramount importance of the way in which the Rise of China is reshaping the world, authors in other countries, especially within the Global West, should be researching and writing with a similar focus. Not least in America, Canada and Australia. In the meantime, Professor Brown’s latest book deserves to be widely read and avidly discussed. It is to be hoped that it will soon be translated into Chinese.
Richard Cullen is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. He was previously a Professor in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
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