John Pomfret, Washington Post, Nov 30, 2012
www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ ... 876c6a24_story.html
(book review on Odd Arne Westad, Restless Empire; China and the world since 1750. Basic Books, 2012)
Quote:
“Westad reminds us that China was not the chaotic mess — all warlords and bandit kings — in the years between World War I and II that it has been portrayed to be for decades in the United States and in communist China itself. Indeed, China was alone among the great empires of the 19th century — the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and the British included — to remain almost completely intact, thanks not to the toughness of Mao but to the brilliance of Republican Chinese diplomats.
“Westad notes that during World War II, Mao authorized only one major — and disastrous — military campaign against the Japanese and that his troops killed far more Chinese soldiers from Chiang’s side than they did Japanese.
Note:
(a) “Westad’s book goes them one further, showing that the foreigners’ story in China is not the monochromatic account of malevolent imperialism that has dominated the discourse in US universities but a much richer and more important tale.”
“goes them one further”
go one better (than): “to do something better than someone else has done or better than you have done before”
www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/go
(b) “he argues: ‘The Qing was continuously expanding outward.’ Indeed, at one point in the 18th century it carried out what Westad calls the first modern genocide against a Central Asian tribe while adding a massive province, Xinjiang”
(i) Zunghar genocide
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zunghar_genocide
(1755-1758)
(ii) The Ching/Qin dynasty annexed and renamed the region Xinjiang 新疆 “(meaning ‘new frontier’)” in 1759. Wikipedia
(c) “American missionaries brought education, science and modern medicine to China, that the British imported modern administrative techniques, that the Germans taught the Chinese a significant amount about warfare. Heck, the French even created China’s postal service.”
(i) Germans’ role in advising Chiang’s army.
(ii)
(A) 帛黎
zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/帛黎
(A Théophile PIRY; 1850-1918; "1911年（宣统三年）5月，邮政从海关改隶邮传部，设邮政总局。帛黎获邮传部尚书盛宣怀推荐，就任为邮政总办。但帛黎的英文职称却是Postmasters [sic; should be singular] General，相当于英国、美国的邮政部长")
He was succeeded in 1917 by French 铁士兰 H Picard-Destelan (H for Henri).
(B) Imperial Maritime Customs Service 大清皇家海關總稅務司 (1954-1911, after which named changed to Chinese Maritime Customs Service, until 1949) Wikipedia
Its heads Inspector-General (IG) were: Horatio Nelson LAY 李泰国 (1854-1863, Briton) and Robert HART 赫德 (1863-1911), when Imperial Postal Service 邮政总局 was divested and Piry was appointed the first Postmaster General. See
Postage stamps and postal history of China
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_China
(In 1865, “Robert Hart developed a mail service for the Imperial Maritime Customs, initially to carry consular mail to and from treaty ports. This service was opened to the public on 1 May 1878, and China's first postage stamps, the ‘Large Dragons’ 大龍郵票 [marked with both China and 大清] were issued to handle payment”)
(d) “Westad notes that during World War II, Mao authorized only one major — and disastrous — military campaign against the Japanese and that his troops killed far more Chinese soldiers from Chiang’s side than they did Japanese.”
(i) An excerpt from the book, page not marked
books.google.com/books?id=uL8NoXZtyxMC&pg=PT162&lpg=PT162&dq=Westad+mao+disastrous+japan+campaign&source=bl&ots=_l5I2Piehz&sig=g0UQmWpPwvH9PA-zVJc3TofC7iI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NiB5U7GoM7fIsASejIKwAQ&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Westad%20mao%20disastrous%20japan%20campaign&f=false
(“From 1939 to 1945, the CCP killed many more Chinese--whether GMD, collaborators, or just local forces who got in the way--than Japanese. But Mao needed to maintain good relations with Moscow, so in late 1940 he embarked on the Hundred Regiments Campaign. It was a response not just to Stalin's repeated calls for action but also urging from his own CCP officers. The Hundred Regiments Campaign was a set of offensives against the Japanese in northern China, but it was poorly coordinated, and the results were near disastrous for the Communists. Four times as many as CCP soldiers were killed as those from the imperial army. And after it was over, the Japanese took a terrible revenge on the local population”)
(ii) Hundred Regiments Offensive 百團大戰
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Regiments_Offensive
(Aug 20-Dec 5, 1940; Table: “Result Chinese victory”)
(e) “The operative sentiment I felt on leaving the exhibition was: ‘Earth to the Chinese Communist Party, grow up.’”
earth to: “phr[ase] Hello someone, are you listening? (A means of getting the attention of someone who is ignoring you or who is daydreaming. As if one were on the earth, trying to contact someone in a spaceship. The implication is that the person being addressed is spacy.) : <Earth to Mom! Earth to Mom! What's for dinner?>”
Richard A Spears, Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. Fourth Edition. McGraw-Hill Education, 2007.
dictionary.reference.com/browse/earth+to
(f) Another book by the same author:
Odd Arne Westad, Decisive Encounters; The Chinese Civil War, 1946-1950. Stanford University Press, 2003. |
发表于 5-18-2014 14:35:24
收藏
分享
支持
反对
楼主