A French sneak attack in 1884 led to a fundamental misunderstanding of Qing technological prowess. It’s time to reexamine the popular — but simplistic, if not outright wrong — idea that China’s military losses to Europe (and, later, Japan) were due to its inability to modernize.
Xi Jinping took visiting French president Emmanuel Macron for a pas de deux in the Pines in a garden originally built for Chairman Mao. Macron was suitably impressed, and said all the right things that a ‘true friend of China’ must say.
There was fury across Europe and beyond after Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, questioned the legal status of Ukraine and other countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. It was merely the latest episode of Chinese diplomacy’s rapid unexpected disassembly.
As expected, not much came out of the highly-anticipated meeting between the leaders of China, France, and the EU in Beijing today. But France did walk away with some lucrative business deals.
As many as 100,000 laborers died in the construction of the Kunming–Haiphong railway, which opened on April 1, 1910. The cost was not worth it.
John Hu arrived to France in 1722, accompanied by a Jesuit priest and tasked with cataloging and translating a library. He had a knack for behaving oddly, earning him the nickname “Don Quixote” in at least one town. But in the end, who gets to decide who's sane?
In the summer of 1884, French forces, frustrated by Qing refusal to comply with their colonial wishes in Indochina, attempted to demonstrate their power by taking Taiwan. Neither the landing nor the war went to plan.
The “99-year lease” may be the most bureaucratic of euphemisms for colonization. Those leases followed the arrival of foreign troops and gunboats, but by “negotiating” leases, rather than compelling surrender, the European powers could claim this was business, not conquest.
The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers condemned Western nations for “politicizing human rights issues” with sanctions. Beijing separately lashed out at “the West,” accusing at least half a dozen nations of hypocrisy and saying they had no right to lecture China.
This week on Middle Earth, Aladin and his guests take a look at the film production industry in Europe. Li Boyan and William Wang, both...