Class 19 – Consolidation

Read the text bellow and answer the following questions

As Japanese troops advanced on the Chinese capital of Nanjing in 1937,
Zhou Fohai, a senior official in the Chinese government, wrote in his diary
of the panic and fear consuming the city. He anticipated the destruction and
its implications for his nation: “China will have no more history,” he wrote.

The devastation that the Japanese invasion would wreak was indeed
shocking. But as Rana Mitter shows in his illuminating and meticulously
researched new book about the Sino-Japanese war, not only did Chinese
history not end with the fall of Nanjing, but in many ways the war helped to
create modern China. It was the anvil on which the new nation was forged.

Other historians point to the arrival of British gunboats in the 1830s, when
industrialising Europe collided with ancient China, as the dawn of China’s
modern age. But Mr Mitter, a professor at Oxford University, believes that
the country’s war with Japan was more important because it reduced China
to its weakest state. “Suddenly the circumstances of war made the concept
of the nation, and personal identification with it, more urgent and
meaningful for many Chinese.”

Mr Mitter may disappoint military wonks hoping for a blow-by-blow

account of every skirmish. But this is not a military history. It is about the
Chinese experience of war, the origins of the modern Chinese identity and
the roots of a relationship that will shape Asia in the 21st century. It is about
China’s existential crisis as it tried to regain its centrality in Asia.

It is also a story, pure and simple, of heroic resistance against massive odds.
China is the forgotten ally of the second world war. For more than four
years, until Pearl Harbour, the Chinese fought the Japanese almost alone.
France capitulated in 1940, but China did not. Its government retreated
inland, up the Yangzi river to Chongqing (Chungking)—a moment that
would later be described as China’s Dunkirk. From there it fought on—
sometimes ineptly, often bravely—until victory in 1945.

Asia has never had a strong China and a strong Japan. Their complex
relationship in modern times began when Japan welcomed the West in the
mid-19th century while China pushed it away. As Japan modernised, it
became a model for Chinese reformers and a refuge for Chinese
revolutionaries who opposed their own government’s insularity. Chinese
students who went to Japan in the early 20th century included Sun Yat-sen,
who led the 1911 revolution, and Chiang Kai-shek, the man who would lead
the Nationalist government of China against Japan in the 1930s.

But as Japan’s imperial ambitions grew, China was the obvious place to
expand. In 1931 Japan occupied Manchuria, turning from mentor to
oppressor. The full-scale invasion began in 1937. Mr Mitter does not skimp
in narrating the atrocities; the stench of war infuses his narrative. But he
paints a broader account of the Chinese struggle, explaining the history that
still shapes Chinese thinking today.

Westerners are there as soldiers, missionaries and journalists. Christopher

Isherwood and W.H. Auden, both English writers, arrived from the Spanish
civil war in 1938. Isherwood’s diary exudes a pride shared by European
progressives in the struggle against fascism: “Today Auden and I agreed that
we would rather be in Hankow at this moment than anywhere else on
earth.” Most Chinese people, suffering the Japanese onslaught without a
ticket out, longed to be anywhere but Hankow. Up to 100m people (20% of
China’s population) became refugees during the conflict. More than 15m
were killed.

It is the voice of the Chinese, not that of the foreigners, that gives the
distinctive tone to Mr Mitter’s narrative. From the diaries of Chiang Kai-shek
to those of national journalists and middle-class Chinese fleeing the conflict,
these first-person observations are woven skilfully into his chronicle of the
battles and struggles. We all know about Iwo Jima, but who in the West has
heard of the defence of Taierzhuang, when Chinese soldiers defeated
superior Japanese troops in hand-to-hand combat? Yet its memory will
continue to help shape Asian history. We know what Dwight Eisenhower
thought at key moments of the second world war, but few have heard of
Xiong Xianyu, an army commander who kept a diary of blowing up Yellow
River levees to stop the Japanese advance. Nearly 1m Chinese died in the
resulting floods. “My heart ached,” he wrote. The water flowed “like 10,000
horses”.

The war was seminal for China, and is still crucial for understanding the
virulent anti-Japanese emotions of Chinese people today. The country was
not just the forgotten ally, says Mr Mitter, but also the one most changed
by the experience of war. Britain and America re-emerged into the boom-
times of the 1950s. The Soviet Union was pushed to the brink and did not
break. But while “battered, punch-drunk” China never surrendered, its old
system of governance was destroyed.
The old order, symbolised by Chiang Kai-shek and his corrupt Nationalist
party, had joined with Mao Zedong’s Communists to fight the Japanese.
When victory came in 1945, it was clear the system could not continue. Mao
presented a more attractive, less corrupt vision of a new Chinese state (one
that he soon betrayed). His victory in the ensuing civil war (1945-49) and
control during the cold war that followed ensured that a narrative of the
Sino-Japanese war that did not include Communist heroism was airbrushed
out.

Mr Mitter’s book rectifies some of those distortions of history. But the

ghosts of the war with Japan have never been laid to rest. Chinese leaders
still use the past as a stick to beat their neighbour. Now, from a position of
strength, how China deals with its old mentor and enemy will be crucial in
shaping the region in the 21st century.
The Sino-Japanese War: The Start of History – The Economist

1) Choose right or wrong for each item below.

1- Mr. Mitter’s account of the battles of the Sino-Japanese War may
frustrate military officials due to its dearth of precision.
2 - The devastation instilled by the progressive occupation of China by
Japanese troops led Chinese high ranking officers to believe their
country’s history would meet its end.
3 - The war, for contemporary Chinese society, through its inducement of
resistance and national cohesion, functioned as a mold of values and of
perceptions regarding its relationship with neighbors.
4 - In the sentence “The devastation that the Japanese invasion would
wreak was indeed shocking” (2nd paragraph), the verbal form “wreak” can
be substituted by “bring forth” without effecting a significant change in
the meaning of the text.
2) Choose right or wrong for each item below.
1- China’s role as an ally to the United States and to Great Britain in World
War II is often overlooked as a result of its defeat to Japan.
2 - Unlike what happened to its allies, the Sino-Japanese war is
inextricably intertwined to the very shaping of modern Chinese identity
and form of governance, in a process that could loosely be linked to
Heraclitus’ famous quote, “war is the father of all things”.
3 - The Chinese Communist Revolution is responsible for disseminating a
version of the war’s history which is infused with stories of communist
valor.
4 - The roots of China’s bid for recovering its role as one of the geopolitical
pivots of Asia may be traced not only to the Sino-Japanese War, but also
to the 19th century.
3) Choose right or wrong for each item below.
1 - In the 6th paragraph, the fragment “As Japan modernized, it became a
model for Chinese reformers and a refuge for Chinese revolutionaries who
opposed their own government’s insularity” can be rewritten as “As Japan
became modern, it stood as a model for Chinese reformers and a refuge
for the Chinese revolutionaries who had opposed their own government’s
insularity” without effecting a significant change in the meaning of the
text.
2 - In the fragment “Most Chinese people, suffering the Japanese
onslaught without a ticket out, longed to be anywhere but Hankow” (8th
paragraph), the expressions “onslaught” and “ticket out” can be replaced,
without significant change or loss in meaning, by “assault” and “means of
escaping”.
3 - In the 9th paragraph, the fragment “We all know about Iwo Jima, but
who in the West has heard of the defense of Taierzhuang, when Chinese
soldiers defeated superior Japanese troops in hand-to-hand combat? Yet
its memory will continue to help shape Asian history” can be rewritten as
“We have all heard of Iwo Jima, but which Western has heard of the
defense of Taierzhuang, when Chinese troops defeated superior Japanese
forces in hand-to-hand combat? Nonetheless, Asian history will
continuously be shaped by its memory” without effecting a significant
change in the meaning of the text.
4 - In the fragment “But the ghosts of the war with Japan have never been
laid to rest” (last paragraph), the expression “have never been laid to rest”
can be substituted by “have never been laid down” without effecting a
significant change or loss in meaning.
4 – Choose right or wrong for each item below.
1 - The echoes of the Sino-Japanese War will continue to sound aloud well
into the 21st century.
2 - The Chinese, in order to save their civilization from obliteration, are
willing to sacrifice those of their own kin.

3 - While Mr. Mitter’s account of the war does not shy away from including
the perceptions of Europeans who witnessed the struggle, one his trumps
is that Chinese views are well-represented.

4 - Mr. Mitter’s narration is so vivid the reader can sense the smell of war.

Translate the following text into English

Existem conjunturas nacionais em que se deflagram a partir de processos
sociais complexos. Um de seus sintomas é a radicalização das posições e do
debate político em geral, assim como a simplificação de questões
relevantes. Essas conjunturas, no entanto, não se explicam somente pelas
disputas entre os grupos internos envolvidos. Também não se esgotam
pelas conspirações diárias do jogo político nacional, embora sejam estas um
de seus elementos mais importantes.

Pode-se supor que perpassam, sobre essas conjunturas, dinâmicas mais

profundas, que atuam de modo mais silencioso. Forças que, em geral, não
são percebidas claramente no cotidiano, mas que podem balizar o
“presente” e “energizar” os atores em luta. São forças de caráter mais
perene, de movimentos lentos, depreendidas e ponderadas sobretudo
quando analisadas com lentes de maior alcance, voltadas a espaços
dilatados (tabuleiros internacionais) e a tempos mais longos (de décadas ou
mesmo séculos).

Maurício Metri – Sob a névoa da conjuntura

Summarize the following text in between 350 and 500 words.

For centuries statesmen who have had to make difficult choices have been
attacked by well-meaning intellectuals who never wielded real-world
bureaucratic power and who therefore treat morality as an inflexible
absolute. Such intellectuals often confuse eloquence with substance, not
comprehending that the true measure of a diplomat is not style but
common sense, as well as the efficiency by which he or she pursues the
country's national interest. For liberal democracies operate in a world
where there is no ultimate arbiter, and thus their geopolitical advantage —
in addition to their survival — constitutes the highest morality.

Perhaps no statesman in early modern and modern history has been so

necessary for the prosperity and survival of a liberal democracy and yet so
despised and humiliated by the literary elite of the day as Robert Stewart,
Viscount Castlereagh, who was the pivotal figure for Britain's victory in
the Napoleonic Wars and the advantageous peace settlement that
followed. Castlereagh was to early 19th century Britain what Winston
Churchill was to mid-20th century Britain. But unlike Churchill, who was
generally lionized, Castlereagh was regularly savaged in poems and essays
by contemporary literary greats such as Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley
and William Hazlitt. It was such unrelenting psychological punishment that
was likely a contributor to his suicide in 1822 at age 53.

At last, in 2012, there was a vast, meticulous and comprehensive biography

published that turns the tables on Castlereagh's critics and rescues his name
from calumny. Castlereagh: A Life, by John Bew of Cambridge and King's
College London, is a fat, heavy book that should sit on the table of every
diplomat who has ever had to make difficult choices and has suffered media
abuse for it. For diplomats are the true heroes of geopolitics, not strategists
or generals. Strategists and generals are supposed to think amorally and
are, therefore, less abused for doing so. But diplomats operate in a climate
of compromise, politesse and idealism, whereas Castlereagh's brand of
realism has always been less well regarded. Bew sets the tone by stating
that while "maligned" as a "tyrant" and "reactionary," there was probably
no man in England who better understood European politics than
Castlereagh — as well as Britain's own interest in restoring the continental
balance of power.

Castlereagh's formative and determining political experience was his visit

to France during the French Revolution at the impressionable age of 22. As
Bew explains it, despite the idealistic and utopian claims of the Jacobins and
to an extent the more moderate Girondists, the young man saw how
"regional dynamics, religion, class and self-interest would play a much more
important part than philosophical speculation." Castlereagh rightly foresaw
that once the novelty of liberty wore off, the real test of the revolution
would only begin. For a 22-year-old of privileged background to be able to
think so critically, abstractly and unsentimentally about a shockingly violent
political spectacle is relatively rare, and is indicative of Castlereagh's early
emotional maturity. Such maturity, combined with the vivid, firsthand
experience of anarchy, would mark Castlereagh from the beginning as both
seasoned and cold blooded, the attributes of the greatest of diplomats.
Castlereagh would forever be in search of grossly imperfect solutions and
half-measures that, nevertheless, admitted no horrors. For horrors were
not abstractions to him, due to his youthful sojourn in France.

In the eyes of idealists and intellectuals right up into the 21st century,
Castlereagh's original sin was his so-called betrayal of his native Ireland to
British interests. Bew, as it happens, spends the entire first part of this book
on Ireland. He shows how it was the lofty goals of Ireland's freedom fighters
— lacking in clarity, as they were — that tempered Castlereagh's
enthusiasm for Irish independence because of his fear that Ireland could
turn into a place similar to revolutionary France. Castlereagh genuinely
believed that a prosperous and stable Ireland could best be obtained by
sacrificing some aspects of its independence in return for the stabilizing
guarantee of British suzerainty. Castlereagh feared, secondarily, that an
independent Ireland could become an outright and anarchic satellite state
of revolutionary and Napoleonic France. Bew writes: "It was the prospect
of Robespierrean politics being brought to Irish soil that concerned
Castlereagh more than anything else," especially given that some of the
Irish patriots "had spent time justifying Robespierre's Terror." Because the
idealist strain in Castlereagh led him to support Catholic emancipation,
while the realist strain led him to oppose complete Irish independence, he
was someone caught in the middle — a place familiar to honorable men.

Castlereagh was clairvoyant in backing the Duke of Wellington's Peninsular

campaign against Napoleon when much hope seemed lost: It was to a large
degree Castlereagh's political backing of Wellington back home in London
that allowed the latter to achieve victory on the fields of Iberia.
Castlereagh's opposition to Napoleon also was far-seeing at a time when
many in Parliament thought Napoleon's forces were about to conquer
Russia. But as soon as the Russians repulsed Napoleon, Castlereagh proved
as much an opponent of Russian hegemony as he had been of French
hegemony. His morality lay in balance and moderation. Otherwise he was
consistently amoral — the only diplomatic approach for the attainment of
the greater good. For the public, to which he was a servant, demanded
stability and the least amount of sacrifice, especially after a dozen years of
war.

It was the diplomacy of Castlereagh, Austria's Prince Klemens von

Metternich and, to a lesser extent, France's Prince de Talleyrand that
fashioned a Continental peace following the defeat of Napoleon that kept
Europe relatively free of large-scale violence for decades. There was
nothing idealistic about this settlement, restoring as it did the Bourbon
dynasty in France, and so the intellectuals gave Castlereagh no praise for
his efforts. Yet it was this peace that helped ease the path for Britain to
emerge as the dominant world power before the end of the 19th century.
Indeed, few labored as hard for their country and suffered as much vitriol
as Castlereagh. Bew talks of his reserve, stoicism and sagacity in the face of
never-ending personal attacks. Lord Byron famously called him a "cold-
blooded … placid miscreant."

In what may be some of the finest words written about the relationship
between those in the arts and those in government, Bew, responding to
early 19th century poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's remarks about
Castlereagh's intellectual "inferiority," has this to say:

“If men of government were indeed conscious of such inferiority, it might

be said that men of letters in this era — and in other eras — were equally
intoxicated by their own sense of superiority. The demands of office during
the Napoleonic Wars were unprecedented and the ministers faced practical
and moral dilemmas for which there was no literary or intellectual formula.
As one French admirer of Castlereagh asked, in considering the criticism of
Byron and Shelley, ‘Was England to be allowed to perish to please the
poets?’"

In our own day, the moral drumbeat of the media is relentless, even as
diplomats must turn to deal making as an alternative to war. And while the
danger of appeasement always lurks, the greater danger is to always retreat
from imperfect half-measures in pursuit of some morally perfect solution.
It was Castlereagh's emotional genius — a matter more of temperament
than of intellect — to be an architect for a diplomatic arrangement that kept
the guns silent in Europe for decades.
Castlereagh: A geopolitical hero - Stratfor