I am currently experiencing a Chinese phase of my life. I live in China, I am learning Chinese (though unsuccessfully), and most of the books I read are about the Middle Kingdom. Just last month I finished James Clavell's TaiPan, a story about a British trading firm during and after the first Opium War. Unlike Clavell's other notable work, Shogun, I finished TaiPan and thoroughly enjoyed it. Loyal readers may remember the blog post about me abandoning Shogun 800 pages into the book. Despite Clavell writing TaiPan in the 60's, it reads like an allegory for today's China with its wonderful descriptions of cohongs and corruption. The cohongs operated as middlemen between traders from Europe and America and the Chinese mainland. All of the opium smugglers needed to partner with a cohong for the importation of opium to the Chinese mainland and the exportation of teas and silks. Any sane person might ask I thought opium was illegal and the Europeans just forced it on the Chinese? Yes opium was illegal, but the cohongs still oversaw the importation of the drug and made large sums of money from the practice.
The book highlighted two things in China that haven't changed in nearly 200 years. Foreign enterprises still need to partner with Chinese middlemen when operating in the mainland. The words the book using to describe this practice is "the squeeze". Even back in the time of the emperors, China still placed lining the pockets of government ministers uber alles. Today companies in certain industries, particularly anything relating to heavy manufacturing, must form a joint venture with a Chinese company, usually one of the state owned enterprises (SOE). In industries that don't require many fixed costs or expertise, such as tech companies, foreign companies sometimes get locked out of China entirely. Clavell's book shows this has been happening in China since before the "revolution".
The other harsh fact the book highlights is the absence of the rule of law. China watchers might remember a few months back when every newspaper carried stories about President Xi's drive to foster the rule of law in China. Then they realized this would be a bad thing of the party and the phrase "rule of law" disappeared about three weeks later. Clavell uses the importation of opium to China to show us that the absence of the rule of law runs throughout Chinese history. The Imperial Government made the importation of opium illegal and placed the Mandarins (government officials) in charge of enforcing the law. Instead the Mandarins find a way to profit from importing the drug, regardless of the edicts from the emperor.
Though written decades ago, Clavell's novel reads like a tale of modern Chinese government and Chinese business practices. He also does a wonderful job of showing why the tiny island of Hong Kong became so important for the Chinese people who went there for a better life. As a teacher, I found the part about the cohong leader's efforts to have his son educated abroad particularly poignant. Despite its nearly 800 page length, this book went by way to fast. I recommend it for historical fiction buffs and anyone with an interest in China.
The book highlighted two things in China that haven't changed in nearly 200 years. Foreign enterprises still need to partner with Chinese middlemen when operating in the mainland. The words the book using to describe this practice is "the squeeze". Even back in the time of the emperors, China still placed lining the pockets of government ministers uber alles. Today companies in certain industries, particularly anything relating to heavy manufacturing, must form a joint venture with a Chinese company, usually one of the state owned enterprises (SOE). In industries that don't require many fixed costs or expertise, such as tech companies, foreign companies sometimes get locked out of China entirely. Clavell's book shows this has been happening in China since before the "revolution".
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| Not much different from the cover of Shogun |
The other harsh fact the book highlights is the absence of the rule of law. China watchers might remember a few months back when every newspaper carried stories about President Xi's drive to foster the rule of law in China. Then they realized this would be a bad thing of the party and the phrase "rule of law" disappeared about three weeks later. Clavell uses the importation of opium to China to show us that the absence of the rule of law runs throughout Chinese history. The Imperial Government made the importation of opium illegal and placed the Mandarins (government officials) in charge of enforcing the law. Instead the Mandarins find a way to profit from importing the drug, regardless of the edicts from the emperor.
Though written decades ago, Clavell's novel reads like a tale of modern Chinese government and Chinese business practices. He also does a wonderful job of showing why the tiny island of Hong Kong became so important for the Chinese people who went there for a better life. As a teacher, I found the part about the cohong leader's efforts to have his son educated abroad particularly poignant. Despite its nearly 800 page length, this book went by way to fast. I recommend it for historical fiction buffs and anyone with an interest in China.
Thought you already knew Chinese?
ReplyDeleteYou never really know Chinese, just more of it.
ReplyDelete