{"id":24073,"date":"2021-01-16T11:26:30","date_gmt":"2021-01-16T01:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/?page_id=24073"},"modified":"2025-02-11T11:42:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-11T00:42:50","slug":"spectres-souls","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/chinaheritage.net\/spectres-souls\/","title":{"rendered":"Spectres & Souls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vignettes, moments and meditations on<\/strong>
\nChina and America, 1861-2021<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n
<\/p>\n

For every plain there is a slope,\u00a0\u7121\u5e73\u4e0d\u9642\uff0c
\nFor every going there is a return.\u00a0\u7121\u5f80\u4e0d\u5fa9\u3002<\/p>\n

\u2014 Hexagram XI,<\/em> I Ching<\/a>
\n\u5468\u6613 \u6cf0\u639b\u7e6b\u8fad<\/div>\n\n

We quoted this line from the I Ching<\/em> in On Heritage \u907a<\/a>, an essay composed as the formal rationale underpinning China Heritage<\/em>, an e-journal launched on 1 January 2017. This pithy maxim is well-known in the Chinese tradition and it serves well as an epigram for China Heritage Annual 2021<\/em>, the full title of which is Spectres & Souls: vignettes, moments and meditations on China and America, 1861-2021<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the 2021 issue of China\u00a0Heritage Annual<\/i>, the chapters of which will appear throughout the year, and possibly into 2022, we\u00a0posit that many of the spectres and shades, as well as the enlivening souls and lofty inspirations, that assert themselves both in China and the United States in 2021 may present an even more compelling aspect when considered in the context of the 160-year period starting in 1861. In November that year, the successful Xinyou Coup<\/a> \u8f9b\u9149\u653f\u8b8a<\/a> at the court of the Manchu-Qing dynasty that had ruled China for two centuries ushered in a short-lived period of rapid reform, one that, in many respects continues to this day, even as it falters.<\/p>\n

In February 1861, seven slave-owning states broke with the Union that had been established under the Constitution of 1787 resulting in a four-year civil war. The successful conclusion of that war saved the Union, but the failure of the subsequent era of Reconstruction had profound ramifications for the state of that union, and the United States of America generally.<\/p>\n

The successes and failures of that era are, in January 2021, more relevant than they have been for 160 years as a new president appealed to ‘the better angels’ of the nation, echoing the words of Abraham Lincoln who, in his first inaugural address<\/a>, delivered at The Capitol in Washington on 4 March 1861, declared:<\/p>\n

‘We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2021, there are even some who believe that the ‘better angels’ both of America and of China may usher in a period of concord, if not amity. Readers of China Heritage<\/em> will, however, be familiar with our view that simplistic yearnings for positivism ignore both human nature and human history.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Spectres & Souls\u00a0<\/em>does not presume to offer a new or alternative history to the bilateral relationship between China (that is, the Qing Empire, the Republic of China and the People’s Republic) and the United States of America. Rather it is hoped that its chapters will, by evoking the\u00a0varying shades of the past in the context of historical incident and inflection points, as well as in the form of analogies, aspirations and failures, help cast some light on some uncanny parallels in the history of the two places, while also distinguishing their glaring, and ever-increasing differences. Some of the chapters will offer accounts in which such similarities and contrasts are noted; others shall juxtapose ideas and personalities in an attempt to articulate an argument that militates against the dogma of exceptionalism that is willfully, and exhaustingly, promoted on both sides of the Pacific Ocean. I would note that we do so from a considerable physical remove \u2014 this journal is produced in rural New Zealand \u2014 as well as from a perspective granted by what Stefan Zweig called ‘the invisible republic of the spirit’.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Geremie R. Barm\u00e9
\nEditor, China Heritage<\/em>
\n18 January 2021
\nMLK Day<\/p>\n

\n\n
<\/p>\n

Contra Trump<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

America\u2019s Empire of Tedium<\/strong><\/p>\n

Contents<\/strong><\/h3>\n