Sinic Wars

On November 20th, 1725 Carolus Slavicek, S.J., missionary at the court of the Qing dynasty Emperor Shi Zong Xian recorded his conversation with the emperor that had taken place the day before. While discussing the relative merits of the ethical components of the Western and Eastern civilizations, the Emperor Shi Zong Xian observed that

Comparing different religions, which could be at par with the teachings of our scholars? Moreover, you are saying that your canon is not too different from ours. Why are you then forcing it on us? If your canon is not superior, why should we abandon our teachings thousands of years old? If you assert its superiority, then fundamental principles of both teachings should be open to public discussion.

(praetera vos dicitis: legem vestram a nostra literatorum non admodum differre. si ita est, ut quid eam obtruditis. si differt, nos legem a multis annorum millibus nostram gratia vestrae non dimittemus. si melior est, oporteret utriusque fundamenta disputando conferre.)

Wars of the Confucian Civilization

Chinese history is closely tied to its succession of dynasties. The major dynasties of Imperial China are listed in the following tables.

The best known ruler of the legendary period is Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor. Chinese traditions to preserve ancestral wisdom and to maintain family roots by honoring ancestors and asking them for help in conduct of family affairs emerged during these times.

Poetry The Tang Dynasty witnessed the restoration of Confucian philosophy. This was the Golden Age of Chinese literature, especially poetry. More than 48,000 poems from this period have survived. The best known poets of this period are Li Po (701-762) and Tu Fu (712-770).

Philosophy The times of the Song Dynasty (960 - 1279) witnessed the birth of Neo-Confucianism, a union of Confucian and Buddhist ethics that was predominant in public affairs until the end of Qing dynasty.

Theater The founder of the Yuan Dynasty, Kublai Khan (1216-1294) was the Chinese Emperor during the visit of Marco Polo. The Yuan Dynasty is best known for its drama.

Novels During the time of the Ming Dynasty, Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529) reaffirmed Neo-Confucianism, maintaining that universal moral law is inherent and discoverable through self-cultivation. The Ming Dynasty is best known for its novels.

Reforms The Qing Dynasty witnessed attempts at internal reforms to resist Western religious and military invasions and the drug trade. Imperial examinations to fill government positions were abolished. The establishment of the Republic in 1911 marks the end of the classical Chinese culture.

Quantitative studies of the different extent of bellicosity of the Judeo-Christian civilization of the West and Confucian civilization of the East was opened by Lewis F. Richardson, founder of modern quantitative studies of warfare. Richardson concluded that 'the Confucian-Taoist-Buddhist religion of China stands out conspicuously as being either itself a pacifier, or else associated with one' and that 'it seems probable that the comparative peacefulness of China prior to 1911 was the result of instruction, and in particular of Confucian instruction.' Richardson's conclusions were based on data spanning about a century. Our study substantially lengthens his perspective.

War Cycles To measure war cycles in Western civilization we used the 1600-1945 segment of Quincy Wright’s (1964) database. Included were hostilities involving over 50,000 troops. The primary reason for selecting this database was Wright's ‘family of nations’ criterion of inclusion. Most wars recorded for the 1600-1945 time interval were those of the Judeo-Christian civilization of Europe and America. Wars of China, Japan, and other countries of the Pacific Rim were included only toward the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. This helped us to synchronize both war cycles under scrutiny.

To measure war cycles of the Imperial China we relied on Dong Zuo Bin’s Zhong Guo Nian Li (1960), Wang Guo Ting’s Zhong Guo Li Shi Nian Biao (1958), and Yuan Liu's Zhong Guo Shi Da Ci Dian (1982), complemented by relevant chapters of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China (Hook, 1991), Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan (Itasaka, 1993), and Encyclopedia of Asian History (Embree, 1988). To compare war cycles characteristic of Eastern and Western civilization types counted the major periods of wars for the 1600-1911 time interval in the West and major periods of wars in the 206 BC-1911 AD time interval for the East. The selection of 1911 as the upper limit was guided by the consideration that the Confucian and Neo-Confucian philosophies were prominent in China up to the end of Qing dynasty in 1911. After that date, the transition of China away from the traditional system of values continued at an accelerated rate.

Analysis of both data sets indicates that low incidence of warfare in the Chinese civilization is related to the Confucian/Neo-Confucian culture of it’s classical period. Confucian philosophy did not gain dominance earlier than during the Han Dynasty. It fell into decline during the Period of Disunion and was reestablished during the Tang Dynasty. Since then influenced the Chinese civilization up to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The Period of Disunion lasted about 400 years, a time interval comparable to that spanned by Wright’s database of Western wars. During this time period we observed, within the Chinese civilization, five major wars lasting about 150 years. That gives the average duration of the peace interval of about 50 years. This is the same as the average time of the peace interval estimated for the Western civilization. For the period of about 1,700 years when Confucian teaching was influential in China, the count of eight major conflicts lasting, about 250 years gives an average time of peace between wars of about 180 years. According to this estimate the belligerency of western Judeo-Christian civilization is at least three times greater than that of the classical Chinese civilization governed by principles of Confucian ethics.

Chinese missionaries The idea that Chinese missionaries should be invited to the West sounds peculiar in this day and age of Western cultural and religious invasions of Pacific Rim countries. It was advanced three hundred years ago by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz whose studies of Chinese culture lead him to conclusion that ‘if an impartial tribunal had to judge nations, it would have to hand out the Golden Apple to the Chinese.’ Leibniz belongs to a small group of Western philosophers who understood and appreciated Chinese culture, transmitted Chinese thought, and tried to establish cultural ties between Europe and China. Leibniz, instrumental in the founding of Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences, asked Peter the Great to build a road across Siberia to facilitate understanding of the cultural fabric of the Chinese society and to promote exchange of scientists and ideas. Among scholars interested in China one may find Christian Wolff, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Voltaire, Denis Diderot. Voltaire maintained that the Chinese society was organized along the ‘best principles this world has yet seen’ and Diderot considered Chinese to be ‘first among the other nations in the length of unbroken cultural tradition, in the sophistication of their art, in their wisdom, and organization of their society.’ William and Ariel Durant in their Story of Civilization quote Count Keyserling asserting that ‘China turned the ideals of perfect humanity into everyday living. While the Western world created yet unsurpassed culture of technology, classical China produced yet unequaled culture of human being.’

Central theme of this book revolves around the observation that during time the teachings of Confucius were predominant in Chinese civilization, the peace lasted about 200 years, markedly longer than in the Western Civilization. During the time Confucian ideology was absent from the intellectual life of the Chinese Civilization, the frequency of warfare approximated that of the Western Civilization. War-peace cycles are complex events, determined by a multitude of factors. In addition, the resulting cycle may be a composite of several latent cycles, underlying the overt cycles. Several researchers, independently analyzing the war-peace cycle typical of Western Civilization have observed that there is a cycle superimposed on the 50-years cycle of wars. This cycle has periodicity of about two hundred years, about the same as the war-peace cycle typical of the Confucian Civilization.
Our data support the Richardson findings pertaining to the relative peacefulness of China prior to 1911. We also share his reasoning that 'if China could thus be made peaceable by Confucian instruction in pacific ethics, why not the whole world?' Experience of a large segment of humanity over a time interval spanning millennia indicates that a peaceful and prosperous civilization can exist without subscribing to religious precepts of monotheistic religions and that an ethic system, epitomized by that of Confucius, is likely one of the preventable factors among the factors leading to a war. The secular system of Confucianism provides an example worthy of modernization, emulation and implementation within the developing global village community. If we could learn how to listen, perhaps the classical Chinese civilization would send its missionaries to us after all.