Manjari Chatterjee Miller is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Boston University.

Wronged by Empire

POST-IMPERIAL IDEOLOGY AND FOREIGN POLICY IN INDIA AND CHINA

By Manjari Chatterjee Miller

Stanford University Press

Copyright © 2013 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8047-8652-2

Contents

Acknowledgments……………………………………………………xiiiIntroduction………………………………………………………11 Trauma, Colonialism and Post-Imperial Ideology………………………72 PII: Discord and Discourse in the UN……………………………….353 PII and the Sino-Indian Border Negotiations of 1960………………….554 PII, Victimhood and “Nuclear Apartheid”…………………………….825 PII, Victimhood and Sino-Japanese Hostility…………………………106Conclusion………………………………………………………..130Notes…………………………………………………………….143Index…………………………………………………………….163

CHAPTER 1

Trauma, Colonialism and Post-Imperial Ideology

Introduction

This chapter explores two new concepts. First, through the exploration oftrauma theory, it argues that the transformative historical event of colonialismin India and China can be classified as a collective trauma. Second, by changingthe lens through which colonialism in India and China is viewed, it is possibleto identify a “post-imperial ideology,” or PII. PII is rooted in a mentality ofvictimhood and is an essential component of both India’s and China’s nationalidentity and, therefore, their international outlook. As subsequent chapters show,PII can then be used as an independent variable to analyze important foreignpolicy decisions taken by these rising powers.

Even a cursory examination of international politics demonstrates theubiquity of colonialism and its effects. Despite the dismantling of the colonialempire more than half a century ago, the legacy of colonialism has played outin dramatic and tragic fashion. From the ongoing war in Iraq to the persistenceof the Israel-Palestine violence to the territorial dispute in Kashmir, manycontinuing conflicts today are heavily influenced by the vagaries of colonialism.The impact of colonialism on economics, history, politics and culture hasbeen widely discussed and dissected, and details of its brutality and exploitativenature have been explored. Yet, surprisingly, given the amount of ink devoted tothe subject, there has been little systematic treatment of colonialism. This bookargues that colonialism can be seen in two lights simultaneously. It is both acollective historical trauma and a causal variable that continues to influence theinternational outlook of states decades after decolonization. Viewing colonialismin such ways is new to the study of international politics.

The concept of colonialism as trauma is particularly true for India andChina, which attach immense significance to their colonial past. India andChina underwent very different experiences of colonialism. Yet the “intensity”of this experience was similar for the two countries—both India and Chinaregarded and responded to colonialism as a collective historical trauma. As aresult they have a self-definition of victimhood. By this I mean, they believedthemselves to have been victimized, and, as a consequence, adopt the positionof victim in their responses to international issues even today.

As such they have a dominant goal of victimhood: the desire to be recognizedand empathized with in the international system as a victim. The goal ofvictimhood carries with it a corresponding sense of entitlement that manifestsitself in two subordinate goals: maximizing territorial sovereignty and maximizingstatus. The dominant goal of victimhood driving the subordinate goals ofterritorial sovereignty and status constitute a “post-imperial ideology” (PII) thatinfluences international behavior. While PII affects a range of state behavior,its influence is most apparent when states perceive threats to sovereignty, whenborders viewed as non-negotiable are contested or when a state’s internationalprestige is jeopardized.

Particularly, it does so by leading states traumatized by colonialism to first,adopt the position of victim and cast other states as victimizers; second, justifytheir actions or stances through a discourse invoking oppression and discrimination;third, adopt strict concepts of the inviolability of borders; and fourth,have a sensitivity to loss of face and a desire to regain “lost” status. Any analysisof India and China as rising powers is incomplete without taking into accountthis past that continues to shape their international outlook.

This chapter first discusses the impact of colonialism as a transformative historicalevent before briefly detailing the different experiences of colonialism inIndia and China. It then moves on to discuss trauma theory and how colonialismin India and China can be viewed through the theoretical framework ofcollective historical trauma. Finally, it discusses the three goals of PII and theiremergence in state discourse and behavior after decolonization.

Imperialism and Colonialism: A Transformative Historical Event

I define a transformative historical event as an event which can either lead tothe creation of a new state or can reshape an existing state by altering key political andmilitary institutions and the ideology thereof that are intrinsic to the state. The decolonizationof Asia and Africa in the 1940s, 50s and 60s led to the creation of newstates as well as the complete transformation of existing states by changingtheir pre-colonial political and military institutions. Post-colonial states such asmodern India and China were, as I will discuss, radically different from theirpre-colonial form. In this way, imperialism and colonialism were a transformativehistorical event.

Imperialism and colonialism are terms that are often used interchangeably.The concept of imperialism has been elaborately defined by writers: fromHobson and Lenin, who viewed it as a metropolitan initiative driven by theprofit motive, to Doyle, who termed it “a relationship, formal or informal, inwhich one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another politicalsociety … [that] can be achieved by force, by political collaboration, byeconomic, social, or cultural dependence.” Colonialism, a more difficult concept,is seen as a subset or outcome of imperialism. My theory refers to thetransformative historical event of modern “imperialism and colonialism” takentogether as a whole, and is concerned with extractive colonialism rather thansettler colonialism. Extractive colonialism transformed pre-colonial societies,while settler colonialism often displaced them with populations from elsewhere.

Under extractive colonialism the colonizing power established an “extractivestate” whose purpose was to shift the resources of the colony to the colonizer,often with few to no protections for the native populace against abuse by thecolonial authority. Extractive colonialism came in different forms in differentsocieties, but elements of these institutions had a striking resonance forall countries that experienced them: external political dominance, economicexploitation, denial of rights, and suppression of cultural and ethnic pride.

The demise of extractive colonialism was directly linked with a radicalchange in the normative structure of the international system. The colonialsystem was severely criticized and, as Jackson puts it, “lost its moral force” inthe face of the ascendant “normative idea of self-determination” Crawfordsimilarly argues that it became unacceptable for states to keep colonies becauseit was “wrong to deny nations and individuals political self-determination”Not only was independence now a basic right, but colonialism was “an absolutewrong”—”an injury to the dignity and autonomy of those peoples and avehicle for their economic exploitation and political oppression.” Throughtextbooks, cultural and social discourse, international conferences like Bandungin 1955, biographies and newspapers, the newly independent states would viewtheir experience of extractive colonialism through a prism of victimization,suffering and endurance. Effectively, as I will discuss, this experience was a collectivetrauma.

It is important to discuss briefly the history of colonialism in India andChina prior to demonstrating that both states encountered similarly “intense”experiences of colonialism that met the standard of collective trauma.

A History of Colonialism in India and China

For modern India and modern China, there was and is a strong distinctionmade between the previous rule of the country by various dynasties, some ofwhich had external origins, and the later influx of colonial powers from theWest and Japan.

In India, the pre-British dynasties of the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughalswere not termed “colonizers.” Rather, the history of India up until the Britishperiod, and the encounter with the English East India Company, is one ofassimilation of and accommodation with the waves of foreigners landing on itsshores. There was no “clear distinguishing line between Islamic civilization andthe pre-existing corpus of ‘Hindu tradition,'” and, in fact, “creative Indo-Islamicaccommodations of difference were worked out at various levels of society andculture.” Even the first Europeans to set up a base in India—the Portugueseled by Vasco da Gama in 1498—”settled within the structure and were, in away, swallowed by it.” What the advent of British rule brought was a clear linedrawn between the natives and the outsiders, and the need for the country toadapt to the modern world.

The transition to colonial rule in India took place in the mid-18th centurywith the gradual dismantling of the Mughal empire. The English East IndiaCompany upon arrival in the seventeenth century was a petitioner that soughtthe right to trade from the Mughals and obtained permission to do so fromEmperor Jahangir in 1619. In 1757, the Company took the first major steptoward the establishment of British colonial rule in India by defeating Sirajud-daula,the nawab of Bengal, at the Battle of Plassey. The Company, whosepolitical and military power had hitherto been limited to a few factory forts incoastal areas, had been competing for turf with the French East India Company.The nawab had objected to the Company’s building fortifications in Calcutta toward off the French. The victorious British acquired vast rights to operate in thenawab‘s domain, concessions that enriched Company coffers and prepared themfor the Battle of Buxar in 1764, where they decisively defeated the combinedarmies of the nawabs of Bengal and Awadh and the Mughal emperor. This victoryforced the Mughal emperor to grant them the diwani, the right to collectthe revenues of Bengal.

The East India Company’s new financial and military strength graduallyenabled them to extend their rule over the subcontinent. In 1857, a widespreadrevolt against British rule erupted. When it was crushed by the British at greatexpense, the Crown decided to dissolve the East India Company and insteadrule India directly through a Viceroy governing as the Crown representative, asystem that would remain until independence and partition in 1947.

Post-1857 saw the rise of organized anti-colonial nationalism motivated bythe belief that a hundred years of British rule had already, economically andpolitically, crippled the country and, thus, demanded a movement to regainIndia’s sense of worth. The early strands of the nationalist movement eventuallygave way to Gandhian tactics and the dominance of the Indian NationalCongress.

In Chinese historiography, too, the beginning of the modern period ismarked by a clear border between the previous conquests of China and theinflux of the Western powers and Japan (bitterly termed yang guize, or foreigndevils) into China. Paine states that history books present the modern period as”beginning with the defeats in the Opium Wars followed by a century of uninterruptedconcessions and humiliations before foreigners.” It has been suggestedthat the Qing were in fact colonizers. The Qing were, after all, Manchuswho conquered the existing Han Chinese population, and proceeded to banHan Chinese from holding high government posts or intermarrying with theManchus. Dissenters counter that the Qing carefully upheld Confucian structuresand Chinese traditions in order to emphasize their claim to “the Mandateof Heaven” (tian ming). Paine remarks, “[M]odern history marks the first timethat China had ever been completely unable to sinicize the outsiders but hadinstead been forced, however reluctantly and painfully, to adapt to the worldbeyond China.” Arguments about the nativization of the Qing notwithstanding,there is no doubt that the Chinese nationalist movement, though criticalof the corruption of the dynasty, not only embraced the territorial boundariesand legacy of the Qing but also had an anti-foreign powers doctrine at its core.This trend continued even when the Guomindang was replaced by the ChineseCommunist Party (CCP). Thus, the Chinese see the modern history of colonialismin China as two-pronged—the carving up of Qing China into foreignspheres of influence by Western powers and Japan (1842—1905), and the laterdomination by Japan during World War II (1931—45). Both phases of imperialismhave strong resonance for the Chinese and are collectively remembered asthe “century of humiliation” (bainian guochi). Indeed, Mao referred to Chinaduring this period as ban zhimin di, or, a semi-colony.

The insulated Chinese empire’s first brush with European powers occurredthrough Portugal’s merchants in the Far East in the early sixteenth century.”The Chinese did not realize the significance of the Portuguese arrival, butit initiated a process that would end by destroying the Empire and engulfingChina.” The first British trading ships entered Guangzhou (Canton) circa1637, and between 1685 and 1759 the English and other Europeans traded atseveral places along the Chinese coast, including Xiamen, Fuzhou and Ningbo.After 1759, Guangzhou was designated the sole port open to Europeans. Theisolation of the Qing empire from the realities of the outside world meant thatthe trade with the British and Dutch East India companies was still “nominallyconducted as though it were a boon granted to tributary states.”

Ultimately, opium imports from India to China led to a crisis. Opium wasproduced in India and sold at auction under official British auspices and thentaken to China by private British traders licensed by the East India Company.Opium sales at Guangzhou paid for the substantial tea trade to London. Thereversal of the balance of trade and the drain of silver from China to pay forincreasing imports of opium, combined with the societal effects of opiumaddiction, alarmed the Qing. The ensuing clash resulted in the Opium Warof 1839—42, and China’s defeat in that conflict secured Qing agreement to theTreaty of Nanjing in 1842, substantially increasing British access to Chineseports.

This was only the beginning of the encroachment that transformed theempire’s relationship with the West. A second war fought by the British and theFrench against the Qing secured them treaties at Tianjin in 1858 that allowedWestern ministers to “live at Peking within a context of equality as understoodin Western diplomatic practice.” In October 1860 the allies captured Peking,an event that dismantled the traditional tribute system and replaced it with the”unequal treaty system.” Although China’s treaties with Britain, the UnitedStates, France and Russia were signed as between equal sovereign powers, theywere blatantly lopsided. “China was placed against her will in a weaker positionopen to the inroads of Western commerce and its attendant culture.”

China suffered from 1870 to 1905 as a consequence of great power rivalriesamong the industrializing states. China served either as an arena of competitionor a potential source of revenue that could be utilized elsewhere. Russia,France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan all invaded Qing territory over thisperiod. China’s defeat by Japan and the signing of the Treaty of Shimonosekiin 1895 forced the Qing to cede Taiwan to the Japanese. This episode was particularlybitter, with a former vassal state defeating a country that considereditself the center of civilization. China’s resentment toward Japan originated withthis episode, though subsequent events would magnify China’s grievances. TheQing dynasty survived till 1912 only because there was no alternative regime toreplace it. Organized Chinese nationalism burgeoned in 1905 when Sun Yatsenbecame the head of the Revolutionary League at a meeting of Chinese studentsin Tokyo.

Japan’s occupation of Manchuria marked the beginning of the second phaseof imperialism (1931—45). By 1932, the Japanese had conquered the whole ofManchuria and set up a Japanese-controlled state called Manchukuo. By theend of 1938, the Japanese controlled almost all of east and southeastern China,encompassing some 1.5 million square kilometers of land and a populationof more than 170 million. They set up a puppet government in Peking andNanjing and announced the establishment of “the new order in East Asia.”Japan’s aggression strengthened Chinese nationalism and temporarily united theGuomindang and the Chinese Communist Party in a patchy alliance.

The preoccupation with colonial heritage, manifest in anti-colonial nationalismand carried into the post-imperial era through school and college textbooksand in political and social discourse, is similar in these two countries despitetheir contrasting patterns of colonization—the complete colonization of Indiafor two hundred years and the piecemeal colonization of China over a similartimeframe. The “intensity” of the colonial experience in each country is comparablebecause in each case the experience was a collective historical and culturaltrauma. That history in both countries is constructed and subjective—conspicuouslyevident in the Chinese emphasis on the Western and Japanese intrusioninto China while omitting any reference to the Manchu Qing dynasty—doesnot change the social reality created from the colonial experience. The fact thatit is perceived as a collective trauma makes it a collective trauma. Indeed, as onecan show through the framework of trauma theory, trauma is often subjectiverather than objective.
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