✪ Meng Hui | writer
At the end of March 2020, Qatar's Al Jazeera launched a talk show "Washington or Beijing, Who Does the Future of the Middle East Belong To After the Epidemic?" 》。 Similar topics have been a hot topic in the Media of the Middle East in recent years, and discussions have been raging after China successfully controlled the outbreak and provided assistance to the world. There is a prevailing view that China will lead Asia into a century of wealth and that the Middle East is in a key position under the Belt and Road Initiative, giving the Middle East final access to opportunities for development and peace. Some Middle Eastern countries have formulated policies such as "looking east" and "embracing China" and have embarked on comprehensive cooperation with China. Some Middle Easterners hate the power of the United States, but still imagine China according to the model of modern Western powers, believing that after the strategic contraction of the United States, China has the responsibility to send troops to the Middle East to fill the "gap". However, is this imagination in line with China's reality?
The author of this article believes that the Middle East region is an all-round and complete victim of Western imperialism and colonialism, and the cultural hegemony of the West even monopolizes the historical cognition of Middle Easterners, the Western view of history and China, and thus profoundly affects the Middle Easters' imagination of China and the world, and the relationship between China and the Middle East. So much so that some historical fabrications that seem outrageously wrong and absurd to us are believed to be true by many people abroad. Taking an old British, American, Yugoslav, and West German film released in 1965 and starring Middle Eastern actors as an example, this article explores how the West has formed a whole set of historical narratives about China based on its own imperialist experience and prejudices, and how this biased historical narrative has influenced the Middle Easters' view of China. The author points out that the "Middle Kingdom theory" behind this film was formed by the West in the dynamic process of wrestling with China. What is the content of this set of historical narratives, what are its theoretical bases, how many functions and tasks it undertakes, why Chinese is a fascinating subject that the Middle Easterners, who are obtuse and belong to the same Abrahamic monotheistic system, understand it as soon as they hear it. In the author's view, more importantly, such "false histories" are popular in the West, the Middle East, and beyond, which is bound to hinder people's efforts to establish equality and peace.
This article is a special article of cultural new media, which is originally published by the author with the authorization of the author, and only represents the author's own views. It is hereby compiled for your consideration.
"Those who can build the Great Wall should rule the world"
▍ One
Before his death, my friend Shang Sijia wrote a "> of Doctor Zhivago as a < of Cold War Novels", which introduced and analyzed the struggle between the "cultural cold war" between the United States and the Soviet Union around "Doctor Zhivago" and its author, so that many readers had a sense of "being awakened" and recognized as a good article.
Made into a color film and released in 1969, "Doctor Zhivago" carried the aura of "excellent art" to maximize the scope of influence, and the actor who played the hero, Omar Sharif, also won the Golden Globe Award, reaching the peak of his personal career. Omar Sharif is an Egyptian actor of Lebanese descent, who has long been a big star in the Arab world, and with the role of "Arirang Guan" in "Lawrence of Arabia" released in 1962, he successfully entered the European and American film industry, and his achievements are unmatched in the entire Middle East and even the Islamic world. Between Ali and Zhivago, he also played a role, the so-called "Genghis Khan", which is unknown in China, and may be ignored in the West and even in most parts of the world, perhaps – I am not sure – but the Arabs are obsessed with it, because it was the first time Omar Sharif played a male protagonist in a Hollywood movie; and because he played a great man who changed the world and influenced the history of the Middle East.
Ali in Lawrence of Arabia
"Genghis Khan, Prince of conquerors" (hereinafter referred to as "Prince Conqueror"), which marked a milestone in the career of the Egyptian film emperor, is absurd to Chinese audiences. This film only uses the names of a few real historical figures, and the plot in it is all fake, and all Chinese audiences who have taken history classes in middle school will be surprised and confused, and they don't know why that group of Western filmmakers have to be so foolish. In fact, we, today's Chinese, will ignore the fact that it is precisely the Chinese audience that does not understand the plot and moral of the film at all, on the contrary, in other parts of the world, people who have been educated by the whole set of imperialist ideas, audiences who have been baptized by Hollywood culture, can see it smoothly and clearly, and can accurately receive the information disseminated in the film.
When I first saw this movie by chance, I was also confused and embarrassed, according to the basic thinking logic of the "new China" Chinese to understand the plot of the film, the result is that from the whole to the details can not be understood, everywhere misunderstood. But there was one phenomenon that touched me. For a decade, I had been trying to learn Persian and Arabic, and I had the habit of going to the Middle Eastern media to watch the buzz, and as a result, news reports and analysis articles in the mainstream media there showed a China that I didn't even know. At the end of 2020, when I accidentally bumped into the "Prince of Conquerors", I was surprised to find that the presentation of China by the mainstream media in the Middle East today is completely consistent with the presentation of the "Chinese Empire" in the Hollywood "historical blockbuster" half a century ago.
In other words, the forged "history" in "Prince conquerors" is the real history among the cultural elite and the masses in the Middle East! In this world, there are countless people who believe that the film is about the historical truth itself!
I was stunned, of course.
Stunned, I got serious and watched the blockbuster over and over again, combining the current affairs reports in the Middle East, as well as the political works of Kissinger and Nixon, and even "Destined for World War: Can China and the United States Avoid the Thucydides Trap?" ", after tossing and turning for more than half a year, I finally understood what the plot in the film was about.
▍ TWO
Basic historical common sense makes Chinese audiences reject and hate every plot of "Prince conqueror". But, in fact, every setting of the film, every shot, every detail, every word, is deeply fascinated, with more than one bird, without a trace of waste.
At the beginning of the film, in a thick male voice, he announces: "About eight hundred years ago, a military genius came out of Mongolia and conquered half the world. The concept of "Mongolia" is informed to the audience, but the "Mongolia" in the film is located in Turkmenistan. This geographical and historical error is not an oversight or ignorance at all, and I hope that I will have the opportunity to analyze it in the future. In short, if you have no relevant geographical knowledge and foolishly follow the plot of the movie, then you will know through the lines and plot that the Mongoliania in the film is very close to Samarkand and Bukhara, Tashkent, close to the "Persian Kingdom", but very, very far from the "Middle Kingdom".
In the film, the part that shows the hometown of the male protagonist draws on the style of the Russian touring school, which is full of artistic achievements, but also has ulterior motives.
Temujin, the hero of the film, the young chief of the small Yasu tribe (the original setting, don't beat me), is very enlightened, he has a soul-touching dialogue with the public intellectual, the wizard Jin, inspired by Jin, he realizes that in order to get the nation out of division and backwardness, he should go to China to find knowledge, "According to Jin, there is an extremely rich land, a vast empire full of knowledge, we must have knowledge!" A well-known proverb in the Arab world is cleverly used: "Knowledge should be sought even if it is far away in China." ”
Therefore, our hero led the young tribe to resolutely cross the Pamir Plateau - The Green Ridge, and the film uses the unique technique of the film, with a series of changing shots and a majestic soundtrack, to express the passage tragically and heroically. As soon as they crossed the Green Ridge, under the arrangement that the divine will had already been "written", they encountered the Chinese mission. Ambassador Ganling returns from a mission to India - don't laugh! As a result, he was trapped in the wilderness with two attachés. The male protagonist kindly proposed that their tribe escort the Chinese mission, so that the tribe could enter the Great Wall and reach Beijing——— not to laugh!
At this point, generally speaking, chinese audiences with normal consciousness can't stand it and abandon the film. However, this will ignore the two soul scenes in the film, and every line in those two scenes is meaningful.
The first scene takes place at the foot of the Great Wall. Previously, the film deliberately emphasized the vast world beyond the Great Wall as desolate, backward, difficult and dangerous, and the protagonist's life experience was only wild violence, and the plot was also very gloomy. From the moment he met Gan ling, the style suddenly changed, full of joy and tenderness, full of hope, as if there was a great happiness waiting ahead. Then, with a loud gong, on the barren mountain, a winding Great Wall appeared.
The shot itself is worth careful analysis, the picture is extremely bright, the Great Wall is half hidden, majestic, firm, but tough and indifferent, no expression, reminiscent of monuments such as the Parthenon, but also reminiscent of such preaching: "The city was built on the mountain, it cannot be hidden." "We will be like a city on top of a mountain, for the sake of all."
The male protagonist immediately under the Great Wall. Pay attention to the proportion of people and the Great Wall in the picture, the Great Wall is deliberately enlarged, obtaining a temple-like volume.
Male protagonist - according to the setting in the film, he is the future Genghis Khan! As soon as he saw the Great Wall, he immediately dropped off his horse and ran to the side of Ganling's car, and in an innocent and simple tone, he seemed to have a hint of confusion and confusion, and judged: "The people who can build this (Great Wall) should rule the world!" ”（Men who could build this should rule the world！ ）
It resonated with Ganling, who exclaimed, "This is the answer that authoritarian emperors used to prove that they (i.e., they ruled the world), two thousand miles long, from the ocean all the way to the Seven Mountains, but, ah, now they can no longer rule ourselves, let alone the world." (So are answers the authorial emperors to concede it, 2000 miles from the oceans to the seven mountains, but alas, now they can not rule ourselves, let alone the world) [roughly so, the version I'm seeing so far is not subtitled Chinese, It's all up to personal hearing, and there may be mistakes]
Notice that a question is presented here and the answer is given at the same time:
With the superpower of Chinese civilization, the world should be ruled by Chinese, but why did such a history not happen? Why did the Mongols, the British, and the Americans go around conquering and building the largest empire on land, the empire that never sets, and the empire of the world?
Because China was ruled by authoritarian emperors, they built the Great Wall to create the illusion of world domination, or in other words, to form a unique way of ruling the world.
We Chinese clear that the question is a pseudo-question, so the answer is also boring. The Mongol Empire and the Empire of the Rising Sun both fell apart after a brief period of peaking, and as for U.S. imperialism and the U.S. "global empire," intellectuals and politicians disagreed, neither faction could convince anyone, and the elites themselves had not yet made it clear. So what do they mean as historical standards, or as so-called "meta-narratives"?
But outside China's borders, that question and its answer are not only valid, but serious.
Subsequently, a golden-armored and red-robed, majestic cavalry team appeared at the foot of the Great Wall to greet Gan Ling and his party, and the male protagonist, who was attracted and touched, once again showed extraordinary insight and said to his future general Shan: "The bear pack with fat heads is not the opponent of the wolf pack, and from now on you will remember this." ”
After arriving in Beijing, the second soul drama is soon ushered in, in which the male protagonist and the Chinese emperor clash on the Golden Ruan Hall. This scene is a Western version of "Margani kneeling to worship the Qianlong Emperor", rearranged in Disney style, and becomes as simple and easy to understand as the cartoon plot - fellow villagers around the world, don't go, look at it, the Chinese emperor is bullying!
After the emperor ascended to the throne, the hundred officials in the palace suddenly all fell to their knees and prostrated their heads, creeping in one piece. The male protagonist was stunned and bowed solemnly. The emperor summoned the man to the throne, praised him for his credibility, and immediately made white racist remarks.
The male protagonist suppressed his anger, helplessly but also sincerely said: "Naturally, a rich and powerful nation like you has nothing to fear." ”
The Emperor was proud: "Fear? The Chinese empire didn't know the word. ”
The male protagonist keenly asked: "Then what is the purpose of the Great Wall?" ”
The Emperor replied, "It is to ensure that the civilization, knowledge and art we have at our disposal can survive in peace, to keep ourselves in good order, to keep people in it." ”
Temujin was shocked and muttered, "Keep me too?" ”
The Emperor laughed: "I find you extremely entertaining, you always speak so directly and positively. You and your strong men came to my city like a fresh breeze. ”
All this nonsense makes chinese audiences soar through the clouds: What kind of ghost is this?
The temple fell to his knees, and the man bowed.
▍ Three
Forgive me for skipping the argumentation process and directly revealing the experience of watching the Arabic-language media for a year and a half:
In contemporary Western history and political science, there is a rather powerful school based on Western imperialism. That school of thought elevated imperialism, which had been spawned by the Capitalist system in the West and emerged only in concrete historical stages, to the "objective law of human history" and to the highest form of human society. In this way, the semi-real and half-imaginary summary of the form and historical process of the British Empire is transformed into a "meta-narrative" of history. All historical events, the phenomena of civilization in different regions, are not only told according to that one-dimensional narrative, but also judged according to that one-dimensional narrative. For example, as far as the translations that can be seen on the market in our country are concerned, L.S. Stavrianos's General History of the World, Kissinger's World Order, and John Darwin's After Timur – A History of Global Empires Since 1405 are all based on imperialism as a principle to consider history, not to mention Destined for War I.
This school of thought, best in the interests of Western capitalism, has a huge influence, pervading both serious political discussion and mass culture. If we observe the European and American elites and the Middle Eastern elites currently active in the mainstream media, we will find that imperialism is similar to the "objective law of history" in them, although they do not have the concept of "objective law of history" at all. On the contrary, the eternal history of humanity of imperialism, in them, is an arrangement of "divine will."
With this premise clarified, the "Prince of conquerors" was no longer strange, and its strength and power were highlighted. In fact, it uses the clumsy and stupid plot of Disney cartoons to promote a whole set of Western historical narratives about China: China has been an empire since ancient times, and it has always been an empire, and nothing else. The historiography of Western imperialism– which I call "imperial theology" – not only abstracts and generalizes the so-called "empire" as the highest form of state and civilization, but also confuses the two completely different concepts and categories of imperialism and "empire" spawned by capitalism.
However, the historiography of imperialism encounters a contradiction: the oldest empire and imperialists, the Chinese Empire, did not engage in imperialism in the style of the modern Western powers.
What is it that the empire does not engage in imperialism?
The Western right has used sophistry to create a narrative specifically for China:
Compared with other civilizations, Chinese civilization is particularly precocious, forming a huge gap in the level of civilization with the surrounding areas. It was unusually advanced, rich, prosperous, but also became too elegant as a result. As a result, Chinese developed the same sense of racist superiority that is characteristic of white Europeans, who were arrogant and arrogant, believing that their kingdom was the center of the world, the "Middle Kingdom."
Outside of China, Chinese have no contempt, no interest, and fear, disgust, and hatred.
In the film, the male protagonist was awarded the title of imperial prince by virtue of his military merits, and lived a luxurious and elegant civilized life with his wife, children, and relatives, which was in stark contrast with before entering the customs.
However, Chinese has excellent intellect and established a set of world order suitable for himself, and the main point is to build a Great Wall to isolate China from the world and "close the country." Therefore, it is equally important to protect China from the "barbarians", and it is equally important to protect the brilliant fruits of Chinese civilization from flowing out of the Great Wall, but always only for the enjoyment of Chinese.
Thus, the whole history of China is that foreign races outside the Great Wall try to rush into the Great Wall, and China tries its best to prevent that from happening. However, because Chinese weak and soft, and could not fight at all, the "barbarians" rushed into the Great Wall again and again, becoming the rulers of the Chinese and the masters of Chinese civilization. How did the "Middle Kingdom" triumph over the alien invasion? inexistent.
Every time the barbarians successfully rushed into the Great Wall, they would bring strength, bloodiness, and ambition and heroism to Chinese civilization, so it was the invaders who raised the Chinese Empire to a new level, temporarily showing a new state, and truly influencing and meaningful human civilization.
Chinese very wise or cunning, and since he could not fight, he used patience and means to assimilate the invaders. The invading barbarians had to sinicize because of the huge civilization gap, and then Chinese announced that they were also Chinese, so the invaders were the victims of China.
Read Kissinger's work, in which iron teeth preach this set of perverse theories:
China has returned to the hearts of the world because of its outstanding achievements, and foreign countries should look up to it. China can be friends, even old friends, with another country, but it will never see the other as an equal to itself. Ironically, it was the conquerors who attained equal status. ...... This is one of the most astonishing achievements of cultural power in history. The conquerors were largely assimilated by the Defeated Chinese Society, and even large tracts of land in their homeland were considered traditional Chinese territory. (Kissinger, World Order, p. 280, CITIC Press, 2015)
After the Opium War, under the painful experience of the Chinese, the people of Chinese noticed a whole set of Western theories of ugliness and insult to China, which was called the "Sick Man theory of East Asia" for a while. However, in the process of invading China and revolting from the Chinese people, the West concocted a set of theories that could be flexibly applied to different occasions, including the above theories, and called the "Middle Kingdom Theory".
The Middle Kingdom theory is not only an abstract theory, but also a set of "Chinese historical views" carefully crafted by Western experts in Sinology, which has both a principled "view" and a specific "history", that is, a historical narrative. The historical narrative of the Great Wall is a key part of this, and it can be said that the Great Wall has become the "elephant" of the Chinese historical view. The Great Wall proclaimed by the West, the Great Wall that we Chinese ourselves, has a completely different meaning, symbolizing a completely different historical content, which is neglected by careless contemporary Chinese.
▍ Four
The origin and development process of the Middle Kingdom theory is a complex and important academic topic, which may be traced all the way back to the ancient documents of Arabia and Persia, not to mention the need to sort out the context of European sinology, which can only be left to experts and scholars to start. But, in any case, it is clear from the "Prince of Conquerors" that by the 1960s, that view of history was not only 100% mature, but the Western world used Hollywood films to promote it to the world.
From a strategic and tactical point of view, the Middle Kingdom was extremely clever and had accomplished countless tasks, such as legitimizing Western imperialism, aggression and colonization of the world. European and American Chinese scholars have forged a Chinese history, and then let the world "learn from history to know the rise and fall": Look, China was originally the most capable of conquering the world, but it coveted comfort and refused to go out of the Great Wall, so it eventually ended up with a conquered fate!
This view of history also justifies the aggression of the Western powers against China: China is very important to mankind, its people are excellent, it has a glorious civilization, but Chinese refuses to share what it has with mankind and refuses to open up to the world. Therefore, whether it is the Opium War or the Eight-Power Alliance, it is the Action of the West to completely open up the global space of civilization, the space to finally unify mankind, the forced opening of the last piece of civilization that refuses to be shared with mankind, the forced Chinese to share all its excellent achievements with mankind, and to meet with mankind. Therefore, when the West fought against the Qing Dynasty, it was not only for the sake of Westerners, but for the interests of all mankind, and it was a key battle for mankind to finally achieve complete reunification. To extend to today's situation, it is a crucial step before embarking on the process of globalization:
In modern times, with their own sense of cultural superiority, representatives of Western countries have tried to integrate China into the European world system, which has become the basic structure of the international order, and they have put pressure on China to cultivate relations with other countries in the world, exchange ambassadors with other countries, allow free trade, and also demand that China realize economic modernization and open society to christian persuasion in order to improve the quality of the people. Enlightenment and contact in the mind of the West are in the eyes of China... Shamefully, when the West finally showdowns with China, the products that demand open free trade are clearly the most harmful products. Their industrial progress has brought many results, but they want to export opium to China. (Ibid., pp. 280, 283)
After the founding of New China, the Middle Kingdom said that there was another important function, that is, to negate the nature of New China and the history of the Chinese revolution. "Prince the Conqueror" was released in 1965, and the timing point is very delicate; on the one hand, the United States experienced a heavy blow to resist the United States and aid Korea, and was involved in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, and learned the power of new China; on the other hand, whether in the United States or Europe, there are some wise people who hope to reshape relations with China. That movie seems like an ideological mobilization aimed at the people, a broad public opinion foreshadowing, telling the world public: China is so beautiful, so worthy of going, so worthy of possession, then if the West takes the initiative to seek reconciliation with China, it will not be ashamed.
Even Genghis Khan only went to glory after defecting to the Chinese Empire, and the US president's visit to Beijing did not follow the historical precedent?
In 1969, Kissinger's secret visit to Beijing shocked the world and launched the "Opening to China" operation of the United States, which led to Nixon's successful visit to China. The two great statesmen were proud and excited, proud and joyful, particularly fulfilled, and even seemed to have a sense of happiness, and if you read their writings afterwards, you will find that the pride and pride of Niye and Jiye are precisely based on the "Middle Kingdom Theory". Incredibly, in Kissinger's memoirs, The White House Years, the pervasive mentality of the chapters dealing with China is very similar to the atmosphere of the plot after the encounter with Gan Ling in "Prince Conqueror".
In the film, when the young tribe first enters Beijing, it is a beautiful and splendid world in front of them.
That is to say, it would be too simple to simply recognize the Middle Kingdom theory as a pseudo-history invented by the wise men of the West out of strategic necessity. To a large extent, Westerners invented the Middle Kingdom theory out of psychological necessity, in order to patch the Western-centered world theory, but they are true believers, and they really think that it is rigorous Chinese history, true and true.
Niye was as worried as the secretary of state that when he arrived in Beijing, he fell into the same dilemma as Margani or the "Prince of conquerors", and as a result, the Chinese side treated them with great courtesy, which made the US president feel relieved ("Nixon's Memoirs")," and Kiye said in a showy tone that Chairman Mao's reception of the US president was actually a simplified version of the emperor's summoning ceremony, and neither he nor Nixon felt anything wrong. In fact, seeing Chairman Mao soon made the two of them happy.
More importantly, both Nepal and Kyrgyzstan insisted that the publication of the Shanghai Communiqué meant that China and the United States had established a paramilitary alliance. For the first time in the "thousands of years" of the history of the Chinese Empire, a foreign head of state entered the Great Wall and arrived in Beijing as the leader of the military alliance of the Middle Kingdom, rather than as a barbarian who came to pay tribute! How disapproving of the two of them!
"Even Genghis Khan broke into the Great Wall!" Don't laugh at me, "Genghis Khan broke into the Great Wall", in the world outside Of China, it is a "historical common sense", anyway, at least in the Middle East, it is historical common sense.
What Genghis Khan did not do, what the British did not do, the Americans did, haha!
Near the end of the film, the male protagonist, with the identity of the imperial prince, issued a great order for the Western Expedition in the tent decorated with the furnishings of the great Chinese nobles, and pointed his troops directly at Russia, India, Central Asia and Persia. Then he fell into a miserable loneliness because no one understood the greatness of conquest.
"Prince of the Conquerors" was co-produced by Britain, the United States, West Germany, and Yugoslavia, and now, I don't know if there is any way to explore its emergence, which must be interesting. In short, it must have been a masterpiece of the "strategic deception" in Europe and the United States at that time, and it was a successful example of the cultural Cold War. Comparing it with the other two business cards in which Omar Sharif participated, it can be seen how the West at that time made a detailed distinction between China and the Soviet Union and the Arab world, creating a unique image and unique positioning for China.
At that time, China was not aware of the successful "strategic flickering" action of the West, and china today is not clear, and the Middle Kingdom doctrine is still pervasive in the media all over the world, just like the Middle East elite, which is based on such a set of historical views to consider China.
China's historical narrative since the pre-Qin Dynasty and the modern historical narrative since the Opium War have all been trapped within the national borders, and one step out of the country cannot be taken out of the country.
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