Howard Chua-Eoan
One of the more notable observations from this past weekend of Russian chaos emerged from Chinese social media. It doesn’t go anywhere toward explaining what happened on the road to Moscow, but it does say a lot about the way ordinary Chinese regard the chaos in their immense neighbor and ally. That popular perspective will likely factor into how Xi Jinping recalibrates his “friendship without limits” with Vladimir Putin.
On Saturday, in the middle of the mess, Eunice Yoon, CNBC’s China bureau chief, tweeted a sampling of Chinese commentary about Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, including the results of an online poll. The question: Which historical event do you think is most like what’s happening in Russia now?
More commonly known as the An Lushan rebellion in Western books about China, the 8th century uprising was one of the most cataclysmic upheavals not just in that country but in global history. In The Better Angels of Our Nature: A History of Violence and Humanity, Stephen Pinker describes it as the “worst atrocity of all time… an eight-year rebellion during China’s Tang Dynasty that, according to censuses, resulted in the loss of two-thirds of the empire’s population, a sixth of the world’s population at the time.”
That may be an exaggeration — collecting accurate statistics in the wake of a civil war is hazardous. But the apocalyptic sentiment is consistent with the Chinese historical imagination, heavily inculcated with millennia of lore. The parallels are startling. Just as Prigozhin broke with his apparent patrons to march on Moscow, An Lushan was a favorite of the imperial court in Chang’an (now Xi’an) whose ambitions led him to war against erstwhile allies and march on the capital, forcing the emperor to flee.
Until that moment in 755, the monarch — Xuanzong, also known as the Ming (or brilliant) emperor — had reigned over what was the richest and perhaps most powerful empire on earth, stretching from provinces on the Pacific to military protectorates deep into Central Asia. All too comfortable on the throne for more than four decades, Xuanzong allowed prosperity to get in the way of governance — and thus put at risk the Mandate of Heaven, the philosophical principle that recognized a dynasty’s right to rule. He’d fallen under the influence of his beloved concubine Yang Guifei (who had been married to one of his sons) 1 and by extension her family, many of whom were appointed to high office.
An Lushan (whose origins may be Turkic or Iranian; Lushan likely a form of Roshan, which means “bright” in Persian) had made his reputation defending the northern part of the empire against regional rivals. He used that military prowess to endear himself to the court. Concubine Yang was so taken that she officially adopted him as a son. One story had him obliging her maternal instincts by playing the fool: The obese general would dress up in swaddling clothes to entertain her and her coterie. The emperor built him a palace and showered him with treasure. An became an integral part of the Tang status quo — until the time arrived for him to seize the empire for himself.
In Chinese language tweets over the weekend, Prigozhin is sometimes simply called An Lushan.
Unlike Prigozhin, An Lushan didn’t call off his march on the capital. He captured Chang’an after Xuanzong fled. The armed forces of the Tang would eventually retake the city but not until soliciting the help of Uighur and Arab mercenaries. Meanwhile, the emperor faced a second rebellion from among the military entourage protecting him during his escape. The soldiers were furious at the Yang family, blaming their corruption for the catastrophe. Faced with a threat to his own life, the emperor acceded to their request to kill most of the clan — and to strangle his cherished concubine. That tragedy would be romanticized in a poem written a generation later: The Song of Unending Sorrow by Bai Juyi is still recited from memory by students from the mainland to Taiwan to Southeast Asia.
Paranoid and going blind, An Lushan would become so erratic that his son An Qingxu had him killed with the help of a favorite eunuch. His rebellion would continue under the leadership of Shi Siming (hence the Chinese “An-Shi” terminology for the period) until the Tang once again gained the upper hand. By then, however, the empire was in tatters.
Remarkably, the Tang would sputter on for another 100 years or so. China would continue to be an economic and cultural powerhouse for the rest of East Asia. But its expansionary period was over and another massive rebellion in the 870s would finally render it moribund, leading to China’s division into warring kingdoms until the Song dynasty re-established central authority in 960.
Again, all this doesn’t say anything about what will happen in Russia next. But it provides a popular context for Xi’s China and the policies it’s formulating about Russia’s chaos, as Minxin Pei elaborates in his recent Bloomberg Opinion column. Foreign policy must necessarily have a domestic audience — and China’s democrature (the useful French neologism that combines democratie and dictature, that is dictatorship) pays attention to social media indicators. If the Chinese people see Russia through a template of chaos, then perhaps it’s time for Beijing to realign its relationship with Putin, who may have lost the Mandate of Heaven.
While history doesn’t really repeat itself, its lessons always bear repeating.
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To preserve decorum, the enamored emperor had his daughter-in-law declare she wanted to enter a Daoist nunnery, which meant her marriage to his son was over. Then, after a brief period, he then brought her into his harem as his new favorite consort.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
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