State of the unions
Scotland’s parliament cannot hold a second referendum on independence without the approval of the parliament of the United Kingdom, the British Supreme Court ruled last week, angering supporters of Scottish nationhood.
The idea of a unified China has been hardwired into the psyche of the Chinese nation for such a long time that any notion to the contrary is repellent to ordinary people in China today, and deemed seditious and illegal by the government.
The long history of the Chinese nation is witness to alternating cycles of unity and disunity. The opening lines of the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, set in the eponymous period (AD220-280), sums it up well: “The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide.”
The conventional interpretation of China’s past is that the recurring wholeness and fragmentation corresponded to the waxing and waning of national fortunes. When China was unified, the nation was strong, prosperous and internationally prestigious. Conversely, when China was fragmented, its people suffered because the nation was weak and plagued by internecine warfare and foreign invasions, such as during the great divide that lasted more than 350 years, from the third to the sixth centuries, the 50 years between the end of the Tang and the founding of the Song, and the first half of the 20th century, following the Qing’s demise.
Regardless of its merits and historical veracity, practically everyone in China subscribes to this notion with almost religious fervour – that a united China ruled by a single central government is the default position from which the nation must not digress, lest it descend into anarchy with catastrophic consequences for the people.
This notion informs China’s insistence on reunification with Taiwan because the status of the island represents an aberration in China’s narrative that national unity begets national greatness. To the Chinese government and people, this aberration must be set right, even if it means war.