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Military Culture in Imperial China by Nicola di Cosmo
NICOLA DI COSMO's MILITARY CULTURE IN IMPERIAL CHINA joins a relatively short list of works on Chinese military history, a scarcity of works reflected in the still-regular citation of John King Fairbanks' and Frank Kierman Jr's 1974 collection Chinese Ways of Warfare. Emphasizing the point, Di Cosmo is able to cite the more significant works in two brief footnotes to his introduction here. As such, MILITARY CULTURE IN IMPERIAL CHINA should be warmly received and is a welcome addition to the field.
MILITARY CULTURE IN IMPERIAL CHINA is a collection of essays presented at a conference organized by Di Cosmo at the University of Canterbury (NZ) in 2001. Following an introduction by Di Cosmo to set the stage, the 14 essays are presented in roughly chronological order. Di Cosmo frames the issue noting four distinct aspects of military culture. First, "a ... system of conduct and behavior to which members of the military are supposed to adhere". Second, a society's strategic decision making process. Third, a society's inclination towards warfare and militarization. Fourth, "an aesthetic and literary tradition that values military events" and extols the accomplishments of the military or its members. In the essays that follow Di Cosmo has succeeded in keeping the essayists "on theme" and all relate their subject to Di Cosmo's framework. Given the often unfocused nature of a collection of symposium papers, keeping the collection consistent with the editor's framework is an accomplishment.
And yet, by the time we have reached the final essay on the Qing, "military culture" as defined by Di Cosmo has been rendered of secondary importance to the question of "wen" (culture) versus "wu" (military or martial) in Chinese history and historiography. The "wen versus wu" debate seeks to resolve the question of how important military or martial sentiment was in Chinese culture. The latter several essays that take this debate as their focus are some of the most engaging in the book, but however engaging, the "wen versus wu" debate creates a conundrum.
The problem for Di Cosmo is that he is looking for his framework of military culture to provide a structure that can be applied across the entire sweep of Chinese history even as the "wen versus wu" issue dominates debate in the later dynasties. In Chinese historiography, "wen" has long sought to assert itself over "wu". Even Chinese military theory seems reluctantly martial; a consistent tenet of Chinese military philosophy is that military action should be the course of last resort and if used, stealth, subterfuge and mis-direction among others are more useful than a direct clash of arms. In the early dynasties, however, "wu" was a fact of life and "wen" only came to dominance as the bureaucracy and literati class came to full flower. Consequently, the essays here on the late Imperial period can address easily the "wen versus wu" debate, but the earlier essays are unable to engage in this debate because it was not an issue in these early dynasties.
Di Cosmo does not shy away from the "wen versus wu" issue. By the second paragraph of the introduction Di Cosmo is writing of "... the influential perception that Chinese culture was inherently indifferent to the gritty matter of battles and wars and consequently paid little or no heed to military topics." He traces the origins of this perception to Chinese military failures against the West in the nineteenth century together with chaos in the twentieth and, quite importantly, to "...influential work by Lei Haizong, published in 1939...of an enervated China whose ability to fight had been sapped by centuries of Confucian culture...".
"Wu" was on the losing end to "wen" fairly early on as "...Chinese literati have systematically devalued the military side of society and history to the point that military affairs, while very much at the center of political concerns, have been marginalized within the realm of culture."
In the end, the "wen versus wu" debate seems to overwhelm Di Cosmo's military culture framework. This in no way detracts from Di Cosmo's framework or from the quality of the essays, but rather seems to indicate just how far the balance has swung in favor of "wen" and the degree of righting needed to put "wu" into reasonable perspective.
It is unlikely that MILITARY CULTURE IN IMPERIAL CHINA will find its way onto any bestseller lists. Di Cosmo's effort to define military culture and the authors' efforts to both clarify the "wen versus wu" debate and well as right the balance a bit in favor of wu clearly marks the book as "academic". Even among those inclined to the topic there is likely to be a certain measure of frustration. For those with an interest in military history hoping to find accounts of tactics and battles, there is little here of either. For cultural and political historians inclined to the view that "military culture" in China is an oxymoron, the writers of the essays make clear that as much as "wen" has come to dominance, "wu" is as much a part of Chinese history as "wen".
Nevertheless, in this relatively small volume, Di Cosmo has presented the full sweep of Chinese military history. Adventuring into the academic, MILITARY CULTURE IN IMPERIAL CHINA rewards one not only with a comprehensive view of Chinese military history, but also with an engaging and thought provoking collection of essays.
Stephen Maire
14/09/2009
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Stephen Maire is a Director of garment manufacturing and trading company. He has lived in East Asia for more than twenty years. |
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