China History

This little island yearns for international recognition. It's desperate for membership in world bodies such as the United Nations. Its people want to be seen as players in their own right, not just as a rich appendage of the Chinese mainland. Its government coddles the few diplomatic allies it has left, mostly impoverished countries that receive hefty financial aid in return for not moving their embassies to Beijing.

The young woman at a small souvenir shop giggled when asked what China's revolutionary leader, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, would have thought of her business selling Mao tie clasps and pins. "I'm sure he wouldn't approve," she said with no trace of guilt. "This is something that Deng Xiaoping (China's current senior leader) thought up." Private enterprise and the pursuit of profit--in contrast to Mao's ideals of radical egalitarianism and class struggle--have seeped into every corner of China.

Carol Liu knew from her family that Japan's occupation of Manchuria was brutal. But her family's stories about life in wartime China only hinted at the horrors. Earlier this year, the 17-year-old Los Angeles high school student read a book about atrocities in Nanking, now known as Nanjing. The pages revealed in vivid written and photographic detail the massacre of several hundred thousand Chinese soldiers and civilians by the Japanese army.

Did librarian Frances Wood go too far when she suggested that one of history's most famous travelers may not have gone far enough 700 years ago? The thought crossed Wood's mind when a distinguished Italian historian sidled up to her at a recent conference and archly predicted, "You will be killed." Trouble began when Wood published a slim volume with a teasing but incendiary title: "Did Marco Polo Go to China?"

For centuries, Genghis Khan has served as a symbol of brutality, a leader who thrived on the misery that his Mongol warriors were to spread throughout Asia and into Central Europe. "Man's highest joy is in victory: to conquer one's enemies, to pursue them, to deprive them of their possessions, to make their beloved weep, to ride on their horses, and to embrace their wives and daughters," he is reported to have said.

The Qing emperors of China would probably have been pleased to know that one day the objects of their daily life, from the sublime to the ridiculous, would be venerated in the West. In the 19th century, Western powers and their demands for trade and privilege were the bane of the Qing court--and ultimately contributed to the downfall of imperial rule.

Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata on Wednesday issued a statement from Paris rebuking his justice minister for calling the 1937 Rape of Nanjing "a fabrication" and denying that Japanese acts in World War II constituted "aggression." Hata, on a tour of four European nations, said he had not yet contacted Shigeto Nagano, whom he named to his Cabinet just last Thursday as his new administration took office. "But calling the Nanjing Incident a 'fabrication' is not an appropriate statement," Hata said.

The new three-level restaurant on one of the major avenues here is unusual by any measure. Outside, limousines and imported luxury cars vie for parking places. Inside, private dining rooms are decorated to look like rustic log cabins and the menu boasts proudly of "peasant fare." However, the prices are definitely upper-class. White wine and imported German beer are offered to help wash down the northern-style sauerkraut and flat jia chang bing bread.