Footnote to the post titled “Fuqiang”

In order to become like the West, China needed to do two very basic things. For one, adopt Western methods and techniques of economic and military development. And two, know the West. Know Western psychology. As for the first task, China saw that technology and statecraft were at the heart of the rise of the West in terms of economic and military power. Technology led to weapons development, and weapons development fomented the creation of strong, centralized, and bureaucratized states in the West. China realized they had all they needed in order to achieve the first task. The second task led China to realize that Westerners were in fact culturally inferior to the Chinese and culturally inferior to Easterners in general, which meant that if the Chinese were to implement an effective and smart diplomatic strategy, one Westerner could ultimately be turned against the other by the Chinese, and in turn enable China to have the upper hand over the West in terms of diplomatic and political relations. Whereas the Chinese can be unified, the West was and is divided, and this would play to China’s advantage over the long run.