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that no leader can afford to appear soft on the sovereignty issue
and expect to survive or to avoid vilification by future Chinese
historians.
The Problem of Perceptions
Much is known about Chinese Communist perceptions of the
West in general and of the United States and Japan in
particular.3 Chinese perceptions of West European countries have
received less attention. In the absence of a systematic account
of Chinese views of
of Britain (and vice versa) the following
observations would seem to hold true:
1) As the oldest surviving imperialist power, Britain is
credited with considerable cunning and acumen. In popular folk
lore Britain is depicted as a two-headed snake. China's leaders
regard it as having managed its relative decline fairly well.
Although Suez was regarded as a blunder, Mao Zedong's comment at
the time is highly instructive of underlying attitudes: "The
British bourgeoisie, past masters of machination and manoeuvre,
are a class which knows best when to compromise. But this time
they bungled and let the Middle East fall into the hands of the
americans. What a colossal mistake! Can one find many such
3 See the pioneering study by David Shambaugh, Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972-1990. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991]. See also Allen S. Whiting, China Eyes Japan. [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989].
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