Showing posts tagged as: China
What happened to ‘Peking’ and ‘Bombay’?: The Politics and Standardisation of Geographical Renaming
Some time towards the tail-end of last century China and India changed the standard exonym by which its respective principal city is known to outsiders. Thus, Peking became Beijing and Bombay became Mumbai. Other cities within each country followed suit. At the time this caused some pointed comments and a degree of puzzlement among onlookers and even governments around the world. After being called “Peking” and “Bombay” for what seemed like forever (it wasn’t!), why did the Chinese and Indian governments all of a sudden make such a fundamental switch in nomenclature?
The reasons why governments up and change the names of their cities and even occasionally the name by which the sovereign state itself is known※※, varies. Quite frequently, it’s about politics or ethnic/cultural identity. Often, it’s a matter of transliteration of writing systems to keep up with the state of contemporary realities – which dovetails neatly into the need for recognition of ethnic identities within the country. In some instances the change of name may be about both the political and the phonetic. Let’s look at a few specific cases from different countries.
Politics of decolonisation: Let’s start with India and Mumbai. “Bombay” was the first to be (officially) cancelled. In 1995 the Shiv Sena—a right-wing Hindu nationalist party—took power in the Maharashtra region (includes Bombay/Mumbai). Shiv Sena changed the city name because it wanted to rid it of a name with the connotation of the British colonial legacy (“Bombay” apparently being a tainted “Raj” name to Hindu nationalists)1⃞. In its place, the regional authority seeking a name which reflected Maratha heritage and identity chose “Mumbai” to honour the Koli goddess Mumbadevi2⃞.
Standardisation of spelling: From 1996 other Indian cities similarly underwent a name change, the most significant of which are Kolkata, replacing the former name “Calcutta”, Chennai, replacing “Madras”, Kozhikode, replacing “Calicut”, and Bengaluru, formally called “Bangalore”. While post-British decolonisation was at the heart of the desire to change names, many of the new names were the result of spelling changes to align with the prevailing local languages/ethnic communities (eg, Kolkata is a Bengali word for a city nearly two-thirds populated by Bengalis)3⃞.
Transliteration: China has quite a track record of changing the name of its cities, during the imperial era it was a regular occurrence. The question most are curious about is how “Peking” got traded in for “Beijing” (which translates as “northern capital”). Well for a start, Beijing is not a new name for the city. Back in 1403, during the Ming Dynasty, it was thus named…hence the wheel has gone full circle. In-between Beijing 1.0 and Beijing 2.0 the city was known variously as Beiping, Peiping and Peking (prior to Beijing 1.0 it was called Dadu when ruled by the Mongols). Which brings us back to the question of why Peking became Beijing. Basically, it was the (delayed) outcome of a change in the Chinese writing system/script, requiring the conversion of text to tally with the new Pinyin romanisation system introduced by the communist authorities. As part of the process the phonetic changes necessitated new spellings of many city names. And as the new system involved replacing Cantonese with Mandarin, this led to “Canton”, the old English name for the great southern Chinese city, being transliterated as “Guangzhou”4⃞. For the same reason “Pusan” in South Korea became “Busan” in 2000.
More politically motivated name swaps: The communist era of the USSR occasioned name changes of some cities to honour Bolshevik supreme leaders – “Tsaritsyn”, the Tsarist era name became “Stalingrad” (after Joseph Stalin), only to change again to “Volgograd”); “St Petersburg” became “Petrograd” before the Bolsheviks renamed it “Leningrad” (after VI Lenin), only for it to revert to St Petersburg after the dissolution of Soviet communism. Turkey’s preeminent city and capital, Istanbul, too has a history of different names, the changes occasioned by the succeeding waves of rulers who in turn conquered the city. Founded as “Byzantium” by the ancient Greeks, later it was renamed “Constantinople” when absorbed into the (eastern) Roman Empire (unofficially also known as “New Rome”), and finally, under the Ottoman conquerors it became and remains “Istanbul”5⃞.
Endnote: The capital of the Central Asian republic of Kazakhstan is arguably the world record-holder for most changes of its name. While it was part of Russia it was originally called Akmoly, this changed to Akmelinsk and then Tselingrad. Since independence the capital has regularly changed autonyms (and at least one change of location and therefore its name as well) – going from Akmola (= “white tomb”, perhaps not the most uplifting name for a city!), to Astana (which simply means “capital”) to Nursultan (named after Kazakhstan’s autocratic first president) back to Astana.
※※ Re country name changes see this site’s August 2024 blog Bharat, Türkiye, etc. What’s in a Name?: The Politics of Country Rebranding
𖣴𖣴𖣴 𖣴 𖣴𖣴𖣴
1⃞ “Bombay” (meaning “good bay”) was the name the English adopted during the British Raj which derived from Bombaim, the name the Portuguese chose for the city during their occupation
2⃞ the new name, Mumbai, didn’t trigger a change in the name of the city’s famous film-making complex which remains “Bollywood”
3⃞ Goa, a Portuguese colony for 450 years interestingly has not changed its name…possibly something to do with “Goa” deriving from a South Asian Sanskrit word Gomantak (= “cow’s horn”)
4⃞ Shànghâi already conformed to the Pinyin system and so didn’t require a change of name
5⃞ if we turn our eyes to Europe other politically-motivated changes in the city name include “Danzig” (when a German city), changed to “Gdańsk” (when it came under Polish jurisdiction), and “Königsberg” (historic Prussian name) ➜ “Kaliningrad” (after the USSR took control of it from Germany). The spoils of war also accounts for the change in name of the Vietnamese city “Saigon” to “Ho Chi Minh City” after the North Vietnamese were victorious in the civil war
Hambantota, Sri Lanka: The Short, Troubled History of an International Airport and Deep-water Port
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Rusted-on aficionados of the unerringly “on the ball” 1980s BBC political satire Yes Minister will no doubt have total recall of the classic episode where Sir Humphrey Appleby defends the existence of a brand spanking new, impeccably clean and spotless hospital which remains resolutely and defiantly free of patients. Well, Sri Lanka has it’s own non-fictional version of this writ large with the Mattala Airport.
Source: BBC
This real life ”Yes Ministeresque” moment has been acted out in Hambantota on Sri Lanka’s southeastern tip. Over a decade ago the government decided to build a no-expenses-spared showcase city with state-of-the-art facilities. The commercial venture was nothing if not ambitious…the focal point being a new international ‘greenfield’ airport, Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport (මත්තල රාජපක්ෂ ජාත්යන්තර ගුවන්තොටුපළ), pride of place in “a multi-billion dollar city in the middle of the jungle”. The plan included a swish, diversified facility deep sea port, an industrial zone and a test-standard cricket stadium [‘Sri Lanka’s Debt Crisis Is So Bad The Government Doesn’t Know How Much Money It Owes’, Wade Shepard, Forbes, 30-Sep-2016, www.forbes.com;]. ‘The Story Behind the World’s Emptiest International Airport’, Wade Shepard, Forbes, 28-May-2016, www.forbes.com].
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M Rajapaksa with Indian PM Modi (Source: the week.in)
What made Hambantota, a small, backwater fishing town (population even now no more than about 56,000) four-and-a-half hours drive from the capital Colombo a candidate for such a major economic development? It owed its meteoric elevation in part to a genuine need for (overdue) reconstruction after the destruction wreaked by a 2004 tsunami, but another significant factor is that Hambantota is the home region of Sri Lankan strongman and former president, Mahinda Rajapaksa (Mahinda’s younger brother Gotabaya is currently the country’s president). Hambantota bore all the hallmarks of a massive vanity project – in an initiative that would have satisfied Alexander the Great’s lust for eponymous self-glorification, the airport, the sea port, the cricket ground, everything was slated to be named after the senior Rajapaksa!
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“White elephant“ of an airport Image: sundayobserver.lk
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Source: scmp.com
The construction of Hambantota’s new deep sea international port—in its a short history following much the same “snowy-coloured pachyderm” trajectory as the Rajapaksa airport—drew a similar level of flak from critics…one described the costly project as a “42 million dollar rock”. Opened in 2010, Rajapaksa’s plan had been “to turn his own sleepy little constituency into a new global shipping hub”. Despite reporting a 2016 operating profit of US$1.81 m, the port has underperformed and its long-term economically viability has big question marks over it. Some Sri Lankans questioned the need for a new port when Colombo’s port already serviced needs adequately well (‘Sri Lanka’s Debt Crisis’). And the signs have not been promising, international shipping companies by and large have spurned the port’s facilities. Government hopes that the new port would develop into an all-purpose hub, attracting the lucrative oil trade business skirting the Indian Ocean rim route and perhaps even rival Singapore in the region, seem to have been consigned to the realm of pipe-dreams. More immediately worrying for Sri Lanka is that it’s incapacity to repay the high-interest Chinese loans forced it into doing a “debt-for-equity swap” leaving the PRC in virtual control of the port [‘Why India is buying the world’s emptiest airport’, David Brewster, The Interpreter, 14-Jul-2018, www.lowyinstitute.org].
Chinese motives in the region
The speculation among China-watchers is that Beijing has eyed off the new port as a potential naval base for it in the Indian Ocean region. Co-existing with this conjecture and part of Beijing‘s Belt and Road Initiative is that the view that China wants to build a SEZ(𝒷) around Hambantota. Both of these relate to the “String of Pearls” theory hypothesised by the US that China’s intention is to establish a network of military and commercial posts across the breadth of the Indian Ocean littoral – and extending to connect with the Chinese mainland, the construction of ”various land and maritime trade routes as part of China’s larger military ambition” (this has also been described as China’s “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”)(𝒸) [‘Here is All You Should Know About ‘String Of Pearls’, China’s Policy to Encircle India’, Maninder Dabas, India Times, Upd 23-Jun-2017, www.indiatimes.com. To this end Beijing already has established naval ports in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Malaysia, in addition to Sri Lanka. India recognises such a development as an inherent threat to its security and interests. One scenario postulates that a free trade agreement between China and Sri Lanka with the established foothold in Hambantota could provide a Chinese back door into Indian markets [‘China trick: Unviable port turns strategic asset’, Colonel R Hariharan, The Times of India, 17-Dec-2017, www.timesofindia.com)].
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Indian countermove
New Delhi took a proactive approach to what it sees as China’s encroachment on its turf by negotiating a joint venture with Colombo concerning the HRI airport, putting up US$300 million to buy out Sri Lanka’s huge debt to China (Brewer). In return India would secure a 40-year lease over the airport. New Delhi’s motives for such a venture were less commercial (eg, a new, handy destination for Indian tourists) than they were geo-strategic, a move to stymie the Chinese incursion in its backyard and growing influence in the region…it would also, it was mooted, ”give India considerable control over how the port is used” (Brewer). Everything looked set to go ahead when the (Gotabaya) Rajapaksa government in 2020 suddenly stepped back from the joint venture with India, indicating instead that private enterprise within Sri Lanka would be offered the chance to invest in the HRI project [‘Sri Lanka, not India, will develop Mattala airport: Gotabaya Rajapaksa‘, Meera Srinivasan, The Hindu, 19-Dec-2019, www.thehindu.com].
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Mattala Rajapaksa Airport
Covid-19 and the loss of tourism revenue has devastated the Sri Lankan economy leaving the country staring at the abyss, but years of bad economic policies by successive governments have led to the present dilemma. A succession of costly government infrastructure projects, as typified by Rajapaksa’s Hambantota project financed by massive domestic and external borrowing, contributed to the national economy’s decline. The upshot? A total debt blow-out between 2009 and 2014 for Sri Lanka, domestic debt tripled while foreign debt doubled…the largest external creditor has been China, which was all too-ready to step in with the money after allegations of Civil War crimes against the Rajapaksa government soured relations with Western regimes(𝒹) [‘There is no money left’: Covid crisis leaves Sri Lanka on brink of bankruptcy’, Minoli Sousa & Hannah Pietersen, The Guardian, 02-Jan-2022, www.theguardian.com].
Image: Lonely Planet
End-note: While Hambantota Port’s backers talk up its prospects (port “fully functional within 12 months”), the deal handing China a 99-year lease on the port in return for the funds needed to pay back loans and investors, has raised concerns that the Rajapaksa government has ensnared Sri Lanka in an ever-spiralling debt trap [‘Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port to be fully functional by 2022’, The New Indian Express, 12-Jul-2021, www.newindianexpress.com].
PostScript: Defacto colony? Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu from the Colombo-based Centre for Policy Alternatives in April 2022 observed that “China is now part of the political architecture of Sri Lanka”.
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(𝒶) the hope had been that the airport would lure tourists to wildlife parks and beaches in the south but this notion hasn’t as yet born any fruit
(𝒷) Special Economic Zone
(𝒸) another part of the ‘String’ is the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
(𝒹) as at 2021 Sri Lanka owed more than US$5 bn to China alone
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1898, A Vintage Year for United States Empire Building
“God created war so that Americans would learn geography” ~ Mark Twain (attributed)✱
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The axiomatic nature of the above much-referenced quotation resounds most strongly in the year 1898. In that year the US expanded its offshore territorial acquisitions in different parts of the Pacific and in the Caribbean. It secured the islands of Cuba, the Philippines❂, Guam and Puerto Rico as a result of a short, opportunistic, one-sided war with a declining European power. At the same time Washington annexing the Hawaiian Islands, closed the door on four years of ‘independent’ republicanism which followed a successful coup by American businessmen against the indigenous Hawaiian monarchy.
🔺 Flag of the short-lived Hawaiian Republic
What triggered US involvement in a Cuban conflict against far-off Spain? The immediate pretext was the sinking of the American battleship Maine in Havana harbour. The explosion is generally believed to have been an accident but leading American newspapers (the Hearst press and to a lesser extent the Pulitzer publications) drove the charge of war jingoism within the country, declaring Spain culpable for the loss of life on the Maine. This and the ongoing reporting of the Cuban insurrection which deliberately exaggerated Spanish atrocities against the Cubans—examples of the “yellow journalism”◬ practiced especially by Hearst—helped to create a groundswell of popular support and agitation for war whilst boosting the newspapers’ sales.
🔺 “Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!” (source: www.pri.org)
Humanitarian concern for the Cuban people? In response to the charge that the US engineered the war as a grab for territory (á la Mexico 1846), apologists for the US intervention clothed the action in the garb of a humanitarian attempt to free the Cuban people from the colonial yoke of imperial Spain [Foner, Philip S. “Why the United States Went to War with Spain in 1898.” Science & Society, vol. 32, no. 1, 1968, pp. 39–65. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/404402321. Accessed 21 July 2020]. The McKinley Administration in Washington DC also justified it as an imperative to act given the political instability in Cuba, so close to US soil, and certainly Washington as the hegemonic regional power with a self-appointed role as regional ‘policeman’ had an interest in ridding the Western Hemisphere of the remnants of an old European colonial power [‘The Spanish-American War, 1898’, Office of The Historian, www.history.state.gov/].
Contemporary criticisms of aggressive US foreign policy Washington’s rapid trajectory towards war in 1898 drew a skeptical response internationally. Keir Hardie, British labour leader, stated that he “cannot believe in the purity of the American motive”, seeing rather the hand of “trusts and Wall Street financiers intent on extending American dominance over Cuba, Latin America, and the Far East”. The French government agreed that the professed humanitarian concerns were “merely a disguise for (US) commercial desires” to conquer the Caribbean and Latin America. Non-mainstream press in the US like the socialist The People and the New York Tribune argued that the US government ’s real aim was to ”divert attention from economic evils at home” and to protect the US’s extensive interests in Cuba [Foner, Philip S. “Why the United States Went to War with Spain in 1898.” Science & Society, vol. 32, no. 1, 1968, pp. 39–65. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/404402321. Accessed 21 July 2020].
An economics-driven war In fact economics was the principal driver of America’s intervention in Spanish Cuba. First, the US was massively invested in the island in the 1890s, importing sugar (predominantly), plus tobacco and minerals from Cuba…the US’s Cuban business ventures were valued at about $50 million in 1895 [‘American Business in Cuba 1898-1959: A Brief Overview’, (Lisa Reynolds Wolfe), Havana Project, 17-Aug-2011, www.havanaproject.com]. The Maine was in Havana harbour to protect these same American interests when it met with disaster. So, rather than a humanitarian motive to aid the beleaguered Cubans, the intervention can be seen as pure economic self-interest: “halting a nationalistic revolution or social movement that threatened American interests” and the subsequent withholding of sovereignty to Cubans (and to Filipinos) [Paterson, Thomas G. “United States Intervention in Cuba, 1898: Interpretations of the Spanish-American-Cuban-Filipino War.” The History Teacher, vol. 29, no. 3, 1996, pp. 341–361. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4944551 . Accessed 21 July 2020].
🔺 President McKinley
The contemporary state of the American economy was a factor in America’s timing to act. Economic depression and unemployment was plaguing the country. New markets needed to be found for US goods, this meant not only Cuba and the American ’backyard’, but even extending to the Philippines and the lucrative Chinese market (Paterson). Tom Fiddick argues that the real reason President McKinley backed by the American capitalist class opted for war—having seen Spain‘s failure to pacify the Cuban rebels—was to make certain that the insurectos did not succeed in liberating the island and thereby pose a threat to US business interests in Cuba [Fiddick, Tom. “Some Comments on Philip S. Foner’s “Why the United States Went to War with Spain”.” Science & Society 32, no. 3 (1968): 323-27. Accessed July 22, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40401358].
🔺 Battle of Guantánamo Bay (Cuba)
US strategy thinking around imperialist objectives was evident prior to the move to war in 1898 – plans were already afoot for the establishment of naval bases in the strategically important Caribbean and in Hawaii, a precondition to expanding economically further into Latin America and into Asian markets. This “game plan” also envisioned US control of the Isthmus of Panama, an objective secured a few years after the victory over Spain (Foner).
Underpinning ideology for upping territorial expansion The hawkish US foreign policy in 1898 accords with the prevailing 19th century belief of “Manifest Destiny”, a view that settlers in the US were destined to expand inexorably across the continent of North America◙. Correspondence between key players (T Roosevelt and HC Lodge) disclose that the McKinley Administration was committed—before the outbreak of hostilities—to “intervention in Cuba as a stepping stone for expansion in the Far East through the acquisition of Spain’s Pacific possessions”. Foner notes that Cuba comprised the ‘fulcrum’ providing the opportunity for US occupancy of the Philippines as “a base at the doorway to China’s markets” for US capitalists. Also shaping this was the influence of Frederick Jackson Turner’s thesis—the idea that American democracy was defined by a moving frontier line—if America’s frontier at home was closing off as was thought by some, then the most viable course may be to seek new frontiers abroad. The increasingly dominant current in international thought, social Darwinism, was also informing American thinking…the national assertiveness shown in 1898 can be seen as a quantum leap in the “deliberate, calculated pursuit of United States’ greatness” (Paterson).
🔻 Battle of Manila Bay (Phil.)
Hawaii, a foothold on the “American Lake” The groundwork for the US’s absorption of the Hawaiian islands as part of the Manifesto Destiny credo was laid five years earlier when a group of American sugar planters under Sanford B Dole✦ overthrew Queen Liliuokalani, replacing the monarchy with a provisional government with Dole as president. The coup was tacitly recognised by the US government (with US marines despatched to Hawaii to protect US citizens), although President Cleveland tried unsuccessfully to reinstate the monarchy. His successor William McKinley, recognising the strategic importance of Pearl Harbour as a naval base in the war with Spain, “rubber-stamped” the formal annexation of the islands by the US in August 1898 [‘Americans overthrow Hawaiian monarchy, History, www.history.com/].
🔺 US sailors and marines in Honolulu c.1894
Footnote: A “Spanish-American War” Thomas G Patterson notes the exclusionist nature of the name given to the 1898 conflict – the omission of reference to Cuba and Philippines in the title—in effect “air-brushing” the native populations out of the conflict—was (Paterson suggests) an attempt by the victors to obscure uncomfortable truths, the denial of full-fledged independence to Cubans and Filipinos once freed from Spanish control, and to try to avoid America’s role in the affair being labelled as ‘imperialist’ (Paterson).
🔻 1900 map (Source: Pinterest)
PostScript: The Filipino insurgency After the Spanish defeat Filipino nationalists under Emilio Aguinaldo asserted the Philippines’ independence (proclaiming the First Philippine Republic) in 1899. This action was opposed by the US and a conventional-cum-guerrilla war ensued until 1902 when US forces finally subdued Aguinaldo’s army and the Philippines were made an unincorporated territory of the US (although a number of splinter groups of local insurrectos continued to fight the US military occupation for several years) [‘The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902’, Office of The Historian, www.history.state.gov/].
🔻 Flag of the República Filipino
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✱ this famous but elusive quote has also been attributed, in slightly modified form, to Ambrose Bierce
❂ the US government paid Spain $20 million, compensation for the loss of infrastructure in the Philippines
◬ characterised by sensationalism (eg, eye-catching headlines) typically with scant regard for accuracy
◙ US business giant Standard Oil for instance talked about its ”Manifest Destiny being in Asia” (Foner)
✦ calling themselves the “Committee of Safety”
The Pandemic’s “Holy Grail”, the Elusive Vaccine: For the “Global Public Good” or an Inward-looking Assertion of Vaccine Nationalism?
At this point in the war on COVID-19 there are over 120 separate vaccination projects—involving Big Pharma, the public sector, academe, smaller biotech firms and NGOs—all working flat out worldwide trying to invent the ‘magical’ vaccine that many people believe will be necessary to bring the current pandemic to an end. While nothing is guaranteed (there’s still no cure for the HIV/AIDS virus around since the Eighties), the sheer weight of numbers dedicated to the single task, even if say 94% of the efforts fail, there’s still a reasonable chance of success for achieving a vaccine for coronavirus✱ [“Former WHO board member warns world against coronavirus ‘vaccine nationalism’”, (Paul Karp), The Guardian, 18-May-2020, www.theguardian.com].
(Source: CEPI)
If and when the vaccine arrives, will it get to those in greatest need? The way the coronavirus crisis has been handled between nations so far doesn’t exactly give grounds for optimism. Collective cooperation on fighting the pandemic has been sadly absent from the dialogue. We’ve seen the US attack China over coronavirus’ origins with President Trump labelling it the “China virus” and the “Wuhan virus”, and China retaliating with far-fetched accusations of America importing the virus to Wuhan via a visiting military sporting team, and the whole thing becoming entwined in a looming trade war between the two economic powers❂.
(source: www.socioecomonics.net)
The advent of COVID-19 has introduced us to terms such as “contact tracing”, “social distancing”, “covidiot” and the like, but recently we‘ve been hearing a new term thrown about, one with more ominous implications – “vaccine nationalism”. As the scattered islands of scientific teams continue the hunt for the “silver bullet” that presumably will fix the disease, there is a growing sense that the country or countries who first achieve the breakthrough will adopt a “my nation first” approach to the distribution of the vaccine. There are multiple signs that this may be the reality…the US government has launched the curiously named “Operation Warp Speed”, aimed at securing the first 300 million doses of the vaccine available by January 2021 for Americans [‘Trump’s ‘Operation Warp Speed’ Aims to Rush Coronavirus Vaccine’, (Jennifer Jacobs & Drew Armstrong), Bloomberg, 30-Apr-2020, www.bloomberg.com]. In the UK Oxford University is working with biopharma company AstraZeneca to invent a vaccine that will be prioritised towards British needs.
(Source: IndiaMart)
A “vac race” Not to be outdone, China, operating through Sinovac Biotech, is at the forefront of testing potential cures for COVID-19. The pressing need for a vaccine to safeguard its own population aside, Beijing’s rationale includes a heavy investment in national pride and the demonstration of Chinese scientific superiority (cf. Trump’s motivation). The Sino-US rivalry over finding a cure for the pandemic has been compared to the Cold War era ”Space Race” between the US and the USSR (Milne & Crow). A political war of superpower v superpower on a new battlefield…noted as bring part of a longer trend of the “securitisation of global health “ where the health objective increasingly has to share the stage with issues of national security and international diplomacy (E/Prof Stuart Blume, quoted in ibid.).
An environment of competition in lieu of collaboration Even prior to the start of serious talk about the vaccine, the coronavirus crisis was provoking an “everyone for themselves”, non-cooperative approach. With the onset of equipment shortages needed to combat the virus outbreak, an international bunfight developed over access to PPE (personal protection equipment). 3M masks destined for Germany were intercepted by the White House and re-routed to US recipients; French president, Emmanuel Macron, seized millions of masks that were on route to Sweden; Trump purportedly tried to buy CureVac, a German biopharma company working on the vaccine [‘Why vaccine ‘nationalism’ could slow the coronavirus fight’, (Richard Milne & David Crow), Financial Times, 14-May-20320, www.ft.com/]. India (under Hindu nationalist Modi), the world’s largest supplier of hydroxychloroquine (touted as a cure for the virus), withheld it from being exported. As part of this neo-protectionism of the corona medical trove, more than 69 countries banned the export of PPE, medical devices and medicines [‘A New Front for Nationalism: The Global Battle Against a Virus’, (Peter S Goodman, Katie Thomas, Sui-Lee Wee & Jeffrey Gettleman), New York Times, 10-Apr-2020, www.nytimes.com].
Politics and economics over science and global health? Will narrow self-interest and economic advantage prevail? Will Big Pharma sell the virus panacea to the highest bidders? A zero-sum game in which those who can’t afford the cost fall by the wayside? There are precedents…the distribution of the H1N1 vaccine for the 2009 Swine Flu was predicated on the purchasing power of the higher-income countries, not on the risk of international transmission [‘The Danger of Vaccine Nationalism’, (Rebecca Weintraub, Asaf Britton & Mark L Rosenberg), Harvard Business Review, 22-May-2020, www.hbr.org/]. The availability of the vaccine is seen as integral to restarting the global economy (Milne & Crow).
The eclipse of multinationalism? With WHO in the eyes of some international players seemingly tarnished by its relationship with China, and by Trump’s undermining of its effectiveness by threatening to withdraw American support, multilateralism is on the back foot. There have been some attempts to stem the tide, CEPI (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations’)▣, with a mission of promoting a collective response to emerging infectious diseases, is trying to advance both the development of coronavirus vaccines and equitable access to them (http://cepi.net/).
Getting to an “equitable distribution” of the vaccine As CEPI recognises, and is committed to redressing, there is no formal mechanism in existence for fairly distributing vaccines for epidemics…one step being taken is to try to get an equitable distribution strategy accepted by the G20 nations. The only way forward to ensure that allocation is fair and prioritised according to needs is through a coordinated global effort (Milne & Crow; Weintraub eg al).
The fear is thus well founded that if and when a vaccine is discovered and developed, the richer nations will secure a monopoly over it and prevent it getting to poorer nations where it would be urgently needed by the elderly, the immunocompromised and the “first responder” health workers. There are many who hope fervently that a different scenario will be played out, that a more enlightened type of self-interest will prevail. This would require the wealthier countries seeing the bigger picture – the danger that if they don’t redistribute the cures, the outcome will be an adverse effect on the global supply chain and on the world‘s economies. As Gayle Smith (CEO of “One Campaign“, a Washington-based NGO fighting extreme poverty) put it: it is in the richer countries‘ own interests ”to ensure that the virus isn’t running rampant in other countries” (Milne and Crow). “If an international deal can be reached“, CEPI CEO Dr Richard Hatchett said, ”Everyone will win, if not, the race may turn into a free-for-all” with the losers in plain sight [‘Why the race for a Covid-19 vaccine is as much about politics as it is about science’, (Paul Nuki), The Telegraph (UK), 10-Apr-2020, www.telegraph.co.uk].
(Source: www.euroweeklynews.com)
PostScript: Its no done deal! – reining in the wave of vaccine optimism Even some of the scientists working on developing a vaccine are less than sanguine about the prospects. As immunologist Professor Ian Frazer (UQld) explains: there is no model of how to attack the virus. Trying to come up with a vaccine for upper respiratory tract diseases is complicated due to “the virus landing on the outside of you”, as we have seen with the common cold. What’s needed is “an immunise response which migrates out to where (the coronavirus) lands” [‘No vaccine for coronavirus a possibility’, (Candace Sutton), News, 19-Apr-2020, www.news.com.au].
_______________________________________________________________________________ ✱ a matter of getting “the maximum shots on goal” as Jane Halton, a former member of the WHO board, put it ❂ with Trump aided and abetted in this mission by Peter Navarro (who Bloomberg calls “Trump’s Trade Warrior”) enthusiastically leading the charge in the undeclared trade war with China ▣ with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Coronavirus and Age Vulnerability: The Riddle of Japan
Both the medical experts and the empirical evidence on the ground tell us that the elderly are the cohort in the community most susceptible to COVID-19. The Office of National Statistics (UK) calculates that people aged 80 and over have >59% risk of dying from coronavirus (www.ons.gov.uk/). The pandemic’ age bias skewed against older populations is one explanation, in the absence of much hard data, put forward to explain the African continent’s current low rate of mortality due to the virus – overall 111,812 confirmed cases and only 3,354 deaths (as at 25-May-2020) [‘Coronavirus in Africa tracker’, BBC News, www.bbc.co.uk/]. The percentage of the African population aged under 25 is 60% (in sub-Saharan Africa the number over 65 is only 3%)[‘Coronavirus in Africa reaches new milestone as cases exceed 100,000’, (Orion Rummler), Axion, 22-May-2020, www.axios.com].
And if we needed any more empirical proof of the salience of the age factor, there is the tragic example of Italy’s corona-toll. 32,785 dead✤ from COVID-19 in a country with the oldest population in Europe. Nearly 58% of the country’s deaths in the pandemic have been Italians aged 80 and over [Statistica Research Department, (22-May-2020), www.statista.com/].
With Italy’s grim corona-death tally falling disproportionately heavily on the country’s senectitude, you would think that it would not bode well for Japan which has the world’s highest percentage of older people (28.2% aged 65 and more) [Population Reference Bureau, www.pbr.org/]. When you add in other demographic factors relevant to Japan, this would seem doubly ominous for the “land of the rising sun” – a population of >126 millions on a land area of 377,944 sq km, including the mega-city of Tokyo✪ with its notoriously packed commuter trains. On top of all these is Japan’s proximity to China, the virus’ original causal point.
(Source: www.quora.com)
Japan, unpropitious conditions for avoiding an global epidemic? With such cards stacked against it, worried Japanese health officials might have feared a catastrophe eventuating on the scale of that befalling the US, Italy and UK. And Japan has not come out of the pandemic unscathed but the result-to-date (25-May-2020)—16,550 confirmed cases and 820 deaths—is much better than many comparably sized and larger countries. Of course, Japan’s public health authorities are very mindful, as is every country, of being swamped by a second wave of the coronavirus.
(Photo: www.english.kyodonews.net)
How has Japan done as well as it has?
Good question! The Japanese themselves can’t really explain how they’ve managed to escape a major outbreak of the virus⌧. WHO has called it a “success story”, but it’s one that continues to mystify. In so far as explanations were forthcoming from Japan’s health ministry, it was attributed at least in part to a raft of cultural factors. First, hygiene and cleanliness is something ingrained in the Japanese psyche, Japanese people tend not to shake hands and hugs others, preferring to bow as the form of greeting. Second, the practice of wearing face masks was already the norm in Japan ante-COVID-19 (the Japanese go through 5.5bn a year, averaging 43 per head of population) [‘Most coronavirus success stories can be explained. Japan’s remains a ‘mystery’’, (Jake Sturmer & Yumi Asada), ABC News, 23-May-2020, www.abc.com.au; ’How Japan keeps COVID-19 under control’, (Martin Fritz), DM, 25-Mar-2020, www.dm.com].
Other cultural factors Other suppositions put forward to explain the Japanese success include the practice of inoculating young children with BCG vaccinations, which according to its advocates give Japanese people a basic immunity which helps their defence against coronavirus. Physiology was also cited as a factor in guarding against the disease, the low obesity of Japanese is thought to help, as is the Japanese diet (eg, natto, a soybean yoghurt, is thought to boost the immune system) [‘’From near disaster to success story: how Japan has tackled coronavirus’, (Justin McCurry), The Guardian, 23-May-2020, www.msn.com/; ‘Has Japan dodged the coronavirus bullet?’, Richard Carter & Natsuko Fuhue, Yahoo News, 14-May-2020, www.au.news.yahoo.com; Sturmer & Asada].
(Photo: www..Forbes.com)
The “Diamond Princess” In addition to all of the domestic factors hindering Japan’s fight against COVID-19, an external element exacerbating the early outbreak in Japan was the debacle of the “Diamond Princess” cruise ship. When the international ship docked at Yokohama in February, the Japanese authorities injudiciously prevented healthy passengers and crew on-board from disembarking during the quarantine – with no separation made between well and contaminated passengers, and no self-isolation of the sick! This led to a blow-out of virus contamination which eventually infected 712 passengers, creating the first big cluster of coronavirus outside of Wuhan [‘How lax rules and missed warnings led to Japan’s second coronavirus-hit cruise ship’, (Ju-Min Park), The Japan Times, 07-May-2020, www.japantimes.co.jp].
A cautious reaction from politicians, one eye on the XXXII Olympiad? Let’s look in detail at what Japan did – or didn’t do! When the disease first arrived, the government took a cautious approach to tackling the virus. Borders initially remained open and Chinese visitors were still allowed into the country in huge numbers, 89,000 came in February (after the first outbreak), which was on top of the 925,000 who visited during January! Prime Minister Abe came in for a lot of flak, some including a former PM, Yukio Hatoyama, accused him of holding off from going full-tilt against the pandemic so as to preserve the Tokyo Olympics event (Fritz). Critics railed against a lack of leadership from the Abe government, criticising its failure to appoint anyone to take firm control of the crisis, and that those efforts to counter the virus were hamstrung by the multiplication of bureaucratic silos [‘A Japan divided over COVID-19 control’, (Hiromi Murakami), East Asia Forum, 08-Mar-2020, www.eastasiaforum.org].
Lockdown-lite, testing-lite The Abe government’s belated state of emergency saw sport suspended and schools closed, but overall only a partial lockdown was imposed✺, many businesses, restaurants were permitted to stay open, albeit with reduced hours. Citizens were asked to stay home but compliance was only on a voluntary basis, with no surveillance technology deployed and no punitive action taken against anyone failing to adhere to the government’s request.
(Image: www.japantimes.co.jp)
Targeted testing
It was in testing that Japan adopted a very different crisis approach to most of the leading western countries. Rather than going for high volume, it deliberately tested under capacity. By mid-May it had tested a mere 0.185% of the country’s population, averaging two tests per 1,000 people, cf. Australia, >40 per 1,000 (Sturmer & Asada). It was highly selective, only those with serious virus symptoms were tested. The rationale for such a low-testing regime was concern for the capacity of widespread testing infrastructure, by limiting testing this would lighten the load on testing centres. Rather than mine-sweep the country with testing, the Japanese pursued a strategy of targeting virus clusters as they were identified to pinpoint the sources of the infection [‘Has Japan found a viable long-term strategy for the pandemic’, (Kazuto Suzuki), The Diplomat, 24-Apr-2020, www.thediplomat.com; Gramenz].
Consequently, Japanese medical experts concede that the official counts may be well short of the reality, which puts a rider on the country’s achievement. Even with a smaller number of cases Japan found itself lacking in IPUs (only five per 100,000 people cf. 35 in the US) , there was also a shortage of PPE as well as face masks which were rationed out only two per household (and derided as “Abe-no masks”). This calls into question the faith that the Japanese placed in the robustness of the nation’s health system [‘Japan’s Halfhearted Coronavirus Measures Are Working Anyway’, (William Sposato), Foreign Policy Magazine, 14-May-2020, www.foreignpolicy.com]⊚.
Self-complying social distancing? Social distancing, a nightmare to try to enforce in people-dense Tokyo, was not a major focus for authorities. This was largely left to the goodwill of the individual, aided by some subtle social shaming – government workers walking through Tokyo nightlife areas with signs asking people to go home (Sposato). In any event the authorities’ measures were only partly effective – Japanese people continue to flock to the cherry blossom spring events in large numbers. Where social distancing was more manageable was in shutting off obvious potential hotspots, closed spaces with poor ventilation (karaoke clubs and pubs), crowded places with many people people in the immediate vicinity and other close, intimate contact settings (Suzuki).
Cherry blossom time: no voluntary social distancing here (Photo: www.bloomberg.com)
Tokyo transport
Tokyo’s mass transit network is a petri dish in-waiting for coronavirus, but it appears that preventive measures (some pre-planned) have lessened the impact on public health. Tokyo business working hours have been staggered and large companies like NEC started to adopt telecommuting and teleworking, as well as a big increase of people riding bikes to work occurring. Consequently, transits at Tokyo’s central station on May 18th was down by 73% on the corresponding day in 2019 [‘Remote possibilities: Can every home in Japan become an office?’, (Alex Martin), The Japan Times, 23-May-2020, www.japantimes.co.jp].
(Image: Getty Images/AFP. P Fong)
Most pundits and observers conclude that Japan, with its ageing population and all its drawbacks and encumbrances, has (so far) warded off the worst of the pandemic. With no “silver bullet” in sight, we are left to speculate whether that they have achieved this outcome by sheer good luck, by good judgement, by the personal habits and cultural traits (especially hygiene) of its citizens, or by a combination of all of the above (McCurry).
Endnote: Low tester, early starter Another Asian country which has mirrored Japan’s pattern of choosing not to test in high volumes is Taiwan. The Taipei China republic, commencing measures to counter the virus as early as anyone did, had tested only 2,900 people per million of population (Worldometer, as at 20th May), but it’s mortality rate (deaths per million) was only 0.3 (total of seven deaths) compared to Japan which was 6.0 per million.
˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚˙˙˚
✤ as at 25-May-2020
✪ the largest metropolis prefecture in the world, around 14 million people
⌧ Japan’s health officials had themselves projected a worse-case scenario of up to 400,000 deaths (Gramenz)
✺ to be fair, there are constitutional impediments in Japan that prevent the declaration of a full, European-style lockdown (McCurry)
⊚ a Kyodo news poll indicated that 57.5% of people were unhappy with the government’s handling of the emergency. In so far as Japanese people have given credit to the success, it has gone to medical experts for efficiently managing Japan’s cluster tracing and containment efforts, rather than to Abe who many view with distrust based on its past track record [‘Time to Give Japan Credit for its COVID-19 Response’, (Rob Fahey & Paul Nadeau), Tokyo Review, 18-May-2020, www.tokyoreview.net]
The UPU: Unobtrusively Beavering Away, Working for Cooperation and Democracy in the World of International Postage
In the age of virtual communication and instant electronic transactions, many people see the traditional mail service as less and less relevant in our daily lives, it is fashionable these days to scornfully dismiss it as “snail mail”. It may seem passé to many but the international postal system is still an active and vital service that bridges the gaps between vast distances, and it is one that is governed by a UN world body with a continuous history back to the last quarter of the 19th century.
The Universal Postal Union (UPU), (French: Union Postale Universelle), originally the “General Postal Union”, was established in 1874 with the task of laying down regulations and bringing uniformity to the setting of tariffs (including the transit costs) for mail exchanges between countries. Prior to it’s inception, a complicated, loose bilateral system prevailed where an individual country would have to establish postal treaties separately with each other country it wished to correspond with. Sometimes this involved calculating postage for each leg of the journey and finding mail forwarders in a third country if there was no direct delivery to the country of destination [‘Universal Postal Union’, www.parcelsapp.com/].
The initial mid-19th century impetus to create such a global entity came from American frustrations at postal communication with Europe, especially with France, but the decisive thrust came from Heinrich von Stephan, a senior Prussian postal official from the North German Confederation (and later the Reichspost), whose advocacy prompted the Swiss government to host the inaugural international postal conference leading to the formation of the UPU.
According to it’s own mission statement, the UPU is “the primary forum for co-operation between postal sector players…(helping) to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services” (www.upu.int). It is also tasked with responsibility for the coordination of member nations in promoting efficient postal services including the monitoring of postal security, stamp design, etc.
UPU’s role also includes the resolving of any polemical issues that may arise between member nations. The great explosion in E-commerce trade has tended to exacerbate cost anomalies in postage tariffs. In 2018 US companies were paying twice as much to mail an item to a US customer than it cost China (and other subsidised Asian countries) to send items to the same US customer (www.parcelsapp.com/). US president, Donald Trump, threatened to pull the US out of the international body if it failed to make reforms to the system (this provocative move has been part of the outlier American president’s global trade war campaign against China). The US exit was averted in 2019 with the brokering of a deal allowing it to start setting its own postal rates from July 2020, with other high-volume mail member-countries to follow suit from 2021 [‘U.S. Avoids Postal ‘Brexit’ as Universal Postal Union Reaches a Deal’, (Abigail Abrams), Time, (26-Sep-2019), www.time.com].
This issue aside, the habitually low-profile UPU has been largely free of controversy✶, but one other minor discordant note occurred in 1964 when the Fifteenth Congress of UPU voted by a large majority to expel South Africa from membership. This was controversial because several country delegates raised the objection that the action was unconstitutional, arguing that a member could only be expelled for violating UPU’s regulations. The South African delegate initially refused to budge but did so after other African delegates demanded his expulsion [“Universal Postal Union.” International Organization, vol. 20, no. 4, 1966, pp. 834–842. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2705750. Accessed 21 May 2020].
The UPU has gone from a largely Eurocentric organisation in 1874 to a truly universal one today with about 192 countries of the world (plus territories) signed up۞. A number of other non-member states and territories get their mail routed through a third (member) country including Andorra (through France and Spain), Taiwan (through Japan and US), Kosovo (through Serbia), Northern Cyprus (through Turkey), Micronesia (through the US) and Somaliland (through Ethiopia) [‘List of members of the Universal Postal Union’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Berne HQ (Source: www.jurist.org/)
Footnote: UPU is said to be the world’s second-oldest intergovernmental organisation, after the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), founded 1865, which, like the UPU, is a specialised agency of the UN.
⚘ᵜ⚘ᵜ⚘ᵜ⚘ᵜ⚘ᵜ⚘ᵜ
PostScript: Addressing the problem of the unaddressed The Postal Union engages in a number of ongoing projects, one of which is the “An Address for Everyone” global initiative – Deirdre Mask has made note of the surprising fact (at least to those in the relatively affluent First World) that even today, the majority of people in the world do not possess a street address!◙ UPU involves itself in making a contribution to remedying this situation, because of the spin-off benefits that such a simple thing as having a prescribed address brings…providing the recipients with “a legal identity, allowing them to participate in the political process, be part of the formal economy” including e-commerce, access credit, receive personal services and engage with the “information and communication age” [Deirdre Mask, The Address Book, (2020); www.upu.int/].
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✶ it’s not surprising if a lot of folk have never heard of the Universal Postal Union, the UPU has traditionally followed the low-profile path of the quiet achiever. As Richard John has noted, it’s preference has been to negotiate policies well out of the limelight, gaining it something of “a reputation as a secretive Postal Illuminati“…by keeping out of politics, John contends, this allows the UPU to be so effective (‘Here’s why Trump threatened to pull out of a 144-year-old postal treaty’, Original World News, 19-Oct-2019, www.originalworldnews.com) ۞ Palestine has special observer status; post-apartheid South Africa was readmitted in 1994 ◙ and not just confined exclusively to the slum and shantytown dwellers of the Third World, Mask points to the phenomena existing in parts of rural America such as West Virginia
Not Missing the Human Touch: Robots Stepping Up in the Time of COVID-19
Intelligent design, AI, artificial humanoids, bionic life, androids, cyborgs, have all moved outside of the cloistered environment of the lab and the science fiction genre and are all embracing the day-to-day functions of human existence. Well, perhaps not all of these products of imagination and creativity – but with the restrictions placed on human communication in the all–enveloping cloud of the coronavirus crisis, automatons are the new “white knights” coming to the rescue (or relief) of humans.
The sudden emergence of the pandemic has propelled Medtech companies into the war on COVID-19. Drones as well as robots are being enlisted in the fight, taking the load off medical professionals and health care systems. Delivery robots are used as a way of circumventing the danger of human-to-human contagion. UVD robots are employed to kill viruses and bacteria in rooms to avoid the need for human involvement [‘Robots And Drones Are Now Used To Fight COVID-19’, (Bernard Marr), Forbes, 18-Mar-2020, www.forbes.com].
‘Xenex’ Germ-zapping robots (CBS News)
As healthcare experts and governments search for the optimum strategy to contain and suppress the coronavirus outbreak, other intelligent humans are finding new applications and roles for intelligent non-humans in the health emergency crisis. It starts, appropriately enough for a public health disaster, at the medical coal face, in the ICU wards where doctors and nurses have been overwhelmed, physically and emotionally, with the skyrocketing workload of coronavirus-affected patients. In Lombardy in northern Italy, one of the first hotspots of the pandemic outside of China, six robot nurses have been fast-tracked into hospital service in Varese where they help lighten the human nurses’ face-to-face load and reduce their risk of personal infection. The robots man the wards, monitor the medical equipment and communicate remotely with doctors. Similarly in India, at a hospital in Chennai, ‘Zafi’ the robot does the rounds, transporting food and medicine to virus patients to lessen the risk to hospital medical staff [‘Tommy the robot nurse helps keep Italian doctors safe from coronavirus’, (Flavio LoScalzo), Reuters, 02-Apr-2020, www.reuters.com].
Pepper the robot (Photo: Reuters)
Japan is using humanoid robots as reception staff at hotels to greet patients with mild coronavirus symptoms. Robots like ‘Pepper’ at Kyogoku in Tokyo greet arriving patients and instruct them how to check-in while reassuring them with warm and positive messages [‘Pepper the robot set to greet COVID-19 patients checking in Tokyo hotels’, Hindustan Times, 01-May-2020, www.hidustantimes.com].
With the need for pristine clean surfaces in public spaces to prevent the spread of the virus outbreak, a number of countries now employ robots as cleaners. At Hong Kong International Airport autonomous cleaning robots known as “Intelligent Sterilisation Robots” use UV light and air sterilisers to routinely clean and disinfect key operational areas of the airport [‘Clean me up, Scotty: Hong Kong airport debuts cleaning robots, disinfection booth in fight against COVID-19’, Coconuts, 30-Apr-2020, www.msn.com].
Such medical uses of robots have been replicated across a range of countries hit by the pandemic. With people confined to their homes under quarantine orders and required to maintain a distance of at least 150 cm from other humans, robots on wheels are being increasingly used to deliver products to them, or to deliver food to overworked NHS workers (Britain).
(Photo: www.uk.news.yahoo.com)
Singapore has brought into service a robot with the decidedly unsexy name of “O-R3”, whose job it is to patrol the city’s parks and monitor the behaviour of joggers. This ever vigilant robot spots transgressors and warns them about the need to practice social distancing in public [‘Robot in Singapore tells joggers to stay home’, SBS, 28-Apr-2020, www.sbs.com.au]. Joggers and walkers in Singapore need to ultra-alert around the parks as the city has a second social distancing-monitor robot, Boston-built Spot the robotic dog (Robocop?)…if O-R3 doesn’t nap the violators, Spot (below) might.
(Photo: CNA)
Tunisia’s ‘Robocop’ looks more like a military style armoured vehicle (Photo: AFP)
Tunisian authorities have had a similar idea to curtail the incidence of virus infection in the capital Tunis. The police have been using a robot (a ‘Robocop’) who ‘walks’ the city beats, stopping and questioning people who it suspects should not be on the streets during lockdown. The Robocop asks people to produce their IDs which can be scanned by the robot’s in-built computer [‘Coronavirus: Tunisia deploys police robot on lockdown patrol’, (Rana Jawad), BBC News, (03-Apr-2020), www.bbcnews.com].
Robot Cop (Source: The Hindu)
Chennai Police (southern India) are on the same wavelength as Tunis’, deploying it’s new “Robot Cop LD v5.0” equipped with a two-way intercom to surveil citizens in coronavirus hotspots in the city during containment. The Robot Cop is un-humanoid in appearance and has been described as “an oversized box on wheels” [‘Chennai Police Deploys “Robot Cop” in COVID-19 Hotspot’, (Kishalaya Kundu), Beebom, 01-May-2020, www.beebom.com].
(Photo: BBT University)
Robotic engineers in Japan have produced avatar robots who can stand in for university graduands in virtual graduation ceremonies. BBT University in Tokyo uses ‘newme’ robots dressed in black graduation gowns and caps with mobile screens showing the student’s face attached to a motherboard. The robot proxies line up to be officially presented with a testamur by the university president while the actual graduate watches via Zoom from a safe distance at home [‘BBT University in Japan has graduates attend ceremonies via robots in light of Covid-19’, (Guan Zhen Tan), Mothership, 02-Apr-2020, www.mothership.sg].
Behind the Coronavirus Counts, How well do the Numbers Stack up?
Every day we are reminded of the global reach of the novel coronavirus crisis. We know it’s a pandemic because WHO and other health agencies publish data showing that 211 countries and territories have been affected by the disease. The international media coverage tends to focus largely on the unenviable “big five” chart-toppers who have been most affected – the US, Italy, Spain, France and the UK. A number of sites publish constantly updated lists of the growing toll of Covid-19 casualties, a sort of sombre “score card” listing all the countries who have recorded instances of the disease.
Confirmed Coronavirus Cases: Globally tracked, country-by-country – as @ 23-Apr-2020
Sources: WHO http://covid19.who.int/;
Country Total cases Total deaths Region
USA 850,000 47,700 Americas
Italy 188,000 25,500 Western Europe
Spain 208,500 21,750 Western Europe
France 160,000 21,500 Western Europe
UK 134,000 18,300 Western Europe
http://worldometers.info/
When we scroll through the world tables of where the pandemic has landed, it’s instructive to look at the comparative totals by continent – Europe has a bit over 1.28 million confirmed cases recorded, and the Americas, 995,510 (predominantly from the US), compare these to South-East Asia, a bit more than 38,572 and Africa, a mere 18,234 cases✺✺.
From a statistical standpoint we might wonder if the published data gives a true impression of the extent of of the pandemic? It needs to be kept in mind that the numbers we have are those that have been reported to the World Health Organisation. Population differences aside, it is clear that the low numbers in South-East Asia and Africa (examples: Cambodia 122 cases, zero fatalities✺✺, Myanmar 139 cases, five fatalities✺✺, Ghana 1,279 cases, 10 fatalities✺✺, Ethiopia 117 cases, three fatalities✺✺) mask the full impact of the catastrophe. They are a product of limited testing by countries in these regions … widespread poverty, surplus populations, lack of resources and infrastructure mitigate against the capacity to take corrective, safety monitoring measures.
Limited testing capacity and weak surveillance The small numbers of recorded cases and handful of reported deaths in Africa and S.E. Asia (the Caribbean is another such case in point) can engender a false security and justify a lack of action by such already economically and health-challenged countries, thus the risk of infections spreading is magnified. In the early phases of the outbreak some S.E. Asian states were slow to acknowledge the risks…even as late as mid-March, Myanmar’s government was still attributing it’s low number of cases to the superior “lifestyle and diet” of the locals. The fight against Covid-19 by Third World countries is further retarded by a failure to test widely and in the numbers necessitated by the crisis. It shouldn’t be overlooked that some of these countries have quite repressive regimes that don’t rank the goal of a universal healthcare system as their highest priority [‘Experts Doubt Low Coronavirus Counts of Some Southeast Asian Countries’, (Zsombor Peter), VOA, 29-Mar-2020, www.voanews.com].
For the bulk of African countries the story is similar. A by-product of their lack of development is that their health systems are fragile before the onset of coronavirus hits them. Awareness of the inability to cope with a full-blown health crisis, had led some leaders to advocate so-called “miracle cures” for the virus (eg, Madagascar’s president’s championing of untested traditional plant remedies). Nigeria (Africa’s largest nation by population) shows only 981 confirmed cases and 31 deaths✺✺ to date but is looking as vulnerable as anyone in Africa. Oil exports are the hub of Nigeria’s economy and the fall of the world’s crude oil price to a record low will hamstrung the country’s efforts to contain any future eruptions of the disease [‘Coronavirus: How drop in oil price affects Nigeria’s economy’, (Michael Eboh), Vanguard, 17-Mar-2020, www.vanguardngr.com]. The outbreak of pandemic hotspots in Nigeria could be devastating, especially in the north, given the country’s population of nearly 200 million people and it’s inadequate healthcare capacity⋉.
Too good to be …
Some countries have reported being lightly or relatively lightly touched by the onslaught of the coronavirus, these results have surprised outside observers. One such country that raises eyebrows in this respect is Russia. The republic has 146 million people and shares long borders with China⤱, yet it fesses up to having had only 68,622 cases✺✺ (well under half of that of the UK) and suffered only a comparatively low 615 deaths✺✺ from the epidemic (most of those since the start of April). If you cast aside the anomalies, on paper it’s an excellent result! But whether Soviet or post-Soviet, there’s always an air of suspicious doubt about Russian information. The Russian Bear has had form in the past with cover-ups…a prime example—the Soviet Union throwing a tarpaulin over the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980s —indicative of a less than honest response to major disasters [‘The Very Low Number of Russia’s Reported COVID-19 Cases Raises Questions of a Cover-Up’, (Rick Moran), PJ Media, 22-Mar-2020, www.pjmedia.com].
Russia, if it so erred, is not “Robinson Crusoe” in deliberately underreporting the pandemic’s effect. China for nearly three months from the initial outbreak didn’t include asymptomatic patients in the official stats, and only rectified this oversight on April Fools Day [‘China acknowledges underreporting coronavirus cases in official count’, (Mark Moore), New York Post, 01-Apr-2001, www.nypost.com]. For six weeks after WHO declared a global health emergency Indonesia did not report a single Covid-19 case (unlike most of it’s S.E. Asian neighbours). Considering the republic’s population size (more than 270 million) and it’s close links with China, this aroused widespread suspicion of underreporting and criticism in a Harvard University study which seemed to belatedly jolt Indonesia into disclosure. The first notification by Djakarta of coronavirus cases occurred on 2nd March, and from then on Indonesia’s curve has been on an upward trajectory – currently 8,211 cases, 689 deaths✺✺ [‘Why are there no reported cases of coronavirus in Indonesia?’, (Randy Mulyanto & Febriana Firdaus), Aljazeera, 18-Feb-2020, www.aljazeera.com].
Doubting a hermetically-sealed “Hermit Kingdom” North-East Asia’s renegade, secretive state, North Korea, can be added to the list of countries purporting to be Covid-19–free. Pyongyang‘s official line has been met with disbelief from several external sources such as South Korea and Radio Free Europe which asserts that disclosures from within North Korean military circles confirm the occurrence of coronavirus cases in the border areas [‘What Is the Coronavirus Doing to North Korea’, (Nicholas Eberstadt), New York Times, 22-Apr-2020, www.nytimes.com]
Addendum: (Coronavirus as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-April-2020) USA 890,200 cases | 50,403 deaths Italy 189,973 cases | 25,549 deaths Spain 219,764 cases | 22,524 deaths France 158,183 cases | 21,856 deaths UK 143,464 cases | 19,506 deaths
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
✺✺ figures as at 0130 hrs EAT time, 25-Apr-2020
⋉ just over the last week the African continent experienced a sudden surge in infections, ‘Africa’s 43% jump in virus cases in 1 week worries experts’, (Gerard Zim Rae), ABC News, 23-Apr-2020, www.abcnews.go.com
⤱ although Russia did close its eastern border with China after the virus breakout
The 1918 Spanish Flu: History’s Most Deadly Pandemic
The ongoing fight to contain the outbreak of COVID-19, the Coranavirus—now entering a new stage of transforming itself into a global epidemic—gives rise to recollection of another virus that swept the world just over one hundred years ago, the so-called Spanish Flu✺. For most of the rest of the 20th century, the Spanish Flu (sometimes known as La Grippe) was largely neglected by researchers and mainstream historians, and study confined to actuaries, specialist epidemiologists and virologists and medical historians [Laura Spinney, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World, (2017)].
(Credit: CNN International)
Why did such a devastating pandemic fly under the radar for so long? The timing of the outbreak goes a good way to explain this. After having suffered four long years of a unique world war, people tended to treat the Spanish Flu as a footnote to the Great War conflagration. Moreover, the war, concentrated in Europe and the Middle East, had a limited geographical focus for people, contrasting with the pneumonic influenza outbreak which was truly global [The Spanish Flu Pandemic’, (L Spinney), History Today, 67(4), April 2017]. As catastrophic events go, the two stand in stark contrast. With today’s scientific and medical advances experts estimate that the Spanish Flu killed at least 50 million people worldwide, some estimates put it as high as 100 million [NP Johnson & J Mueller 2002;76: 105-115 (‘Updating the accounts: Global mortality of the 1918-1920 “Spanish” Flu pandemic’, Bull Hist Med)]. Estimates of World War I casualties—military and civilian–—sit somewhere in the range of 20 to 22 million deaths [‘WW1 Casualties’, (WW1 Facts), http://ww1facts.net]⌖. By the late 20th century and early 2000s outbreaks of new viruses like SARS, Asian Bird Flu, Swine Flu, etc, spurred mainstream historians◙ to look afresh at the great global influenza of 1918-20.
An abnormal spike in morbidity and mortality The Spanish Flu was truly global, like the Coronavirus its lethal reach touched every continent except Antartica, both are novel (new) respiratory illnesses. Similarities have been noted between the responses to the two outbreaks, eg, the issuing of instructions or recommendations by the authorities for the public to wear masks, avoid shaking hands (part of social distancing), good hygiene, quarantine, an alarmist overreaction by the media [‘Coronavirus response may draw from Spanish flu pandemic of 100 years ago’, ABC News, (Matt Bamford), 05-Mar-2020, www.amp.abc.net.au]. The great flu of 1918’s morbidity and mortality rates were frighteningly high and far-reaching…one in three people on earth were affected by it✪. Between 2.5 and 5% of the world’s population perished, including India a mind-boggling 17M-plus, Dutch East Indies 1.5M, US (up to) 675,000◍, Britain 250,000, France 400,000, Persia (Iran) (up to) 2.4M, Japan 390,000-plus, Ghana (at least) 100,000, Brazil 300,000, USSR (unknown, but conservatively, greater than 500,000)⊞.
While densely crowded communities were thought the biggest risk of mass infection, the Flu caused human devastation even in remote, isolated corners of the world, eg, in Oceania, Samoa bereft of immunity, lost 22% of its population in two months, the Fijian islands lost 14% in a 16-day period⌀. The kill rate was something around 2.5% cf. a ‘normal’ flu outbreak a rate of no more than 0.1% would be expected [‘The Spanish Flu Pandemic’, (Spinney, History Today ; ‘The Spanish Flu’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org/].
(Source: National Library of Australia)
If the Spanish Flu didn’t originate in Spain, where did it originate? No one knows for sure is the short answer…but there has been much speculation on the topic. At the time of the epidemic a popular notion was that the Flu started in China, but China experienced low rates of infection compared to other regions of the world. The explanation for this perhaps lay in that China was subjected to an initial, mild flu season which gave its citizens an acquired immunity to the disease when the more severe strain of the virus hit them.
🔺 Red Cross volunteers: caring for the sick during the Spanish Flu fell overwhelmingly on women (volunteers and professional nurses) who bore the brunt of the work at quarantine stations and camps, as well as exposing themselves to great personal risk
Influenza-ravaged Ft Riley soldiers in hospital camp 🔻 
The military, mobility and zoonosis Another theory attributes the Spanish Flu’s beginnings to the movements of the combatants in WWI. Virologist John Oxford favours the village of Étaples in France as the centre of the 1918 influenza infection. From a hospital camp here, 10,000 troops passed through every day…with their immune systems weakened by malnourishment and the stresses of battle and chemical attacks they were susceptible to the disease which was probably transmitted via a piggery and poultry on the same site. Once contracted, it’s dissemination was likely facilitated by mass transportation of troops by train.
Another view that has gained wide currency locates the Flu’s genesis in America’s Midwest. In recent times, historians led by Alfred W Crosby have supported the view that the epidemic started not in Europe but in a US Army base in Kansas in 1917 (America’s Forgotten Pandemic). According to adherents of this theory soldiers training at Fort Riley for combat in Europe contracted the H1N1 influenza virus which had mutated from pigs. The infected troops, they contend, then spread the virus via the war on the Western Front. Whether or not the virus started with WWI fighting men in France or in the US, it is undeniable that the soldiers moving around in trains and sailors in ships were agents of the Flu’s rapid dissemination [‘Spanish Flu’, History Today, (Upd. 05-Feb-2020), www.historytoday.com]. A recent, alternative origin view by molecular pathologist Jeffrey Taubenberger rejects the porcine transference explanation. Based on tests he did on exhumed victim tissue, Taubenberger contends that the epidemic was the result of bird-to-human transmission [‘Spanish flu: the killer that still stalks us, 100 years on’, (Mark Honigsbaum), The Guardian, 09-Sep-2018, www.theguardian.com].
(Image credit: Guia turístico)
Demographics: differential age groups The pattern of Coronavirus mortality points to the disease being most virulent and most fatal to elderly people (the seventies to the nineties age group). This accords with most flu season deaths, although unlike seasonal flu outbreaks Coronavirus contagion has (thus far) had minimal impact on children, in particular the under-fives (Honigsbaum). But the pattern of Spanish Flu was markedly different, the records show a targeting of young adults, eg, in the US 99% of fatalities in 1918-19 were people under 65, with nearly 50% in the 20 to 40 age bracket (‘Spanish Flu’, Wiki). Statistics from other countries on the 1918 outbreak conform to a similar trend.
🔺 Conveying the health message to the public (Source: www.shelflife.cooklib.org)
The Flu in a series of varyingly virulent waves The first wave of the Flu in early 1918 was relatively mild. This was followed by a second, killer wave in August. This mutated strain was especially virulent in three disparate places on the globe, Brest in France, Freetown in Sierra Leone and Boston in the US. There were myriad victims, some died (quickly) because they had not been exposed to the first, milder wave which prevented them from building up immunity to this more powerful strain [‘Four lessons the Spanish flu can teach us about coronavirus’ (Hannah Devlin), The Guardian, 04-Mar-2020, www.msn.com]. The second wave was a global pathogen sui generis. The bulk of the deaths occurred in a 13-week period (September to December). The lethality of the disease, and especially the speed with which it progressed, was the scariest part✧.
2nd wave curve in the US, 1918: note the different mortality peaks during Oct-Dec 1918 for St Louis (imposed a stringent lockdown) vs Philadelphia (much less restrictive approach)
(Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2007)
The symptoms of this murderously effective strain were unusual and extreme, eg, haemorrhaging from mucous membranes, bleeding from the eyes, ears and orifices, etc. The extreme severity of the symptoms were thought to be caused by cytokine storms (overreaction of the body’s immune system) (‘Spanish Flu’, Wiki) [‘Spanish Flu’, History, 12-Oct-2010, www.history.com]. The third and last strain of the Flu, in 1919, was markedly milder by comparison to the second, but still more intense than the first.
Many parallels exist between the 1918 flu outbreak and the present pandemic – of a positive nature, the widespread advocacy of wearing masks to limit the spread of disease and mandatory lockdowns. Plenty of negative parallels too – the disregarding of science and medical expertise on how to tackle the outbreak; countries engaging in playing the “blame game” against each other rather then co-operating on a united approach to the pandemic. There was especially, but not only in the US, a repetition by some of the denial at the national leadership level to square up to the pandemic and give it the complete seriousness it demanded.
✥ ⌯ ✥ ⌯ ✥
In 1919 in the middle of the flu crisis, Irish poet WB Yeats wrote in a poem the line for which he is perhaps best remembered: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…”
✥ ⌯ ✥ ⌯ ✥
Footnote: The health authorities’ inability to check the juggernaut of the 1918 virus was exacerbated by misdiagnosis – at it’s onset the Spanish Flu was widely believed to be a bacterium like the Black Death, not a virus. Misreading the symptoms, the influenza outbreak was variously and erroneously diagnosed as dengue, cholera or typhoid (Spinney, ‘History Today’; ‘Spanish Flu’, History).
(Photo: State Archives & Records, NSW)
PostScript: The upside of a global catastrophe The Spanish Flu in it’s vast human decimation rammed home lessons for post-WWI governments and health practitioners in its wake. Being helpless to prevent or halt the virus once in full swing, the vital need to develop vaccines to counter pandemics was subsequently understood. Advanced countries started to restructure their public health systems to try to cope (such as the United States’ NIH – National Institutes of Health, which emerged about 10 years after the Spanish Flu) [‘The great influenza The epic story of the deadliest plague in history‘ (JM Barry), Reviewed by Peter Palese, (JCI), www.ncbi.nim.nih.gov]. And of course the 1918 flu virus had other, indirect, outcomes…it led to universal healthcare, alternative medicine, intensive care facilities and a modern preoccupation with the benefits of healthy exercise under clean, clear skies (‘Pale Rider’).
⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴⌴
✺ the name is a misnomer. The Spanish association came about thus: with the Great War still raging other combatant European nations such as France and Germany had imposed censorship restrictions on the reportage of the flu outbreak, whereas Spain being neutral in the war did not. When the Spanish press freely reported a serious eruption of the Flu, people outside the country unquestioningly assumed that the influenza came from Spain
⌖ to further break that down, more American troops died from the Spanish Flu than in combat during WWI (‘Pale Rider‘)
⊞ the numbers cited tend to be approximations given the paucity of adequate record-keeping at the time
◙ part of a new multidisciplinary approach to the subject including economists, sociologists and psychologists
◍ consequently life expectancy for Americans dropped by 12 years in 1918, and for the first time since Britain commenced recording data, the death-rate in 1919 exceeded the birth-rate (Honigsbaum)
✪ Pandemic: pan ⤑ all ║ demos ⤑ the people (not literally but fairly close)
⌀ although isolation did prove beneficial in some instances, such as in Australia where the virus didn’t arrive until 1919 and entry was closely monitored with a maritime quarantine program. As a result Australia’s death-rate of 2.7 per 1000 of population was one of the lowest recorded [‘Influenza pandemic’, National Museum of Australia, www.nma.gov.au]
✧ Philadelphia alone experienced 4,597 influenza deaths in a single week
The Chinese Chariot: A Weapon of Ancient Warmaking Tailored for Local Conditions
When we think of the chariot and it’s association with antiquity, those of us weened on a cultural diet of Hollywood epic cinema might think about Ancient Rome and chariot racing in the Circus Maximus (such as famously featured in Ben Hur) or Ancient Egypt (imperial chariots ostentatiously ferrying proud pharaohs to some battle or conquest in The Ten Commandments). However, those that bought the Hollywood spin on ancient history might be surprised to learn that the chariot as a vehicle for hunting, racing or war in the ancient world did not have its genesis with either Rome or Egypt❋.
Traditionally, most historians of the ancient world have traced the chariot’s origins to Mesopotamia and the Near East (roughly dated as somewhere around 3,000 to 2,000 BC). More recent archaeological findings have however thrown up a rival candidate, the steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan. In the 1970s archaeologists unearthed the remains of chariots in the Ural Mountains of Central Russia which are thought to be as old as 4,000 years (there has some some conjecture as to whether these were chariots or carts and wagons) [‘Secrets of the Chinese Chariot’, Documentary, UK 2016, (aired SBS 15-Nov-2019)].
Asiatic onager ⇑
The first chariots in use, whether they were in the steppes of Central Asia and Asiatic Russia, or Mesopotamia, were not powered by horses, which were relatively late to be domesticated. Instead, other four-legged beasts, especially donkeys, onagers (Asiatic wild asses) or oxen, were initially employed. The concept of horse-driven chariots can trace its origins to those same steppes, the landscape in which the horse was first domesticated [“The Wheels of War: Evolution of the Chariot” History on the Net, (© 2000-2019), Salem Media. December 9, 2019 <https://www.historyonthenet.com/the-wheels-of-war-evolution-of-the-chariot>].
The horse’s domestication in the great steppes of Asia and evidence of early chariot-making in Russia/Central Asia are clear indicators of the pathway by which the chariot arrived in China. The oldest surviving remnants of the chariot in China dates its appearance to around 1,200 BC, coinciding with the Shang period of rule (found at Anyang in Henan Province). Other items excavated at Chinese sites reinforce the early existence of chariots in Ancient Chinese society, such as the characters inscribed on oracle bones—on some of these the image of chariots can be detected (‘Secrets of the Chinese Chariot’).
Oracle bone from Shang dynasty ⇓
Chariots of a different hue
The chariot in China reached its peak in the Western Zhou (1,046-771 BC) and the succeeding Eastern Zhou periods (771-226 BC), with chariots numbering in the thousands [Mark Cartwright, ‘Chariots in Ancient Chinese Warfare’, Ancient History Encyclopedia, (13-Jul-2017), www.ancient.edu]. One of the most interesting features of the Chinese chariot is it’s distinct differences from the chariots used by the earlier Sumerian, Hittite and Egyptian civilisations. Chinese chariots tended to be plus-sized compared to those from the Near East, the Caucasus, etc. The carriages were rectangular and large, with the vehicle’s axle located at the central point of the platform, giving the vehicles better balance (Near Eastern and Egyptian chariots typically positioned the axle at the end of the chariot).
But even of more striking difference was the Chinese wheels, they were huge and of a multi-stoked variety (usually comprising between 18 and 26 stokes on each wheel). The Western Asian/Near Eastern chariot wheels of antiquity by contrast were small and compact, usually with only six stokes per wheel (even earlier ones were made of heavy solid wood). The Chinese “super-size me” wheels were designed with local conditions in mind. The lighter, more flexible wheels were better suited to China’s rough terrain, accordingly they also made the horses’ task of pulling the chariot easier too [‘Secrets of the Chinese Chariot’; Andrew Knighton, ‘ The Rise and Fall of the Chariot – It Changed History, But Eventually Was a Victim Of Its Own Success’, War History Online, 04-Nov-2016, www.warhistoryonline.com].
A symbol of one’s class
Chariot and chariot horse ownership, much like the most expensive luxury cars today, was the preserve of the very wealthy in society✪. The archaeological evidence found in tomb pits confirms this. Chariots were a sign of great status for the nobleman. Owners needed to be well cashed-up as the vehicles were expensive to make and to maintain. Accordingly, noblemen in China, Egypt and elsewhere, when they died, would have their chariots and their horses interred with them in their burial tombs. Chariot pits such as those discovered in 2015 at Zaoyang, Hubei Province (dating to ca. 700 BC), shed light on the chariot’s significance. An aristocrat’s power was measured in the number of chariots he owned. The aristocratic class was expected, as part of their leading military role, to have the personal skills to master the chariot in warfare [‘Pictures: Ancient Chariot Fleet, Horses Unearthed in China’, National Geographic, 28-Sep-2011, www.nationalgeographic.com].
Photo: Zhang Xiaoli, Xinhua via Fame/Barcroft
The Zaoyang pit has proved particular fertile ground for chariot exhumation. Comprising a massive area of 33m x 4m, archaeological field workers divested it of 28 chariots and 49 pairs (49 x 2 = 98) skeletons of horses neatly arranged side by side [‘Archaeologists in China find 2,800-year-old tombs surrounded by 28 chariots and 98 horses’, (April Holloway), Ancient Origins, 22-May-2018, www.ancient-origins.net].
Horses for courses
The unearthed skeletons of the horses at Zaoyang and at numerous other burial sites reveal that the Chinese ‘chariotocracy’ used a specific kind of horse for their chariots – stocky, strongly-built Mongolian horses, standing about 1.4m tall, were deemed most suitable to haul the large Chinese chariots around the countryside [‘Secrets of the Chinese Chariot’].
Chinese chariots had some features that was different from elsewhere in the ancient world. Normally, a chariot crew (ma) in action comprised two men, this was standard. But commonly in Chinese chariots there were three men on board. The driver or charioteer⌑ and the archer were accompanied on the chariot platform by a third man. Sometimes called a rongyou, his job was to protect the other two in combat armed with a kind of spear-axe or halberd (known in China as a Ji). There were also specialist war chariots in China with a “crow’s nest” (ch’ao-ch’e) attached, a tower on an elevated chassis mounted above the platform of the chariot. This permitted an army commander to observe the field of battle more easily and to communicate orders to the army’s flag wavers (Cartwright).
Another advance in weapon technology at the time, the supplanting of the all-wood bow by a new, shorter composite bow (made of wood, horn and sinew), made the mobile archer a more effective and more potent element in battles (Knighton). The streamlining of war chariots, making them lighter and more manoeuvrable, made it feasible for them to outrun light infantry and heavier chariots. These chariots were still not without their limitations or drawbacks, they required flat ground to be effectively mobile and were prone to breaking down (armies often brought chariot repair teams with them to the battlefield) [‘Chariot tactics’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org; ‘The Wheels of War’].
Role in unification of the Chinese states
The importance of chariots as a military weapon in China coincided with the period of Warring States (Zhànguó Shídài). The kings (gúowáng, 国王) of the two strongest states Qin and Chu each had about 1,000 chariots at their command, and the vehicle certainly played its part in the eventual unification of China under the Yins. But the decisive role of chariots in war, even then, was diminishing. A combination of several developments in the military sphere undercut the chariot’s effectiveness in battles—army reforms saw increased reliance on the mobility of massed infantry and cavalry (greatly diminishing the crucial role played by nobleman). Chariots could not compete with fast-moving, well-coordinated cavalry. These developments and the introduction of iron weapons, especially the lethal eight-picul crossbow (nu), blunted the effectiveness of chariot-led warfare⌻ [‘Warring States period’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞⤝⤞
❋ in fact, chariot racing, so synonymous with the Romans, was a sport they copied from the Ancient Greeks (Homer’s Iliad includes a description of chariot racing in Book XXIII, ‘Chariot racing’, Britannica, www.britannica.com). Chariots were also used for hunting and funeral processions
✪ the conspicuously affluent citizens of the day paraded their chariots around town as ceremonial vehicles in much the same way as Ferraris, Lamborghinis and other prestigious luxury vehicles are ostentatiously shown off today. The chariots were decorated colourfully and elaborately with cowrie shells and bronze fittings
⌑the charioteers were the most costly, prestigious and influential section of the army (Knighton) with entry to its ranks very competitive. The Luiu-t’ao (Six Secret Teachings), (5th-3rd BC military treatise, describes the necessity for chariot warriors to be the best and fittest in the army (age, height and agility standards had to be met) (Cartwright)
⌻ crossbows proved the nemesis of the war chariot, and once humans were successful in bending horses to obey their will, fleet-of-foot cavalry units could inflict considerably more damage on the enemy line than chariots could (‘Secrets of the Chinese Chariot’)
Changbaibei: Mountains, Waterfalls, Tourist Peaks
Having traversed the slopes of Zhângbáishān nán (Changbaishan South) and Zhângbáishān xī (Changbaishan West), it is only fitting and proper, in the best traditions of Ed (Hilary), that you should explore the other available slope at Changbai, the North Slope❅.
Zhângbáishān bêi is the most popular section of the Changbai Mountain range. Everywhere across the West slope there were buses unloading visitors, many, many visitors and (therefore) queues! Understandably, the punters were predominantly Chinese from the vast pool of internal tourists who travel from all over the country, but also discernible were pockets of South Korean tourists, including women wearing the hanbok (traditional Korean formal dress).
Before you join the hordes of people ascending the wooden staircase to get a better view of the mountain waterfalls, you might want to linger around the shop stalls long enough to sample the local “hot spring eggs” which are boiled ‘naturally’ in situ in the surrounding hot springs. After trying the eggs (also available in a range of colours), another activity that takes on the element of ritual for the secular visitors is the quasi-ceremonial washing of hands in the nearby “hand washing pool” (supposedly according to the sign posted, a very warm 42°C).
As you proceed along the wooden walkway you will see, strewn all over the ground, pock-marked water holes comprising the mountain’s naturally-heated springs. Most climbers will make for a spot on the boardwalk that will offer the best vantage for the many waterfalls cascading down from the rim of the mountains.
The waterfalls, whose origin point is the majestic strato-volcanic Changbai wonder of Tianchi lake (known in local circles as “the source of three rivers”), function as an ideal backdrop for the myriad of visitors intent on getting their full complement of selfies.
The steps to the right take you up to a quaint bridge and viewing platforms, under which the Weihe River flows down from the main waterfall which comprises a 68-metre drop from the top. Around this spot you can be guaranteed of getting the best vistas of the range and waterfalls.
After taking in the views here, you can backtrack and take the left walkway, it’s winding steps will lead you to a picturesque lake and several small but breathtaking waterfalls.
Another thing you can do here, also with an element of the ritual to it, is drink from the “sacred well”, the Yu Jiang spring. But of course, partaking of the healing waters of Changbaishan is of itself not sufficient, the authentic tourist experience necessitates visual documentation of the ritual.
While you are ‘playing’ the North Slope (as one Chinese English-language promotional blurb interestingly described it), this might also involve a trek through the wilderness down a long set of steps to explore another stretch of Changbai waters. The notice near the start of the wooden track alerting you to the fact that the proximate wilderness is the habitat of the Siberian tiger might be a salutary warning to anyone who might be foolishly tempted to wander too far off the track.
____________________________________________
❅ the East Slope is located inside North Korea (to the Koreans it is known as Paektu or Baekdu Mountain)
Changbai County: Touring the Korean Border Country and the Yalu River
When I visited the eastern part of Liaoning province earlier in the year I was intrigued by the contrast between tourist-centric Dandong with its buzzing, thriving commercial activity on the Chinese side of the border, and Sinuiju, looking nondescript on the other side of the river in the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. The latter city, with no signs of human life visible from our vantage point, seemed like a moribund blimp of a town by comparison with the Chinese city.
This was nowhere more apparent that after nightfall…the luminous lights and noise of Dandong with its riverside markets, its bridges a kaleidoscopia of colours, and its countless, neon-signed restaurants (some of which are North Korean) were a world apart from the virtually pitch-dark ‘nothingness’ on the North Korean side. Gazing across at the uniform greyness, I speculated that Sinuiju could nary ever have been more inconspicuously camouflaged, even at the height of the Korean War conflict.
The ‘view’ across the Yalu ▼
My appetite whetted, I wanted to delve a bit more of the mystery of the “Hermit Kingdom”, so long cloaked in secrecy to the outside world. A subsequent boat trip up the Yalu left me little more enlightened about what life looked like across the border. Although our hire vessel got pretty close at times to the North Korean mainland, there was a bland homogeneity to what I could see…miles and miles of attractive but uninhabited hills and meadows, pockets of farmed land, the odd isolated building, a few roads, the occasional vehicle, but hardly a human to be sighted!❈
Touring Changbai County
Having planned from the start to include Changbai Mountains on my itinerary of the North-East tour, I was (mildly) hopeful that its proximity to the border might offer up new opportunities for North Korea-watching.
The Changbai border towns on the Chinese side are quite remote and relatively lightly populated (most of the internal tourists skip straight past them and make for the much vaunted mountains themselves). All along the Yalu river border between the two countries, there were no Korean border posts or guards in sight. The river itself was the only buffer (no barbed wire fences like I saw north of Dandong). It occurred to me that this un-patrolled, quite narrow and innocuous-looking waterway would not pose much of a challenge to any impoverished North Korean determined enough to escape to the Chinese side in pursuit of a better and more prosperous life. It wasn’t hard for me to imagine Korean refugees clandestinely slipping across the river border and being absorbed into a community with which it already had cultural and linguistic affinities.
Having hired a Baishan taxi for the day, we visited several of these border villages on route S303. Here I got a chance to see just much Korean culture had permeated the border and river into China. At one point on the river near Maluguo Town, we stopped at a spot where some peasant farmers had laid out their bright harvest of red peppers on the wall to dry (and to sell). This was part of a little trading post peddling various little North Korean trinkets and knicknaks.
The Korean changgu, integrated into Changbai County public sculpture and municipal utilities ▼▲
Korean influences on Changbai County
While here, I bought some North Korean currency packaged in a passport-type folder. The value of the North Korean notes and coins (chon) amounted to over ₩1260. As it cost me only CN¥20 to buy, I figure that’s pretty indicative of how low regard the North Korean won is held in round these parts!
I found other symbols of Korean culture near the roadside stalls, some in a form that surprised – such as the local public rubbish bins, painted vividly red and green and in the shape of the changgu (a traditional Korean hour-glass shaped double drum). I didnt see any women in the street wearing hanboks (traditional, formal vibrantly-coloured Korean dresses), although I did see them being worn later at Changbai on the mountain.
Model Korean village ▼
Continuing on for a few hundred yards we stopped at Guoyuan Village, a tourist an attraction in border country which houses a model Korean village. The village consists of some basic Korean log timber dwellings, a backyard produce garden and a well. The adjoining Korean-style gardens contains a pleasant stream with an agricultural water-wheel with a scattering of sculptures. We stayed here about an hour, wandering the gardens and taking photos. Curiously the place was deserted, we were the only visitors here, no staff around either (though there was a Korean restaurant at the front of the village). Suffice it to say it was a very peaceful and serene setting and a very pleasant diversion.
Heroic scenes from Chinese history ▲
Leaving Guoyuan and driving east along the river, there are many points which you can stop at to gain excellent vantage points of North Korea. On the way to Changbaishan we paused at quite a number of such spots. At two that we stopped there were viewing platforms and towers have been specifically constructed to provide a window into the Hermit Kingdom◓. On of the wall of one these long raised viewing platform was a large sculptural composition done in bas relief form and depicting what looked like epic sagas drawn from Chinese imperial history.
Spying on the North Koreans? ▲
Imitation Great Wall and scenic North Korean peak ▲
On the road running parallel with the river there is a long but not very high wall designed to resemble the “Great Wall”. From the many high points along the wall you can get clear, uninterrupted views across the Yalu to the North Korean grassy peaks and farmlands. At a couple of points on the river we came upon a few villages and small industrial towns with antiquated, grimy factories and workshops. Overall it tended to look a bit drab, though there were some houses and residential blocks that were brightly painted.
A pagoda-roofed border site for scenic views of the DPRK▼
Footnote: Yalu River border Yalu is a Manchu word meaning “the boundary between two countries” and the river indeed represents the lion’s share of the modern border between DPRK and PRC (the other portions of the Sino-North Korean boundary comprise the Tumen River and a small slab of the Paektu/Changbai Mountain. The river is 795 km in length and contains around 205 islands, some owned by China and some owned by North Korea. At its southwestern end it empties into the Korea Bay between Dandong and Sinuiju. The Yalu is also known as the Amrok or the Amnok River.
〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣〣
❈ there was a similar outcome when I visited Hushan Tiger Mountain Great Wall, which from its highest towers you can see deep into North Korea and seemingly endless acres of pastures and meadows
◓ in fact at one of the viewing structures there were binoculars set up on tripods allowing you to zoom in on the Korean town activity(sic) just across the water
Gù Gōng, a Cut-down version of the Beijing Archetype
If you’ve been to Beijing and trekked the city’s tourist trail, you will inevitably see, et al, the Forbidden City (Zǐjìnchéng) 顾功. If you subsequently also find yourself as a visitor in the principal city of Liaoning province, Shenyang, you’re almost equally inevitably going to include the Northeast version of Beijing’s imperial gem on your “to see” list.
For some, seeing the provincial version of the Forbidden Palace with the image of the monumental original in mind, might prove somewhat of a letdown. Shenyang Imperial Palace (Gù Gōng) 顾功❋ is a mere one-twelfth the size of the fabled Forbidden Palace, yet it would be very harsh to write off Gù Gōng as a pocket edition of the Beijing prototype. The architects have condensed a great deal of real estate into the >60,000 square metres of the palace grounds at Shenyang. There are more than 300 rooms and around 20 separate courtyards in the complex.
Note: The cost of a ticket to enter the Shenyang Imperial Palace and Museum is set at parity with the nearby Marshal Zhang Mansion (60 CN¥ for adults).
Gù Gōng was built in the 1630s under the directions of Nurhachi and Abahai (the two founding emperors of the Qing Dynasty from 1644). Shenyang Palace’s layout comprises three sections, an eastern, middle and western section (this latter section was constructed by a later Qing emperor). The eastern section includes a component known as the “Ten Kings’ Pavilion” – a group of pavilions where the Qings determined imperial policy for the internal affairs of the country.
The architecture of Gù Gōng is interesting in itself. Stylistically, Gù Gōng is a blend of different building styles. The many buildings and structures comprise an architectural amalgam – among these, Han, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan styles can be readily discerned within the palace’s four walls.
The museum component of Gù Gōng includes a raft of Qing imperial art treasures. Among the items on display, direct from the Qing emperor’s pantry are many peerless examples delicate and beautifully glassware, together with enamel vases and gourds, ivory utensils. Not to forget the other such irreplaceable knickknacks from the erstwhile royal household.
Apart from visiting the palaces’s artworks and artefacts and it’s pavilions, another thing you can do at Gù Gōng, if you really want to get into the decadent spirit and sense of privilege of the Qing lifestyle, is costume hire! For not too many shekels✫ you can physically transform yourself into a Qing emperor or empress…for a few fleeting moments. Once you’ve traded your civilian garb for some over-the-top, fake imperial clobber (the colour red is non-negotiably mandatory), the vendor will snap a series of photos in various poses against an appropriate backdrop, ie, astride a mock Chinese imperial throne! 
When in non-English speaking countries, I must admit I do derive a wickedly almost schadenfreude-like buzz from seeking out colourfully inaccurate but humorous attempts at rendering public signs into English (AKA ‘Chinglish’). And my experience in China over three visits is that these translation concoctions are among the most wildly unrestrained, off-the-page and imaginative going – they are almost invariably, pure gold! And I’m pleased to report that Shenyang Imperial Palace did not let me down in this regard. The pick of the palace signs was this gems adorning (or guarding) the palace lawn: “Splash tears when stepping on. After stepping grass heart-wrenching”, a very roundabout way of conveying the direct, standard message “Please keep off the grass”⚀. And yet, as mangled syntactically and grammatically as it is, you can not but admire the very idiosyncratic but nonetheless quite poetic nature of it! Very Chinese to be sure!
PostScript: Shěnyáng lù 沈阳路 and that arch!
If you make your way to Shenyang Imperial Palace from North Shenyang (Zhongjie) subway station (in Shenhe district), it’s but a short walk (less than three blocks) but one itself of interest, even before you reach the palace. At the major cross-street just down from the station exit, an imposingly massive grey archway with a terracotta pagoda roof marks the start of the street, and in a way announces that you are passing into the precinct of the palace. Upon seeing the ‘imperial’ arch the first time I reasonably but erroneously assumed it was the palace entrance itself, which is actually another two blocks further east! Aside from the symbolic arch there are several other interesting buildings in this street, again presenting a contrast of traditional and more modern Chinese building styles.
Shenyang lu
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❋ sometimes referred to as the Mukden Palace (perhaps of archaic use now). ‘Mukden’ was the Manchu name for the city
✫ about 60 to 100 yuans depending on how regal you want to get!
⚀ in a similar bent, posted on another lawn (perhaps more abstrusely) was “Looking at flowers and plants outside the garden and laughing”
Tài Yáng Dâo: A Verdant Green Island, a Russian Themed Park, a Disneyfied Castle and a Surplusage of Squirrels
Our ultimate day in Harbin, what to do? My own leaning, on surveying the options, nudged me towards a trip to Unit 731 (AKA Detachment 731), a museum established in a multi-building complex which was used by the Japanese military and scientists to carry out heinous biological experiments on the local population during the Thirties and Forties. My travelling companion’s inclination however was for spending a less sombre and more genteel day at Tai Yang Dao (Sun Island). In the end what swayed it for Sun Island was proximity, it being a short boat distance from Central (Z.Y.) Street, compared to Unit 731 which was located in the city’s back blocks, requiring a long train trip from the centre.
We decided crossing the river by boat would be the optimal way to get to Sun Island. The other but considerably more expensive way to get to Sun Island is by cable car, which certainly provides a bird’s-eye level vantage point during the crossing (you can also get there circuitously by taxi, crossing a series of bridges). There is no charge to visit Sun Island but access to amusements, rides, activities, etc attract a charge.
The water transport to Sun Island departs from the wharves at Sidalin Park✹. Boats run pretty much continuously all day✥ to the island, so popular is the venue. Although it’s just across the Songhua River we didn’t make straight for Sun Island. The three-quarter full charter boat took a left once out in the channel and headed down the river for a view of the city south skyline behind Stalin Park down to the bridges. We also got to see some of the nearby uninhabited islands overrun by the reeds and wild grasses of the wetlands. I say ‘uninhabited’ but this is only 99 per cent factual. As we make a bee-line for 太阳岛, coming up on your left is the local branch of the men’s nude bathers’ club (fortunately, some might say for sake of aesthetically considerations, the Harbin naturalists are a discreet distance away).
As the ageing journeyman ferry chugs across the water we take videos of the approaching island and the cable cars being pulled back and forth. I remind myself that in just a few months time this trip won’t be possible…the clear aqua-turquoise surface of the river will become solid frozen with the onset of Harbin’s winter. Amusingly, we pass a line of swimmers in single file. These, older men mainly, are slowly swimming, or more accurately half swimming, half dog-paddling, their way from an island to the mainland. Each of them is carrying a rucksack of belongings attached to them by rope like an umbilical cord✧.
As the boat approaches the island wharf, one or two landmarks catch the eye from the river. The first, from a distance looks like a light-hearted sculpture of a very large white swan or is it a goose? When we got to the wharf we realised it wasn’t a pop culture artwork, but the comical masthead on a pleasure vessel for visitors (and especially children) to ride on.
The second, much more visible landmark getting the attention of the boat passengers looks like a historic European castle rising up out the treetops, something you might find on the Danube – in Budapest for instance. Once ashore, on closer inspection, it’s historical pedigree is found wanting. It is of more origin and seems to be inspired by the logo figurehead castle you see at Disneyland! The ‘castle’ turns out to be the central administrative and amenities building for the island’s commercial operations.
Getting around the island by foot is possible but it covers a large expanse of land and the attractions are quite spread out. So from the wharf we decided to use the “people mover” or the mini-bus to get-about (¥20 each). This made logistical sense but our experience was that it proved a very poor service provider. I was expecting it to operate as a flexible “hop-on, hop-off” arrangement (a lá the Big Red Bus in capital cities globally), but we were not able to hail down one of the many vehicles continually circling the park (every though we had purchased tickets). Each time we tried the bus driver refused to stop for us even when the vehicle was virtually empty (great PR Sun Island!). Apparently our ticket permitted us to use certain passenger service vehicles only (not explained at point of sale).
That said, the island park did not lack for attractions and points of interest. The various, quaint bridges around the ponds makes for nice “eye-candy”. A Russian-style village garden added to the theme park feel of Sun Island. The section containing the waterfalls and accompanying rock caves were a real highlight for photography manic-obsessives❂ (tip: the pick of the pix is an angled one capturing both the rock-face waterfalls and the big balloon in the shot).
Many of the island fixtures are well worth a close-up inspection. The mega-scale, modernist monument (a combination of white ovals and arches) near the Greenway is an interesting feature in itself. Another white structure with two storey viewing towers of the water is similar appealing in its design. I was also taken by the supersized “organic sculpture” that we stumbled upon. This creation was another popular point for visitors to mill round and snap endless selfies. The mainly green and red bird (of paradise?)◙ is entirely a floral construction in the familiar style of Jeff Koons (the gigantic floral puppy that once graced Sydney’s Circular Quay, now in Bilbao, Spain).
And if nature encounters with fauna are your bag, then Sun Island will not disappoint. You can visit a section of the park with fenced off animals of the more gentle kind like deer and caribou. Here for a fee you can pat and feed members of the Cervidae family inside an enclosure. I noticed that with the deer, familiarity brings a singular expectation on their part. Far from being reticent and shy, the creatures can sniff out a food-toting human from 60 feet.
But the one member of the animal kingdom that seems most at home on Tai Yang Dao are small rodents from the Sciuridae clan. The island abounds with the common acorn-addicted squirrel, plentiful on the ground and in the trees. So numerous they are, they have been designated their own section, “Squirrel Lake”, but you don’t need to go here to find them, they inhabit the entire wooded area of Sun Island. While walking around the island, at the back of the Russian model gardens, I spotted a ginger cat in hot pursuit of a squirrel, desperately but hopelessly trying to diminish the fleet-footed Sciuridae population by one.
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✹ the return boat trip to and from Taiyangdao wharf costs 35 RMB per person and includes a “grand tour” of the riverfront
✥ well to late-ish afternoon anyway, the Pingfang attraction closes about five o’clock
✧ I don’t think they were heading for the nude men’s beach (carrying too much baggage for a start!)
❂ ie, mostly everybody on an overseas junket!
◙ it looked like a chicken to me but I’m going with the Chinese bird of paradise which would be more emblematic
Manchukuo Puppet Palace: Inside the Faux Empire of Pu-Yi
We got the Changchun light rail✽ to the Puppet Emperor’s Palace train station. The palace entrance was on a wide street with a coterie of policemen guarding the gate. Tickets were acquired in the booking office/souvenir shop opposite at a cost of 70 CN¥ per head (pensioners with ID, passport, free).
Although it said on a site website that you could hire an audio guide in English for the museum, the counter staff indicated that there were none available. Unfortunately, this deficiency was felt during the tour because there was a great lack of explanatory notes in English for the exhibits as well.
For a lot of people, outside China, the tour could be a very informative one, especially if your only prior knowledge of the last emperor of the ultimate Chinese (Qing) dynasty comes, for example, from a less than impeccable historical source such as films like Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor.
With the use of language aids or without them, exploring the physical structures of the former Manchukuo (Manchu State) Imperial Palace provides a fascinating insight into a dark chapter of official life in Dongbei under the Japanese military occupation of the 1930s and 1940s.
‘Emperor’ Pu-Yi, his ’empress’ and the rest of the royal family lived in grand accommodation at the behest of their Japanese masters. Notwithstanding that the Pu-Yi regime was a contrived one propped up by a foreign invader and effectively wielded very little actual power itself in the region, the elaborate parts of the whole, the palatial splendour, were certainly befitting of a royal palace. Pu-Yi’s residential quarters and that of his family were definitely on the de luxe end of comfortable.
The palace layout divides into two main sections, the royal family’s area and the regime’s administrative area. This second section was larger than I had anticipated, comprising the offices and buildings allocated to the phoney emperor’s apparatus of government, his secretariat and other administrative functions.
One of the most interesting and sought-out items in the museum’s exhibits is the personal vehicle which belonged to Pu-Yi, a 5.7m long black car✪ housed in its own (garage) section of the complex. The “king-sized” vehicle is quite a rare old 1930s auto, a famous “Bubble Car” – American made by the Park Automobile Co. There’s a little souvenir annex attached to the ‘garage’ for car enthusiasts to secure a momento.
The palace contains a lot of Pu-Yi paraphernalia and minutiae, personal items like his traditional ceremonial garb, his official uniforms, his BP device and his trademark circular spectacles. Wall photos and information extracts chart the last Chinese monarch’s story from the imperial palace to incarceration to rehabilitation and life as an ordinary private citizen.
The environs of the palace buildings are well worth a ramble through. Within the grounds are gardens which are charming if (or because) they are a bit quirky. Next to this is a fish pond with a fountain and rockeries. Close by there the emperor’s swimming pool, sans water and it’s tilework is in quite a poor, dilapidated state.
The outside feature of the palace that most captured my imagination though was below it: an air-raid shelter. The increasingly paranoid puppet monarch (no doubt alarmed by the fading fortunes of Japan in the world war) had his own underground bunker constructed. The rooms in the bunkers were grimly threadbare, starkly contrasting with the lavish living quarters of the palace above.
Elsewhere there apparently used to be a tennis court and a small golf course on the grounds. To leave the palace you need to go through an inner gate which looks like the exit, but it’s not, the actual exit going from the palace to the street is further down a hill. As you walk, to your right look for the palace’s horse racetrack (still operating, there was show-jumping happening while we visited). The entire perimeter of the palace is surrounded by high concrete and brick walls.
For the historical narrative of Japan’s Manchurian Puppet-State in the Thirties and Forties, refer to my June 2019 blog entry, Manchukuo: An Instrument of Imperial Expansion for the Puppet-masters of Japan
For Pu-Yi to end up as the joker in the pack of playing cards sold at the Puppet Emperor Palace Museum would seem to many in China to be a apt footnote to his story.
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✽ light rail but still heavy security…even though we were travelling only four stations on a city subway network, we still had to submit to the body wave scanners and screening process and the baggage through the electronic detection belt
✪ about seven metres in length
Zhongshan Park – an Outdoor Haven for the Locals: Social Cards and “Dad’s Army” Drills
Very many cities in China have a Zhongshan Park 中山公园 (perhaps the most famous is Beijing’s Zhongshan Park near the Forbidden City). In honour of the Chinese Republic’s first president, Sun-Yat-sen, it became a standard practice to name public parks after the revered Dr Sun, who within China is better known by the name Sun Zhongshan.
Dalian’s Zhongshan Park is certainly one of the most chilled-out and slow-paced of the parks named in celebration of “the Father of Modern China”. Entrance to the park is from Huanghe Lu, one of Dalian’s busiest, traffic-heavy roads. Once you come under the canopy of its large trees you only need to penetrate the park’s perimeters by the smallest of distances to put the constant noise and shuffling of traffic on Huanghe behind you.
The first thing that my eyes lit on as I followed the park’s curving pathway was the rich variety of plant life in the park’s garden. It had lots of different Chinese natives but interspersed with these were some exotics like, of all things, pockets of the unforgiving prickly-pointed Mexican yucca (below). Seats, tables and and the occasional gazebo can be found within the park. I liked some of the (minimalist) sculptures too.
Of Zhongshan Park’s many patrons using the park, two groups were of most interest to me. The park’s central square bordered by neat hedges, Weeping Willows and Conifers, was the setting for numerous games of cards – people engrossed in playing cards being watched by equally engrossed onlookers. I noticed, here and elsewhere in this city, the penchant for card games by the locals (cf. the preferred pastime for Liaoning’s other principal city, Shenyang, which is checkers). The card players in the park seemed wholly serious about their games, notwithstanding the fact that no money appeared to be waged on the outcomes.
Meanwhile, diagonally across from the numerous, endless “no stakes” games of poker, or whatever the preferred Chinese card game is in this region (it wasn’t Mah-jong they were playing, I could see that!), an assembly of local seniors were hard at it constructing a commendable Sino-version of “Dad’s Army”, or so it appeared to this unenlightened Júwàirén✻. Led by a no doubt self-appointed “sergeant-major”, the mainly septuagenarian band were strenuously and loudly put through their paces in a set of vigorous military-style exercises…hup, two, hup, two stuff straight from the US military drill-book. 
Footnote: I did find one slightly discordant note jarring ever so slightly with the tranquility and harmony of Zhongshan Park. Just about everywhere you walked around the park, you were made aware of its proximity. Towering over the park like a nebulous cloud was a very tall, oddly scientific-looking building…it’s edifice had a decidedly technocratic countenance to it but was a very idiosyncratic, anachronistic appearance indeed. I looked at it more closely later from outside the park, I’m not sure but it may have been a hospital(?) with a wacky space-age facade, but it looked like something out of “The Jetsons” AD2119 to me.
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✻ unlike the stereotype Dad’s Army from 1960s British television though, these didn’t seem like a bunch of aged clowns bungling their drill, generally making a hash of things and tripping over their own shoelaces…they were totally serious and dedicated trainers from the look of it
Time Enjoyably and Harmlessly Misspent in Lǚshùn: Part I
Lǚshùn, Lüshan, Lvshunov (旅顺) – variations of nomenclature for a settlement with a long, multinational history as highly prized first-rate port and a key strategic location on the Northeast coast of Asia. For some tourists, Lǚshùn is merely a peninsula appendage to a trip to Dalian, Liaoning’s second city. Popular for visitors from China, Russia and Japan – at the crossroads of the three differing cultures – and for anyone, anywhere, interested in the modern history of the region.
But for those less interested in the story of the North Asian powers’ struggle for supremacy in Port Arthur (Lǚshùn’s former name under the Russians), there are plenty of other diversions and attractions to fill in a day in the Lǚshùn area. Crossing that spectacular, breathtaking bridge that separates Dalian from Lǚshùn, passing some impressive modern residential monoliths (obviously a lot of new estates cropping up recently), we made not for Lǚshùn’s history-soaked prison or museum…our first stop was at a submarine base at the ports with a large aged submarine in pride of place. On first sighting the displayed veteran U-boat I was initially under the misapprehension that it was a Japanese World War 2 sub left behind by the Japanese Navy or perhaps captured by the Chinese at the war’s end (a sort of spoils of war on show won from the vanquished foe).
On taking the tour through the permanently moored submarine (opened for inspection at both ends of the craft), I soon realised I was wide of the mark. This was in fact a Chinese naval submarine, a Type-033 submarine actually (which is probably quite significant detail to your average, obsessed submarine aficionado)※. And the whole enterprise, known as the Lushun Submarine Museum (established 2015), is a new feature for China (the country’s first museum to exhibit naval military culture).
The other attraction at the museum vying with the ex-service sub is a submarine simulation exhibit, a room devoted to recreating a realistic'(sic) submarine cruise. Severe looking naval servicemen man the entrance, herding waves of visitors in and out in regimented fashion. The tightly packed paying punters in the room jockey for the best posy to take pictures of the ‘demo’: comprising the virtual submarine, with its commander barking orders to his crew, steering a safe sea-course between a host of pop-up enemy frigates while notching up the odd warship ‘kill’ itself…in effect a large scale video game on a super-wide screen with all the bells and whistles, not to mention the “real-life” sound and lighting effects to conjure up the appropriate atmosphere.
After the Submarine Centre we were ready for a more hands-on 3D animation (or at least that was the view of the tour organisers). We piled out of the bus and into what ostensibly was a commercial building. Inside we were led to a room to indulge our inner-nine-year-old in a video game. We were equipped with sonic “ray guns” (or whatever the equivalent current millennial term is) and invited to pretend that we were riders on an out of control roller coaster. Our seats rocked and rolled violently tossing us to and fro…we sat there immovable, gaining what vicarious pleasure we could muster by ‘zapping’ 10,000 demons each, only to find ourselves desperately trying to dodge the infinite number of remaining malevolent dragons, zombies and other miscellaneous monsters hurtling towards us without respite. Most of the adult Chinese tourists seemed to be totally captivated by the virtual “make-believe” alternate universe, whereas for me it was, at the least, a novel, “one-off” experience, considering I am someone with no interest in ‘civilised’ computer games, let alone ever contemplated visiting a fantasy arcade venue to play games of a unrelentingly violent nature.
Gamers’ central 
⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛⏛※ the eponymous Lushunkov actually dates from 1962, not quite WWII but obviously totally antiquated by modern naval technology warfare standards
Mengjiang: The Empire of Japan’s Other East Asian Puppet State in Inner Mongolia
The creation of the puppet state of Manchukuo out of a huge chunk of China’s northeastern territory in 1932 was a springboard for Japan’s nationalists and militarists to expand territorially deep into China and other parts of Eastern Asia [see preceding blog: http://www.7dayadventurer.com/2019/06/27/manchukuo-an-instrument-of-imperial-expansion-for-the-puppet-masters-of-japan/].
(note how close Mengjiang’s eastern boundary came to China’s principal city Peking)
The Japanese military used Manchukuo as a base to gradually move piece by piece into Chinese Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, Siberia and elsewhere in China. Or as one Western observer of the day put it: “Automatically, by the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, Japan became committed to the invasion of Mongolia”, [Lattimore, Owen. “The Phantom of Mengkukuo.” Pacific Affairs, vol. 10, no. 4, 1937, pp. 420–427. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2750626].
Demchugdongrub and his Japanese advisors ⇣
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Demchugdongrub, Pan-Mongolism to vassal state In Inner Mongolia, a member of the Royal House of Chahar, Prince Demchugdongrub (Te Wang 德王), was agitating in the 1930s for Mongolian autonomy from Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang Republic of China. Demchugdongrub and other Mongolian nationalists harboured irredentist desires for a Pan-Mongolia (the reuniting of Inner and Outer Mongolia) [‘5. Another Manchu-kuo, the dream of the “Inner Mongolian Independence”‘, TAKESHITA, Yoshirō 1997, http://teikoku-denmo.jp/ cited in Global Security, GlobalSecurity.org)].
Mengjiang flag⇣
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Enforced mergers and shifting nomenclature The opportunity arose with the aggressive expansion of the Japanese military into the country. Chahar and Suiyuan provinces in Inner Mongolia were taken by Japan’s Kwantung Army and its allies. With the muscle of the occupying Japanese military behind him, Demchugdongrub in 1936 was installed as the leader of a new puppet-state regime✳️, the Mongol Military Government (sometimes also called the “Mongolian Border Land”).
In 1939 South Chahar and North Shanxi provinces (both predominately Han Chinese in population✥) were added to the ‘Mongolian’ regime, now renamed the Mengjiang✼ (or Mongol) United Autonomous Government (蒙疆聯合自治政府) (Měngjiāng Liánhé Zìzhì Zhèngfǔ Mōkyō Rengō Jichi Seifu) with its capital in Kalgan (Zhāngjiākǒu) [ibid.]. On paper Prince Demchugdongrub remained Mengjiang head of state (until 1945), his main function seems to have been to give the territorial entity the countenance of legitimacy. One manifestation of Mengjiang’s Mongolian roots was Demchugdongrub’s adoption of the historic Mongolian calendar…1936, Mengjiang’s creation year, became the year 781 to associate the regime with Genghis Khan (below) and the height of power of the Mongol Empire [John Man, The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China, (2015)]✧.
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MUAG becomes MAF In 1941 Mengjiang was rebranded once more, this time as the Mongolian Autonomous Federation (蒙古自治邦). At the same time the Japanese sponsored the elevation of Wang Zhao-ming. Wang, better known by his pen-name of Wang Jingwei, was put in charge of the Reorganised National Government of the Republic of China (中華民國國民政府) (RNGRC)❦. Wang had previously lost out to Chiang Kai-shek in a leadership struggle for control of both the KMT and the Chinese government.
Wang Jingwei, RNGRC president⇣
Wang’s defection to the Japanese was motivated by this and he envisioned his alternate government, RNGRC, would provide him with the power base within China he was seeking▣. With Wang’s appointment as “Chinese president”, Demchugdongrub’s MAF was subsumed under the Wang regime, but in practical terms the MAF was still autonomous of it, if not of the Japanese [‘Mengjiang’, (Military Wiki), www.military.wikia.org].
Mengjiang one yuan note⇣
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RNGRC a ‘toothless’ regime The RNGRC under Wang was a one-party totalitarian dictatorship, but the reality of Wang Jingwei’s regime was that it was only afforded very limited powers by it’s Japanese masters. Wang, befitting the function of a pliable puppet, was basically no more than a convenient pawn for the Japanese military to negotiate with Chiang’s government [‘Wang Jianwei regime’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. In 1944 Wang died in Japan…his successor as president mayor of Shanghai Chen Gongbo played an equally subservient role for the Kwantung (Chen in 1946 was tried as a war criminal by the Chiang government and executed).
Mongolian flag 1945⇣
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At the end of WWII, both the Mengjiang regime of Demchugdongrub and the ‘Reorganised’ Republic of China were effortlessly swept away by the invading Soviet and Mongolian armies. The Inner Mongolian territories were returned to China (along with Chinese Manchuria) and the Soviet satellite Outer Mongolia gained independence after a national plebiscite (100% yes vote!) in late 1945 (which the USSR immediately and China later recognised).
PRTT crest⇣
PostScript: Tannu Tuva, a regional curio Mengjiang (or Mengkukuo) and Manchukuo were not the only contemporary puppet states in that region of Northeastern China/Mongolia. Nestled in between Outer Mongolia and Russian Siberia, is the tiny enclave of Tannu Tuva (1944: 170,500 sq km, Pop. 95,400)…historically this land was part of Mongolia and therefore part of a client state of the Chinese Empire. The People’s Republic of Tannu Tuva (Tьʙа Arat Respuʙlik) (1921-44) was recognised only by the USSR and Mongolia. Nominally independent but in reality another satellite state of the Soviets, in late 1944 it was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Tuvan Autonomous Oblast. Today, it is the Tyva Republic, a constituent member of the post-communist Russian Federation.
(map source: www.globalsecurity.org)
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✳️ Demchugdongrub, despite his vaulting ambitions, was only ever nominally in charge of what was always transparently a Japanese-controlled puppet state
✥ exacerbating pre-existing tensions between the Mongolian and Chinese sections of the state (Lattimore, op.cit.)
✼ Mengjiang 蒙 (literally ‘fierce’ or in compound form ‘dream to act’). The entity is sometimes styled Mengkukuo 蒙古國 because of its parallels with Manchukuo
✧ the Mongolian prince’s supposed autonomy was always surface deep at best…”an autonomy administered by the Japanese for the Japanese”, (ibid.)
❦ colloquially known as the “Wang Jingwei regime“
▣ Wang’s would-be government was based in the former capital Nánjīng, however the de facto capital was Shanghai
.