Unbowed by history 

To kowtow has long been a difficult act for Westerners to follow

by Alan Wachman
April 15, 2001
Reprinted from The Boston Globe


As the crew of the downed US Navy surveillance plane returns home, the crisis in relations between the United States and China seems resolved. But the dramatic standoff over an American apology might have been averted had both parties heeded the lessons of history and recalled an earlier controversy about the Chinese ritual of kowtowing.

Indeed, China's demand for an apology had less to do with its communist roots of a few generations than with cultural roots that go back centuries.

In 1793, Lord Macartney, the ambassador of King George III, refused to kowtow to the Qianlong emperor. As he presented his credentials to the emperor, Macartney was expected to lower himself to both knees and touch his forehead to the ground three times, stand, and repeat the process twice more.

This ritual of three kneelings and nine knockings was a degrading sign of supplication to the Chinese throne. Chinese imagined that foreigners performing the kowtow accepted, as Chinese did, a cosmic order in which China was the apex of civilization and all other communities languished in various states of barbarousness. When a foreign envoy performed the kowtow, it reinforced what Chinese believed about themselves and the universal legitimacy of their sovereign.

But Macartney refused, setting off a diplomatic furor. Then, as now, China framed its demand in a way that set up a winner-take-all contest for legitimacy - and resulted in a compromise that both parties subsequently characterized as they wished.

After the April 1 airplane collision, Beijing initially demanded that Washington accept full responsibility and apologize for causing the accident, for the Chinese pilot's death, and for violating China's airspace.

In essence, China's leaders sought a verbal kowtow from Washington. By bringing the ''hegemonist'' United States to its knees in apologetic submission, Beijing imagined that it would reinforce in the eyes of its own populace the respect it commands from the international community, even from nations as powerful as the United States.

Like Macartney, the United States balked and then began to negotiate. And once Washington began to dicker about what words it would use in response to Beijing's demand, rather than whether it should express any sentiment, it, too, was unwittingly drawn into Beijing's diplomatic snare, just as Macartney was.

Protracted negotiations about whether Macartney would perform the kowtow preceded his audience with the emperor. Macartney steadfastly rejected demands that he perform the servile act, offering instead to salute the Qianlong emperor just as he would his own sovereign: by kneeling on one knee and kissing the hand of the king.

Dismissing as presumptuous the proposal that Macartney should sully the emperor's hand with a kiss, officials suggested in the spirit of compromise that Macartney dispense with the hand-bussing but agree to go down on both knees. Still, Macartney refused, stating that English knelt on one knee before their king and on both knees only before God.

Macartney said he might perform the kowtow if Chinese courtiers agreed to do the same in front of a portrait of King George III, a proposal viewed as preposterous by his exasperated handlers.

In the end, history provides ambiguous and conflicting reports of what Macartney actually did in the presence of the Qianlong emperor.

English witnesses record the one knee, no kiss salutation. Chinese sources of the time suggest that in the presence of the Son of Heaven, Macartney was ''so overcome with awe and nervousness, his legs gave out from under him, so that he groveled abjectly on the ground,'' according to the account in ''The Immobile Empire'' by Alain Peyrefitte.

Both sides claimed the encounter legitimized the sovereignty they sought to preserve - a claim that reverberates today as spinmasters in Beijing and Washington explain why they got more than they gave up.

Glad as one is that the crew was released, one wonders whether the United States should, from the start, have stood firm until a complete investigation by both sides produced a clear understanding of what happened and of who, if anyone, was at fault.

In time, it may become clear why the United States engaged in the semantic struggle and what, if anything, besides expressions of regret, it conceded to China. What is clear is that the United States' expressions of regret and sorrow are now played up in Beijing as the very apology President Bush said he would not make.

As some Chinese still seethe in nationalistic fury about the United States' spy plane's affront to China's dignity, Beijing expresses jubilation at having humbled the United States. Just as Chinese two centuries ago celebrated their triumph over Macartney, victory may be in the eyes of the beholder.

In fact, even though China's leaders feel they have taught George W. Bush a lesson in humility, Beijing did not get the United States to acknowledge having violated China's airspace before the collision, nor did the United States accept full responsibility for causing the collision, as China had demanded.

Thinking back to 1793, this outcome might have been anticipated. Then, as now, the fundamental struggle was not just about pride, but about respect for sovereignty. England challenged China's system as the United States challenges it today.

History is never a perfect guide, but the Macartney incident might have taught Beijing and Washington the danger of persuading themselves they had bested their adversary, while failing to address the underlying differences that remained. Forty-six years after Macartney knelt, those differences led England and China to war.

Like King George III, George Bush II would not be represented by emissaries prepared to perform a kowtow just to conform with China's need for greater prestige. Demanding that, Beijing was bound to receive only a one-knee salute from the United States, even if it now portrays it as the full kowtow it feels it deserves.

• Alan M. Wachman is an Assistant Professor of International Politics at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.