The unimaginably long-lived imperial order finally collapsed in 1911. That fate did not just come out of the blue, though. The powerful emperor Qian Long reigned for a good sixty years (1736–1796), but his successors were of another calibre entirely. After his death, the unmistakeable signs of dynastic decay therefore manifested themselves one by one: Corruption, peasant rebellions, natural disasters, and foreign aggression. China had the misfortune that this time the barbarians did not invade on horseback – as in the previous two thousand years – but by sea, and with gunboats. The elite were not prepared for their arrival. They viewed the threat from Western imperialism through the lens of their time-tested policy towards barbarians: By seducing them, the enemy would inevitably conform to Chinese mores, and recognise the supremacy of the highest civilisation on earth – just as the Xiongnu, Turkic, and Manchu invaders had done. That was a fatal miscalculation, however: The ancient empire did not recognise the new world order it was facing, let alone adapt to it, and was downgraded by the Western powers and Japan to a semi-colonial status. While nothing remains to be seen of what later came to be called the Century of Humiliation (1839–1949), the memory of the destruction of railways, factories, and cities continues to fester. That memory explains the prickly responses of the Beijing regime when its former aggressors do something it does not like, as well as its continual suspicion that the West is again setting out to colonise China – this time not with violence, but with ideas.

The Sun at its Zenith

In the middle of the eighteenth century there was still little that pointed to the impending doom. The sun stood at the zenith of its dynastic trajectory. Economic growth, political stability, and the introduction of new crops from America – sweet potatoes, corn, peanuts – led to a spectacular increase in population: From 138 million in 1700 to at least 430 million in 1850, according to some estimates. As protector and guardian of the written word, Qian Long had all the key literary and philosophical works of the country collected, edited, and re-published.