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The Snow Lion and the British Lion continues....
When the British envoy Lord George Macartney went to meet the Chinese Manchu Qianlong Emperor in 1793 with gifts from the British Emperor he was made to wait many days before he was granted an audience. When finally granted an audience, he refused to kowtow before the Emperor, which would have meant prostrating himself nine times and touching his head to the floor. This was considered an insult to the Emperor who thereby lost face. Lord Macartney was, of course, humiliated and summarily dismissed, being given an arrogant and
condescending letter for King George III. Nationalist China staking claim to Tibet, Mongolia, and Eastern Turkestan, even though it was in no position to physically reoccupy them, was a matter of not losing face.
Taking the extra-ordinarily risky military decision in 1950 to simultaneously launch two military campaigns with differing aims, at opposite ends of China, one to capture Tibet in the west, and the other in the north-east committing Chinese troops to the war in Korea, was a matter of face for Mao Zedong. He informed the United States on 1st October 1950 (incidentally through the Indian ambassador, K.M. Pannikar ) that if the US troops continued to advance towards the border marked by the Yalu River, China would intervene as per the request of North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung. China well knew the danger of America’s willingness to use atomic weapons against defenceless Chinese cities, as they had against Japan only five years before. China had no armoured corps and no powerful air force; its logistics were based on the support of a friendly local population, and the PLA had inadequate arms and ammunition. But the pride of the Chinese nation was at stake, and China and its ‘East Wind’ could not be allowed to lose face. Millions of Chinese troops died in the campaign, including Mao’s own son, Mao Anlong, but China saved face.
To be continued......