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In Empress Dowager Cixi, Jung Chang advances a vigorous defence of a woman, a ruthless ruler who ?brought medieval China into the modern age?

In the early 1990s, there were a few books on China that trickled down to bookshops in India. Among the few exceptions was the international bestseller, Jung Chang?s Wild Swans (1991), which had sold a phenomenal 10 million copies, but of course, in times and climes when the publishing industry was still going strong. Readers may remember the book by its cover. A wispy, fragile beauty, Jung Chang herself graced the cover along with her mother and grandmother. Wild Swans was an intensely personal account of the dramatic changes in China?imperial to socialist as witnessed and experienced by three generations of women in the 20th century. Jung Chang?s grandmother was a concubine in Imperial China, her own mother married a Communist Party cadre and Jung Chang served a Red Guard during China?s Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) until she left for London to pursue higher studies. Ostensibly, life took a turn. The window of opportunity to study in London came in the aftermath of Mao?s death in 1976 as Deng Xiaoping (Mao?s successor) launched reforms and eased social controls. Soon, Jung Chang, the thorough-bred socialist, turned denouncer of totalitarianism?yes, her books are banned in China.

At the ongoing Singapore Writers? Festival, Jung Chang is in a pale green dress that flows like a kimono and she regales the audience with stories of another day. She recounts of socialist times, ?one could count books that one could read on the fingers of the hand?, an anomaly, given that Mao loved to read. By Jung Chang?s admission, Mao?s socialism had bred naive, fearful and impossibly fashion-challenged comrades. She laughs as she recollects that she landed in London, dressed in a blue Mao suit with 14 other comrades in tow dressed in a similar fashion, and that they cut quite a sight on the city?s streets.

Jung Chang?s personal disillusionment with Mao?s socialism, a promise of utopia she argues led to dystopia, is a fact well-honed in her 2005 offering, the controversial and damning biography of Mao titled Mao: The Unknown Story (1997), written in collaboration with her husband, historian Jon Halliday. The book alleged that Mao was a despot like no other in history?a self-perpetuating, callous autocrat who, allegedly, in a 27-year rule, presided over 70 million deaths in peacetime. The deaths were due to China?s famine following Mao?s disastrous Great Leap Forward (1958-1960) and a continued grain-export-for-arms policy, which bled the countryside dry.

Jung Chang?s book was based on interviews with Mao?s close associates, foreign diplomats and dignitaries still alive, and archival information in Russia that had freshly opened its doors and raked up a huge controversy?of a failed, hollow communist dream. Think shreds of the classic, iconic Red Star Over China, Edgar Snow?s 1940s version of the Chinese revolution, which had catapulted Mao as the working-class revolutionary hero.

Thus, Jung Chang?s book on Mao makes her no stranger to controversy. This time, she is back with Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China, on a much despised, reviled historical figure in China?Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908), commonly believed to have presided over the tragic decay of imperial China, indeed a persona whose reputation for cruelty is legendary. Visitors from India who have been to the Forbidden City in Beijing may recollect the tourist guide making a perfunctory stop by a waterwell within the complex, saying, ?this is the famous well that Cixi pushed the hapless imperial concubine named Pearl in? (actually, one of Cixi?s favourite eunuchs, Cui, did it on orders). Among other instances, Cixi ordered a potential assassin be beaten to death by bastinado. Of course, it is equally well-known that Cixi poisoned the young Emperor Guangxu (by arsenic) and put in place an infant, Pu Yi, on the throne. Pu Yi is better known to the average person as The Last Emperor, mostly due to film-maker Bernado Bertolucci?s grand cinematic ode in 1987 by the same name.

About Cixi, Jung Chang suggests otherwise. If Mao?s utopia proved dystopia, the dystopia under Cixi was utopia in guise. The book seeks to present Cixi not as the conniving, power-hungry, low-rank concubine who as Empress Dowager (Empress mother) could never rise above palace intrigue, but as the precursor to Deng Xiaoping, China?s celebrated reformer. She presents Cixi as an extraordinary woman who attempted to open the doors of China and explains the motivations for her cruelty?apparently, Cixi murdered Emperor Guangxu for patriotic reasons, fearing a sell-out to Japan.

Cixi rose to be Empress Dowager from humble beginnings. She caught Emperor Xianfeng’s eye in 1852 from amongst thousands of girls routinely paraded to be imperial concubine. In 1860, the western forces burnt the magnificent Summer Palace (Second Opium War) and Cixi was forced to flee Beijing. In 1861, the emperor died, but the mantle of the throne fell on his one and only male offspring?concubine Cixi’s son.

Cixi thus returned to Beijing triumphant not as concubine, but as Empress Dowager?son ensconced on the throne?and began ruling by proxy until her death in 1908. Apparently, Cixi sat behind the famous golden throne along with Empress Dowager Zhen (who had borne the emperor a daughter) taking note of proceedings as traditional Confucian practices debarred women from ruling. However, Cixi?s son Emperor Tongzhi grew to be a wastrel, a nefarious playboy partial to the pleasures of the flesh. He died at the age of 18 in 1875, possibly of small pox or syphilis.

In a strategic move, Cixi chose her sister?s young son Guangxu as the Emperor and when Guangxu came of age in 1889, retired to the Summer Palace. But Cixi staged a political comeback after a foiled bid to assassinate her?Emperor Guangxu was heavily under the sway of his teacher, Grand Tutor Weng and reformist Kang Youwei. Cixi reigned till her death in 1908, with Emperor Guangxu virtually under house arrest.

Cixi?s biggest historical blunder is said to be aligning the Manchu dynasty with the Boxers?a xenophobic group that made westerners and Christian missionaries their target, and who drove Cixi out of the Forbidden Palace. Jung Chang says Cixi was ?a giant, but not a saint? and credits Cixi for heralding progressive measures such as abolishing foot-binding of young girls where the foot bone was broken and tightly bound to make the feet small, which was a huge fetish then. Cixi was also instrumental in sending the first Chinese convoy to the West in 1870. It also appears that Cixi engaged the services of prominent westerners in the Imperial Court, allowed western women access to the court, supported Han-Manchu intermarriage, the first telegraphic system, naval defence and gave the go-ahead to the 1,500-km-long railway artery connecting Beijing to Wuhan (interior China).

Like Bernardo Bertolucci?s grand magnum opus The Last Emperor, which was a grand visual spectacle with all the elements of alluring ?orientalism? in place?conniving eunuchs, pliant concubines, palace intrigue and a lavish life?the book is eminently enjoyable and flows well. We would not know Cixi took human milk, wore a black toupee in her 40s to cover her thinning scalp, loved a eunuch, An Dehai, dearly and was (de-facto) the first Chinese monarch to wave a handkerchief to a crowd. But like the grand film, its historical veracity poses a big question.

Jung Chang says the book is not based on ?rumoured histories?, but archives of the Imperial Courts to courtiers? diaries. The impressive bibliography shows a generous reading of the First Historical Archives of China, but the objectivity with which the materials have been assessed poses an issue. For example, a long view of Tibet as part of China?the Qing empire?s ?sovereignty? over Tibet (pages 363-365)?would make the Tibetan exiles in India from Dharamsala to Bylakuppe see red.

While the historicity of the book is beyond this author?s calling and best left to the astute, specialised historian, it sheds light on a remote, misunderstood figure. Nonetheless, it will be useful to remember that it is a version that chooses to see Cixi half-full rather than half-empty.

Anurag Viswanath is a Singapore-based sinologist and is currently visiting fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi

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First published on: 17-11-2013 at 02:49 IST
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