Question

Imperialism Apply these to the pic - What is taking place in the picture? - If any what are the distortions or exaggerations? - What is the nationalities or groups of people that are presented? (how can you prove this) - What is the expressions and/or body language of the people? - If any what are the words or phrases in the cartoon, describe what they are. - What is happening in this picture?

Answer 1

European nations, plus Japan, are dividing up a pie labeled "China" ("Chine" is French for "China"). You can recognize Queen Victoria on the far left, she represents Great Britain. The angry looking fellow next to her in a Pickelhaube (pointy helmet) with muttonchop whiskers is Kaiser Wilhelm I, so he represents Germany. Next is the Tsar of Russia, and given the time period he could be Alexander III or Nicholas II, but he looks more like Nicholas II if you ask me. I believe La Belle France -- France is often portrayed as a woman, particularly by French cartoonists, and this one seems to be French -- is looking over the Tsar's shoulder. Finally, the samurai with the top-knot at far right represents Japan, and the alarmed-looking mandarin in the background is of course China herself.

The idea here is that Britain, Germany and Russia are dividing up China, while Japan ponders future ambitions and France looks interestedly on. Presumably this is a sardonic comment on agreements between the Great Powers on "spheres of influence" in China in the late 1800s and very early 1900s, through which the Powers agreed to avoid encroaching on each other's extraterritorial powers in China. That is, each Power could dominate the Chinese government in China, but they would avoid stepping on each other's toes while doing so. For example, Great Britain might demand the right to try British subjects for crimes committed in China, even against Chinese subjects, and so might Germany, but Great Britain would not demand the right to try German citizens for crimes commited in China, and vice versa.

The commentary suggests that this situation, in which China's sovereign powers are almost divided up between the European Powers, is not a lot different in spirit from those Powers simply dividing up China literally, i.e. conquering and colonizing her, much as they might divide up a pie to be eaten. That's certainly an exaggeration, but well within the scope of political cartoons.

Whether this is imperialism or not is another question, and I would tend to answer in the negative. To my mind imperialism necessarily involves colonies, such as the French or Germans in Africa, the British in South Africa or North America, or at the least actual governance, such as the British in India. The experience of China in the 1890s strikes me as not the same thing -- more just the extreme case of the influence that strong nations always have on weaker nations, and fairly similar to the influence that China now has on North Korea, for example, or Russia on Georgia.

I think if you muddy up the definition of "imperialism" so that it encompasses nearly any case of stronger nations pushing around weaker, you end up with a term that is so broad that is loses its usefulness in identifying a particular stream of historical events.

Answer 2

I guess I should add that the behaviour of the European Powers in China is certainly no different than the behaviour of the USSR towards the nations of Eastern Europe (e.g. Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary) in the period 1945-1990, so if the former is "imperialism" then we need to call the USSR of the mid-20th century "imperialist" as well -- which seems silly.