China is a sleeping giant: Difference between revisions

China is a sleeping giant, when she wakes she will shake the world or "China is a sleeping dragon," or China is a sleeping lion, is a phrase atttributed to Napoleon Bonaparte, but there is no evidence that he said or wrote any of the varying forms.

The quote is often labelled as "attributed" to Napoleon or given with a warning that he may not have said it, ^[1] but the Australian National University historian John Fitzgerald states that "in all likelihood, Napoleon never uttered the words that legend now attributes to him about China, the 'sleeping dragon'. There is no reference to a sleeping dragon in his recorded speeches or writings and no mention of the terrible fate in store for the world should China suddenly 'wake up,'"^[2] The Napoleon specialist and Fondation Napoléon historian Peter Hicks goes farther and declares that Napoleon never said “Laissons la Chine dormir, car quand elle se réveillera, le monde tremblera” (Let China sleep, for when she awakes, the world will tremble).^[3]

The quote appears in various forms, as shown in the examples below.

Some sources speculate, with no evidence, that Napoleon made such a statement to Lord William Amherst (or that Amherst said that he did) when Amherst was returning from a diplomatic visit to China and saw Napoleon in exile on St. Helena in 1817.^[4] William Safire’s Political Dictionary, for instance, cites a 1978 Wall St. Journal column which says Napoleon made the remark to Lord Amherst, but the column gives no source for the reference.^[5]

Alain Peyrefitte's The Immobile Empire, a study of British delegations to China in the late 18th century, based on extensive research in French and English language sources, gives a detailed account of Amherst's conversations with Napoleon. He attributes this "famous prediction" to Napoleon but not as part of the conversation with Amherst and without a source. ^[6] Peyrefitte's fr:Quand la Chine s'éveillera… le monde tremblera

Elizabeth Knowles, editor of the Oxford University Press What They Didn't Say: A Book of Misquotations cites a similar remark the exiled emperor made to Barry O'Meara, his surgeon. O'Meara criticised Amherst for failing to convince the Chinese emperor to open China to trade and suggested to Napoleon that "we could easily compel the Chinese to grant good terms by means of a few ships of war; that, for example, we could deprive then altogether of salt, by a few cruisers properly stationed," Napoleon disagreed:

It would be the worst thing you have done for a number of years, to go to war with an immense empire like China, and possessing so many resources. You would doubtless, at first succeed, take what vessels they have, and destroy their trade; but you would teach them their own strength. They would be compelled to adopt measures to defend themselves against you.^[7]

Knowles remarks that "the essential idea is here, if not, frustratingly, the figure of speech."^[4]

ALain Peyrefitte writes that Vladimir Lenin used the expression in 1923, and that it must therefore be older than that and therefor must be authentic. Peter Hicks, however, reports that Lenin did not quote Napoleon in that pamphlet

"Awakening," says historian John Fitzgerald, meant different things in the European Age of Enlightenment, where it meant "awakening to reason and to universal human values," and in modern times where could mean the awakening of peoples in colonial states to their predicament of oppression and awakening to the key to their emancipation. Its power was enhanced by associating it with Napoleon, one of modern history's most heroic figures.^[8] Implicit in the expression, says Safire, is "the idea that the sleeping giant will soon assert a previously unused power."^[5]

• “Napoleon is reported to have said: ‘There sleeps China! God pity us if she wakes. Let her sleep!’ The commonest figure of speech concerning the Empire has been that of a sleeping giant: ‘the awakening of China’ is a stereotyped phrase.” William T. Ellis, “China in Revolution,” The Outlook (28 October 1911): 458

• "China’s asleep. Let her sleep. When she awakes, she’ll shake the world" “Don’t Be a China,” Postage and the Mailbag Vol 15 (1927): 637
• The cover of Time magazine (1 December 1958) “Let China sleep. For when she awakens, the world will be sorry.” Napoleon. ^[9]
• In the 1963 film 55 Days at Peking, the character Sir Arthur Robinson says "I will never forget it: "Let China sleep. For when she wakens, the world will tremble." (screenplay written by Bernard Gordon).^[10]
• Hibbert, Christopher. The Dragon Wakes: China and the West, 1793-1911. (Newton Abbot: Readers Union, 1971).
• "When China wakes, it will shake the world" is the epigraph on title page of Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn's China Wakes, noted as "attributed to Napoleon." The note for that page gives no source but says the quote "apparently does not appear in any of his collected writings," and he "is said" (without a reference as to who said it) to have made the remark after reading Lord Macartney's account of his trip to China in 1793. ^[11]

• The film Crazy Rich Asians begins with the quote.^[12]
• "China is a sleeping lion. When it wakes the world will tremble," quoting from President Xi Jinping speech in Paris, 27 March 2014.^{[13] [14]}

• Isoroku Yamamoto's sleeping giant quote
• May you live in interesting times
• Chinese word for "crisis"
• The Great Wall viewable from space
• Chinese characters are ideographs

• Fitzgerald, John (1996). Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution. Stanford, CA. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Hicks, Peter (September 2019), "Non, Napoléon N'a Pas Dit: "Laissons La Chine Dormir, Car Quand Elle Se Réveillera, Le Monde Tremblera" (No, Napoleon Did Not Say: "Let China Sleep. Because When She Wakes Up, The World Will Tremble ")", Napoleon.org {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Knowles, Elizabeth (2006). "All We Have Done is Wake a Sleeping Giant". What They Didn't Say: A Book of Misquotations. Oxford University Press. p. online. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Peyrefitte, Alain (1992). The Immobile Empire Original: L'empire immobile (Paris, ). New York: Knopf. ISBN 9780002726771. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Safire, William (2008), Safire’s Political Dictionary, Oxford University Press, p. 666, ISBN 0195343344 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wagner, Rudolph (2011). "China 'Asleep' and 'Awakening': A Study in Conceptualizing Asymmetry and Coping with It". Transcultural Studies. doi:10.11588/ts.2011.1.7315. Retrieved 29 April 2020. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

• Wide World of Quotes Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes