June 1995

“Be sure to prevent any contact between the barbarians and the population,” the Emperor Qianlong ordered in 1793. This is one of the many pointed epigraphs in China Wakes, and it shows what Chinese rulers knew for centuries: that, for the emperors, it was dangerous for their own people to know about other worlds. It might cause them to doubt, and doubt in China led to disbelief, which could lead to luan, disorder, which is what Chinese rulers today also say is the main enemy.