The Past in the Present
History. The boring subject school kids dread; the consequential topic that torments grown-ups. How countries address their histories is a good indicator of national sentiment and direction. Chinese President Xi Jinping is the latest leader in China’s long history who is seeking to package China’s storied past with eyes firmly on the present (and the future).
Beijing NAPC Headquarters, Exterior Pagoda (www.archdaily.com)
Managing history. Framing the past. Trying to control information. There is a long lineage of such attempts in China. Among the most famous, the first Emperor (Qin Shihuang) did it. The third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty (Yongle) did it. The fourth Emperor of the Qing Dynasty (Qianlong) did it. See more here.
Today, the sixth paramount leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, is doing it. Each of these men realized that history is knowledge, knowledge is power, and power is control. History is also malleable and therefore a useful tool.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China led by Xi recently established the National Archives of Publications and Culture (NAPC). This “Seed Bank for Chinese Civilization” has a headquarters and three branches and officially opened in the summer of 2022. A shout out to Andew Stokols for writing about the NAPC and his visit to two of the branches in 2024 on his “Sinocities” Substack.
Beijing NAPC Headquarters, Interior Pagoda (www.archdaily.com)
The purpose of the NAPC is to gather and collate China’s documented past to promote China’s present, highlighting in the process the positive and indispensable leadership of the CPC. An article on the English-language website of Qiushi, the official theoretical and ideological journal of the Central Committee, states that,
“As a project that has received President Xi’s close attention and personal approval, the NAPC’s establishment has incorporated the coordination and planning for collecting and protecting classic works and texts into the larger undertaking of reinforcing China’s cultural identity, illustrating the CPC’s firm confidence and cultural consciousness.”
This is a comprehensive, well-funded effort that exalts the great culture and history of China for generations to come (Stokols notes that it is still a work in progress). State-of-the-art facilities, dazzling content, exciting research opportunities, pride on display. Such potential. And subject to the direction of its benefactor.
Page from Vol. 1 of the Qianlong Emperor’s Siku Quanshu,
Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (www.loc.gov)
Stokols writes how “all of [the earlier] encyclopedic editions (copies of which are in the NAPC) were themselves scholarly and political projects of editing and curating history overseen by particular emperors, often with the goal of sanitizing history or erasing unwanted details from official records….”
The NAPC is the 21st century equivalent. Once again, Qiushi,
“Since 2019, China has focused on the permanent and safe preservation of cultural treasures with a view to fortifying the cultural basis of national rejuvenation….these repositories serve as a showcase for Chinese civilization. They reflect the cultural prosperity of our times, blend the beauty of ancient and modern elements, and stand as cultural monuments for the benefit of future generations. They are new cultural landmarks of the new era.”
Volumes of the Ruzang Confucian Canon
In addition to the NAPC, Xi Jinping is also championing another grand cultural project. The Ruzang (Confucian Canon) Project is a two-decade-long-and-growing endeavor by close to 500 domestic and international scholars “to create the largest ever compilation of Confucian classics.”
In late 2024, Bytedance (parent of TikTok) donated more than three million dollars (USD) to enhance the Project’s collections and digitization. The digitization includes “cutting-edge technologies like optical character recognition and AI to improve text recognition accuracy.”
NAPC Hangzhou Branch (photo by Andrew Stokols)
In my opinion, studying the past is laudable, beneficial, and necessary, even as we recognize the realities of how that history is prioritized and used. The devil is always in the definitions and the details. Unified messages such as China’s may not guarantee success and are never the only voice(s) in the game, but they are the loudest and usually the most effective at influencing present dialogue and memory.
And yet these messages change over time. The promotion of the NAPC is the polar opposite of the China of the 1960’s when Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution launched the Campaign to “Smash the Four Olds” -- old customs, old habits, old culture, and old thinking. Mao did not want to frame the past, but to destroy it. The result left China rootless and brittle.
A comparison of China’s and America’s respective relationships and connections with their pasts is eye-opening at this juncture. The symbolism, confidence, and power projection of China’s NAPC stand in sharp contrast to the tension, animosity, and exhaustion of America’s ongoing history war. Here, we are whipsawed with constant battles over how our history should record and remember, among other matters, our racial, gender, and slavery pasts (well-epitomized by the 1619 Project and the competing 1776 Commission), and what they mean for American society and governance. The chaos and vitriol of China six decades ago is for me the more apt analogy to today’s America.
Packaging history. Shaping the present. Seeking a future.
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