How Xi Jinping’s China Is Wilhelmine Germany Come Again
While China’s South China Sea strategy is more nuanced and sophisticated, it might fall into the same traps as the Kaiser’s.
The 1910 funeral of Edward VII, king of the United Kingdom and emperor of India, represents the last time before World War I that the leaders of Europe met in person: kings, emperors, tzars, and presidents. That assembly illustrated the ties of blood and commerce of the time, which seemed to have bound the world in a tight embrace of common interests and visions. No one believed at the time that this family of nations was just a few steps away from a world conflict more terrible than any other in the history of humanity. Yet, ominous events, such as the Russo-Japanese War or the colonial crisis induced by the German face-off with France in Morocco, both around 1905, already forecasted a stormy twentieth century.