Bob Schwartz

In a story about current tensions between the United States and North Korea, this was reported:

“The United States and South Korea and North Korea are engaging in tit for tat, with swords drawn and bows bent, and there have been storm clouds gathering,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said in Beijing, according to Xinhua, the state news agency.” (emphasis added)

It is hard to imagine the American President or Secretary of State using such poetic language to describe such a serious situation. But allusions to swords and bows is not just poetic. It reflects the thousands of years that China has had to deal with situations just like this.

In the world, few nations, and none so powerful, are as young as the United States. We tend to equate power with enlightened perspective, but that is silly. Even the European nations can’t compare their histories to the long and hard lessons that many Asian nations have learned.

It is no accident that in the years since the end of a series of modern Asian wars involving the West—World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War—Asian nations have to some degree risen and dominated in various ways. China in particular. These nations have had to ride the wave of history, going back to times when swords and bows were the tools of strategy and subjugation, of victory and defeat.

Many Americans think that the most significant global affairs began a couple of centuries or so ago, when this nation emerged in North America as the perfection of what our European ancestors tried but failed to accomplish. Like all precocious children, we think that it is all about us, especially because of our might and our ability to damage and destroy. Those who have seen it all before are careful not to provoke us, but know that no matter how big our weapons, they are only swords and bows, about which they have much more experience.