"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 widely attributed (albeit without evidence) to Napoleon Bonaparte.
The quote is often labelled as "attributed" to Napoleon or given with a warning that he may not have said it,[1] but Napoleon specialist and Fondation Napoléon historian Peter Hicks 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)[2] and 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."[3]
The quote appears in various forms, as shown in the examples below.
Some speculate, without giving documentation, that Napoleon made such a statement to Lord William Amherst (or that Amherst said that he did). Amherst made a diplomatic visit to China and had an audience with the emperor and saw Napoleon in exile on St. Helena in 1817.[4]
William Safire’s Political Dictionary, for instance, cites a 1978 Wall Street 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 with no mention of such a quote. He attributes this "famous prediction" to Napoleon but not as part of the conversation with Amherst and he also gives no source.[6]
Elizabeth Knowles, editor of What They Didn't Say: A Book of Misquotations (Oxford University Press) cites a similar remark the exiled emperor made to Barry O'Meara, his surgeon. O'Meara in conversation criticised Amherst for failing to convince the Chinese emperor to open China to trade. He 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 them 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]
Peyrefitte writes in Quand la Chine s'éveillera… le monde tremblera that Vladimir Lenin used the expression in 1923, and that it must therefore be older than that and therefore must be authentic. Hicks, however, reports that there is no reference to Napoleon in that pamphlet, and that Lenin could not have had access to Amherst's journals in any case. [2]
In the 1963 Allied Artists film, 55 Days at Peking, set in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, the wife of the British Ambassador makes this warning. The screen-play is based on the novel by Noel Gerson, where the quote does not appear. Hicks concludes that one of the screenwriters, Benard Gordon, must have supplied it. [2]
The metaphor of "China asleep" and "China awakened" became widespread during the 19th century and remains so today. [8] "Awakening," says Fitzgerald, meant a different thing in the European Age of Enlightenment, where it meant "awakening to reason and to universal human values," from what it meant in later times where could mean the awakening of peoples in colonial states to their predicament of oppression and awakening to the key to their emancipation. The thought gained power by associating it with Napoleon, one of modern history's most heroic figures.[9]
Implicit in the expression, says Safire, is "the idea that the sleeping giant will soon assert a previously unused power."[5]
In 1911, William T. Ellis wrote: "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."[10]
1927: "China’s asleep. Let her sleep. When she awakes, she’ll shake the world"[11]
The cover of Time magazine (1 December 1958) says "Let China sleep. For when she awakens, the world will be sorry." Napoleon.[12]
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).[13]
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.[14]
^O'Meara, Barry Edward (1822). Napoleon in Exile, or, a Voice from St. Helena: The Opinions and Reflections of Napoleon on the Most Important Events of His Life and Government in His Own Words. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall. pp. 289–290. Google Book here Haithi Trust online here
Fitzgerald, John (1996). Awakening China: Politics, Culture, and Class in the Nationalist Revolution. Stanford, CA.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
