I wrote this in 2014. It's a geopolitical analysis of the emerging new world order, using Canadian-Chinese Lui Liu’s Beijing 2008 a.k.a. Women Playing Mahjong. I think the message is still very relevant. It will also give you an overview of why China will never leave the South China Sea.
One of the paintings I’ve always wanted to see in person is Canadian-Chinese Lui Liu’s Beijing 2008 a.k.a. Women Playing Mahjong – an evocative illustration of geopolitical struggle; its eroticism limns the seduction of power. It was finished in 2005, exhibited in the 2006 New York art fair, and it fetched 19.55 million yuan (3.24 million USD) during the Poly 2012 autumn action.
Women Playing Mahjong has launched myriad interpretations, all focusing on its supposed geopolitical message. In this post, I am re-interpreting Women Playing Mahjong. Extending and building on its well-known interpretation, I will re-contextualise the painting using post-2012 events.
Right in front, the Asian lady with a tattoo on her back is China. On the left, the lady full of concentration is Japan. At the top looking sideways is USA. Lying rather seductively is Russia. The little girl standing by the side is Vietnam. Two important player that are missing here are India and the Philippines. The four women are playing mahjong. It’s apt that mahjong is the game symbolising their geopolitical struggle not only because mahjong is “a game of skill, strategy, and calculation and involves a degree of chance” but also because China, where the game originated, is also the longest surviving player in this geopolitical theatre. Players come and go, yet China remains. China – her rise, decline, and re-emergence is arguably the longue durée shaping the geopolitical history of this region. The mahjong being played is strip mahjong: Losing entails removing one item of clothing. A player gets booted out of the game when the only thing to remove is her presence.
Among them, Japan is completely naked. She is out of the game if she loses. This reflects the status quo post bellum that the US imposed on Japan. Her ability to parlay her economic gains into military might is being constrained by her pacifist constitution. Yet despite her utter nakedness, her pacific face shows no trace of defeat. She keenly examines her tiles, perhaps looking for a way to re-arrange it so she could boost her strengths. Indeed, Japan is slowly breaking away from the post-WWII order. In July 2014, the cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe adopted a resolution “ending a ban that has kept the military from fighting abroad since 1945.” But because she is utterly vulnerable, Japan is not taking any chances. As she slowly breaks free from her post WWII pacifism, she might as well hedge her chances and seek some form of crisis management mechanism with China. As Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, Chief of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces’ Joint Staff, once suggested: There must be a “communication mechanism [covering] both the navies and air forces. Enabling such communication would be a great step forward in avoiding an unexpected situation. We have been pushing for an early implementation all along.”
Russia is left with only her panties. This reflects the post-Cold war political order, ushered in by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Russia may appear indifferent but it is far from that. Her foot is stepping on US’s leg, her right hand extending far to her right side, gesturing the US-led NATO to stop —- stop expanding. Her face looks worried. She feels insecure, threatened, and betrayed because according to her diplomats, during the reunification of Germany, the US promised the Soviet Union that NATO would not expand eastward. According to Russia’s version of events, the US reneged this promise “as NATO added 12 eastern European countries in three subsequent rounds of enlargement.” As Ukraine’s political axis tilted more to the West, Russia’s fear worsened. Ukraine is simply not just one of the New Independent States comprising Russia’s “near-abroad.” Ukraine’s significance to Russia is all-encompassing: historical, political, strategic, religious, and emotional. As Kissinger said:
"The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709, were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia."
As Russia’s right leg and arm blocks the West’s further advance, her left hand reaches out to China. Early 2014, the two powers forged an energy deal estimated to be worth $400 billion. This was followed by a second deal in November 2014.
China is impressive. Despite being the longest player in the game, still has her skirt and panties. Among the characters in the painting, she’s the only one whose face we can’t see. Yet we see her tiles. China “tripled” the Dong tiles (East Winds, this is a double up). This symbolises the re-emergence of China, the wind blowing geopolitical ripples. The three tiles display China’s growing global influence in three arenas – economic, political/diplomatic, and military. It looks like China is doing ok, but there is no clue about the other cards (tiles). She has two tiles behind her. The famous interpretation said that Russia is passing tiles to China. But it seems that Russia is just as clueless as other powers of what’s behind China. Discretely, Russia extends her body in an attempt to take a peek at what China may be hiding. After all, there are also fears in Russia over China’s re-emergence.
USA is almost fully dressed but bares her bottom. The attire of USA appears to be most complete, probably because she is still the most powerful. However, USA’s private parts are already exposed, After all, among the four, America’s domestic politics is the most exposed and accessible to the world. As what Antonio Rappa said in Globalization: Power, Authority, and Legitimacy:
"The world watches whenever there is a presidential election, or when there is a change of party control over the House of Representatives and the Senate. The world’s economists always keep an eye on who runs the Federal Reserve or Fed, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Bank. Financiers are concerned with the nature of local politics in America and many know more about America than they know about their own countries."
USA looks as if she is about to remove her “top” – but she might as well be tightening the strings of her blouse. She looks most glorious but faces great dangers. If she loses this game, she loses her dominant position.
The little girl Vietnam holds a tray of fruits in one hand and a fruit knife in the other, looking quietly at China with resentment. But she has no option. She is not in the game (a little girl too young to play the game?). She is standing on a rocky surface. On top of it, the women are playing mahjong on an elevated surface covered by a blue fabric, folded like waves of the sea. Meanwhile, dark clouds loom over the horizon. The setting symbolises the possible spark of a violent struggle, which will involve all these players: Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the features of the South China Sea.
It’s just apt that Vietnam is standing on this rocky surface – she is the dominant power in the Spratly Islands: Vietnam currently occupies 23 features in the Spratlys – almost equivalent to the combined occupied features by the Philippines (9), China + Taiwan (8), and Malaysia (7). A domination enabled by the enormous aid flowing from the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet rift phase of the Cold War. USA is looking at Vietnam, perhaps trying to attract her. This might not be easy to achieve, not only because of the wounds of the Vietnam War, but also because of Vietnam’s ever-growing relationship with Russia, whose body in this painting extends towards our little girl.
The setting of this game is also very significant to China’s national identity dressed by the 100 Century of Humiliation narrative. The sea has been China’s source of vulnerability. The humiliating wars that China suffered were all because of its weaker maritime capabilities. Thus, a significant aspect of China’s military modernisation involves strengthening its navy and control of its near-sea. As what Michael McDevitt and Frederic Velluci Jr wrote in The Evolution of the People’s Liberation Army Navy: The Twin Missions of Area-Denial and Peacetime Operations:"
"China’s experience with European and Japanese colonialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries clearly demonstrated the need for an effective maritime defense concept to counter Beijing’s strategic vulnerabilities to enemy attacks from the sea. Thanks to adroit Chinese diplomacy, its land frontiers are stable and with the exception of India, it has resolved all of the territorial disputes it has had with its neighbours. However, from Beijing’s perspective, looking eastward offshore, the situation is more strategically problematic. China’s maritime approaches are replete with unsolved sovereignty issues and genuine vulnerabilities. This has been true since the nineteenth century. Vulnerability to attack from the sea has been a problem for Beijing since at least 1842, when the Treaty of Nanking ended the First Opium War. This three-year conflict with Great Britain exposed imperial China’s military weakness to attacks from the sea and ushered in the so-called century of humiliation by triggering a sequence of military and diplomatic humiliations perpetrated by Westerners and the Japanese that came primarily from the sea."
