Q&A with Michael Wood, author of ‘The Story of China’

China is one of the oldest continuous civilizations in the world, and its endurance is tied to the complex systems of order it has developed.

British historian and filmmaker Michael Wood updates and expands on his acclaimed 2017 PBS/BBC documentary about China with “The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power From the Middle Kingdom to Mao and the China Dream.” He spoke to Monitor correspondent Randy Dotinga about the world’s most populous country.

Q: How did China avoid becoming a fragmented region like Europe?

When you look at Chinese history, you can see there were several points in its history where it broke up into regional powers with no certainty it would ever come back together again. These moments of disruption and breakdown are almost more interesting than the great moments of imperial glory like the Ming dynasty and the Forbidden City. You ended up with a powerful centralized state that uses the ideology of the past to create a kind of essential cultural matrix. This persists today. They’ve got 1.4 billion people, and the problems of ruling China are much greater than in any other country. So they put a premium on order, and the thought of chaos and breakdown is terrible to them. From their point of view, the only way to make society tick is to have a strong sense of the collective.

Q: What ideas guide Chinese society?

The source of morality in ancient times was not a supreme deity but instead came from a philosophical system. You could be a Buddhist or Taoist, and it didn’t matter. The essential thing was a moral order driven by a central social philosophy: You had to act virtuously and benevolently. 

Q: What strikes you the most from your visits to China?

Thirty-five years ago, you would have thought the traditional culture of China had been smashed by the Cultural Revolution. You’d think it is all gone. 

But we visited a giant ancient temple by a lake, a shrine to a goddess in the middle of the countryside. More than a million people were going to a farmer’s fair. Tractors with colored ribbons were coming down country roads, and women were dancing in costumes they’d made themselves. It was unbelievable, and it wasn’t [a performance] for tourists, since a lot of them had never seen Western people before. You realize that the ancient culture of China had not been crushed by Chairman Mao [Zedong], and it was coming back.

Q: What worries you?

The damage to the environment through unrestrained building has been massive. And like all industrial societies, there’s a huge amount of corruption. But I think [Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s] adherence to the Paris climate accords is genuine, and they’re sincere in their desire to work toward a more environmentally friendly future.

Q: What’s next for the country?

We’re in for possibly a rocky ride over the next two or three years. But I’m quite optimistic. There’s a brilliant, young, middle-class generation – the one that’s grown up since reform – that is so savvy and so aware of the world. 

And there’s a huge desire for a more equitable society and more support for the rule of law. Even if China continues to be a one-party state in some way, modifications will begin to initiate change.