In The Rise and Fall of Great Powers, author and history professor Paul Kennedy claims that China’s power peaked around 1600. Meanwhile, Western Europe was rising and surging, thanks to the Renaissance, scientific breakthroughs, and empire-building around the world.

Historical facts, however, do not agree with Paul Kennedy where the decline of China is concerned. 

In 1800, the Middle Kingdom was still the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. Globally, as much as one-third of all goods came from China (28% in 2018).

Chinese porcelain earned America's envy. Chinese tea filled Americans’ pots. That’s why the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, was such a big deal to Americans from all walks of life, who fiercely opposed tea tax and monopoly imposed by the British. Chinese tea, in a sense, was a catalyst for the American Revolution. As a matter of fact, the tea dumped into Boston Harbor’s cold water was shipped from Xiamen, Fujian, a busy trade port in southern China.

The Boston Tea Party was actually a Chinese Tea Party.*

Chinese tea and porcelain symbolized as much as substantiated Americans' wealth and status at the turn of the 19th Century. Before that, bragging rights went to any American household having more chairs than its immediate neighbors.

Newly-independent America had a crush on millennia-old China. This was puppy love on the part of the Yankees, however. When America became more mature and much more powerful as a nation, it started wondering if China was really an ideal object of its love.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Once the beholder changes, so will beauty.

Still, as Chinese tea had never really left a bitter taste in America's mouth, the Middle Kingdom's seductive fragrance lingered on. Before long, America would romance China again. Old flames die hard.

*It is a popular myth that American colonists, in defiance of their British overlord, switched from tea to coffee overnight following the Boston Tea Party. Truth be told, in as late as 2014, 80% of American households still had tea in their kitchens (The Washington Post, September 3, 2014).

美國對中國一見鍾情

在他所著的《大國興亡》一書裡，歷史教授保羅·甘迺迪宣稱中國國力在1600年達至巔峰，繼而下坡。與此同時，西歐因得力於文藝復興、科技突破及環球建立帝國而崛起、猛進。

然而，在中國盛極而衰方面，甘氏論說不符史實。

在1800年、中國仍然執世界製造業之牛耳，其產量占全球三分之一 (2018年則占28%)。

中國瓷器令北美既羨且妒，中國茶備受洋基們熱捧。有此背景，就不難理解為什麼1773年12月16日波士頓茶派對能夠如此激起社會各階層、來同聲合力反對英人專利經營茶貿及徵收茶稅。可以說、中國茶不啻成為美國獨立革命的一股推動力。在此必須補充一句：當日被丟進波士頓港灣冷水裡的茶，正就是從華南福建夏門哪繁忙港口舶來的。

波士頓茶派對其實是個中國茶派對。*

以當時洋基們的角度來看，中國茶茗與瓷器是財富與地位的象徵及證明。在未有中國舶來品之前，只要家裡的椅子數目比鄰家多，就足以自誇了。

美國在獨立之初，羽翼未豐之際，即傾倒於有數千年歷史的中國之下；這是不折不扣的洋基少年單戀情懷。當日後羽翼漸豐，「鷹擊長空」的時候，美國就開始懷疑自己是否找錯了初戀對象。

情人眼裡出西施。情人變，西施就變。

話說回來，中國茶香不絕，魅力不消。未幾、洋基們又再心動起來。情不了，不了情。

*美國坊間有此佳話：波士頓茶派對翌日，反英的美土殖民即棄茶而改喝咖啡。現實是、近至2014年，80%美國家庭的廚房裡仍然備有茶茗 (詳見2014年9月3日華盛頓郵報)。

--- by Lingyang Jiang

Boston Tea Party of 1773