Or they seem to have existed always and feel no need for explanations. The Roman politician Cato the Elder ended every speech urging the destruction of Carthage merely on account of its trading rivalry with the Republic. Only a few bewildered fishermen observed the first British landing. The Imperial Commissar reported that 'the Men of T'ong are dissipated and ineducable'. Civilization was a difficult import from Beijing.
Similar attitudes prevail today.
In 1949 Chinese armies swept the Kuomintang virtually out of the continent and, for reasons known only to themselves, halted just before crossing the muddy Shun Chun River. On the other side was British Hong Kong, an impertinent 'scab on the backside of China', according to Chiang Kai-Shek. It had been his clear intention to take Hong Kong back. But while the British Government fussed over the strategic importance of this under-populated backwater, it nonetheless reinforced its presence in Hong Kong with 140,000 troops and a large naval force. Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government, declared with more aplomb than accuracy that Hong Kong was 'the Gibraltar of the Far East'.