Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [52]
In 760, thousands of Arab and Persian merchants were slaughtered by Chinese brigands in Yangchow. In 779, the Tang emperor Dezong banished foreign envoys and banned non-Chinese groups from wearing Chinese dress. Imperial policy toward the people of the steppe changed. There was no longer even a pretense that the northern nomads were “equal partners” with the Chinese. At best, the barbarians were the “claws and teeth” of the empire whose duty it was to defend the Tang frontiers for the benefit of the Chinese.
As xenophobia set in, Tang cosmopolitanism rapidly dissipated. Chinese scholar-officials from the southeast, who had risen through the examination system, spread the idea that China's moral standards and superior culture had been polluted by the decadent barbarian-blooded aristocrats from the north. Among the literati, a movement grew to reassert traditional Chinese values and ancient Chinese literary styles. Foreign influences and ideas were now seen as corrupting, and the roads to central Asia were literally closed. In a historical pattern that would reappear many times, China turned self-destructively inward, cutting itself off from the rest of the world, trying to achieve “purity” by ridding itself of foreign elements.33
Tang intolerance intensified in the ninth century. In 836, an imperial decree prohibited Chinese from interacting with “people of colour,” referring to foreigners from Southeast Asia or beyond the Pamir Mountains, including Arabs, Persians, Indians, Malays, Sumatrans, and other groups. More striking still was the burst of religious persecution under Emperor Wuzong, an ardent Taoist. Manichaeism, the religion of many Uighurs, was first to be targeted. In 840, Wuzong ordered the execution of seventy Manichaean nuns, the destruction of Manichaean temples, and the confiscation of Manichaean lands. Five years later, in the great proscription of 845, the emperor struck at all foreign religions. Christian and Zoroastrian churches and temples were suppressed, and their priests forbidden from preaching, “in order that they may no longer corrupt” Chinese “simplicity and moral purity.”
Buddhism, above all, despite its sinicization and popularity among the Chinese, came under attack. The Buddhist church had grown increasingly decadent in the late Tang period, and whereas the imperial government was financially strained, the Buddhist monasteries were scandalously wealthy. Some of this wealth was enjoyed by corrupt monks, who broke the Buddhist vow of poverty to live in open luxury. Most of the church's wealth took the form of large monastic estates and precious metals cast as statues, bells, and other religious objects. Emperor Wuzong's proscription decree specifically accused Buddhism, which it labeled a “foreign religion,” of debilitating China, morally and economically.34
Partly to increase dwindling imperial revenues, Wuzong forcibly secularized 260,000 monks and nuns, returning them to the tax registers. More than 4,000 Buddhist monasteries and 40,000 smaller temples were shut down or converted to public use. Large properties belonging to the church were confiscated, and bronze statuaries melted down to make coins. But Wuzong's attempt to eradicate Buddhism proved unsuccessful. Many officials throughout the empire were sympathetic to Buddhism and quietly resisted the emperor's orders. Moreover, just two years after Wuzong's great proscription, a new emperor ascended the throne and reversed his predecessor's anti-Buddhist policies, restoring damaged temples and even building new monasteries. Although past its heyday, Buddhism in China would survive for centuries to come. By contrast, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity,