The capture of a Chinese Imperial Dragon Standard at the Battle
of Chusan during the First Opium War. Painting by Malcolm
Greensmith. Malcolm Greensmith Collection/The Image Works  Every
July, amid festivities and fireworks, the U.S. and France mark
their birth as nations. Accustomed as we are in the West to
histories that begin with triumph—the signing of the Declaration
of Independence, the storming of the Bastille—it may seem
strange that China, the fast-rising dynamo of the East, marks
the beginning of its journey to modern nationhood in a very
different way: with the shock of unexpected defeat and the loss
of national greatness.  Many Chinese date the start of their
modern history to Aug. 11, 1842, when the Qing Dynasty, by
signing the Treaty of Nanjing, capitulated to Great Britain in
order to end the disastrous First Opium War (1839-42). It was
from this and many other subsequent defeats that China's
political elites—including the most progressive 20th-century
reformers and revolutionaries—wove an enti