While John Stuart Mill criticized many aspects of British colonial policy and argued against the “direct subjection” of foreign peoples, his writings show a touching faith – typical for enlightened-leadership nationalism – that Great Britain, as the leading liberal nation, “could not fail to perform its civilizing role in an honourable way.” Even though he believed that “Britain could do perfectly well without her colonies,” it was better for the progress of civilization that she should keep them for the time being. For her imperial greatness enhanced “the moral influence, and weight in the councils of the world, of the Power which, of all in existence, best understands liberty.” Britain, moreover, “has attained to more of conscience and moral principle in its dealings with foreigners, than any other great nation seems either to conceive as possible, or to recognize as desirable.”

Marx and Engels disagreed. Engels called the Taiping rebellion of the 1850s-1860s “a popular war for the maintenance of Chinese nationality,” arguing that “the piratical policy of the British government has caused this universal outbreak of all Chinese against all foreigners.” He and Marx refused to romanticize what they saw as reactionary aspects of nationalist uprisings in Asia or Europe; in characteristic romance-bashing vein, Engels notes the Chinese movement’s “prejudice, stupidity, learned ignorance and pedantic barbarism.” Yet it still, he said, deserved support. For their “very fanaticism” showed that the Chinese had a new “consciousness of the supreme danger in which the old China is placed.” And “since the British treat them like barbarians,” the Chinese “cannot deny to them the full benefit of their barbarism.”

彼时彼刻恰如此时此刻