In Chinese mythology, the king of Yelang—a minor kingdom in southwest China during the Han dynasty—is portrayed as a ruler who thought that he was the most powerful man on earth. He wasn’t, of course. The point of the myth is that this petty tyrant had an outrageously exaggerated sense of his and his kingdom’s importance in the world order of his time.
The story now figures in Chinese culture as a cautionary tale, one that draws attention to the ubiquitous tendency toward parochial arrogance—to the view that one’s own provincial kingdom is somehow at the center of “all under heaven.”
This famous story aptly captures the essence of Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly’s recent visit to China.
Presented with the opportunity to engage with her Chinese counterpart, the minister had a choice: She could either spend her time negotiating some of the practical issues at the heart of the fractured Sino-Canadian relationship, or she could pretend that Ottawa actually had something significant and important to say about global and regional security issues—something that Beijing would be interested in hearing and that might even shape China’s foreign and security policy.
As with the story of Yelang, it seems that Joly might have taken the route of parochial arrogance.
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