BEIJING ¨C From the moment he launched his campaign for president, Donald Trump compared the barrier he wanted to build along the U.S. southern border to China¡¯s Great Wall. With the U.S. government now shuttered by the standoff over funding Trump¡¯s wall, both he and his Democratic opponents might want to take a closer look at the Chinese fortification ¡ª and why exactly it failed.
The Great Wall visited by tourists today is the handiwork of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was primarily constructed in the mid-to-late 16th century. The common perception is that the wall was conceived as a single, massive infrastructure project to protect China¡¯s tumultuous northern border from foreign invaders. It was nothing of the sort. The Great Wall was built to a great degree by default, by a political system too paralyzed by infighting to come up with anything better.
Border security had been a preoccupation of China¡¯s imperial court from its earliest days. ¡°Barbarians¡± from the northern steppe ¡ª whether Xiongnu, Turk, Jurchen, Mongol or other ¡ª routinely threatened the Middle Kingdom. Some, such as Genghis Khan¡¯s Mongols in the 13th century, managed to overrun the entire empire.
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