The Last Emperor of China
I have a new Wall Street Journal book review to share. The Last Emperor of China: Twilight in the Forbidden City is Paul French’s tragic account of deposed Qing emperor Puyi’s final two years living in Beijing’s Forbidden City palace, which overlapped with his first two years of marriage:
China’s last imperial wedding procession began at 3 a.m. on Dec. 1, 1922. Seated inside a palanquin decorated with gold and blue phoenixes, the 16-year-old bride, Wanrong, left her family’s courtyard home and was carried by a battalion of eunuch sedan-bearers through the frigid streets of Beijing. Crowds of onlookers lined the procession course: ordinary urbanites, former dynastic officials and foreign residents of the capital, all hoping to catch one final glimpse of imperial extravagance. The ethnically Manchu Qing dynasty had fallen a decade prior, but many in Beijing were willing to set aside their republican sentiments for a peek at the anachronistic ritual and glamour of the deposed emperor’s nuptials.
The procession brought Wanrong inside the Forbidden City palace complex, where she met Puyi, also 16 years old, for the first time. Her groom had ascended to the Qing throne at the age of 2, only to see his rule end four years later when a rebellion toppled the imperial system. Since 1912, Puyi had lived a secluded life inside the Forbidden City, head of the “Little Court” that continued to defer to him as the Son of Heaven. As Wanrong entered the palace grounds, she traded the life of a cosmopolitan schoolgirl for the gilded cage of a Manchu empress. She had no idea that within two years she and Puyi would be cast out of the Forbidden City and their lives turned upside-down. READ MORE (gift link)
Reading French’s book naturally sent me back to my own memories of visiting the Forbidden City, and I pulled out the photo albums from my first trip there in the spring of 2005.
I’ve also reviewed several of Paul French’s previous books—all of that writing is collected in this post.
Thanks for joining me this week. 📚
Recommendations
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Jeremy A. Murray, “What Went Right for Beijing? Three new books reconsider China’s authoritarian resurgence.”
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James Palmer, “Huang Resigns from Nvidia” — I’ve largely skipped the in-depth articles about Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged PRC spy; I feel like I’ve gotten the gist of it from reading headlines and Bluesky posts. Here, Foreign Policy journalist Palmer provides a helpful overview of the whole debacle, and the potential fallout on U.S.-China relations, in this free issue of his China Brief newsletter.
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Featured photo: Beijing’s Forbidden City, as seen from Jingshan Hill on a smoggy day, in spring 2005.
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