July 4th and the 250th Birthday of America
Two hundred fifty years ago, our Founding Fathers laid the foundation for a nation that would become a beacon to the world. George Washington was their leader.
Two hundred fifty years ago, our Founding Fathers laid the foundation for a nation that would become a beacon to the world. George Washington was their leader. His character shaped our nation. His archenemy, King George III of England, recognized his unique greatness. Upon learning that Washington planned to relinquish power, the King reportedly said: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”1
An Imperial minister and a prefect from China similarly compared him to the sage-kings of Chinese antiquity.
President Trump, during his state dinner with President Xi Jinping in Beijing on May 14, 2026, brought up the topic of the stone tablet. It was sent around 1853 by the Prefect of Ningbo (via missionary priests) and inscribed with praise from the Imperial minister’s writings.2 Trump highlighted it to demonstrate the deep historical friendship between America and China — just as President Clinton did on June 29, 1998, in his speech at Beijing University. This showed that the Chinese literati class admired the Republic of America so profoundly that, in less than 70 years, China itself became a republic. Washington was not only an inspiring figure to the American people but also a burning light for the Chinese literati class.
In the first essay of this blog, I shall compare Washington’s character with the sage-kings of Chinese antiquity from the perspective of “small virtue” (xiao–de) and “great virtue” (da–de). Washington may not have been spotless in every aspect of “little virtue,” but he loomed larger than any of his contemporaries in the greatness of character befitting a leader — so said, with grace and generosity, King George III of England.
Footnotes
- As recounted in historical discussions featured in Ken Burns’ documentary work on the Revolution and related conversations with Rick Atkinson. ↩
- This unnamed Prefect of Ningbo appears to have been a remarkably astute official. Well versed in the workings of the Qing bureaucracy, he must have been an admirer of George Washington. Moreover, through his contacts with Protestant missionaries, he was almost certainly familiar with many details of Washington’s life. Yet he could not simply present the tablet in his own name. To convey the Qing court’s sentiments, he needed the authority of a high-ranking imperial official. Wei Yuan’s Illustrated Gazetteer of the Maritime Kingdoms (Yinghuan Zhilüe) conveniently supplied the necessary language. However, it was probably the prefect himself who wished to present the tablet, not the Qing government acting officially. This may explain why the inscription does not read, “Presented by the Great Qing Empire to the United States of America,” but simply bears the words, “The Prefecture of Ningbo respectfully presents.” Perhaps he also feared that the United States might hesitate to accept what was, in effect, a personal gift from a local Chinese official. Accordingly, he arranged for Christian believers to erect the stone and for American Presbyterian missionaries to witness the dedication, thereby giving the entire undertaking an appropriately official appearance. This, however, is only a hypothesis on my part and awaits further historical verification. ↩