Napoleon: "China is a sleeping lion in the East. Once it wakes up, it will surely shock the world." The second half of the sentence is "There is a sleeping lion in the East. Thank God, let him continue to sleep."

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The meaning of this sentence is: China’s development potential is endless, and once China rises, it will pose a great threat to other countries.

The background of this statement:

According to "The Biography of Napoleon", there was a Chinese gardener with pigtails on St. Helena Island (I don’t know how a Chinese came to the island from a remote island) whom Napoleon met several times during his walks. Every time this Chinese gardener saw Napoleon, he always bowed respectfully from a distance, which made Napoleon have a good impression of him.

Once, Napoleon met this Chinese gardener again. Then Napoleon and his entourage started from the topic of the Chinese gardener and talked about China. Napoleon sighed about this mysterious country in the East: "China is a sleeping lion. Once it awakens, it will shock the world!" His entourage remembered his words again.

Extended information

It is said that Napoleon only said "China is a sleeping lion" and did not say "once it wakes up it will shock the world." The way Europeans, especially the French, speak, they like to use some metaphorical and romantic ways of speaking. He can say that China is a sleeping lion, he can also say that Japan is a napping cheetah, and Thailand is drinking. A drunken elephant is like a tiger that hasn’t eaten in three days. It's all about an overly rhetorical and romantic mouth.

Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte/Italian: Napoleone Buonaparte, August 15, 1769 - May 5, 1821), Napoléon I, was born in Cologne Signora, a great French military strategist and politician in the 19th century, and the founder of the First French Empire. He successively served as the First French Revolutionary and First Consul of France (1799-1804) and the First French Emperor (1804-1815).

Napoleon’s words about “China’s sleeping lion will shake the world when it wakes up” have been rumored for many years and have become almost a household name. Many literati and scholars use this sentence to make articles. Some use it to review the corruption and decline of the Qing Dynasty and to reflect on China's centuries of weakness and the pain of history; some cheer for this "sleeping lion" to have awakened; others use it to Napoleon's famous sayings are regarded as the originator of today's "China threat theory", and he criticized the French emperor who has been dead for nearly two hundred years.