11-20-2019, 01:43 PM
(11-19-2019, 07:01 PM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 19-Nov-2019 World View: China's 'Middle Kingdom' religious cult
(11-19-2019, 08:22 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: > The Japanese have at least as racist a view of their own
> superiority, which has been around for centuries at a minimum. It
> hasn't prevented them from integrating with the west in terms of
> international organizations.
> For that matter, the Europeans and European descended Americans
> have just as racist a view of their own superiority, with the
> assumption that western democracy is the one true way.
> On the other hand, the CCP isn't even one century old.
> So which one is the problem? Racism, which everyone has, even if
> they rarely recognize it in themselves, or the CCP as a
> quasireligious cult?
As you know, I've spent thousands of hours studying Chinese history
going back millennia, and I've written thousands of articles and a
full length book.
So, Chinese history is drenched and permeated with this "Middle
Kingdom" concept -- there was the Kingdom of heaven, there was China
(the Middle Kingdom), and there were the barbarians (you and me and
the rest of the world). This is what I called a CCP "religious cult"
-- but not just since the CCP came to power, but back through every
government and every dynasty I've looked at for millennia.
Unless you read Chinese, you have at most a superficial understanding of China no matter how much you read in translated material.
One big difference -- Japan has been occupied only once in its history, and then by the least objectionable overlords in history. You know who. The Mongols, if they ever reached Japan, were shipwreck victims -- survival questionable. The Mongols brutalized China badly. Japan was strong enough to be a colonizer instead of a victim, and it was in better shape to establish capitalism, industry, and (until such was aborted) and inchoate democracy. And, yes, Japan was part of the brutalization of Chinese history.
If something went really bad in America, like a fascist regime, and I had to choose between Chinese and Japanese occupation, I would prefer Japanese. Of course I am no criminal, and I might be delighted to purge criminals into the Japanese penal system, which is very harsh due to thought reform. Political offenders in China get about the same treatment as drug dealers in Japan... don't deal drugs in Japan.
Quote:So it's true that Japan and the Europeans are "racist," especially
during a generational Crisis era, but nothing like the Chinese
religious cult. The Chinese religious cult is poisonous, and is
nothing like anything I've seen in any other country.
The Japanese thug regime of WWII was horrific, without any question. If the Nazis were more systematic in their cruelty, the Japanese of World War II were unruly in the extreme.
Quote:Just to take one example, I've also written a full length book on
Iran, and Iran has had Persian empires going back for millennia, just
like China, but there is absolutely nothing in Iran's history that
even vaguely resembles the Chinese "Middle Kingdom" cult. You might
look at what's going on in Iran today, and you might call the Persians
"racist," and you might even say that since the 1979 civil war Iran
has had its own religious cult, but once again, there is nothing in
Iran like the Chinese "Middle Kingdom" religious cult that has
permeated Chinese culture, not just since 1979, not just for a
century, but for almost three millennia.
The Communist Party of the People's Republic of China has gutted the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist heritage except for symbolism and the dictatorship. As such it is a fascist party in all but name. Iran under the theocracy is fascist.
I concede that the current CCP is an improvement over the Maoist madness, but democratization will be difficult in China. Maybe the Kuomintang made a huge mistake by, despite admiration for the United States, not establishing a federal system.
As you can expect from me I am ready for a cheap swipe at President Trump: he is gutting the American political heritage, reducing our Founding Fathers to icons in favor of what I would expect to develop into a "Christian and Corporate State" that fits the ideology of the TEA Party faction that has taken over the Republican Party and transformed it into semi-fascist Party.
Quote:I haven't written a whole book on Japan or Korea, but I've analyzed
them for thousands of articles, and I can say with absolute certainty
that while each may be "racist" in its own way, neither culture
contains anything remotely like the poisonous cult culture that China
has had for millennia. It's no exaggeration to say that this
poisonous culture makes China both unique in history and extremely
dangerous.
China is a multicultural empire with a highly-centralized regime. Japan and Korea are nearly mono-ethnic, and Korea is effectively split into two mono-cultural societies. Could democracy flourish in China? It seems to do so in Taiwan, and I see no indication that overseas Chinese are hostile to democracy where they are.
The danger of China is not so much its ideology; it is the soul-crushing dictatorship.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
