Let us Understand the Chinese - II

The Strategic Issues & International Relations Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to India's security environment, her strategic outlook on global affairs and as well as the effect of international relations in the Indian Subcontinent. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
Post Reply
ankitash
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 64
Joined: 15 Jan 2011 03:12

Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by ankitash »

Link to older thread http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... =12&t=3992

I don't know why the other thread was archived.

Pakistanis IMVHO have been overanalyzed, there is an active thread on understanding USA too. We should devote more resources to understand the Chinese mindset.
ankitash
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 64
Joined: 15 Jan 2011 03:12

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by ankitash »

Some insightful posts from the older thread
There are the following main races in China
Pure Han - found north of the yangtze
The Yue

Han chronicles circa 100AD ,speak of the Yue people
Yunnan = Yue-nan
The Yue are referred to as the 100 Yue
The Yue inhabited the land south of the Yangtze river

NanYu = Southern Yue, later became Vietnam

DNA testing of the Yue shows that their Paternal DNA is the same as the Northern Han, but the maternal DNA is of the Yue
Meaning that during Han times, the Hans invaded the Yue lands and killed off most of the Yue men and raped the Yue women
Rather like the mestizo race in Mexico


Most of the Yue now call themselves Han, for political purposes
and most have assimilated

The Yue complex includes ,Vietnamese , Khmer, Thai, Hmong, Lao, and even the Ahom People of Assam who emigrated from Yunnan in 1200AD to escape Han colonialism

Per RC.Majumdar, until 1400AD, there were hindu kingdoms in Yunan

Tang chroniclers report finding 'Shendu" ( Hindu ) colonies in Yunan circa 800AD

Yunan is the region just north of Myanmar

The Yue mix-breeds are perhaps 35% of the chinese population
Yue areas include, Shanghai, Hongkong, Canton, etc

Inside current Yunan province, 40% of the populace is non-Han

Then we have mongoloid pastoralists
Tibetans, Mongols and Manchus
Mongols and Manchus adopted Tibetan Lamaism as their religion
Tibetan Lamaism, is a late version of Mahayanism and is very close to hinduism

Xinjiang
The ancient language of this is Tocharian, a sanskritic language
There were hindu kingdoms here until 700AD, which got destroyed by Han and islamic invaders
The Uighers are a mix of muslim pastoralists, consisting of Tajik ( persian ), Turks etc
The real religion of the Chinese , Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese is Confucianism
On top of this there is an overlay of Mahayanist buddhism

Buddhists in china are about 10% only
Japan has an overlay of shintoism and buddhism

The political aspect of confucianism is called Legalism
The legalist books are like chanakya, in short how to expand the borders

In both korea and china, there have been several persecutions of buddhists in historic times

Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia on the other hand have Theravada buddhism
I was thinking of starting such a thread but from a different point of chinese thinking.


For Chinese all agreements are just an "understanding" which is subject to change with time, space and context. It is uncouth of a weaker party to even insist on letter or spirit of the agreeement.



Unlike Indians "Jaan Jayee par vachhan na jayee"
Islam is a political doctrine disguised as a religion
Confucianism is a pure political doctrine
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

An interview of the learned scholar shrI Lokeshchandra son of AchArya raghuvIra about China and Chinese culture: http://t.co/LewM3fZg
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »



MAO TSE-TUNG ON LEGALISM AND LORD SHANG

HOW CHINA'S ANCIENT PAST INFLUENCED ITS FUTURE

This, Mao's earliest known writing, is an essay he wrote in June 1912 when, after leaving the army, he had enrolled as a first-year student at the middle school in Changsha. His teacher thought so highly of this effort that he marked it for circulation among all members of the class; he also singled out many passages with circles, indicating approval of Mao's style, and dots, registering appreciation of the content.

The essay reveals an early admiration on Mao's part for the harsh ruling system of Chinese Legalism, a system Mao seems to have drawn inspiration from in developing his own political philosophy.

"HOW SHANG YANG ESTABLISHED CONFIDENCE BY THE MOVING OF A POLE"[1]

(June 1912)

When I read the Shi ji about the incident of how Shang Yang established confidence by the moving of a pole, I lament the foolishness of the people of our country, I lament the wasted efforts of the rules of our country, and I lament the fact that for several thousand years the wisdom of the people has not been developed and the country has been teetering on the brink of a grievous disaster. If you don't believe me, please hear out what I have to say.

Laws and regulations are instruments for procuring happiness. If the laws and regulations are good, the happiness of our people will certainly be great. Our people fear only that the laws and regulations will not be promulgated, or that, if promulgated, they will not be effective. It is essential that every effort be devoted to the task of guaranteeing and upholding such laws, never ceasing until the objective of perfection is obtained. The government and the people are mutually dependent ans interconnected, so how can there be any reason for distrust? On the other hand, if the laws and regulations are not good, then not only will there be no happiness to speak of, but there will also be a threat of harm, and our people should exert their utmost efforts to obstruct such laws and regulations. Even though you want us to have confidence, why should we have confidence? But how can one explain the fact that Shang Yang encountered the opposition of so large a proportion of the people of Qin?

Shang Yang's laws were good laws. If you look today at the four thousand-odd years for which our country's history has been recorded, and the great political leaders who have pursued the welfare of the country and the happiness of the people, is not Shang Yang one of the very first on the list? During the reign of Duke Xiao, the Central Plain was in great turmoil, with wars being constantly waged and the entire country was exhausted beyond description. Therefore, Shang Yang sought to achieve victory over all the other states and unify the Central Plain, a difficult enterprise indeed. Then he published his reforming decrees, promulgating laws to punish the wicked and rebellious, in order to preserve the rights of the people. He stressed agriculture and weaving, in order to increase the wealth of the people, and forcefully pursued military success, in order to increase the prestige of the state. He made slaves of the indigent and idle, in order to put an end to waste. This amounted to a great policy such as our country had never had before. How could the people not fear and trust him, so that he had to use the scheme of setting up the pole to establish confidence? From this we realize the wasted efforts of those who wield power. From this, we can see the stupidity of the people of our country. From this we can understand the origins of our people's ignorance and darkness during the past several millennia, a tragedy that has brought our country to the brink of destruction.

Nevertheless, at the beginning of anything out of the ordinary, the mass of the people always dislike it. The people being like this, and the law being like that (i.e., the people clinging to their old ways, and the law being directed toward radical change), what is there to marvel about? I particularly fear, however, that if this story of establishing confidence by moving the pole should come to the attention of the various civilized people of the East and the West, they will laugh uncontrollably so that they have to hold their stomachs, and make a derisive noise with their tongues. Alas, I had best say no more.

Source: Introductory note and text translation from Stuart R. Schram, ed., Mao's Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings, 1912-1949, vol. 1. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1992), pp. 5-6.

[1] The tale to which the title of Mao's essay refers is the following:

"After the decree [incorporating his whole set of sweeping reforms] was drawn up Shang Yang did not at once publish it, fearing that the people did not have confidence in him. He therefore had a pole thirty feet long placed near the south gate of the capital. Assembling the people, he said that he would give ten measures of gold to anyone who could move it to the north gate. The people marveled at this, but no one ventured to move it. Shang Yang then said, 'I will give fifty measures of gold to anyone who can move it.' One man then moved it, and Shang Yang immediately gave him fifty measures of gold, to demonstrate that he did not practice deception."

This translation, cited by Schram, is from H.G. Creel, Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-tung (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1954), pp. 153-54.

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaste ... 20Yang.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Fei

The Han Feizi:

http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/saxon/ser ... =bilingual
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by ramana »

Good idea, I was going to start a thread on an all points of view analysis on China from Indian scholar/experts.This thread can be for other sources.
ankitash
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 64
Joined: 15 Jan 2011 03:12

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by ankitash »

There were glaring asymmetries in the way India and China looked at each other, Perhaps as a result of Western scholarship, English educated Indians had developed an “orientalist” view of China. To Western scholars, the “Orient” or Asia was a cultural continuum, particularly because of the Buddhist connection. In the English educated Indian mind, however, it became “Indianisation” of China. This perspective gave a distorted picture of India’s place in China’s world-view.

In reality, Buddhism started on the periphery of the Chinese society and by the time it acquired a large number of adherents, it had become so transformed that it ceased to be Indian. Politically, Buddhism was strongly opposed by the Confucian mandarins who thought it subverted Chinese values. The much talked about “missions” were from and to the peripheries of both societies and by the early fifteenth century they had stopped altogether. But westernised consciousness in India took such contacts to be between nations.[11] Hence the myth of India and China being Asian sister-countries[12] a myth given currency not only by Nehru but many others.[13]

The Chinese communists also adopted the myth during the “bhai-bhai” days.[14] But their ancestors rarely ever showed any interest in India whatsoever except to acknowledge the remote origins of Buddhism in the “Western Heaven”.
[15] Until the early fifties, Chinese scholars had not produced a single work on India as a country.[16] “India” entered Chinese consciousness as the land from which soldiers of the British Indian Army came to loot and kill; it was from where opium came.[17] All state-to-state contacts were with British India where Indians were not the decision-makers.

They saw Indians in China as “zou gou” (running dogs) of the British. Through translated works, they came to know that Buddhism had disappeared from India, that India had first gone under Islamic rule and then western “barbarian” rule.[18] Public affairs, which were central to Chinese thinking, were mismanaged by Indians. Chinese thinkers when debating the Western challenge to China cited India as a negative example. They would deal with the West in their own way, decidedly not as India had done.[19]
http://ignca.nic.in/ks_41046.htm
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

The operation of the chIna-s is understood poorly by most outsiders. The old rAjan jAvAharlAl was an example of this. Starting with the notorious Shi Huang Di of the Chin, they developed a system of cloaking the inner political infrastructure of legalism with outer coats. These coats are used both to fool their own people as well as outsiders depending on the situation. This inner legalism-outer coat model also allowed the chIna-s to imitate the dominant geo-cultural trends of the age while retaining an inner control and identity via the legalist structure. Originally it was the outer sheen of Confucianism coating legalism, while in the Sui/Tang period the outer coat included the bauddha mata while retaining same the inner pattern. In more recent times this outer coat has included socialism and more recently “Westernism”. This duality allows the chIna-s to interact and participate successfully with the dominant geo-cultural trend while retaining a certain inner identity.This inner identity is also projected inside the sphere of the dominant geo-cultural trend by careful image building. One striking example is that of the British biochemist Joseph Needham who was attracted to the chIna-s due to the shared common outer core of socialism. But he was soon used by the chIna-s to project an enormously positive image of their intellectual achievements to the world. While there is no question of the genuine achievements of the chIna-s, it is clear that Needham has exaggerated and over-attributed stuff to the chIna-s. Even today in the US the government pays to have exhibitions and seminars on ancient chIna medicine. In contrast, other civilizations with comparable achievements are typically denigrated by the west and negatively portrayed. Another aspect of this image building has been the acceptance of the chIna-s as equals or superiors by the western system. This aspect is based on a variety of factors such as: 1) the chIna-s exploiting the mlechCha fascination for shveta-tvacha and presenting themselves as shveta-charman-s too. 2) The chIna-s trying to project themselves as having higher IQ than the mlechCha-s. 3) Taking up mlechCha names and emulating aspects of mlechCha culture to make the mlechCha-s feel comfortable with them. As a consequence the mlechCha-s have gained respect for the chIna-s and have a positively larger than life image of them. Finally, the mlechCha-s have in quest of an unnecessarily lavish lifestyle shipped away much of their production and debt to the chIna-s, creating a dependency. All this image-building has made the chIna-s themselves feel a sense of superiority and entitlement to world dominance.

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... opolitics/
Quote:
China’s demographics make works against independence of the it’s outlying imperial territories. Han Chinese constitute 93% of the population and in any crisis can simply overwhelm the minorities
Well the leveraging of the Han population is one of China's most important traits. It is not merely demographic warfare but there is an additional cultural dimension associated with it. To understand this we need to take a look at China and India's historical dynamics.

The similarities:
-Both are ancient civilizations with a large base of urban populations with extensive cultural adaptation for technological capabilities.

-Both India and China have faced ferocious assaults from invaders from the North/NorthWest and have been defeated repeatedly by the invaders and conquered.

-Both have reasonable natural resources.

But then the differences creep in:

India while constantly exporting new ideas failed to project power. India culturally defeated China in Tibet (My post in the earlier History thread) but China still militarily overran Tibet. While China was beaten by invaders it always took the fight back to them. Now it occupies the very lands of these erstwhile invaders. Tai T'sung's ideal of military imperalism was never forgotten by the Chinese.

The second point is that the Chinese Han population has been a master of internalization of external influence. For example recently a China acquaintence provided me with a chinese version of Hindu deity kArttikeya. The deity was portrayed in a thoroughly Chinese form with slanting eyes etc. But the same deity in Java or Cambodia would be quite Indian. So just as the Indian ideas were completely Sinicized, Marxism too was completely internalized and blended with Tai T'sung's spirit. It is this trait that makes the Han demographic expansion really potent.

Unfortunately India faced Abrahmic invaders, unlike China. I wonder if Chinese civilization would survived the way it has if Timur's intended invasion of China had fructified (Imagine the horrors of an Islamic China ).

In short the differences between India and China are merely a function of their differential attitudes towards using their demographic power.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 896#p23896
Thanks Akash, but evidently I did not put the point accross well enough:
Quote:
Originally posted by Carl:
Didn't India also assimilate earlier pre-Islamic intruders?
Yes, there is no disagreement here. The point I was trying to make was per say not about assimilation in our own territory but demographic war fare outside our center of gravity.

Quote:
And didn't India also 'project power' in the north-west and south-east?
Agreed, we did project power on many occassions in history, and even against China. But these attempts were not consolidated by taking over occupied territories. A good example is the failure to take back what now forms the Terrorist state and Kashmir from the Moslem invaders. The difference I was trying to bring out is that we did not deposit our populations from the doabs or the banks of the Kaviri in captured territory the way, the fertile Han population is deposited all over the world. When we Indianized central Asia and the Far East in the historical past, there was a core Indian elite but the local population was infused to a very small extant with Indian genes.

By internalization of Marxism, I would say that the Chinas did not become brown Sahebs like many of us, but incorporated Marxism in their imperialistic dynastic world view.

Han China conciously reduced Indian and Iranian influences, however compatible and benign they were.


http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 900#p23900
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

The OP who said the "real" religion of Japanese is Confucianism is quiet mistaken.

Japanese have their own political thought & it differs in several key ways from Confucian thought, mainly about the position of the Tenno (Emperor) and the question of loyalty. They adopted several Confucian and Buddhist ideas but they never forgot that their first loyalty was to be to the Gods and the Emperor.

As Tokugawa Ieyasu puts it:
My body, and the bodies of others, being born in the Empire of the Gods, to accept unreservedly the teachings of other countries, - such as Confucian, Buddhist, or Taoist doctrines, - and to apply one's whole and undivided attention to them, would be, in short, to desert one's own master, and transfer one's loyalty to another. Is not this to forget the origin of one's being?

http://explorion.net/japan-attempt-inte ... ion?page=3
Japanese authors have always emphasized the "unbroken" imperial line as what makes Japan superior to others and loyalty to the Tenno is absolute.

Yoshida Shoin in his commentary on Mencius criticizes Mencius for suggesting that a "bad" emperor loses the mandate of heaven and can be overthrown. To him the Tenno is Tenno whether good or bad and had to be obeyed, otoh Mencius's theory could be applied to overthrow the corrupt Tokugawa Bakufu but the position of the Emperor is not negotiable.

Others belonging to the Kokugaku (National study) school made similar criticisms of Confucianism and China as did Japanese Confucianists (e.g. Yamaga Soko).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokugaku

In more modern times:
Early in the year a very severe attack was made upon Christianity by Professor Inoue Tetsujiro of the Imperial University. He wrote an article that appeared simultaneously in six Buddhist and one Unitarian magazine.

For a while it became the subject of controversy in all religious periodicals and to some extent in the secular papers. It was hailed with the greatest joy by Buddhists, and the ablest Christian writers busied themselves in replying to its charges. The following extracts from a synopsis given in the Japan Mail will show the spirit of the article:

“At the issuance of the Imperial Rescript, only Christians were opposed to it Buddhists, Confucianists, and Shintoists accepted it The Christians made defense that they did not oppose the Rescript but only its worship. This, however, was a mere pretense. Christians do not like the meaning of the Imperial words; they oppose loyalty and filial obedience, the ancient principles of ethics in Japan. Why? Some Christians are of course loyal and teach the Rescript in their churches, but they are not supported by the conservative faithful. Christians are divided into two classes; one class seeking to preserve their doctrine, which is hostile to Japan, the other trying to Japanize their Christianity in spite of the impossibility of doing so. In a word, Christianity is not adaptable to Japan. If it were, why should it be necessary to try to adapt it to the country? Christians do not worship any other than their one only God. Monotheism is like an absolute monarchy. It denies all other gods but it’s one. Polytheism is like a confederation of states; toleration of one with another prevails. Buddhism, which is polytheistic, has therefore had a warm and gentle history, but the history of Christianity has been intolerant and warlike. In Shinto also there are many gods; all Emperors are regarded as divine. Japanese ethics are the teachings left by the Emperors. Our nationality rests on this foundation. . . . Worship of the Emperor’s words is nothing difficult to a patriot. Christians have lost their patriotism unconsciously. They wonder at the patriotic devotion of others. They antagonize the present moral passion, and will violate the order and destroy the unity of the country. . . . The essence of the Imperial Rescript and Christianity are different. If the former is to guide national education, Christians must oppose it. If there are Christians who accept it, they either simply acquiesce and wait, or, if sincere, they have changed their relation to Christianity. The two powers, the Rescript and Christianity are not in harmony.”

http://historyofchristianityinjapan.wor ... jiro-1893/
Already in 1960 Mishima had written his short story Patriotism, in honour of the 1936 Ni ni Roku rebellion of army officers of the Kodo-ha faction who wished to strike at the Soviet Union in opposition to the rival Tosei-ha, who aimed to strike at Britain and other colonial powers. The Kodo-ha officers had mobilized 1,400 men and taken Tokyo. However, Emperor Hirohito ordered them to surrender.
The incident impressed itself on Mishima. In Patriotism the hero, a young officer, commits Hara-kiri, of which Mishima states: “It would he difficult to imagine a more heroic sight than that of the lieutenant at this moment.”
Mishima was again to write of the incident in his play Toka no Kiku and in his 1966 novel The Voices of the Heroic Dead. Here he criticizes the Emperor for betraying the Kodo-ha officers and for renouncing his divinity after the war as a betrayal of the war dead. Mishima combined these three works on the rebellion into a single volume called the Ni Ni Roku trilogy.
Mishima comments on the Trilogy and the rebellion:
Surely some God died when the Ni Ni Roku incident failed. I was only eleven at the time and felt little of it. But when the war ended, when I was twenty, a most sensitive age, I felt something of the terrible cruelty of the death of that God . . . the positive picture was my boyhood impression of the heroism of the rebel officers. Their purity, bravery, youth and death qualified them as mythical heroes; and their failures and deaths made them true heroes in this world . . . .
In early 1966, Mishima systemised his thoughts in an eighty-page essay entitled Eirei no Koe (The Voices of the Heroic Dead), after which he decided to create the Tatenokai (Shield Society). In this work he asks, “why did the Emperor have to become a human being.”
In an interview with a Japanese magazine that year, he upheld the imperial system as the only type suitable for Japan. All the moral confusion of the post-war era, he states, stems from the Emperor’s renunciation of his divine status. The move away from feudalism to capitalism and consequent industrialisation in the modern state causes relationships to be disrupted between individuals. Real love between a couple requires a third focus, the apex of a triangle embodied in the divinity of the Emperor.

http://www.counter-currents.com/2010/09/yukio-mishima/
On the god shelf below the staircase, alongside the tablet from the Great Ise Shrine, were set photographs of their Imperial Majesties, and regularly every morning , before leaving for duty, the lieutenant would stand with his wife at this hallowed place and together they would bow their heads low. The offering water was renewed each morning, and the sacred sprig of sasaki was always green and fresh. Their lives were lived beneath the solemn protection of the gods and were filled with an intense happiness which set every fiber in their bodies trembling.

- Yukio Mishima, Patriotism
It is important to understand these differences instead of clubbing countries together haphazardly.
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

Qin Shi Huang: The ruthless emperor who burned books
By Carrie Gracie
BBC News, Beijing

There are two Chinese leaders whose final resting place is thronged by tourists - Mao Zedong and Qin Shi Huang, the emperor of terracotta soldier fame. But they also have another thing in common - Qin taught Mao a lesson in how to persecute intellectuals.

Chairman Mao Zedong has been dead for nearly 40 years but his body is still preserved in a mausoleum in Tiananmen Square.

The square is the symbolic heart of Chinese politics - red flags and lanterns flank the portrait of Mao on Tiananmen Gate where he proclaimed the People's Republic in 1949.

But the red emperor owed the idea of this vast country to an empire builder who lived 2,000 years earlier.

"We wouldn't have a China without Qin Shi Huang," says Harvard University's Peter Bol. "I think it's that simple."

The Qin was really the first state to really go into total mobilisation for war”

In many ways - climate, lifestyle, diet - someone from northern Scotland and southern Spain have as much in common as someone from China's frozen north and the tropical south.

Before Qin, China's multiple states were diverging, rather than converging, says Bol.

"They have different calendars, their writing was starting to vary… the road widths were different, so the axle width is different in different places."


He was king of the small state of Qin by the age of 13, and started as he meant to go on - removing one possible threat to his throne by having his mother's lover executed, along with his entire clan.

A hundred years later the famous historian Sima Qian said of the young king:

"With his puffed-out chest like a hawk and voice of a jackal, Qin is a man of scant mercy who has the heart of a wolf. When he is in difficulty he readily humbles himself before others, but when he has got his way, then he thinks nothing of eating others alive.

"If the Qin should ever get his way with the world, then the whole world will end up his prisoner."

Qin Shi Huang built a formidable fighting machine. His army is easy to imagine because he left us the famous terracotta warriors in Xian.

"The Qin was really the first state to really go into total mobilisation for war," says Peter Bol.

"It really saw the work of its population being fighting and soldiering to win wars and expand."

One by one, Qin Shi Huang defeated neighbouring states, swallowed their territory into his growing empire and enslaved and castrated their citizens.

"Every time he captured people from another country, he castrated them in order to mark them and made them into slaves," says Hong Kong University's Xun Zhou.

"There were lots and lots of eunuchs in his court. He was a ruthless tyrant."

But still, no Qin, no China.

"From Mongolia down to Hong Kong, and from the sea right the way across to Sichuan - it's an enormous territory," says Frances Wood, curator of the Chinese collection at the British Library.

"It's the equivalent of the whole Roman Empire added together, if you like. And you've got one man ruling all of it."

Peter Bol credits Qin Shi Huang not only with creating China, but with establishing the world's first truly centralised bureaucratic empire.

"He set out to unify the procedures and customs and policies of all the states," says Bol.

"Writing is reunified. And the fact that Chinese writing remains unified after this point has everything to do with Qin Shi Huang. The axle widths are now all the same, so all the roads may now be passable.

"He also goes around to famous mountains, where they erect steles, stone monuments, which say that the Emperor's realm is now totally unified.

"His idea was that every area should have an able administrator, who was armed with rule books and who would look after the people. The people all knew what the rules were," says Wood.

"He collected taxes, he administered justice and he had trained bureaucrats all over China. I think that's an extraordinary achievement."


Despite this, it is the stories of his bloodletting that historian Xun Zhou grew up with.

"He got rid of anybody who showed opposition or didn't agree with him. He was paranoid. He was constantly in fear of how he could control this vast new territory with so many cultures and so many different groups of people," she says.

And he feared the inkbrush as much as the sword.

"The scholars were talking behind his back," says Xun Zhou. "And of course being a paranoid person, he didn't like that. So he ordered the arrest of over 400 scholars and buried them."

Qin Shi Huang had no truck with China's traditions of Confucian scholarship - his fear of the intellectual was deep-rooted.

"Ideologically speaking, the Qin make the argument, 'We don't want to hear people criticise the present by referring to the past,'" says Peter Bol.


"The past is irrelevant. History is irrelevant. And so you have the burning of books, you have the burying of scholars, of scholarly critics."

Bol sees parallels with today's China. Like Qin Shi Huang, the Communist Party tolerates debate about tactics - but not about the general direction of travel, he says.

"They argue that it is the only possible approach to governing China."

Historian Xun Zhou agrees. "In Communist China, we adopted the imperial model. The emperor is absolute. And the only way to rule such a vast empire is ruthlessness," she says.


In fact in 1958, Mao himself made the connection between himself and Qin Shi Huang.

"He buried 460 scholars alive - we have buried 46,000 scholars alive," he said in a speech to party cadres. "You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold."


Every night, Mao's body inside its crystal coffin reportedly goes down into its earthquake-proof vault in an elevator, and every morning it is brought back up again.

It is probably something Qin Shi Huang would have appreciated. But I am not sure he would have been impressed with Mao's mausoleum.

His includes a life-size terracotta army, a full orchestra with instruments and a river landscape with cranes, swans and geese - and archaeologists have barely begun the excavation.

"In a sense the man has disappeared behind the tomb," says Frances Wood.

"And of course the size of the buried army, the size of the tomb enclosure - which seems to expand daily - does rather overcome anything that one knows about him in reality. You've got this great physical presence now."

Both Qin Shi Huang and Mao live on powerfully in China's imagination, but China is bigger than its emperors.

When Qin Shi Huang died, his dynasty lasted only months. It was the idea of China which survived. And when Mao died, his successors said the radiance of his thought would live forever.

But the Mao suits are gone and despite the crowds at his mausoleum, Maoism is barely mentioned today.

Translation of Records of the Grand Historian by Burton Watson.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19922863
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

A Han nationalist site which supports Legalism:

Legalist Personages
http://www.xinfajia.net/english/list/22.html

Legalist Classics
http://www.xinfajia.net/english/list/21.html

A documentary on Shi Huangdi:

member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

The overarching principle is the identity of the army with the peasant populace, which enables the entire state to be mobilized for war: "The means by which a ruler encourages his people are offices and rank; the means by which a state arises are agriculture and war." This vision figures throughout the book, which constantly discusses how to encourage people to devote themselves to agriculture and warfare - the rewards that will result from doing so and the disasters that would flow from failure to do so.

People's desires being myriad and profit coming from a single [source], if the people are not united there is no way to attain their desires. Therefore you unite them, and then their energy will be concentrated. Their energy being concentrated, you will be strong. If they are strong and you use their energy, you will be doubly strong. Therefore the state that can both create energy and destroy it is called "a state that attacks the enemy," and it is inevitably strong. Block up all private means by which they can gratify their ambitions, open up a single gate for them to attain their desires, make it so that the people must first do what they hate and only then attain their desires, and then their energy will be great. 32

When agriculture is the sole source of energy (the "single gate"), and warfare its only outlet, the people will risk mutilation and death ("what they hate") to serve the state. By concentrating all the people's efforts on these two activities, the state produces the energy and manpower it needs to fight. The effective ruler gets the people to "forget their lives for the sake of their superiors" and makes them "delight in war" so that they "act like hungry wolves on seeing meat."33 All other human values or activities become threats to the state order.

These threats are variously described as "lice" or "evils": the "six lice" (longevity, good food, beauty, love, ambition, and virtuous conduct); the "ten evils" (rites, music, odes, history, virtue, moral culture, filial piety, brotherly love, integrity, and sophistry); or the "twelve lice" (rites, music, odes, history, moral culture, filial piety, brotherly love, sincerity, benevolence, duty, criticism of the army, and being ashamed of fighting.34 Most of these vices were virtues in philosophical texts, especially those studied by Confucian scholars. A repeated target in the Book of Lord Shang is the practice of granting office or patronage to scholars, which seduces people away from agriculture and war.

Although the Book of Lord Shang is sometimes described as a program for a totalitarian bureaucracy, officialdom itself is an object of suspicion and critique-yet another mode of escaping from agriculture and war...

Source: The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han by Mark Edward Lewis
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

Location:Home → Legalist Classics
THE BOOK OF LORD SHANG (商君书) 18: Chap 1, 3: Agriculture and War
By Anonymous
View [913]
2009-05-13 01:44:50



(Translated by J. J.-L. DUYVENDAK (1889-1954))

CHAPTER I

Paragraph 3
Agriculture and War

p.185 The means whereby a ruler of men encourages the people are office and rank; the means whereby a country is made prosperous are agriculture and war. Now those who seek office and rank, never do so by means of agriculture and war, but by artful words and empty doctrines. That is called “wearying the people”. *6b The country of those who weary their people will certainly have no strength, and the country of those who have no strength will certainly be dismembered. Those who are capable in organizing a country teach the people that office and rank can only be acquired through one opening, and thus, there being no rank without office, the state will do away with fine speaking, with the result that the people will be simple; being simple, they will not be licentious. The people, seeing that the highest benefit comes only through one opening, will strive for concentration (611b), and having concentration, will not be negligent in their occupations. When the people are not negligent in their occupations, they will have much strength, and when they have much strength the state will be powerful.

But now the people within the territory all say that by avoiding agriculture and war, office and rank may be acquired, with the result that eminent men all change their occupations, p.186 to apply themselves to the study of the Odes and History and to follow improper standards (612); on the one hand, they obtain prominence, and on the other, they acquire office and rank.

Insignificant individuals (613) will occupy themselves with trade and will practise arts and crafts, all in order to avoid agriculture and war, thus preparing a dangerous condition for the state (614). Where the people are given to such teachings, it is certain that such a country will be dismembered. # The way to organize a country well is, even though the granaries are filled, not to be negligent in agriculture, and even though the country is large and its population numerous, to have no licence of speech. (This being so), the people will be simple and have concentration; the people being simple and having concentration, then office arid rank cannot be obtained by artfulness. If these cannot be obtained by *7a artfulness, then wickedness will not originate; and if wickedness does not originate, the ruler will not be suspicious.

p.187 # But now the people within the territory, and those who hold office and rank, see that it is possible to obtain, from the court, office and rank by means of artful speech and sophistry. Therefore, there is no permanency in office and rank, with the result that at court they deceive their ruler and, retiring from court, they think of nothing but of how to realize their selfish interests and thus sell power (615) to their inferiors. Now deceiving the ruler and being concerned for their own interests is not to the advantage of the state, but those who thus act, do so for the sake of rank and emolument; selling power to inferiors is not proper for a loyal minister, but those who thus act do so for the sake of insignificant presents.

Consequently all the lower officials, who hope for promotion, say: — If we send many presents, we may obtain the higher office which we desire. They say too: — To strive for promotion, without serving superiors with presents, is like setting a cat as bait for a rat (616) — it is absolutely hopeless. To strive for promotion by serving superiors with sincerity is like wishing to climb a crooked tree by holding on to a broken rope — it is even more hopeless. If, to attain promotion, these two methods are out of the question, what else can we do, in striving for it, but bring the masses below us into action and obtain presents, for the purpose of serving our superiors (617) ? *7b

p.188 The people say: We till diligently, first to fill the public granaries, and then to keep the rest for the nourishment of our parents; for the sake of our superiors we forget our love of life, and fight for the honour of the ruler and for the peace of the country. But if the granaries are empty, the ruler debased and the family poor, then it is best to seek office. Let us then combine relatives and friends and think of other plans. Eminent men will apply themselves to the study of the Odes and History, and pursue these improper standards (618); insignificant individuals will occupy themselves with trade, and practise arts and crafts, all in order to avoid agriculture and war (619).

Where the people are given to such teachings, how can the grain be anything but scarce, and the soldiers anything but weak ?

The way to administer a country well, is for the law for the officials to be clear; therefore one does not rely on intelligent and thoughtful men. The ruler makes the people singleminded, and therefore they will not scheme for selfish profit. Then the strength of the country will be consolidated. A country where the strength has been consolidated, is powerful, but a country that loves talking is dismembered. Therefore is it said: « If there are a thousand people engaged in agriculture and war, and only one in the Odes and History, p.189 and clever sophistry, then those thousand will all be remiss in agriculture and war; *8a if there are a hundred people engaged in agriculture and war and only one in the arts and crafts, then those hundred will all be remiss in agriculture and war (620).

The country depends on agriculture and war for its peace, and likewise the ruler, for his honour. Indeed, if the people are not engaged in agriculture and war, it means that the ruler loves words and that the officials have lost consistency of conduct. If there is consistency of conduct in officials, the country is well-governed (621); and if single-mindedness is striven after, the country is rich; to have the country both rich and well governed is the way to attain supremacy. Therefore is it said: « The way to supremacy is no other than by creating single-mindedness !

However, nowadays, the ruler, in his appointments, takes into consideration talent and ability and cleverness and intelligence, and thus clever and intelligent men watch for the likes and dislikes of the ruler, so that officials are caused to transact their business in a way which is adapted to the ruler’s mind. As a result there is no consistency of conduct in the officials, the state is in disorder and there is no concentration. Sophists (are honoured) (622) and there is no law. Under such circumstances, how can the people’s affairs p.190 be otherwise than many and how can the land be otherwise than fallow ?

If, in a country, there are the following ten things: odes and history, rites and music, virtue and the cultivation thereof, benevolence and integrity, sophistry and intelligence (623), then the ruler has no one whom he can employ for defence and warfare. If a country is governed by means of these ten things, it will be dismembered as soon as an enemy approaches, and even if no enemy approaches, it will be poor. But if a country banishes these ten things, enemies will not dare to approach, and even if they should, they would be driven back.

When it mobilizes its army and attacks, it will gain victories; when it holds the army in reserve and does not attack, it will be rich. A country that loves strength makes assaults with what is difficult, and thus it will be successful. A country that loves sophistry makes assaults with what is easy, and thus it will be in danger (624).

Therefore sages and intelligent princes are what they are, not because they are able to go to the bottom of all things, but because they understand what is essential in all things. Therefore the secret of their administration of the country lies in nothing else than in their examination of what is essential. But now, those who run a state for the most part overlook what is essential, and the discussions at court, on government, are confused, and efforts are made to displace each other in them; thus the prince is dazed by talk, officials p.191 confused by words, and the people become lazy and will not farm. The result is that all the people within the territory change and become fond of sophistry, take pleasure in study, pursue trade, practise arts and crafts, and shun agriculture and war; and so in this manner (the ruin of the country) will not be far off. When the country has trouble, then because studious people hate law, and merchants are clever in bartering and artisans are useless, the state will be easily destroyed.

Indeed, if farmers are few, and those who live idly on others are many, then the state will be poor and in a dangerous condition. Now, for example, if various kinds of caterpillars (625), which are born in spring and die in autumn, appear only once, *9a the result is that the people have no food for many years.

Now, if one man tills and a hundred live on him, it means that they are like a great visitation of caterpillars. Though there may be a bundle of the Odes and

History in every hamlet and a copy in every family, yet it is useless for good government, and it is not a method whereby this condition of things may be reversed. Therefore the ancient kings made people turn back to agriculture and war. For this reason is it said: « Where a hundred men farm and one is idle, the state will attain supremacy; where ten men farm and one is idle, the state will be strong; where half farms and half is idle, the p.192 state will be in peril (626).

That is why those who govern the country well, wish the people to take to agriculture. If the country does not take to agriculture, then in its quarrels over authority with the various feudal lords, it will not be able to maintain itself, because the strength of the multitude will not be sufficient. Therefore the feudal lords vex its weakness and make use of its state of decadence; and if the territory is invaded and dismembered, without the country being stirred to action, it will be past saving.

A sage knows what is essential in administrating a country, and so he induces the people to devote their attention to agriculture. If their attention is devoted to agriculture, then they will be simple, and being simple, they may be made correct. Being perplexed, it will be easy to direct them (627); being trustworthy, they may be used for defence and warfare. Being single-minded, opportunities of deceit will be few, and they will attach importance to their homes (628). Being single-minded, their careers may be made dependent on rewards and penalties; *9b being single-minded, they may be used abroad.

Indeed, the people will love their ruler and obey his p.193 commandments even to death (629), if they are engaged in farming, morning and evening; but they will be of no use if they see that glib-tongued, itinerant scholars succeed in being honoured in serving the prince, that merchants succeed in enriching their families, and that artisans have plenty to live upon.If the people see both the comfort and advantage of these three walks of life, then they will indubitably shun agriculture; shunning agriculture, they will care little for their homes; caring little for their homes, they will certainly not fight and defend these for the ruler’s sake (630).

Generally speaking, in administrating a country, the trouble is when the people are scattered and when it is impossible to consolidate them. That is why a sage tries to bring about uniformity and consolidation. A state where uniformity of purpose has been established for one year, will be strong for ten years; where uniformity of purpose has been established for ten years, it will be strong for a hundred years, where uniformity of purpose has been established for a hundred years, p.194 it will be strong for a thousand years; and a state which has been strong for a thousand years will attain supremacy (631).

An ordinary prince cultivates the system of rewards and penalties in order to support his teaching of uniformity of purpose, and in this way his teaching has permanency and his administration is successfully established. But he who attains supremacy, succeeds in regulating those things which are most essential for the people, and therefore, even without *10a the need of rewards and gifts, the people will love their ruler; without the need of ranks and emoluments, the people will follow their avocations; without the need of penalties, the people will do their duty to the death.


When a country is in peril and the ruler in anxiety, it is of no avail to the settling of this danger for professional talkers to form battalions (632). The reason why a country is in danger and its ruler in anxiety lies in some strong enemy or in another big state. Now if a prince is unable to vanquish that strong enemy or to destroy that big state, he improves his defences, makes the best use of the topographical conditions, consolidates the strength of the people and thus meets the foreign attack. After this the danger may be averted and supremacy yet attained. That is why an intelligent prince, in improving the administration, strives for uniformity, removes those who are of no use, restrains volatile scholars and those of frivolous pursuits, and makes them all uniformly into farmers. Thereafter the reigning dynasty may become rich and the people’s strength may be consolidated.

p.195 Nowadays, the rulers of the world are all anxious over the perilous condition of their countries and the weakness of their armies, and they listen at all costs to the professional talkers: but though these may form battalions, talk profusely and employ beautiful expressions, it is of no practical use. When a ruler loves their sophistry and does not seek for their practical value, then the professional talkers have it all their own way, expound their crooked sophistries in the streets, their various groups become great crowds, and the people, seeing that they succeed in captivating kings, dukes and great men, all imitate them (633). *10b Now, if men form parties, the arguments and dissensions in the country will be of confusing diversity; the lower classes will be amused and the great men will enjoy it, with the result that amongst such a people farmers will be few and those who, in idleness, live on others will be many.

These latter being numerous, farmers will be in a perilous position, and this being so, land will be left lying fallow. If study becomes popular, people will abandon agriculture and occupy themselves with debates, high-sounding words and discussions on false premises; abandoning agriculture, they will live on others in idleness, and seek to surpass one another with words. Thus the people will become estranged from the ruler, and there will be crowds of disloyal subjects. This is a doctrine which leads to the impoverishment of the state and to the weakening of the army. Indeed, if a country employs people for their talking, then the people will not be nurtured in agriculture; so it is p.196 only an intelligent prince who understands that by fondness for words one cannot strengthen the army nor open up the land. Only when a sage rules the country will he strive for singleness of purpose and for the consolidation of the people in agriculture, and for that alone.

http://www.xinfajia.net/english/6193.html
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

CHINESE LEGALISM

ANCIENT ROOTS OF EASTERN TOTALITARIANISM

ONLINE TEXTS, LINKS AND BOOKS

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaste ... galism.htm
From the above:
Chinese Thought by Herrlee G. Creel. By far the best study ever written of Chinese philosophy. Particular attention should be paid to Chapters VII, VIII and IX to understand the Asian mind. The influence of the totalitarian vision of Legalism on Chinese thought for thousands of years is not fully understood. The Chinese Empire, created in 221 B.C., was a fusion of Legalism and Confucianism. Chairman Mao was a great admirer of the first Chinese Emperor, who hated Confucianism and was a total Legalist. Indeed, modern "Communism" in China is really very much a continuation of some past trends.
ankitash
BRFite -Trainee
Posts: 64
Joined: 15 Jan 2011 03:12

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by ankitash »

Surasena wrote: Indeed, modern "Communism" in China is really very much a continuation of some past trends.
True ! Some people are under the wrong impression that China will turn Dharmic when CCP falls. CCP is continuation of legalism.
member_20292
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2059
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_20292 »

^^^
they love their kings and emperors....
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

It is appropriate enough to use the Qin dynasty as a handle on the identity of China, for it was these rulers of a kingdom deep in the interior who, in 221 C, first unified the country in something like its present geographical shape, under a single imperial order. As a dynasty, they lasted only until 206 BC, but they paved the road that history has to follow.The first emperor, Qin Shi Huang Di (Ch'in Shih Huang Ti), attempted to burn the books of the Confucians and other scholars, turning in preference to the austere 'Legalism' expressed by the thinkers Li Si (Li Shu), Shang Yang and Han Feizei (Fei-Tzu).

The famous 'Anti-Confucius' campaign of the 1970s can be seen as part of the interplay between two ancient traditions in China, represented by Confucianism and Legalism. By the 'Gang of Four', Qin Shi Huang Di was held up as a man who, for all his terrifying ruthlessness, was progressive in his day. (And progressiveness actually justified terror.) This Legalism had an influence upon Chinese political culture nearly as great as the teachings of the historical Confucius, whose name was attached to the subsequent amalgam.Legalism insisted that the state be an impersonal machine, capable of running itself according to fixed laws. These laws, not the whim of often incompetent individuals, should narrowly channel the options of government. Before the laws, all are equal. In thus setting up an ideal of impersonal state loyalty as a baffle to corruption, personal charisma and narrow group interest, Legalism is much closer to modern Western political principles than is often recognized. But its authoritarianism, its totalitarianism, and its anti-intellectual glorification of agriculture and war and condemnation of art and culture are sui generis. Above all, it is a gospel for the man of war.

Institutionally, Legalism perished with the Qin, and Confucianism was lavishly patronised by the following dynasty, the Han, which lasted four centuries and gave its name to the ethnic Chinese. But the trend of thought represented by Legalism, the military ethos, persisted as an influence upon orthodoxy and as an alternative ideology always available when circumstances called for it. We shall see later on the importance of the interplay between the two traditions, an interplay which is vital to the dynamics of Chinese culture in modern times.

Source: Modern China: The Mirage of Modernity By Ian W. Mabbett
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

The Political Thought of the Warring States Group

For the purpose of this chapter, even more significant than the Sinification movement was the rise of a wartime school of conservative thought that was pregnant with politics. It was associated with the Warring States Group, a group of largely Western-educated professors at the National Southwest Associated University in Kunming who founded in 1940 the journal Zhanguoce (named after the famous classic known in English as Annals of the Warring States) and the next year a 'Warring States' supplement to Chongqing's influential newspaper Dagongbao (‘L'Impartial+). This group, which has received relatively little attention in Western scholarship,87 comprised a diversity of patriotic elements united by a concern about the war and the future of China.

There were three interrelated dominant themes of Zhanguoce thought. The first was the link between cultural reconstruction and national power. In this theme, the purpose of cultural reconstruction was to reform the feeble character of the nation by reviving the ancient culture of the Warring States in the first instance. Leading Zhanguoce writers took a morphological approach to Chinese history and civilization, following Spengler and, more recently, the British historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975). Spengler's study of culture as a living organism that went through a course of birth, growth, maturity, and decay, and Toynbee's categorization of historical growth and decay, bore a close resemblance to the 'dynastic cycle' that appealed to Chinese sensitivities. Thus, Lin Tongji (1906-1980), a scholar of Shakespeare and international relations (B.A. University of Michigan, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley), maintained that all world civilizations had undergone three phases: feudalism, contending states and grand unity. Each phase had its gestalt (lixiang), but the age of contending states had been the brightest, most active and creative. All civilizations would ultimately perish like those of Egypt, Greece and Rome. For the present, modern Europe was still in the heyday of the age of contending states. As for Chinese civilization, it had long passed the Warring States Period and had also experienced grand unity during the past two thousand years. It was not dead. Yet if China was to survive the international conflicts of the present age, it needed to go back two thousand years to reconstruct the Warring States consciousness. It was important to transform the culture of great unity back into a culture of war to root out the self-content, laziness, inertia, cowardice and feebleness of the Chinese character. Only then could the nation be revitalized and become strong and powerful. Lin called this transformative process 'a repeat of the age of the Warring States', dismissing the Chinese ideal of great unity as unsuited to the present time.88 In following Spengler's morphology of world history, Lin was imbued, if somewhat paradoxically, with Chinese nationalism.

His colleague, historian Lei Haizong (1902-62), who earned a Ph.D. in medieval European history at the University of Chicago, put forth a unique theory of 'two cycles of Chinese civilization', which departed from Spengler's view that Chinese history had ended long ago. The first cycle, from the dim beginnings to 383, was that of classical China, during which the Chinese race remained comparatively pure and its culture indigenous. The second cycle, beginning with the Battle of the Fei River (383) to the present (1940), was that of Tartar-Buddhist China, characterized by repeated conquests of the country by the barbarians from the north and by the gradual transformation through Buddhism of the classical civilization into a new synthesis that contained much of an alien culture. The second cycle continued into the modern era but was drawing to a close. The War of Resistance marked the beginning of a third cycle, in which a new China would arise from the rubble of the war. Chinese history had not come to an end.89

Lei reappraised Chinese civilization from a military perspective, seeking to build China on a military culture to revive national power. In his view, the aristocratic knights of the Spring and Autumn Period (744-481 BC) were good citizens who cherished both civil (wen) and military (wu) values and too responsibility for the security of the state. Unfortunately, after the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), men of standing lost all taste for soldiering, valued only wen and shirked their responsibility for the country's defence, thus reducing Chinese culture to an 'a-military culture' (wubing de wenhua). This was reflected by Chinese institutional structures throughout the imperial era and beyond, and the effect had been politically debilitating. Lei's ideal nation was one in which both wen and wu were valued. He found the source of national power in the ancient culture of the Warring States.90 His ideas were at one with Lin Tongji's view that ancient China's 'knights' (dafushi) had long become the literati (shidafu) of the imperial era and that what China needed now was a revival of the spirit of the knights.91

This leads to another dominant theme of Zhanguoce thought emphasizing the necessity of war, the will to power and hero worship. External wars, wrote Lin Tongji, were completely aimed at annihilating the enemy with the intent of global hegemony. Ethics could offer no solution to international conflicts. Only wars and power could achieve that. Nations that had no capacity for fighting or willingness to go to war could not survive. China's survival was contingent on its capacity to reproduce the 'Warring States culture'.92 In an article titled 'On power', Lin put forth a worldview in which power is seen as the manifestation of all lives: 'Power is life, life is power, and life without power is death.'93 In this worldview, life, power and action constitute a trinity, with power being the product of 'vitality' and 'energy', and action being 'an expression and exercise of power'. Lin criticized the Chinese as cowards who dared not challenge others but were always willing to yield and compromise. He told his fellow countrymen not to be afraid to go to war, for life was not meant to be Buddhist or Daoist escapism seeing temporary peace or tolerating the intolerable. Wars were necessary, unavoidable and the raison d'etre for the modern state. To fight the War of Resistance was to be a man, to appreciate the true meaning of being a man. Chinese must be their own masters, not slaves to other nations.94

The theme of war and power was further developed by the political scientist He Yongji (1902-?, Ph.D. Harvard University). Supporting Lin Tongji's view that war was the raison d'etre for the modern state, He invoked the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, who once wrote, 'War is the father of all things', to discard the Confucian values of harmony, benevolence and great unity in favour of the Legalist school of thought that emphasized power and authority. He distinguished between two types of war; war for victory and war for annihilation. The former was partial war; the latter, total war. To fight the Japanese, total war was necessary. He asked his readers not to place any hope on the League of Nations, third party mediation or the prospect of a negotiated peace. There was only one way to end the war - either you win or you lose. On the basis of China's conditions and international politics, He expressed a view of politics that was two-directional: externally oriented and internally oriented. Chinese politics were fragmented because of regional power. He demanded that all of the armies be nationalized and external politics take precedence over domestic politics.'We must recognize that war is the ontology of the state, and remember that there are always conflicts of all kinds among states. We must place all domestic affairs behind this great state enterprise [of going to war]. I call this a view of externally oriented high politics.'95

He Yongji's 'high politics' (his English) were power politics on the global stage, the politics of Realpolitik. He portrayed China as a small fish or a 'gold fish' that used to be free and happy in its own little pond of 'peace and righteousness'. Yet now it was thrown into the ocean, soon to be swallowed by sharks or other sea monsters. To save itself, China must become a part of the politics of the ocean by aligning with a big fish, such as the Soviet Union.96 There was no room for neutrality in world affairs. If Adolph Hitler could play the great powers off against one another by forming an alliance with the Soviet Union, why could China not do the same? 'From this it can be seen that in high politics there is no ism, no love and hate, no [lasting] peace, only national security! National security is the defining factor [in international politics]. The rest is all a smoke screen!'97 In this view, wars were amoral and just a necessity...

Source: The Intellectual Foundations of Chinese Modernity: Cultural and Political Thought in the Republican Era by Edmund S. K. Fung, pg’s 120-123
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

Opium War Memories in China and India: A Study in Contrasts
October 5, 2011 in China Around the Globe by The China Beat

By Julia Lovell

I’ve spent the past three years researching the importance of the Opium Wars to China; for it is hard to underestimate the passions and sensitivities that the topic can provoke. The wars remain the founding episodes of modern Chinese nationalism, and the start of China’s terrible “Century of Humiliation” at the hands of the West. In 2006, China’s leading liberal weekly, Freezing Point, was shut down, after running an article by an academic called Yuan Weishi that challenged textbook orthodoxy on the Second Opium War. The entire incident unleashed an official and popular outcry. The article, the propaganda bureau pronounced, “viciously attacked the socialist system [and] attempted to vindicate criminal acts by the imperialist powers in invading China. It seriously distorted historical facts; it seriously contradicted news propaganda discipline; it seriously damaged the national feelings of the Chinese people…and created bad social influence.” One nationalist some way outside the government denounced the article as “pure treachery. [Yuan Weishi] was desecrating his own ancestors’ graves…He should have been drowned in rotten eggs and spit.”

In China, then, the opium trade and the wars that Britain fought to defend it in the mid-nineteenth century are a festering national wound. But India, to name but one territory, was also directly and adversely affected by these historical events. It was there that British overseers managed the opium monopolies that generated exports of the drug to China through the nineteenth century. By the 1850s, more than a fifth of the Raj’s income came from opium; this represents the systematic exploitation of India’s natural productivity to enrich the British government and private individuals. And as I examined the deep emotional impact of opium on China, I wanted to know whether other parts of Britain’s narco-empire—all equally entitled to feel fury at Britain’s misdemeanours—shared China’s resentment. This summer, I travelled to Delhi and Mumbai, to talk about the Opium War, and to explore differing attitudes to a shared history.

In the weeks before I arrived in India, memories of the opium trade had been stirred by the publication of River of Smoke, the second volume in Amitav Ghosh’s fictional trilogy set in India and China, against the backdrop of the Opium War. The first two books have richly evoked the atmosphere of the opium trade and its multicultural hodge-podge of English, Scottish, Indian and Chinese participants. But Ghosh seems to have felt that he was writing into a vacuum: modern India’s relationship with opium, he has complained, is enveloped in an “extraordinary silence…In any Western country,” he has observed, “by now you’d have had 200 books about it. There are books about sugarcane, about indigo, about cotton, but [opium] was the most important sector of the economy and the only person writing about it is [historian] Amar Farooqui!” Ghosh has equated a general Indian indifference to the opium trade with a broader lack of concern over the legacies of imperialism. “A consequence of Indians’ lack of interest in history is that the colonial experience begins to look more benign than it was.” My first encounter in Delhi seemed to confirm his diagnosis of Indian amnesia over the opium trade. Just off the plane, I was escorted out of the airport by a young man from the hotel with exquisite English. He asked me what had brought me to India. His forehead wrinkled when I mentioned the Opium War. What is opium? he wanted to know. His excellent Anglophone education had not seen fit to supply him with this piece of vocabulary.

Image
David Sassoon Library in Mumbai

Mumbai boomed on money from the opium trade in the nineteenth century. Landmarks of neo-imperial or Asiatic Gothic architecture—the tall white colonnades of the Asiatic Society (now Mumbai’s Central Municipal Library); the rusty brick arches of the David Sassoon Library—are striking reminders of how profitable this Asian commerce was; several of such buildings were paid for by China-trading philanthropists. But there seemed to be limited awareness of Mumbai’s past connections with the opium trade, as I wandered about these now-decaying structures. A phlegmatic librarian in the Asiatic Society pointed up at an enormous hole in the ceiling: “That nearly killed me when it came down.” The Society’s once pompous interior—imperial pillars with frothy gold tops, statues of nineteenth-century British worthies—has been thoroughly desacralised by the readers snoozing over the tables and the shelves of down-to-earth titles. (The domestic science section seemed particularly well stocked, featuring practical volumes such as Step-by-step Garnishes, Rugs: All You Need to Know, and Ultimate Casserole.) “I know nothing about opium. Or the Opium War,” the librarian told me. “It was all such a long time ago. I like British people. They’re very good in their hearts and in their minds and they have lots of good ideas. They built lots of good buildings and government institutions here.”

I wondered if the psychology behind this forgetfulness was a little more complex than Ghosh allowed for. While in India, I tried to explain the resentment that memory of the Opium War and the “century of humiliation” can provoke in China, and asked if there was similar anger directed at India’s own experiences under British rule. The response that I often received borrowed from the language of psychoanalysis: “India’s over it,” one woman—born two years after Independence—pronounced. India has enough to worry about in the present day, others told me, with corruption scandals and relations with Pakistan. “I used to think that India had a cult of victimhood, but it seems it’s nothing compared to China,” remarked one novelist. “In India, we’ve generally been aware that we’ve been responsible for our own problems. Caste, social problems, the tension between Muslims and Hindus—they’ve always been there; some people might say they were exacerbated by colonialism, but they were always there.” Amongst those who have benefited most from India’s cosmopolitan education system, there was a relaxed openness towards Britain and its colonial legacies. “Diversity is our strength,” one NGO worker told me. “We have good relations with the British now; much better than with Pakistan. And Britain gave us so many things—rule by law, for one.” He told me about a hit stand-up show by the comedian Vir Das he’d seen in Mumbai the previous winter, called The History of India, which had made fun of “some of India’s most sacred cows”—even Gandhi. “Vir presents the funny elements that have been a part of our heritage and how much there was to laugh at in our struggles, how much humor there is in heritage,” its producer has commented. The idea of a Chinese comedian taking a similarly irreverent look at the Century of Humiliation is unthinkable (though India arguably diverts public sensitivities onto discussion of religious issues).

Indian memories of the opium trade were also, I detected, tinged with a degree of guilt. It’s well established that although private British traders got rich on selling opium to China, so did some Indian merchants—and especially Mumbai Parsis. They provided credit for British businessmen; they built ships for the trade; and sometimes they sailed them themselves. A Parsi opium trader in one of Ghosh’s novels expresses their actions pragmatically:

Today the biggest profits don’t come from selling useful things: quite the opposite. The profits come from selling things that are not of any real use…Opium is just like that. It is completely useless unless you’re sick, but still people want it. And it is such a thing that once people start using it they can’t stop; the market just gets larger and larger. That is why the British are trying to take over the trade and keep it to themselves. Fortunately in the Bombay Presidency they have not succeeded in turning it into a monopoly, so what is the harm in making some money from it?

If you look closely enough at the windows of the Bai Avabai Framji Petit Parsi Girls High School in Mumbai, you’ll find an image of an Indian opium clipper inlaid in stained glass. HMS Cornwallis, the ship on which the Treaty of Nanjing was signed, was built in a Parsi yard. An elderly Parsi man approached me after one of my talks: did I think it would be a good idea if leading members of the Parsi community organised themselves into an official delegation to apologise for India’s role in the opium trade? Would that make things better, would it clear things up between China and India?

His comments further reminded me of the unease and suspicion that currently cloud India’s relations with China. Although China often portrays itself as a victim of external aggression (a self-perception reinforced by emphatic commemorations of the Opium War and the Century of Humiliation), several of the Indian journalists I encountered took a very different view. They saw China not as an injured innocent, but as a threatening new imperial power, and were keen to discuss China’s ambitions in the region, alleging in detail that China was plotting to create a trade route to the sea, from its western borders down through eastern India. Memories of China’s war with India in the 1960s were still fresh; and there was considerable anger at China’s financial support of Pakistan.

But nonchalance rather than anger or bad conscience still seemed to dominate Indian attitudes to opium. As I travelled back to my hotel room on my last night in Mumbai, an advert in the lift for something called The Opium Den caught my eye, and the pitch went like this:

First came the flower delivery man.
Then the baby delivery woman.
Then the pizza delivery man.
It’s time to get addicted to each other again, before someone else comes knocking.
Opium Den. VERY ADDICTIVE. An intoxicating fusion of atmosphere, spirits and music that reminds you how it feels to be in love again. Rest assured you’ll be back for more of the same.

The concept was illustrated by a photograph of a glamorous Caucasian couple, grinning exuberantly at each other and generally living the Opium Den dream. I’m probably exaggerating only a little (if at all) when I say that if you set up such an establishment (trading on the word opium for yuppie chic effect) in mainland China, you would get death threats. I exclaimed with surprise. When my fellow passenger asked me what was wrong, I explained my sense of culture shock. He obviously felt that I’d spent too long in China: “Chill out,” he said. “It’s just a bar.”

And, I discovered when I went to have a look, it was indeed just that—filled on a Saturday evening with glamorous young Mumbai things enjoying a drink or a meal in comfortable, tastefully lit surroundings. The books decoratively arranged on the walls (only for atmosphere; no one was reading them) were high-brow: works of Great European Literature (Crime and Punishment; Mill on the Floss) rather than books more usually associated with opium dens – the Collected Sax Rohmer perhaps (Dope, The Yellow Claw, The Insidious Dr Fu-Manchu, and so on). When I perused the menu, I found the juice section—cucumber, tomato, carrot and celery—also disconcertingly virtuous; I plumped for an innocuous plate of gloupy chicken noodles. While I was waiting for the bill, I idly fell into dispute with my waiter, after I made a remark about the beautifully carved antique ivory opium pipes displayed in a cabinet on the wall. “Oh no, they’re not pipes,” he told me. “They’re flutes.” Opium flutes? “No, no, just regular flutes.” They were definitely opium pipes, but I still needed to pack for my plane back to London later that night, so I let it go.

Julia Lovell is a lecturer in modern Chinese history and literature at the University of London and author of The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams, and the Making of China (Picador, September 2011).

http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=3845
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: China Watch Thread-I

Post by ramana »

C. Rajamohan on the elevation of Xi Jinping as President of PRC

Steel in Xi's message
Respect for China, not romantic notions of an Eastern bloc, must guide Indian diplomacy

Chinese leader Xi Jinping's first tour abroad as the president of the People's Republic should give the world a good measure of the personal style and worldview of a man who will be at the helm in Beijing for a whole decade. Few successors of Deng Xiaoping have begun their tenure at the top with the kind of power that Xi has accumulated at home. And no modern Chinese leader has had as much say in world affairs as Xi is bound to enjoy in the coming decade.

Xi has already broken a major taboo by deciding to travel with his wife, Peng Liyuan, a celebrated singer and star in her own right in China. In the Chinese communist political tradition, the wives of the top leaders were neither to be seen nor heard. If the wooden Hu Jintao could not go beyond communist jargon, Xi has already demonstrated carefully scripted political spontaneity in his public appearances at home. Unlike Hu, Xi is likely to be an engaging and energetic leader on the diplomatic stage.

If personal style makes Xi an attractive leader, there is no mistaking the steel in his political message. At home, Xi has emphasised the "renewal of the Chinese nation". Abroad, Xi is leaving no one in doubt that China will be uncompromising in the defence of its core national interests. Equally important is the message that China will no longer hide its capabilities and bide its time. China under Xi is ready to lead. It is not clear if China's interlocutors — both friends and foes — are prepared for this.

At the first stop on his tour, Moscow, Xi underlined the importance of Russia as the most valued great-power partner for China and touched on the familiar anti-Western themes — including the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other nations — that have much resonance in Moscow these days. At the Durban summit this week, Xi will lead Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa in laying the foundations for non-Western financial institutions like the proposed BRICS Bank.

The focus on Xi's tough rhetoric in Moscow and his performance at the BRICS summit should not in any way reduce the importance of Xi's two other stops on the tour — Tanzania and Congo. Xi's predecessor, Hu Jintao, travelled four times to Africa in his decade-long tenure as China's president. Xi is ready to devote even greater strategic attention to Africa. Unlike in Asia, where China's territorial disputes and historical antagonisms have constrained Beijing, Africa offers much greater freedom of strategic manoeuvre to China's new leaders.

If China is having a free run in Africa, the continent also underlines some of the political problems associated with China's emergence as a great power. China's economic and political profile in Africa has risen rapidly over the last decade. But Beijing has also invited a mild backlash to the economic model it has promoted in the continent. Beijing's intensive diplomacy with Africa over the last decade has seen a dramatic rise in China's trade with the continent — from barely $10 billion in 2000 to nearly $200 bn in 2012. China's massive investments in Africa's mineral sector have been accompanied by an expansive emphasis on building transport infrastructure that links the continent to itself and the world markets. Beijing has also emerged as a major donor of economic assistance to Africa. Unlike the West, China does not put any conditions for the aid or give lectures on good governance to Africa.

China's emphasis on non-intervention in internal affairs and the size of its economic assistance — last year Beijing offered loans worth $20 bn — has given Africa greater room vis-a-vis the Western powers that have long dominated its political and economic landscape. At the same time, China's Africa policy has drawn charges of "neo-colonialism". It is not just Western governments and activist groups that are accusing Beijing of an exploitative relationship with Africa. Earlier this month, the chairman of Nigeria's central bank, Lamido Sanusi, urged Africa to reconsider its romance with China. Writing in the Financial Times, Sanusi pointed out: "China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism." Through his sojourn in Africa, Xi is likely to try and correct this perception. This criticism does not necessarily mean any significant reduction in the political value of a partnership with China for African leaders. The many consequential agreements that Xi plans to sign in Tanzania and Congo will reflect the deepening African economic and political bonds with China.


{Mr Sansui has flawed understanding of colonialism. Selling expensive finished goods for cheap raw materials is one aspect of colonialism. Its much more mulitfacted and deeper in its scope. Looks more like a silly article against PRC.}

In the end, Xi's first visit abroad is about asserting China's leadership on the global stage. The Western nations that have urged China to become a "responsible stakeholder" might not be entirely pleased as Xi seeks to protect China's growing international interests and demands a rewriting of international rules.

Meanwhile, those in New Delhi and Moscow who think they can line up behind Beijing on multilateral issues and improve their leverage with the United States may also be in for a rude shock. For, the strategic imbalance between China on the one hand, and India and Russia on the other, is growing fast even as the power gap between Beijing and Washington narrows. China is now the unquestioned senior partner in the BRICS. This historic power shift means forums like the BRICS improve Beijing's leverage with Washington and help Xi set the terms for an accommodation between a rising China and a US that is in relative decline.

A healthy respect for China's power under Xi and an appreciation of what it means for international relations, rather than romantic notions about building an Eastern Bloc against the West, must guide Indian diplomacy in Durban.


The writer is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and a contributing editor for 'The Indian Express'

express@expressindia.com
Respect doesn't mean kowtow to Beijing.
If India keeps its kleptocrat politicians in check nothing can stop India.

But good to see CRM turn away from maximum accomodation of Indian interests to US !!!
Only thing is he now wants to do same for China!

Sanjaya Baru in Ind Express.


Five thoguhts on China

Hope its not a hark back to JLN delusions which his colleague was just admonishing MEA!
Together, leaders of India and China can craft a Panchsheel for a new time :eek: :lol:

There is something about the number five in India-China relations. As free powers, the two Asian giants defined their relationship in terms of the famous Panchsheel — mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual non-aggression; mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs; equality and mutual benefit; and, peaceful co-existence. China's new leaders have enunciated a Panchsheel for our times.

China's President Xi Jinping listed a "five point proposal" for guiding India-China relations. These are: maintain strategic communication and keep bilateral relations on the right track; harness each other's comparative strength and expand win-win cooperation in infrastructure, mutual investment and other areas; strengthen cultural ties and increase mutual understanding and friendship between our peoples; expand coordination and collaboration in multilateral affairs to jointly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of developing countries and tackle global challenges; accommodate each other's core concerns and properly handle problems and differences existing between the two countries.

India would be happy to be on board with each of these five points. The fifth point is the only tricky one. It leaves undefined what China's "core concerns" are. Traditionally, Tibet and Taiwan were China's "core interests", but more recently, Chinese spokespersons have referred to their claims on the South China Sea as a "core interest". This has already opened a Pandora's box for China, setting the cat among the South-east Asian pigeons and facilitating America's rediscovery of Asia. India, like many other countries that have economic interests in the Pacific, would like freedom of navigation through these seas. :lol:

{First secure the near borders and them worry about the far away seas!!!}

India would, understandably, want to know what exactly China has in mind when it talks of core interests today. For its part, China too must be mindful of India's "core interests", especially because it has grievously hurt at least one Indian core interest by enabling the nuclear weaponisation of Pakistan.

{Maybe the US role during Cold War in arming TSP will come to light and then what will Dr Baru say?}

Clearly, the last of the five points raised by Xi requires further elaboration and consideration. Indian anxieties on this score have been enhanced by China's investment in strategic assets like the Gwadar Port in Pakistan. While China cannot be blamed, perhaps not even implicated, in the rising trend of India's South Asian neighbours trying to play the so-called "China card", India cannot remain oblivious to this trend. It would, at some point, impact on India's core interests. :?:


{What are India's core interests which of them will be impacted by this "China" card? TSP uses the Joker card. Sri Lanka uses the Knave of Spades card! Myanmar wants to use the Queen of Spades "off with their heads" card!}

Having entered that caveat, India should welcome these five principles for they take cognisance of the new and growing economic relationship between the two and their cooperation at the global level. This in itself would be a good starting point for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's conversation with Xi this week in Durban, South Africa.

Over the past nine years, Prime Minister Singh has enunciated his own five principles about India-China relations, though he has never packaged them together into one general statement, as Xi has done. What are the PM's five principles in dealing with China?

The first principle he enunciated on India-China relations related to the border issue and was stated by him at his very first meeting with his counterpart, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, in Vientiane in November 2004. Singh told Wen that India was willing to show accommodation on the border question, "but an accommodation that must take into account ground realities."

Singh's second principle, which is often reported in the media as Wen's observation but was in fact originally coined by Singh and subsequently repeated on several occasions by Wen, says that "the world has enough space for the growth ambitions of both countries". This at once places in perspective a question that is often asked: is the rise of China followed by India, two-fifths of humanity, a zero-sum game that has conflict written into it?

Having said this, Singh enunciated his third principle, that the rise of China and India is a global public good. Addressing the China Academy of Social Sciences in January 2008, he saw the possibility of the rise of China and India having positive externalities for the world as a whole because of the new opportunities for development they could bring to the international community, especially other developing countries.

The fourth principle Singh has repeatedly enunciated is that, because of all the above and, equally, despite the above, the relationship between the two would be characterised both by elements of cooperation and competition. In other words, even while there would be space in the world for both countries to rise, and even as that may have beneficial consequences for the world, these processes would both offer opportunities for cooperation, as on climate change and energy security, and generate the potential for competition, for markets, resources and influence.

The fifth principle articulated by Singh is a more general principle of national security, that one country's policy towards another is defined not just by intentions but also capabilities. Intentions can change, capabilities are more enduring. Thus, it is not what one country's political leadership says that ought to guide another's policy but what one is capable of doing. Even as India accepts China's reassurances, it cannot afford to remain indifferent to China's rising capability to create problems for India.

{This last one lacks credibility. Mr. MMS and national security are oxymorons. He has done the maximum to damage the national security during his reign. It was bad stewardship on all national security aspects. There was no defence program he did not delay and sabotage with scams. So pardon me for :rotfl: }

On the question of intention vs capability, former US President Ronald Reagan had the last word. When asked if he could trust his Soviet counterparts when they promised to reduce their nuclear and missile capability, Reagan famously said, "trust, but verify". That was precisely Singh's reply when he was asked if he could trust Pakistan's former President Pervez Musharraf, and that should be any Indian leader's response to reassurances offered by China's leaders.

{If MMS had said he would trust Pakistan's Musharraf he would have been forced to resign by even the INC as they made him retract after the Sharamless gaffe!}

All this offers a good framework for a business-like interaction between the PM and Xi this week. There is, today, another concern that ought to engage both leaders. That is, how would developments in the global economy, especially the Trans-Atlantic economic slowdown and the rise of religious and other extremist politics in Asia, impact on their own rise and of Asia as a whole?

Would conflict in Asia, in the South China Seas or in West Asia, serve anyone's interests at all? Can China and India afford to remain reticent observers while the Asia around them burns and remains mired in sectarianism, terrorism, violence and instability? Don't they confront, along with many other Asian economies, a shared energy security challenge? Does it serve China's purpose to unnerve the countries of Southeast Asia, playing one ASEAN member off against another? Is a Sino-Japan conflict in the interests of the rest of Asia? Should they not work together to build new regional architectures for sustained economic growth and regional security? Don't Asia's two giants have the responsibility to work with other Asian powers, including the ASEAN, Japan, Russia and the US to ensure peace, prosperity and stability in Asia? Many principles of cooperative engagement can be crafted from these challenges.

{Too many questions without any solutions. I expected a much better op-ed from Dr Baru who was in government as a policy adviser.}

The writer is Director for Geo-economics and Strategy, International Institute for Strategic Studies and Honourable Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

express@expressindia.com
Yep he does go back to JLN muddled thinking.



I would like us to answer those questions keeping in mind it takes two hands to clap. the conundrum is how to make the China extend its hands for the clap?
devesh
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5129
Joined: 17 Feb 2011 03:27

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by devesh »

http://standpointmag.co.uk/april-13-fea ... C0%2C0%2C3

Provided you are not seen by the government as disruptive, being a Christian is not difficult in China today. If you do step over that line, defined by the constitution as making use of religion "to engage in activities that disrupt public order", the consequences can be harsh. The authorities believe in exemplary punishment, what a Chinese proverb calls "killing the chicken to frighten the monkeys" and, having identified a target, pursue it ferociously.

For example, the Shouwang Church in Beijing, the largest of the unregistered Protestant groups in the city, has been hounded by the police over the past two years. Having been locked out of property it had either rented or bought, its congregation has been forced to hold services in the open air. Members have been arrested, evicted from their homes and jobs or deported to the towns from which they came. Gao Zhisheng, a Christian human rights lawyer, currently imprisoned in north-west China, has been in and out of detention since 2006. After one of his releases, he said he had been tortured and threatened with death if he spoke about what had happened.

Ma Daqin, the Auxiliary Bishop of Shanghai, has not been seen in public since last July, when he declared at his consecration that he was leaving the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association to devote more time to the pastoral needs of the diocese. The CCPA and its associated Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China promptly withdrew recognition from him. The gravity of this case is that Ma's appointment was approved by both the Chinese government and the Holy See, part of a slow rapprochement between the two sides which has now suffered a severe setback. Reversing it will be one of the toughest diplomatic challenges facing Pope Francis I.

The life of Jin Luxian, the 96-year-old Bishop of Shanghai, provides a fascinating insight into the Vatican's attitude towards China under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI. A Jesuit, Jin spent 27 years (1955-82) under house arrest, in re-education camps or in prison for being part of a "counter-revolutionary clique". The devastating experience of the Cultural Revolution convinced him that the interests of Chinese Catholics were best served by co-operating with the government, so he became the CCPA-appointed bishop of China's most populous city in 1988. The bishop approved by the Vatican, Ignatius Kung Pin-mei, who had been consecrated in 1950, found himself powerless in his own diocese after being freed on parole from a life sentence in 1985. He left to receive medical treatment in the United States and never returned. In 1979 John Paul II had secretly created him a cardinal.

However, the same pope tacitly approved the presence of papal representatives at Jin's consecration as auxiliary bishop in 1985, and his successor, Benedict XVI, invited him to attend a synod in Rome in 2005, only to have the Chinese government turn down the invitation on his behalf.

http://standpointmag.co.uk/april-13-fea ... C0%2C0%2C4

The Vatican's nuanced treatment of Jin recognises his outstanding success in making Shanghai once again the powerhouse of Catholicism in China. He has reopened more than 100 churches in the city, set up the most important seminary in the country, sent seminarians abroad to study, and created a diocesan publishing house and retreat centre. In considering the spiritual wellbeing of Catholic communities around the world, the Holy See thinks long-term and, in the person of Jin, appears to have concluded that his achievements outweigh his apparent disloyalty.

Nevertheless, the bishop remains a highly controversial figure, both within the Society of Jesus and among Christians in Shanghai. The first volume of his Memoirs (Hong Kong University Press, 2012) is remarkable for its bitter judgment of Kung as someone who put local Catholics at risk by "mindlessly executing anti-Communist orders" at the instigation of the Holy See.

Divisions between the registered and unregistered churches are reflected in the Commission for the Catholic Church in China set up by Pope Benedict in 2007. On one hand are those advocating rapprochement with the government on the lines of the Ostpolitik pursued by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli towards the Soviet bloc after the Second Vatican Council; on the other, those who take a harder line. The present Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal John Hon, favours the first approach, his predecessor, Cardinal Joseph Zen, the second. Pope Francis, a Jesuit, is likely to give China a high priority.

Christianity as a Chinese-driven phenomenon has entered the DNA of the world's most populous nation. The government accepts this but will strike hard at any religious activity which it deems to be an existential threat. The supreme example since Mao's death was its suppression of Falun Gong, a Chinese religion combining Buddism, mysticism and traditional exercises, after more than 10,000 of its followers gathered in silence outside Zhongnanhai in 1999, the biggest opposition protest since Tiananmen Square.

http://standpointmag.co.uk/april-13-fea ... C0%2C0%2C5

Christianity has been and remains a modernising influence in China. In the 16th and 17th centuries Jesuits brought the latest scientific learning from Europe, in the 19th century Catholic and Protestant missionaries promoted the education of girls. Today the Christian message offers a way of navigating the rapids of breakneck change.

After the Hu decade, the country is waiting to see what his successor, Xi Jinping, will make of his expressed desire for reform. The two years before the change of leadership last December were especially hard for the unregistered churches as the government stepped up efforts to corral them into the Three-Self Patriotic Movement or the CCPA. That experience has widened the gap between those who have registered and those who have not.

The phenomenal growth in the number of believers may have reached a plateau but Christianity remains a potent, if fragmented, force. If China at last takes the road of fundamental political liberalisation, history indicates that the 5 per cent of the population who follow Christ will play a much bigger role than their relative size would suggest.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 59773
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: China Watch Thread-I

Post by ramana »


Chuang Tzu, Martin Palmer (Translator, Introduction), "The Book of Chuang Tzu"

ISBN: 0140194886, 014045537X | 2006

A masterpiece of ancient Chinese philosophy, second in influence only to the Tao Te Ching

One of the founders of Taoism, Chuang Tzu was firmly opposed to Confucian values of order, control, and hierarchy, believing the perfect state to be one where primal, innate nature rules. Full of profundity as well as tricks, knaves, sages, jokers, unbelievably named people, and uptight Confucians, The Book of Chuang Tzu perceives the Tao-the Way of Nature- not as a term to be explained but as a path to walk. Radical and subversive, employing wit, humor, and shock tactics, The Book of Chuang Tzu offers an intriguing look deep into Chinese culture.
vishvak
BR Mainsite Crew
Posts: 5836
Joined: 12 Aug 2011 21:19

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by vishvak »

About British opium trade it would be apt to have Chinese tours organized around docks that exported British opium to China. That way Chinese can see that no opium is exported to China the way British opium was as also Chinese will have nothing to complain about. Why should Indians be bothered about British opium that Indians have nothing to do with.
Lalmohan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13262
Joined: 30 Dec 2005 18:28

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Lalmohan »

^^^ vishvak, if you get a change, do read "river of smoke" and "sea of poppies" as cited in the article - gives you good insights into the whole of the opium trade - and the ruin it caused in both india and china
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

vishvak wrote:About British opium trade it would be apt to have Chinese tours organized around docks that exported British opium to China. That way Chinese can see that no opium is exported to China the way British opium was as also Chinese will have nothing to complain about. Why should Indians be bothered about British opium that Indians have nothing to do with.
The opium trade did great damage in both India & China.

The only difference is the Han remember while your average Indian knows nothing about it and worships British scum as those Indian idiots in the article.

That we can't be bothered to even remember our own victims of the British is our fault.
Yayavar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4832
Joined: 06 Jun 2008 10:55

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Yayavar »

The Chinese government keeps the memory alive and uses that to invigorate - for its own sustenance perhaps - the nationalism that it has cultivated. Indian textbooks dont spend much time on these - we had a lot more happening in that timeframe . The English funded themselves easily (like Columbia cartels) for other endeavours and wars. I dont think my history books in school made that connection clear.

Let us not lament too much - the bar mentioned in the above article does not have Indian literature displayed. Only European. But this thread is wrt understanding the Chinese.
Agnimitra
BRF Oldie
Posts: 5150
Joined: 21 Apr 2002 11:31

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Agnimitra »

China embarking on vast program of urbanisation
China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years - a transformative event that could set off a new wave of growth or saddle the country with problems for generations to come.
"There's this feeling that we have to modernize, we have to urbanize and this is our national-development strategy," said Gao Yu, China country director for the Landesa Rural Development Institute, based in Seattle. Referring to the disastrous Maoist campaign to industrialize overnight, he added, "It's almost like another Great Leap Forward."
wig
BRF Oldie
Posts: 2162
Joined: 09 Feb 2009 16:58

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by wig »

"We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat."

Riot after Chinese teachers try to stop pupils cheating
excerpts from the article
What should have been a hushed scene of 800 Chinese students diligently sitting their university entrance exams erupted into siege warfare after invigilators tried to stop them from cheating

The relatively small city of Zhongxiang in Hubei province has always performed suspiciously well in China's notoriously tough "gaokao" exams, each year winning a disproportionate number of places at the country's elite universities.

Last year, the city received a slap on the wrist from the province's Education department after it discovered 99 identical papers in one subject. Forty five examiners were "harshly criticised" for allowing cheats to prosper.

So this year, a new pilot scheme was introduced to strictly enforce the rules.

When students at the No. 3 high school in Zhongxiang arrived to sit their exams earlier this month, they were dismayed to find they would be supervised not by their own teachers, but by 54 external invigilators randomly drafted in from different schools across the county.
Another of the external invigilators, named Li Yong, was punched in the nose by an angry father. Mr Li had confiscated a mobile phone from his son and then refused a bribe to return the handset.

"I hoped my son would do well in the exams. This supervisor affected his performance, so I was angry," the man, named Zhao, explained to the police later.

Hundreds of police eventually cordoned off the school and the local government conceded that "exam supervision had been too strict and some students did not take it well".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... ating.html
Christopher Sidor
BRFite
Posts: 1435
Joined: 13 Jul 2010 11:02

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Christopher Sidor »

^^^
Reminds of indian states of uttar pradesh and bihar.
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

It's a standard assumption in the West: As a society progresses, it eventually becomes a capitalist, multi-party democracy. Right? Eric X. Li, a Chinese investor and political scientist, begs to differ. In this provocative, boundary-pushing talk, he asks his audience to consider that there's more than one way to run a succesful modern nation.

panduranghari
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3781
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by panduranghari »

Surasena wrote:An interview of the learned scholar shrI Lokeshchandra son of AchArya raghuvIra about China and Chinese culture: http://t.co/LewM3fZg
Surasena ji,

Many thanks for such an enlightening interview. Dvipantara in Kalidasa's Rahguvansa is Indonesia today. Fascinating. I wonder if Indonesians have become so deracinated that they have forgotten the original name of their country.
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

Ch'ien Lung, (Qianlong) Letter to George III (1792)

During the eighteenth century, the British, the leading traders with China, became increasingly dissatisfied with the inconveniences and limitations of their trade agreement. The East India Company petitioned the Chinese emperor several times for a liberalization of China's policy. After repeated failures, the government sent an official envoy from King George III himself to the imperial court. Thus, in 1792 Lord George Macartney arrived in Peking (modern Beijing) with a letter from the king to Emperor Ch'ien Lung (lived 1711-1799, ruled 1735-1796), requesting British diplomatic representation at the imperial court, an easing of trade regulations, and the opening of more Chinese ports to trade. The emperor rejected all the British requests for the reasons he stated in the following letter.

You, O King, from afar have yearned after the blessings of our civilization, and in your eagerness to come into touch with our converting influence have sent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial [memorandum]. I have already taken note of your respectful spirit of submission, have treated your mission with extreme favor and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing a mandate to you, O King, and honoring you at the bestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indulgence been manifested.

Yesterday your Ambassador petitioned my Ministers to memorialize me regarding your trade with China, but his proposal is not consistent with our dynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto, all European nations, including your own country's barbarian merchants, have carried on their trade with our Celestial Empire at Canton. Such has been the procedure for many years, although our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces, are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves, we have permitted, as a signal mark of favor, that foreign hongs [groups of merchants] should be established at Canton, so that your wants might be supplied and your country thus participate in our beneficence. But your Ambassador has now put forward new requests which completely fail to recognize the Throne's principle to "treat strangers from afar with indulgence," and to exercise a pacifying control over barbarian tribes, the world over. Moreover, our dynasty, swaying the myriad races of the globe, extends the same benevolence towards all. Your England is not the only nation trading at Canton. If other nations, following your bad example, wrongfully importune my ear with further impossible requests, how will it be possible for me to treat them with easy indulgence? Nevertheless, I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire. I have consequently commanded my Ministers to enlighten your Ambassador on the subject, and have ordered the departure of the mission. But I have doubts that, after your Envoy's return he may fail to acquaint you with my view in detail or that he may be lacking in lucidity, so that I shall now proceed ... to issue my mandate on each question separately. In this way you will, I trust, comprehend my meaning....

Your request for a small island near Chusan [a group of islands in the East China Sea at the entrance to Hangchow Bay], where your merchants may reside and goods be warehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade. As there are neither foreign hongs nor interpreters in or near Chusan, where none of your ships have ever called, such an island would be utterly useless for your purposes. Every inch of the territory of our Empire is marked on the map and the strictest vigilance is exercised over it all: even tiny islets and far-lying sand-banks are clearly defined as part of the provinces to which they belong. Consider, moreover, that England is not the only barbarian land which wishes to establish ... trade with our Empire: supposing that other nations were all to imitate your evil example and beseech me to present them each and all with a site for trading purposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is a flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and cannot possibly be entertained.

The next request, for a small site in the vicinity of Canton city, where your barbarian merchants may lodge or, alternatively, that there be no longer any restrictions over their movements at Aomen [a city some 45 miles to the south of Canton, at the lower end of the Pearl (Zhu) River delta] has arisen from the following causes. Hitherto, the barbarian merchants of Europe have had a definite locality assigned to them at Aomen for residence and trade, and have been forbidden to encroach an inch beyond the limits assigned to that locality. . . . If these restrictions were withdrawn, friction would inevitably occur between the Chinese and your barbarian subjects, and the results would militate against the benevolent regard that I feel towards you. From every point of view, therefore, it is best that the regulations now in force should continue unchanged....

Regarding your nation's worship of the Lord of Heaven, it is the same religion as that of other European nations. Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my subjects [the reference is to Confucianism]. There has been no hankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects; they are restricted within the limits of their appointed residences, and may not go about propagating their religion. The distinction between Chinese and barbarian is most strict, and your Ambassador's request that barbarians shall be given full liberty to disseminate their religion is utterly unreasonable.

It may be, O King, that the above proposals have been wantonly made by your Ambassador on his own responsibility, or peradventure you yourself are ignorant of our dynastic regulations and had no intention of transgressing them when you expressed these wild ideas and hopes.... If, after the receipt of this explicit decree, you lightly give ear to the representations of your subordinates and allow your barbarian merchants to proceed to Chêkiang and Tientsin [two Chinese port cities], with the object of landing and trading there, the ordinances of my Celestial Empire are strict in the extreme, and the local officials, both civil and military, are bound reverently to obey the law of the land. Should your vessels touch the shore, your merchants will assuredly never be permitted to land or to reside there, but will be subject to instant expulsion. In that event your barbarian merchants will have had a long journey for nothing. Do not say that you were not warned in due time! Tremblingly obey and show no negligence! A special mandate!

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/mar ... rgeIII.htm
Contrast with Mughal tyrant Jahangir:
"Upon which assurance of your royal love I have given my general command to all the kingdoms and ports of my dominions to receive all the merchants of the English nation as the subjects of my friend; that in what place soever they choose to live, they may have reception and residence to their own content and safety; and what goods soever they desire to sell or buy, they may have free liberty without any restraint; and at what port soever they shall arrive, that neither Portugal nor any other shall dare to molest their quiet; and in what city soever they shall have residence, I have commanded all my governors and captains to give them freedom answerable to their own desires; to sell, buy, and to transport into their country at their pleasure."

http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/ ... c18_1.html
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

Chinese religion through Hindu eyes: a study in the tendencies of Asiatic mentality by Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1916)

http://archive.org/details/cu31924023204021
Yayavar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4832
Joined: 06 Jun 2008 10:55

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Yayavar »

Surasena wrote:
Ch'ien Lung, (Qianlong) Letter to George III (1792)

During the eighteenth century, the British, the leading traders with China, became increasingly dissatisfied with the inconveniences and limitations of their trade agreement. The East India Company petitioned the Chinese emperor several times for a liberalization of China's policy. After repeated failures, the government sent an official envoy from King George III himself to the imperial court. Thus, in 1792 Lord George Macartney arrived in Peking (modern Beijing) with a letter from the king to Emperor Ch'ien Lung (lived 1711-1799, ruled 1735-1796), requesting British diplomatic representation at the imperial court, an easing of trade regulations, and the opening of more Chinese ports to trade. The emperor rejected all the British requests for the reasons he stated in the following letter.

You, O King, from afar have yearned after the blessings of our civilization, and in your eagerness to come into touch with our converting influence have sent an Embassy across the sea bearing a memorial [memorandum]. I have already taken note of your respectful spirit of submission, have treated your mission with extreme favor and loaded it with gifts, besides issuing a mandate to you, O King, and honoring you at the bestowal of valuable presents. Thus has my indulgence been manifested.

Yesterday your Ambassador petitioned my Ministers to memorialize me regarding your trade with China, but his proposal is not consistent with our dynastic usage and cannot be entertained. Hitherto, all European nations, including your own country's barbarian merchants, have carried on their trade with our Celestial Empire at Canton. Such has been the procedure for many years, although our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders. There was therefore no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians in exchange for our own produce. But as the tea, silk and porcelain which the Celestial Empire produces, are absolute necessities to European nations and to yourselves, we have permitted, as a signal mark of favor, that foreign hongs [groups of merchants] should be established at Canton, so that your wants might be supplied and your country thus participate in our beneficence. But your Ambassador has now put forward new requests which completely fail to recognize the Throne's principle to "treat strangers from afar with indulgence," and to exercise a pacifying control over barbarian tribes, the world over. Moreover, our dynasty, swaying the myriad races of the globe, extends the same benevolence towards all. Your England is not the only nation trading at Canton. If other nations, following your bad example, wrongfully importune my ear with further impossible requests, how will it be possible for me to treat them with easy indulgence? Nevertheless, I do not forget the lonely remoteness of your island, cut off from the world by intervening wastes of sea, nor do I overlook your excusable ignorance of the usages of our Celestial Empire. I have consequently commanded my Ministers to enlighten your Ambassador on the subject, and have ordered the departure of the mission. But I have doubts that, after your Envoy's return he may fail to acquaint you with my view in detail or that he may be lacking in lucidity, so that I shall now proceed ... to issue my mandate on each question separately. In this way you will, I trust, comprehend my meaning....

Your request for a small island near Chusan [a group of islands in the East China Sea at the entrance to Hangchow Bay], where your merchants may reside and goods be warehoused, arises from your desire to develop trade. As there are neither foreign hongs nor interpreters in or near Chusan, where none of your ships have ever called, such an island would be utterly useless for your purposes. Every inch of the territory of our Empire is marked on the map and the strictest vigilance is exercised over it all: even tiny islets and far-lying sand-banks are clearly defined as part of the provinces to which they belong. Consider, moreover, that England is not the only barbarian land which wishes to establish ... trade with our Empire: supposing that other nations were all to imitate your evil example and beseech me to present them each and all with a site for trading purposes, how could I possibly comply? This also is a flagrant infringement of the usage of my Empire and cannot possibly be entertained.

The next request, for a small site in the vicinity of Canton city, where your barbarian merchants may lodge or, alternatively, that there be no longer any restrictions over their movements at Aomen [a city some 45 miles to the south of Canton, at the lower end of the Pearl (Zhu) River delta] has arisen from the following causes. Hitherto, the barbarian merchants of Europe have had a definite locality assigned to them at Aomen for residence and trade, and have been forbidden to encroach an inch beyond the limits assigned to that locality. . . . If these restrictions were withdrawn, friction would inevitably occur between the Chinese and your barbarian subjects, and the results would militate against the benevolent regard that I feel towards you. From every point of view, therefore, it is best that the regulations now in force should continue unchanged....

Regarding your nation's worship of the Lord of Heaven, it is the same religion as that of other European nations. Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my subjects [the reference is to Confucianism]. There has been no hankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects; they are restricted within the limits of their appointed residences, and may not go about propagating their religion. The distinction between Chinese and barbarian is most strict, and your Ambassador's request that barbarians shall be given full liberty to disseminate their religion is utterly unreasonable.

It may be, O King, that the above proposals have been wantonly made by your Ambassador on his own responsibility, or peradventure you yourself are ignorant of our dynastic regulations and had no intention of transgressing them when you expressed these wild ideas and hopes.... If, after the receipt of this explicit decree, you lightly give ear to the representations of your subordinates and allow your barbarian merchants to proceed to Chêkiang and Tientsin [two Chinese port cities], with the object of landing and trading there, the ordinances of my Celestial Empire are strict in the extreme, and the local officials, both civil and military, are bound reverently to obey the law of the land. Should your vessels touch the shore, your merchants will assuredly never be permitted to land or to reside there, but will be subject to instant expulsion. In that event your barbarian merchants will have had a long journey for nothing. Do not say that you were not warned in due time! Tremblingly obey and show no negligence! A special mandate!

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/mar ... rgeIII.htm
Contrast with Mughal tyrant Jahangir:
"Upon which assurance of your royal love I have given my general command to all the kingdoms and ports of my dominions to receive all the merchants of the English nation as the subjects of my friend; that in what place soever they choose to live, they may have reception and residence to their own content and safety; and what goods soever they desire to sell or buy, they may have free liberty without any restraint; and at what port soever they shall arrive, that neither Portugal nor any other shall dare to molest their quiet; and in what city soever they shall have residence, I have commanded all my governors and captains to give them freedom answerable to their own desires; to sell, buy, and to transport into their country at their pleasure."

http://wps.pearsoncustom.com/wps/media/ ... c18_1.html
In this regard he is not being a tyrant is he? He has an open economic policy and so says, yes, come and trade. The Chinese was more insular.
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

^^

Yeah & whose policy turned out wiser in the end?

Shivaji had correctly foreseen that trade should not be allowed freely & proselytizing not at all.

It is explicitly mentioned in the Ajnapatra, a record of Shivaji's ideas, that in the guise of trade the Europeans would seek to colonize India and impose Christianity on the country, quiet "insular" just like the Manchu emperor and may I add quiet prescient and sensible.
At the age of 24 he was promoted to the post of amAtya of svArAjya and was one the officiants at the rAjyAbhisheka of shivAjI. Thus, the family of sono paNDit was close to shivAjI and was a part of his plan from an early age. Their numerous memoirs were preserved among the papers of the Kolhapur rAj, in which it is stated that they had the records of the ideas and plans of shivAjI. It was rAmachandra that composed the famous Aj~nApatra which lays out clearly the vision of shivAjI. Here some points are of note in this rather remarkable document: 1) He states that they must not stop after clearing the lands from the Narmada to Rameshvaram of the kaNThaka-s and the followers of the lord of the yavana-s. Instead he makes it clear that the war should be pursued until the lands of Delhi, Agra, Lahore, Dacca, Bengal, Tattha and the whole sea coast is conquered. Finally, after these conquests the li~Nga of vishveshvara should be re-established in vArANasI. 2) He stresses the importance of securing the coast against several types of inimical forces such as phirangi (Portuguese), ingrej (English), valAndej (Dutch) and shyAmala (Africans) by raising a naval force that can counter them...

http://manasataramgini.wordpress.com/20 ... -svarajya/
All Jahangir cared about was getting high & when sober to impose Islam on Hindus.
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

In a text produced at the court of the Maratha king Sambhaji II in 1716 we
find anxieties similar to those represented in the European sources.
Although this Ajnapatra was written over thirty years after the start of
Aurangzeb’s invasion and almost a decade after his death, it reflects
extensively on that period to which the author Ramachandrapant Amatya
seems to have been a witness. Thus we could classify the text as a
secondary narrative. After a discussion of Shivaji as the founder of the
kingdom (swaraja) the Ajnapatra discusses the rule of his son (probably
Rajaram; Sambhaji I seems to be glossed over) who put the kingdom back
on track by conciliating the “chief ministers, sardars and other servants, high
and low, of the kingdom… [and] attracting the hearts of all, and not allowing them to hate one another.” As his first great military deed it lists
his victory over the Sidis, referred to as Shyamalas, literally “dark blues”:
Further with a view to bring under his control this Kingdom by his valour he
thought of subduing first the adjoining enemy who was like a disease in the
stomach. The Shyamalas were truly the cause of harm to the state. They were the
means of fulfilling the evil designs of the lord of the Yavanas [the Mughal
emperor]. On account of the Shyamalas the successes of the chief enemy were at
first great, nay during the adverse times [of Aurangzeb’s invasion] the Shyamalas
conquered several territories and forts. Even the chief place Raigad which was the
seat of the throne was captured by them. Having caused troubles to Brahmanas
and all other people they forcibly converted them…At first the late revered great
king [Shivaji], the ornament of state, checked the Shyamalas. On that occasion the
Shyamalas were supported by the Tamras [Mughals] and therefore the Shyamalas
remained as a power. Otherwise what was there to make the Shyamalas exist in
spite of his efforts. A place or country when invaded by others continues to exist
with outside help.80
To put these statements into some perspective it is useful to compare the
Ajnapatra’s view of the Sidis with its view of the Europeans. While the
subject of the European presence is treated mainly under the heading
merchants, they are also listed as enemies of Shivaji (along with many
others including a number of Maratha sardars) and the text noted that the
European strength lies in “navy, guns and ammunition.” The text
enumerates the Europeans as follows: “the Portuguese [Firangi]
81 and the
English [Ingraj] and the Dutch [Valand; elsewhere also Valandej] and the
French [Fransis] and the Danes [Dingmar] and other hat-wearing [topokar]
merchants.” The Ajnapatra goes on to note that these merchants are unlike
other merchants:
Their masters, every one of them, are ruling kings. By their orders and under their
control these people come to trade in these provinces. How can it happen that
rulers have no greed for territories? These hat-wearers have full ambition to enter
into these provinces to increase their territories, and to establish their own
opinions [religion]. Accordingly at various places they have already succeeded in
their ambitious undertakings. Moreover this race of people is obstinate. Where a
place has fallen into their hands they will not give it up even at the cost of their
lives.
However, while great care was to be taken in allowing them to build
something, they should be allowed to carry on their trade, considering the importance of commerce to the prosperity of the kingdom: “If they live in
this way by accepting the above conditions it is well; if not, there is no need
of them. It is enough if they occasionally come and go, and do not trouble
us; nor need we trouble them.”82


https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstr ... sequence=2
Suraj
Forum Moderator
Posts: 15043
Joined: 20 Jan 2002 12:31

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by Suraj »

Please. Enough of India vs China and religious discussions here. This tiresome whinefest seems to make its way into every thread in the forum.

As far as the Qianlong Emperor's response is concerned, while it sounds very impressive and authoritative, it must be remembered than half a century later (a rather short time in that era, when everything moved much slower) the British and French had not only gained control of ports, but also made their way all the way to Beijing and burned down the summer palace.
brihaspati
BRF Oldie
Posts: 12410
Joined: 19 Nov 2008 03:25

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by brihaspati »

In the case of China, two phases of Christianity were involved in European colonial success. In the first phase, like in the efforts of the Jesuits, as exemplified by people such as Ricci - it was bargaining over western science and tech, and in some cases, war tech, in return for concessions over Catholic proselytization combined with the earlier success and presence of the Catholic sea-powers on the eastern sea-board.

There are well-known studies of the profile of the early Chinese sympathizers of these Christian missions, the why's and hows and usual techniques [miracles/recovery from disease/visions/etc and Ricc's innovation of "sinification" of missionaries as a precondition] : significantly they all came from a radical elite educated section which was looking for an alternative to the imperial late Ming authoritarian suppression of the "literati".

These bridges were the key which were used in the transitional phase between Ming and Manchu, to extend pockets of mission settlements and villages along the coast, which also served as listening posts for trading missions from Europe. Needless to say the imperial and local authorities often found the activities of these mission complexes as "suspicious" and severely restricted them.

The opium war was never condemned by these missionaries, even the sale and trade in opium was never condemned by these missions - and there is record of at least one mission using the well-armed opium supply boats to distribute Christian literature". In fact there is some evidence that the missions thought of the opium war as unethical, sale of opium unethical - but ultimately beneficial for conversion purposes and therefore to be allowed to proceed and helped along if necessary.

However the real gain for missions came after the success of this opium war, when the 6-point major demand conceded by European gunboat diplomacy - included the free right to proselytize and take-over property for missions. So in this sense, the imperialistic and commercial connection of the missionary enterprise cannot and should not be ruled out - in the case of China.
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

China and Democracy
In much of the world, China is admired—or feared—as the rising new model of economic achievement under ruthlessly effective government direction. In the eyes of many others, the Chinese model is increasingly showing its contradictions and limits: economic, environmental, social, and political. Two of the world’s leading exponents of these respective views discuss where they disagree, and why—and what the next stage is most likely to hold for the world’s most populous and (until recently) fastest-growing nation

Speakers: Eric X. Li, Minxin Pei, James Fallows
Festival: 2012

http://www.aspenideas.org/session/china-and-democracy
member_19686
BRFite
Posts: 1330
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Let us Understand the Chinese - II

Post by member_19686 »

I urge you to scold Emperor Qin Shihuang less,
His burning of books and burying of scholars, we should reassess.
Our ancestral dragon, though dead, lives on in our minds,
Confucianism, though renowned, is really worthless.
Qin’s political model has been practiced through all time . . . .

HOW CHINA WAS RULED
VICTORIA TIN-BOR HUI

- http://www.viet-studies.info/kinhte/Vic ... led_AI.pdf
Post Reply