Why are most people in China still atheist, although the government has legalized religion and social reform. They tend to revive atheism instead and making it worse.

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.

A QUESTION ON QUORA: Why are most people in China still atheist, although the government has legalized religion and social reform. They tend to revive atheism instead, and making it worse. What should religious people do to develop religion in China?

Answered on Quora by Kevin Dolgin
Entrepreneur, writer, musician, humanist

Fr. Matteo Ricci (left) and Xu Guangqi (right) in the Chinese edition of Euclid's Elements published in 1607. Jesuits began to show up in China in the 16th century, soon after the discovery of the New World, but Christianity had reached the Far East centuries earlier. (See special note in the Appendix.)

I’m going to assume you’ve never been to China. If that’s not the case, excuse me… but then if you knew China at all I don’t think you’d ask this question. I am not Chinese and I don’t speak Chinese (much to my dismay) but I do spend a heck of a lot of time there, relatively speaking, and perhaps I have some small insight on this. I’ll also say from the start that I am an atheist.First… making it worse? I think you don’t understand China, you don’t understand atheism and I’m willing to bet you don’t much understand the concept of religion, outside of your own, which I’m going to take a wild stab at and assume you’re Christian.First, not all religions are like the Abrahamic religions. Eastern religions are much more flexible, and Chinese traditional “religions” are in many ways more like philosophies than what your concept of religion probably is. China traditionally had two “religious” currents, Taoism and Confucianism. I’m not going to get into a long discussion about these, but neither is really predicated on “god” per se, certainly not on a creator god. Both go a long way to give ideas about how to live your life, the meaning of duty, etc. but both are traced to a normal, non-divine human being (Lao Tse in the first case and Confucius in the the second). Both are considerably older than Christianity, by the way. In the first century BCE, Buddhism was brought to China and it became the third major religion. It too is traced to a non-divine human being (Siddhārtha Gautama), and in many of its forms it too does not really have a “god” in the way you would think of one.These three religions were no more contradictory in the minds of the Chinese over the millennia than three different philosophies might be and most people kind of mingle them (certainly the first two). Indeed, once again, they are more philosophies than religions in many respects. You don’t go to church, you don’t even really pray (although Taoism and Buddhism are big on meditation), there typically is no concept of a creator god, and none of them are really big on proselytising. You are aware, I’m sure, of buddhist (and Taoist) monasteries, but these are largely devoted to meditation, which is a personal thing. Now, I’d point out that in the absence of any kind of priestly hierarchy, there are many different sects and currents of these, and some are vaguely more similar to the Abrahamic religions, but typically not.

The idea of an exclusive, creator-centered religion in which someone has a line to god, tells you what’s right and what’s wrong, etc. is foreign to Chinese culture (and to many far-eastern cultures… and I’m leaving Hinduism out of this). It is also the case in Japan, for example. As such, for many Chinese through the ages, you probably would have always considered them atheists because while they had “religions” of sorts, they didn’t really have a god.

For my part, I kind of bemoan the lack of “religion” too in China, even though I’m an atheist. Why? Because Taoism as a philosophy I find extremely appealing, and to a lesser extent, Confucianism. Many of the Chinese I deal with seem extremely commercial to me, very focused on the day-to-day and out of touch with the broader, philosophical questions that underlie their traditional philosophies. I think that some more attention to Taoist teachings would do many Chinese well. However - and this is a big however - most Taoists would still be atheists by your book.

Therefore, the state of affairs that you bemoan is just China. Your idea of “making it better”, and asking religious people to develop religion in China would probably consist of trying to proselytise an entirely foreign concept into a 5000 year old culture, introducing what I consider to be superstition to a people with a rich “spiritual” history of their own that never needed a vengeful god. There are 1.4 billion people there, some would buy your story, but I am sure you would fail dismally on the whole and I am very glad of that.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kevin Dolgin in his own words: I am a serial entrepreneur (I have created companies in the United States, France, Great Britain and soon in China), an associate professor at the Sorbonne, an active musician and a writer (feel free to check me out on Amazon). I am originally from New York but I have lived in Paris for 30 years and am a dual citizen. I am also an avid student of history and of human behavior.

Appendix

A Jesuit—Chinese world map, produced in the 16th century. Note the amazing accuracy of the map in regard to Europe, Africa and Asia, with the Americas a bit less accurate, although they were aware that the new gigantic continent comprised two hemispheres.. (Click on image for best appreciation.)

A note on the Jesuit China Missions
The following material is excerpted from Wikipedia.
The history of the missions of the Jesuits in China is part of the history of relations between China and the Western world. The missionary efforts and other work of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, between the 16th and 17th century played a significant role in continuing the transmission of knowledge, science, and culture between China and the West, and influenced Christian culture in Chinese society today.

Rubens homage to Jesuit civilizational work.

The first attempt by the Jesuits to reach China was made in 1552 by St. Francis Xavier, Navarrese priest and missionary and founding member of the Society of Jesus. Xavier never reached the mainland, dying after only a year on the Chinese island of Shangchuan. Three decades later, in 1582, Jesuits once again initiated mission work in China, led by several figures including the Italian Matteo Ricci, introducing Western science, mathematics, astronomy, and visual arts to the Chinese imperial court, and carrying on significant inter-cultural and philosophical dialogue with Chinese scholars, particularly with representatives of Confucianism. At the time of their peak influence, members of the Jesuit delegation were considered some of the emperor's most valued and trusted advisors, holding prestigious posts in the imperial government.^{[citation needed]} Many Chinese, including former Confucian scholars, adopted Christianity and became priests and members of the Society of Jesus.

According to research by David E. Mungello, from 1552 (i.e., the death of St. Francis Xavier) to 1800, a total of 920 Jesuits participated in the China mission, of whom 314 were Portuguese, and 130 were French.^[2] In 1844 China may have had 240,000 Roman Catholics, but this number grew rapidly, and in 1901 the figure reached 720,490.^[3] Many Jesuit priests, both Western-born and Chinese, are buried in the cemetery located in what is now the School of the Beijing Municipal Committee.^[4]

Contacts between Europe and the West already dated back hundreds of years, especially between the Papacy and the Mongol Empire in the 13th century. Numerous traders – most famously Marco Polo – had traveled between eastern and western Eurasia. Christianity was not new to the Mongols, as many had practiced Christianity of the Church of the East since the 7th century (see Christianity among the Mongols). However, the overthrow of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty by the Ming in 1368 resulted in a strong assimilatory pressure on China's Muslim, Jewish, and Christian communities, and outside influences were forced out of China. By the 16th century, there is no reliable information about any practicing Christians remaining in China.

Fairly soon after the establishment of the direct European maritime contact with China (1513) and the creation of the Society of Jesus (1540), at least some Chinese became involved with the Jesuit effort. As early as 1546, two Chinese boys enrolled in the Jesuits' St. Paul's College in Goa, the capital of Portuguese India. One of these two Christian Chinese, known as Antonio, accompanied St. Francis Xavier, a co-founder of the Society of Jesus, when he decided to start missionary work in China. However, Xavier failed to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland, and died in 1552 on Shangchuan island off the coast of Guangdong,^[5] the only place in China where Europeans were allowed to stay at the time, but only for seasonal trade.

A few years after Xavier's death, the Portuguese were allowed to establish Macau, a semi-permanent settlement on the mainland which was about 100 km closer to the Pearl River Delta than Shangchuan Island. A number of Jesuits visited the place (as well as the main Chinese port in the region, Guangzhou) on occasion, and in 1563 the Order permanently established its settlement in the small Portuguese colony. However, the early Macau Jesuits did not learn Chinese, and their missionary work could reach only the very small number of Chinese people in Macau who spoke Portuguese.^[6]

A new regional manager ("Visitor") of the order, Alessandro Valignano, on his visit to Macau in 1578–1579 realized that Jesuits weren't going to get far in China without a sound grounding in the language and culture of the country. He founded St. Paul Jesuit College (Macau) and requested the Order's superiors in Goa to send a suitably talented person to Macau to start the study of Chinese. Accordingly, in 1579 the Italian Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) was sent to Macau, and in 1582 he was joined at his task by another Italian, Matteo Ricci (1552–1610).^[6]

Ricci's policy of accommodation

Both Ricci and Ruggieri were determined to adapt to the religious qualities of the Chinese: Ruggieri to the common people, in whom Buddhist and Taoist elements predominated, and Ricci to the educated classes, where Confucianism prevailed. Ricci, who arrived at the age of 30 and spent the rest of his life in China, wrote to the Jesuit houses in Europe and called for priests – men who would not only be "good", but also "men of talent, since we are dealing here with a people both intelligent and learned."^[7] The Spaniard Diego de Pantoja and the Italian Sabatino de Ursis were some of these talented men who joined Ricci in his venture.

<—Map of the Far East in 1602, by Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci (1552–1610)

Just as Ricci spent his life in China, others of his followers did the same. This level of commitment was necessitated by logistical reasons: Travel from Europe to China took many months, and sometimes years; and learning the country's language and culture was even more time-consuming. When a Jesuit from China did travel back to Europe, he typically did it as a representative ("procurator") of the China Mission, entrusted with the task of recruiting more Jesuit priests to come to China, ensuring continued support for the Mission from the Church's central authorities, and creating favorable publicity for the Mission and its policies by publishing both scholarly and popular literature about China and Jesuits.^[8] One time the Chongzhen Emperor was nearly converted to Christianity and broke his idols.^[9]

The influence went both ways
For over a century, Jesuits like Michele Ruggieri, Matteo Ricci,^[44] Philippe Couplet, Michal Boym, and François Noël refined translations and disseminated Chinese knowledge, culture, history, and philosophy to Europe. Their Latin works popularized the name "Confucius" and had considerable influence on the Deists and other Enlightenment thinkers, some of whom were intrigued by the Jesuits' attempts to reconcile Confucian morality with Catholicism.^[45]

A further note on Fr. Ricci
Zenit.org /
Book review excerpt of The Wise Man, by Vincent Cronin

Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci was not an ugly imperialist Westerner (those would come later) and represented with tact, respect, and honor the best that Europe could offer Chinese civilization in sciences, mathematics, and technological and philosophical notions.

A new edition of the book, The Wise Man from the West by Vincent Cronin, is the amazing story of the famous Jesuit missionary priest to China, Fr. Matteo Ricci. He arrived in China in 1582 and died there twenty-eight years later, having developed a deep knowledge of and love for the country, the culture and the people. For this, Fr. Ricci was revered as a “Wise Man” by the Chinese.

Before Ricci’s heroic mission, China was an unexplored land bordering on the vague, mysterious Cathay, and the West was no more than a rumor to the learned Mandarins, a distant unknown region lying beyond the bounds of geography. In the person of Father Ricci these two worlds met, and Vincent Cronin dramatically recreates the romance, the crossed purposes, and the potential tragedy of that meeting. He shows us ancient China, the timeless state, with a civilization older than that wherein Christianity first found expression.

Because Ricci loved this civilization and honored it, he was able to teach his strange new Christian doctrine with tact and sympathy. He carried much of the technological and philosophical wisdom of the late Renaissance Europe, and thus found favor among the Mandarins, the men of learning who enjoyed high status at the Imperial Court. He learned Chinese to discuss with them the problems in science and technology, and also questions of religion and the hereafter. He lived as a great scholar among great scholars and left behind him a memory worthy of the Christian faith he served.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Comment here or on our Facebook Group page.

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Things to ponder

While our media prostitutes, many Hollywood celebs, and politicians and opinion shapers make so much noise about the still to be demonstrated damage done by the Russkies to our nonexistent democracy, this is what the sanctimonious US government has done overseas just since the close of World War 2. And this is what we know about. Many other misdeeds are yet to be revealed or documented.

Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” — acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump — a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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CHINA TECH: INVENTION, INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT – PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – 5,000 YEARS OF PROGRESS.

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CHINA TECH: INVENTION, INNOVATION, TECHNOLOGY, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT – PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE – 5,000 YEARS OF PROGRESS. A CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND LIVING DOCUMENT.

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio (links below),

Note: before starting, I’d like to recognize Godfree Roberts, who sent me his similar China Tech file. We help each other a lot in our research, and this is a good example. A number of hyperlinks in the database below are from him. I combined his and mine and alphabetized everything for ease of searching.

Welcome to China Rising Radio Sinoland’s China Tech: Invention, Innovation, Technology, Research and Development – Past, Present, Future – 5,000 Years of Progress. A China Rising Radio Sinoland Living Document. It will be kept at the top of my column page and regularly updated with fresh hyperlinks.Many people around the world do not realize that China Tech has been on the march for 5,000 years. Many people still harbor images of China’s century of humiliation, 1839-1949, as a technological point of reference, when Western and then Japanese parasitic colonialists sucked this country’s people and their resources dry with illegal drugs, expropriation, exploitation and war. That was China’s nadir, 110 years out of five millennia of progress.

Except for those 110 years, the reality is that China has been the world’s innovation leader for most of written history. Please listen to my 600 Years podcast below and study the bilingual table I created, based on Robert Temple’s work, cited just after that. You can even print out the table on nine sheets of A3 or A4 paper, if you’d like, suitable for framing. It’s no contest. The West got at least 60% of its Renaissance, Age of Discovery and Enlightenment innovations directly from previously innovated and invented Chinese technology.

Non-Westerners have been brainwashed into thinking that China’s Mao Era, 1949-1978, was a black hole for R&D, innovation and invention. Nothing could be further from the truth. As explained in Book #3 of The China Trilogy(http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/05/19/the-china-trilogy/), China Is Communist Dammit – Dawn of the Red Dynasty(https://www.amazon.com/China-Communist-Dammit-Dawn-Dynasty/dp/6027354380/), the Mao Era was one of China’s greatest bursts of technological advancement and innovation. Sadly, in the West, it must be denied and censored, because nothing positive about communism and socialism can be acknowledged, due to capitalist zealotry and ideological fear. Communism-socialism must be e-v-i-l and unworkable – period – regardless of reality and the truth.

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]esides Pavlovian brainwashing about communism-socialism, Western denial of China’s achievements is equally based on the crudest notions of racial superiority, going back millennia (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/06/slavs-and-the-yellow-peril-are-niggers-brutes-and-beasts-in-the-eyes-of-western-empire-china-rising-radio-sinoland/). This racism is why the West will never accept the fact that the Chinese explored the Americas, Africa, Australia, Oceania and New Zealand, long before rapacious European pirates fanned out on the high seas in the late 15^th century. Unlike Chinese explorers on missions of trade and diplomacy, these European psychopaths were anything but “noble explorers”. They were genocidal locust exterminating and stealing everything in their paths (see Book #3 of my trilogy for all the details).

Gavin Menzies’ books, 1421: The Year China Discovered America and 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance are proof positive that the Chinese were sailing all over the world, way before any Europeans. While 1434 is a little bit more speculative, his years of research are incontrovertible, with physical carbon-14-dated and DNA evidence all over the Americas, plus 15c-16c European documentation. World history needs to be truthfully retold and of course Westerners are trying to deny it like hell. The hollow myths of racial superiority and exceptionalism must not die:

https://www.amazon.com/1421-Year-China-Discovered-America/dp/0061564893/

https://www.amazon.com/1434-Magnificent-Chinese-Ignited-Renaissance/dp/0061492183/

Baba Beijing realizes just how explosive and disruptive this historical truth is, even to the point of teaching the Western “exploration” myths in its school curriculum. The last thing China wants to do right now is rub the West’s collective nose in historical veracity. But one day, there will be a tipping point and both Western and Chinese history- and textbooks will be correctly rewritten.

Historical Background:

The Chinese haven’t invented anything in the last 600 years, right? China Rising Radio Sinoland podcast by Jeff J. Brown (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/12/28/the-chinese-havent-invented-anything-in-the-last-600-years-right-china-rising-radio-sinoland-podcast-by-jeff-j-brown/).

Table of Time Lags between Chinese Inventions and Discoveries and Their Later Adoption or Recognition in the West /表格：中国发明发现的时间及其在西方的采纳或识别

China Tech- Table of Lag Times between Chinese Invention and Western Adoption

Recommended Historical Reading:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/959257.The_Genius_of_China

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1615459.The_Shorter_Science_and_Civilisation_in_China_Volume_1 (six volumes total)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_China

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

China Tech News on China Rising Radio Sinoland:

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/05/31/chinas-science-technology-research-development-the-us-better-wake-up-china-rising-radio-sinoland-with-john-v-walsh-160601/

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/08/17/baba-beijing-is-going-to-start-using-blockchain-technology-for-official-business-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170817/

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/08/31/why-is-china-tech-smoking-the-west-because-they-have-socialist-vision-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170831/

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/11/23/china-tech-is-unstoppable-from-noodle-shops-to-outer-space-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171123/

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/11/30/do-you-see-what-i-see-depends-on-where-you-look-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171130/

http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/11/chinas-public-social-credit-system-versus-the-wests-secret-panopticon-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180111/

China Tech: Invention, Innovation, Technology, Research and Development on the March

The Database:

For the database below, use word search (usually Ctrl+F) to find your favorite topics of interest below. To be consistent, I am trying to arrange them in the way we say the terms, meaning adjectives may come before the target noun. Thus, I list “Electric airplanes”, not “Airplanes, electric”. In any case, using word search makes it easy. Up to now, with Godfree’s and my links mixed together, some are not in chronological order. From here on out, the most recent entry will be last one under each topic.

If you find a bad link or want to add China Tech news to this databank, please contact me:

https://twitter.com/44_Days

@44_Days

https://www.facebook.com/44DaysPublishing

jeff@brownlanglois.com

Text message/Whatsapp: +8613823544196

Skype: teaching_couple

DATABASE

Aircraft carriers:

https://www.popsci.com/amp/china-nuclear-submarine-aircraft-carrier-leak

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/chinas-nuclear-aircraft-carrier-technology-will-catchup-to-the-us-around-2025.html

Airline production:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/china-special-c919-update-349329/

Air purification towers:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2128355/china-builds-worlds-biggest-air-purifier-and-it-seems-be-working

Artificial corneas:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-05/25/content_20809872.htm

Artificial Intelligence:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/technology/china-us-ai-artificial-intelligence.html

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/10/china-is-betting-big-on-artificial-intelligence.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/10/13/china-has-now-eclipsed-us-in-ai-research/

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/china-three-year-nationwide-ai-action-plan-smart-cars-factories-robots-drones-homes-and-more.html

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2125765/chinas-latest-plans-dominate-robot-smart-car-and-railway

https://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/deciphering-chinas-ai-dream/

Aviation/Avionics:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0522/c90000-9218696.html

Big data:

http://knowledge.ckgsb.edu.cn/2015/07/28/technology/the-power-of-big-data-in-china/

Cloning:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/24/579925801/chinese-scientists-clone-monkeys-using-method-that-created-dolly-the-sheep

CRISPR gene splicing:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/china-leads-world-with-8-crispr-trials-to-treat-cancer-and-crispr-medicine-is-a-national-priority.html

Crop fertilizer and CO2 reduction + increased yields:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02792-7

Cylindrical shaped Hall thrusters (CHTs) (space travel ion thrusters):

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/improved-ion-thruster.html

Dark matter:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/12/dark-matter-space-probe-detects-cosmic-ray-gap-which-might-be-evidence-of-dark-matter.html

Decoding human embryonic gene expression:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11558305/China-shocks-world-by-genetically-engineering-human-embryos.html

http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0319/c90000-9438932.html

Deep sea fish farm a first:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0604/c90000-9223911.html

Deep sea exploration:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1048306.shtml

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1069023.shtml

http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0316/c90000-9437855.html

Deep sea mining:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0520/c90000-9218223.html

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0922/c90000-9272561.html

DNA sequencing:

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/jiangsu-government-unveils-plans-sequence-genes-1-million-subjects

Drones (UAVs):

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/chinas-inexpensive-missile-firing-drones-and-long-duration-solar-drone.html

http://aviationintel.com/chinas-anti-ship-ballistic-missile-the-lost-rq-170-sentinel/

Electric airplanes:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-11/04/content_34097736.htm

Electric car innovation:

http://theduran.com/chinese-develop-car-unlock-facial-recognition/

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/australian-all-electric-bus-drives-into-record-books-1018km-on-one-charge-39659

http://www.zmescience.com/ecology/renewable-energy-ecology/china-electric-bus-19012016/

Electric ship:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1113/c90000-9292144.html

Electricity production:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/china-added-the-electricity-consumption-of-france-and-will-pass-combined-usa-eu-28-energy-in-2020.html

Engineering:

https://splinternews.com/a-chinese-university-just-topped-mit-as-the-best-engine-1793851565

Exotic and super steel:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/breakthrough-steel-is-far-stronger-lower-cost-and-great-mass-production-potential.html

Face recognition:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1060728.shtml

Flammable ice:

https://www.rt.com/business/388964-china-mining-flammable-ice/

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0519/c90000-9218057.html

Floating and submersible nuclear power generators:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/11/china-completing-small-floating-and-submersible-nuclear-reactors-around-2020.html

Floating solar energy farm, world’s biggest:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1212/c90000-9303399.html

Flying cars:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/mit-spinout-flying-car-company-terrafugia-bought-by-geely-is-well-funded-to-sell-flying-cars-starting-in-2019.html

Genomics:

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/NIH-Director-Says-China-Leads-US-in-Genomic-Research-48781-1.html

Go (Chinese chess) artificial intelligence:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/tencent-fine-art-artificial-intelligence-go-program-beats-top-human-players-after-giving-two-stone-handicap.html

Ghost imaging satellites:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2121479/could-ghost-imaging-spy-satellite-be-game-changer-chinese

GPS:

http://services.globaltimes.cn/epaper/2017-10-13/Biz01.htm

Graphene:

http://investorintel.com/rare-earth-intel/chinese-firms-to-launch-the-worlds-first-mass-production-of-15-inch-single-layer-graphene-film/

Gravity centrifuges for deep space and deep sea:

http://www.atimes.com/article/china-build-giant-gravity-centrifuges-mimic-space-deep-sea/

High altitude drones:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0602/c90000-9223109.html

High power fiber laser:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/10/high-power-fiber-laser-in-china.html

High speed trains

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0821/c90882-9258029.html

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0816/c90000-9256275.html

http://www.worldwatch.org/system/files/GlobalCompetitiveness-Rail.pdf

Hydrogen fuel cell tram:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1027/c90000-9285761.html

Hypersonic vehicle in (hypersonic) wind tunnel:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/11/hypersonic-wind-tunnel-test-model-of-chinas-hypersonic-vehicle-revealed.html

Hypersonic missiles:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/china-moving-to-full-scale-hypersonic-missile-production-and-us-will-spend-about-10-billion-per-year-on-missile-defense.html

Hyperspectral imaging:

https://www.popsci.com/china-to-launch-worlds-most-powerful-hyperspectral-satellite

Infrastructure:

Bridges: https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d4d7a4d3345444e/share_p.html

Tunnels: http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0606/c90000-9225009.html

Institutes:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d4d7a4d3045444e/share_p.html

Jet engines:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/10/china-ramping-j20-stealth-fighter-production-and-should-have-improved-ws-15-engine-by-2019.html

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/chinas-jet-engine-technology-around-the-level-of-germany.html

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2127796/china-talks-sale-jet-engine-technology-germany

Leather waste recovery:

https://www.ecns.cn/2017/09-26/275243.shtml

LiFi (not WiFi):

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1003/c202936-9276460.html

Maglev trains:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2017-08/15/content_30620747.htm

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/test-track-has-33-times-lower-air-pressure-as-progress-towards-4000-kilometer-per-hour-trains.html

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/goals-for-2020-include-maglev-trains-at-half-the-speed-of-sound.html

Magnetic propulsion for submarines:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1071828.shtml

Manufacturing powerhouse:

https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/manufacturing/articles/global-manufacturing-competitiveness-index.html

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2085rank.html

High-speed rail by country

List of countries by electricity production

List of countries by motor vehicle production

List of countries by road network size

List of countries by steel production

List of largest producing countries of agricultural commodities

Market share of leading countries in machine tool production 2013 | Ranking

Rail usage statistics by country

Shipbuilding countries

Mass transit:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0602/c90000-9223523.html

Metamaterials:

http://www.newsweek.com/china-says-it-can-make-fighter-jets-invisible-cloaks-made-metamaterials-842167

Microwave photonics-based radar:

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1051535.shtml

Missiles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army_Rocket_Force

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_UAV_employed_missiles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongfeng_(missile)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-41

http://missilethreat.com/missile-class/dong-feng-21d-df-21dcss-5-mod-4/

Mosquito vector control:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2098332/how-wipe-out-mosquitoes-and-eradicate-malaria-mutant-fungus-may

Nanotechnology:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2014-02/17/content_31478994.htm

http://daxueconsulting.com/nanotech-in-china-7-reasons-why/

Naval rail guns:

https://sputniknews.com/military/201802021061312636-china-flexes-electromagnetic-railgun-warship/

http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0316/c90000-9437799.html

Nuclear aircraft carrier:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/china-will-launch-nuclear-powered-aircraft-carrier-by-2025.html

Nuclear energy:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0609/c202936-9226452.html

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/china-small-modular-pebble-beds-will-be-400-million-for-200-mw-and-1-2-billion-for-600-mw.html

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/08/china-will-make-commercial-floating-nuclear-reactors-and-reactors-for-nuclear-military-ships.html

http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2107354/china-pips-us-race-start-worlds-most-advanced-nuclear-power-plant

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9784044/China-blazes-trail-for-clean-nuclear-power-from-thorium.html

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600757/china-could-have-an-advanced-nuclear-reactor-next-year/

http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-China-to-start-building-up-to-eight-reactors-in-2018-0703185.html

Nuclear heating, largest and low cost:

https://www.yicaiglobal.com/news/china-national-nuclear-corporation-develops-worlds-largest-heating-reactor

https://pandaily.com/nuclear-power-heating-china-releases-low-temperature-nuclear-heating-reactor/

Nuclear irradiation of polluted waste water starting in China:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1123/c90000-9296321.html

Ocean dredging ship:

https://www.rt.com/news/408794-island-maker-dredger-china/

Passive Array Radar:

http://chinadailymail.com/2014/12/05/china-says-it-is-able-to-track-and-kill-us-stealth-aircraft/

Pig corneas:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2107318/sight-chinese-mans-eye-restored-after-pig-cornea-transplant

Planning for technology and development:

http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2011/world/infographic-successes-and-failures-of-chinas-five-year-plans-1996-2010/

Railguns, electromagnetic and catapults:

https://www.popsci.com/china-electromagnetic-railgun-catapults

Reusable space planes:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2136022/lift-space-plane-race-china-tests-hypersonic-drone-model

Patents and Intellectual Property:

List of countries by patents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Intellectual_Property_Indicators

Petawatt fusion lasers: China just ahead in the horse race for petawatt fusion lasers:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/02/100-petawatt-lasers-could-generate-antimatter-from-vacuum-and-create-commercial-nuclear-fusion.html

Public education Pre-K to Grade 12:

http://akarlin.com/2012/08/analysis-of-chinas-pisa-2009-results/

http://www.oecd.org/countries/hongkongchina/46581016.pdf

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2014/02/05/what-we-can-learn-from-the-success-of-shanghais-schools/#51e3aeb867be

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/what-shanghai-can-teach-us-about-teaching-math/article17835021/?page=all

http://oecdeducationtoday.blogspot.com/2013/12/are-chinese-cheating-in-pisa-or-are-we.html

Quantum computing and communication:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2017-05/31/content_29561952.htm

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-shatters-ldquo-spooky-action-at-a-distance-rdquo-record-preps-for-quantum-internet/

http://www.scmp.com/tech/science-research/article/1893063/china-set-quantum-leaps-spook-proof-communications

https://www.rt.com/news/328988-china-quantum-info-teleport/

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2016-03/27/content_38120280.htm

Quantum computing on the cloud:

https://www.alibabacloud.com/press-room/alibaba-cloud-and-cas-launch-one-of-the-worlds-most

Quantum Entanglement:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601658/first-demonstration-of-10-photon-quantum-entanglement-sets-new-record/

http://www.china.org.cn/china/2015-11/21/content_37123628.htm

https://www.natureindex.com/news-blog/charting-chinas-rising-dominance-in-science

Rural Education:

https://www.scmp.com/video/technology/2135778/how-technology-improving-education-rural-china

World’s first photon quantum computer:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-06/15/content_29752320_5.htm

https://www.popsci.com/chinas-launches-new-quantum-research-supercenter

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/national-security/article179971861.html

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609294/quantum-breakthrough-heralds-new-generation-of-perfectly-secure-messaging/

Saltwater rice:

https://www.zmescience.com/science/agriculture-science/saltwater-rice-24102017/

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/03/progress-to-more-salt-resistant-rice.html

Scientific publications:

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/china-us-publisher-science-0432432/

Solar energy:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2096667/china-flips-switch-worlds-biggest-floating-solar-farm

Space program:

http://www.space.com/topics/latest-news-china-space-program

Space telescopes:

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d51444d3045444e/share_p.html

Spallation neutrons:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1030/c90000-9286606.html

Speech recognition:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2014/12/18/baidu-announces-breakthrough-in-speech-recognition-claiming-to-top-google-and-apple/

Superconduction:

http://english.cri.cn/12394/2016/09/09/3441s939868.htm

Using dead leaves:

http://www.zmescience.com/research/materials/fallen-leaves-supercapacitors-01092017/

Supercomputers:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-06/15/content_29752320_4.htm

https://www.top500.org/news/china-pulls-ahead-of-us-in-latest-top500-list/

http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0129/c90000-9420784.html

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/01/chinas-240-petaflop-supercomputer-and-200-petaflop-us-supercomputer-will-be-competing-in-a-few-months.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2014/11/17/china-once-again-boasts-the-worlds-fastest-supercomputer/

http://www.nextplatform.com/2015/11/16/china-triples-top-supercomputer-count-in-2015/

Telecommunications:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2151rank.html

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2153rank.html

Trackless train for small cities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr9-J3nOKbE

Tunnels:

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2116750/chinese-engineers-plan-1000km-tunnel-make-xinjiang-desert-bloom

Ultrahigh voltage transmission (UHV):

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-08/04/c_134480636.htm

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-06/24/c_136391176.htm

Unmanned surface vehicle, world’s fastest:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/1215/c90000-9305091.html

Waste management:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2018/0320/c90000-9439735.html

Water transfer to higher elevations:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0612/c90000-9227228.html

Wind tunnels:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-06/15/content_29752320_6.htm

World’s brightest UV light:

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2017-06/15/content_29752320_7.htm

Xenotransplantation:

http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0812/c90000-9254541.html

http://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/pig-organ-transplant-043242/

END OF DATABASE

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).

The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities. Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, much of it on a family farm, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whetted his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He lives in China with his wife. Jeff is a dual national French-American, being a member of the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the International Workers of the World (IWW).

The myth of a neo-imperial China

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. BREAKING THE EMPIRE'S DISINFORMATION MACHINE IS UP TO YOU.

By PEPE ESCOBAR, ASIA TIMES, MARCH 14, 2018

Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the Roundtable Summit Phase One Sessions of the Belt and Road Forum.

New Silk Road infrastructure projects could bring back a peaceful and prosperous Eurasia

The geopolitical focus of the still young 21^st century spans the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf all the way to the South China Sea alongside the spectrum from Southwest Asia to Central Asia and China.

That happens to configure the prime playing ground, overland and maritime, of the New Silk Roads, or the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The epicenter of global power shifting East is ruffling feathers in some US political circles – with a proliferation of parochial analyses ranging from Chinese “imperial overstretch” to Xi Jinping’s Chinese Dream provoking “nightmares.”

The basic argument is that Emperor Xi is aiming for a global power grab by mythologizing the New Silk Roads.

The BRI is certainly about China’s massive foreign exchange reserves; the building know-how; the excess capacity in steel, aluminum and concrete production; public and private financing partnerships; the internationalization of the yuan; and full connectivity of infrastructure and information flows.

Yet the BRI is not a matter of geopolitical control supported by military might; it’s about added geopolitical projection based on trade-and-investment connectivity.

The BRI is such a game-changer that Japan, India and the “Quad” (US, Japan, India, Australia) felt forced to come up with their own “alternative”, much-reduced mini-BRIs – whose collective rationale essentially lies in accusing the BRI of “revisionism” while emphasizing the need to fight against Chinese global domination.

The basis of the Trump administration’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, introduced in October 2017, was to define China as a hostile existential threat. The National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defense Strategy (NDS) amplified the threat to the level of a new doctrine.

The NSS states that “China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” The NSS accuses China and Russia of wanting “to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests.” It also accuses Beijing of “seek[ing] to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region” and of “expand[ing] its power at the expense of the sovereignty of others.”

The NDS states that Beijing “seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future.”

That’s the new normal as far as multiple layers of the US industrial-military-surveillance-media complex are concerned. Dissent is simply not permitted.

Time to talk to Kublai Khan

“Revisionist” powers China and Russia are regarded as major double trouble when one delves into the direct link between the BRI and the Russia-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). The EAEU is itself one step ahead of the Russia-China strategic partnership announced in 2012, crucially a year before Xi announced the BRI in Astana and then Jakarta.

At the BRI forum in Beijing in May 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin solidified the notion of a “greater Eurasian partnership”.

The Russian “pivot to Asia” started even before Maidan in Kiev, the referendum in Crimea and subsequent Western sanctions. This was a work in progress along multiple sessions inside the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS and the G-20.

Kazakhstan is the key link uniting BRI, EAEU and the SCO. Russia and Kazakhstan are part of one of the top overland connectivity corridors between East Asia and Europe – the other going through Iran and Turkey.

Xinjiang to Eastern Europe by rail, via Kazakhstan and Russia, now takes 14 days and soon will drop to 10. That’s a major boost to trade in high value-added merchandise – paving the way for future BRI high-speed rail able to compete head-on with low-cost maritime transport.

As for Moscow’s drive to be part of the BRI/EAEU economic connectivity, that’s only one vector of Russian foreign policy. Another one, as important, is enhanced German-Russian trade/investment relations, a priority also for German industrialists.

China for its part is now the top foreign investor in all five Central Asian “stans.” And it’s crucial to remember that Central Asia is configured not only by the five “stans” but also by Mongolia, Xinjiang and Afghanistan. Thus the SCO drive to solve the Afghan tragedy, with direct participation of major players China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Iran.

The BRI strategy of forging a pan-Eurasian connectivity/logistical grid naturally poses the question of how Beijing will manage such an open-ended project. The BRI is not even in its implementation phase, which officially starts next year.

It’s useful to compare the accusations of “revisionism” with Chinese history. When Marco Polo reached the Yuan court in the late 13^thcentury he saw a multicultural empire thriving on trade.

It was the Silk Road trade routes and not the projection of military power that epitomized Pax Mongolica. The 21^st century Pax Sinica is its digital version. Is Xi a new emperor or a post-modern version of Kublai Khan?

The Yuan dynasty did not “control” Persia, Russia or India. Persia, a superpower then, linked the Nile, Mesopotamia and the Indus with trade with China. During the Tang Dynasty in the 8^th and 9^thcenturies China also had projected influence across Central Asia all the way to northeastern Iran.

And that explains why Iran, now, is such a key node of the BRI and why the leadership in Tehran wants the New Silk Roads solidified. A China-Russia-Iran alliance of – Eurasia integration – interests cannot but rattle Washington; after all, the Pentagon defines all those geopolitical actors as “threats.”

Historically, China and Persia were, for centuries, wealthy, settled agricultural civilizations having to deal with occasional swarms of desert warriors – yet most of the time in touch with each other because of the Silk Road. The Sino-Persian entente cordiale is embedded in solid history.

And that brings us to what lies at the heart of non-stop BRI dismissal/demonization.

It’s all about preventing the emergence not only of a “peer competitor,” but worse: a New Silk Road-enabled trade/connectivity condominium – featuring China, Russia, Iran and Turkey – as powerful across the East as the US still remains across the much-troubled “Western Hemisphere.”

That has nothing to do with Chinese neo-imperialism. When in doubt, invoke Kublai Khan.

About the Author

Brazilian -born Pepe Escobar is an internationally recognised correspondent for many leading progressive information networks.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Parting shot—a word from the editors

The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found

In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report

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AN EMAIL EXCHANGE BETWEEN WILLIAM ENGDAHL AND JEFF J. BROWN. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND

.

AN EMAIL EXCHANGE BETWEEN WILLIAM ENGDAHL AND JEFF J. BROWN. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 180306

Pictured above: Taiwanese Li Mingche at his sentencing in September 2017, for subverting China’s communist-socialist way of life. He worked for years to get Chinese citizens to try to overthrow the government. Baba Beijing finally got a bellyful of his Western NGO backed treason and as a result, he is now spending five years in prison. These are the kind of turncoats Baba is worried about, not the untold thousands of social media groups in China, where members are against the government, the Communist Party of China (CPC), different leaders and just about every other niche group you can think of with a gripe.

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), as well as being syndicated on iTunes and Stitcher Radio(links below),

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] always appreciate it when fans take the time to contact me about an article/podcast that I did. It is especially gratifying when a fellow author/journalist does so, because they know how much work goes into a well-researched piece.So, when my author friend William Engdahl sent me an email to compliment me on my post about Western racism (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/03/01/western-racism-and-hypocrisy-foaming-at-the-mouth-over-chinas-constitutional-changes-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180301/), I was all smiles. William is an outstanding author who has written numerous books. He’s also a senior contributing editor at The Greanville Post. I highly recommend that you subscribe to his free newsletter. He always sends something informative and thought provoking:

http://www.williamengdahl.com/

The start is William’s short email to me. I sat down to write a few lines and seven hours later, voilà. I realized it ended up being a great article, so I emailed William to get his permission to turn it into an “email exchange” between the two of us. He kindly agreed, so enjoy.

From: William Engdahl

Sent: Friday, 2 March, 2018 15:58
To: Jeff J. Brown <jeff@brownlanglois.com>
Subject: West going rabid over China’s participatory democracy

Jeff,

Thanks for this. From afar I am of two minds, so this helps. One is an ominous sign of tightening down debate. On the other hand, the Silk Road/BRI is a counter to the entire Anglo-American New World Order, which is so important to steer rough waters ahead and the need for strong leadership, not muddy consensus. Only I see some ominous signs that are not so positive, such as recent deal between Xi Jinping and the Pope in Rome. This could prove very dangerous for China, as is the Syngenta “biotech” venture into GMO.

Any comments are most welcome.

Best, William

(My response)

Hi William,

Thanks for commenting and I’m glad you liked the article. I hope you will sign up for my email alert, so you can stay on top of my work (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/blog-2/, right hand side). I always enjoy getting your emails too.

First, William, I congratulate you for saying, From afar I’m of two minds, so this helps. This shows someone who understands that where they are matters and conflicting ideas and news are healthy.

To be honest with you, the “tightening down debate” has been largely been conducted on known Western fifth columnists. Baba Beijing used its new NGO control law (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/04/30/baba-beijing-lowers-the-communist-boom-on-foreign-ngos-china-rising-radio-sinoland-16-4-30/) to go after several hundred unregistered foreign agents. Their social media accounts were (temporarily) shut down, they were brought in for questioning and the like. Many of them could have been arrested for aiding and abetting a foreign country. Some, like Liu Xiaobo and Li Mingche were imprisoned, because their treason was so chronically obvious. But overall, the CPC is amazingly patient and indulgent (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/08/26/baba-beijing-is-sick-and-tired-of-the-west-using-hong-kong-to-overthrow-the-cpc-china-rising-radio-sinoland-170821-2/).

I have an interesting anecdotal story to share with you, William. Over the Chinese New Year holiday, my family and I visited an old employee of mine from the 1990s. His father got caught up in the 1950s Anti-Right Campaign and suffered terribly. Thus, my friend, down to his spleen, viscerally hates the CPC, Mao and every communist in between, up to Xi. He participates in anti-party, anti-Mao, anti-Xi social media forums. There are conservative forums who hate Deng and the all the presidents thereafter, for selling out Mao to capitalist reforms. There are pro-Deng groups who idolize his modernization and pro-Xi groups who love his anti-corruption drive. There are untold thousands of these social media groups, of every niche and persuasion, with hundreds of millions of participants. It is vibrant and very active.

Is there censorship? Of course. If someone starts spreading outright lies and scurrilous rumors, those threads will get cut. But, wanna call Xi an evil monster? Go right ahead. Do it on Wechat, or Weibo and the scores other social media venues Westerners have never heard of. Just don’t do it on a street corner. That is a public loss of face for Baba Beijing and very un-Confucian.

Seeing all the imperial search engine suppression for hundreds of alternative websites, including The Greanville Post and China Rising Radio Sinoland, and all the channels and accounts being shut down in Western social media (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram), I think Eurangloland’s censorship is much more intense and ideologically motivated than in China. A case in point, my StumbleUpon account was frozen over a year ago.

There are 300-500 public protests a day in China. But they have to be for a specific reason: a case of fraud, a corrupt land deal, a rotten party cadre, an injustice, a polluting factory, etc. (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/30/60-seconds-over-sinoland-selling-breast-milk-as-public-protest-is-chinese-democracy-in-action-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180131/). You just can’t go out on a public square and vaguely say the that CPC is crap, Xi is corrupt or demand Western democracy. Again, this is a loss of face in Chinese culture and doesn’t better society.

Baba Beijing loves all the development of China’s social media, which is one of the reasons it promotes it so heavily. Go ahead, get on Duban, Doudou, Sogu, Renren, Baidu, Meituan, QQ, UC, Youku, Wechat, Sina, Weibo, etc., and call Xi a criminal or promote Western style elections. The Party knows that all this social media is a powerful pressure release valve for its 1.4 billion citizens to express themselves. It’s not street public, so there is no loss of Confucian face.

Being the world’s largest surveyor and pollster (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/05/22/china-has-the-worlds-most-popular-government-for-a-reason-china-rising-radio-sinoland-160522/), all this affords Baba Beijing a myriad pulse on the body politic, as well as all the trends in what the masses are thinking. Given China’s mastery of artificial intelligence and big numbers, the Party can parse all these opinions and trends by socioeconomic group, geographical location, education, profession and on and on, to better respond to the people’s democratic aspirations (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/20/headlines-say-it-all-baba-beijings-vision-leads-its-citizens-into-the-21st-century-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180121/ and http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/01/11/chinas-public-social-credit-system-versus-the-wests-secret-panopticon-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180111/).

William, the fact of the matter is that people outside China are brainwashed by 150 years of rabid anti-communism-socialism, especially after Russia’s mighty anti-imperial 1917 Revolution. As well, they are just as brainwashed with deep seated anti-Chinese racism, going back centuries, which I wrote about and referenced in my previous article (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/03/01/western-racism-and-hypocrisy-foaming-at-the-mouth-over-chinas-constitutional-changes-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180301/). But having been on the ground in China for a total of 15 years, since 1990 and seeing its never-before-in-human-history evolution and transformation, while doing thousands of hours of research on pre- and post-liberation China, I can say in no uncertain terms that China has the most open, participatory, responsive and citizen-satisfying democracy in the world. The fact that it is based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Thought means it’s radically different than the West’s version of electoral democracy (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/10/25/how-can-western-capitalism-beat-this-thats-the-rub-it-cant-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171022/ and http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/03/13/why-chinas-centrally-planned-communist-economy-runs-circles-around-capitalism-china-rising-radio-sinoland-16-3-13/).

I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of the Chinese’s response is,

THANK GOODNESS!

As far as Baba Beijing working with Rome to normalize relations and the appointment of bishops, like you, I’m no fan of the imperial Vatican, historically and currently. But there are millions of Chinese in underground churches (which I have witnessed first-hand, as well as gone to public churches) and because of the current Vatican-Beijing impasse, many of them are Catholic. The CPC (nor the people) will never forgive Western churches for their critical role in maintaining China’s century of humiliation, 1839-1949 (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/10/01/chinas-communist-liberation-on-october-1st-1949-changed-the-world-forever-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171001/). But Xi realizes that to bring transparency to China’s religious groups and sects, Baba must normalize relations with the Pope. Xi is not doing this for the Vatican. He’s doing it for his country’s long-term social stability and harmony.

Not to mention, the Holy See would have to renounce recognition of Taiwan as the Vatican’s representative of China, which is long overdue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_See–Taiwan_relations). The Holy See is the lone holdout in Europe to continue to work with Taiwan, so the symbolism is ripe with significance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Taiwan#Entities_with_full_diplomatic_relations_with_Taiwan). Uncle Sam realizes how important it is (https://www.voanews.com/a/china-vatican-talks-threaten-taiwan-with-loss-of-crucial-ally/3662425.html). Simply put, it has got to be done.

I too closely followed ChemChina’s purchase of Syngenta last year, creating one of the biggest agricultural chemical and GMO repositories in the world (http://www.chemchina.com.cn/en/). ChemChina is a state-owned enterprise, ranks in the Forbes Global 500 and is one of the biggest in its sector (http://fortune.com/global500/chemchina/). It had $45 billion in revenue last year and turned a profit, while swallowing up Syngenta, then the world’s #2 agricultural company, after Monsanto.

You and I both distrust GMO and based on our research (which you’ve done a mountain of), we have serious concerns for humanity’s long-term survival, due to their use.

At the same time, Baba Beijing is responsible for feeding and clothing 1.4 billion citizens, almost one-fifth of the world’s people. China has about ten percent of the world’s arable land. The announcement that China Tech has developed saltwater rice is wonderful news (https://www.zmescience.com/science/agriculture-science/saltwater-rice-24102017/). As much as we disagree, Baba has come to the conclusion that these kinds of non-GMO advances will not be enough to realize China’s goals for 2049 (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2017/10/29/october-18th-2017-is-world-cd-day-when-baba-beijing-declared-war-on-western-capitalism-china-rising-radio-sinoland-171029/) and that to not use GMO is a luxury it cannot afford. Russia is going all non-GMO, but it has even more arable land than China (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land) with about one-tenth the population (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population).

But, we can enjoy the fact that Syngenta is now a China state owed company, whose CEO, Ren Jianxin is a fire breathing member of the Communist Party of China. Take that capitalist empire!

You and I remind me of a story Godfree Roberts told me. He saw a YouTube video with a professor recounting a funny story at a big Sino-American conference. A Chinese vice president was one of the guests, meaning he was one of the most powerful members of the CPC. A Western human rights type was there, in this VP’s face, ranting about the case of so-and-so and their loss of freedom, civil rights, due process… Being very Confucian, the VP respectfully let this person have their say till the very end. Then, the VP replied (paraphrasing),

Thank you for sharing your views. You know, I must apologize profusely, but I don’t even know who you are talking about. Please understand that every day, I get up and am responsible for the happiness, wellbeing and harmonious stability of 1.4 billion people.

Needless to say, the VP’s reply was end of that discussion.

Thus, from Baba Beijing’s perspective, as sincere and research-supported as they may be, our concerns about GMO rank right down there with the West’s contrived concerns for some Chinese citizens’ supposed loss of human rights. The CPC has a big job on its hands, or if you will pardon my egregious pun, Baba Beijing has much bigger GMO fish to fry!

Always wonderful to hear from you, William.

Best from Jeff in China

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).

The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.
In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities. Jeff grew up in the heartland of the United States, Oklahoma, much of it on a family farm, and graduated from Oklahoma State University. He went to Brazil while in graduate school at Purdue University, to seek his fortune, which whetted his appetite for traveling the globe. This helped inspire him to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia in 1980 and he lived and worked in Africa, the Middle East, China and Europe for the next 21 years. All the while, he mastered Portuguese, Arabic, French and Mandarin, while traveling to over 85 countries. He then returned to America for nine years, whereupon he moved back to China in 2010. He lives in China with his wife. Jeff is a dual national French-American, being a member of the Communist Party of France (PCF) and the International Workers of the World (IWW).

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