Regardless of the fact that the West calls the rulers of China Communists, it is clear that to the Chinese mind, the Mandate of Heaven shifted from Mao to Hua Guofeng and Deng Xiaoping and their predecessors. It will be up to China’s future rulers not to lose that mandate.
Milk and Tea for Chairman Hua
It doesn’t matter if the words ‘The Mandate of Heaven’ are invoked or not. It is obvious that the ‘Five Great Relationships’, as taught by Confucius, and the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ are infused in the Chinese thought process. Most born in China do not take a class to learn what this means, as students have to do in America to learn what the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights mean. In China, one is raised with these philosophies in mind.
Piety, face, The Five Great Relationships, and the Mandate of Heaven are the foundation guide the behavior of the majority of Chinese.
The Western media and the political rulers of Western nations infer that Communism is evil because it is one party, (so-called) socialist political system, but most Chinese don’t see it that way.
To most Chinese, if the current rulers of China do their job and rule with the blessings of Heaven. The Western democratic political process is foreign to Chinese. To them, “Why change something that works? Leave it to Heaven.”
See The Mandate of Heaven http://wp.me/pN4pY-nc
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