China Rejects Western Pressure on Human Rights

August 13, 2010

One place to read anything positive about China is in the “China Daily” or a few Blogs written by people like me, who have been to China and do their homework to know what’s really going on.

In China rejects Western standards on human rights, Xinhua (7-3-2010), Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying says that the “West” ignores China’s political progress.

In fact, there has been much political progress since Mao died in 1976. See China’s Capitalist Revolution to learn more.

I’d like to rewrite Minister Fu Ying’s statement to say that most of the “Western media” and conservative and liberal political action groups in the US ignore China’s progress for a reason. These groups have a political agenda against anything that has the word “Communist” in front of it. To them, China is still a Maoist country that they fear, and they do not want to hear the truth.

Minister Fu Ying is correct when she says that the Western point-of-view on human rights in China is spread by “political extremists”.

The Tibetan separatists represent about one percent of the Tibetan population, and the Muslim separatists from China’s northwest are the same as the Islamic fundamentalists the West is fighting on the other side of the border in Afghanistan.

The other loud voice is the Falun Gong, a cult with enough money to support a traveling international musical troop, a TV station and a newspaper. That has to cost a small fortune, so where does that money come from?

Well, we know from Congressional hearings that the CIA supports the Tibetan separatists, so it isn’t a stretch to figure out who supports the Falun Gong and the Muslims.

I suggest you watch the three videos and tell me who isn’t guilty of human rights violations.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Question of Religion (2/2)

August 13, 2010

Think of the violence and wars that religions have caused—the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, genocide against the Cathars (see video), the wars between Catholics and Protestants, and the persecution of Jews by both Muslims and Christians.

Then there are Islamic fundamentalists and the suffering and death caused by their religious beliefs.

Although most people in China are not religious, religions have caused uprising and wars in China too.

The Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) came about due to a rebellion against the Mongol Yuan Dynasty led by a religious sect known as the “Red Turbans” or “Red Scarves”, which included elements from “White Lotus”, a Buddhist sect from the late Southern Song Dynasty. Source: New World Encyclopedia

During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) when the Manchu minority ruled China, there were a number of religious uprisings.

There was the White Lotus Rebellion (1796-1804) in the mountain region that separates Sichuan province from Hubei and Shaanxi provinces. The White Lotus was a secret religious society promising salvation to its followers similar to the Falun Gong today.

A Christian convert claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ led the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and more than 20 million died.

The Panthay Rebellion (1856-1873) was a separatist movement led by the Hui people and Chinese Muslims.

There was also the Dungan revolt (1862-1877), led by Muslims in China’s Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang provinces. Chinese historians and officials believed that Islam played a role in causing that uprising.

Maybe the reason China survived for thousands of years without collapsing as Western civilization did when Rome fell was the absence of a major religious movement in China stirring the peoples’ emotions.

Instead of listening to God from the mouths of Popes, prophets and priests, the Chinese had a blend of Confucianism and Taoism, which the family taught by example.

Return to The Question of Religion – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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6 Comments | America, Buddhism, Buddhist, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Christianity, Confucianism, cults, cultural differences, history, Islam, religion, Taoism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Question of Religion (1/2)

August 12, 2010

I read a piece in the August National Geographic about Native Lands in America. The piece mentions the horrible atrocities committed by the European invaders against the natives who had lived on the land for more than ten thousand years.

As I read, I wondered if the reason Chinese civilization survived for thousands of years was because China had no organized religion to stir the emotions of the people and set them against each other in endless religious wars. 

When I brought this up with an old friend of mine who is a born again evangelical Christian, his response was that real Christians didn’t cause religious wars.

I question his right to decide who a real Christian is.  In fact, most Christians believe they will be forgiven since the cornerstone of Christian religion is Christ dying on the cross for their sins so killing all those nonbelievers must have been okay.

There are even influential and wealthy Christians (see above video) who support Israel rebuilding Solomon’s temple for the sole reason that it means the end of life on earth as we know it. However, those Christians believe they would be with God as His chosen few.

I wonder if early Christians may have been the reason the Roman Empire eventually collapsed.

See Cults and Christian Cannon Balls

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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1 Comment | America, Buddhism, Buddhist, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Christianity, Confucianism, cults, cultural differences, Islam, religion, Taoism | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Takes its Future Seriously

August 12, 2010

In China, little is left to chance and the central government takes its job so seriously, many in the West believe the leaders of China are totalitarians and brutal dictators.  In fact, China’s leaders are acting as the collective culture dictates. 

Those in China who speak out against the government are considered aberrations and few have sympathy when they are punished. Confucianism and piety demand that citizens do not publicly challenge the government but, in turn, the government has an obligation to the people to insure a secure and bountiful future. 

Fail in that and the Communists will lose the mandate to rule.

The most critical obligation is water. China has two of the world’s longest rivers—the Yellow and the Yangtze.  However, there is still not enough water in the north.

To solve that challenge, China is building both above and underground pipelines from the south to the north to move water from the Yangtze and the Danjiangkou reservoir in Hubei province.

The most difficult task will be tunneling under earthquake prone mountains as high as five kilometers above sea level.

The South-to-North Water diversion Project in China with an estimated cost of 70 billion dollars is the largest of its kind ever undertaken. Mao Zedong first proposed the project in 1952, and it took 50 years to plan before construction started with completion set for 2050. 

When done, China will divert almost 45 billion cubic meters of water annually to the drier north. Source: Water Technology.net

See the Shanghai Huangpu River Tour

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Corruption in China may often stem from Cultural Pressure

August 12, 2010

I’m thinking about what motivated the CEO of Enron and others to steal from their employees and stockholders so they could party, live in mansions and travel as if they were members of the jet set.

In America, there is a history of insider trading, securities and commodities fraud, corporate fraud, health care fraud, antitrust violations, bribery, embezzlement and organized crime.

In fact, the FBI estimates that white-collar crime costs the US more than $300 billion annually.

In China that would be more than 2 trillion yuan.

Western civilization is based on individualism so the primary motivation of those white-collar criminals would probably be individual greed.

However, in Chinese culture, the motivation to become corrupt may not be just from greed.  The American media appears obsessed over corruption in China without addressing how culture plays a role.

In rural China, the peasant, who works the fields, probably is only motivated to grow enough food so his family will not starve while selling enough to keep a roof over their heads.

Most peasants live according to the concept of Taoism, which roughly interpreted means go with the natural order of things or do as little as possible to survive while living in a passive state.

Confucianism teaches the opposite and has more influence in urban China where most of China’s middle class lives and works. Here, loss of face is enough to motivate the individual to become corrupt so he will not look like a loser in the minds of his family, associates or friends. The other choice is suicide.

Since Jesus Christ supposedly said, “Let he who has no guilt cast the first stone”, I want to mention that I read about representatives in both houses of Congress in Washington DC costing the US taxpayer about a million annually for moral corruption. Why—to settle with abused congressional employees, who have been harassed (I’m thinking sexual) or treated badly by their political bosses over the past 14 years. Source: Politico

Back to corruption in Taiwan and China.

The Economist reportedthat corruption flourishes in Taiwan in the judicial system.  The same piece also says that Chen Shui-bian, the former president of Taiwan from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is serving a 20 year sentence for corruption.  On the next page of the July 24th issue is another piece about academic fraud in (mainland) China.

Although greed may play a role in Chinese corruption, another factor may be a more powerful force and that is maintaining, “face” or increasing it since upwardly mobile Chinese are expected to constantly gain face.

To do this, one has to gain in wealth, stature or reputation. This puts a lot of pressure on a Chinese man, which reminds me of the Taiwanese architect our daughter found hanging dead in a tree a few years back during a family hike in Southern California.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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