Until this piece, most of what I read about China in The Economist has been educational but this one was stilted and biased – another example of China bashing.
What does the Beijing based unnamed critic writing in The Economist expect – that China will adopt America’s evangelical, neo-conservative role to spread “democracy” and “Christianity” to the world through nation building?
Wait, stop the presses!
Did I hear that right? Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the critic from The Economist suggest that he or she expects China to spread “democracy” to countries like Burma and North Korea, which are by definition dictatorships, which the U.S. has a long history of supporting. See Cold War Origins of the CIA Holocaust to learn more.
Why do critics in America want dictatorships like Burma and North Korea to be democracies when America is a Republic, according to the Founding Fathers and the Constitution of the United States?
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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In 1987, archeologists discovered an underground temple/palace below the Famen Temple that had been built and sealed during the Tang Dynasty and found a solid-gold pagoda and inside was a finger bone of the founder of Buddhism, Sakyamuni.
The seventeen-hundred year-old Famen Temple was built during theEastern Han Dynasty. To date, this is the largest underground Buddhist palace/temple in China.
Although China is known as the home of tea, it wasn’t until the Tang Dynasty that drinking tea became part of the culture when the Chinese also invented noodles.
Chang’an, known as Xian when it was the capital of China’s first emperor, had an east and west market that sold goods from around the known world.
A popular past time for both men and women during the dynasty was playing polo, which had been introduced from Persia.
Art, music and dance flourished in the Tang capital. The political flexibility of the Tang Dynasty promoted social tolerance leading to stability.
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.
To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.
“Tinpot dictator” are the two key words in the title of this opinion piece, as if the United States has never hosted “tinpot” dictators.
A well-written criticism of the U.S. government from Sri Lanka sets the record straight.
“I wish the spokesman of the (U.S.) State Department … would explain how Washington’s concern for democracy in Sri Lanka squares with US support for repressive regimes such as the one in Uzbekistan or the autocratic rule in Saudi Arabia, both countries in which the U.S. has military facilities.
“In post-World War II period, Washington has militarily propped up such dictators including several in South Korea, Ferdinand Marcos who was ousted by the Filipino people, Indonesia’s Suharto also thrown out by the people, Vietnam’s Dinh Diem, various military governments in Thailand, Singapore’s autocrat Lee Kwan Yew, the military dictators in Pakistan from Ayub Khan to Pervez Musharraf, all of them from our part of the world…” Source: The Ugly Americans Once More (Lankaweb, Sri Lanaka’s first Social Media website)
The Economist only mentions a half century of history between China and Burma/Myanmar.
Yet China’s history with Burma/Myanmar goes back about two thousand years.
The opinion piece also does not mention that China, since 1982, has not been into nation building as the U.S. has since 9/11, when President G.W. Bush launched wars against Iraq and Afghanistan with threats toward Iran and North Korea.
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.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
During the Sui (589-617) and Tang Dynasties, China went through a period of cultural and spiritual development.
The country’s ethnic groups along with Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism coexisted peacefully with foreign religions such as Islam.
Literature and the arts developed more than before.
The Han Dynasty (206 BC to 219 AD) opened the Silk Road for trade, and the civilizations of Rome, Ancient Egypt, of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers and India continued trade with the Tang Dynasty.
According to Tang Dynasty records contact was maintained with more than 300 countries and regions across the known world, so the Silk Road was also known as the Envoy Road.
People from countries such as Japan, Korea, and India as well as Tehran came to China.
Many foreigners had positions in the central government of the Tang Dynasty, and they served both as civil officials and military officers.
The Tang Dynasty demonstrated respect for all foreign religions. During this time, Christianity was introduced to China.
The Imperial family of the Tang Dynasty had been a military family in Northwest China for generations and they made Taoism the national religion.
Laozi, the founder of Taoism, advocated harmony between people and nature, which was reflected in the beliefs of the first rulers of the Tang Dynasty.
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.
To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.
If we were to compare Chinese civilization to an amusement ride, it would be a roller coaster.
As each dynasty ended, there was usually a period of chaos, war and anarchy among rival factions.
After the collapse of China’s last Dynasty, the Qing, between 1911 and 1949, chaos, anarchy, warlords, rebellion and World War II tore at the fabric of China. See The Roots of Madness
The Xia Dynasty (about 2205 – 1766 BC) ended with the reign of a tyrannical emperor, who lived an extravagant life. When patriotic ministers attempted giving him good advice, he killed them. Then the people rose in rebellion.
The Shang Dynasty (1766 – 1122 BC) ended in similar circumstances when the last emperor lived a luxurious life and tortured both his ministers and people. Another rebellion led by the chief of the Zhou tribe brought down the Shang.
The Zhou Dynasty (1122 – 221 BC) was divided between the Eastern and Western Zhou Dynasties, which fell apart during the Spring and Autumn (770 – 475 BC) Period and the Warring States Period (476 – 221 BC) when the Zhou Emperor didn’t have the power to control the nobles, who fought amongst themselves again leading to chaos and anarchy.
The short Qin Dynasty (221 to 207 BC) unified all China ending the Warring States Period.
However, Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor, was brutal and soon after his death, the Qin Dynasty was swept aside to be replaced by the Han Dynasty.
The Han Dynasty (207 BC to 220 AD) was divided into the Western and Eastern Han. Near the end of the Han, the last two emperors were weak. The rule of law broke down again and life was hard.
The Han ended with another rebellion leading to the Three Kingdom’s Period (220 – 280 AD), which meant more chaos and anarchy before China would be unified again under one emperor.
With the end of the Three Kingdoms Period, the Jin Dynasty (265 – 420 AD) ruled until the final emperors were too weak to control the warlords, which led to chaos and anarchy.
The Jin Dynasty was followed by four successive southern dynasties (420 – 589 AD) and five northern dynasties (386 – 581 AD) followed by the Sui Dynasty that lasted for 38 years when the last emperor of the Sui yielded the throne to the Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty.
The early Tang emperors built an empire that pushed China’s boundaries to their farthest existence and a culture whose achievements would profoundly influence all Asia.
A thriving economy with complex international ties created one of the richest, strongest and most sophisticated states in world history.
The western capital of Chan-an, which had been the first capital of the Zhou, Qin and Han Dynasties, had a population of a million inside the city walls.
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.
If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.
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