Births and Deaths – Part 2/2

August 13, 2011

The answer to China’s future may be found in Henry Kissinger’s “On China“, when this elder statesman and advisor of many American presidents on foreign policy, wrote, “China does not claim that its contemporary institutions are relevant outside China.”

In fact, history shows the Chinese are willing to do business and trade goods with other countries, but has never demonstrated a desire to rule the world. Most of China’s wars (not rebellions) were fought to secure its borders and/or defend against invaders.

More evidence that points toward China’s future might be when China ruled the oceans during the Ming Dynasty at a time when China was the most technologically advanced nation on the planet and the emperor called its giant fleet home and decided not to colonize, conquer and/or exploit the rest of the earth through conquest as all of the other empires have done that are mentioned in this post, which could have included the Spanish Empire of the 16th to 19th centuries and  World War II’s Imperial Japan and Hitler’s Nazi Germany. (Discover China’s Ancient Armada)

Another sign of the decline of America and an opportunity for China to become the next global empire is the end of the U.S. Shuttle (space) program. Fox news says, China Aiming High in Space as U.S. Shuttle Program Winds Down.

This year, China plans to send a train car-sized module into orbit, which will be the first building block for a Chinese space station with a goal to put men on the moon sometimes after 2010 — the same year the International Space Station is scheduled to close.

The Fox piece says, “China is still far behind the U.S. in space technology and experience, but what it doesn’t lack is a plan or financial resources … One of the biggest advantages of their system is that they have five-year plans so they can develop well ahead,” said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane’s Space Systems and Industry. “They are taking a step-by-step approach, taking their time and gradually improving their capabilities. They are putting all the pieces together for a very capable, advanced space industry.”

The Chinese have a history of long term planning.  If you doubt that claim, look at China’s Great Wall and the Grand Canal — both took centuries to build and there is no other project built by man that compares.

Return to or start with Births and Deaths – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. 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.

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.


Earning Honor by Going to the Moon

June 14, 2011

It looks as if China’s space program will fuel humanity’s next trip to the moon and beyond. The Middle Kingdom has everything needed to succeed. Why is this?

China is turning out more engineers from its universities than the United States is, and China has the technology and industry to support an active, growing space program.

China isn’t crippled by the deficit (debt) the US has.

China’s nine-man Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s top ruling body, are engineers instead of lawyers or businessmen like in America.

In the last few years, China has sent men into space and conducted space walks. There is a strong chance that in a few more years, there will be Chinese space stations orbiting the earth with footprints on the moon that were not made by Americans.

In fact, China plans to send a lunar probe with a rover to the moon in 2013. Source: The Next Big Future

My wife and I were in China in 2008 when one of the space walks took place, and it was big news filling TV screens and splashing headlines across newspapers. It was easy to sense the pride.

The excitement was equal to the time Americans walked on the moon decades ago. Now, America’s space program is limping along—almost a cripple.

To send supplies to the international space station, the world (except China) depends on Russia.

The honor China lost during the 19th and early 20th centuries to the bully tactics of aggressive Western powers and Japan during World War II is being reclaimed.

For more than two thousand years, China was a regional super power. They have achieved that status again.

Discover Mao’s War Against Illegal Drugs

This revised post first appeared on February 17, 2010 as Growing Great Honor in One Lunar Leap

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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.

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.