Starting with why we are daunted by China: its huge population, economic clout, robust military, public belligerence that evoke fear, avarice, and caution in those who lead states, companies, and religions.
Some of the most courageous people in the world are Chinese: Cardinals Kung and Zen, the poet and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, the nameless man facing that menacing tank in 1989, Jingxiong Guo in the present day, and so many more.
China’s rulers are atheists and anti-Christian; in fact, they aggressively oppose any spirituality that puts God or principle before the state. Thus, committed Catholics and other Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims, Falun Gong members, and others are subtly or brazenly persecuted, depending on the perceived degree of threat.
There are no human or legal rights in China except as endorsed by China’s rulers.
We can embrace Chinese culture—art, music, literature and poetry, noble philosophies—while rejecting China’s tyrannical rulers, and we should repeatedly make this distinction.
Many influential voices in this world have been bribed to keep silent about China’s abuses. They live well and keep their mouths shut. For instance, wealthy professional athletes and coaches with no compunction about criticizing America refuse to speak ill of China because they fear the financial consequences. Companies doing business in China all too often accept violations of norms of law and human rights they’d never accept in America, Europe, or Japan.
Like every other regime lacking a citizenry with rights and freedom, China’s environmental record is high on platitudes and dreadfully low on performance.
Why should China Inc. spend to invent when it can hack and steal at a fraction of the cost? China’s rulers have aggressively pursued and supported the theft of intellectual property for decades, and right up to the present day.
Do not dare say anything positive about the Dalai Lama or a Catholic or anyone seen as a threat to the State, or else! As for those in The Vatican inclined to mollify (even appease) China’s rulers, we might hearken back to Soviet ruled Eastern Europe and ask ourselves whether safe and sound Vatican officials or Catholics who were persecuted in those countries were more credible.
The moment China’s rulers believe they can gobble up Hong Kong and Taiwan they will do so, and the human rights leaders in those places will immediately be imprisoned or eliminated. Hong Kong and Taiwan are constant thorns to China’s rulers who want their citizens to believe that free societies are antithetical to Chinese tradition and order.
China’s rulers, their families and collaborators, are very wealthy and live lives of privilege.
The American President, for all his many flaws, is the only global figure that has repeatedly stood up to China’s rulers.
Lastly, for China apologists, including those within Christianity, who argue there is injustice, poverty, and other human rights abuses in America and other democracies, of course they are right, as was true in the days of Hitler and Stalin, but these apologists make the logical and moral mistake of equating states and systems that fall short of perfection rather than acknowledging the vast gap between rights and freedoms in China and free societies, between acknowledged shortcomings and state policy. Also recognize there are thought leaders in the democracies who believe governing by an elite class, with individual rights secondary to state programs, is superior to the “messiness” and “disorder” inherent in democracies.
There may be little we can do to change China’s behavior but we can cease denying and avoiding the truth, and perhaps make personal decisions that hold China’s rulers accountable in small ways.
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Boycott Chinese products.
So true. Beware the socialist elites in our own countries.
What socialist elites in Western countries ?
All of them. Starting domestically whether they may have a (D) or (R) after their name. In my home state of Illinois, those would be the Pritzkers, the Rauners, the “Catholics” like Dick Durbin, the Obamas, the Bradys, the Madigans, and all the rest. I’m sure if you look in your own hood you’ll find plenty of equivalents as well. No state or municipality lacks socialists, though some have gone “noseblind” to the stench of the culture of death that emanates from their immediate surroundings.
Good article. Too bad the Vatican-China train has already left the station.
“…art, music, literature and poetry, noble philosophies…” are cultural expressions of the underlying philosophy. Embrace Chinese culture? I think not.
“By their fruits you shall know them.(Mt 7:20)”
Read Steven Mosher “Bully of Asia” for a clear, Catholic view of this threatening land called China.
“…art, music, literature and poetry, noble philosophies…” are cultural expressions of the underlying philosophy. Embrace Chinese culture? I think not. ”
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To be fair, those mostly precede communism.
When my ancestors were running about in animal skins & woad & were dumping sacrifice victims in bogs, the Chinese were already civilized.
Amen sister. Couldn’t have said it better myself 🙂
The Pontiff Francis and his secret China Accord negotiator the sociopath sex abuser McCarrick along with “His Excellency” Sorondo and “His Eminence” Parolin have sold our Chinese brothers and sisters for 30 pieces of silver, so that they and the members of their secret parasite society inside the Church and the Vatican can continue living like millionaires, while the Body of Christ is cruelly crucified in China.
The men named above, and “their team” of Cardinals, Bishops, Public relations bureaucrats and “katholik” journalists are utterly repulsive frauds, who spread the “anti-gospel” of their own careerism, choosing mammon over the way of Our Lord Jesus.
Prayer and fasting resumes soon, that faithful hearts may be delivered from the darkness of the long winter of counterfeit katholik theater, lived in contempt of the Gospel.
“For all his faults”? Hmm.
Faithful bishops and priests in China have been abandoned by the Church. The Church has agreed to be ruled by the communists in charge. Meanwhile, bishops in the United States hate the most pro-life President in history, support open borders, and have embraced the climate change hoax, following Rome’s lead. And the predatory homoclergy scandal enters its what, fourth or fifth decade?
I pray for the day that the people of China are liberated from their vile and corrupt Communist overlords. It is truly an evil regime, which has murdered more people than Stalin and Hitler combined, and continues to disregard the rights of it’s citizens. The only possible explanation for any government leader to fete and accommodate them is greed.
Stephen Moser of the Population Research Institute has even spoken in front of Congress on the sinister influence of China’s Confucius schools and institutes in our secondary schools and colleges. They say it is just for cultural awareness. Imagine a communist government giving millions to these schools around the country. Imagine a sexual predator Cardinal brokering deals between our two countries and betray the Vatican. Witness how they brazenly continue to destroy religious worship by mandating only images of their communist leader in their churches. Now realize that we in this little area of Southern Oregon have just one “Catholic” secondary school at all—and it has proudly been a Confucius school since 2008. At first I was upset just because this school ditched their famous Latin program. Now it is clear this government really thinks they can infiltrate. And you can imagine how the liberal schools department in the diocese just doesn’t see a problem here. It’s bad enough for colleges but they now fund a hundred secondary schools now.
Why do you have to add the condescending clause against Trump before saying something good about him? You say, “The American President, for all his many flaws. ” To what purpose? Afraid someone might be against you just flat out saying something good about him?
But other than that, thanks for the excellent article.
Yeah, because that “someone” would be people like me. Too many followers with blinders on who are simply incapable of criticizing him.
Let’s not forget that historically the church has thrived, not only under favourable governments, but even more so under tyranny and oppression. A comfortable church may not be what God has in mind. The blood of martyrs, not a cozy social agreement with government, is the seed of the church
Excellent article! With all its Wizard-of-Oz-Fear-Me-Theater, China is just a giant parasite bully with its hands soaked in blood but very much subject all the way to the laws of history that have brought other giant (and much smaller) bullies to dust. I very strongly encourage everyone here to read the article: “Why And How The U.S. Should Stop Financing China’s Bad Actors” by Roger W. Robinson Jr. in the IMPRIMIS website of the Hillsdale College. It was incredibly eye-opening, illuminating and shocking to say the very least.
He explains how in 1982, the Soviets were expending more than their garbage communist economy could produce, but the huge gap was covered by Western governments and banks through unregulated discretionary cash. Once that flow was stopped, the shift was initiated to change the fearsome Russian Bear into Comrade Winnie The Pooh. In the present, we have forgotten that crucial lesson about Communist bullies with feet of clay and are doing the same exact thing with China, where unregulated stocks and bonds that Americans invest in are covertly used to fund Chinese facial recognition/citizen control technology, two million Uyghurs concentration camps, and new weapons for the Chinese military. Thieves, through and through!!
All bow to almighty China! NOT!! We are funding our enemies and the worst of Anti-Humans!! Where do you think all this relentless hate-America-blame-America-for-every-evil-thing comes from? Where else would the vicious, infantilizing, and insanity-promoting propaganda of homosexuality, transgenderism, open borders, etc. come from? How else could they defeat us? No other way than by making us hate ourselves and hate our very Christian heritage!! Like with the Russian Bear, there’s plenty we can do to shift the fearsome Chinese Dragon and send it on its way to become a mandarin lizard. Evil triumphs not just when “the good men do nothing”, but when we indeed do the despicable pacifist act of kissing the behinds of our “friendly” mortal enemies, believing that that nasty act will transform them into friends.
That’s the same repulsive attitude infiltrating the Church today as “peace promotion”, “compassion”, “flexibility”, “open mindedness”, etc. Follow the brave Chinese Bishops who stand up against the Chinese Evil Tank and don’t allow to be led to Hell by the sentimental heart!! Also, Trump’s “many faults” (we are ALL sinners) haven’t stopped him, by the Grace of God Almighty, to be the bravest, most life-promoting President in our history but, likewise, our Church’s sins and scandals should not stop us from doing the very same and so much more!! Glory be to God, the Invincible One!! (Romans 8:36-38).
“Starting with why we are daunted by China: its huge population, economic clout, robust military, public belligerence that evoke fear, avarice, and caution…”
This could just as readily read: Starting with why the world is daunted by the U.S.: its huge population, economic clout, robust military, public belligerence that evoke fear, avarice, and caution.
Why stoke the embers of Sinophobia? Why serve as a mouthpiece of American imperialism? What is in it for the Catholic World Report? Certainly nothing Christian.
Sino-who? Really? If you talk about Sinophobia to accuse us of hating all and every single Chinese, you are not thinking straight (or at all), you want us to be subservient to the Evil Chinese GOVERNMENT machine, you have no idea what real Christianity/Catholicism is, or all of the above.
ALL tyrants always start as proclaiming themselves “champions of the people”, whether Nero killing “pyromaniac” Christians to “protect” Roman citizens or Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, killing MILLIONS of his OWN people to assert his power in order to “benefit” the people with his “Cultural Revolution” (more like Death Revolution). They always use the population as HUMAN SHIELDS to hide and justify all their evil and wanton murder as “social justice”. Sound familiar?
That’s the GOVERNMENT in China today, so yeah, we Catholics have Sino-Communist-Phobia and I’m very proud of it as a True Catholic, just like any other legitimate Christian should have Tyranny-Phobia!! Only ideological political criminals protect, justify and help disguise other ideological political criminals. ONLY evil loves and enables evil (Matthew 12:26). God hates evil, yeah, HATES (Proverbs 8:13, and many other verses), so hating evil does not make us evil or a “copy” of the evil we hate, it makes us more like the Almighty Creator and a lot less like Mao Zedong. Praise be to God!!
Is this St.Frances Xavier and St. Ignatius , along with all the holy Innocents and souls in purgatory , ancestors of many , asking St.Frances De Sales ( saint of today ) to help with more focus on China and the Far east as well 🙂
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/01/24/pope-francis-every-human-has-an-irrepressible-dignity/
as much as the stealing of technology and all such is to be addressed by those who are to curtail same , let us hope that the desire to learn English would help these nations to also read good articles such as the above and in turn , helping to know more as to how the offering of lives to The Lord , all of life in its many facets, esp. in those areas that are most deeply afflicted in our times can have its blessings and joys , by undoing the knots and holds of lusts and carnality that serve as the nidus of the many related issues and evils in relationships .
St.Frances Xavier was said to have been rejected in Japan, for the teachings on poverty and hell ..
Good thing that there is renewed focus in The Church , on St.Joseph .. to help see the goodness of similar consecrations in own lives and relationships , as a source of blessings and joy , in the act of frequent raising of mind and heart in gratitude , in union with the blessed lives in The Lord through out history who have done so , instead of the idolisations in this area and related attitude of depravity .
The millions of men in these countries that face demographic inequalities , if able to grasp that , their own lives do not have to be seen as being depraved but as sources of goodness and blessings too through such offerings .
Let us hope that those who work in the prolife areas too would include such a focus , to thus have persons of all ages and stages to make meaningful , powerful contributions , for the good of all , even world over .
Same to thus also help as penance against the flood waters of pornography and such exported world over , bringing the scandal and lie that so called Christian nations do not have adequate measures to deal with such plagues .
May His mercy help and guide us and all nations .
China is a real threat to any free society. You might tell that to Trump. But, China and we have ignored a major threat, no only to the danger Catholics face but the veritable destruction of the planet by more than a billion people indiscriminately polluting without concern for the future of their children. Yet the church still maintains “go forth and multiply”.
“Go forth and multiply” isn’t the problem where there are free peoples with well formed consciences. I’ve worked on environmental projects for over 3 decades and the worst environmental problems are in states like China without a free citizenry. Did the decades-long 1-child policy in China produce a clean environment?
morganB
Yet the church still maintains “go forth and multiply”.
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Morgan, I hear you about pollution. That’s something we all can work on but seriously, have you looked at recent demographic data & projections for the future? It’s rather scary.Fertility rates have plummeted, birthrates are at all time lows. Population implosion is what most of the globe will be facing in the coming decades. Its not the 1970’s anymore.
China is trying to increase its birthrate these days but having little success.
I certainly hope someone bothers to go forth & multiply because few others are heeding that call.
There are 20-30 million members of the Communist Party in China that underpin the whole apparatus. In a country of over 1.5 billion, that has to have Xi and his cohorts frightened. With Xi overplaying his hand, he risks the military and lower level politicians concerned with being ousted in a general uprising losing their bravado. Eventually, the pressure is too great, and the structure implodes. Wait, it’s about to begin!
To add fuel to the fire, I watched a documentary this week called “One Child Nation” that speaks to the genocide that took place during the years when families were only allowed one child per family in China. It is told by the perspective of one of the few children who grew up in a two child family. She chose to create this documentary when she herself became a mother. Interviews with the “doctors” who took part in this atrocity are both horrible and in one case hopeful. For a country to condone outright killing of babies and forced sterilization is criminal to say the least. But when the same country profits from it when children are “adopted” is beyond words.
The Chinese Government is now poised to require women to have multiple children.