NOT NEWS BASED - Small thought on China's history, Confucianism and Treason

[scuthan]

Rubbish. Buddhism was heavily repressed during most of Tang Dynasty. Tang Emperor Tang Wu Zhong forced the monks and nuns to be come celibate, tore down temples and abbots, and confiscated the Buddhists' lands. Taoism is heavily promoted during the Tang Dynasty.

If you want a real example of Buddhism used as repression it would be the Liang Dynasty. Even the emperor became a monk several times during his career.

rubbish is a powerful word. As far as i know, the Buddhism development in china was greatly supported by government in tang dyansty at the beginning, espeically when Wu zetian was in power. it was later repressed because it became a powerful in politics, too many temples, monks, and ownership of many land. the emperor saw it as threat.

 

[scuthan]

LOL, on TV show he said Iraqi army will fight to their last man for Saddam. i clearly remember that.

Is that general the one who infamously offered his predictions over and over again, but the reality is just the totally opposite to his prediction???

If we have idiots like him to be in our war planing room, we Chinese are doomed.

 

[S10]

Just a simple thought experiment to demonstrate how ridiculous the notion that "China is so welcoming of foreigners that whoever conquer us become Chinese."

Welcoming of foreigners is debatable, but conquerors integrating into the Chinese culture is a fact of life. Qin was considered to be "barbarians" by other warring states. Sui and Tang's emperor both had Xianbei blood. According to you, China died as soon as 221 BCE then.

If Japan won the war in 1937, occupied China with little resistance, didn't do the Nanjing massacre, didn't kill too many civilians and basically behaved "rather well" maybe only killing 2 million KMT soldiers, would Japanese now be "Chinese" and the Yamato race become the 57th ethnicity of China? Would Japan be then added to China's territory and we'll have a new dynasty, the Japanese emperor's? And we'll all be part of a new Chinese empire, but it just calls itself "Japanese". After all Qing, Ming, none of that actually says "China", we'll have a new dynasty representing China called "Japan".

The fact is Japan lost the war and was repelled. Chinese resistance to Japanese actually renders your argument that it is culturally apathetic to be untrue. Despite having very little industrial capability and weaponary, almost every family in China contributed to the war effort one way or the other.

Certainly the names of dynasties are different, but the concept of China is there. Every dynasty prides itself in being 正统 while looking upon the rest as barbarians, even the Yuan dynasty did so. Whether you accept it or not, China is a cultural concept, not a matter of bloodline.

In addition, language and words change across dynasties right? So if Chinese was replaced by Japanese, it doesn't matter, since Japanese was still written with mostly Chinese characters back then!

Again, you are attempting to mis-interprete the facts. Chinese writing system was standardized under Qin, and over the years it had kept evolving. However, evolution of a language is different than being replaced altogether. The Chinese language was never replaced in history. If you like, you can go back to the most original cave writings. Nobody is stopping you. Although I suspect even cavemen killed and conquered each other.

Look at the great assimilating power of China! Why did we even bother resisting! Should've just "assimilated" Japan right?

What a joke! You see how ridiculous this sounds? The claim that China is tolerant and welcoming to foreigners so much that we'll be conquered by them then assimilate them is the true definition of Ah-Q 精神胜利法!

We resisted because they were deemed barbarians. Warring state resisted Qin because they were barbarians. Song resisted Liao, Jin and Mongols because they were seen as barbarians. Ming resisted the Qing because Qing was seem as barbarians. Yet, all these "barbarians" adapted the same attitude towards their fellow nomads as soon as they got in power.

Facts are facts, regardless of whether they sound ridiculous to you or not. According to your narrow views, I suspect 99.95% of Chinese today are just barbarian invaders and not true Chinese. Remember, Han were down to only two million during the "Wu Hu" period, so even your ancestors were most likely some nomadic barbarian by blood. So why are you still calling yourself Chinese? Isn't that Ah-Q of you?

The problem, of course, is that "loyalty" to "who" is not specified. The whole "mandate of heaven" idea combined with "confucianism" means that when your homeland starts losing the war against foreigners, your homeland lost the "mandate of heaven" and deserves to be taken over by foreigners. In this mindset, NOT REBELLING is actually morally wrong!

Loyalty to country and loyalty to ruler are both stressed in Confucianism. Throughout Chinese history, any dynasty that crumbled under barbarians were first worn down from within. Jin Dynasty was devasted by internal power struggle between the eight princes, allowing Wu Hu to nearly wipe out all Hans. When the ruler allow that to happen, then they indeed lose their mandate of heaven. How can you expect people to be loyal to you against invaders when you had ruined their lives? That's just absurd.

When did I say the CPC was clean? The CPC is dirty too, maybe not as much as the KMT, but getting there.

Why do we need "great leaders"? Other nations get fine with average leaders. We need a system that doesn't depend on the specific leader. The obsession with "great leaders" and looking for saviors to lead us is the typical flaw in Chinese thought.

“从来就没有什么救世主，也不靠神仙皇帝！要创造人类的幸福，全靠我们自己！”

Other nation get fine with average leaders? Like Bush and Obama that's runing United States into financial disaster? Doesn't matter how great your system is. It will be destroyed if bad officials run it. There is nothing wrong with looking for a great leader. That's what free elections are for in democracy since people want capable leaders.

 

[S10]

The combination that makes China strongest is: a tiny bit of Confucianism + lots of Taoism + warrior spirit like classical Chinese martial arts philosophy + fanatical military organization + powerful central figure like Chairman Mao, Qin Shi Huang or Hong Wu Emperor!

Actually, Mao Zedong was a great revolutionary leader, but he should not be the head of any administration. Qin Shi Huang litterally went insane during his old age and abaddoned power to Zhao Gao, causing the fall of Qin. Hong Wu emperor, as did his son, suppressed trade and commerce to a point where merchants were the untouchables of society.

The greatest ruler in Chinese history is still by far Li Shimin. He created a cabinet system where the cabinets could veto his decisions in case he made a bad one. He was willing to listen to advices, especially criticisms. Lastly, he promoted capable officials. That's the recipe for success, not some two bit dictators full of themselves.

The claim that 15% of Chinese have a slave mentality sounds about right. If only there was some way to remove this tumor from Chinese society.

Nazi 101: Paint a minority group as public enemy.

 

[CardSharp]

The greatest ruler in Chinese history is still by far Li Shimin. He created a cabinet system where the cabinets could veto his decisions in case he made a bad one. He was willing to listen to advices, especially criticisms. Lastly, he promoted capable officials. That's the recipe for success, not some two bit dictators full of themselves

Are there any good english books on this kind of history?

 

[below_freezing]

1. China's weakness during the past 150 years was due to criminal foreign invasions of aggression and a lack of Chinese industrialization to fight them off with comparable weapons. The CCP has fixed this problem. Stop trying to blame it on Confucianism.

2. China previously assimilated foreigners, because China lacked the means to destroy them. That is no longer the case. This is a New China and a new era under the CCP. With abundant thermonuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and vastly improving conventional weaponry, there will be no further accommodation/assimilation of foreigners. Get in our way and we'll crush you, sooner or later.

3. Except for you, almost all Chinese are happy with Chinese family values (e.g. Confucianism).

4. Except for you, no other Chinese member on this forum is in favor of lawless skinheads or gangsters.

5. Except for you, all of the Chinese members think that the CCP is doing a fantastic job and want the CCP to continue governing China until modernization is complete (e.g. all Chinese have a first-world living standard of approximately $45,000 U.S. dollars).

You have floated your idea of abandoning Confucian family values and advocated your belief in a China with greatly increased numbers of "skinheads and gangsters." Practically every Chinese member on this forum disagrees with you.

It is time to relinquish your radical ideas. At most, you have only two supporters (or "thanks" on your posts in this thread). In opposition, there have been numerous posts by Chinese forum members that are appalled at your radical suggestions.

I have never heard of any mainstream Chinese say that having more violent criminal skinheads and gangsters in China is a good idea. It is simply crazy! I do not understand why you are saying such a thing.

Chinese society believes in family values, meritocracy, fairness, equality of rights and opportunity, education, self-improvement, etc. Chinese do not believe in barbaric or criminal behavior to show foreigners that we mean business. That is an illogical, circuitous, and ineffectual method. If China desires to show strength, she can choose to build 500 MIRVed ICBMs, squadrons of stealth fighters, and a naval armada.

No sane Chinese would desire to lower China's civilizational standards and support lawlessness, intimidation, violence, and crude social behavior. That's intolerable and not Chinese.

This is my last post on this outrageous suggestion. It is absurd and no mainstream Chinese should have to discuss something this ludicrous.

----------

The picture posted earlier of the Chinese skinheads is repulsive. Those guys clearly look unfriendly and threatening. They are an extremely tiny minority and on the fringes of society.

The picture below shows the true spirit of Chinese culture (e.g. Chinese Confucian family values, self-improvement/technological advancement, dreams of a better world, and achievements and peaceful behavior worthy to be the next world leader).

Hangzhou, May 16 - A child watches a space suit in the company of his mother in Zhejiang Science and Technology Museum in Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang Province. The 2011 Zhejiang Science and Technology Week opened Sunday.

You know as well as I do I'm a very strong CPC supporter. Your argument on "popularity" is worthless because we're all here to discuss ideas. If nonpopular ideas were just censored, well, no modern government except North Korea does that.

Previous history shows that your analysis is very shallow. We had weapons comparable to nukes at the time they were used! Cannons in the 15th century against horse nomads was the relative "nuke" of the time! Yet what happened? Traitors opened the gates!

S10:

Yes, people weren't totally apathetic. No society is. Traitors are always the minority. Yes, every family contributed to the war effort. But you know? Did the 1-8 million (estimates vary I've heard it all) 伪军 not have families? How many families is that?

I'm not saying that every Chinese loves to be a traitor. Far from it. I'm saying Chinese culture disproportionately produces traitors. Those few traitors, after selling out the country, will teach foreigners how to more "effectively manage" Chinese. In that case, with Japan's then industrial expertise, China would've quickly developed, perhaps Japan would move its capital to Nanjing, maybe the Japanese Emperor would just become the "new" emperor of China. I mean, after all, the Manchus originally called themselves "Emperors" of Manchuria long before they actually attacked China! In the early days of the occupation of Taiwan, Japan did in fact commit huge war crimes, but they were quickly forgotten because Japan helped industrialize the place. Now many on Taiwan LOVE JAPAN LIKE THEY WERE JAPANESE.

"Loyalty to country and loyalty to ruler are both stressed in Confucianism. Throughout Chinese history, any dynasty that crumbled under barbarians were first worn down from within. Jin Dynasty was devasted by internal power struggle between the eight princes, allowing Wu Hu to nearly wipe out all Hans. When the ruler allow that to happen, then they indeed lose their mandate of heaven. How can you expect people to be loyal to you against invaders when you had ruined their lives? That's just absurd."

So the solution is to bow down to the invaders! You know what the Soviets did in Stalingrad? Soviet defenders would kill themselves for even 1 shot at the Nazis. They had the 玉碎 mentality. Japan also did. They were going to fight to the last, but the Emperor himself forced them to surrender. Nazi Germany literally did fight to the last. Yes, because of bowing down to invaders, China has survived better than Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. But Russia never bowed down to anyone for the past 600 years. They were once a conquered people too! But why was Russia able to learn from their mistakes and not get conquered again, while Chinese history just repeats itself over and over? It's always a 50-60 year rise, 50 years at the top, then 50-150 years of slow decline and finally, a 10 year period of collapse and genocide.

Russia is the country closest to us in geography and history, why are we not able to learn from them? Russia was also a continental power with large peasant populations who were far more oppressed than any peasant of medieval China. Russia had far more horrific punishments, the rulers far more unpopular, the government far more arbitrary. By all accounts, Russians should be betraying their leaders in times of war with no problem! But what happens? Every time Russia is attacked, the peasants, no matter how horrible their lives were, always rallied behind the emperor. It happened in 1812 and happened again in 1942.

 

[praveen]

I recall a friend telling me that Buddhism was widely adopted by the Tang dynasty as a tool for repression. The concept of reincarnating into a better life if one swallowed his grievances of the current one was ideal for imperial regimes where wealth gap often caused uprisings.

Centuries later, when communist forces took over China, they realized that buddhists were overwhelmingly superstitious and spent more time worshipping statues than living productively. This was as Mao saw it, the root of Chinese unproductivity. To remedy this, the party launched numerous campaigns to combat superstition which resulted in the incineration of over half of China's temples (90% in Tibet). War against Buddhism, which made Chinese impotent by modern standards later progressed into an all-out war against antiqued culture known as the Cultural Revolution.

Ever since then, fewer than 10% of Chinese believed in any religion at all, as people loathed Buddihism as inferior Indian ideology and the government saw Roman Catholicism as the Vatican's (Western) attempt to influence China through religion.

The country today is an athiest state where the Buddhism population is declining sharply as people seek out for Daoism, Christianity and pragmatism.

Intresting post thanks for it.Is Buddhism considered an inferior ideology or any indian school of philosophy is considered inferior in general by the communists and chinese

 

[S10]

Previous history shows that your analysis is very shallow. We had weapons comparable to nukes at the time they were used! Cannons in the 15th century against horse nomads was the relative "nuke" of the time! Yet what happened? Traitors opened the gates!

This is an absolutely false statement. Cavalry remained the king of the battlefield until the arrival of the industrial age. Primitive gunpowder technology during the Ming Dynasty and Europe were not sufficient to stop cavalry, hence you see pikemens being used. In fact, widespread use of horse cavalry was common until mid 19th Century, since they offered unrivalled mobility.

S10:

Yes, people weren't totally apathetic. No society is. Traitors are always the minority. Yes, every family contributed to the war effort. But you know? Did the 1-8 million (estimates vary I've heard it all) 伪军 not have families? How many families is that?

China had the largest population in the world at the time and still does today. When you take that into proportion, it's not a huge deal. Also, 8 million 伪军 is a grossly exaggerated figure, since that would outnumber the entire KMT and Communists combined. British placed that figure at less than 300 thousand. Wang Jinwei had about 700 thousand, Manchuko had 200 thousands while Outer Mongolia had 100 thousand. That is the highest estimate there is.

I'm not saying that every Chinese loves to be a traitor. Far from it. I'm saying Chinese culture disproportionately produces traitors. Those few traitors, after selling out the country, will teach foreigners how to more "effectively manage" Chinese. In that case, with Japan's then industrial expertise, China would've quickly developed, perhaps Japan would move its capital to Nanjing, maybe the Japanese Emperor would just become the "new" emperor of China. I mean, after all, the Manchus originally called themselves "Emperors" of Manchuria long before they actually attacked China! In the early days of the occupation of Taiwan, Japan did in fact commit huge war crimes, but they were quickly forgotten because Japan helped industrialize the place. Now many on Taiwan LOVE JAPAN LIKE THEY WERE JAPANESE.

China does not proportionately produce traitors. Hundreds of thousands of collaborators fought alongside Nazis along with millions of civilians supporting them. Yet the population size of Europe is nowhere near China. Japan was not successful in taking over, and never had the chance. The most land they occupied was 1/3 of China's entire territory, and even then they had trouble controlling their holdings.

So the solution is to bow down to the invaders! You know what the Soviets did in Stalingrad? Soviet defenders would kill themselves for even 1 shot at the Nazis. They had the 玉碎 mentality. Japan also did. They were going to fight to the last, but the Emperor himself forced them to surrender. Nazi Germany literally did fight to the last. Yes, because of bowing down to invaders, China has survived better than Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. But Russia never bowed down to anyone for the past 600 years. They were once a conquered people too! But why was Russia able to learn from their mistakes and not get conquered again, while Chinese history just repeats itself over and over? It's always a 50-60 year rise, 50 years at the top, then 50-150 years of slow decline and finally, a 10 year period of collapse and genocide.

Chinese as a civilization is still here, yet I can't say the same for the barbarians that once invaded China. They had been essentially wiped from history. Soviet Union's glory as a superpower lasted no more than 50 years before fracturing into a second rate power. Japan became an American lap dog and Germany had been neutered after the war. Yet here you are complaining about China, a country that is on the rise. No one remains on top forever. Rome, China, Mongols, Britons and now Americans all experienced declines.

Russia is the country closest to us in geography and history, why are we not able to learn from them? Russia was also a continental power with large peasant populations who were far more oppressed than any peasant of medieval China. Russia had far more horrific punishments, the rulers far more unpopular, the government far more arbitrary. By all accounts, Russians should be betraying their leaders in times of war with no problem! But what happens? Every time Russia is attacked, the peasants, no matter how horrible their lives were, always rallied behind the emperor. It happened in 1812 and happened again in 1942.

Quit it with the Soviet Union worship. They had tons of collabrators and you seem to ignore them. Just to bring up the main ones:

Russian Liberation Army - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russian Liberation Movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russian Corps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh did I mention these are just Russians alone? I haven't even included Ukranians, Belrussians, Baltic States and Cossacks yet. You're living in a fantasy world if you think collaborators aren't a common sight.

Even Mengzi himself said so. In the grand scheme of things, people come first, then the nation, then the ruler (民为贵，社稷次之，君为&#36731. Li Shimin, widely considered the greatest emperor in Chinese history, compared people to water and ruler to boats (水可载舟，亦可覆&#33311. The people will support whoever give them a good life, hence the saying 得民心者得天下．Your blind nationalism cannot feed empty stomach, cannot cloth the poor and cannot shelter the homeless. Also, no sane society will want your vision of racist skinheads and gangsters roaming the streets. That's a dreadful society to live in.The sooner you recognize that, you sooner you will grow up.

 

[CardSharp]

Also we're forgetting Lin Biao.

 

[Speeder 2]

First thing first, I, for the record, apologise to S 10 for mistakening him as a false flag Indian, for however short period of time. Well, he is a Chinese, and just made some darn good points here that I agree with, though not in full.

I see

i) On Confucius and Traitors : irrelevant to the decline of power, for Confucianism is only a tool which could have been any other and Traitor is a crucial factor in pretty much every declining powers in world history since time immemorial. They are not the problems.

ii) On skinheads & treatment of foreigners: not the point, again. If one is intrinsically strong, both moral and technical, then he doesn’t need to shave his head and cross dressing like a pimp to express his feelings (Nazi Germany was under a VERY special historical circumstances thus doesn’t count here) , but more often than not carries a big stick and talks mildly. On the other hand, one is more likely to pull such stunts if one is truly weak inside.

Hence this general Zhang Zhao Zhong is talking some pretty messy sh!t here.



iii) On systems: What general Zhang is right however is that China must change.

But not into Nazism, neither Democracy as he puts it as a blunder, for Democracy is THE worst kind of government system one could possiblely have ( from Aristotle all the way to Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin... even Churchill etc, etc most of white intellectual elites in different disciplines across time ditched Democracy – prior to earlier 20th century Jewish political elites-led drastic ideological movements such as communism, sex revolution, equalitarianism, universal Human Rights, Celebrating Diversity/mass Immigrations, and , of course, Democracy ) .

Democracy panders the mass with romantic ideals that all humans, every one and every race, are equally capable of making informed, unbiased and the optimal hence the best decisions, which is patently false except in already highly developed societies (high IQ) with very homogeneous population -- that limits to several Northern European countries and probably a bit of Japan.

In general and in précis, Democracy ensures celebrating mediocrity which China has had sheer luck to have avoided it, even though not out of intention – here came Mao. Mao is good all in all in that “accidentally” his revolution ruthlessly gave China a clean, albeit poor, slate – a fresh start as to speak after centuries of all kinds of illness. In the same vein CPC was good in that it eradicated some of the worst illness (i.e. superstitions, illiteracy etc) after a string of social unrests and wars with the collapse of Qing. CPC has greatly facilitated China’s early economic/military rise while maintaining reasonable social orders … all these look fine…

…yet CPC is exactly where goes wrong at the moment!


Before I explain why drawbacks of CPC are where the OP should have complained about , I will list what I believe some major reasons why China became weak firstly:


-- nothing special, as Taoism says that all powers rise and fall, so was and will be China – many “reasons” were just NATURAL in nature.


-- Average IQ fell over centuries : endless peasant revolutions, Mongols, Manchus killed off many many high IQ ruling elites/and his genes of all sorts; emperors with their Capital punishments in relation to the whole family/clan; “foreign”, particularly southern China, tribes assimilation; first-cousin marriage didn’t help either… China has experienced centuries of unintended dysgenics as a result = average IQ dropped!


-- most importantly of all : Man-made dysgenics due to lack of fairer social system. Here let me continue with my previous CPC argument:

some emperors could be good, while other were definitely suicidal. Any elite who disagrees with the system got maimed, any nail sticks out get hammered down or just taken out completely. This applies to both Imperial China and CPC China. The result is the ruling elites of both societies have been increasingly consisted of people with 2nd or 3rd tier of IQ competitiveness which will yield dramatic, long term and irreversible social impacts: wealth distribution unfairness, corruption, social incompetence (think origin of inferiority-complex), waste of resources, social injustice, decay of the mass morale, disintegration of the culture, disloyalty of people ( e.g. think “traitors” here)… eventually, but definitely, the collapse of the Nation!

Thus China can not just trust an individual leader no matter how great he is.

China must develop and trust a system ( don’t givme democracy crap here), a system that naturally fits with high IQ societies, a system that has in-built check and balance of power which CPC China devoid of.

The current system therefore must be changed or hugely improved to reflect social justice for China to progress beyond $10,000 GDP per cap (nominal) as empirical evidences suggest.

As turkeys don't vote for X-mas, you may be unwise to expect CPC to fix its own power grab madness itself. But to be fair, no western political party I know of could fix that either on its own.



What system then suits a 105 average IQ society like China?

Ideally, a true traditional Republican (Western), with downright Legalism (Chinese) based on some core Confucianism foundation(Chinese) & a generous touch of Nationalism (Chinese & Western) , I reckon.

(To fasiclitate the improvement/change, I 'd even go further to suggest that China might need a universal symbol - a temporal King, or Queen ( A Ming Emperor's bloodline ? ) with no power but just to hold the nation together for a whille, to avoid the power void. )
.

 

[below_freezing]

This is an absolutely false statement. Cavalry remained the king of the battlefield until the arrival of the industrial age. Primitive gunpowder technology during the Ming Dynasty and Europe were not sufficient to stop cavalry, hence you see pikemens being used. In fact, widespread use of horse cavalry was common until mid 19th Century, since they offered unrivalled mobility.


China had the largest population in the world at the time and still does today. When you take that into proportion, it's not a huge deal. Also, 8 million 伪军 is a grossly exaggerated figure, since that would outnumber the entire KMT and Communists combined. British placed that figure at less than 300 thousand. Wang Jinwei had about 700 thousand, Manchuko had 200 thousands while Outer Mongolia had 100 thousand. That is the highest estimate there is.


China does not proportionately produce traitors. Hundreds of thousands of collaborators fought alongside Nazis along with millions of civilians supporting them. Yet the population size of Europe is nowhere near China. Japan was not successful in taking over, and never had the chance. The most land they occupied was 1/3 of China's entire territory, and even then they had trouble controlling their holdings.


Chinese as a civilization is still here, yet I can't say the same for the barbarians that once invaded China. They had been essentially wiped from history. Soviet Union's glory as a superpower lasted no more than 50 years before fracturing into a second rate power. Japan became an American lap dog and Germany had been neutered after the war. Yet here you are complaining about China, a country that is on the rise. No one remains on top forever. Rome, China, Mongols, Britons and now Americans all experienced declines.


Quit it with the Soviet Union worship. They had tons of collabrators and you seem to ignore them. Just to bring up the main ones:

Russian Liberation Army - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russian Liberation Movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Russian Corps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of Russia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh did I mention these are just Russians alone? I haven't even included Ukranians, Belrussians, Baltic States and Cossacks yet. You're living in a fantasy world if you think collaborators aren't a common sight.

Even Mengzi himself said so. In the grand scheme of things, people come first, then the nation, then the ruler (民为贵，社稷次之，君为&#36731. Li Shimin, widely considered the greatest emperor in Chinese history, compared people to water and ruler to boats (水可载舟，亦可覆&#33311. The people will support whoever give them a good life, hence the saying 得民心者得天下．Your blind nationalism cannot feed empty stomach, cannot cloth the poor and cannot shelter the homeless. Also, no sane society will want your vision of racist skinheads and gangsters roaming the streets. That's a dreadful society to live in.The sooner you recognize that, you sooner you will grow up.

Primitive gunpowder? That depends. With poor morale, training, and leadership (influenced by traitors), gun soldiers in the 17th century were indeed no match for cavalry. But highly disciplined soldiers of the 17th century have no problems. The economics of gun soldier vs. cavalry rider means that treason and incompetence are the only ways for a much more populous, defending nation to lose with gun soldiers against pure cavalry (which the Manchus were). Of course, once the cavalry was supplemented by gun wielding infantry (Ming traitors) they grew very deadly. Cavalry of that time already couldn't simply charge at mass infantry lines with massed guns, pikes and swords. They had to rely on attacking flanks or waiting for retreats after artillery bombardment. But of course once Wu Sangui agreed to help the Manchus, the Manchus got hold of the artillery and infantry they needed.

Cavalry - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yes, there were soviet collaborators, but they never changed the outcome of the war as much as Jia Sidao and Wu Sangui did.

Yes, it can't feed empty stomachs, but empty stomachs is not the problem right now. NO ideology can do anything other than act as a guide. However, sometimes the guidance can push a society in a direction, whether right or wrong. As speeder said, the ideology should "fit" the nation. I won't get into the IQ and all, of course.

I don't know if you've watched the documentary 《河殇〉 or not. While it has been criticized as a self hating racist movie, I think it has many valid points. The first is Chinese people's defensive mindset. We should always be thinking offense, and how to take the lead, instead of defending. Our foreign policy is a direct result of this defensive mindset. Of course, this documentary does have self hating racist parts and intense US worship, but its criticism of Confucian ideals should at least be considered.

 

[ephone]

LOL, on TV show he said Iraqi army will fight to their last man for Saddam. i clearly remember that.

He is just an idiot. However, I am worried that we have too many idiots like him in our war planning room who have no realistic observations.

 

[huzihaidao12]

He is just an idiot. However, I am worried that we have too many idiots like him in our war planning room who have no realistic observations.

no"we", thank you.

 

[Martian2]

I have gone to the trouble of reposting criticisms from "hawks." The hawks want a more anti-American posture. Moderates believe that it is a bad idea, counter-productive, and will probably hinder China's rise. Read the exchange and decide who you think is right.

You are strong on military hardware but you confused the two issues, the military preparedness, aka, weaponry, and strategic defence doctrine and propaganda. You, Lee Kuan Yew and the "Economy First Moron" in the PRC have lost it. To say that China will "try" her labour and other "BESTS" to avoid military confrontation with the USA and just keep her nose to the grinding stone for the next fifty years is foolhardy if not seditilous.

The great military disparity between USA and China by itself, in the realm of harsh reality, has virtually ruled out the possibility of peaceful co-existence as far as from the perspective of China is concerned. The Chinese idiom puts it thus: "The tree wishes to be left alone but the wind will not stop". From the above premise forward, the initiative for war or peace does not lie with China from the OUTSET, even without China saying that she would wish to avoid military confrontation with the USA at MOST (not all) costs. As long as China is mouthing the platitude without any physical evidence of having adopted this national defence strategy, it is OK. If China is seen as adopting it as a military doctrine she is asking to be raped.

To repeat that sentiment of LKai, China must never let the USA guess where her soveign defensive/offensive LINE is. China must always keep her initiative to be the FIRST to kick USA in the groin at all time. What might amount to USA crossing the LINE must remain an unkown. What first strike China will take must remain a strategic option at all time. The USA like to say "......option is on the table". China need to say likewise. The USA refused to give up her nuclear first strike option, do you know why, Mr. Martian???

"To repeat that sentiment of LKai, China must never let the USA guess where her sovereign defensive/offensive LINE is."

I disagree with you. China's red lines are clearly known to the United States.

1. If Taiwan declares independence, it means war.

2. South Tibet and South China Seas are inherent parts of China's territory.

The United States complains and engages in trivial subterfuge (e.g. clandestinely supporting Tibetans, Uighurs, and praying for anarchy in China/Jasmine revolution). However, in reality, the United States basically steers clear of China.

Though China claims a "no first use" policy on thermonuclear weapons, this is not a hindrance under real-world battle conditions. As soon as a Chinese satellite detects a massive launch by the United States via rocket/infrared plumes, China will retaliate by launching her entire thermonuclear arsenal within minutes.

China has prospered for forty years by reaching an understanding with the United States. The U.S. stays away from China's red lines and in return, China won't block the U.S. with its U.N. Security Council veto.

After spending trillions of dollars on its military, it is simply a fact that the United States currently has the world's most-powerful military. China should continue to follow Bill Gates strategy on dealing with IBM. Bill Gates said, "we were going to ride the bear because the bear was the biggest."

On a country scale, China is the new Microsoft and the United States is the old IBM. China merely needs to "ride the bear" for two to four more decades. Bill Gates/Microsoft was smart enough to accommodate IBM until Microsoft became larger and more powerful than IBM.

Surely, China can show equal intelligence and avoid serious conflict with the United States until it has become more powerful than the U.S. in 20 to 40 years. The hallmark of Chinese culture is a display of intelligence, pragmatism, and patience; not a Chinese version of American Neo-con philosophy.

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Triumph of the Nerds: The Transcripts, Part II

"By the time IBM came calling in 1980, Bill Gates and his small company Microsoft was ..... we were going to ride the bear because the bear was the biggest, ..."

 

[Martian2]

Scrap the 'Red Lines'.
No need to let anyone know of our limits.
America ,yesterday, passed the bill to do WAR.....whenever....whereever.....with who-ever they feel like doing it to.
China will make the necessary adjustments accordingly.
We'll be stupid, indeed, to constrain ourselves to certain perimeters when them buggers want to have options.....opened ended......so to speak befitting buggers!! LOL!

China has made clear its core interests to the United States. The reason is to avoid an unintentional or unnecessary war. Wars are expensive in lives and money.

It makes no sense for China to engage in an unnecessary/unintentional war with the United States at the cost of precious Han lives and untold billions of dollars. It is important to never forget the strategic goal of China: an unimpeded and relentless economic and military development.

China's arsenal of weapons is meant to safeguard China from foreign attack. China's arsenal is not intended for a p*ssing contest with the Americans.

By analogy, if the U.S. and China were big strong guys and they started punching each other, what do you think will happen? Both sides will take damage. This is an unacceptable outcome. China must not take damage unless there is a vital Chinese interest (e.g. China's Red Lines).

It is foolhardy to argue that China should become more like Americans. America is dissipating the lives of its young people, money, and energy in the mountains of Afghanistan and occupation of Iraq. If China were to engage in similar pointless military adventurism, China would also quickly become exhausted and incur massive debts (e.g. it took decades for the U.S. to pay off the Vietnam War debt and interest).

China must continue the 40-year-old policy of non-interventionism. Without a core Chinese interest at stake, China must never expend precious Han lives and treasure on unnecessary military conflicts.

American neo-con philosophy (e.g. all options are always on the table) reflects traditional imperialism. It is bleeding America dry. China must not emulate a failed strategy (unless you want China to incur thousands of casualties, tens of thousands wounded, and trillions of dollars of debt).