The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
No one since Mao Zedong had such a profound influence on modern-day Chinese culture as its current president, Xi Jinping. However, Xi has had a far more beneficial effect than the cultural and economic wreckage wrought by Mao, the founder of modern China.
Since Deng Shiaoping in the late 1970s, hundreds of millions of impoverished Chinese have risen into the ranks of the Chinese middle class, but no one has accomplished more to make that happen in a relatively short time than Xi. Using classic Marxist socialism, he has raised the overall standard of living to remarkable heights. More than half the country is still in poverty, but that poverty is much less entrenched than it was fifty or seventy-five years ago. By dint of the closely watched state-operated capitalism which Xi promotes, prosperity has become a major factor in the advancement of living standards for the burgeoning Chinese middle class.
At the same time, Xi is also far more autocratic than any Chinese ruler since Mao. He firmly believes that autocracy is the only form of government that can operate successfully in a nation as populace as China. In addition, he seems to be convinced that his kind of communism, combined with his kind of capitalism and autocracy, shall turn China into the world’s strongest and most powerful nation.
Undeniably, there has been opposition to Mr. Xi. Many thousands of people have been imprisoned. Nevertheless, he has managed to deter any serious threats to the overthrow of his regime. With a billion, four hundred million citizens, tens of thousands of prisoners represent a very small percentage of the total population, and most of the new middle class appear to be content with their circumstances. A widespread cushy existence has always tended to blunt opposition to heavy-handed government leaders.
The culture that is emerging under Xi is unlike anything the Chinese have experienced in the past five thousand years. It is totally unprecedented in their history. How they will react to it over the long run remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the USA will be challenged to try to determine whether it chooses to perceive China essentially as a capitalist competitor or as a militarist autocratic communist enemy. For the foreseeable future, the primary American foreign policy will be determined by how our government responds to the unique new China which is being forged by the voracious/benign/menacing personality of Xi Jinping, the president of the world’s most rapidly developing superpower.
In 1840 the American Episcopalian bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe wrote a poem whose opening line declared, “We are living, we are dwelling/ In a grand and awful time.” As valid as that statement may have been nearly two hundred years ago, it is even more valid for today.
Back in the Mao years, the Chinese motto was “The East Is Red.” Now it is reddish, capitalist-ish, and autocratic-ish. What it shall become only God knows --- if even He can be certain! – November 26, 2021
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwallshhi.org.