Neat site. I went to the home page and used their search engine to view some good articles.
Funny, I was just reading a book by Ross Terrill--The New Chinese Empire which talks about the commonalities and the disparities between Nation, Empire, and Civilization. So much of it resonates with your article on community and how it is measured and valued.
I have not finished the book yet, but in 1912 China toppled a Monarchy that was 2500 years old. Now we have an ethnic hodge podge controlled by a "civilization pretending to be a nation" as one writer put it.
Let me type out a quote:
"By this definition of empire, the PRC, an autocratic Chinese state ruling a land more than one-third of which is inhabited mainly by non-Chinese people, is indeed an empire of our time, as out of place as fish in trees. In basic respects it lacks the traits of a nation and does not behave like a nation. It considtently uses the techniques of the autocratic side of Chinese imperial tradition and its goals partake of imperial goals"..."The fading of Marxism since the 1980s has seen the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) return to a version of pre-modern Chinese universalism, the idea of Da yitong ("Great Systemic Whole"), a political-moral monolith that occupies all available philosophic space. Still, as Beijing twists history and uses false maps of China's periphery as weapons, aotocracy is reinforced, the imperial sense vindicated, and the contradiction with a loosened society and freer economy intensified."
Well--it goes on and one but the author shows compellingly how the clash between empire and civilization and the rise of captitalism (which, btw, is always measured by the size of the middle class) must find resolution of one sort or another.
The Nixon visit in 72 was engineered in large part by the Chinese and their change of alliance from USSR to U.S. had much to do with the collapse of the Soviet Union. They have shown great manipulation and cunning suitable to their ancient civilization and culture. They will make a great friend. We must be sure of it... |
