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From
China with Love:
A
Reflection
By John
B. Wong
The
Big Picture
"Let China sleep," Napoleon reportedly said, "when that
Dragon awakes, she will shake the world." Some historians,
believing that this giant is now awakening, label the 19th century the
British Century, the 20th the American century, and as Arnold Toynbee puts
it, the 21st the Chinese century. Dr. Larry Summers, Professor of
Economics at Harvard, former Chief Economist for the World Bank, and
immediate past Secretary of the Treasury in President Clinton’s
Administration, states: "For more than a century, the
U.S. has been the world’s largest economy. The only nation with a
chance of surpassing it in the next generation in absolute scale is
China." The World Bank projects that by 2002, China’s Gross
Domestic Product will be 9.8 trillion U. S. dollars, surpassing for the
first time the U.S.'s 9.7 trillion.
Militarily, the vacuum left by the disintegrated Soviet Union is gradually
being filled by China. In the Pacific, the Chinese Navy is fast becoming
the American Navy’s chief contender. Soon, China will be the third
nation in the world, after Russia and America, with astronauts in space.
China’s intercontinental ballistic missiles can reach American soil now.
Why bring up all this? To give us a geopolitical perspective on our
ever-shrinking global village. What happens in China also affects America
and vice versa. America can no longer stand isolated ideologically and
geographically. American interests are now fundamentally tied to the
economic and political development of other nations. Gone are the days of
American self-sufficiency, even though the United States is presently the
world’s only superpower. Yes, the American economy, can have the
impact of a tidal wave on the rest of the world, but the ripple effects
created by the Asian financial structures can return with enough fury to
destabilize America.
Before I comment further on China, perhaps I should briefly say a word
about myself and my family. I want to disclose whatever bias I may have
because of my background and training. I speak primarily as a
Christian, and secondarily as a Chinese-American. To a large extent my
views are colored by my Christian worldview and by my lifelong experience
of living in two cultures—one very old, the Chinese culture, and the
other relatively new, the American way of life.
I was born and reared in Shanghai, China. I was a freshman university
student there when I left for the U.S. My grandfather was a Confucianist,
an acquaintance of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founder of the China Republic. My
grandfather helped Dr. Sun by soliciting financial help among
Chinese-Americans to overthrow the Ching (or Qing in modern Chinese)
Imperial Dynasty. After the revolution succeeded, my grandfather remained
in America and owned and managed a department store in Watsonville,
California where my father was born. My mother was a Buddhist, my
father an agnostic. I went to a Jesuit Catholic high school in
Shanghai where I subsequently attended a French Catholic University and an
Episcopalian University.
As far back as I can remember, even during my high school days, I was
interested in the fundamental issues of life and the meaning of existence.
In the face of strong opposition from my father, I accepted the
Seventh-day Adventist Christian faith when Elder Fordyce Detamore was
conducting a series of evangelistic meetings in Shanghai. In retrospect, I
believe the work of the Holy Spirit, the love of Christ and the power of
God opened a new vista in my life's journey and set my steps heavenward.
By His grace, I subsequently introduced the Adventist faith to my whole
family and others and they too have embraced Christianity.
I spent much of my adult years as a vascular surgeon. During this time and
after my retirement, I went back to various schools to study law,
theology, and ethics. My wife, a school psychologist, and I have
eight children, seven of whom are living. We adopted four of our children
right after their births—one English-Scandinavian boy, one
English-German boy, one Dutch boy who is six feet and two inches tall and
one Irish girl. Our first adopted child, Gary, died in a bicycle
accident.
Once in a grocery store checking line, when our blue-eyed and
blonde-haired children were still small, my wife overheard one nice,
well-meaning lady asking one of our children who their new nanny was.
Imagine the shocked expression that came to her face when one of the
children yelled out, "She’s our Mom!"
Today, all seven of our living children have been through the Seventh-day
Adventist educational system and many are in the professions. Thus,
my perspectives are decidedly Christian. I would classify myself as
a moderate Seventh-day Adventist Christian with a bounteous tolerance for
diverse religious beliefs. I am humbly aware that I see only in a limited
way God’s transcendent glory and His inexplicable grace towards the
human race.
I believe that the providence of God supervenes in human and national
affairs. In other words, the future of all nations, including America,
China, and all the world’s political systems, are in His hands and under
His sovereign will. Theologically, according to the evangelical mindset
and also according to Adventist eschatology, the climax of this world’s
history will not be reached until the Christian gospel is preached to all
nations. This surely includes the 1.26 billion people living
in China. For fundamental American self-interests, for the sake of world
peace, and for the final consummation of the gospel commission, an
understanding of China is essential as we face our new millennium.
Not an
Easy Task
If
you were given the task of rendering a realistic view of America in its
totality, how would you do it? You could trace its more than 200
years of history, but that would provide only a longitudinal view.
You could describe the contemporary life, culture and people of the 50
American states and the District of Columbia, but that would give only the
horizontal perspective. China has a historical timetable more than
ten times longer than that of the U. S. and territorially it is
larger than the U. S. by some 60,000 square miles. To give a substantive
portrayal of China is therefore not an easy task! Let me try to do
so eclectically by sketching several of its dimensions, by blending
secular and biblical histories, and by subsuming them under a
supra-historical illumination based on my Christian worldview.
China's
Geography and Early History
China has a land mass of 3.68 million square miles making it the
largest country in Asia and the third largest nation in the world after
Russia and Canada. Its capital is Beijing (formerly pronounced
Peking). It is the most populous nation on earth. The 2000
official census gives it a figure of 1.26 billion people, 4.5 times the
population of that of U. S. and about 22 % of the world’s total
population.
The first legendary Emperor of China dates back some 4,600 years.
His name was Huang-Di (ca. 2674 B.C.). Huang is the same for Wong in
the Cantonese dialect. Should I then claim that I am a bona fide
descendent of the first Emperor? Huang also means yellow. The First
Emperor was called the Yellow Emperor because in those days only he could
wear gold or yellow. Huang-Di was presumably the descendant of Shao-Dian,
the progeny of An-Deng and Nu-Wo. An-Deng sounds like Adam, the
offspring of God.
The first recorded imperial dynasty of Xia (about the time of Abraham, ca.
2000 B.C.) was founded by "the Great Emperor Yu."
One of the succeeding emperors was Qin Shi Huangdi (246 B.C.) who
consolidated the Great Wall. The name of China possibly originated
with his reign. "Q" in modern Chinese is pronounced like Ch with
more breath. Qin equals Ch’in, thus China. The Chinese name for
China is Zhong-Kuo which means "Middle Kingdom."
The Chinese thought that their kingdom was the center of the world and
that all other people were barbarians. History tells us that while
China was already enjoying an advanced culture with the inventions of the
compass (making travel possible), gunpowder (making war a serious
business), paper (for the transmission of culture), porcelain (for art,
imperial feasts and decorations) and silk cloth (for imperial pageantry
and banners), Europe was still steep in its Dark Ages and America had
barely graduated from its primitive cultural development.
Legends claim that Emperor Qin of China was also the founder of Japan and
Korea. It is said that he sent forth a group of one hundred young
men and fair ladies with instructions to find for him the Herb of
Perpetual Youth and Immortality. At the last minute, the order
included the warning that should they fail to find such a herb, they would
be executed on their return. So the young couples set sail toward the sun
because it rises from the east and has always evoked a sense of mystery
and wonder. After many months of sailing and searching, they landed
on the islands of Japan. They had no idea what the immortality herb
looked like. One of the smart members of the group finally said,
"If we find the herb, why don’t we partake of it and stay here and
thus live forever? Besides, we will be executed on our return if the
herb turns out not to be the one the Emperor wants." Thus they
settled on the islands and began the nation later called Japan. A
similar story is told about the founding of Korea as a separate country.
A
Biblical Perspective on China
Taking the Genesis account seriously with literal interpretations for some
of its descriptions, I postulate the following scenario. After the
Flood (ca. 2348 BC), at the Tower of Babel (ca. 2247 BC), the racial
dispersion included the migration of the descendants of Shem and Japheth
to the East. The names of the corresponding Chinese historical characters,
Shen-Nong and Fu-Shi, have some of the same phonetic sounds. At the
time of the call of Abraham (ca. 1921 BC) from Ur, there were at
least four major cultures in the world—the Mesopotamian, the culture
along the Nile, the Indus, and the civilization bordering the Yellow
River. God, being no respecter of persons and wanting to choose a
people to represent Him, must have extended His invitations to divine
fellowship and glorious human destiny to all four major populations, but
as far as we know, only Abraham responded. In the Shang Dynasty
(1751-1415 BC), God’s spirit was surely not absent, but Moses was
specifically used by God at that time across the continent. During
the Zhou Dynasty (ca. 1023-314 BC), King David reigned (ca. 1000 BC) in
Israel. Some 550 years after the Chinese sage Confucius, during the
Western Han Dynasty, God’s unique representative Jesus Christ entered
human history.
In the unabridged Chinese language today there are many characters which
pictorially and/or ideographically tell the story of the Biblical creation
and redemption. This research was pioneered by Pastor C. H. Kang and
Dr. Ethel Nelson, a Seventh-day Adventist pathologist, Richard Broadberry,
and others. More recently, correlations between ancient Chinese
classics and the Bible have been studied and published by Z. M. Yuan, S.
Wang and D. Lin.
The
Imperial Dynasties and the Confrontation with Western Powers
Broadly speaking, there were ten major dynasties in China prior to the
founding of the modern-day Republic—five before Jesus Christ’s first
coming, and five after. The pre-Christ dynasties were the Hsia,
Shang, Zhou (the era of Confucius, the reign of King David); Qin (the
first central government and the consolidation of the 4000 plus mile long
Great Wall); and Han (a powerful empire with a flourishing culture at the
time of the beginning of the Christian era). The post-Christ dynasties
include the Tang (great art and culture); the Sung (civil service
examinations based on talent and merit, not lineage; Neo-Confucianism with
a fusion of philosophy and religion; agricultural development and the
inventions of gun power, the magnetic compass, and movable type for
printing, arts and crafts, literature and philosophy all during the
European Dark or Middle Ages); The Yuan (Kublai Khan Mongol invaders who
went as far as eastern Europe; the Marco Polo era); The Ming Dynasty
(prosperity and stability during the rise of nationalism and Europe’s
Renaissance); and the Qing (governed by the Manchus for almost three
hundred years; prosperity and interaction with Western nations with
alternating success and failure but the eventual national humiliation at
the hands of colonial powers).
The colonial powers were England, France, Germany, Russia and Japan which,
whether working singly or in collusion, were bent on making China a
subdued colony. To her credit, America was not a major participant
in the colonization of China. The Taiping Rebellion (1851-1864) and the
Boxers Rebellion (1900) were reactions to feudal society and to foreign
domination respectively. After repeated defeats by the colonial powers and
a series of unequal treaties, the Qing Dynasty crumbled from pressures
within and without.
In Shanghai and other big cities of China, I distinctly remember as a
teenager that there were British and French extraterritorial
concessions—nations within the nation where foreigners had their own
laws and governments immune from Chinese jurisdictional control. In
those days a foreigner could commit a serious crime on one side of the
street and step across to the British or French concession on the other
side and be totally free from pursuit by Chinese law. I saw pictures
depicting signs at the entrance of the Shanghai Racetrack which
said, "Dogs and Chinese are not allowed."
To understand the humiliation and rage we Chinese felt, imagine that
Disneyland were owned by a Chinese corporation and over its front entrance
a big sign were hung proclaiming, "Dogs and Americans are forbidden
to enter." Or picture in the Trafalgar Square of London a big
neon display sign declaring, "Skunks, royalty, and Britons—entrance
barred"!
The Qing Dynasty, which lasted from 1644 to 1911 A. D., was overthrown by
Doctor Sun Yat-Sen and his revolutionary group. Doctor Sun Yat-Sen
(1866-1925), the Founding Father of the China Republic was a determined
Christian who was exposed to Christianity as a young boy. He
regularly worshipped at St. Andrews Cathedral at Iolani, Hawaii and was
baptized in Hong Kong at the age of eighteen by the Reverend Doctor
Charles Hagar, an American Congregational minister. He studied
medicine in the Canton Hospital Medical School, a missionary institution,
and later graduated from the College of Medicine for Chinese which was
established by the famous Christian Ho Kai (He Qi).
Sun Yat-Sen (also named Sun Zhongshan, Sun Mun) was inspired by Abraham
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and its references to a government "of
the people, by the people and for the people." Sun's own three
political principles for China were similar to Lincoln's: (1) Min-Zu,
the national consciousness, reflects Lincoln's "of the people;" (2)
Min-Quan, the people's
rights, is very close in meaning to Lincoln's "by the people;"
and (3) Min-sheng, the people's livelihood, embodies Lincoln's "for
the people."
After years of civil war between warlords and political factions, Chiang
Kai-shek consolidated most of the country and established the Republic of
China which followed the Three Political Principles earlier laid down by
Dr. Sun. Chiang, who became a Christian, was the main political
power from 1926 to 1949 in the Nationalist Government. He was the
President of the Republic of China in Taiwan from 1950-1975, after having
been driven out of mainland China by the Communists.
For years Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist faction led by Mao Zadong
fought bitterly against each other for the control of China. Chiang
almost won the battle after the "Long March" in which the
Communists were pushed back to the hinterland. He had the support of the
upper socio-economic class, merchants, and landlords, whereas the
Communists found favor with the farmers, the dispossessed, and the poor.
The famous three Soong Sisters married all the top political and financial
figures of Chiang’s inner circle. One of the sisters, Soong Mei-ling,
a Methodist Christian and the wife of Chiang Kai-Shek, graduated from
Wellesley College in the United States. She had an attentive
audience among many members of the U. S. Congress in the 1950’s and
1960’s. It is reported that she is now a centenarian and resides
in New York.
The conflict between the Nationalist government (Chiang), presently
headquartered in Taiwan, and the Peoples’ Republic of China (Mao’s
regime), whose capital is Beijing, has been long and bitter.
They joined forces only in fighting against their common enemy, the
Japanese Army, during part of the Sino-Japanese war (1937-45). Until
1949 and even since then, the U. S. has largely sided with the Nationalist
government.
Right after World War II, when Mao and Chou Enlai asked the Americans
for help, they were turned down. With nowhere to go, they looked to Russia
for assistance. In front of an array of the world’s political leaders,
Premier Zhou Enlai of the Beijing regime extended his hand to Secretary of
State John Foster Dulles under the Eisenhower administration. Dulles
publicly refused to shake hands with Zhou. Premier Zhou (1898-1976) never
forgot this insult. How much this encounter added to the tensions between
the United States and China few can estimate.
During the Korean War, Communist China warned the U. S. not to pursue the
North Koreans toward the Chinese Manchurian border. General
MacArthur of the United States ignored this warning only to be confronted
by nearly a million Chinese soldiers pouring down from Manchuria.
The Allied Forces were driven back to South Korea and along the way they
experienced the loss of tens of thousands of U. S. and other troops.
Repeatedly invoking the motto that in war there is no substitute for total
victory, General Douglas MacArthur wanted to bomb the Chinese bases behind
Manchuria's borders and even use atomic weapons, if necessary.
Because President Truman was apprehensive that such military moves could
ignite a third World War, on April 11, 1950, he fired General MacArthur.
Many concerned people then wanted the U. S. to win the war in North Korea
and retake mainland China which was then ruled by Mao, thus reclaiming
"freedom" for the Chinese people. But God must have known
and foreseen the catastrophic human carnage this would have caused and in
mercy spared us all the atomic devastation that would have taken place if
MacArthur’s plan had been implemented. History, in a sense, is
"His Story." He knows what goes into this story.
From
1949 to the Present
China under the Communist-Socialist regime has experienced many twists and
turns. One of the most tragic aberrations occurred between 1966 and
1969 and then extended to 1976, a decade known as the "Cultural
Revolution," when China became a nation gone mad. In an
effort to restore revolutionary zeal, and to make the Chinese society
idealistic and classless, Mao mobilized millions of students and other
young people in a movement not unlike a religious revival on a scale grand
enough to affect a billion people. He mandated these young
Red-Guards to overturn everything that was traditional. The rampage
affected families, schools, government, churches, industries, commerce,
and, most of all, the national psyche and social fabric.
Thousands of intellectuals were sent to the farms for reeducation,
thousands more were made to confess the sins of the bourgeois, and
millions were relocated in far-flung territories in new settlements.
Ranks and degrees in the military and in educational systems were
abolished. Students were admitted to the universities not based on
the scores of their entrance exams but rather depending on whether their
parents were among the poor, land-starved proletariat. Temples,
churches and national treasures were wantonly destroyed. "Where
is God?" many Christians asked. His answer, though inaudible
then, speaks the loudest when we observe that the seeds of martyrdom have
become the nuclei of vibrant Christian churches in China today.
Because my relatives were in China during those turbulent years, I was not
spared my share of vicarious suffering. I desperately attempted to
get my relatives out of the troubled nation. After trying every
method available here in the U. S. without success, my wife and I traveled
to London because I knew that England had recognized China diplomatically.
Without telling my wife where I was going for fear that she would worry,
and without notifying the American Consulate in an effort to avoid other
complications, I went alone to the Chinese Consulate in London in hopes of
obtaining exist visas from China for my relatives and soon found myself
locked behind closed doors for an intense interrogation. The staff
of the Chinese Consulate thought I was some kind of spy! Only after
three hours of fear and uncertainty, was I finally let out to see the sun
again. For the first time in my life, in the depths of my being, I
realized what freedom means.
After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the reformers led by Deng Xiao-ping
(1904-1997) began a market economy and a national reconstruction with a
new openness toward China's citizens as well as toward the western
nations, especially America. Following President Nixon’s historic
visit to China in 1972, China and the United States established normal
diplomatic relations for the first time since Mao took power in 1949.
There has been a general trend toward greater and greater openness toward
capitalist economics and a concurrent de-emphasis on totalitarian rule.
The government's response to the Tiananmen Square outburst of student
demonstrations in 1989 was an exception to this overall trend. Under the leadership of Jiang
Zemin, China is now on the verge of being admitted to the World Trade
Organization and has been labeled a "strategic partner" by
President Clinton and a "strategic competitor" by President
Bush.
In China in 1949 there were thirteen Protestant and three Roman Catholic
missionary universities, some four hundred Christian secondary schools,
more than two hundred similar elementary schools, and more than 400
mission hospitals, including scores of Seventh-day Adventist hospitals and
clinics which had been started by "China Doctor" Harry Miller,
E. L. Longway and others. Many prominent Chinese intellectuals who
later became political and academic leaders were graduates of Christian
missionary educational institutions. The pioneer missionaries of those
days nurtured a host of important Chinese Christian leaders.
The
Religions of China
Strictly
speaking, Confucianism,
which originates from the philosophy of Confucius (ca. 550 B.C.), is not a
religion but a political philosophy and an ethical system. It places
great emphasis on moral standards, personal and social ethics, and an
ordered society governed by Li (propriety and protocol). Confucius, a
forerunner of virtue ethics, argues that the moral person is the
standard for ethics. His concept of an ideal society is one in which
there is hierarchical authority--a wise and moral ruler over the
citizenry, parents over children, men over women (feminists beware!), the
educated over the common people. Though he often referred to Tian
(Heaven), he did not invoke a personal God. He himself never asked
to be worshipped. For two millennia, Chinese have held him in great
respect and adoration, and if this adoration is taken to be a form of
religious sentiment, then Confucianism could fall into the larger context
and loose definition of religion even though there are no formal ritual
observances for him. Today, there are many Confucian temples, which
are memorial buildings instead of places of worship. Confucianism
exerts its moral influence not only in China, but to a large extent also
in the Japanese and Korean cultures.
Taoism (Tao or Dao means the Way, the essence, the nameless reality, the
logos) is truly a native Chinese religion. It stresses love,
compassion, moderation, humility, and recompensing injury with kindness.
Its bible is the Tao Teh Ching. It proposes a life of
simplicity and harmony with nature. Some of the dominant themes are Wu-wei--a
form of non-assertiveness, effortless action, acting through inaction,
mastering through receptivity and yielding to the flow of rhythm; the
order of opposites Yin (feminine, dark, negative, passive, submissive,
pliant, receptive) and Yang (masculine, sunny, positive,
constructive, active). Taoism has two major branches. One of
these is the intellectual Taoism which embraces a mysticism according to
which the eternal Tao is inexpressible but experientially available.
Scientists have used Tao in their conceptual frameworks, The Tao of
Physics being a recent example. The other branch is a superstitious
offshoot of Taoism which borders on magical religion with elaborate
rituals.
Buddhism, an imported religion, has taken on Chinese characteristics by
fusing with Confucian and Taoist thoughts and practices. The Mahayana
variety is the most popular stream of Buddhism in China. Yana means
"vehicle," and Mahayana, the "Great Vehicle" which can
help people cross over the river of suffering to the other shore, through
countless rebirths, to Nirvana. Buddhists in China worship multiple
deities with incense burning, a typical means of making prayerful
requests. Buddhist temples are everywhere in China with tens of millions
of adherents.
Islam is more common among the people in the far west and northwest
portions of China and among the minority tribes. It is estimated
that there are 25 million Muslims in China.
The official religions in China, if there are any, are atheism and
agnosticism. Although the state discourages religious practice, it
recognizes the important role religion plays in peoples’ lives.
Religious freedom is guaranteed by Article 36 of the Chinese Constitution
which specifies restraints and limits as to how religion can be practiced
without disrupting public order, impairing the health of citizens or
interfering with the educational system of the State. In addition,
religious bodies and religious affairs are not allowed to be subject to
any foreign domination. Christianity, purified by trials and persecution,
under God’s providence grew by leaps and bounds during the Mao
Regime.
Christianity
in China
The earliest recorded Christian witness to China came from the Nestorian
missionaries in 635 A.D. Nestorians believed that Christ had two
natures, one human, one divine, and that his unity was found in His two
wills and not in his essence, in contrast to the doctrine of hypostatic
union endorsed by the orthodox Christian formulation. Recent
research has cast doubt on the entire controversy. In any case, the
Nestorians were influential in China for about 200 years and they
left a record of their work in a large stone tablet unearthed in 1625 at
X’ian. When I was in Be-Lin, X’ian two years ago, I saw this
stele--a stone slab--which is on public display.
The Roman Catholic Jesuits Father Xavier (1506-52 AD) and Father Ricci
(1552-1610) arrived at Guangdong in Southern China in 1583 along with
other European missionaries during the late Ming Dynasty. Other
Catholic missionaries had penetrated China as early as during the Yuan
Dynasty (1271-1368), however. After the 1840-42 Opium War, in which
China suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the British who wanted
to dump large quantities of opium on the Chinese market (a subtle form of
commercial and chemical genocide?), Protestant missionaries began to
arrive, including Robert Morrison from England and Friedrich Gutz of
Germany. Abram La Rue (1822-1903), a Seventh-day Adventist missionary
layman, arrived at Hong Kong in 1888 where the first official Adventist
missionary, J. N. Anderson, set foot in 1902. Despite the
human tragedies caused by gunboats, opium, colonialism and feudalism, I
believe God used the colonial armor to pry open imperial China for the
propagation of the gospel.
In 1950 the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee (self-government,
self-support, self-propagation of the gospel) was established by
Protestant Church leaders in China to serve as a liaison between the
Bureau of Religious Affairs of the State Council of the People's
Republic of China and the China Christian Council, an organization which
deals with local churches and congregations. The National Christian
Conference is the supreme body of both the TSPMC and the CCC. It has
appointed twelve commissions that promote such things as Oversees
Relations, Bible Publication (Amity Press), Theological Education, Church
Music, Self-Propagation for the Gospel and Promotion for Self-Support.
In 1957 the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association was formed; in 1980,
the Chinese Catholic Bishops Conference was established. There are
over 5,000 Catholic churches and 36 Catholic seminaries in China and
three million Catholic Bibles have been printed. It is estimated that
there are over 4 million Catholics in China today. More than one hundred
Chinese Catholic priests have been sent overseas to earn master or
doctoral degrees in theology in preparation for teaching posts in China.
Since 1980, over 22 million Bibles have been printed in China and 10
million church hymnals distributed. Other religious literature has
also been published, mainly through Amity Press in Nanjing.
As of 2001, in China there are: more than 12,000 churches open for
public worship 5,000 of which are newly built; 25,000 Protestant
groups which meet in homes; 20 Protestant theological seminaries and
Bible Training Schools and 3,100 seminarians who have already completed
their training. By conservative estimates, today there are probably 15 to
25 million Protestant Christians in China, and there could be as many as
40 or 50 million. Nearly a quarter million Chinese Christians are
Seventh-day Adventists.
At this time, when China is gearing up to host the 2008 Olympics in
Beijing and is on the verge of being admitted to the World Trade
Organization, Christians generally rejoice in seeing the construction of
two large Christian churches in Beijing, each seating 2,000, which are
funded, to the surprise of many, by the government’s Bureau of
Religious Affairs. Whether either one of these churches will be ready when
President Bush has his state visit to China this October is a matter
closely watched by those with the gift of political savvy.
The
Cuisines of China
It is said that only French cuisine can rival Chinese culinary art in
complexity, variety, and creativity. Ancient Chinese wisdom declares
that no one can appreciate and understand the culture of another country
without first experiencing its food and drink.
The Ying-Yang Chinese philosophy enters into the preparation of food.
Many specific kinds of food are designated as belonging to Ying, others to
Yang, and a balance must be struck for culinary harmony. It is
analogous to Feng Shui, a Chinese concept and practice, taught at UCLA and
other universities that emphasizes environmental harmony and the flow of
energy ("chi") in the construction of buildings and the
arrangement of furniture.
The southern or Cantonese cuisine is less spicy. More naturally
prepared, with many kinds of seafood and fresh stir-fried vegetables, it
is very tasty and colorful despite the use of ginger and less salt.
Because many of the 30 million overseas Chinese originally came from
China's southern provinces such as Guangdong and Fukien, the southern
recipes have spread to the whole world. Many restaurants in San
Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities specialize in Cantonese cuisine.
The northern cuisine, represented by Beijing and the Peking duck symbol,
is more elaborate in style and in method of preparation. It is
saltier with plenty of garlic and darker in appearance because of the
sauces. Beijing, meaning the "northern capital," is the
seat of so many imperial courts that the imperial style of culinary art
has left its imprimatur on the way feasts and banquets are prepared.
Wheat products are more common north of the Yangtze River, rice more
common south of Yangtze, and everywhere soy bean curd (Tofu) is prepared a
hundred ways.
The eastern cuisine, typified by the great metropolis of Shanghai, is more
refined in style, saltier than the Cantonese variety, with vegetables and
meat often diced. It can be mild or spicy but always with plenty of
soy sauce and oil.
The cuisine of southwest and central China is noted for its fiery, spicy
Szechwan (Sichuan) variety. Hot peppers, preserved mustard, pungent sauces
are liberally used in dishes. The minority people’s cuisine in
China features mutton, camel humps and Mongolian fire pots.
It is said that in China there are 156 ways to prepare chicken and 99 ways
to prepare fish. Depending on the region, Chinese food is characterized by
stir-fried vegetables, soy bean curd (plain, fried, stuffed, dried,
pressed, soft or hard), bamboo shoots, black mushrooms, glutinous rice
wrapped in Lotus leaves, fish of all variety, poultry and meats of all
kinds, pastries with liberal use of sesame, coconut, soy beans, lotus
seeds, and the ever ubiquitous soy sauce.
Some of the delicacies are shark’s fin soup (scientists have recently
found that chondroitin and glucosamine from fin cartilage helps preserve
joint integrity and relieves joint pain), Peking duck, three-flavor
chicken, fried grey sole; Buddhist vegetarian feast, freshly prepared
gluten that almost melts in your mouth; two-color prawns, Kung-Pao
splendor, Mandarin fish, roasted squab, Sichuan beef, Beijing roast lamb,
and mustard greens with creamy sauce. I must stop now as I may have
already over-challenged you with gastronomic delights!
Tea has been an integral part of Chinese food and drink culture for
centuries. It has been developed into an art form with distinctive
regional emphases about which I shall not dwell at this time.
The
People of China, its Land and Language
Almost 94% of the Chinese population belongs to the Han nationality (Han
Dynasty 206-2 BC) and the remaining 6% of China's population consists of
some 50 minority groups who live near the borders of the national
boundaries. Many of China's more than a billion citizens live in the
arable eastern third of the nation, spanning north and south in large
urban centers with more than 10 million people each.
The highest mountain peaks, the Himalayas with 29,028 foot tall Mount
Everest, are in southern Tibet in southwestern China. The
Yangtze Valley and the Eastern Lowlands include the fertile farms.
Northeastern China, which has been traditionally called Manchuria,
possesses rich soil and mineral deposits. The western Xin-Jiang
(Sinkiang) region is rich in oil and minerals with large stretches of
deserts and oases. The Sichuan Basin contains some of the best
agricultural land anywhere. Southeastern China is noted for its scenery,
rich soils, variety of crops, and densely populated cities.
The Yellow River to the north, which used to be called
"China’s Sorrows" because of its frequent flooding, in recent
years has been brought under control. The world’s largest hydroelectric
dams are being constructed at The Three Gorges of the The Yangtze River.
Also called Chang-Jiang, at 3915 miles in length, it is the world’s
third longest river, after the Nile and Amazon. Tens of millions of
people live in crowded conditions along the banks of these two rivers
while cultivating every inch of ground suitable for farming.
The Chinese written language is based on some 50,000 pictorial or
ideographic characters, simple or compound. The more elaborate traditional
characters have been simplified to facilitate writing and computing at the
expense of losing some of their richness in meaning and symbolization.
There are hundreds of dialects in China, but the major ones are the
Mandarin (the Beijing dialect originally), which is the official spoken
language. Then there are the Cantonese (the southern dialect, typified by
the Guangzhou and Hong Kong variety), the Shanghai dialect, the Sichuan
dialect, and the Fukien dialect (several variations of which are spoken in
Taiwan).
The
U. S.-China Christian Institute
Finally, let me touch upon my present project in China: The U.
S.-China Christian Institute. It was born with a vision: to
make a difference in the lives of people we seek to help, to concretize
what Christian love means, to engender international peace and
cooperation, to challenge the participants with a life-transforming
experience, and to inspire other groups to embark on similar projects for
the world’s needy. The journey of a thousand miles begins with the
first step; we took our first step on January 1, 1999.
As stated in our literature, USCCI mobilizes and dispatches short-term
volunteer medical, dental, and other healthcare teams. It recruits
educators, teachers, and Christian workers to provide free services to
people in China and other parts of the world. USCCI supports scholarships,
research, publications, continuing education, language instruction,
academic and cultural exchanges, and construction projects.
Our mission is to relieve human pain and suffering, to impart knowledge,
to model a healthful life-style, to foster friendship between
care-givers and care-recipients, to allow the privileged and the
under-privileged to learn from each other, to bridge
cultural and geographical barriers for the sake of
peace, friendship and better understanding between nations, to be
channels of healing and hope to people in need through
services at different levels in the spirit of
Christian love.
USCCI is constrained and driven by these biblical injunctions: "Go
ye therefore….Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of
these my brethren and sisters, ye have done it unto Me…. For everyone to
whom much is given, from whom much will be required." We sincerely
believe that freely we have received by His grace, freely we must give to
the less fortunate—in the form of free medical, dental, other
health-related services, skills training, educational opportunities, the
Christian hope and the biblical Good News. We firmly believe that we
ought to give our services and do our work openly in compliance with
Chinese laws and regulations. We respect the authorities and local
customs. We are of the opinion that respect is fostered by mutual
trust, which is the foundation of any friendship.
Some think our effort is insignificant in view of the 1.26 billion
people in China, even though our exposure to people could be numbered in
thousands through the patients we have treated, teachers we have taught,
the pictures in the city brochures, the TV advertising and so forth.
Others have warned us of the traps and political land mines along the way.
Still others perhaps cast doubt on our motives and methodology. Some
bemoan our naiveté and love us so much as to want us not get hurt.
I can write pages to refute, to argue, to try to convince, and to defend
our position. Limited time and space plus some understanding of the
human psyche, however, have convinced me that I should not follow that
trail. Let the results speak for themselves. Once you have
ever seen the gratitude and joy on the face of someone you have helped,
all other arguments go down the drain. Once you have felt the peace
and inner confirmation that only God can give, no human voice matters. For
me and many members of our team, we know we are doing that which the Lord
has called us to do, however small the task may be and no matter how
inadequate we are.
In the Christian context, one person is worth all redeeming efforts. One
sick body merits our unconditional concern. The most powerful sermon, I
believe, is a life lived in service to others. We dare not be disobedient
to the heavenly vision (Acts 26:19).
If you are interested, just come with us on one of our trips. You
can then better judge our work for yourself. Seeing is better than a
thousand words. Existential encounter is superior to every mental
calculus in the sphere of visionary work.
Our focus at this time is the construction of a five-story building in the
city of Zongshan which we have named the Pavilion of Universal Love and
Friendship. The structure is designed as a multipurpose building. The
first floor includes a large dental suite, medical examination rooms, an
office and reception room, a large kitchen, a public health and preventive
care lecture hall, an elevator (somewhat of a luxury in China) and
lavatories. The second floor houses a large auditorium which will be able
to seat up to 350 people. It will be used for English classes and
other courses. We have stained glass with Christian love
symbolization in the wall behind the stage. There will be a back
hall separated by windows from the main hall for mothers with children.
In a few years, when China has further embraced additional ideas of
western democracy, this assembly hall can be converted into another kind
of auditorium more expressive of our vision.
The third floor is all residential. It is divided into apartments
and single rooms with modern conveniences to accommodate visitors,
lecturers, our own teams, and above all many of you who will be
coming to visit us in the near future. The fourth floor includes a
large conference room, library, research facility, and also a residential
area. The fifth floor’s usage is still open to suggestion and the
space is presently not partitioned. It can be used as a large
assembly hall, seating another 350 people, or divided into classrooms or a
combination of a youth assembly hall and small group discussion cubicles.
The open roof garden could be used for meditation, prayers, social
functions, or anything in God’s providence.
Our new building is strategically located in the new center of town with
green hills on one side and high rise buildings on the other.
Zhongshan is the birthplace of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of
China as is George Washington for the U. S. This city eventually will
become an integral part of the megametropolis envisioned by Mr.
Tung, Hong Kong’s Chief Administrator. He looks to the near future when
Canton, Zhongshan, Zhuhai, Toishan, Foshan, Shenzhen, Macao and Hong Kong
will all merge into one giant financial, commercial and cultural complex
rivaling that of greater New York or London. Who can estimate the
impact of our pioneer project in the midst of this great transformation in
China? Zhongshan is only our beginning. We have already been
invited to take our team to Kunming, Yunnan and Chengtu, Szechwan, and
even other continents.
I believe God has a purpose and a work for us to do in these last days.
Jesus says, "Go ye into all the world and make disciples [meaning to
persuade people to follow the Christian way of life by modeling and being
good examples], baptizing them [including converting them to a new
Christian worldview] and teaching them [the love of God, the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, the wholism of Adventism] by our words and deeds in
communication and service.
Some
Sober Reflections
China is a huge and complex country which is undergoing profound changes
brought about by modernization, the trend toward democratization, and a
religious resurgence amidst 1.26 billion people representing 22% of the
world’s population. The October 4, 1999 issue of Time states,
"Everywhere in China you hear talk of spiritual vacuum...as China
celebrates the 50th Anniversary of Mao’s October revolution, high-tech
military jets...new investment opportunities...a nation transformed...what
will be missing is faith."
Today, as discussed earlier, there are 30 million Christians of all sorts
in China by conservative estimates and there could be as many as 60
million. About a quarter of a million of these Christians are
Seventh-day Adventists. If we project a 7% annual growth in
the number of Christians in China, by the year 2025, should the parousia
tarry, there could be over 300 million Christians in China, making it the
largest Christian community of any ethnic group or nation.
Although understanding China is both challenging and difficult because of
its complexity and unpredictable changes, it is also imperative that we
try to do so because of its potentials and for the sake of world
peace and Christian work. Any particular understanding by each of us,
however, is at best partial and subject to revision. In addition,
our understanding of China is always influenced by our personal
experiences and reflections on the subject. Our own belief systems
and the commitments of our hearts guide us when we interpret the situation
in China. Our eyes see only what our minds interpret. Having said
that, I believe that by sharing with one another our own perspectives, and
by listening to the assessments of others, we can more fully grasp the
full picture of what is emerging in China. I hope you readers will respond
with whatever comments you have.
The future and success of any work in China are ultimately in God’s
hand. We should not expect the changes in China to be always linear,
positive, progressive, consistently uniform throughout all regions, and
unquestionably favorable to the Christian outreach. God’s design
for China may well be vastly different from American or European visions.
Rather than feeling disappointed and discouraged, let us rejoice in what
the Lord has been doing in China throughout the centuries and particularly
since 1949. Let us avail ourselves of the many opportunities for service
in His cause even amidst perceived and unknown obstacles. We must
not compare the progress and the seemingly slow changes in China
with those of a Western model. Whatever one thinks now about China,
the situation is still many times better than that of earlier years.
For that, let us praise God and join hands together to be channels of His
love and hope with hearts overflowing with gratitude for His grace.
A
Postscript on Religion, Politics, and International Relations
Falun
Gong
A number of people have asked me to comment on Falun Gong, a religious
movement in China which has been declared an illegal cult by the
government. It has been on the media headlines whenever human rights are
discussed. The leader of this group, Li Hongzhi, presently hiding in
New York, claims that he is greater than Jesus Christ and Buddha. He
says he possesses supernatural powers and can make himself invisible.
He spurns science and is anti-medicine and claims that he alone can save
this world corrupted by science, technology and degenerate culture.
Falun Gong which literally means the skills and practice of the wheels of
law, is a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism, and traditional Chinese exercises.
The government was first alerted to its mass appeal and organization when
in May, 1999, more than 10,000 of its devotees suddenly showed up to squat
outside the Chinese leadership compound in the center of Beijing to
demand official recognition.
Many of the followers of Falun Gong, who have infiltrated into the
government ranks and file, communicate through email. Its
strong organization and other factors, including allegations that it
"seduces, brainwashes and blackmails people, harms their lives and
security, destroys public order or social stability," have drawn the
attention of the authorities, and set the stage for the government’s
campaign against it.
The official position is that the Chinese people do have religious freedom
but that this freedom is to be exercised by and within the religious
organizations registered with the government. Cults, which are
characterized by blind obedience to a leader, the practice of
mind-control, the dissemination of heresies, and defrauding innocent
people, are banned in China. Falun Gong members (which number
from 2 million to 100 million depending on whose statistics one uses)
maintain that they are apolitical and not responsible for those who
recently immolated themselves in protest. They argue for their right
to freedom of belief.
I have had a chance to talk to local Christians about this group.
Many Chinese Christians actually feel relieved that the government has
exercised its control over the Falun Gong because in times past it has
invaded the Christian community and disrupted families and friendship
circles. Such is this complex and multi-faceted religious issue.
The
American Spy Plane Incident
Shortly
after noon at a restaurant in Zongshan, where we had been invited by local
officials to discuss our agenda of service, I received an emergency cell
phone call from my brother in Los Angeles stating that the two Loma Linda
University dental students who were supposed to be traveling to Zhongshan
with our team were not going to do so because of the extreme tension
developing between the U. S. and China. I immediately thought of the
American bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in 1999.
Americans blamed that accident on the CIA’s old maps while the Chinese
countered with the fact that even the United Parcel Service knew where the
Chinese Embassy was. Besides, the Embassy was clearly marked and the
bombs that hit the Embassy came from three directions destroying with
surgical precision specific areas such as the communication center and the
information vault. My theory is that American military leaders knew that
the Chinese were collecting vital information on the latest weaponry used
in Yugoslavia and that they believed that this information must be
destroyed, even without clearance from the White House or Security
Council.
The story of the spy plane crisis reached us at a time when our advance
team had been so busy trying to get the equipment and the building ready
for the main team’s operation that we didn’t even have time to keep
abreast with international news. Only later did we learn that an
American Navy EP-3 4-propeller plane, while doing reconnaissance
work along China’s southern coast near Hainan Island, which is really
not far from where we were, had collided with one of the Chinese F-8
fighters which were "escorting" the American plane. There
was the American version as well as the Chinese version as to how the
collision occurred. The bottom line is that the Chinese fighter
crashed and the pilot died, and the American spy plane was damaged
and had to land at the nearest air-base within China.
The 24 member American air crew and the plane were seized by the Chinese
military. Fierce diplomatic maneuvers were immediately set in motion
by Washington and Beijing. The Chinese demanded an apology which
President Bush finally tendered. After 11 days of tense
confrontation, the American air crew was released. The plane, of
course, was held in China for much longer where it provided a treasure
hunt for the Chinese who are trying to study what and how Americans gather
and intercept vital information. Most of the secrets, though not all
of the intelligence gathering and military data, had been deliberately
destroyed before the plane landed.
A question for Christian ethics can be asked at this point: In hot
or cold war, or even in peace time, when military intelligence and
counter-intelligence are fundamental to a nation’s survival, does
the truth-telling principle hold, does the golden rule apply? A
mirror image of the golden rule stated in Chinese and Confucian culture
runs something like this: "Do not do unto others what you would not
want others do unto you." In this case, would we Americans want
some foreign spy plane snooping around all the time along our California
coast and hovering over our beaches?
The American argument is that Hainan Island is very close to Taiwan and
knowledge about China’s missile buildup across Taiwan is essential,
because China and Taiwan, a Chinese renegade province according to
Beijing, are locked in a political and military struggle. China insists on
the "One China with Two Systems Principle" as the basis for an
eventual unification of Taiwan with China—a principle subscribed to by
all American presidents since the Nixon days and documented in several
joint communiqués. The U. S. must honor these agreements; however,
it also has an obligation to help Taiwan defend itself against a military
takeover by China which has warned Taiwan not to declare its territorial
and political independence.
Recent history tells us that, generally speaking, whenever America has
engaged itself in world conflicts, such as in Kosovo, Ireland, Africa,
Palestine and Columbia, one could expect better social and political
outcomes. After all, America is the world's only remaining
superpower. America’s military might is still to some degree
controlled by the American conscience and a moral framework based on
Christian principles with emphasis on democracy, freedom, equality,
justice and fair play. Other nations may have the same compulsion
but they lack the power to enforce their convictions. The U. S. is
the only nation which has both the power and the "conscience."
For this reason, even though it is often criticized for being the
self-appointed police force of the world, I believe the U. S. is justified
in its global involvement and military presence. The difficult task
is to distinguish between meddlesome quasi-imperialism and hawkish
national self-interest, on the one hand, and protecting the weak and
justifiably safeguarding the peace and security of the world, on the
other.
Despite any U.S.-China conflicts, the reality of business remains: 110
billion dollars of annual trade hang in the balance whenever these two
nations confront each other. China needs American technology and the
American consumer market and Americans have grown used to imports produced
in China where two U. S. dollars per day is the average pay for a laborer.
The very low inflation in America is directly linked to cheap imports.
Were it not for these imports, we Americans would probably have to pay
$60.00 for a Van Heusen shirt, $100.00 for a woman’s blouse, $150.00 for
a Reebok walking shoe, and much more than we do for Christmas toys.
All this brings me back to my original assertion: America can no
longer stand isolated. Its economic and national interest is
complexly intertwined with those of the Asian nations of which
China is one of the major players. For America, dealing with this
new China is the greatest foreign policy challenge of the new century.
Such challenges and opportunities are no less intense for
mission-minded and service-oriented organizations like USCCI!
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