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The Rise of the Tiger

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I came away from the meet­ing with the same mixed pic­ture I saw tour­ing China last month, its lead­ers are pre­oc­cu­pied with prob­lems of inter­nal growth and polit­i­cal sta­bil­ity. They see pol­icy debates with the West through this clouded lens.
David Ignatius, Wash­ing­ton Post Columnist

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Chi­nese lead­ers have always feared their diverse pop­u­lace. His­tory gives them good cause:

A large rebel­lion, the Taip­ing Rebel­lion (1851–1864), involved around a third of China falling under con­trol of the Taip­ing Tian­guo, a quasi-Christian reli­gious move­ment led by the “Heav­enly King” Hong Xiuquan. Only after four­teen years were the Taip­ings finally crushed — the Taip­ing army was destroyed in the Third Bat­tle of Nanking in 1864. The death toll dur­ing the 15 years of the rebel­lion was about 20 mil­lion.
Wikipedia: A His­tory of China

This was fol­lowed by Punti-Hakka Clan Wars, Nien Rebel­lion, Mus­lim Rebel­lion, Pan­thay Rebel­lion and the Boxer Rebel­lion through 1901. The Qing Dynasty, the last in Chi­nese his­tory, fell ten years later. Some of these tie to the eth­nic ten­sions that also have an eco­nomic root. If you are part of China’s polit­i­cal class, these stand as lessons best not forgotten.

Mem­o­ries of the West

The Boxer Rebel­lion occurred because of pent up anger against West­ern (or West­ern­ized, as in Japan’s case). Since before the Opium Wars, Euro­pean pow­ers con­tin­u­ally forced con­ces­sions on the Chi­nese with “gun­boat” diplo­macy. The rebel­lion seri­ously under­mined the Qing dynasty, lead­ing to its even­tual down­fall. Its sup­pres­sion by west­ern pow­ers could only have left bit­ter memories:

The inter­me­di­ate after­math of the siege in Bei­jing was “an orgy of loot­ing” by sol­diers, civil­ians, and mis­sion­ar­ies. Each nation­al­ity in the expe­di­tionary force accused the other of being the worst loot­ers. An Amer­i­can diplo­mat, Her­bert Squires, filled sev­eral rail­road cars with loot. The British Lega­tion held loot auc­tions every after­noon and pro­claimed, “loot­ing on the part of British troops was car­ried out in the most orderly man­ner.” The Catholic North Cathe­dral was a “salesroom for stolen prop­erty.” The Amer­i­can com­man­der Gen­eral Adna Chaf­fee banned loot­ing by Amer­i­can sol­diers, but the ban was ineffectual.

West­ern forces went on a killing, loot­ing, and rap­ing ram­page against Chi­nese civil­ians. All of the for­eign troops, except the Japan­ese, raped women.

His­tory Spreads by Spo­ken Word

Peo­ple die, but their words live on through their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. Chi­nese rela­tions with the west will be tainted for a long time by west­ern behav­ior in the 19^th Century.

China and 1893Neptune-Pluto2384

The Boxer Rebel­lion occurred at the begin­ning of 1893Neptune-Pluto2384. That event occurred under 1849Uranus-180°-Pluto1965 and 1822Uranus-180°-Neptune1992. Both sig­na­tures appear promi­nently Chi­nese his­tory since then: 1966Uranus-0°-Pluto2101 coin­cides with the Cul­tural Rev­o­lu­tion, 1993Uranus-0°-Pluto2165 with the Tianan­men Square Mas­sacre. China under­goes con­stant inter­nal strife. But its lead­ers will make sure the west does not interfere.

Over­all, China will play a promi­nent role through­out 1893Neptune-Pluto2384. As US power declines, it will inter­est­ing to see the role China plays in inter­na­tional affairs. We see evi­dence for its respect for the power of its peo­ple in how it now buys farm­land in South Amer­ica, Africa and other parts of the world. Since it has become the world’s fac­tory at expense of its own envi­ron­ment, in many cases, China plays a cen­tral role in Paradox2140:Progress.

China, for the most part, chose to con­trol its own sphere of influ­ence, rather than con­quer­ing other cul­ture as Euro­peans did. A lit­tle less than 100 years before Colum­bus stum­bled up His­pan­iola, Admi­ral Zheng. He com­manded hun­dreds of ships car­ry­ing thou­sands on trips of dis­cov­ery as far away as Africa and, per­haps, to North Amer­ica. The Chi­nese emperor of the time even­tu­ally decided that China had all it needed at home and ended its exploratory phase. Now, its intri­cate ties to the West and the rest of planet require it to look as much out­side as it does in. What­ever path it chooses, its for­mer iso­la­tion is no longer possible.

Tags: 1893Neptune-Pluto2384, astrology, Boxer Rebellion, China, Communism, Cultural Revolutiion, history, meta-history, mundane astrology, Neptune, outer planets, philosophy, Pluto, Uranus