George F. Kennan, the deceased State official, who spent most of his career engaged in German and Russian affairs, also knew something about China. He believed, in a general sense, the Chinese “lack Pity and a Sense of Sin”.
I prefer Compassion to Pity, but it and a Sense of Sin are Christian concepts, articulated in a multiplicity of ways in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5). What China desperately needs is a healthy dose of the Holy Gospel – a kind of sanctified enema to help expunge a huge amount of ideological excrement from the Body Politic.
The NY Times reports that one of its researchers in the Beijing bureau, Zhao Yan, has just been released from prison after spending 3 years for “disclosing state secrets to the Times”. The “state secrets” consisted of information about the “inner workings of China’s top leaders”, which appeared in an article in the paper. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that the “inner workings” had anything to with Chinese “security” matters. Zhao’s only offense, according to The Times, “seems to have been practicing journalism.”
It was Lord Acton (d. 1902) who said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It seems to be a fact of life that political Strong Men are bad for society’s health. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and others come to mind – and it is one of the great blessings of democracy that we “can throw the rascals out” when they show their ugly heads.
China’s lead-tainted toys probably won’t kill very many kids, but of course they ought to be banned from circulation. Much more dangerous is China’s Godless ideology, which is spiritually poisonous – bad for both the Body and the Soul.
