Grand Strategy - II Ossification and Stagnation of Modern Chinese Society- Part 1

Part 1. Ossification

(first draft)

In Chapter One we have had a concise and yet comprehensive examination on the general outlines and events in the Chinese history, as well as a synopsis of all of the existing right-wing anti-CCP political groups out there. Before we venture into the enterprise of how situation will be bound to transform, which shall be discussed in detail in the second Book of this treatise, I would now like to diagnosis and analyze some of the nature of the vices and flaws of the Chinese national character, which might helped us with a better understanding as to why the Chinese civilization, albeit its longevity and its once age-old prosperity, has nevertheless, fall short of becoming a world power, but on the other hand, since the modern era, she has consistently suffered from the bullies of imperialism and semi-colonialism, Japanese militarism, and last but not the least, internal sectarian conflicts, most substantiated by CCP and KMT's decades-old vendetta, and the ultimate Maoist Red Terror which wreak havocs across the country until the end of 1970's, leaving China in the state of utter bankruptcy and the complete social/cultural/intellectual infrastructure in virtual devastation. This question has always been one of the central dilemma perplexing the Chinese intelligentsia since the beginning of 20th century; they have each tried to come up with a satisfactory solution but only from hindsight, seems to fall short of the complete equation, thus invalidated their all-good-intentioned prescriptions: from the abortive infancy of parliamentarian democracy at the onset of Republican era(1911-1928), the vainglorious wishes of Soviet style salvation and the complete denouncement of tradition and culture culminated in the May 4th 1919 student movement, the authoritarianism of the fuhrerprinzip by the generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of KMT between the 20's to the 40's, the Maoist frenzy since the establishment of PRC in 1949, the self-repentant phenomenon among the intelligentsia community in the 1980's which saw its manifestation in the documentary He Shang 《河殇》, or River Sorrow, to the wholehearted prostration toward the leadership of the "reformed" CCP through its socialist market economy.

To address this ultimate conundrum, I am attempting to scope on the whole picture of Chinese civilization and with the enumeration of a few instances of their idiosyncratic characters, I hope it could offer some antidotes as to the big "WHY"; as to the big "HOW", I will leave it to Book II for further deliberation. But let us focus on the "WHY" first so that we can have a general idea as to just what it is that might be the illness which ultimately ossified the complete dynamics of the spirit of our civilization.

To begin with, I shall add that please bear in mind that the Chinese is one of the oldest civilizations on our planet, and relatively speaking, have had an unique way of living for thousands of years before being tapped into the process of globalization. All of the other powers emerged since the imperial age are all relatively youthful civilizations in comparison to say, China, India, Egypt, or Persian. With the exception of the Jewish state in Israel, who only emerged as a regional hegemony after WWII thanks for the Western patronage and their own millennial diaspora in the West, all of the other powers are all vibrant and full of energy. They are resourceful, creative, and prone to new ideas and progressive thinking, adventurous and even inclined to taking extreme risks to make ends meet. On the other hand, they will be utterly unfamiliar with the ancient way of the Orients, especially the more exotic ones such as the Chinese, whose senior ideology occupied a whole new cosmo, with one of their oddities being utterly alien to the West, namely, a so-called "eunuch culture" permeating the Chinese society since ancient times. Any chauvinistic Chinese who hears this reference might on his initial impulse, found it offensive and distasteful, but until we have a through examination of this particular trait embedded in the Chinese collective unconsciousness, we will never beget a comprehensive picture of the constitution of our national character.

In Chapter One we have gotten a general concept of the ancient history of China, but in its brevity I have omitted much details among those pivotal historical moments, and one peculiar attention shall be drawn to the phenomenon of just how many times and how powerful the eunuchs of the royal courts have become again and again in our history. To the west the very idea of eunuch might be bizarre and very exotic, but just ask any Chinese about eunuchs and almost every single one can tell you half a dozen stories about them off hand: the inventor of one of the all time Chinese prowess of four major inventions, paper (the other three being: compass, gun powder, and printing) is devised by a low ranking eunuch named Cai Lun 蔡伦; The all time celebrated Ming dynasty cross-continental navigation predating Columbus by almost a century is lead by another eunuch named Zheng He 郑和; The author of the most famous Chinese classics Shiji, or Records of the Grand Historian, named Sima Qian 司马迁, is not himself one but was nevertheless put to castration after offending the Han dynasty emperor by defending a capitulated general to the the Xiongnu, the nomads of the northern steppes. This is only to mention but a few good guys, with hordes of bad eunuchs infesting the history of China, from the Han dynasty's so-called Danggu Crisis 党锢之祸, or Disaster of Partisan Prohibition (ca. 2nd Century AD.), a major turbulence between the royal courts' eunuchs and the aristocracy vying for power, which only resulted in the ultimate decline of the Han dynasty and the rise of vassals; Or the all time famous eunuch cabal of the Ming dynasty named Dongchang 东厂, or East Mill, an euphemism for a secret police overseen by the royal court's eunuchs, which persecuted many of their personal rivalries, and ultimately bring down the Ming court under Manchu cavalry's tramples.

The above is only but a few highlights of eunuch infestations in the history of China, the last of whom only saw his cease of employment after the fall of Manchu court in the early 20th century. For more than three thousand years, the first being recorded on a piece of oracle bone script, or jiaguwen, which mentioned the captured slaves becoming eunuchs serving the Shang Emperor Wuding, the phenomenon of eunuchs has been one of the central vices and intrigues among the dark side of the Chinese. The philosophical origin of this so-called "eunuch culture", or his characterization could also be traced back to the ideas of Yin versus Yang in the Chinese autochthonous religion, Taoism. One of the central tenet of Taoism emphasizes on the seemingly irony of the emphasis on the weak, the feeble, and feminine quality, all of which associates with the Yin: such as seen in famous quotation: utilizing Gentleness to defeat Firmness 以柔克刚, because When the moon is in full wax it is bound to wane 月盈则缺, etc. Albeit the original intention of the sage was to try exhort people to seek a harmony of the Yin and Yang, a balance of opposites, but the good-old human hubris and their folly often misguides them to take what they deemed to be their winning-edge to the extreme, thus producing the folie a deux of the East and the West, with the former deviating into an "eunuch culture" and the latter paranoiac about ultra-machismo, and the rest becomes history.

To clarify this distinction first, the West is for a very long time until very recently, a pious believer of Machtpolitik, which defines the ultimate way of survival in evolutionary term: namely, the celebrated and yet specious phrase: survival of the fittest. However, the East has taken a whole new perspective on this world view, wherein the fittest, often misinterpreted as the strongest, excels in the short term survival rate, will tend to perish by fighting each other out, or simply ill-prepared for environmental transition, hence we have seen the apocalyptic extinction of the dinosaurs, and the large predatory carnivores such as the Terror Bird and the Saber Tooth Cats. Major wars between Western powers especially in modern era also attested to just how precarious it becomes for the "fittest" or "strongest" to destroy each other, manifested in WWI and WWII's seemingly invincible Germany and Japan's defeat. Therefore, the Eastern philosopher, having presaged all of this all-too-human behaviors thousands of years ago, offers an antidotes for us a best survival strategy, to wit, adopting the Yin qualities, which only has been radicalized into the so-called "eunuch culture" characterized by intrigues, deceits, conspiracy, corruption, an emasculated tendency, and degeneration. Even among the popular Wuxia, or marshal arts novels, very often the most able fighters were the self-castrated ones in order to obtain some voodoo higher level capacity.

The discussion about the eunuch culture in China is by no means to discredit any of the show of bravado among those selfless patriots in the history of China, but the reality is that they are too often being overshadowed by the intrigues and schemes of the eunuch culture, which became the sole dictators on the outcome of Chinese destiny. And by no means that the so-called "eunuch culture" only extends to those physically impaired ones, but on the contrary, this culture permeates every corner of Chinese society, most poignantly among the politicians and bureaucrats, even the emperors and royalty themselves, from the ancient epochs all the way to the present. Anyone with a general knowledge of the modern history of China will attest that the last handful emperors of the Qing dynasty since the mid-19th century were all but a bunch of emasculated and utter feeble incompetents (Xiangfeng 咸丰, Tongzhi 同治, Guangxu 光绪, and Xuangtong 宣统), not to even mention throngs of princes and the Manchu aristocracy, whose sole province of specialty resides primarily in the flamboyant panache of corruption and degeneration, and the last few decades of Qing dynasty survival was solely dependent on the behind-the-scene matriarch of the celebrated Empress Dowager, Cixi 慈禧. It becomes no surprise then that this type of ultra-Yin, when brought into a head-on impact in the face of the ultra-Yang of Western imperialism, will find itself only in a complete shamble. The ossification of modern Chinese society has really lodged in deep rooted.

The ethos of this eunuch culture cannot be more explicitly manifested than the emergence of the Communist Party of China and its ultra-insinuative way of politicking, intrigues, and propaganda. Since the inception of the party in 1921, first materialized only as a form of parasite living on the body of KMT, nevertheless, broke away with KMT in 1927 following the August 1st, Nanchang Revolt. Mao, along with his cabal of conspirators, most prominently Zhou Enlai, the later celebrated prime minster of PRC, and Lin Biao, the later heir apparent of Mao but nevertheless plotted an abortive coup out of his impatience and only sealed his fate in the fleeing plane crash, all of which have truly embodied a paradigm of this millennial alchemistic tradition of eunuch culture, who then transmitted this esprit de coup among most of the loyal sycophantic cadres, who have faithfully carried out this good-old "party heritage" to every subsequent generation. To elucidate the point, the CCP are the masters of intrigues and deceit, they have consistently shown throughout its history that they will forfeit the least trace of honor in order to make ends meet, and that they'll agree to one thing while plotting to stab one in the back. The most notorious case of such treachery cannot be further clarified than the Xi'an Incident of 1936, in which the CCP plotted with two former warlords and kidnapped Chiang Kai-shek, the generalissimo of China in some specious claim of united front against Japanese aggression. The reality was a check on KMT's effective but flawed closing encirclement, and an assurance for its future survival; they never actively wage any substantive campaign against the Japanese in WWII, and during the eight years of war, had only accumulated its own power for the final destruction of KMT in the civil war that follows(1945-1949).

If some devil's advocate would point to the pragmatic necessity of the above intrigue amidst wartime was nevertheless a strategic ingenuity, what follows the establishment of PRC would be absolutely astounding to further manifest the pandemonium of this eunuch culture epidemic. What happened between 1949-1979 was truly a thirty years of deviation from the main course of Chinese historic progression, a fanatical era with radicalization of the so-called "eunuch characteristics" to the most abhorring extremes, and bequeathed a lasting legacy which is still ubiquitous in present day China. Masterminded by Mao in series of political campaigns and whimsical movements one after another, culminating in the decade-long Culture Revolution, The Chinese are taught and encouraged to spy on each other, snitch on each other, plot against each other, denounce each other, humiliate each other in mass congregation, and were indoctrinated from grade school onwards to become the most servile sycophant one can possibly be. The result of which is a nation of slaves subjugated by the Maoist "eunuch cadres". The few still recalcitrant ones of the so-called "Five Black Categories"(landlords, wealthy, Counterrevolutionaries, bad, and the rightists;) are to be liquidated, incarcerated, executed, and reeducated in the laogai, or forced labor camp, most of whom were left to die in starvation and deprivation.

If the phenomenon of this eunuch culture is an idiosyncratic Chinese attribute which saw its infestation throughout the Chinese history, it cannot be more radicalized in our own modern era under the CCP regime, the lasting effect of which is still all too familiar in every facet of society today. Since China's open up in 1978 with a deluge of material enticements, corruption and degeneration, a comment eunuch attribute, had become rampant amidst every profession, from the once respected university intelligentsia and hospital surgeons, to the industrial and financial sectors, to the much detested government bureaucracy. It is an open secret that in China today, one cannot accomplish anything without bribery, and/or any forms of favors one can possibly think of. It might sounds crazy to Westerners that a cadre could sacrifice his wife to his superior's embrace in order to secure him a higher position, but cases of such are pretty common in China. The radicalization of such eunuch culture has fostered the Chinese to take primary emphasis on the so-called guanxi, or literally, relationship, on top of everything else, because without which, one might find himself or herself in a pretty tough luck. Therefore, a social phenomenon of so-called gao guanxi, or literally, building relationships, has become one of the top agenda amongst all social behaviors. Multi-million dollar enterprises revolved the sole purpose of such engagement, anything from massage parlors, high-end restaurants and tea lounges, VIP clubs and karaoke bars, to the covert operations of pimping and prostitution. Guanxi, beyond anything else, is the key to success.

Now the devil's advocate might once again argue that isn't such phenomenon part of the package of market capitalism and would be better off than Maoist ultra-political movements? Didn't the West also contain such vile elements within their own societies? Aren't cases such as the Enron scandal, former U.S. congressman Tom Delay and his K street project, and the former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer's peculiar penchant for escort services equally infamous and tantamount to the eunuch culture? Granted that these cases are sure to be the West's sore spots, nevertheless, unlike the PRC, the whole Western political infrastructure is sound, freedom of the press is secured, the rule of law is solid, and the balance of power is intact. On the contrary, in China, none of these crucial civil infrastructures are guaranteed. Power is unipolar and easily abused because there is no such thing as check and balance, power is not shared in a democratic system but held in the sole control of the CCP, which easily degenerates to an utter wretch and almost comical role of playing both the police and the criminal. The old Chinese idiom, zei han zhuo zei, or the thief yells "catch the thief", is a vivid and yet deplorable delineation of the modern Chinese political landscape. Rule of Law can easily be manipulated since the courts are not a separate entity but controlled but the party, and the press is simply the party's bitch, it can contain any ostensible multi-faceted media coverage as long as it plays to the tunes of the party's protocol and toes the lines of the party's direction. Any cacophony contrary to the so-called "Harmonious Society" will be ditched and punished, utterly. That is the contrast between the East and the West.

The ossification of the Chinese is thus set in so that they're unable to transform and improve their current wretched lot. The Party has curtailed any other manners of social and civil reformation, and effectively contained the Chinese society locked and checked in the current state of livelihood described above. A stifling culture of the eunuchs permeates in every corner of the society, from school to civil institutions, from the military to financial and industrial sectors, and ultimately infested within the Party itself. Even though the Chinese are by and large, a studious and ingenious race, but their folly lies within their own self-convinced wit, thereby invalidates any type of achievements they might have obtained. Corruption, degeneration, bribery, and in-fights dictate the tempo of today's social landscape. The only salvation for those who wish to ameliorate their destiny is by escaping that putrid quagmire and start a whole new living in a faraway country, such is the option my father had chosen by immigrating with his whole family to the United States, thus determined my own exceptional fate, which is bound to take a totally alternative course in the collective progression of the Chinese nation. The effect of which shall be methodically elucidated throughout this treatise.

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