China deserves the corona virus and its after effects
China has always been an authoritarian and increasingly totalitarian society. I personally blame Confucianism and Buddhism for killing a lot of their quest for freedom from tyranny. As of now the Chinese citizens for the most part are government shills. If you ever met a Chinese abroad they put Hindutvadis to shame in their shrillness and amoral passion in defending any stupid thing the government does whether it is whole scale spying on the populace, social credit system, Tibetan occupation or Uyghur concentration camps.
The coronavirus is my view will have a lot of positive side effects for the rest of the world and Chinese dissidents in the long term. While it seems cruel to gloat over China's predicament and its potential societal and economic collapse, consider what sort of society it is and its power across the globe only corrupts and perverts. We have seen how their influence has completely perverted the political instincts of the American intellectuals such as Thomas Friedman and public officials such as Michael Bloomberg.
As it stands China is a pariah nation , even the gluttunous and lecherous avoid Chinese restaurants and prostitutes. Chinese colleagues are shunned in the office and China is itself under lockdown.
Even Hong Kong restaurants are refusing to cater to mainland Chinese visitors. Time for other countries to make out like bandits and entice manufacturing to their countries.
At the same time, the virus itself is rather hyped as the mortality rate is heavily correlated to those with considerable medical problems or the elderly. The average citizen may contract and recover rather quickly. But the general public tends to panic and hopefully this panic destroys the Chinese state.
The world, particularly Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Africa and India would be better for it.
An added bonus is that Aamir Khans shameless cash grabs will falter for a while.
China has always supported authoritarians and immoral states across the planet. Pakistan, North Korea, Sudan and whatnot. They had it coming. They were asking for it. It seems to have happened due to a biological weapons program gone berserk.
ReplyDeleteAll that aside, if I were in charge of India, I would have funded Uighur and other anti-Chinese Jihadists in Central Asia, Shia Jihadists in Afghanistan (I would have also broken the Taliban into two) and anti-Chinese nationalists in Myanmar and Southeast Asia and activated them now. I would have used them to conduct low-level wars of attrition which the Chinese army is totally unprepared for and does not have the stomach to digest at all. Heck even the US army struggled with it.
Too bad we are stuck with BJP which knows no better than taking selfies with Trump. Literally the entire neighborhood is spitting on India right now. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia which never even looked India's way are now loudly condemning India. In Bangladesh, they protested vehemently a few days ago. In Afghanistan, they were burning Indian flags. Not to mention Iran is increasingly hostile. Wah Modiji Wah, you managed to isolate India in the neighborhood!
Is there anyway to get out of this mess, or is it too late?
Ysv
ReplyDeleteHow are u sir,u have come back after a long time ,great to see u online again _/\_ i read all Ur posts ,personally I couldn't comment or participate for a long time,but as usual I simply love Ur blog,some of the essays I have read even multiple times tbh :)
Too much of internal wars and bloodshed have taken away the civilizational soul of China,as it seems to me now . Ditto for Japanese history as well,but somehow Japan managed to transform into a strong democratic nation in modern era. Otherwise China had started off with pretty high spiritual ideas in Taoist mysticism on lines of Vedanta and Upanishads,that makes me ponder whether China had some lost civilizational connect with India in the pre Buddhist era . Atleast some ancient Chinese female deities carry clear hints of tantric philosophy.
Anyway even now I believe China can recover,they need to shred off that policy of economic annexation and focus on internal affairs for the time being ,maybe bring in a bit more of democracy . Atleast the hongkong and Singapore ecosystems are doing pretty well with more of democratic freedom ,so China can seriously consider going a bit more open in its political or national life . I think China has the base to become the next economic superpower ,but their internal economic policies need serious reshaping . I don't have any exposure to China as such,just saying from my limited understanding of reading a few articles on china.
Hi JAM. Nice to see you after a long time.
DeleteYou are correct on Taoism . It comes closest to the avant garde and freedom loving religion of Shaivism. I am not sure there was any cross pollination in the pre Buddhist era but its possible. Confucianism is conservative Vaishnavism on steroids and Buddhism being more Abrahamic in mindset simply reinforced it.
As a result the Chinese race, society, language and culture had a homogeneity and unity that India could only dream of . The Cantonese though tended to be a tad more rebellious and freedom loving (Hong Kong ) compared to the authoritarian North. Whether this is due to proximity to India or more emphasis on Taoism who knows. The Kungfu movies which are mostly in the Cantonese region indicate worship of Taoist dieties and not so much Buddha or Confucius.
I think the Chinese may have developed their own concepts of prana (chi or ki) independently as well as chakras though Bodhidharma may have enhanced their understanding. As their terminilogy for these concepts are native and not derivative of Sanskrit or Tamil words.
China seems to be a paper tiger and Donald Trump has seen their bluff and called them out. This is why the establishment in U.S bought and paid for by China is screaming for his head.
'You are correct on Taoism . It comes closest to the avant garde and freedom loving religion of Shaivism. I am not sure there was any cross pollination in the pre Buddhist era but its possible. Confucianism is conservative Vaishnavism on steroids and Buddhism being more Abrahamic in mindset simply reinforced it.
DeleteI think the Chinese may have developed their own concepts of prana (chi or ki) independently as well as chakras though Bodhidharma may have enhanced their understanding. As their terminilogy for these concepts are native and not derivative of Sanskrit or Tamil words''.-- infact the geometrical pattern based ideas of Taoism are pretty rich in philosophy. Regarding the link of Taoism with ancient prebuddhist tantra,the old legend of the famous shaktipeeth of Tara in Bengal has it that the founder of the sadhna lineage of this tarapeeth ,sage vasistha(scholars are yet to understand whether this tantric sage vasistha of tarapeeth sadhna lineage is the same as the guru vasistha of Rama) went to a tantric bhagavan Buddha somewhere up the mountains in mahacheen(ancient China) for learning the secrets of Tara sadhna . This bhagavan Buddha has been described to be naked and sarrounded by naked women around him,who help His dhyana up on mountain. The most interesting part of this legend is the inclusion of a tantric Buddha as guru of this tantric vasistha muni. The need to include Buddha into the totemic expression of the legend sounds uncanny,as Buddha was not really close to tantra philosophy. That makes me wonder whether there had been a lost conmect of Taoism with tantra .
Hi JAM. Nice to see you after a long time.--- ysv only demand of u is that u keep Ur blog alive and healthy with regular posts :) _/\_ Ur blog has been a great learning curve for me atleast .
Deletenfact the geometrical pattern based ideas of Taoism are pretty rich in philosophy. "
DeleteTibetan Mandalas and our Yantras are the same. Yantras are just our gods and goddesses in two dimensional geometric form instead of sculptures or paintings. All their attributes and descriptions are in those patterns.
Regarding the link of Taoism with ancient prebuddhist tantra,the old legend of the famous shaktipeeth of Tara in Bengal has it that the founder of the sadhna lineage of this tarapeeth ,sage vasistha(scholars are yet to understand whether this tantric sage vasistha of tarapeeth sadhna lineage is the same as the guru vasistha of Rama) went to a tantric bhagavan Buddha somewhere up the mountains in mahacheen(ancient China) for learning the secrets of Tara sadhna . This bhagavan Buddha has been described to be naked and sarrounded by naked women around him,who help His dhyana up on mountain. The most interesting part of this legend is the inclusion of a tantric Buddha as guru of this tantric vasistha muni. The need to include Buddha into the totemic expression of the legend sounds uncanny,as Buddha was not really close to tantra philosophy. That makes me wonder whether there had been a lost conmect of Taoism with tantra ."
In epics or Puranas whenever a sage such as Parasurama, Agastya ,Vishwamitra or Vasishtha appears repeatedly apparently seperated hundreds or thousands of year from the first and original character, it is more likely a personage who follows that sage's practices and philosophies. In our contemporary setting , if you JAM wished to invade Delhi to remove corruption and the Anglophile lackeys by invoking the name of Subhash Chandra Bose and even dressing as him, people are more likely to remember Subhash Chandra Bose than JAM. As you brought him back to life by invoking his persona and ideas. Same situation with these
Buddha himself stated that Shaivism was as perfect as a crystal. The gods rejoiced when Buddha attained englightenment. The sutras state that Buddha had considerable powers such as levitation and marma adi buddhi i.e able to kill people by striking nerve centers. He even killed an elephant in this manner. Though later versions show the elephant which was terrorising a village, stop and kneel in front of him. He was able to bring people back to life. But he chose not to as that was incompatible with his philosophy. All this stuff could not be done without tantra. Mahayana Buddhism in general really "cleaned up" Buddha of these attributes and made him a bit of a peacenik.
The Tibetans actually maintained a lot of the original tantra associated with Buddha. Hinduism around 1500 years ago probably more resembled the Hinduism of Nepal with its fusion of Buddha, animal sacrifice, tantra and martial aspects. Buddha and animal sacrifice seem contradictory but Hindus back then made it work by placing him in the white tantra category so to speak. Similar to how Markendaya tamed Kali to turn her into Durga but even he could not do away with animal sacrifices.
DeleteAnyway no one is sacrificing any animals to Buddha just as they dont to Rama or Krishna. That is not a required part of the darshana. Theologically it doesnt make sense as well.
Buddhism though generally behaves no better than Abrahamic religions. Just as the latter on moving into new territory declare the gods of those peoples satanic, similarly Buddhism calls the native gods of Sri Lanka and Tibet as demons or at best demi gods to be revered on a small scale.
Dalai Lama has considerably accelerated this process and has done away the worship of many Tibetan dieties. He is really no better than Mohammed , Moses or Martin Luther in this regard.
Quick question: Did that Mohammed guy even exist in the first place? It seems he was made up as time went by. A lot of historical artifacts from at least two centuries after his alleged demise indicate that he was non-existent.
DeleteMohd probably existed. But he was also probably an Orthodox christian. The pagan Arabs he led to victory viewed him as prophet . And the Torah was reimagined to suit his life story and hence a new religion. Jesus actually plays a really large role in Islam. He is present at the Day of Judgement upstaging even Mohammed!
DeleteI mean, the Koran says a lot of times: "We have ordained for you..."
DeleteSo it makes me wonder whether he really existed. I mean, nowhere is his name mentioned in the Koran. Also Islam is monotheist and only believes in Allah. So who is this "we"?
I am aware of the significance of Jesus in Islam. Muslims also believe in his second coming.
"The sutras state that Buddha had considerable powers such as levitation and marma adi buddhi i.e able to kill people by striking nerve centers. He even killed an elephant in this manner. Though later versions show the elephant which was terrorising a village, stop and kneel in front of him. He was able to bring people back to life" ---> This might sound like a stupid question but are these powers of Buddha supposed to be believable ?
DeleteI think those powers of Buddhas are a non issue in Theravada schools but Vajrayana takes them very seriously.
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