terry boardman - the us-china relationship

8/8/2019 Terry Boardman - The US-China Relationship

1/31

East -WestIssues

The US-China Relationship in the 21st Century

and the Spectres of 1776 (1)

by Terry Boardman

The world's future in the first half of the 21st century will be profoundly affected by therelationship of the Atlantean giants, China[1] and America.

This essay - the first of a pair on the subject - was first published inNew Viewmagazine Winter (1st Quarter -

2006/07)

The eagle has landed in Shanghai? The city's new commercial centre - Pudong

We can all surely recognise that human beings do not always act in their own best interests;they do not always act rationally. An international bestseller in 1909 was " Europe's Optical

Illusion"[2]. Using the very latest techniques of economic analysis, its author, British journalistNorman Angell, argued that the economies of modern nations such as Britain and Germanywere so inter-connected that war between such countries would be futile; both parties wouldlose out too much. Five short years later, the political leaders of those two countriescontradicted him and opted for war nevertheless; the mutual economic interests of Britainand Germany did not prevent war in 1914. The Norman Angells of today and many othermedia pundits claim that the US and Chinese economies are so interdependent already that awar between China and the US would be economic suicide: the USA needs Chinese savings (topurchase US government debt, thus helping the US to run its military machine) while theChinese need US consumers to purchase Chinese products and keep China's 'miraculous' marchto national prosperity going.

The scaremongers....


2/31

And yet, just as Anglo-American elites and their media instruments[3] were identifying

Germany as Britain's enemy for the coming 20th century already more than 10 years before theoutbreak of war in 1914, so a century on, American think tanks and their media instruments

have already identified China as the main enemy for the 21st century - 'The War on IslamistTerror' and Sino-U.S. economic interdependency notwithstanding and are considering theoptions for war. Some examples: Samuel Huntington, originator of the infamous 'Clash ofCivilisations' thesis (1996)[4] discussed the Chinese challenge in Foreign Affairs, the journal ofthe hugely influential foreign policy think-tank Council on Foreign Affairs, in an article entitledThe Erosion of American National Interest (Foreign Affairs 76 (1997). Also in ForeignAffairs in 1997 (the year Hong Kong was returned from British rule to China), Richard

Bernstein and Ross Munro wrote The Coming Conflict with America : China will be theUnited States next major adversary (Foreign Affairs 76:2 March/April 1997). Huntington'sfriend and former long-term foreign editor of The Economist, Brian Beedham, discussed apossible Chinese threat in The Atlantic Community in 2012: Three Scenarios (May 1-3,

1998) for the right-wing American Enterprise Institute[5]

. In August 2001 Charles R. Smithwrote the scaremongering War with China for the even more right-wing Newsmax.com,whose chairman then was William Rees-Mogg, former editor ofThe Times. That year saw theopening shots in a cyberwar between American and Chinese computer nerds and hackersfollowing the killing of a Chinese pilot by the Americans. In March 2003 CNN Senior ChinaAnalyst Willy Wo-Lap Lam wrote in his article Chinareadies for future U.S.fight: "The Iraqiwar has convinced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership that some form ofconfrontation with the U.S. could come earlier than expected". In July 2004 Chalmers Johnsonobserved in the Los Angeles Times that : "Quietly and with minimal coverage in the U.S.press, the Navy announced that from mid-July through August it would hold exercises dubbed

Operation Summer Pulse '04 in waters off the China coast near Taiwan. This will be the firsttime in U.S. naval history that seven of our 12 carrier strike groups deploy in one place at thesame time. It will look like the peacetime equivalent of the Normandy landings"[6]. Chinaresponded in August 2005 with "Peace Mission 2005" a massive and unprecedented series ofjoint military manoeuvres with the Russian military under the aegis of the ShanghaiCooperation Organisation, of which both are members, but the USA is not.[7]

Two months earlier, the Washington Times, anewspaper owned by the Korean Unification Church(its leader is Rev. Sun Myung Moon, a close friend ofthe Bush family) claimed that 'a senior defenceofficial' said that : "We may be seeing in China thefirst true fascist society on the model of NaziGermany, where you have this incredible resource

base in a commercial economy with strongnationalism, which the military was able to reachinto and ramp up incredible production." RichardFisher , vice president of the InternationalAssessment and Strategy Centre, was quoted assaying: "Let's all wake up. The post-Cold War peaceis over. We are now in an arms race with a newsuperpower whose goal is to contain and overtakethe United States." In the latest of such rattling of

21st century sabres, the neo-conservative Robert D. Kaplan went into military details in HowWe Would Fight China[8](Atlantic Monthly, June 2005) claiming that "the Middle East is justa blip. The American military contest with China in the Pacific will define the twenty-firstcentury. And China will be a more formidable adversary than Russia ever was". All thiswarmongering was exactly the kind of thing the British media were awash with a century agoin regard to Germany.

...and their opponents

Just as the major media scaremongers in 1906 were opposed by antiwar, progressive andsocialist media writers, albeit fewer in number, so today the hawkish media are critiqued bytheir opponents, who, while they are many more in number than their Edwardian forebears,still do not enjoy mass exposure. In China vs. Globalization - the Final War and the DarkMillennium, Richard K. Moore (New Dawn magazine 8 June 1997) saw parallels not so muchwith the pre-World War One scenario as with the interwar years when he wrote:

What, in fact, America...seems to be doing with China is to consciously replay


3/31

the interwar scenario: profit maximally from trade and investments in China,encourage US public opinion to maintain a simmering hostility toward what maybecome a future enemy, tacitly facilitate China's military development, closelymonitor developments - and most important - be sure that the US, together withits projected allies, maintains strategic dominance militarily.

Opposed to the scaremongers are the traditional socialist and marxist arguments of such asTed Grant and Alan Woods, writing for Marxist.com (China, Americaand the Pacific). Theyargue, like Norman Angell in 1909, that mutual economic interests will work against thedanger of war:

For the big US monopolies, the prospect of developing the China market presents an alluring perspective of profits. They represent the China lobby inWashington, which is anxious to prevent a deterioration of US-China relationswhich would endanger their interests. For its part, Chinawants to develop itseconomy and technology as quickly as possible. This is a matter of life or deathfor a country that needs to achieve a rate of growth of at least eight percenteach year to prevent the growth of unemployment. Therefore, neitherWashingtonnor Beijingwishes to bring matters to an open break. At every step,China 's vital interests in Asia clash with those of the United States . Thecontradictions have been manifested in a series of incidents that have hamperedthe establishment of normal relations between the two countries. But given thebalance of forces, they will not lead to open war between Chinaand the USA. Insuch an eventuality, the USAcould not defeat China,and Chinacould not defeatthe USA. Therefore, each crisis will end in a compromise.

Indeed, the United States national debt is currently around $8.6 trillion, about $850 billion ofwhich (approx. 10%) is owed to China. China's economy has been growing at a phenomenalrate since the end of the Cold War when western, Japanese and overseas Chinese investorsbegan piling in their millions. China's GDP is estimated to 'decline' from 10.5% in 2006 to 9.6%

in 2007 and 9.3% in 2008.[9]

Needless to say, these are enormous figures, and ought to sendshivers down all our backs, because the USA with 4% of global population consumes 25% ofresources, and continues to do so. If China, with 25% of the world's population, is striving for alifestyle even a quarter as affluent as that of the USA, then the outlook for the globalenvironment is bleak indeed. And yet, despite the fact that western corporations and bankshave been shovelling money into the Chinese economy these past 20 years, their allies in thewestern mass media only seem to have woken up to the danger to the global environmentposed by such phenomenal economic growth in China not to mention India and Brazil! inthe last two or three years.

The struggle for energy supplies

Inevitably bound up with the eco-crises (ecological and economical) is the issue of nuclearpower as a putative solution that will enable a consumption-addicted culture to have 'cleanenergy' while continuing with steady economic growth. "'We will certainly build more than one[nuclear] reactor per year,' said Zhou Dadi, director of the [Chinese] government's EnergyResearch Institute, which has strongly supported the country's nuclear program. By 2010,planners predict a quadrupling of nuclear output to 16 billion kilowatt-hours and a doublingof that figure by 2015. And with commercial nuclear energy programs dead or stagnant in theUnited States and most of Europe, Western and other developers of nuclear plant technologyare lining up to sell reactors and other equipment to the Chinese, whose purchasing decisions

alone will determine in many instances who survives in the business." [10]

A very insightful essay bringing together energy and geopolitical issues in the Sino-US

relationship is The United States vs China: the war for oil by Paul Rogers[11]

, who arguesthat the "United States's focus on the middle east, al-Qaida and terrorism is...a surrogate forlong-term strategic competition with China for the world's oil resources." Commentators notedthat President Hu Jintao's focus in his recent globetrotting trip (April 2006) that took in theUSA , the Middle East and Africa was actually....energy supplies. In Latin America and Africathe Chinese have developed a soft and subtle strategy of outflanking their rival the USA in amove redolent of the traditional Chinese game of Go. Instead of focusing overwhelming forceby military might (a chess-like tactic) on a specific location such as Iraq, they are 'surrounding'and mopping up 'energy spaces' around the globe through aid, assistance and attractive deals,effectively denying space to the Americans all this despite the fact that American think-


4/31

tanks and business circles have for years now been aware of Chinese tactics based on thegame of Go and China's great book of strategy The Art of Warby classical writer Sun Tzu.Most notably, the Chinese have pulled off a huge oil and gas deal with Iran involving a 30 yearcontract worth $70 billion. This oil will have to come to central and northern China via theTaiwan Strait and will further tempt China to expand its already sizeable navy to defend itsoil 'lifelines'. Observers noted that the Sino-Russian joint manoeuvres of 2004 included anamphibious invasion of the Shandong Peninsula, midway between Korea and Taiwan.

The Canadian Defence Associations Institute believes it sees something sinister in all this:

... China is preparing to challenge the United States and its allies, Asian or

otherwise, for mastery of Asia-Pacific. ... China has expanded its nationalsecurity objectives; Chinahas changed its patterns in the use of military force;Chinais developing a modern war machine and sea control capability and; Chinais attempting to build an anti-American and anti-West alliance. There can only beone reason for these activities. These are not moves directed at local opponentsor guided by the principles of self-defence. This is a move aimed at the world'ssole remaining superpower, the United States.American superpowership rests onthe fact that it is master of the North and South American continent, the oceansthat surround that land mass, and a forward presence in strategically importantregions of the world such as, Western Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Asia. IfChina and the PLA can marginalize the United States in Asia , then they canchallenge the United States' mantle as the world's only superpower.[12]

As was the case a century ago, there are groups in the West today who have a particular vision

or model of the coming century and seek to bring that about[13], and these groups often seeparallels in the geopolitics of the Edwardian era, the era when geopolitics was effectively'invented'.[14]

Major shifts of power between states, not to mention regions, occur infrequently and arerarely peaceful. In the early twentieth century, the imperial order and the aspiring statesof Germanyand Japanfailed to adjust to each other. The conflict that resulted devastatedlarge parts of the globe. Today, the transformation of the international system will be evenbigger and will require the assimilation of markedly different political and culturaltraditions. This time, the populous states of Asiaare the aspirants seeking to play a greaterrole. Like Japanand Germanyback then, these rising powers are nationalistic, seek redressof past grievances, and want to claim their place in the sun. Asia's growing economic poweris translating into greater political and military power, thus increasing the potential

damage of conflicts.[15]

Envisioning the future

Then there are those biblical fundamentalists who see parallels even further back, such as

American tele-evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong[16] who proclaimed, The prophecies show

that the 'men of the east' will be drawn into a gigantic conflict in the Middle East in modern-

day Israel! Invariably, such views are based on literalist interpretations of the prophecies of

Daniel, notably Daniel 11: 40-44, which speaks of a Beast power descending into the Middle

East with mighty armies and conquering many nations: But tidings out of the east and out of

the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly

to make away many. (Dan. 11:44). Interestingly, the British Israel movement, which claimed

that the English-speaking peoples were now the 'chosen people' of God's Covenant and not the

modern Jews, emerged in the same decade, the 1840s, as The Economist magazine, that

very secular champion these days of 'Anglo-saxon values'. Since the early 1990s, The

Economist has been insinuating into the public mind a geopolitical scenario not a million miles

removed from that of Garner Ted Armstrong. For example, in its New year double issue 1992-

3 The Economist outlined a future scenario in which Chinawould reunify with Taiwanin 2007,creating a gigantic authoritarian market economy. In 2009 Chinawould bully Japan intovassal-dependence in the "China-Japan Cooperation Sphere". A key year in this Armageddon-

like scenario was said to be 2011, when the Saudi monarchy would be overthrown in a


5/31

colonel's coup that would lead to the establishment of an Islamist superstate, which the

article calls 'Islamistan'. This just happens to be - returning now to the present situation -

only a year before countless people around the globe today (2006), influenced by New Age-

oriented ideas and half-comprehended information about the ancient Mayan Calendar, are in

fact expecting a major global event that will affect the whole Earth, whether it be an

ecological catastrophe due to a magnetic pole shift perhaps the end of the world or at least

of civilisation as we know it or, less apocalyptically, the completion of an historical epoch

that will presage a gentler shift in global consciousness and usher in 'a rise to a higher

dimension of harmony and understanding'. In other words, people are being directed in

countless ways to 'expect that something enormous will happen' around 2012. The Economist

article also imagined that eventually Chinawould ally with this new superpower of Islamistan- in a massive attack on the "decaying corpse" of Russia. In this terrible war, Russiawould

lose all of Siberiaand its borders would be pushed back to the Urals (2011-2050); Turkeyand the Balkans would also be lost to 'Islamistan'.

This was before SamuelHuntington's book The Clash of Civilisations was at all widely knownand well before the western public were aware of Osama Bin Laden or the American neo-

conservatives.[17] In The Economist's scenario, Russiawould become a purely 'European' statein geographical terms, as she was in the 16th century before the expansions of Ivan theTerrible. This chimed in with the ideas of HalfordMackinder (left, 1861-1947), the well-

connected British geographer who developed the theory of

geopolitics, and argued in 1904 that as long as Russia retainsSiberiaand all her lands east of the Urals, she dominates 'theheartland' of Eurasia. The goal was then how to prevent this. But

as long as Russiadoes control this vast territory, she forms abridge - a bridge with a nominally Christian culture - between

the cultures of Europeand those of central and eastern Asia.Russiais therefore the middle element in what Mackindercalledthe 'WorldIsland ' of Eurasia, just as the germanic region isthe middle element within Europe itself. Due to their longexperience of dealing with the Asiatic peoples far longer than

that of the British the Russians are suited to play that bridging

role, that 'brotherly' role within Eurasia, which is exactly why we can expect that forces in

both West and East in Americaand in China will be interested to see that role erased.Chinawill be interested to gain access to and even control over Russian natural resources tosupport the ever-growing conspicuous consumption of its vast population as long as that

population's mind is fed by western concepts of economic development while the USA

will

want to see Russiaas part of a Europethat is firmly allied to American interests. Eurasiawill thus be endangered by a new bipolarity, a new East-West split between Euro-America in

the West and Chinaand its allies in the East. Is this what we want for the 21st century worldof our children and grandchildren?

China's challenge


6/31

It would be a world of a titanic struggle between on the one hand, the so-called 'NewAtlantis', as James I's Chancellor Francis Bacon (1561-1626) intended the British NorthAmerican colonies to become : a society ruled over by an oligarchical elite of scientist-philosophers, that would today comprise academics, businesspeople, and lawyers, devoted tomaterialism and utility. On the other hand would be the culture of 'Old Atlantis' - a societyruled over by an oligarchy of priest-politicians who guard the ancient Wall protecting ethnicChinese consciousness, believing deep down that their culture is not the World Itself but thecentre, the Hub of the World, around which all other peoples must orbit and to which theymust ultimately pay tribute for maintaining cosmic order. Both of these 'Atlantean societies'would operate similar economic systems (drawn from the same self-serving 18th century

basic axioms of economist Adam Smith) but in differing ways: the Americans in such a waythat would lead their system to be choked by individual greed and by abstract laws, contractsand regulations, and the Chinese in a way that would lead their system over time to be

choked by the greed of families and of nepotism and corruption. The USA will seek tosubsume Latin America, Europe, Russiaand Australasiainto its own sphere; Chinawill seekto subsume all of East Asia (and perhaps Russian Siberia) into its own sphere. Africa, theMuslim world and Indiawill be the testing grounds for the two titans. These developmentsare already clearly underway, as we see, for example, in East Africa. Humanity and the EarthMother herself will be caught between these two titans unless history does one of itsremarkable and by no means unusual rabbit-out-of-the-hat tricks.

In this article I have considered various doom-laden scenarios, but consider the following'green' perspective:

"As China, with its much larger population, attempts to replicate the consumer economypioneered in the United States, it becomes clear that the U.S.model is not environmentallysustainable. Ironically, it may be China that finally forces the United States to come toterms with the environmental unsustainability of its own economic system...The bottomline is that China, with its vast population, simply will not be able to follow for long any ofthe development paths blazed to date. It will be forced to chart a new course. The countrythat invented paper and gunpowder now has the opportunity to leapfrog the West and showhow to build an environmentally sustainable economy. If it does, China could become ashining example for the rest of the world to admire and emulate. If it fails, we will all paythe price."[18]

That was written in 1996. Unlike the mainstream media, the Green movement was alreadyawake to the potential dangers and challenges of Chinese economic growth already in the mid1990s. Yet a careful consideration of what is written there may reveal both a real intuitionand a failure of imagination. American capitalists have wanted to profit from the vast Chinesemarket ever since the Boston opium traders broke into Britain's monopoly in the early1800s[19], and their successors have indeed profited handsomely from the investments withwhich they have helped stimulate China's pell-mell growth in the 1990s, but the irony is thatChina may indeed - despite itself - show the world that the capitalist system as we haveknown it for the last 100 years cannot continue; China will force us to re-evaluate the relationbetween morality and economic order. Thus far, the Green argument above makes sense, butthen it then suddenly stops doing so. This is because like the current Mayor of London, KenLivingstone, it promptly assumes that the West, which has been creating this economic and

ecological mess at home and abroad for some 200 years now, can expect China, a countrywith a mere 20 years or so of modern capitalist development, to get us out of the mess. KenLivingstone said on a visit to Shanghai in April 2006 (see photo below, Livingstone in centre):"global warming was created in the West, but it is increasingly to the East to which we look


7/31

for a solution."Commenting onthe samedramatic plansto build an 'eco-city' atDongtan, nearShanghai, TheGuardianbubbled that

Dongtan was"the biggestsingledevelopmentanywhere in theworld, biggereven than theBeijingOlympics" andwent on:

"If it all comes together, the Dongtan project will show that the heirs ofchairman Mao can produce a genuine synthesis of economic development,environmental responsibility and financial profitability....Dongtan will be theturning point in China's frenetic urban growth, incorporating all the economic,social and environmental principles, to reduce the impact on nature and providea model for future development across China and East Asia... The Dongtan project has a long way to go, but the meeting of Marxism and mammon onthe mudflats of the Yangtse could yet be the start of a global eco-revolution.

This is the kind of paradoxical scenario some media people really enjoy, especially if itinvolves alliteration: the meeting of Marxism and Mammon on mudflats mmm.....

But Ken could be seen as being disingenuous, because in fact it is the Chinese who are lookingWest for a solution, not the other way round, which is why the Shanghai Industrial InvestmentCorporation (SIIC) have engaged Arup Associates, the British-based engineering consultancyfounded by Danish 'total' architect, Ove Arup, to design 'the world's first sustainable city'. Themammoth project is the brainchild of the firm's director Peter head, who has also beenhelping the Chinese with work for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Says Head: 'An industrial

revolution, on the scale we saw in Britain 200 years ago, is not sustainable in China, and theChinese realise it. They can see the socio-economic problems that follow huge economicgrowth rates, and realise they have to overcome them'. Only one problem with that: thesocio-economic and ecological problems have already arrived in China on a massive scale thatis as bad as, if not worse than, anything seen in Britain during the Industrial Revolution withthe possible exception of British child labour in the mines. The Chinese oligarchy do realisethe problem and they also realise that China cannot solve it with the resources of its own

people; it has had to turn to westerners to help get it out of the mess that the westerncapitalists and industrialists created in the first place, and that is not to mention the 50 yearsof materialist communism which the Chinese also learned from 'the West'.

The spirits and spectres of 1776

This brings us back then to the problem of the West. China 's contribution is that it mirrorsthis problem to the world on such a suitably colossal scale that the problem can no longer beignored. Capitalism was thought to have defeated communism in 1989-91, and the RussianMarxists may indeed have capitulated, but the typically ironic trick played by Clio, theGreek muse of history, is that the Communists have ultimately triumphed in a way becauseMarxist China is showing us that the economic values of conspicuous consumption - leading to

a private-greed-is-goodness doctrine, which the likes of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald


8/31

Reagan have trumpeted, must lead to a dead end: "the United States [will be forced] to cometo terms with the environmental unsustainability of its own economic system". Until theChinese giant woke up from her 'napoleonic'[20] slumber, the western world managed to avoidthis conclusion. This is no longer possible. We failed in the West these last 200 years andespecially since the end of the First World War - to realise this by ourselves; so now we arehaving to be forced to realise it by the sacrifices of the Chinese people. However, sustainablyefficient token eco-cities like Dongtan will not solve the problems created by our westerneconomic system until the fundamental thinking behind that system is addressed by theWest itself.

Rudolf Steiner 's doctoral thesis, published as Truth and Science (1892) begins with the

words: "Present-day philosophy suffers from an unhealthy faith in Kant ". This points us backto the late 18th century, and today, it could indeed be said that "present day society suffersfrom an unhealthy faith in the spirit of 1776". That year saw not only the AmericanDeclaration of Independence, which Kant welcomed, but also a number of events that havesince been linked with the USA and its values.

Edward Gibbon (left) published the first volume of his History of theDecline and Fall of the Roman Empire in that year, and it both reflectedand further stimulated a yearning for all things Roman , especially amongthe upper classes. First the British and then latterly the US elites havetended to regard themselves as masters of a new Roman Empire,

destined to bring order and prosperity to the world; as with Rome,however, the rest of the world tend to take a different view. The debateabout the New World Order and globalisation is intertwined with the

image of Rome and the idea that a dominant superpower can bring order,peace and prosperity (not to mention freedom and democracy) if everyone

will only accept its values. At the root of American confidence is the notion that America isthe world's future; that America is in fact the world. The Americans still today glory in thevalues and icons of their Revolutionary era and refer to them often, at home and abroad. Theleaders of the young United States in that era self-consciously saw their state as the beginningof a Novus Ordo Seclorum[21](New Order of the Ages) because Roman was the fashionable

style in the late 18th century.[22] Rome also featured in another event of 1776: the

establishment on 1st May that year in staunchly Catholic Bavaria of the secret Order of theIlluminati. Their founder, Adam Weishaupt (right), had been trainedby the Jesuits, whom he later rejected. The Order was led by asecretive elite which sought to overthrow all established order and

became something of a model for many subsequent 19th century

revolutionary groups. It sparked off the concerns about dangerousconspiratorial groups that gave rise to the phenomenon of conspiracytheory, the most fertile soil for which is still found in ....the USA. Allthe Illuminati leaders had codenames, many Roman in origin;Weishaupt's was Spartacus.

Time cover 14. July 1975

Also in 1776, a highly revolutionary book was published, TheWealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (left) , which has arguablyhad far greater influence than Weishaupt's Illuminati. Theconcepts of free market economics advocated by Smith's bookhas dominated western economic thinking ever since with itsassertion that economic life needs to be based realistically on

human selfishness and the idea that if we all seek profit forourselves, then society will eventually become rich. Theeconomic life was thus to be informed by a spirit of personalliberty, unhampered by external forces such as the state.Smith's free market capitalism led to great wealth for some butalso to appalling social inequities and environmental destructionand also to inevitable opposition and resistance that eventuallytook the form of socialism and communism. In 1793 Britain 's willto economic power took the first British trade mission to China

under Lord Macartney. It met with a humiliating rebuff; the Chinese declared they did notneed Britain's business. The British tried again (1816) as soon as the wars with Napoleon wereover; by this time they had realised the enormous profitability of the opium trade. Againthey were sent packing. The third time they returned with steam-driven warships, and theFirst Opium War (1839-42) began, as Britain chose to force its ideas of 'free trade' and


9/31

'modern civilisation' on the Chinese.

The end of the Cold War in 1989-91 also signified the end of an era that had begun in the late

18th century with the growth of the Industrial Revolution, the publication of the works of theleading philosopher of the free market[23], the foundation of the ideological crusading statethat would later do most to realise his ideas, and the establishment of the revolutionarygroup that would be a model for violent revolutionaries who wished to fight those ideas andtheir consequences. Mao Ze Dong was one such revolutionary. A direct line connects thewestern thinking of 1776 with current Chinese business practice, the degradation of China'senvironment, and the potential ecological catastrophe threatened by China's frenetic adoption

of western 'economic liberty'. Until those spirits of 1776 and the late 18th century Smith,Gibbon, Weishaupt and American pretensions to being the world utopia - are laid to rest,then the West's Frankenstein monster, which consists essentially of habits of economicthought dressed up in the vestments of 'freedom and democracy', will go on devouring us all,human beings, animals, plants, minerals. The ideas that burst forth in Britain and America inthe 1770s were the result of three centuries of European development that had begun with

the growing self-assertion of the individual in the early 15th century. We are now in a differentera with different needs, and the ideas of the 1770s will no longer suffice.

So much for the mighty and troubling storm that may be gathering in Sino-American relations.I have considered it mainly from western perspectives because they are the ones for whichwe in the West are primarily responsible and can hope to do something about. Based on thework of Rudolf Steiner, the second part of this article will present some ideas about thedeeper aspects of the relationship between the two cultures. Are they doomed to clash or can

the rest of us help the two titans to cooperate?

NOTES

[1] The name ' China ' comes from 'Sina', the Roman pronunciation of the name of the state ofQin (chin) that unified and ruled China 221-206 BC. The earliest word used by the Chinese torefer to themselves is hua, which means 'flowery' and comes from the Yellow River valleyregion. The modern Chinese word for their country zhongguo means 'middle country' or 'middlecountries' (there is no distinction between singular and plural nouns in Chinese). This signifiedtheir notion of themselves as civilised states surrounded by barbarians.

[2] Published as "The Great Illusion" in the USA (1910), From 1902-1912 Angell was the Paris

editor ofThe Daily Mail

[3] By this is meant media organs such as The Daily Mail for the masses and The Times,TheNational Review, The Nineteenth Centuryand Saturday Reveiwfor the elite.

[4] In that book he already introduced the comparison of China with Wilhelmine Germanybefore World War 1 and in terms of schoolboy playground behaviour, postulated a majorremilitarisation of Japan to assist American containment of China . (see ch. 9)

[5] http://www.aei.org/research/nai/events/pageID.400,projectID.11/default.asp

[6] http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0715-04.htm Sailing Toward a Storm inChina: U.S.Maneuvers Could Spark a War

[7] The SCO consists of China and Russia plus the Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan ,Kyrgyzstan , Tajikstan, Turkmenstan and Uzbekstan. "At the last summit meeting of the SCO,the two countries urged their Central Asian partners to get rid of American bases on their soil."

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/757/in1.htm

[8] Atlantic MonthlyJune 2005, Volume 295, No. 5; 49-64 .

Seehttp://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/challenges/competitors/2005/june05fightchina.htm

[9] http://www.economist.com/countries/China/profile.cfm?folder=Profile-Forecast. TheChinese government expects the economy to grow at an annual rate of 8 per cent during theperiod of the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-03/21/content_426718.htm


10/31

[10] ChinaPromotes Another Boom: Nuclear Power New York Times, 15.1.2005

[11]http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict/war_for_oil_3646.jsp

[12] Second Annual Graduate Student Symposium 12-13 November 1999

[13] Such western cliques c.1902-1914 were The Coefficients, The Pilgrims, The Round TableGroup a.k.a. the Milner kindergarten, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, theCommittee for Imperial Defence

[14] Notably by Harold S. Mackinder (1861-1947) in his 1904 paper The Geographical Pivot of

History before the Royal Geographical Society. Mackinder himself did not use the term'geopolitics' but his paper is generally regarded as the beginning of geopolitics. He putforward 'the Heartland Theory' which was summed up by the motto: 'Who rules East Europecommands the Heartland [from the Volga to the Yangtse]; who rules the Heartland commandsthe world-island [Eurasia]; who rules the world-island controls the world' - a view stillespoused by Anglo-American cliques to the present day cf. Zbigniew Brzezinski in The GrandChessboard - American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997) (Basic Bookspaperback, 1997 p.38. Brzezinski 's entire book could be said to be based on Mackinder 'smotto.

[15]Foreign Policy.org editorial by James Hoge , Jr., A Global Power Shift in the Making

[16] Garner Ted Armstrong (1930-2003), son of Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986), whofounded the Worldwide Church of God and Plain Truth magazine and subscribed to a BritishIsraelite view of world affairs.

[17] The scenario did, however, follow on naturally from The Economist's pre-Huntington vision

of a new 'culturally delineated ' world order in the 21st century that would follow the era ofthe Cold War (1-9 Sept, 1990; article: A New Flag: Defence and the Democracies)

[18] http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1599

[19] From the 1830s onwards, many of these East Coast opium traders were connected to theYale University secret society Skull and Bones, to which both Presidents Bush and John Kerrybelong. See, for example R.A.Kris Mullegan, The Boodle Boys(http://www.ctrl.org/boodleboys/boddlesboys2.htm)

[20] Napoleon is supposed to have said: "Let China sleep, for when she awakes she will shake

the world."

[21] This Latin motto was inscribed on the Great Seal of the United States in 1782

[22] Both mottoes on the Great Seal of the United States are taken from the Roman poet Virgil

(1st cent. BC) Novus Ordo Seclorum (from Eclogue IV) refers to the Sibyl who prophesies thehappy fate of the Roman republic, and Annuit Coeptis . (from The Georgics). Theconventional translation of Annuit Coeptis is ' Providence favours (our) undertakings', but amore accurate translation is 'he favours (our) undertakings', because the poem was referringto Julius Caesar. A similar phrase occurs in Book IX, line 625 of Virgil 's Aeneid, which refers tothe foundation of Rome. Both phrase were selected by Charles Thomson in 1782; Virgil was afavourite poet of his.

[23] Strictly speaking, it is not correct to describe Adam Smith as a philosopher of

'industrialism'; his main concerns were the economics of commerce and trade. Nevertheless, itwas in the 19th cent. age of industrialism that his free trade ideas were most energeticallytaken up and promoted by the British. Britain 's global hegemony was based on industrialismand the doctrine of free trade.

Terry Boardman

Top | Homepage | East-West Issues | Third Millennium: Third Way? | New World Order |Kaspar Hauser |

This page was created on 3rd Jan. 2007

Last updated 27.1.2010


11/31

East -WestIssues

The US-China Relationship in

the 21st Century

and the Spectres of 1776 (2)This article first appeared in New View magazine 2nd Quarter Spring 2007

The year 1776 saw four developments of crucialimportance which are all in a sense related: the American

Declaration of Independence from Britain, the publicationsof Adam Smith's book The Wealth of Nations and the firstpart of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire and the foundation of by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830) of his conspiratorial group, the Order of theIlluminati, dedicated to the revolutionary overthrow bystealth of all traditional social order. 18 years later camethe utter failure of Lord Macartney 's official mission toChina to open up that country to British trade.

Today, the USA is, effectively, the new Roman Empire ; itspower is built on its economic strength, which in turn isbased on two things possession of productive land and theapplication of an economic ideology. In the LouisianaPurchase of 1803 the vast territory between the Mississippiand the Rockies was bought from Napoleon, who washimself something of an Asiatic despot in his dealings. Thelands of the Southwest and the Far West were then seized in

war from Mexico . The ideology was essentially theeconomic liberalism of Adam Smith : a successful economyis one in which the individual is assumed to be self-centredand therefore needs liberty in his economic life to enablehim to create growth and profit; the state should thereforeinvolve itself as little as possible in the economy. [1]

Weishaupt's revolutionary Illuminati established somethingof a template for countless revolutionary groups throughoutthe world, including the Chinese Communist Party. Itsstructure was strictly hierarchical and cellular; subordinates


12/31

were not to know their superiors' views or policies. Itresorted to all possible means of infiltration andaccommodation to gain its objectives, just as communists

were to do in the 20th century. The aim was totalitariangovernance of the people by a self-appointed cadre ofsuperiors. Here was the germ both of Bolshevism and ofwestern think tanks allied to conservative elites. The peoplewere not deemed fit to govern themselves. 200 years afterthe failure of Macartney's mission, China is still beinggoverned in accordance with these principles. 200 yearsafter the publication of the books of Gibbon and Smith, theUSA its administration constantly advised by and infiltratedby think tanks has become the New Rome, seeking tospread Smith's message of economic liberty for theindividual throughout the world.

In the first part of this article (New ViewWinter 2006/7), Iconsidered the prospects for war some time later this

century between the two 'Atlantean' powers: China , proudof being the world's oldest continuous civilisation, and theUSA , with its universalist claim to being the world's self-styled model for the present and future. Is such a dreadfulclash between these two titans inevitable? What hiddenforces may lie behind such a drive to conflict? How could itbe avoided? This article will consider the more 'esoteric'aspects to these questions.

The Descent of Man

Rudolf Steiner pointed out that history is not a linear chainof events in which C is caused by B, which is caused by A.Rather, historical events can be seen as 'symptoms' ofdeeper underlying changes in human consciousness, whichconstitute the process of spiritual evolution. Steinerdescribed a process in which, together with the Earth andthe entire solar system, mankind has descended from a

spiritual non-corporeal condition into material bodies.[2]During the earlier stages of this process, mankind was awareof the existence of spiritual beings, because they weredirectly perceptible, but with the ever deepening descentinto matter, these beings withdrew. If they had not,mankind would never have been able to develop its ownfreedom, which was the whole purpose of the process. Afterthe withdrawal of spiritual beings from human company,contact with them was maintained through theestablishment of mystery centres where pupils were trained

by initiates to develop capacities no longer possessed by the


13/31

majority of their fellows. Cultures were guided from thesecentres. In time, such centres also faded until,approximately 2000 years ago, mankind reached a criticalstage in its evolution in physical terms. At this point,without a major intervention from the spiritual world,humanity would have fallen into complete physicaldegeneracy. The growing human ego was not yet strongenough to prevent human passions from damaging the life

forces of the human organism to the point where thephysical body would no longer be able to function as aneffective nexus of sense organs for the individual's ego onthe material plane.

At this point, the being known in the West as the Christintervened in human evolution and through HisResurrection, provided the impulse for the crucial turn-

round in human development.[3] This is why Steiner alwaysmaintained that it was not Jesus ' teachings that were soimportant (others before Him such as the Buddha had taughtof love and compassion); rather, it was Christ 's deeds thatwere and are the key to understanding Christianity. Havingdescended from the spiritual sphere of the Sun, Christ savedthe human physical body for mankind - all mankind,whether they knew of Him or not - and thus enabled humanconsciousness to continue to develop on Earth. That singlephysical intervention by Christ was the only physical

intervention He needed to make in human evolution; itoccurred at a fulcrum point in our whole history on Earth.Steiner showed how Christ has accompanied mankindthrough all the stages of human evolution and, since theResurrection, mankind and the Earth itself have been on thepath of re-ascent, gradual re-spiritualisation, a processthrough which the Christ Being also accompanies us, butnow from that region of the spiritual world that is closest tothe physical. This region is termed in spiritual science 'theetheric world'; its physical correlate is what these days we

call the Earth's biosphere, which, according to Steiner 'sspiritual research, extends from the Earth's atmosphere upto the orbit of the Moon. The spiritual world no longerguides mankind; it is now up to us to find our own wayback, in freedom, to our divine origins and to bear thefruits of what we have learned through many lives on thematerial plane back to the spiritual world.

The stages of mankind's journey, the unfolding of different


14/31

aspects of our being, are cosmically regulated by thepassage of the Spring point (vernal equinox) through theZodiac: it takes 72 years to move through one degree, and2160 years for 30 degrees. With each passage through aZodiac sign the human organism has developed newcapacities. Each major epoch of development has 7 phases,called cultural epochs. There are 7 of these epochs (15,120years) in a Great Epoch and we are currently in the fifth of

7 Great Epochs of the physical material condition of theEarth.[4] Before and after this condition, the Earth exists ina less physical state. The Great Epoch immediately beforeour own ended some 10,000 years ago c.8000 BC and isknown as the Atlantean Epoch. Numerous cultures aroundthe world have memories of the great

Flood which gradually brought Atlantis to an end. As Atlantis

declined, many of its population emigrated to West andEast. The people of its southern region, who were oriented

to the cult of Saturn[5], leftAtlantis first and settled in what is

nowNorth

America and subsequently, Central and South Americawhere the later Olmec, Toltec, Mayan, Aztec and Incacivilisations developed. The people of the other planetarycults headed East in two broad streams on either side of theMediterranean Sea , dropping off groups as they went.Eventually, they reached East Asia ,

Yin-Yang HunabKu[7]

where one of the two streams, members of the northerngroup, later merged with older

indigenous pre-Atlantean peoples to form the Chinesepeople.[6] In their art and art and philosophy, social forms


15/31


16/31

attributed to him.[10]

With Christ's own

incarnation in

Palestine 3000 years

after Lucifer, the

luciferic influenceover mankind as a

whole began to

weaken, and the

balance began to

shift to the other

side. Ahriman

became an

increasingly greater

source of imbalance

and will remain sountil the end of

Earth evolution, but

he too will spend a period united with a single human being

on the Earth. In 1919 Steiner indicated that this incarnation

would take place "before only a part of the 3rd millenniumhas elapsed" and it would be "in the West".[11] For various

reasons a number of people have indicated that it will be in

the 21st century and in North America , most likely the USA .

Both Lucifer and Ahriman bring gifts to humanity but of a

very one-sided nature. As with Lucifer, the comingincarnation of Ahriman will present a huge challenge

Ahriman and Lucifer

to mankind, which we are already beginning to sense.

Ahriman's gifts will help us to develop our technical and

intellectual culture, but if we fail to recognise his one-

sidedness then we will fall for his temptation, which isintended to make us forget the spirit completely so that the

Earth will become a giant machine culture.

There have been innumerable examples in recent decades

of mankind's intuition of this approaching danger, from

Charlie Chaplin 's Modern Times and Alduous Huxley 's BraveNew World to Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings and the

movie The Matrix. The growing spirit of Ahriman, a


17/31

rigidifying total control, can be felt everywhere in themedia, in music, politics, the all-pervading growth ofsystems thinking, religious literalism, computers and theInternet, the domination of the global economy by mega-corporations, virtual reality, and in the rise of the newRomans, Romulus and Remus[12], the imperial ambitions ofthe USA and the EU in short, in everything which projectsand fixes will-to-power without corresponding reflection

and heart.

The Real Destiny of the USA?

Rome was the cultural fashion in the 1770s and late 18th

century when the USA was founded. Today, the USA hastaken on the mantle of Rome 's claim to determine thefuture of human culture itself. The 'soft power' of its

cultural allure is all-pervasive, even as its legions have over750 military installations and bases projecting 'hard power'in over 50 countries around the world; its planes, civil andmilitary, dominate the skies, and its navy rules the waves;its submarines prowl the oceans with their nuclear missiles(9,960 apparently available for use in 2002)[13]; Americansatellites spy on the world from space; its super computersinvestigate all electronic communications; the globalInternet is centred in the US and a complete alternativecyber reality, Second Life, devised in the US, has been

spreading over the Internet since 2003.[14] The power ofthe USA is unique in world history; not since Atlantis, andmaybe not even then has there been anything like its all-encompassing global reach. Furthermore, the magnetic N.Pole is situated in North America ; subterranean magnetismis the most concentrated in the north-south mountain rangesof the Rockies and the Andes . Such magnetism, accordingto Rudolf Steiner , is what strengthens the power of thepsychological Double, an ahrimanic being whichaccompanies each of us, indwelling our very bio-electrical

physiology the electricity in our bodies that functionsalongside the nervous system and is registered on ECG andEEG scans.[15]Materialism, contraction, involution,sclerosis, hardening, rigidification, fixed positions inthought, gravity these are the forces with which Ahrimanworks. He is determined to force humanity into a prematureand excessively mechanised future of total control in whichfree choice will be an impossibility, and any notion of thespirit will simply not occur to people, for it will havebecome the norm to think of human beings as either animals


18/31

or cyborgs. Whereas Lucifer, in his incarnation, wasunknown outside of China , and Jesus Christ hardly knownoutside of Palestine , Ahriman will make himself known allover the world through technology. Furthermore, his self-representation will be a consummate Lie. The name Steinerchose for him is that of the ancient Persian god of darkness,who the Zoroastrian prophet Zarathustra always referred toas the Lie. Ahriman will try to pass himself off as something

he is not; he will in fact try to pass himself off as a kind ofsaviour, or Jesus Christ .

It ought to be made clear that all this implies nodemonisation of the American people. They will have toprovide the cultural stage on which Ahriman is likely toappear, and they will do that for all of us, for withoutAhriman we have no possibility of real choice and thus

ultimately, no freedom. Similarly for the Chinese withLucifer when they provided the stage for him, and also forthe Jews with Christ . We should ever be grateful to thesepeoples, the Chinese, the Jews, and the Americans. Whatthey have had to do is a great sacrifice for all threepeoples, for in each case, their cultures have had toprepare for centuries to bear the burden of the incarnationsof these great beings, who are so mighty that the effectthey have on the three peoples throughout their subsequenthistory is such that it hardly fades; it is a profound

engraving. The tragedy of Israel and Palestine is intimatelybound up with what happened there 2000 years ago. TheChinese people have retained social habits that ultimatelyreach back to Atlantis because Lucifer was there amongstthem 5000 years ago and sounded such a cultural note that itstill echoes on today in China 's national pride and thepolitical authoritarianism of its current rulers.

Ahriman's increasing influence in North America can beespecially experienced is in the west of the continent, andit is here, in California and the American South West, thatwe can see the influence of Mexico and the ancientMesoamerican cultures, which had a strong Ahrimaniccolouring also stemming from Atlantis. Stephen Clarke, wholives in New Mexico, has written illuminatingly on therelation of the American imperial National Security Stateand the development of the A-Bomb (Manhattan Project) atLos Alamos, New Mexico, as "a recapitulation of the spiritualand political history of Mesoamerica: the history of great


19/31

religious-militaristic empires - and one which is in

syncopated counterpoint to the legacy of Rome inEurope."[16]

By 1325... the Mexi'cahad begun to build theirdouble-headed capital city of Mexi'co-

Tenochtitlan and Mexi'co-Tlatelolco.... Ironicallyin many ways, (politically, economically, and

psychologically), the Mexi'ca were the spiritualancestors of the United States of America . TheMexi'ca bled their subjugated vassals ofeconomic, and cultural vitality. According to the"officially approved" history of the ruling class ofTenochtitlan, the Mexi'cawere the centre of theuniverse, and were entrusted with keeping italive. In their eyes, they were the greatest

nation to have ever existed. They were thechosen ones, blessed as God's righteous andsacred people. This has many echoes in today'snationalistic, evangelical, supremacist rhetoric

from the dominant powers of today's U.S.A.andEurope.[17]

In the 1830s the farsighted Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville

already identified sinister and unexpected aspects of the

new power arising across the Atlantic :

"I seek to trace the novel features under whichdespotism may appear in the world. The firstthing that strikes the observation is aninnumerable multitude of men, all equal andalike, incessantly endeavouring to procure the

petty and paltry pleasures with which they gluttheir lives. Each of them, living apart, is as astranger to the fate of all the rest; his children

and his private friends constitute to him thewhole of mankind. As for the rest of his fellowcitizens, he is close to them, but does not seethem; he touches them, but he does not feelthem; he exists only in himself and for himselfalone; and if his kindred still remain to him, hemay be said at any rate to have lost his country.

Above this race of men stands an immense andtutelary power, which takes upon itself alone tosecure their gratifications and to watch over


20/31

their fate. That power is absolute, minute,regular, provident, and mild. It would be likethe authority of a parent if, like that authority,its object was to prepare men for manhood; butit seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in

perpetual childhood; it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think ofnothing but rejoicing".[18]

Most educated Americans of that time, as John O'Sullivanand Hermann Melville declared, would have claimed theirrepublic as the model of individual freedom, of universalenfranchisement..... the ark of the liberties of the world.This, they felt, was America 's 'high destiny', its 'expressdispensation'. Many in the New Age movement have claimedthat the USA was founded by 'Aquarian' or 'Rosicrucian'

initiates as just such a philadelphic model for humanity. Butwe should ask ourselves rather, whether the USA was notintended to bear a cross of its own in the burden of bearingthe presence of Ahriman. Living in America as Ahriman hasprepared his incarnation and then experiencing thatincarnation in the future when it occurs - this is what hasmade and will make the people of the USA - of allethnicities and colours - heroic. More than any other nation,they have to deal with the most powerful forces of evil, themost powerful manifestation of the Lie. While George Bush

points ever and again to the evil outside America , he seemsblind to what is looming in his own country. Since 1776,

Americanshave toldthemselvesand theworldrepeatedlythat theircountry is

formed bytheir

individualistic and freedom-loving character, but this waslargely a dream, more or less conscious, which they broughtwith them from a painful past in Europe, hoping to realisethe dream in the opportunity offered in the great open land

over the ocean. But in the 20th century, and especially since1945 and the Trinity Test (the official name given to the


21/31

first test explosion of the A-bomb near Alamogordo, NewMexico) that culminated on 16 July that year, more andmore people in America and abroad have become aware ofsomething else in the American character that stems notfrom the old thoughts of Europe and Asia but rises up, as itwere, from below, from the land itself, especially in theWest, where the subterranean magnetism is strongest:

If I had ever been here before I would probably know justwhat to do

Don't you? If I had ever been here before,

On another time around the wheel,

I would probably know just how to deal with all of you.

And I feel .....like I've been here before

Feel like I've been here before

And you know

It makes me wonder....what's going on... under theground

Do you know? Don't you wonder? What's going on down

under you?

We have all been here before ...We have all been herebefore.....

Crosby, Stills, Nashand Young, Deja Vu,1970

Since the Spanish first arrived there, Europe has felt

America 's Midas touch which, according to Steiner , "tendsto mechanise and naturalise" all it comes across. 700 years

ago, in the 13th century the Mongols represented theopposite danger for Europe - namely, being dragged backto earlier stages of development - when they destroyed agreat pan-European army at the Battle of Liegnitz in 1241and all Europe was theirs for the taking. The dangerreceded as mysteriously as it had approached, Russia payingthe long and heavy price for absorbing for the rest ofEurope the remaining Mongol pressure. Then, by an equally


22/31

mysterious process, we see how the Far East actually ledEurope to America, for it is now known that a heavilyannotated copy of Marco Polo's account of his travels toChina was in the possession of .... Christopher Columbus .Europe sought a New World in China , but found it inAmerica. As Steiner puts it, the luciferic element needed tobe balanced by the ahrimanic, and Europeans had to bekept away from both China and America until they were at

least partly ready to cope with the powerful forces of thetwo realms without being utterly overwhelmed by either.

A certain quarter", said Rudolf Steiner, "wishesto remove the impulse of the Mystery ofGolgotha by bringing in another impulse fromthe West, a kind of Antichrist. More thananything else, that quarter will strive to make

use of electricity, especially the earth'smagnetism to spread effects all over theearth.It will be an American secret to use theearth's magnetism in its duality, the northernand southern magnetism, in order to sendcontrolling forces across the whole earth, forcesthat work spiritually....If Europeans remainblind to the power of such geographical forces,their continent "would become Greece to the USRome; European culture would be

extinguished.[19]

Lucifer in the past of China - his influence continuing thepast in the present - and Ahriman in the future of the USA -his influence always seeking to accelerate development

and propel the present prematurely into the future: theseare what stand behind the symptoms of a possible US-Chinaclash over, for example, the controversial island of Taiwan,whose capital lies at the same latitude 25N as Mexico City(the former Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan). Ahriman's ownincarnation is also imminent and it stands to 'spiritualreason' that whereas the rest of us need to draw what wecan from the event while defending ourselves from itsexcesses, the Chinese will tend to oppose the USA, thestage of Ahriman's incarnation, most strongly, because theeffects of the luciferic incarnation still live so stronglywithin their own culture.[20]


23/31

Estimated Time of Arrival

So much then, for Lucifer and Ahriman in space; what of

time? The Sino-American clash is looming now, in the 21st

century, because the 20th to 23rd centuries are the mostimportant period in history since the Christ united Himselfwith the etheric organism of the earth at the Ascension.Why is this?

It may help to look at some of the profound rhythms thatwork into the human condition. In the Far East , adulthood

was traditionally celebrated at 20, that is, in the 21st year oflife. In the West it has traditionally been 21, only recentlyreduced to 18. 20-21 is the time when the human ego,which has been gradually uniting itself with its body'smaterial organism, enters fully in and takes charge, much asan owner takes possession of a house. The house still has tobe made into 'a home'; it still has to be decorated and fullyfurnished, but at 20-21, the owner has taken full possession.In Dec. 1917 Rudolf Steiner spoke of a historical lawoperative since Christ left the material plane in 33 AD: allsocial impulses - 'good' or 'bad' - that arise in a 33-yearperiod go through a transformation over the next 33 yearsand are resurrected, so to speak, in the third 33 yearperiod.[21] What is planted in, say, 1900-1933 grows through1933-1966 and then returns as fruit in 1966-1999. This meansthat 3 x 33 years (or approximately one century) constitute aspecific period of social and cultural growth. This historical

principle can also be related to the life of the individuali.e. a year in the life of the growing child corresponds to acentury in the life of mankind. A study of the events that

occurred in, for example, the 4th, 7th, 9th, 14th and 19th

centuries, irrespective of culture, can show clearly how

they correlate to the 4th, 7th, 9th, 14th and 19th year in the


24/31

growth of

theindividual,

irrespective of the culture they come from. Around the 4th

year the ego usually connects with the organism, and the

child begins to say "I". In the 7th year comes the change of

teeth, the sign of independence from the body of the

mother; in the 9th year, however, the first signs of thebodily death process set in as brain cells begin to die; in the

14th year puberty takes hold, and in the 19th year, the first

Moon Node takes place.[22] Events on the global and

national scale that correlate with these processes in

individual biographies can be observed in the course of

human history since Christ . The 21st century is thereforeno mere arbitrary date for the events described here to

take place. It is the very special time when the ego ofmankind as a whole - since Christ came for all of mankind

takes possession of the house of mankind just as it was a

very special moment when the young adult used to be given

the key of the door and was recognised socially as an adult.

In this 21st century we shall have such global self-

consciousness as never before. Precisely in this century

then, the luciferic and ahrimanic forces can be expected to

make their greatest strike against the human ego and the

ego of mankind that seeks for freedom. Precisely in this


25/31

century, we see the USA and China, the two cultures of the

incarnations of Lucifer and Ahriman respectively that mostresonate with the spirit of ancient Atlantis, begin to square

up against each other. Between their compulsive forces is

the Ego of Man. The destruction of the Twin Towers as the

21st century began was surely an awesome symbol of the

dual nature of the assault on mankind that the forces of

opposition are planning for mankind in this critical century.The Twin Towers were both annihilated, nearly 3000people sacrificed, and what was left was pain, loss,

heroism, and the love and sympathy of so many of the

people of the world for the people of America. This became

tempered when until the White House began to act so

strongly abroad.

Three Ways to a Solution

Finally, what can prevent China and the US from clashing?

What can prevent the Ego of Man from being destroyed by

their clash? We can look for wholesome answers in three

directions in the cultural, economic and political spheres.

Both Taoism and Buddhism counsel against attachment, but

the Chinese are deeply attached to their national religion,

which is 'being Chinese', and are perhaps prepared to

summon a dragon for its sake:

In the five thousand years of outstandingcivilisation, our country has commanded a

predominant position in the whole world.....However, as long as Taiwan has not returnedto the motherland, the unified image willremain incomplete, which is not only anemotional trauma for the Chinese people, butan issue involving the dignity of our country;....The Taiwan issue directly affects thesolidarity of different nationalities within ourcountry and constitutes the most serious hidden

problem that could endanger the very existenceof the Chinese nation.[23]

Yet the Tao says:


26/31

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao,counsel him not to use force to conquer theuniverse. For this would only cause resistance...Lean years follow in the wake of war...Nevertake advantage of powerForce is followed byloss of strength. This is not the way of Tao. Thatwhich goes against the Tao comes to an earlyend. (verse 30. tr. Gia Fu Feng)

The root cause of modern warfare is almost always thedisease of atheism, a reliance on materialism as one'sphilosophy of life; this is spiritual ignorance. George Bushmay speak of God, democracy, and freedom, but we onlyhave to look at a map to see where the US bases are inorder to understand the economic motives behind USactions.

The Tao of heaven is to take from those whohave too much and give to those who do nothave enough. Mans way is different. He takes

from those who do not have enough to give tothose who already have too much. (verse 77. Tr.Gia Fu Feng)

More than anything, a knowledge of the spirit, a spiritualscience that brought a concrete understanding ofreincarnation would actually serve the most to avoid warbetween the USA and China and bring peace in this critical

21st century by creating a sense of spiritual brotherhoodthat goes beyond nationality and genetics. This would notonly work against the Roman ghost of western neo-imperialism, it would help Chinese people to see that onehas a spiritual heredity as well as an earthly genetic one and

that in their previous lives they may have been Europeansor Africans and may therefore be Japanese or Americans intheir next lives. It would help draw American Christianfundamentalists away from reliance on the letter of theBible and towards a spiritual understanding, as revealed inthe Bible, of the evolution of consciousness and its relationto reincarnation; they too may realise that they could beChinese in their next lives. Rudolf Steiner certainly didmore than anyone to substantiate reincarnation from aspiritual perspective, as the eight volumes of his Karmic


27/31

Relationships (1924) attest.[24]

Another crucial task that needs to be accomplished is toovercome the liberal economics heritage of Adam Smith .Individual liberty works destructively when applied to theeconomic realm, where it does not belong.[25] The self-

centred freedom to exploit workers and the natural world inorder to maximise profit, to manufacture whatever onedesires, the emphasis on liberty in all realms, was the

intellectual product of mankind's 18th century - which is

reflected in an individual's 18th year. For we can see thatthe later teenage years in individual biographies are oftenmarked by exactly this self-assertive striving that can fail to

take account of the needs of others, so great is the drive ofthe individual personality to assert itself in or even against

its environment. But mankind is now in its 21st 'year', andour needs are different. Slowly, we are beginning to realisethat the self-aggrandising capitalist free market ethos of the

18th century, based on Adam Smith 's insights that arosenaturally at that time, threatens now to overwhelm thebalance of Earth's ecology and exhaust its forces.

Thirdly, we have not yet solved the problem of politicalparties, groupings that seek power based on programmes

devised by small oligarchies and committees, sometimessecretively. "We have to realise that in a democracy wehave to have political parties" said Hazel Blears, UK CabinetMinister on BBC Radio ( 15 March 2007 ), arguing forcompulsory public funding of political parties. But this too

is a spectre from the late 18th century that needs laying to

rest. The 21st century must be one of the individual ego thatrecognises and respects other individual egos and buildscommunity on that basis, and not on the basis of politicaltribalism disciplined by threats and bribes by political partybully boys. The teenage years are, and 'the teenagecenturies' were, a time of tension between a growing self-consciousness and the receding group consciousness of

childhood. Thus the 18th century could produce the writingsboth of an Adam Smith and an Adam Weishaupt writings forthe thrusting individual looking for profit and also for theforger of secretive cabals. The politics of cabals and partiesmust now be replaced by a new politics of individuals andfreely chosen associative communities.[26] The best'candidates' for this task would perhaps be Britain, France


28/31

and the USA, the three societies most associated not onlywith the modern party system but also with the grandfatherof secret societies - Freemasonry. This would end theempty, rich man's charade of the American see-saw partysystem and provide a different, more contemporary modelfor the Chinese, whose old-fashioned Bolshevik hierarchyAdam Weishaupt would still recognise.

The Way gave birth to unity,

Unity gave birth to duality,

Duality gave birth to trinity,

Trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures.

(Tao Te Ching chap. 42)

NOTES

[1] This concept of relatively untrammelled liberty for

entrepreneurs would also lead directly to the Opium Warswith China 1839-42 and 1858-1860, in which, incidentally,American traders (e.g. Warren Delano, ancestor of PresidentF.D.Roosevelt) played no small part. Today, drugs trade isone of the worst scourges of the modern world.

[2] For spiritual researchers like Steiner, this process is anobservable fact; for the rest of us, until it can be verifiedspiritually, it must remain hypothetical, but it cannevertheless be compared with what we know of studies of

history, mythology and anthropology to ascertain itsplausibility.

[3] See Rudolf Steiner's lectures on the Gospels.

[4] See Steiner's lectures on The Apocalypse of St John(June 1908) where he describes how the Earth goes through7 conditions of Consciousness, each of which has 7conditions of Life (sometimes known as Rounds) and thesein turn each have 7 Conditions of Form (also known as


29/31

Globes). Currently, we are in the 4th (Earth) condition ofConsciousness, the 4th (Mineral) condition of Life and the4th (Physical) condition of Form. Within the physicalcondition of the Mineral Earth, there are 7 evolutionaryepochs, of which the Atlantean was the 4th, and ours is the5th, the Post-Atlantean. Finally, our 5th epoch also has 7cultural ages (determined by the precession of theequinoxes), of which again, ours is the 5th post-Atlantean

age (1413-3573). Our 'grand address' in Time is thus3.3.3.4.4. (in terms of the epochs we have completed)

[5] The peoples of Atlantis were grouped around cults,mysteries or oracles relating to the different planetaryspheres: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus , Mercury,Vulcan. See R. Steiner, Cosmic Memory (Rudolf SteinerPress, 2006)

[6] The Chinese usually see themselves as consisting of two

broad groups the northern Han and the southern Man.

[7] Hunab Ku symbol of Mayans' supreme God, formless andtranscendent. Correlate of Aztec Taotl.

[8] J.Blatchford , China Ancient Inspiration and NewDirections (Rudolf Steiner College Publications 1989) p.142

[9] R.Steiner, The Influence of Lucifer and Ahriman,Anthroposophic Press, 1993, lecture 3

[10] All Chinese emperors since the time of Qin Shi Huang(221-210 BC), the first historical emperor and builder of theGreat Wall were called Huang Di.

[11] See n. 9, lecture 1

[12] Twin mythological founders of Rome, abandoned andraised from infancy by a female wolf.

[13] Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen.' U.S. nuclear

forces, 2006', Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 61:1(January/February 2005), pp. 68-71

[14] As of Dec 2005, 10 of the world's 13 Internet rootservers were then operated from the United States and oneeach from Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Tokyo, and the USinsists on retaining control of ICANN, the international bodythat supervises the administration of the Internet K.N.Cukier, Who Will Control the Internet?, 'Foreign Affairs'November/December 2005.


30/31

Second Life is an Internet-based multi-player virtual world,available to the public since 2003. "Residents can explore,meet other residents, socialize, participate in individualand group activities, create and trade items (virtualproperty) and services from one another."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

[15] ECG: electrocardiograph (records the electricalactivity of the heart over time) EEG: electroencephalogram(measurement of the electrical activity of the brain)

[16] http://southerncrossreview.org/22/mex-mystery-2b.htm

[17] http://www.aguila-blanca.com/history.html

[18] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, (1835 &1840) Ch.6 Bk IV This is not the picture one usuallyassociates with de Tocqueville 's often eulogistic appraisalof the young Republic.

[19] R. Steiner, lecture of 25.11.1917, Secret Brotherhoodsand the Mystery of the Human Double (Rudolf Steiner Press,2004)

[20] This is not to say that Ahriman has not made his owninroads into China nor that there are not many Chinese who

will successfully in their own souls defend themselves fromboth the excesses of the luciferic element in their ownculture and the ahrimanic from the West. Equally, one onlyhas to listen to some of the inflationary and self-glorifying"God-Bless-America" claims of George Bush and therightwing America Right or Wrong lobby to know that luciferis active in the USA too. The point is that despite this, thetwo cultures represent the physical stages of the planetaryyin and yang, as it were. The power elite in the USA knowthat China represents the toughest nut for them to crack,

far tougher than the world of Islam, which is why they aresurreptitiously making plans for action against China oncethe much-hyped War on Terror against the Islamists is over.(see the first part of this article, New View, Winter 2006/7)

[21] R. Steiner, lecture of 23rd December 1917, Basel

[22] Moon Nodes the two points on the Moon's path aroundEarth where the Moon rises above and later dips below theEarth's ecliptic. These positions are constantly shifting but


31/31

after 18.7 years they return to the same place. When theindividual reaches about 18! that is the first Moon node inan individual's biography; the second is at age 37 and so on.At these nodes a 'window' opens for a short while in thebiography where the individual has an opportunity toreconnect with his/her pre-birth intentions that s/he forgotwhen descending from the Moon sphere to birth.

[23] "Watching Closely for Changes in the Relationships withTaiwan and Enhancing the Awareness by Military Leadershipof the Current Situation," Office of the Central MilitaryCommission of the Communist Party of China August 10,1999

[24] The man who perhaps did more than anyone in recentdecades to substantiate an understanding of reincarnationby doing exhaustive research on the earthly plane was theCanadian, Prof. Ian Stevenson M.D. (University of Virginia),

who died on 8 Feb. 2007. See his Twenty Cases Suggestiveof Reincarnation (2nd revised and enlarged edition,University of Virginia Press, 1974)

[25] Individual liberty and freedom belong in the culturalsphere where competition is justified. The political sphereof rights calls for equality, while the principle of theeconomic sphere should be fraternity; to transform thefruits of the Earth requires brotherhood. See R. Steiner,Towards Social Renewal (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1999)

[26] By associative communities is meant politicalcommunities the individual chooses to join rather thanthose s/he is 'born into' as a result of class or ethnicity.

Terry Boardman 2007

This page was created 20.9.2008 Last updated 27.1.2010

Top | Homepage | East-West Issues

terry boardman - the us-china relationship

Documents