Because that worked so well in 1850.
Flood them with modern-day opium.
Y’know… porn.
What, so we end up having to teach “the porn wars” in our history classes ? 
But, I was talking about domestic opinion only, that is, the PRC government “losing face” in the eyes of its own people. Possibly because of something flubbed in foreign relations, possibly something else.
Only about 1% of the population is Christian. You don’t seriously expect to live to see that figure change, do you?
To the point where everybody in China knows Rule 34! 
The most basic modern “mandate of heaven” is that the Party allows the masses to “get rich”, and the “masses” doesn’t question the right of the Party to govern in a pretty hands off manner.
Right, but xtisme (post #8) is of the opinion they can’t keep that up much longer. I’m unclear on why.
Is this the same Taipings who abolished foot-binding, polygamy, and tried to modernize China?
Look at Korea, in about a hundred years, Korea is now 25% Christian (the South I mean). Even within a few decades after the coming of missionaries, Pyonyang was called the “Jerusalem of the East”. In addition statistic are unreliable due to the Communist regime and those Chinese who are Christian are concentrated in the urban, wealthy coastal provinces-they represent much like the Christians in urban areas during the days of the Roman Empire a vanguard.
That would be them. Ending with 20 million deaths, a failed revolution, and increased European hegemony over the Middle Kingdom.
And caused the bloodiest war anywhere in the 19th Century, killing more than 20 million. And thought their leader was Jesus’ younger brother.
Actually the Europeans supported the Qing Dynasty over the Taipings.
And most of those deaths were from famines and disease caused indirectly by the war rather than the fighting itself. And at least one book argued Hong was speaking figuratively, in the sense that all Christians are brothers not expounding the blasphemous doctrine that he was the second son of God.
Well, anyway, if the PRC government is alarmed enough to suppress something like the Falun Gong, it’s not going to allow any Christianity-based political movement to emerge. Or any high-level Christian evangelizing or anything.
Qin - do you know how to spin. I mean, you are factually correct, the fighting across about half of China’s landmass is what directly caused the famine that killed more than the actual fighting. Not sure if that is any consolation to the dead.
The overwhelmning body of evidence from the time is that Hong did expound the blashpemous doctrine that he was the second son of God. You’re going to have to do better than “at least one book argued…”
Net result was the same, foreigners started carving up China. The Taiping Rebellion weakened the Qing, who were then in no position to effectively repel the foreigners. Eg, the Opium Wars settled that. The foreign exception was the US, who was too weak at the time to project the force required and thus rhetorically came down on China’s side.
One could make the case that the Taiping Rebellion resulted in mass opium addiction in China, the rise of the warlords, and set the stage for the KMT-Communist civil war. Pretty impressive for the second son of god.
And are you by chance referring to the “underground” Christians today? You do realize that whilst some are probably what we could agree on as Christians in some recognizeable form, but the majority are some wierd cult that is Christian in name only and would make you run screaming apostates and blasphemous.
Yes they did, because they knew it would result in the Qing Dynasty surviving but in a weakened state, ripe for the taking.
It’s posts like this that make people (myself included) seriously question whether you’re a troll.
Now that the ridiculous digression on this non-issue is over, I’m interested to hear Xtisme’s views on why the economic growth of China won’t continue, and thus their modern mandate will fail. A friend of mine who lives in China said he was of the view that the low hanging fruit had been picked, so to speak, and that economic growth had to slow. Also as China continues to develop it’s in danger of no longer being the outsourcing destination of choice - the PRC is going to get stuck between the rock of an economy comprised largely of making exportable stuff for the west and the hard place of a populace that is eventually going to demand wages that aren’t satisfied by that economy. I think we’re talking a while yet, but that point is looming on the horizon.
Who’s next, then? India? Brazil?
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Well, why isn’t it? What exactly is wrong with their current economic model? Are you thinking of natural-resource limitations?
[/QUOTE]
Because you can’t have a perpetual motion machine. If you predicate your entire system on the basic assumption that you will always grow and expand then, and you hinge your control of your (disgruntled) population on the premise that you will be ever able to expand and increase their standards of living then your system is resting on a house of cards that one or two nasty recessions will bring down. China’s economic model rests on the premise that the rest of the world will always be willing to take unfavorable (to them) trade imbalances with China and continue to turn a blind eye to the games that China is playing with their currency…and that China will always be able to make all those cheap goods and services at the same rate and increasing amounts forever. It’s not likely to happen, since some of it is mutually exclusive (i.e. you can’t keep masses of cheap labor AND have ever rising standards of living).
-XT
If you step on a snake, it WILL bite you. The best strategy for the US is to maximize our own human resource, so we can be resilient, and otherwise play it cool internationally.
I think both of those are now in a position where they can’t compete with China race to the bottom when it comes to wage demands. There’s plenty of cheap labour in Africa though…