1/3: Communist China – Reading the Mind of Xi Jinping; 2/3: Han Fei – Who Taught Treachery; 3/3: China – An Unfolding Danger to the World
Communist China:
We are not concerned with China – but with Communist China. They are entirely different things from each other – the first one evokes respect and the second one revulsion. Communist China is an institutionalized deceitful state skillfuly employing the principles of treachery advocated by an ancient king-philosopher called Han Fei in the matter of exercising state power to vanquish its enemies.
Since its founding in 1949, this China is deceptively clothing itself as a Communist country with the ‘China’s peculiar characterstics’ to claim a moral ground and gain respect of the worldwide followers of Marxist political ideology. To truly understand its designs – and its actions in pursuit of those designs – affecting the world at large, it is important to know and understand the teachings of Han Fei. What is the internal structure of this Communist China?
Communist China means the party, state and army rolled into one. And, this triple-faced monolith is personafied by one person – the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China. His mind is the mind of China. Since its founding the shape of this Communist China has been determined by the General Secretary of the time and his mind has been the mind of China. The foremost among them all was Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China and the present one is Xi Jinping. It is the mind of this General Secretary that makes what this China is today and what it means to the outside world – today and in coming times. The reading of the mind of Xi Jinping is to read the mind of this China.
Legacy of Han Fei – Mao to Xi
Xi Jinping is inspired by this China’s founding father – Mao Zedong. But he is inspired by Mao in more than one ways. For Xi Jinping, like Mao Zedong, ‘Communist Manifesto’ of Karl Marx has been nothing more than a pamphlet; like Mao, he never understood – and even read – ‘Das Capital’ penned by that ideological Guru of Communism; like Mao, he is an avid reader of books; like Mao, he gives the hint of what is going on in his mind; like Mao, he often fondly quotes from the books that he read and liked; like Mao, he too is able to keep his real – evil – designs well camauflaged by his innocent looking beautiful words – camauflaged until those designs are played out in the action for all to see.
But Xi Jinping is inspired by Mao Zedong in one more significant way: like Mao, Xi Jinping loves more than anything else an ancient Chinese king-philosopher named Han Fei! He was a king-philosopher of living treachery. Xi Jinping is an ardent follower of Han Fei.
Before knowing who this Han Fei is, let us know how much Xi admires him. The mind of Han Fei is the mind of Xi Jinping. This makes our task – that is, reading the mind of General Secretary Xi Jinping – easy because Han Fei is an open book for all to read and understand.
In this 21st century empowered by information technology, Xi cannot dupe with his beautiful words, with which he tries to convince, assure and sooth the international community – because everyone knows that it is a trick taught to him by his Guru Han Fei.
About Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China, there has not been doubt that he followed the teachings of Han Fei in ruling China. In fact, he admitted this fact on several ocassions – sometime in blunt manner and some time in private conversation. On one occassion, while hosting a foreign dignatory – Egyptian President – he bluntly said that he was more ruthless than the Qin dynasty emperor and that Lin Biao has wrongly accused him that was ruthless like the Qin dynasty emperor (Lin Biao was his comrade-in-arm who had fallen foul of Mao).
On another occassion, Mao Zedong reminded his nephew Mao Yuanxin that he should study classical texts and learn the lessons from China’s past. When in response Yuanxin said to his uncle that he was reading Han Fei and Li Si, Mao Zedong approvingly said, “These are precisely the works you must read. And not just once; you must read them at least five times.’ (‘Five times’ was the stock number that Mao used to emphasise the importance of something). He went on: As a young man, he had read Hanfeizi several times. Why, he had even committed entire chapters to his memory. He then offered his nephew an analysis of what really happened between the two famous disciples of Xunzi (Han Fei and Li Si): Li Si, Mao observed, was anxious about eventually being out-maneuvered by Han Fei, so he took advantage of his superior position in the Qin court to make a preemptive strike. In other words, he had his former classmate Han Fei done away with while he still could. That’s why (Mao quoted from his memory) ‘Han had said fatefully: ‘Men of remote antiquity competed via morality and virtue; those of the middle ages strove after wisdom and strategy; today, men contend by force and strength.’ ‘What Han Fei meant by “force and strength” was power,’ Mao added. Then, to emphasise the point, he quoted another passage: ‘Whomsoever is possessed of magisterial strength is courted; while whomsoever has inferior strength pays court to others. It is for this reason that the shrewd ruler strives for might.’ ‘A smart emperor must control power,’ Mao concluded by adding: ‘[That’s why] Qin Shihuang took Han Fei’s advice and created a system of centralised authority.’
Mao was advising a family member behind closed doors by opening his heart. Mao Yuanxin after four weeks of the death of his uncle Mao Zedong was declared a member of “Gang of Four”, arrested and spent 17 years in prison.
But Xi Jinping has no personal chrisma like his mentor Mao Zedong and cannot aford to be so blunt in admitting his fidality to Han Fei’s ideas of treachery. He is careful in choosing words and prefers to work stealthly.
Xi – A Career in Opportunism and Treachery:
Though Xi Jinping pretends much, he is not a well read man as he pretends. He did not even finish his middle school. His pretentious claims are looked at with a suppressed laugh and contempt by the Chinese on their native social media platforms. At the start of the Chinese cultural revolution in 1966, he was a thirteen-year-old middle school student. Then he was sent to work in countryside and there he became a party cadre. He ardently worked there for the party for seven years, and on the basis of his political performance there he as a member of ‘privilaged select group’ got an entry in Tsinghua University as a ‘worker-peasant-soldier-student’ to study chemical engineering.
Thereafter he rapidly rose on the political ladder of success and held the full-time post of vice governor of Fujian province from 1998 to 2002. While performing his work at Fuzhou as vice governor, he joined as a ‘full-time’ student of ‘Marxist theory and ideology’ at the same Tsinghua University, which was two thousand kilometers away from Fuzhou where he graduated with a ‘doctorate in law’. Xi practiced hard in his life to cultivate his image of a disciplined party cadre and competent official possessing an unassuming and respectful manners to his superiors. Added to this image, he had to his credit a solid record of his achievements in the service of the party. With these assets, he slowly climbed over the decades the ladder of success. But it was not enough to reach the top. He was wise and had the advantage of imbibing the secrets of success taught by Han Fei. He knew what more was needed to reach the top: he persistently and patiently ingratiated himself with the party elders, who alone held the magic wend to turn his wish into a reality. He was eventually selected by those chosen few as a successor to the ultimate position in China. Then and only then did he reveal himself what he in fact was! But by then it was too late for those who were around him to do anything about it. Once he assumed the mantle of party-state-army leader in early 2013 he proved that, when required, he could be ruthless to his enemies, looking morally upright to the world and stealthy in his moves. In the true style of an accomplished Hanfeizi, he began making commanding public statements looking morally righteous and brimming with confidence, although always confounding and ambiguous in their meaning and intent.
In some of his interviews and speeches he has repeatedly said, ’When I’m not working, my main hobby is reading’. But the question is: What has he been reading and what has made deep impact on his mind?
It is reported by one of his old class-mates (who now lives in California) that Xi Jinping Xi used to be absorbed in old Chinese books and classics – though he could not name those books. But Xi’s penchant for quoting from Chinese classical texts has revealed this secret. In 2015, People’s Daily Press had published a list of books that Xi has read and its editor further cited the ‘top ten’ list, which are the ‘works most frequently cited by the leader (Xi), as well as the most consequential which best reflect his ideas about governance’. Two of the quotations in this ‘Top Ten’ are from Hanfeizi! The first reads: ‘No country is permanently strong, nor is any country permanently weak. If those who impose ‘The Law’ (=fake cover of law to look moral) are strong, the country will be strong; if they are weak, the country will be weak.’
During the last eight years of his rule as the General Secretary of the party of a powerful China, Xi Jinping has shown to the world how he can play the audacity of power – ‘Propensity of Power, a term used by Han Fei – in the contemporary geopolitics. This ‘Propensity of Power’ is a masterpiece of dominating and ruling – be it at the national level or worldwide – taught by Hanfeizi. Today Xi Jinping is playing this Hanfeizi principle of ‘propensity of power’ smartly in contemporary geopolitics whether it be by claiming the sovereignty over South China Sea dismissing an international judicial award against his claim as nothing more than dustbin paper or by stealing the technology (intellectual property) of the United States of America and employing the same against this very country or by claiming the Himalayan territory of India in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, in addition to the chinese already illegally occupied areas of a million square kilometers of Aksai Chin or by claiming territories of Vietnam, Japan, Russia, Mongolia, Cambodia, The Philippines, Brunei – in all not less than 20 countries – or by refining his skill to subdue the world by launching bio-weapon and causing pandemics.
He has practiced and honed the skill of power politics at his home turf for long enough. He has perfected this Hanfeizi art of remaining ambiguous hidden behind beautiful words, telling lies, breaking solemn promises, committing treachery and making the meaning of his ambiguous words loud and clear with his sinister actions. And knows very well how to maximize the impact of this art. Advancing stealthy with his calculated moves, Xi Jinping has proved to the world that he has long prepared for the moment with which the world is faces today. It is altogether another matter that Xi is not aware of how calamitous consequences his ‘miscalculated’ moves could prove to the humanity in the 21st century world that is over-laden with the technology, of which Han Fei had no idea even in his wildest of dreams!