About China

Maybe we ought to take a day and look at China. It’s far away, but around 20% of the world’s population are ethnically Chinese. As of today, China itself has a population of 1,439,843,350.   or 18.47% of the world’s population. More people speak Chinese than any other language. More people use the internet in Chinese than any other language. And lately they’ve been affecting the world.

Did you know, besides the pandemic, which started there, they’re also suffering floods, famine, and locusts? [See The Epoch Times, July 8, 2020, pp. 1, 11, “Natural Disasters Rage Across China, Affecting Tens of Millions”] It sounds biblical.

As of nearly a month ago, they had already had weeks of torrential rainfall, flooding 26 provinces across central and southern China, affecting 19 million people. Particularly hard hit with rain was Hubei province, where Wuhan is the capital—ground zero of the virus outbreak.

It’s China's monsoon season, and they’ve been having what are called 100-year floods, although the rainfall was similarly heavy as recent as the 1980s. But here in Houston, we know how that goes. A 500-year flood can come the year after a 100-year flood. And probably will.

They have built a series of dams along the Yangtze River intended to control flooding. But currently the overcapacity at some upstream dams is overwhelming the huge Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydroelectric power plant. There are cracks. Things are so dire that the government—which tightly controls any news to its people—put out a video illustrating the flooding that could happen if the Three Gorges Dam should break. I believe one town was already wiped out; the people are thanked for their sacrifice, but they are not compensated or helped to start over. Hundreds of towns and cities could be wiped out, if the dam breaks. [You can read more here, and here.] 

If/when the dam breaks, besides the towns and cities built along the river, hundreds of miles of farmland would be wiped out. That area produces, for example, 20% of the world’s corn. Food shortages are already a concern, and some of the corn they had stored has become rotten.

Beyond the pandemic and flooding, additional disasters have caused suffering to 50 million, with several hundred dead or missing.

Among the additional disasters, swarms of locusts are attacking crops in various places across the country. It was early June when a locust invasion hit Hunan Province. Quanzhou, an agricultural area in the south of the country had ten days of this particular plague, which consumed corn, grain, and orange trees, and also willow trees intended to prevent flooding along riverbanks.

And did I mention, China’s hog population was hit with African swine fever, which can, according to the National Academy of Sciences, spread among humans. See H1N1, the flu pandemic of 2009, which seems to live on in thousands of some 30,000 hogs.

Here’s another thing: they just had snow. In July. During the middle of summer. It’s not a heavy snow, about 0.4 inches accumulating. And it melts quickly. But still, we think that’s a rare occurrence in Houston in December. It’s hard to imagine in July. 

Summer snow in China
screenshot from here

It’s not the first time it has ever happened, although it’s rare. They have an ancient Chinese tradition that when it snows in summer, it is a sign of injustice that even the heavens are aware of. You might say they have plenty of injustices to attribute it to. First of all, causing a worldwide pandemic. But there's plenty more.

China was recently forced to close their consulate in Houston, for spying. There is probably international espionage involved as well, but most of the stories related to trying to gain technology and intellectual knowledge, particularly medical knowledge most immediately. And there was an organization used to spy on Chinese citizens who are studying here. Their movements and speech, including their online presence, are monitored and controlled, and they are expected to do the CCP's (Chinese Communist Party’s) bidding.

Here are a handful of recent stories related to China’s spying:

·       “FBI Looking into Possible Chinese Spying onUT’s COVID Research”

·       “Chinese Consulate in San Francisco Is Harboringa Military-Linked Researcher Wanted for Visa Fraud, FBI Says”  

·       “Warning: American Communist Groups Join Forces toUndermine Trump Administration Policy on China through Front Group ‘Pivot To Peace’”

·      "Democrat Traitors Stand by China’s Spy Consulates"

·       “In Pushing Back against China, U.S. Finds FewAllies,” which goes on to say, “Too many freedom-loving nations fear economic retaliation.”

There are big concerns for people in Hong Kong, since the CCP has reneged on the two-systems policy it promised as the UK returned Hong Kong to China. People who were used to freedom to do business and express themselves and have a reliable rule of law are not succumbing willingly to corrupt communist tyranny.

There’s the addition of particular animus against religion. The Uyghurs have been imprisoned and enslaved in the northwest of the country. And all over Christians have been persecuted. Organ harvesting is one of the ghoulish practices the CCP inflicts on the non-compliant. [See The Epoch Times, 7-15-2020, p. 16 “The Legacy of a Failing Campaign of Evil”]

From The Epoch Times, July 15, 2020, p. 16

Just recently the CCP has been using the coronavirus as an excuse for additional crackdowns against Christian house churches. They have required both Mao’s and current President Xi Jinping’s pictures to be placed on the pulpit, and for the CCP anthem to be sung. They pressure the poor to abandon their religion in order to receive aid.

You can read more here (“China’s Repression of Religion GetsWorse”) and here (“Religious Freedom in China: The Case of BishopJames Su Zhimin”). 

I’m no expert on China. But I’m observing and wondering. What if the anomalies that look biblical actually are a wake-up call for Chinese people to turn away from their dictatorial government and toward a benevolent God who is waiting and wanting their return to Him?

Return? But they’ve never been a Christian country, right? Well…

Some years ago I came across a video that was talking about the biblical meanings of Chinese characters—that the stories are depicted in the very words they write all the time. I went looking for that video. I’m not sure I found it, but if it wasn’t this one, it was a very similar presentation.  The YouTube post dates it at 2011, but the speaker, Kong Hee, a pastor in Singapore, mentions the year as 2009.

There’s a bit of history at the beginning. The three major religions in China are Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. These all three appeared near the same time period, around 600-700 BC. But written Chinese history goes back to about 2500 BC. What did people believe for those previous almost 2000 years?

They believed in one supreme God, whom they called Shang Di. The written word for Shang Di shows, big, with more on top, or highest above all—the one Supreme God.

Shang Di, the name for the Most High God,
if formed as big, with bigger on top.
Screenshot from here

Other words tell more stories from Genesis. One example he gives is the word for Create,  zao. There was speaking, words. Then, when words were spoken, movement happened. In the character for create, then, is the concept that when God spoke the words, living things began to move—to have life.

Create, zao, character
composite of screenshots from here

Another example is Garden, yuan.  In this one, there’s the character for clay, and an open mouth to show God breathed. And then there was a man, and from his side a woman, and He put them in a garden. The word garden contains the story of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden.

Garden, yuan, character
composite screenshots from here

The presentation goes on, with many more examples. Sometimes he is using ancient traditional characters; I don’t know how those may differ from what is currently used. But it’s a fascinating look at something unexpected.

It does corroborate a theory I have, as a believer. I believe the ancient people started with the same religion. The true religion, of Adam and Eve, and on down to Noah, and beyond—that is the ancestor religion for all people. That is why so many stories from so many cultures include creation stories, and stories of a great deluge, and others we would find versions of in the Old Testament, particularly Genesis.

I do not think Jesus Christ invented a new religion; I think all true religion leads to Christ, and always has.

If that is so, then is it possible that the current upheaval in China could be a call to the righteous there to turn to Christ? They haven’t had much opportunity, and yet Christianity thrives there, in the hearts of the people who find it. If their brutal, corrupt dictatorship should fall, because of so many plagues and disasters and uncontrollable events, could that lead to an opening up that could make space for a return, if you will, to a former truth and peace?

I don’t know how things will play out. But my optimism tells me to watch, and pray for those people. Among that fifth of the world’s population must be many good-hearted people who would enjoy freedom,prosperity, and civilization—what we might call gospel peace—if only they had the opportunity to choose those things.