China Resources and Potentialities

China’s Resources & Potentialities
“A presentation based on understandings taken from the Baha’i Writings”, Joe Carter 2008 02 02

“China has the most great capability.
The Chinese people are most simple-hearted and truth-seeking…
Truly, I say, the Chinese are free from any deceit and hypocrisies
and are prompted with ideal motives.
China is the country of the future.
Abdu’l-Baha, Reported in "Star of the West", vol. 8, April 28, 1917, No.3, p.37
Abdu’l-Baha

1950 – Establishment of the United Nations
“China, a land which has its own world and civilization,
whose people (in 1923) constitute one-fourth of the population of the globe,
which ranks foremost among all nations
in material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities,
and whose future is assuredly bright.
Letter from Shoghi Effendi to the Baha'is of the East, 23 January 1923.
China Pop: 1.3 billion (2007)
World Pop: 6.6 billion (2007)
China = 19.7%
Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Baha’i Faith

Part One
China ranks foremost in:
- Material
- Cultural
- Spiritual
Resources and Potentialities

“O ye concourse of the Kingdom of Abha! Two calls to success and prosperity are
being raised from the heights of the happiness of mankind, awakening the slumbering,
granting sight to the blind, causing the heedless to become mindful, bestowing hearing
upon the deaf, unloosing the tongue of the mute and resuscitating the dead.
The one is the call of civilization, of the progress of the material world. This
pertaineth to the world of phenomena, promoteth the principles of material achievement,
and is the trainer for the physical accomplishments of mankind.
It compriseth the laws, regulations, arts and sciences through which the world of humanity
hath developed; laws and regulations which are the outcome of lofty ideals and the result of
sound minds, and which have stepped forth into the arena of existence through the efforts
of the wise and cultured in past and subsequent ages.
The propagator and executive power of this call is just government.
The other is the soul-stirring call of God, Whose spiritual teachings are safeguards of
the everlasting glory, the eternal happiness and illumination of the world of humanity, and
cause attributes of mercy to be revealed in the human world and the life beyond.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 283)
What do we mean by “Material, Cultural and Spiritual”?
Material and spiritual civilization are like two wings on a bird.
One is the lamp, the other is the light.

- Material
- Cultural
- Spiritual
Resources & Potentialities
Physical Accomplishments
Laws & Regulations
Arts & Sciences
Government
The following is a brief overview of:
The material and cultural resources and potentialities of China -
in particular, arts, sciences, and government -
AND
The spiritual resources and potentialities of China.

- Material
- Cultural
- Spiritual
Laws & Regulations
Arts & Sciences
Government
A brief survey of the arts of China by Dynasty.

Xia Dynasty (2100-1600 BC), Bronze Ritual Vessel

Shang Dynasty (1600-1027 BC), Bronze Mask

Zhou Dynasty (1027-256 BC), Ideal City described in Zhou Li: Kao Gong Ji

Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD) , Clay Figurine

Han Dynasty, Brick Relief Carving

Northern Wei (386-534) / Sui / Tang, Buddhist Relief Sculpture

Tang Dynasty (618-907), Clay Figurine of a Foreign Merchant

Tang Dynasty, Big Goose Pagoda, Xian

Han to Tang Dynasty, Dun Huang Caves, Colour Scheme

Tang Dynasty, Handwriting of the Poet, Li Bai

Song Dynasty (960-1279), Porcelain

Song Dynasty, “Travelling Amid Hills and Streams” by Fan Kuan

Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), Mural Painting

Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), “Hanging Temple”, Shanxi Province

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), Temple of Heaven, Hall of Prayers for Good Harvests

Beijing: a city linking heaven and earth
The Emperor prayed for good harvests.
Emperor’s Room:
Place of Honour,
Power, & Stillness

Beijing Old City: Forbidden City
Emperor’s Room:
Place of Honour,
Power, & Stillness
Five Colours Earth
Temple

Beijing Old City: Five Colours Earth Temple
Emperor’s Room:
Place of Honour,
Power & Stillness

Beijing Old City: Courtyard house is a “child” of the Forbidden City.
A reminder of the Heaven–Earth linkage in every home.
Patriarch’s Room:
Place of Honour,
Power & Stillness

Beijing Old City: Courtyard House
Patriarchs Room:
Place of Honour,
Power & Stillness

Beijing Old City: 2008 Olympic Site is on the ceremonial “sacred” axis.
The Olympic theme also reflects a consciousness of the link between heaven and earth.

- Material
- Cultural
- Spiritual
Laws & Regulations
Arts & Sciences
Government
A brief survey of the science & engineering of China

Robert Temple, The Genius of China, 1998.

Prince Chu Cai Yu invented the tempered scale in 1584.
Johann Sebastian Bach, used it for The Well-tempered Clavier, 1722.
Twelve fifths = (1.0136) Seven octaves
Some Examples:
The Decimal System, the compass, paper, explosives, wheelbarrow,….
Columbus and Zheng He Sailing into the wind

Voyages of exploration and exchange not conquest.

“It would be better if the nations and peoples of the world had
a clearer understanding of each other, allowing the mental chasm between East an West to be bridged.
After all they are, and have been for several centuries,
intimate partners in the business of building a world civilization.
The technological world of today is a product of both East and West
to an extent which until recently no one had ever imagined.
It is now time for the Chinese contribution to be recognized and acknowledged,
by east and West alike.
And, above all, let this be recognized by today’s school children,
who will be the generation to absorb it into their fundamental conceptions about the world.
When that happens, Chinese and Westerners will be able to look each other in the eye,
knowing themselves to be true and full partners.
Robert Temple, The Genius of China, 1998, p. 12
Modern Science
& Technology
European Industrial Revolution
European Agricultural Revolution
Chinese Ideas and Inventions
The Islamic world was a vital link between China and Europe.

Islam, a Vital Link between China and Europe
Islam caused the Renaissance in Europe, ending its 1000 years of Dark Ages with knowledge from around the known world.
Muslims take great pride in citing a hadith that says "Seek knowledge even unto China." It points to the importance of
seeking knowledge, even if it meant traveling as far away as China, especially as at the time of the Prophet Muhammad,
China was considered the most developed civilization of the period. Islam in China began during the caliphate of
'Uthman ibn Affan (Allayhi Rahma), the third caliph. After triumphing over the Byzantine, Romans and the Persians,
'Uthman ibn Affan, dispatched a deputation to China in 29 AH (650 C.E.), Eighteen years after the Prophet's (pbuh) death),
under the leadership by Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqqaas (Allayhi Rahma), Prophet Muhammad's (Salla Allahu wa Allahai wa Sallam)
maternal uncle, inviting the Chinese emperor to embrace Islam.
Even before this, the Arab traders during the time of the Prophet, had already brought Islam to China,
although this was not an organized effort, but merely as an offshoot of their journey along the Silk Route (land and sea route).
Even though there are only sparse records of the event in Arab history, a brief one in Chinese history, The Ancient Record
of the Tang Dynasty describes the landmark visit. To Chinese Muslims, this event is considered to be the birth of Islam in China.
To show his admiration for Islam, the emperor Yung Wei ordered the establishment of China's first mosque. The magnificent
Canton city mosque known to this day as the 'Memorial Mosque' still stands today, after fourteen centuries.
One of the first Muslim settlements in China was established in this port city. The Umayyads and Abbasids sent six
delegations to China, all of which were warmly received by the Chinese.
The Muslims who immigrated to China eventually began to have a great economic impact and influence on the country.
They virtually dominated the import/export business by the time of the Sung Dynasty (960 - 1279 CE).
Indeed, the office of Director General of Shipping was consistently held by a Muslim during this period. Under the Ming Dynasty
(1368 - 1644 CE) generally considered to be the golden age of Islam in China, Muslims gradually became fully integrated
into Han society.
http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/Muslims.html

One of the earliest mosques in China, the Great Mosque of Quanzhou
is called many names including Shengyou Mosque (Mosque of the Holy Friend),
Qingjing Mosque (Mosque of Purity) and Ashab Mosque (Mosque of the Prophet's Companions).
An inscription on the northern wall of its portal dates the mosque to 1009,
although most of what remains today dates from the 1310 reconstruction
by Ibn Muhammed al-Quds of Shiraz, under Emperor Zhida of the Yuan Dynasty.
It is the oldest surviving stone mosque in China,
and the only one remaining of the seven historic mosques that once stood in the city of Quanzhou.
http://archnet.org/library/sites/one-site.jsp?site_id=9143
The Great Mosque of Quanzhou, Fujian

- Material
- Cultural
- Spiritual (Philosophical)
Laws & Regulations
Arts & Sciences
Government
Some aspects of Governance in China:
- Long Duration
- Moral Foundation
- Respect for the Learned
- One Center, Hierarchical
Quote from Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies,
Jared Diamond, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), 1997.

Northern Song 960 - 1127
LIAO
XI XIA

Southern Song 1127 - 1279
JIN
XI XIA

Yuan 1271 – 1368 (Chinese “Ship of State” run by Mongolian captains)
The Meng People
(Mongolian)

Qing 1636 – 1911 (Chinese “Ship of State” run by Man/Qing captains)
The Man People
(Manchuria)

Qing: Rebellions (green) and Incursions (red) 1840 - 1911
Russia
Japan
Russia
England
England
France
Germany
Japan
Russia

People’s Republic of China 1949 (Relative isolation for over 25 years) Open Door 1978

One country, one script for over 3,000 years.
Government had one center, the Emperor,
the spiritual and temporal ruler, with the Mandate of Heaven.
Government had:
- Poets as their conscience
- Examinations system for government service that tested
knowledge of philosophy (Confucian texts)
- One Center, one Leader, hierarchical organization.
In the West, the separation of Church and State went back to the resistance by the Roman Catholic Church
to the intellectual stimulus of Islam. The advance of civilization was hampered for centuries by an
increasingly materialistic science. Religion without science led to superstition.
It was not until the late 1800s that China began to question and attack its traditional belief system; perhaps
the climax was the Cultural Revolution. Instead of an entrenched separation of Church and State, China is
still in the process of assessment. The recent campaigns against corruption, the goal of a harmonious
society, the concern about “ren su zhi” (quality of people), all indicate a continuing search for the integration
of governance and values.
China has kept its system of government with One Center. China has an opportunity to further democratize
its “one center” system and skip over the adversarial, party forms of government.

The Zhou Dynasty introduced the “Mandate of Heaven”
“While the Zhou thus continues, like the Shang,
to use kinship as a main element of political organization,
they created a new basis of legitimacy by espousing the theory of Heaven’s mandate.
Where Shang rulers had venerated and sought the guidance of their own ancestors,
the Zhou claimed their sanction to rule came from a broader, impersonal deity,
Heaven (tian), whose mandate (tian ming) might be conferred on any family
that was morally worthy of responsibility.
This doctrine asserted the ruler’s accountability to a supreme moral force
that guides the human community.
Unlike a Western ruler’s accession through the doctrine of the divine right of kings,
which rested on birth alone, the Chinese theory of Heaven’s mandate
set up a moral criteria for holding power.”
John K. Fairbank, China: A New History, Harvard University Press, 1992, p. 40
[1]
Confucius, in the later half of the Zhou Dynasty stressed moral cultivation of the
individual as the foundation of social order and good government.
“From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people,
all must consider the cultivation of their person
as the root of everything besides."

- Material
- Cultural
- Spiritual (Philosophical)
Laws & Regulations
Arts & Sciences
Just Government

Chinese Spiritual and Philosophical Resources
• Poets (for example: Li Bai, Du Fu)
• Zhou Dynasty: System of Government with Mandate of Heaven
• Confucius: Moral order is the foundation of social order
“Confucius renewed morals and ancient virtues” Abdu’l-Baha, SAQ, p. 165
• Lao Ze (Daoism): cultivated the “way” and virtue, teachings aimed at self-effacement.
• Mahayana Buddhism taught the unity and oneness of all beings:
One’s own enjoyment of spiritual peace can not be perfect so long as salvation
has not been universally won. Reinforced Chinese Group Sense (Ji Ti).
Charity and service to others are the actions based on this belief.

 Love of justice expressed in the words of its poets and philosophers.
 Daoism: Belief in harmony through dynamic balance, complementary poles: male-female, material-
spiritual, inside-outside, light-dark, logic-intuition….capacity to merge opposites and resolve paradoxes,
balanced ying and yang, an attitude toward systems, such as in healing and the human body, that allows it to
see “wholes” more than dichotomies.
The long Confucian tradition that moral order is the foundation of social order, applying spirituality to daily
life. Confucius said if he had to summarize his teachings in one word it would be “reciprocity”. “In hearing
litigation, I feel, like anybody else, the necessity to cause the people to have no litigation”.
 Appetite for consensus-seeking, not litigation, to resolve conflicts. From Buddhism, China has a received
high-minded spirituality and a keen sense of the coherence between the material and the spiritual. An
emphasis on the importance of the group.
 Love of perfection that generated so many centuries of civilized beauty.
 Capacity for obedience.
 Open-mindedness and lack of prejudice, desire to "seek truth from facts“.
 Love for practical application of knowledge; the admiration for deeds not words.
 Importance given to family relationships, especially respect for parents.
 A belief in the harmony between man and nature, as seen in China's art, much of its poetry, and, in
particular, its garden design. These prefigure the essential concerns of sustainability.
 Belief in "Tian Xia Yi Jia" (All under heaven is one family).
Some Examples of China’s Spiritual Concepts

Poets Du Fu (AD 713-770)
"Behind the red-painted doors wine and meat are stinking.
On the wild roads lie corpses of people frozen to death.
A hair breadth divides wealth and poverty.
This strange contrast fills me with unappeasable anguish.”
The Roof Whirled Away by Winds
"When will this long night of drizzle come to an end?
Now I dream of an immense mansion, tens of thousands of rooms,
Where all the cold creatures can take shelter, their faces alight;
Not moved by the wind or the rain, a mansion as solid as the mountain.
Alas, when shall I see such a majestic house?
If I could see this, even though my poor house were torn down,
Even though I were frozen to death I would be content.

Daoism
"No calamity is greater than not knowing what is enough
No fault worse than wanting too much
Whoever knows what is enough
Has enough.
Attachment comes at wasteful cost;
Hoarding leads to a certain loss;
Knowing what is enough avoids disgrace;
Knowing when to stop secures from peril.
Only thus can you long last.
Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 46 and 44
"The sage does not hoard,
The more he does for others,
The more he has himself.
The more he gives,
The more he gets.
[1] Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 8.

Confucianism
The Great Learning (Da Xue), an “executive summary” of the teachings of Confucius.
Every school child for centuries memorized it; and its theme is embedded deeply in Chinese culture.[
Briefly, it states that the goal of development is:
•to illustrate virtue:
•to renovate the people; and
•to rest in the highest excellence.
The methods include:
•self-regulation
•cultivation
•rectification, and
•investigation
The process relates the accomplishment of peaceful development with the internal life of the nation,
the well-being of society to the spiritual health of the individual.
"From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people,
all must consider the cultivation of their person as the root of everything besides."
The investigation of reality by the individual is the fulcrum upon which the inner and outer balance depends.

孔子 (大学) Kong Zi (Great Learning)

Wishing to order well their own States,
“The ancients who wished to illustrate illustrious virtue throughout the empire,
first ordered well their own States.

they first regulated their families.

Wishing to order well their families, they first cultivated their persons

Wishing to cultivate their persons, they first rectified their hearts.

Wishing to rectify their hearts, they first sought to be sincere in their thoughts.

Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the utmost their knowledge.
Such extension of knowledge lay in the investigation of things.
Things being investigated, knowledge became complete.

Their knowledge being complete, their thoughts were sincere.

Their thoughts being sincere, their hearts were then rectified.

Their hearts being rectified their persons were cultivated.

Their persons being cultivated, their families were regulated.

Their families being regulated, their States were rightly governed.
Their States being rightly governed, the whole empire was made tranquil and happy.

“Social advancement, we know, arises from the ideals and shared beliefs that
weld society together.
Meaningful social change results as much from the development of qualities and attitudes
that foster constructive patterns of human interaction
as from the acquisition of technical capacities.
True prosperity -a well-being founded on peace,
cooperation, altruism, dignity, rectitude of conduct and justice –
flows from the light of spiritual awareness and
virtue as well as from material discovery and progress.
“Such qualities as trustworthiness, compassion, forbearance, fidelity,
generosity, humility, courage, and willingness to sacrifice for the common good
have constituted the invisible yet essential foundations of progressive community life.]
Overcoming Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity in Public Institutions:
A Baha’i Perspective "Global Forum on Fighting Corruption II", May 2001, the Hague, Netherlands.
“From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider
the cultivation of their person as the root of everything besides.“
Confucian Teaching
Balance: Inner/Outer, Spiritual/Material

“Wo Bu Pa Ben, Wo Pa Hui” 我不怕苯, 我怕坏.
I don’t fear stupid (behaviour); I fear bad (behaviour).
Miss Zhang, Grade 3 teacher, Black Sesame Lane Elementary School, Beijing, 1997.
"…unless the moral character of a nation is educated, as well as its brain and its talents,
civilization has no sure basis."
Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, Baha’i Publishing Trust, London, 1979, p. 31.

“….the communities are day and night occupied in making penal laws, and in
preparing and organizing instruments and means of punishment. They build
prisons, make chains and fetters, arrange places of exile and banishment, and
different kinds of hardships and tortures, and think by these means to discipline
criminals, whereas, in reality, they are causing destruction of morals and
perversion of characters.
The community, on the contrary, ought day and night to strive and endeavor with
the utmost zeal and effort to accomplish the education of men, to cause them day
by day to progress and to increase in science and knowledge, to acquire virtues,
to gain good morals and to avoid vices, so that crimes may not occur.
Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 270
“In hearing litigation, I feel, like anybody else, the necessity to cause the people
to have no litigation.” Confucius
If a relationship descended to the need for litigation, it was a sign of a lack of moral
education.

"At fifteen my heart was set on learning; at thirty, I stood firm in the society; at forty I had no more doubts;
at fifty, I knew the mandate of heaven; at sixty, my ear can tell the good from the bad; at seventy I could
follow my heart's desire without transgressing the norm. (Another translation of this last part: "At seventy,
I could follow the dictates of my own heart, for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of
right.)
This quotation from Confucius is so well known to Chinese people that they often identify the age of a
person not by years, but by the maturity of his relationship to freedom.
Someone in their thirties is referred to as being in the "er li" - "stand firm" stage of development; in their
forties, the "hu huo" - "not confused" stage; in their fifties, "zhi tian ming" - "understand the meaning of
life"; sixties, "er shun", "can distinguish good from bad"; and in their 70s, "er cong xin suo yu" - "follow
desire from the heart without transgressing the norm". It is understood that real freedom is attained after
a life-long learning process, that it has limits. Freedom should not overstep "the boundaries of right".
“The quality of freedom and of its expression -- indeed, the very capacity to maintain freedom in a society
-- undoubtedly depends on the knowledge and training of individuals and on their ability to cope with the
challenges of life with equanimity."[1]
While the individual will is subordinated to that of society, the cultivation of the individual is still,
as in the Confucian model, the starting point of development – “the root of everything besides”.
“…while the individual will is subordinated to that of society, the individual is not lost in the mass
but becomes the focus of primary development, so that he may find his own place in the flow of progress,
and society as a whole may benefit from the accumulated talents and abilities of the individuals composing it.
Such an individual finds fulfillment of his potential not merely in satisfying his own wants but in realizing
his completeness in being at one with humanity and with the divinely ordained purpose of creation.
“This relationship, so fundamental to the maintenance of civilized life, calls for the utmost degree of
understanding and cooperation between society and the individual;

“All within the four seas are brothers”
Confucius, Analects 12:5
"Heaven is my father and earth is my mother...
all people are my brothers and sisters,
and all things are my companions..."
Zhang Zai (1020-77), a Neo-Confucian pioneer
“The Earth is One Country
and Mankind its Citizens”
Baha’u’llah

Buddhism
A religion that empowered Chinese civilization
China follows the Mahayana school of thought
”....universal salvation (is) based on the idea of the fundamental oneness of all beings. …
Individuals may purify themselves and thereby escape the miseries of sinful existence,
yet the salvation of anyone is imperfect so long as, and so far as, there remain any
who have not realized the universal spiritual communion…To save oneself by saving
others is the gospel of universal love taught by Buddhism.”[1]

Members of the Board of Design Consultants appointed to plan the construction
of UN permanent headquarters on Manhattan 's East River site.
Foreground, left to right: Liang Si Cheng, China; Oscar Niemeyer, Brazil ; Nikolai D. Bassov , USSR ;
and Ernest Cormier, Canada .
In second row, from left to right: Sven Markelius, Sweden; Charles E. Le Corbusier,
France; Vladimir Bodiansky, France, engineer consultant to Director; Wallace K. Harrison, chief architect, USA;
G.A. Soilleux, Australia; Max Abramovitz, USA, Director of Planning; and consultants
Ernest Weismann, Yugoslavia; Anthony C. Antoniades, Greece, and Matthew Nowicki, Poland.
New York . 18 April 1947 .
Liang Si Cheng, a prominent Chinese architect

Liang Si Cheng, founder of the School of Architecture at Qinghua University,
states Buddhism inspired the arts and architecture of China.
In the introduction to his book, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, he says:
"The reader should not be surprised that the overwhelming number of architectural examples
presented here are Buddhist temples, pagodas and tombs. In all times and at all places
religion has provided the strongest impetus to architectural creation.[1]
“Buddhism reached China at approximately the beginning of the Christian era.
Though there are records of the erection of a Buddhist pagoda
as early as the beginning of the third century A.D,
we possess today no Buddhist monument before the middle of the fifth century.
However, from then on until the later fourteenth century,
the history of Chinese architecture is chiefly the history of Buddhist
(and a few Taoist) temples and their pagodas.”[2]
[1] Liang Si Cheng, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, MIT Press, 1984, p.3.
[2] Liang Se Cheng, A Pictorial History of Chinese Architecture, MIT Press, 1984, p. 31.

Fo Guang Si in Shanxi Province, A Tang Dynasty temple built in 857 AD, the oldest wooden
structure in China. Discovered by Liang Si Cheng & his wife Lin Hui Yin In June 1937

Shi Jing Shan, southwest Beijing. Caves contain 1000 year old Buddhist scriptures carved in stone tablets
The beauty of the script was out of respect for the beauty of the words.

Maitreye
Is the name of the Future Buddha
The Buddha of universal fellowship
who will, according to Buddhist traditions,
bring peace and enlightenment for all humanity.
The Buddha Maitreye is to come from "the West“.
His statue appears in many temples in China.
“Another Buddha will arise in the world….,
'How shall we know Him?'
The Blessed One replied:
'He will be known as Maitreya,
which means He Whose name is "kindness”.
Baha'u'llah's given name, Husayn, is Arabic for "kindness.“
Bah’u’llah is Maitreye, the fifth Buddha, the Future Buddha.
Amitabha
Amitabha is the main object of devotion of the
Pure Land (Jing Tu/Holy Land) School of Chinese Buddhism.
He is considered to preside over a Pure Land to the west.
The name "Amitabha" can be translated as
“Light of the Infinite”--very similar to the title "Baha'u'llah“
“Glory or Light of God”. The word "ABHA"
("most glorious") is the superlative form
of the word BAHA (Glory).
Chinese people often repeat:
“Na Mo Amitofu” or “Praise Amitabha” (Praise Baha’u’llah)
Statue of Maitreye, the Future Buddha
At Yong He Gong, Beijing.
The statue is 18 meters high and
is made from one piece of wood

Summary of Part One
- Rich artistic expression
- Science and technology were most advanced in world until 1400 AD (+/-)
- Political unity on a large scale established early
- Rich spiritual heritage and rich experience in the art of living

Part Two
What are China’s Material, Cultural, and Spiritual Resources
and Potentialities for?
Social evolution has arrived at the beginning of its maturity,
to be expressed in a New World Order, a global civilization.
China has been prepared through its long history
to make its own contribution to that Order.

"...the earth's inhabitants are now challenged to draw on their collective inheritance
• to take up, consciously and systematically, the responsibility for the design of their future…..
• to..."erect.....a social system at once progressive and peaceful, dynamic and harmonious, a system giving
free play to individual creativity and initiative but based on co-operation and reciprocity.[2]
The challenge of maturity is
• to accept that we are one people,
• to free ourselves from the limited identities and creeds of the past, and
• to build together the foundations of global civilization.
"Today, humanity has entered on its collective coming-of-age,
endowed with the capacity to see the entire panorama of its development as a single process.
"The primary question to be resolved is how the present world, with its entrenched pattern of conflict,
can change to a world in which harmony and co-operation will prevail.
World order can be founded only on an unshakable consciousness of the oneness of mankind,
a spiritual truth which all the human sciences confirm.[3]
[2] To the Peoples of the World: A Baha’i Statement on Peace, Introduction, The Universal House of Justice, October 1985.
[3] Ibid, Part 3.
The New World Order: A Turning Point

John Fairbank
This noted Sinologist, in the introduction to his recent book,
China: A New History, refers to China as a latecomer to modernity.
And, he asks whether China has emerged from isolation just in time
to participate in the demise of the world or,
with millennia of survival experience,
to rescue it?
What will China’s contribution be to the New World Order?

Yan Yang Chu
".....through the last forty centuries China must have matured her thought
and learned many lessons in the art of living.
Maybe China has something to contribute.
Surely there must be a better way, a more humane way of settling
international disputes than just by cutting each other's throats.
Surely, with China's four hundred million people (in 1930),
four thousand years of culture and vast resources,
she must have something
to contribute to the peace and progress of mankind.“
Yan Yang Chu (James Yen) was the founder, in China of the Mass Education Movement,
in the 1930s, of a rural development education program in Ding Zhou, south of Beijing.
In 1943, he was awarded a Copernicus Citation, on the occasion of the
400th anniversary of Copernicus. The awards were given in Carnegie Hall, New York City,
to ten outstanding modern revolutionaries; the others included:
Albert Einstein, Orville Wright, Henry Ford, and John Dewey.

“Fraternity is the as yet unrealized ideal of humanity.
Liberty has no safe foundation except human brotherhood.
Equality can never be anything but a dream until
we feel towards each other as brothers.
It may be for China, to point the way to this fraternity.
Napoleon Bonaparte said, ‘When China moves, she will move the world’.
For centuries, the Chinese have been a peace-loving people.
China with its multitudinous population and its love of peace
cannot but be instrumental in bringing about Universal Peace –
when rights need not be backed by armies and dreadnoughts.
Song Qing Ling, Woman in World History: Song Qing Ling, Israel Epstein, Foreign Languages
Press, Beijing, 2003, p.5.
In June 1947, Song Qing Ling wrote to Nehru saying, referring to the civil war in China and pre-
independence convulsions in India,
“Perhaps this is the tempering process from which our peoples will emerge
with awareness and new spirit for their task in the future civilization.”[1]
Song Qing Ling (wife of Sun Zhong Shan)
She suggests the suffering of China has helped it acquire capacity.
"When heaven is about to bestow a great mission or charge upon someone,
it invariably begins by exercising his mind with suffering, toughening his sinews and bones with toil,
exposing his body to hunger, subjecting him to extreme poverty, and frustrating all his plans.
All these methods are meant to stimulate his mind, strengthen his nature, and increase his abilities."]
Mencius, Legge, bk.6, pt.2, ch.15, art.2

Bertrand Russell
While he was serving as a teacher in Beijing in the1920s,
He observed China's:
"production without possession,
action without self-assertion,
and development without domination".
Russell, Bertrand, The Basic Writings Writings of Bertrand Russell:
1903-1959, Edited by Robert E. Egner and Lester E. Dennon, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1961.

“China, a land which has its own world and civilization,
whose people (in 1923)
constitute one-fourth of the population of the globe,
which ranks foremost among all nations
in material, cultural, and spiritual resources and potentialities,
and whose future is assuredly bright.
Letter from Shoghi Effendi to the Baha'is of the East, 23 January 1923.
China Pop: 1.3 billion (2007)
World Pop: 6.6 billion (2007)
China = 19.7%
Shoghi Effendi

However, just when the world faces this turning point, this new development goal,
each country faces some challenges.
To name a few:
- Materialism
- Corruption
- Dialogue between science and a belief system
- Maturation from authoritarian to “integrative” social relations
- Equality between men and women
- A vast Increase in human capacity / Grass-roots institutional capacity
- Environmental Sustainability
- A Common Development Vision

The more China "buys" into" an exclusively material definition of modernization,
the less it will see its own potential value and the harder it will be for it
to find its heritage of any relevance to modern life.
The more the definition of “modern” excludes
the development of our spiritual capacity,
the more will China’s heritage be overlooked,
and the more China will feel like an outsider to the global development process.
Is it possible that China has something important
to contribute to “true“ modernization?
Challenge: Materialism

Bao Gong, the symbol of uprightness, has received bribes.
Cartoon from a Chinese newspaper, 2007
Hui (Bribe)
1 2
Challenge: Corruption

Challenge: Dialogue between science and a belief system

"When words and action are not directed by a moral force,
scientific knowledge and technical know-how
conduce as readily to misery as they do to prosperity and happiness." [1]
"...the insights and skills that represent (material) scientific accomplishment
must look to the force of spiritual commitment and moral principle
to ensure their appropriate application.[2]
“The empowerment of humankind through
a vast increase in access to science and technology
requires a strategy for development which is centered around an ongoing and
intensifying dialogue between scientific and spiritual knowledge.[4]
[1] Position Statement on Education, prepared by Baha’i International Task Force on Education, 1989.
[2] Baha'i International Community, Office of Public Information, The Prosperity of Humankind, Part 4, 1995..
[4] Baha'i International Community, Office of Public Information, The Prosperity of Humankind, Part 4, 1995.

Social
Character
Characteristics World View Emotional and
Intellectual
Characteristics
Relationships
with Others
1. Authoritarian Power- oriented Dichotomous
Perceptions
Rigidity Authoritarian
Submission
2. Indulgent Pleasure-
oriented
Indiscriminate
Perceptions
Promiscuity Anarchic
Relationships
3. Integrative Growth-oriented Unity in Diversity Creativity Responsibility
and Cooperation
Three Kinds of Social Relationships
Challenge:
Maturation from authoritarian to “integrative” social relations
“Authoritarian” is a stage of growth.
Chart is based on ideas of Dr. Hussein Danesh, a Canadian psychiatrist

Authoritarian Power-Oriented Relations

“Women hold up half the sky”. Chairman Mao Ze Dong
"The world in the past has been ruled by force and man has dominated over
woman by reason of his more forceful and aggressive qualities both of body
and mind. But the scales are shifting, force is losing its weight, and mental
alertness, intuition, and the spiritual qualities of love and service, in which
women is strong, are gaining ascendancy.
Hence the new age will be an age less masculine and more permeated with the
feminine ideals, or to speak more exactly, will be an age in which the masculine
and feminine elements of civilization will be more properly balanced.
Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'u'llah and the New Era, 1976 U.S. edition, p.156.
[1]
Challenge: Equality between men and women

“Men are more burdened with the more adolescent attitudes
and habits of competition and control.
Maturity for a man is autonomy and separation from others,
independence and individual achievement.
A concern with relationships, and co-operation appear as weaknesses.
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice, Harvard Press, 1982.
Women, therefore, may more easily be able to transition to the integrative mode.
If China “ranks foremost among all nations in material, cultural, and spiritual
resources and potentialities”, and Chinese women are advancing more rapidly toward
the integrative mode; then perhaps Chinese women are foremost among the
foremost!

“Despite the competitive aspects of any society, there must be a bedrock modicum of
cooperation for society to exist at all. (I define cooperative as behavior that aids and
enhances the development of other human beings while advancing one's own.) It is certainly
clear we have not reached a very high level of cooperative living. To the extent that it
exists, women have assumed the greater responsibility for providing it.
Although they may not label it in large letters, women in families are constantly trying to work
out some sort of cooperative system that attends to each person's needs. Their task is greatly
impeded by the unequal premise on which our families are based, but it has been women who
have practiced trying.
Dr. Jean Baker-Miller, Towards a New Psychology of Women, Beacon Press, Boston, Second Edition, p.62-3.
[1]
"The assumption of superiority by man will continue to be depressing
to the ambition of woman.
Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, US edition, 1982, p.76.
As long as the authoritarian mode predominates, women, like a minority’s
relationship to a majority, have to know the men better than the men know
them. Women are frustrated by the authoritarian attitudes, overt or
unconscious, of men. This partly explains the high suicide rate among
Chinese women.

[1]
Crucial Contribution of Women
"Given the vital role of economic activity in the advancement of civilization, visible evidence of the
pace at which development is progressing will be the extent to which women gain access to all
avenues of economic endeavor. This challenge goes beyond ensuring an equitable distribution of
opportunity, important as that is.
It calls for a fundamental rethinking of economic issues in a manner that will invite the full
participation of a range of human experience and insight hitherto largely excluded from the
discourse. The classical economic models of impersonal markets in which human beings act as
autonomous makers of self-regarding choices will not serve the needs of a world motivated by
ideals of unity and justice.
Society will find itself increasingly challenged to develop new economic models shaped by
insights that arise form a sympathetic understanding of shared experience, from viewing
human beings in relation to others, and from a recognition of the centrality
to social well-being of the role of the family and the community. Such an intellectual
breakthrough - strongly altruistic rather than self-centered in focus - must draw heavily on
both the spiritual and scientific sensibilities of the race, and millennia of experience have
prepared women to make crucial contributions to the common effort.
Baha'i International Community, Office of Public Information, The Prosperity of Humankind, Part 5.

Challenge: A Vast Increase in Human Capacity

“The creation of the institutions of a global society, a web of interconnected
structures that hold society together at all levels, from local to international
institutions that gradually become the patrimony of all the inhabitants of the
planet is for me one of the major challenges of development planning and
strategy. Without it, I fear, globalization will be synonymous with the
marginalisation of the masses.
Dr. Farzam Arbab, The Lab, the Temple, and the Market, IDRC, 2001.

Lin Yu Tang (1895-1976) pointed out in 1935 in his book,
“My Country and My People”, that the Confucian teaching, the Great Learning,
moves through the levels of social organization and leaves out community.
He says that the jump from State to family is indicative; that unity and loyalty are
operative at these two levels, but this sense is weak in between.
He even says of public spirit, civic consciousness, and social service,
“There are no such commodities in China”.
A Vast Increase in Human Capacity requires
a corresponding increase in grass-roots institutional capacity.

Add an institutional layer at the community level
to channel safely, productively, and creatively the increasing capacity of humanity.

Spiritual Heritages
Challenge: Environmental Sustainability
"No calamity is greater than not knowing what is enough
No fault worse than wanting too much
Whoever knows what is enough
Has enough.
Attachment comes at wasteful cost;
Hoarding leads to a certain loss;
Knowing what is enough avoids disgrace;
Knowing when to stop secures from peril.
Only thus can you long last.
Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 46 and 44
"The sage does not hoard,
The more he does for others,
The more he has himself.
The more he gives,
The more he gets.
Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, ch. 8.
“The fallacies in theories based on the belief that there is no limit to nature's capacity to fulfill
any demand made on it by human beings have now been coldly exposed.
A culture which attaches absolute value to expansion, to acquisition, and to the satisfaction
of people's wants is being compelled to recognize that such goals are not, by themselves,
realistic guides to policy.”
Prosperity of Humankind, Section 5, statement prepared by the Baha’i International Community Office, 1995

Spiritual Heritages
The “Visions” that spawned and impelled civilizations are the religions of the world.
As their vitality declined, so too the civilization. Each one of them, however, helped humanity
advance to maturity, preparing it for the establishment of a global civilization, the goal of evolution.
Our newly emerging One World needs a Common Faith to meet the challenges of our new condition.
Challenge: A Common Development Vision

Arnold J. Toynbee
This British historian referred to civilization as a process, an endeavor...
“….to create a state of society in which the whole of mankind will be able
to live together in harmony as members of a single all-inclusive family.
This is, I believe, the goal at which all civilizations so far have been aiming
unconsciously, if not consciously.“
Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, abridged one-volume edition, p.44.
“In the world there are many different roads but the destination is the same.
There are a hundred deliberations but the result is one.
The Book of Changes, cited in Legge, The Four Books, pt. 2, ch. 5
“All these religions have their source in Heaven which they obey.
Traced to the source, the three sages are no different.
Poem on the three religions, in the Tao Xuan. Cited in Chan, Religious Pluralism, p.123

The civilizations are like rivers, leading to the ocean of the New World Order.

Krishna
Buddha
Zoroaster
Abraham
Moses
Jesus Christ
Muhammad
The Bab
Baha’u’llah
The Founders of the world’s great religions are the sources of civilization

The Elements of Civilization were all Present in China’s History

The Elements of Civilization were all Present in China’s History
But the power of the old vision has weakened.

The Bahá'í Faith
The Bahá'í Faith is the youngest of the world's independent religions. Its founder,
Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), is regarded by Bahá'ís as the most recent in the line of
Messengers of god that stretches back beyond recorded time and that includes
Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.
The central theme of Bahá'u'lláh's message is that humanity is one single race
and that the day has come for its unification in one global society.
God, Bahá'u'lláh said, has set in motion historical forces that are breaking down
traditional barriers of race, class, creed, and nation and that will, in time,
give birth to a universal civilization.
The principal challenge facing the peoples of the earth is to accept the fact
of their oneness and to assist the processes of unification.

Modernization
“Heavenly teachings applicable to the advancement in human conditions
have been revealed in this merciful age. This reformation and renewal of
the fundamental reality of religion constitute the true and outworking
spirit of modernism, the unmistakable light of the world, the manifest
effulgence of the Word of God, the divine remedy for all human ailment
and the bounty of eternal life to all mankind.”
Abdul-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace
17 November 1912, Talk at Genealogical Hall, 252 West Fifty-eighth Street, New York

Fanaticism
Sense of superiority
Indifference
Suspicion Open-minded
Truth-seeking
Free from deceit
and hypocrisies
Prompted
with ideal motives
“In the world there are many different roads but the destination is the same.
There are a hundred deliberations but the result is one.
The Book of Changes, cited in Legge, The Four Books, pt. 2, ch. 5
Flexibility
Simple-hearted
Doubt
Fear Despair
Hope
Sense of Purpose
TASK
Build together
the foundations of
global civilization
(True Modernism)
Examples of attitudes to the great task before us
Magnanimous
Rigidity
Chauvinism

It may be a confirmation and a joy, lifting the hearts of the Chinese people,
to find so much of their vast cultural, philosophical, and spiritual heritage
is in tune with the genuine requirements of this new age,
to find that they have valuable contributions to make to “true” modernization.
"As China becomes more and more involved with other nations, it can,
through its own example and its concerted efforts to foster world peace,
become a most effective participant in the development of a new, world
civilization.
China does not need to follow the same path already trodden by other
nations; it can open a new path that will lead it directly to an honored
position in a New World Order that China, itself, will have helped to build.”
Farzam Arbab

A Modern Vision
O Thou Provider! The dearest wish of this servant of Thy Threshold
is to behold the friends of East and West in close embrace;
to see all the members of human society
gathered with love in a single great assemblage,
even as individual drops of water collected in one mighty sea;
to behold them all as birds in one garden of roses,
as pearls of one ocean, as leaves of one tree, as rays of one sun.
Abdu’l-Baha

END
Joe Carter qiaokate@hotmail.com

China Resources and Potentialities

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