The Middle Kingdom
Right now, everyone is fawning over the Chinese because of the Olympics in Beijing. N.P.R. is chockablock with reports of Chinese enthusiasm for the Games, Chinese pride in their medal winners. All of this is well and good, but there are a few facts that must not be ignored. These are not necessarily criticisms of the Chinese, but as dispassionate as I can make them statements of the order of things.

Back in the long, long centuries of the Chinese Empire, the Imperial ministry of foreign affairs was styled the Ministry of Barbarian Relations, because all those not under the authority of the Chinese Emperor, who fully enjoyed the Mandate of Heaven, were morally and culturally inferior. One is tempted to say that this is all in China's past, that the Chinese today are members of the global community in which all peoples, if not all states, are viewed as equal. Yet if this is so, why do the Chinese still speak so often of the Boxer Rebellion? Of the Opium Wars? If the Chinese mindset has changed, why the unshakable dedication to retaining Tibet and retaking Taiwan?

No Communist Party ever achieved the Marxist ideal of true pan-nationalism. For many supposedly Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries around the world, Communism was less a means toward than achieving World Socialism than the most direct route to national liberation. (The sick irony here is that the Communist tyranny that followed "liberation" was almost always worse than the previous colonial "oppression.") Such was the case in China. Mao Zedong (Wade-Giles: Mao Tse-tung) was a committed Communist - though the agrarian nature of the Chinese economy was unsuited for the kind of transformation Marx wrote about, requiring implementation of many of Lenin's modifications/perversions (practical Marxism-Leninism is a distinct beast from theoretical Marxism) - but first and foremost, Mao was a Chinese nationalist. When he stood upon the Gate of Heavenly Peace on 1 October 1949 and declared the existence of the People's Republic of China, he said that China had stood up. He meant that China had thrown off the shackles of colonial subjugation and erased the shame of Western humiliations; he meant that China had reclaimed the Mandate of Heaven and her rightful place as the center of the universe.

And this is absolutely critical: China is the moral, cultural, and ethical center of the universe. We in the West should count ourselves lucky to stand in China's reflected glory, grateful for her magnanimity after all the insults we visited upon her in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. I'm not trying to stir up anti-Chinese sentiment, nor to minimize the wrongs that were visited upon China by the Western powers during the age of imperialism. But too few of us know that this is the belief at the core of China's ascendancy: China is the Middle Kingdom, the chosen realm halfway between Heaven and Earth, and the Middle Kingdom's rightful place is of primacy among the nations. Of course, we all do this during the Olympic Games, we all embrace the accumulation of medals as proof of our nation's innate worth. The Chinese seek affirmation of their nation's inherent supremacy. Just something to keep in mind you you feel like debasing yourself by watching the abomination that is the modern Olympics.

Also, a note: "the Middle Kingdom" is not just a literary flair, a poetic quirk of English. The traditional short form of the proper noun for the land mass and polity that we call "China" is Zhongguo; literally translated, Zhongguo means "middle kingdom." The Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth, fully invested with the Mandate of Heaven. (Another time we'll discuss tianxia, "all under heaven," meaning the world entire.)

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
"Weird Al" Yankovic, "Smells Like Nirvana" from Off the Deep End (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: That man is a genius. Between Alfred Bester, Alfred Yankovic, Alfred the Great, Alfred Hitchcock, and, let's face it, Alfred Pennyworth, I would seriously consider naming a son Alfred. Alfred Wilson; has a nice old-fashioned ring to it, though I would of course insist that he be nicknamed neither "Al" nor "Fred."