A Friend In The East

To those whose only view of Germany is "one World Cup and two World Wars" (of which only the one World Cup matters to them), the French are "cheese-eating surrender monkeys", Russia is still the Soviet Union, and China is still being run by Chairman Mao. Well, you can't have a capitalist dictatorship. Can you?

In fact, of course, Russia has reverted to her historic role as the leader among the Slavs' gate-keeping of our Biblical-Classical civilisation against Islam, against Far Eastern domination, and now also against the godless, rootless, meterosexual, hyper-capitalist, stupefied, promiscuous, usury-based, bloodthirsty pseudo-West of those who hold views such as are set out above.

And China? Just as there was a Russia long before Communism and that always remained the true character of the country, so there was a China long, long, long before Communism, and that remains the true character of the country. Joshua Synder's fascinating blog, The Western Confucian:

"sees Confucianism, condemned as "reactionary" during the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, as a political philosophy that has many cognates with both American Paleoconservatism and Paleolibertarianism, in that its twin pillars, Li (Etiquette) and Jen (Benevolence), posit reverence of tradition, ritual, and antiquity on the one hand and governance by moral example rather than force on the other. Indeed, the Harm Principle is presaged by the Confucian Golden Rule: "Don't do unto others what you would not have them do unto you." Similarly, Taoism, if applied to political-economy, is echoed in its core tenet of Wu-Wei (Non-Action) by Austrian School Economics, while at the same time the Agrarianism of the Tao Te Ching is paralleled by Anti-Federalism, Jeffersonianism, and Distributivism, and its Isolationism by the America First Committee."

The Austrian School may or may not have its roots in the School of Salamanca. It doesn't matter. All sorts of things go back to aberrations within Catholicism, condemned definitively (even if not always by name) by the Magisterium. So many people with whom I agree about so many other things subscribe to Austrian economics, that I wish I could be convinced that it were compatible with the whole of Catholic Social Teaching, and were ultimately something more than that most anti-conservative of forces, capitalism.

But you will find no argument here against "reverence of tradition, ritual, and antiquity on the one hand and governance by moral example rather than force on the other". Jesus Himself also uttered the Golden Rule, even if I am not entirely convinced that it translates into Mill's Harm Principle; Jesus, like Confucius, was no Utilitarian. Longstanding readers may also have noticed tendencies towards Agrarianism, Distributism, and a realistic, war-wary foreign policy, including full agreement that America should not have entered the War until directly attacked, not to mention grave doubts about whether Britain and France should ever have involved ourselves in the dispute between Hitler and Stalin, an involvement which, as much as anything else, allied us to Mao.

Maoism, take note, is a living force. Its recent overthrow of the monarchy in Nepal was universally applauded. And even closer to home than the land of the Gurkhas, the present President of the European Commission is an utterly unrepentant old Maoist who went on to become a ferociously "free"-marketeering and pro-Bush Prime Minister of Portugal before being wafted into his present position.

I don't want to be run by China either directly (which she has in any case no desire to do), or indirectly by economic means. I wish that we had an Obama economically, and I am very glad that we always have Russia in a range of fields, to stop such a thing. But I would rather have a close relationship with what is eventually bound to be the re-emergent homeland of Li and Jen, of the Golden Rule, of the Agrarianism of the Tao Te Ching, and perhaps even of Wu-Wei as well, than rule by a man proud of his participation in the overthrow of the Social Catholic Estado Novo and the racially inclusive (very Commonwealth-like) Lusotropicalism in our oldest ally, an overthrow in the name and spirit of Mao Tse-Tung. Or, indeed, rule by anyone who thinks that the dominion of such a person is a good thing. Including everyone who has cheered on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.