Root of Chinese Corruption
According to a Chinese myth, once there was a great emperor. To emphasize excellence of his governance, it introduced an old farmer in the kingdom. The old man said, "I wake up every morning and work in the field by myself. I am living in comfort with nothing lacked, So, for me, a man called the emperor is nothing."
This episode tells what Chinese essentially respected. The great Chinese emperor was also said to live in a very humble palace without any princely buildings and luxury gardens. Ancient Chinese hated extravagance. A natural and simple life style was ideal for them, including emperors.
But, as time went by, wealth took a central part of their value system. Even Confucius could not stop this moral corruption. While people and kings were pursuing wealth, Confucius (551 - 479 B.C.) tried to establish moralism in the ancient Chinese world where many kingdoms were competing for hegemony after the fall of an ancient unified kingdom called Chou where, Confucius thought, morality and decorums had been abundant in its society and politics.
There is one interesting legend about Confucius. Once asked who the greatest king was at the time, Confucius named a certain king. But people who asked the question was puzzled, since the king was not an upright person. He had many doubtful relatives and kept intimate relationships with dubious women. So, they asked Confucius why he named the king. Confucius answered that as they asked who the greatest king was but not the most righteous king was he named the most able king in his governance. The king hired many talented subjects and vassals to appoint them to important positions in his court.
Even today, especially in business, people like to have an able and efficient leader regardless of his private life and a moral level of his personality. In politics, voters tend to vote in favor of a candidate who is smart in his handling of political matters than others of good will without excellent administrative skills.
But as we see in the Chinese history, a state governed by the most able king at the time who was supported by the most efficient pundits and generals at the era conquered whole China after the Period of Warring States (BC 453-BC 221), while the king was not a righteous man at all. The first Qin Emperor built a splendid and gorgeous palace, collecting riches and treasure from all over China. Since then, every subsequent Chinese dynasty never had an emperor who was as humble as that ancient legendary emperor.
Maybe even Confucius made a mistake in naming a certain king as the greatest one, once. But it also means that there has been some fatal defect in the Chinese history, since Chinese dynasties built after the era of Confucius never realized political idealism Confucius had pursued in his life-long moral campaign.
So, the Chinese Communist Party that started as a humble political and military group based on Marxism now has become a party of members who all pursue riches and treasure so boldly. Only their memory about the war against the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945 might remind them of their humble state of minds they had originally.
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Mat 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.