正气 Zhèng Qì and 邪气 Xié Qì

I posted an article “A Question of Zhì Qì (志气)” in my blog several days ago and was (and am) still surprised to find it being heavily shared by both friends and strangers. The last count was more than 30K. (One earlier post of mine – “The Dragon Has Been Awakened” received 113K visits, but that was in August 2020.)

A friend who had read the article wrote to relay a suggestion from a friend of his. He thinks my discussion should have also included the lack of zheng qi (正气) in the US leadership today. He contends that the US leaders have deviated from the practice of zheng qi, hence the country is now courting the anger of not only the community of nations but also the “Sky” and this has resulted in the US being plagued by so many problems.

Zheng 正 means upright, correct. straight, just, or principled; and qi 气 , a form of metaphysical energy or aura. Zheng qi taken as a term means “righteousness, correctness, uprightness and, at the highest behavioural plane, the embodiment of a cause that is worthy of Heaven’s praise.

I can fully understand this reader’s conclusion. Ours is a Confucian/Daoist (more of the mystic stream than Lao-tze's philosophical school)/Buddhist culture. Many believe of us in retribution, of karma. If you do something good, you get rewarded – in this life, or the next life, and it will also flow to your loved ones. If you commit a sin, you get punished. Personally, even though I am still quite ambivalent about such beliefs, I am happy to keep an open mind regardless – simply because a fear of retribution will always make one think twice before he or she commits a bad deed.

However, I do want to push that reader’s conclusion a little further. To me, the lack of, or the failure to exercise, zheng qi alone should not be "sinful" enough for one to court the wrath of Heaven. We commonly see innocent or weak people being bullied in public or in work places, how many of us really dare to speak out for them?

American leaders are not only bankrupt of zheng qi, but they are in fact being possessed by xie qi (邪气). Xie means evil, perverse, or vicious, and one who harbours xie qi towards someone will do everything to injure his victim, usually out of spite or jealousy. It is diametrically the opposite of zheng qi.

On a geopolitical scale, the Holocaust in Europe and the atrocities committed by the Japanese military during World War II were acts of xie. I am now convinced that Biden and his team are also embarking on a journey of no return – the creation and manifestation of a xie cult in G7 – in their mad crusade to retard China at all costs. 

We can trace America’s brand of racism all the way back to its founding fathers’ days – the genocide against Native Americans (whom we used to call Red Indians) and the cruelty they inflicted upon the African slaves. They reluctantly entered World War II and emerged as the superpower par excellence. Chinese in America faced extreme McCarthyism in the aftermath of the Korean War, even though many had toiled hard to help build America’s railways.

The Statue of Liberty is supposed to be a symbol of hope for those who want to escape from political, social, and economic suppressions, but has there been equality for the people of colour? Yes, only if you are living at the top of the food chain.

When CIA sold the world that Communism was bad and there was a need to stop the domino effect in the wake of its setbacks in Korea and Vietnam, it went on to overthrow governments in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Several leaders were brutally murdered. And after 9/11, it went on to flatten Afghanistan, and destroy Iraq and Libya. Its destablisation efforts remained unabated to this day – Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and, the latest, Russia. Only one leader dares to give the US the middle finger. He is North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

Not all these acts were xie in nature. Some were borne out of their misplaced belief in the superiority of their political, social, and economic systems and "values", especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Indeed, Bill Clinton made Zhu Rongji sweat hard when he was working on China's application to join the WTO. On seeing China's rise, Barack Obama also declared the US would pivot itself Asia Pacific. This was followed by Trump's initiation of the trade war against China. But I would not classify these actions as xie. They were bargaining means to extract advantages for America.

What Joe Biden is doing is totally xie. The war in Ukraine has all the hallmark of his xie qi . Much of the clear-headed world, including many Americans, knows that it is his proxy war against Russia. Ukraine is suffering much destruction and many lives have been lost (7 Ukrainians to 1 Russian), yet the puppeteer is pushing Zelenskyy to fight on. Authoritative sources both in America and elsewhere have said that much of the US and its allies’ aid has gone into or benefited private pockets, and much of what we have read in the mainstream about Ukraine’s successes is far from true. 

Yet Biden's principal bedfellows – leaders in the UK, Canada, and Japan – are bent on supporting him come what may. (Australia is still being counted in; but I suspect its prime minister Albanese is one who has some grey matter up his brain. He is just palying along, knowing that he cannot dismount the tiger that Morrison has brought in.) Thanks to Seymour Hersh, everyone knows who the culprits behind the sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines are, yet the Garman leaders are playing dumb. You also have lesser leaders like the Filipino president Marcos Junior and South Korean president Yoon. These supporters of Biden are certainly also devoid of zheng qi.

Russia is being heavily sanctioned. But these sanctions have also opened the eyes of the world, including many of the US's hitherto strong allies on the need to protect their reserves and assets outside the US systems. 

We also know Biden and his team are combing every debris in the battle fields in Ukraine to find anything to implicate China, which is their ultimate target. Biden needs an excuse to start a proxy war with China. Where else can be a better least-cost battleground than Taiwan? Biden’s design is borne out of xie intent!

Fortunately, China has a leader that has all the wisdom our great sages. Xi Jinping is the embodiment of zheng xi. Internally, he is shaping a China that can offer its people "our tomorrow will always be better than today". Hundreds of millions have been alleviated out of poverty. He is unleashing the spirits of 吃苦 (chī kǔ, which literally means “eat bitterness” but is more a metaphor to describe one's extreme preparedness to endure hardship) of its huge population to transform the nation to earn its rightful place. Its achievements have been so phenomenal that they are being seen as life-and-death threats to the US’s concept of itself – the right to lead and dictate. And Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party is a willing pawn for Biden to use to provoke hopefully a war with China. Xi knows exactly what Biden and his team are up to. Economically, China is no longer at the mercy of the US, rather it is the other way round now. Militarily, China must be able to stare down the US and they are almost, if not already, there in many aspects.

Externally, Xi has shown the world his zheng qi in many areas – the benefits that his Road & Belt Initiative has brought to many parts of the developing and underdeveloped world, the shaking of hands between Saudi and Iran, and the realization of Zelenskyy’s dream to speak with Xi personally. If the Nobel Peace Prize is worthy of its purpose, Xi should have been awarded three times!

Coming back to Biden’s xie mindset towards China, I do not believe he is the real driving force, or the origin of that manifestation. He is not great as a strategic thinker, and his state of mind is too semi-demented to initiate or frame sanctions that we so regularly see against China on the chips front. (Besides denying China access to chip-making technology, it cannot do much elsewhere.) I am more inclined to think that Blinken is the face of the “Deep State” that has manifested in Biden’s administration today. I believe in physiognomy. Blinken’s exudes the worst of xie, especially when draws upon democracy, rules-based order, and all these bullshits when he speaks in public to hosts' audiences. The other key members of Biden’s team – Sullivan, Yellen, Austin, Raimondo, and Tai – are people with little zhi qi. Yellen has chosen to forget the ABCs of national finance and international economics, and Austin is a clueless parrot. Raimondo and Tai are attack dogs, always spoiling for a fight until recently – after the team began to realise that their country is heading nowhere with the war in Ukraine, their sanctions of Russia, the weaponization of SWIFT and the US dollar, the containment of China, and the loss of respect of the US by many leaders all over the world.

Instead of adopting a mindset that will cultivate zheng qi to solve its internal problems – gun violence, drug abuse, Democrat-Republican divide, racial prejudices, homelessness, decaying infrastructure, etc, the “Deep State” behind Biden is harbouring xie qi – sanctioning countries, enterprises and individuals that do their bidding. This is against the order of nature. Even to someone like me who is quite ambivalent about the existence of Heaven, they sure would be consequences, which to some friends are retributions!

To me, these are the three most evil rulers in history: Roman Emperor Nero, Japanese Emperor Hirohito, and German leader Adolf Hitler. Physically, Biden may not be as cruel as them, but in mindset, he is comparable to them on a geopolitical basis. He (or more exactly, Blinken) is xie to the core!

The Chinese philosopher Men-Tze (孟子 372–289 BC) hypothesized that are born “sân” (善, a sense of compassion that extends to an innate behaviour not to do harm unto others”). Clearly, Blinken and his team are not in this category. On the other hand, another philosopher Xun-Tze (荀子 310 – c 238 BC) postulated another theory which is the opposite of Men-Tze’s. It argues that men are by nature “er” (恶 – not exactly “evil;” maybe “bad motive”). His hypothesis was that man was born with inherent desire for profit and sensual pleasure. Fortunately, man possesses intelligence, which makes it possible for him to develop “goodness.” Maybe Biden and his team belong to this category, and the overzealousness to retard China has turned them to be xie.