Christians and the Communist Threat (in America?)

Americans are not looking for war with Communist China. But apparently Communist China thinks they’re at war with us. How do we think about this problem Biblically?

The history of relations between the United States and China is not just a political issue. It involves thinking Biblically about world affairs. Let me give you some history.

Regarding China exactly what are we up against? All the way back to President Richard Nixon and the Cold War, the President saw China as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. He succeeded in opening relationships with China for a couple of reasons. One, to balance the Cold War struggles with the Soviet Union. And two, the idea was to weaken the hold of communism in China by promoting capitalistic trade. Well, after 9/11 our attention turned to radical Islam. And we began to believe our own press clippings that confrontations between super powers was a thing of the past. Both the Bush and Obama administrations began the process of degrading the U.S. military and attempting to integrate the American economy with the Chinese economy for the purpose of increased trade. We prioritized the Middle East and we left the Pacific pretty much to China. After we woke up a few years ago and realized that we had exported most of our manufacturing base to China, while ignoring the aggressions into the Pacific of this super power nation, all of a sudden we’re faced with a real challenge that apparently we didn’t see coming.

Today, China has a population of 1.4 billion people. Now the Chinese Communist Party only consists of about 90 million members. That’s about 6.5% of the total population. And yet, when you add the economic elites who benefit from their connection to the Party, that’s another 300 million people. So essentially 400 million people control the 1.4 billion population.

Chinese communism has often been called socialism with Chinese characteristics. It’s a mixture of Maoism with Marxism and Leninism. It is a system of state owned but privately operated businesses with active government input. This is an empire with a massive population and a massive geographical distribution. The fact that they they’ve been able to dominate that large of a population over that much of a continent in such a short period of time historically by ruthless management of its people means that this is an empire, a super power not to be underestimated in our generation.

The Chinese military boasts an army of two million men. Now their quality deficit to us is still fairly significant. But quantity makes up for a lot of problems that you have with quality. The U.S. naval computer simulations over the last five years show that in every computer simulation between the U.S. Navy and the Chinese Navy in the Pacific Ocean has us failing to produce victory. We haven’t kept up with China’s progression of domination in the Pacific. With a refusal to employ nuclear weapons, we have essentially already guaranteed that we cannot defeat China in an ocean-based conflict.

In 1999, two army officers in the Chinese army wrote a book called, Unrestricted Warfare. It was a bit of propaganda but they argued that China should use every possible advantage against the United States. This includes economic warfare, cyber warfare, information warfare, political warfare, terrorism, biological warfare, conventional warfare and nuclear warfare. Now whether they would actually do that or not we don’t know but it was meant to plant an idea in the minds of its enemies that it’s always better to accommodate China than to risk unrestricted warfare.

Now what makes that really intimidating is China’s track record of the way they manage their own population, the treatment of their own people. It’s estimated that over 100 million Chinese citizens have died by war, starvation or execution under communist control. That’s not counting nearly 500 million, half a billion babies killed in the womb under China’s forced abortion strategy called their “One Child” policy. Right now, there are 1-2 million Muslim Uighurs in concentration camps. In fact, on the black market today you can buy organs and hair and other body parts harvested from an entire people group kept specifically in concentration camps for that purpose.

China has a vast intelligence network in the U.S. It’s estimated that they steal 500-600 billion dollars of intellectual property annually from our country. And here’s the really scary part, U.S. investment banks have sold trillions of dollars of debt and equity in Chinese corporations to American investors and retirees essentially betting on China’s success at the expense of the U.S.A. There was some financial parity regained under the changes made in our relationship with China under the Trump administration. But those policies are already being revoked but today’s China friendly administration.

We don’t even have to talk about COVID 19. All we know is that the virus that has spread across the globe came from China. Flights from Wuhan across China were stopped immediately while flights from Wuhan to the United States and Europe were allowed to continue well after they knew that this virus was deadly. Despite the claims of Dr. Anthony Fauci, we now know China was not honest with the information about the virus that the provided to international doctors, thereby delaying progress toward a solution. When challenged about their dishonesty, China threatened to cut off the supply chain of pharmaceutical elements used in 90% of the production of prescriptions in America.

Well, China has established within their own population a system that they call “Social Credit.” They use exhaustive video cameras everywhere in China to keep track of its population by facial recognition as well as evaluating emotional responses and tracking travel, where people go who they talk to. They use social media in what we would call a “cancel culture” to keep their people in line. As they step out of line, according to what the government requires, they are not allowed certain privileges. “Privileges” that’s an interesting word. Privileges like, I don’t know, buying food at a grocery store.

Well, not only that, just this week China restructured the political system in Hong Kong. Despite their promises made years ago when Hong Kong reverted to Chinese control, China originally promised that Hong Kong would be self-governing. Well, just this week China changes the rules. What used to be a system of government where China provided half the elected legislators in the Hong Kong Congress and the people elected the other half. There were seventy members. Thirty-five appointed by China thirty-five elected by the people of Hong Kong. Under the new system they’ve expanded the Congress from 70 people to 90 people. But they now only allowed the people to elect 20 people out of 90, while China’s government will appoint the other 70. Not only that, but the 20 that can be elected by the people have to pass a vetting process in Beijing to determine if they are patriotic enough to be allowed to rule Hong Kong.

It’s interesting as we look at our country. The use of social media to cancel those who step out of line with the cultural consensus of the day, the restructuring, the rebuilding of our election system – there’s some interesting parallels to the direction we’re moving as a nation versus some of the things that are going on in China right now. Why would we want control our citizens through social media? Why would we want to cancel their privileges just because they don’t agree intellectually with what those in power think? Why would we restructure our voting system to federalize elections when the Constitution explicitly gives that responsibility to the states. There can be only one reason. That is, so that the party in power can guarantee the reproduction of their power again and again, election after election. I’ve always told you that it is a citizen’s responsibility to be involved in the voting process. But I’m beginning to wonder in the days ahead whether that will matter at all.

So, how do we respond? What do we do with the threat on the horizon as well as the threat at home that is beginning to feel very Chinese-like? Well, Nehemiah 4 gives us some direction. Nehemiah went to Jerusalem to rebuild a wall as the people were beginning to return from exile. And as he built that wall, he saw serious opposition. Let me just give you some verses that you can spend some time with and look up on your own.

In Nehemiah 4:4,6, the first response that Nehemiah had to face was his enemies began to ridicule what they were doing. They began to make fun of the construction of the wall. They began to abuse them verbally. The response of the people in Nehemiah 4:6. Nehemiah says, “So we rebuilt the wall until the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had the will to keep working.” Verse 4 is a prayer, it says, “Listen, our God, for we are despised. Make their insults return on their own heads and let them be taken as plunder to a land of captivity.” In other words, the response to ridicule was prayer to God to vindicate His people and living on purpose. Continuing to do the right thing in front of them.

In verse 9 we find that the second response besides ridicule was the people began to be lied about. The enemies planted rumors. They told false accusations to try and steal the credibility of Nehemiah and his leaders. It’s interesting I’ve discovered in my lifetime that critics run with critics and they never see the divine side of things. Well, in verse 9 again we see Nehemiah saying, “So we prayed to our God and stationed a guard because of them day and night.” Again, the response was prayer and a protection of the reputations. That is, they lived in such a way to make the rumors provably, visibly false. Alright, we’ll talk about this in just a second.

The next attack was an actual retaliation, a threat of violence. In verse 14 of this chapter Nehemiah says, “After I made an inspection, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people, “Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the great and awe-inspiring Lord, and fight for your countrymen, your sons and daughters, your wives and homes.” First of all, we find that word prayer again. Cry out to God! But secondly, he gives them an encouragement to remember God’s role in the history of His people.

Finally, the enemies decided that they would have a full-on assault for Nehemiah and his people. And in verses 19,20 Nehemiah says this, “I said to the nobles, the officials, and the rest of the people: “The work is enormous and spread out, and we are separated far from one another along the wall. Wherever you hear the trumpet sound, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us!” The response to the stresses of their generation was again prayer but also an alert for them to be together, to be refreshed.  

Why do you think our culture is so dead set on churches not opening? Because we are strongest when we’re together. How do approach the situation of China which is something most of us as regular citizens can’t fix? How do we approach even the issues of our government that have a very strange China feel to them? We look at Nehemiah and we see these things: Prayer, Prayer, Prayer. Live on purpose. Do the next right thing. Protect your reputation by walking in an honest and true way so that everybody sees. Encourage one another to remember God’s role of fighting for His people. And then refresh one another by being together.

Listen, this whole business about church and the Word of God, it’s not just religious hokey pokey. It’s not just a hobby. The Word of God, the people of God called the Church, this is our life. And even in the face of a super power enemy like China, God is still the answer.

This is TruthCurrents.