One of the most important dissenting voices in China today belongs to Peter Zhao, a Communist Party member and adviser to the Chinese Central Committee. Mr. Zhao is among a group of Chinese intellectuals who look to the West to find the key to economic success. Mr. Zhao in particular believes that Christianity and the ethical system based upon its teachings are the reason that Western countries dominate the global economy. “The strong U.S. economy is just on the surface,” he says. “The backbone is the moral foundation.”
Without a unifying moral system enforced by common values, Mr. Zhao argues, there can be no real trust between people. Without faith among business partners and between management and shareholders, only the threat of the law can keep people honest. “There are problems of corruption emerging. . . . There is concern about whether China’s market economy will ever become a sound market economy.”
Mr. Zhao has made his case in both popular and academic publications in the past several years, publishing more than 200 articles — for instance, “Market Economies With Churches and Market Economies Without Churches” — explaining how Christianity leads to long-term growth. “From the ancient time till now everybody wants to make more money,” Mr. Zhao told me. “But from history we see only Christians have a continuous nonstop creative spirit and the spirit for innovation.”
Three cheers for Peter Zhao! Now, if we could only get the WESTERN intelligentsia to see this……
Hallelujah!
With Paul, in Phil 1:16-18, I rejoice that Christ is being proclaimed – whatever the motive!
More and more, China at the beginning of the 21st Century looks like China at the beginning of the 20th, as the Manchu dynasty faded from the scene. The only question is whether today’s transition will be violent (a replay of the warlordism of the 1920s or a last-ditch attempt to subsume domestic problems in a war to “liberate” Taiwan) or peaceful.