Why We’re Taught to Fear China (and What That Fear Is Hiding)
An Eastward Look at Power, Prophets, and the Gardeners of Peace
There is a saying in the West: “The truth will set you free.”
But in the empire, that same truth can get you buried.
Lately, I’ve found myself defending something unpopular in Western Christian circles: my affection for China—not just the people or the culture, but the system of governance itself.
Not blind praise. Not propaganda. But a deep, spiritual recognition that something wise, ancient, and unfamiliar to Western frameworks is moving with quiet strength on the other side of the world.
In the dystopian resistance story I recently finished writing (Goodhello), one of the characters says:
“The West buries its prophets. The East protects its gardeners.”
It didn’t come from a news article or a think tank. It came from something deeper—a recognition, cultivated over years, that Western narratives have not just shaped how we see the world, but who we are allowed to trust, admire, or fear.
And China? It was cast as the villain long before most of us knew where the story began.
📚 Fear as Narrative, Not Reality
America doesn’t fear China because of what China has done.
It fears China because of what China might prove possible:
Lifting 800 million people out of poverty in a generation
Planning in centuries, not news cycles
Building social systems that center harmony over individualism
Cultivating scientists, engineers, and planners—not campaign-financed politicians
China doesn’t need to "invade" anyone. It’s not in their history, not in their interest, not in their Dao.
But to the West, that very absence of aggression is threatening. Because it reveals something the empire can't bear to see:
It’s possible to rise without domination.
🔥 Prophets vs. Gardeners
Jesus said:
“Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.” (Luke 4:24)
That rings true in every Western era:
Jesus: executed by empire
Martin Luther King Jr.: murdered after calling for economic justice
Oscar Romero, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton… all silenced.
The West consumes prophets. It buries them, co-opts their messages, and sells their image back to us as decoration.
But in the East—especially in China—what is revered is not the firebrand or the lone hero, but the gardener:
The patient steward
The harmonizer of systems
The one who prunes and plans, unseen but enduring
As the Dao De Jing says:
“The master does not seek greatness. She lets it come to her. She lives in harmony with the Tao, and the Tao flows through her.” (Chapter 22)
🌱 The Soil of Civilization
China is not just a nation. It’s a civilization-state—5,000 years in the making. Its governance isn’t static, but cultivated like a bonsai tree:
Pruned of chaos
Rooted in ancient memory
Trained to bend without breaking
Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, and yes—Mohism—all fed this evolution. These weren’t just philosophies. They were governance models, ethics codes, spiritual disciplines.
While the U.S. was writing its Constitution, China was adjusting a 2,000-year experiment.
The West frames freedom as self-expression.
China frames it as social equilibrium.
🧘🏽 What Other Faiths Say
From Islam:
“He who does not thank people does not thank God.” — Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad
China centers gratitude through ancestor reverence and national memory.
From Buddhism:
“The mind is everything. What you think, you become.” — Gautama Buddha
China governs mindfully, training discipline not as submission but as spiritual resilience.
From Judaism:
“Seek the peace of the city... for in its peace, you will find your peace.” (Jeremiah 29:7)
This is foundational to the social contract China holds between state and citizen.
From Indigenous wisdom:
“The land is our teacher.”
China’s spiritual governance traditions—especially Daoism—mirror this deeply. The land teaches. The land is to be harmonized with. The ruler is the gardener-in-chief, not the tyrant.
🕯️ So Why the Fear?
Because if the West allowed itself to see China clearly, without the veil of propaganda:
We’d question capitalist democracy as the only viable system.
We’d have to reckon with our own disintegrating infrastructures.
We’d wonder whether “freedom” without responsibility is truly free.
But more deeply:
We’d begin to admire a people the empire taught us to fear. And that admiration would plant seeds of unrest in the soil of empire.
🛡️ Living As the Designated Decoy
A friend told me recently that a character I wrote—Anna, a spiritual warrior exiled for telling the truth—reminded her of me. I deflected. She insisted.
And she might be right.
In an empire that fears gardeners, truth-speakers often become designated decoys—the visible targets so that others might be spared. That’s the cost of walking with eyes open.
But it’s also the call of those who remember what Jesus said:
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.”
Not the warmongers. Not the platformed. Not the powerful.
The gardeners of peace.
💬 A New Benediction
May we stop fearing the East as our enemy,
and start seeing it as our mirror.
May we listen for the prophets buried beneath our flag,
and honor the gardeners who quietly rebuild what empires destroy.
May we, like the best of both Christ and Confucius,
learn to speak softly, plant deeply, and resist loudly—when the time is right.
