The name of "China" in Chinese is Zhongguo (中国). The first character zhōng (中) means "middle" while guó (国) means "Country" or "Kingdom" and commonly translated into English as "Middle Country" or "Middle Kingdom".
Some westerners tie to this name hidden meanings: that China considers herself the center of the world; looking at herself as the most important country with superior rights, deriving from this other hidden meanings like China's desire to control the world and more, but as my colleague Kang Jianxi pointed out to me today, there are no hidden meanings or hidden agenda, that the name simply means as the deep meaning of the first character zhōng (中) - taking the middle way, taking the balanced path without going to extremes of left or right, which is actually the core cultural essence of Confucianism and the Chinese culture.
This really got me thinking that our minds are so corrupt with the way of our power struggles that we assume that everyone thinks the same and has the same power desires.
So does China consider her self the center of the universe, a country that is above all others or a country that just wants to take its rightful place among the nations, as Christian Lou (who is usually a China critic from HK) says China just wants to achieve her rightful place of standing as one of the worlds super powers. (Between you and me, it is about time).
It actually makes a lot of sense to me, and that is how I believe the Chinese and their leaders see it and vision it. China does not want to master the World, does not want to conquer additional territories and anyone who read a little history knows that China has never conquered other countries, if anything they were conquered (before you start, yes there is a controversy about Tibet, but that is a different issue, which I will not go into now, and as far as China is concerned, Tibet was always Chinese territory, but again not our discussion). China wants to achieve its standing, to flourish as they should. China is a country which has went through several transitions and has understood that they can do better and be better. We should applaud this, assist in the making and not see it as a threat but as a deserved goal for a country and people that have struggled and worked very hard to achieve this objective.
So shouldn't we just realize that sometimes, some things are just what they are, with no hidden meaning, and should just be understood and taken literally?
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