China Proves the Point By E. Duncan, Wikimedia Commons The East India Company steamship Nemesis (right background) destroying Chinese war junks during the Second Battle of Chuenpi in the First Opium War, January 7, 1841 February 8, 2021 “The founding of the People’s Republic of China marked the end of the humiliation and misery the country has suffered.” — Chinese President Xi Jinping Most people who advocate pacifism do so out of revulsion against the horrors of war, certainly an understandable, if utopian, position. But China’s Neo-Confucians adopted their anti-military stance mainly for a bizarre reason: they believed that Chinese culture was so superior to all other cultures that no nation would try to destroy China. Instead, belligerent nations would simply recognize the superiority of China and would aspire to transition their own culture peacefully to that of the Chinese. A strong military would therefore be superfluous and expensive.