Equinox in Beijing

Spring in Beijing is a fascinating season. Winters are very cold and summers are very hot, but spring and autumn can be gentle seasons, with autumn winning. Spring, of course, is the time of the equinoxal winds. The spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere will be on March 20 and the winds are already blowing. Fine red sand is whipped up from the Gobi desert and blown through any crack in the windows, covering every surface. Biking on Beijing’s streets, in a sandstorm is no fun at all. The Equinox happens twice a year, in March and September. Night and day are of equal length, when the sun sits vertically above the earth’s equator. For me, wherever I happen to be, it also evokes a questioning of human progress towards equality. A socialist colleague once went so far as to argue that ‘The Equinox is inherently socialist!’

If physics cannot really be claimed for one politics or another, China certainly can. But which one? The last two centuries have been tumultuous in China. Movements pressing the case for equality have been in powerful evidence since the Christian working men’s movement, the Taipings, started their rebellion against the Emperor in 1850 until they were crushed in 1864. One of my boyhood heroes, the Christian General Charles Gordon was dispatched by the British Crown to lead the Emperor’s armies in putting down the Taipings. Around 20 million people died. Gordon later died at Khartoum, also a martyr. To locate this in time and place for the peoples of the Whanganui Region, my current home in New Zealand, in 1864 another British officer, General Cameron landed at the river mouth and disembarked 3,700 redcoats, having just helped to secure again the jewel in the Crown, India.

Former Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai was born in the days before the Spring Equinox, 1898. He is often attributed as saying, in answer to a question about the impact of the French Revolution of 1789, “It is too early to say.” Premier Zhou’s studies in France no doubt included Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. What he is remembered for, however, is his diplomatic finesse. He was responsible for inviting President Richard Nixon, the first major Western leader since the end of the Second World War to visit China, in 1972. The economic reforms began in 1978 and China is well on its way to becoming the world’s largest economy, which it was up until two hundred years ago. How equal it will be, is for next week’s column.