"The giant sleeps, and let it, for should it wake the world will shake." Napoleon
During the Ming dynasties through the 15th-16th centuries China was the most powerful land in the world. The Forbidden City in Beijing was called the world's meeting point. However, since then China became inactive, falling behind other developing countries, until after the death of their revered Chairman Mao in 1976. Since then it has been playing "catch-up" with the rest of the world.
Certainly since the Beijing 2008 Olympics, China, the Sleeping Giant, has woken up. As a nation on the international stage, China lends to most of the developed world. Its infrastructure is growing by leaps and bounds, and its technological advances nearly match those of the US. Its cities surpass those of any other nation in size, architecture and transportation systems. Now its cyber wars with the United States have become the norm, and the "Great Firewall of China" keeps out foreign influences the Communist Party does not want. Even social media is controlled, with Weibo instead of Facebook, and you had better be careful what you tweet, or how you pun! http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/11/28/chinas-latest-crackdown-puns/
Christianity in China is on the rise as well, with younger, well-educated urbanites no longer sensing Christianity as distinctly Western. The perception that becoming a Christian is like becoming a traitor to China has been shed, but because Christians make up the largest civic group in China, the government is stepping up on repression: http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/0111/In-China-a-church-state-showdown-of-biblical-proportions.
One wonders what sort of dreams China has had during their long sleep of being suppressed since the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). You cannot erase centuries of Confucianism, traditional Chinese religion and culture in a nation with an orientation to longevity. A type of longevity that dismisses the deaths of several hundred student demonstrators protesting inflation, limited career prospects, and corruption of the party elite in Tianamen Square (1989), as just one more sacrifice on China's path to freedom, is a formidable instantiated cultural characteristic. Add to this value of sacrifice in service of the greater good, the freedom and love of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and you have dynamite for cultural renewal on a global scale. Notably, the only doctrine the Chinese government tried to repress in the state-run Three-Self Church was the second coming of Christ and the eschatology surrounding that. With patience already built in the Chinese psyche, they are naturally conditioned to believe and wait for the fulfillment of God's promises, and that has the Communist Party on edge.
In teaching international students from China I have noticed a difference in the last ten years in their awareness of the Western world, and their desire to join an international community mediated by the English language. In a time when most ELT research and practice has gone the route of localizing standards and methods and emphasizing the social aspects of language learning, the Chinese have come on stage in a big way desiring English as an international language. Within them resides the dream that global communication is possible, and that it transcends nationality and even culture. This is analogical to their attitude shift towards the Christian faith.
In a book edited by Wong, Kristjansson and Dornyei (2012) called Christian Faith and English Language Teaching and Learning, both chapters by Don Snow in "The Globalization of English and China's Christian Colleges" and Peng Ding in "Cosmopolitanism, Christianity and the Contemporary Chinese Context: Impacts on Second Language Motivation" address the ongoing trend of English language learning opening doors of opportunity for Chinese young people. Perhaps this dream was even kept conscious throughout Mao Tse Tung's Cultural Revolution, and even watered the seeds planted by 18th century Christian missionaries to China such as Hudson Taylor and Gladys Aylward.
http://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=uxFrwwhunzAC&oi=fnd&pg=PR3&dq=Dornyei,+Wong,+Kristjansson&ots=JKKQupztRq&sig=JNMigUCBL22gUerrcCQyi4LXkm0#v=onepage&q=Dornyei%2C%20Wong%2C%20Kristjansson&f=false
In any case, long slumbers lend themselves to dreams of great substance. When it is a giant, these dreams reconfigure the whole world.
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