"In 1945 at the conclusion of World War II, China was in the midst of a civil war. Nationalist forces led by Chiang Kai-shek outnumbered the Communist forces led by Mao Tse-tung five to one. By 1949 the situation was reversed: the Nationalists had retreated to the island of Formosa (Taiwan) and Mao controlled the mainland.

"The State Department argued that the Nationalists lost because they were corrupt, brutal and lacked popular support and that the Communists won because the people supported them. They said that we gave the Nationalists all the aid that we could but that we simply could not turn back the force of history and the will of the people. The truth is that while the Nationalists had their flaws they were, without a doubt, preferable to the Communists.

"Professor Anthony Kubek of the University of Dallas documents how the Truman administration manipulated the situation: First, Harry Truman forced the Nationalists to form a coalition with the Communists, then he gave them inadequate aid, embargoed it after they had grown to depend on it and finally, when it looked like the Nationalists were going to lose, declared a 'hands off' policy and did nothing. It is unclear whether Truman fully understood the effects of his policy, but the clique of Mao supporters whom he appointed to the State Department’s Office of Far Eastern Affairs undoubtedly did.

"Truman’s step-by-step betrayal of the Chinese is worth studying. At the end of 1945 he appointed Gen. George C. Marshall his special representative in China and instructed him to threaten to cut off United States aid unless Chiang declared a truce with Mao and began negotiations to form a coalition government in which the Communists were represented.

"Demanding a position in a coalition government is a textbook Communist ploy. Characteristically, after they achieve a splinter position in a government, they go on to eliminate their opponents. Chiang was trying to show his good faith to the Americans, so he not only agreed to a truce but also began reducing his armed forces in the interests of peace and democracy. He deactivated 180 divisions out of a 300-division army and created six divisions with mixed Communist and Nationalist troops. He also began negotiations with Mao to allow him a position in a new government.

"In March 1946 the Communists broke the truce by pouring troops into Manchuria. The Nationalists retaliated and continued to advance, reasoning that the truce had been broken by the Communists. The United States blamed Chiang Kai-shek and responded to the incident by embargoing American arms and canceling a $500 million American loan. This was the turning point in the war between the freedom fighters and the Lightbearers of the motherland of China and the Communist hordes under the dominant minority leadership of the ruthless fallen ones.

"Henceforth, the Nationalists received little U.S. aid while the Soviets aided Mao’s forces. Stalin gave Mao all the weapons and equipment left in Manchuria by 700,000 surrendering Japanese troops at the end of World War II as well as nearly 600 shiploads of unused American lend-lease equipment which we had given the Soviets to fight the Japanese. The United States government did not protest!

"Meanwhile, American aid to the Nationalists since 1945 had been a betrayal from start to finish. The State Department tried to convince the American public that they had done everything possible to save the Nationalist government. In 1949, Secretary of State Dean Acheson (a devil incarnate if I ever saw one!) tried to prove that we had given them $2 billion worth of aid between 1945 and 1949 and that further aid would not change the situation. However, Sen. Pat McCarran proved that Acheson’s figures were 'misleading and false,' concluding that United States aid totaled only $110 million. <31> The fact is that after World War II, the U.S. government gave only token aid to the Nationalists and continually undermined them.

"(It is noteworthy that while an undergraduate at Yale University, Acheson was a member of Scroll and Key, an elite senior society that is apparently affiliated with Skull and Bones, another society on the Yale campus, many of whose members have played a leading role in providing Western support for the Soviet empire. Although he allegedly became an anti-Communist in 1945, he blocked efforts to fire accused Communists from the State Department in 1949-50. He remarked, 'I will not turn my back on Alger Hiss.' As you may recall, Hiss was a high-ranking State Department official who was accused of spying for the Soviet Union and was convicted of perjury and sentenced to five years in prison.)

"Under Marshall’s embargo the Nationalists could not get gasoline for the air force we had given them. Marshall had equipped 33 of the Nationalists’ best divisions with American 30-caliber rifles. Then he embargoed 30-caliber ammunition.

"In addition, our lend-lease supplies were inadequate. Col. L. B. Moody said that we didn’t send the Nationalists what they really needed, which was small arms and ammunition. What we sent, Moody said, were 'billions of moldy cigarettes, blown-up guns and junk bombs and disabled vehicles from the Pacific islands.' Furthermore, as Kubek writes, 'Lend-lease equipment intended for China [was] either destroyed or dumped into the India Ocean.'

"America’s aid cut-off had disastrous results for the Nationalists. Professor Kubek writes that 'General George E. Stratemeyer . . . testified before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee that he flew 90,000 Chinese troops north . . . We promised we would supply them, but the troops were left there, stranded, at the mercy of the Communists. [Stratemeyer testified,] ‘They had no ammunition, they had no spare parts, they couldn’t fight. They had to live, so the Communists took them over, and those they didn’t kill, I think they forced into their services.’

"Under the embargo the Nationalists were running out of everything. The New York Times reported on June 22, 1947, that their guns were so worn and burned that 'bullets fell through them to the ground.' Other arms lacked crucial parts. Professor Kubek says that some gun shipments reached China without bolts. They were therefore useless.

"In April of 1948 Congress appropriated $125 million in military aid to the Nationalists. But due to Defense and State Department delays the first shipment of American arms did not arrive in Shanghai until seven months later. By that time it was too late for Chiang Kai-shek.

"These aid 'mix-ups' are the beginning of a disturbing pattern which we shall see as we trace the history of United States support for anti-Communist resistance movements. One mix-up can be a mistake but we must look for other motives when it happens repeatedly.

"The Nationalist forces retreated to Taiwan, completing their withdrawal December 7, 1949. The West hailed Mao as a potential moderate, a Nationalist figure who would not necessarily be aligned with Moscow. But, since the Communists established the People’s Republic of China on October 1, 1949 (thanks to the government of the United States of America), they have killed from 33 to 61 million Chinese, according to a report released by the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security in 1971.

Inasmuch as ye did it not to one
of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

"America, you have abdicated your fiery destiny to defend the Chinese people and their right
to become a sister nation of light, illumination and culture! You, America, sold the Chinese into slavery! You allowed the fallen ones, the power elite, the betrayers of the people in the earth, the spoilers from the beginning to betray the Lightbearers of the motherland of China; and what they could have been is amply seen today on the island of Taiwan, where freedom reigns, where free trade and commerce has built a strong capitalist nation, a free people and those who are able to understand the path of the Master/disciple relationship.

"On December 8, 1975, Saint Germain gave a landmark dictation entitled 'Freedom for Taiwan.' In it he warned, 'This is the hour and the century of the turning point for Terra, for her evolutions, and for opportunity. This very year in the elections in America, in world politics, there is the turning.' In 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected president and on December 15, 1978, he announced that the United States was establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) after 30 years of nonrecognition.

"At the same time, he severed diplomatic relations with the Republic of China on Taiwan, which the U.S. had previously recognized as the sole legal government of China, and agreed to terminate the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan. No provision was made in the agreement for Chinese treatment of Taiwan and China never pledged to refrain from using force to recover the island. Instead, the PRC reiterated its long-standing position that the'“liberation' of Taiwan did not involve the U.S., calling its reunification with Taiwan 'China’s internal affair.'"

"We have seen the shadow of coming events in various parts of the world, as you have also seen this shadow. In the case of the visit to the United States of the head of Red China and his presence here in this hour, in the attempt by this government to keep China as friend and therefore to encourage and sign pacts of trade, we see the same danger in the building of Red China as was the case early in this century in the building of the Soviet Union—the same psychology, the same political view, and that is: rather than remain enemies, it is better to remain friends; rather than to have extremism and a harsh regime, to encourage moderation.

"Although the facts are known, there seems to be a certain political naivete, regarding the base elements and tenets of World Communism. Thus, I, your Guru, El Morya, on behalf of the Darjeeling Council and Kuan Yin, who represents the Karmic Board at this quarter, do address you concerning the worldwide problem of Communism and the inability of Western nations, powers, and groups to effectively combat this force and this cancer.

" . . . We desire the research to take place among yourselves concerning the facts and figures, nation by nation, beginning with Red China and the Soviet Union . . . Thus, in taking up the burden of Kuan Yin, you see that the forces of World Communism in China are pitted directly against the heart of Mercy, the Mother of Mercy, and the very hearts of the lightbearers of mainland China and Taiwan.

"It is Kuan Yin who is crucified daily by every deed of murder and desecration and rape of the Woman and her seed perpetrated by the fallen ones in the worldwide Communist movement. These desecrations, beloved hearts, go on and are not stopped, whether in Afghanistan or in Honduras, because the powers-that-be in the West are at a loss to understand their own political equation or that of World Communism and how to become the very stalwart defense against this encroachment.

" . . . Beloved hearts, it is treacherous indeed, for I tell you, the capacity to misuse power
and to engage in acts of cruelty by Red China is far greater than that of the Soviet Union by the very race, by the very ancestry of these individuals. And if they had the same power and development of technology, wealth, and organization as the Soviet Union today, I tell you, they would not hesitate to move and take on the entire world. Thus, you understand somewhat the forces of prophecy and realize that an amalgamation of Red China and the Arab nations against Europe is not out of the question and can be seen as a serious consideration by the powers of darkness..

" . . . We guide you with precision, for precision is the requirement of the hour—and timing. Thus, occupy till I come, for this space is now reserved for the speaking to you of the beloved Kuan Yin."

Messenger’s Invocation

Beloved Mighty I AM Presence from the Heart of God in the Great Central Sun, I call upon the sacred fire. I call upon the mighty Elohim of God. I call unto the Great Central Sun Magnet to raise up Friends of Freedom on mainland China and in Taiwan.

Raise up the Light of God within them! Raise up the mighty threefold flame! Raise up the Buddha! Raise up the Christ! Raise up the Divine Mother of Kuan Yin, Gautama Buddha, Avalokitesvara—the Christ of Lanto and Lord Confucius, the Christ of Jesus and Kuthumi, beloved El Morya, and the entire Spirit of the Great White Brotherhood! And let the Christ of their own hearts descend—The Lord Our Righteousness! Seal all Friends of Freedom on earth in that mighty Christ flame!

I call to beloved Mighty Hercules to protect all freedom-fighters and lightbearers in mainland China and Taiwan. Raise them up now! Seal them by the power of the sacred fire! Bind the Antichrist and all opposition to them now!

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Mother, we call to you, Friends of Freedom from out the Central Sun and the octaves of Light! Descend into embodiment with your people in mainland China and Taiwan! Descend now, Cosmic Christs and lightbearers, and defend the Way of Peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Mother, Amen.

"Confidence begets confidence and fear begets fear. We understand that primitive nations now emerging into greater scientific advancement and the blending of old cultures, such as the many tribal communities that compose China, through their acceptance of the teachings of Karl Marx, continue to seek to fabricate a better world made in total unawareness of the Saviour and of the ascended masters. We cannot condone the philosophies of such nations as these who constantly seek the destruction of what to them seems an activity of foreign warlords bent on tearing down that which they desire to build for humanity; for their foundations are not in Christ but in erroneous concepts which deny the Lord that brought them to the feet of Life.

"The wedding of these conflicting cultures is presently impossible. East and West indeed cannot meet any more than North and South or black and white seem to be able to find the common meeting ground upon which to base an improved civilization. They know that unless they do, chaos will continue, but they have not yet manifested the stature of soul, the stature of grace, and the tireless search for a solution which the Law requires in this age."

The Forces of the Lord Shall Descend:
Special Dispensations for the People of Russia and China

Friends of Hope:

As mankind stand at the portal of the new year, they await brighter hours.

In the world today dwell many who, solely by reason of family and training, are atheists and nonbelievers. Predominating in Russia and China, these atheists and their godless society seem to thrive. I tell you, all that seems to be is not. For there is alive in many hearts in the Orient, as well as in Russia herself, a great desire for divine worship and the finding of the pathway that leads to God, to divine compassion, and to Home.

Hence in the forthcoming year, we of the Hierarchy shall capitalize upon this for God. We shall respond in a more than ordinary way to hearts that seek us the world around. We shall show them that the pathway to universal Christ-realization is the only path that leads to the triumph of all nations in one beautiful kingdom of universal hope.

If they prevent us from disseminating this information directly, we ourselves will go underground. We ourselves will work with those who still call upon the name of the Lord in secret, stepping through the veil, if necessary, in masterful identities capable of maneuvering any divinely approved effort to bring a ray of Light and hope to the Communist nations.

We shall even go backward in time if necessary, summoning souls from other systems of worlds that have previously been identified with Russia and China. We shall ask special dispensations that they too may step through the veil and assume masked personalities that will not be seen for what they are but will have the power to appear and disappear at will and to evade all authority.

These shall walk the earth as Apollonius of Tyana did, coming and going in the courts and marts, producing miracles that may not always be readily apparent but shall have their
certain effect upon civilization. These beings shall lead some of the inner neophytes as well as advanced disciples of our Brotherhood into levels of triumph that shall eventually revolutionize the Revolution and produce in its place in the hearts and minds of the people the type of receptivity that shall help them to overcome the dread threats that mankind currently face.

I do not say that none of these threats shall materialize, for mankind have free will. But surely the preponderance of our energy shall come forward now on behalf of the mankind of earth
and enter into the spiritual fight, the battle of Armageddon. <1> And that battle shall not be won
by those who have gained temporary control over the communications media, the press, and the publishing industries of the world or by those who would maneuver the governments and political parties, the textbooks and the schools, and every function of society.

I say unto you in God’s name, the forces of the Lord shall descend. As Enoch said long ago, “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.” <2> Therefore these things shall be. And as beloved Helios said earlier this year, “Nothing
shall be able to stay My Hand.” <3>

And so the next year shall indeed be one of struggle; yet out of the chalice of the year, perfection shall ultimately come.

I AM your servant,

Igor

1. Rev. 16:16.

2. Jude 14-15.

3. Helios, Tape Recording MT 7301, The Summit Lighthouse

Mysteries of the Holy Grail

ARCHANGEL GABRIEL ON
THE MYSTERY OF THE TRANSLATION
VIII

Children of the Light of Freedom,

I call for the amethyst jewel of Taiwan to manifest now! Let the light of freedom be ablaze on land and sea in the heart of man as it is in the heart of his God!

As the tides of diplomatic relations rise and fall and the actions of the few dictate the fate of the many, the Great White Brotherhood is not moved. For we see the end from the beginning.

We see the outworking of the human consciousness in human affairs at all levels of interchange, national and international. And we know, given current trends of foreign
affairs, that there is a probability in the current and the direction of the tide which, although problematical from the standpoint of Light and Darkness, will nevertheless be the outplaying of an international game of chess that unfortunately is based upon the logic of the carnal mind.

It is when that logic runs out, when all moves on the international chessboard have been exhausted, that the alternatives of the invincible Christ mind will be summoned. At that moment the students must be ready.

Thus we offer the God-solution to every human problem and we counsel our representatives in every field, as they seek to maintain their forcefields of light, to clear the heart for the amethyst jewel and to bear the gift as the Magi unto the nations.

I AM Gabriel. I have been sent by the Lord God on many a diplomatic mission on behalf of Alpha and Omega unto the evolutions of these systems of worlds. Although the political strategies of the fallen ones have at times been a setback to the strategy of Light, it is most often the culpability and the vulnerability of the children of light that carry the elements of self-defeat and a corresponding delay of cosmic timetables.

Therefore, in the face of changing international relations, I bring a message to all people of goodwill from God the Father:

The wicked have no power to destroy the bastions of light, whether by their manipulations of science, the balance of the international economy, or by the current recognition of Red China at the expense of the security of Taiwan <1> —if a free people will unite worldwide to confirm their freedom in a holy alliance of the will of God through the heart of the blessed God of Freedom, Saint Germain.

The tyrannies and treacheries of a Babylon or an Assyria, of a Gog or a Magog, <2> have no power to deter the unalterable divine plan of Almighty God for the hundred and forty and four thousand, for the City Foursquare, <3> and for the path of the ascension for those who elect to do the will of God.

When freedom is pursued as a virtue of the Holy Spirit, as an element of the Personhood of God himself, then that right and that freedom is defended by all of the hosts of the Lord and the armies of heaven led by The Faithful and True, <4> camped even now upon the hillsides of both Taiwan and mainland China.

But when the people place their trust solely in physical armaments and diplomatic accords, when the day of karmic reckoning, individual and national, is upon them, all of their defenses and diplomatic agreements cannot hold back the descending light of God that accelerates the return of the collective misqualification of God’s energy by the people and by their leaders who have mismanaged his government over the nations.

The law of karma is inexorable. It exacts of each soul a just recompense of energy expended and energy interchanged with every other soul.

The leaders of the nations can do no more than the people allow. The great question of the hour is: How much will the people allow? How long will they allow their representatives to act in their name and yet to betray the inner flame of freedom that burns on the altar of every heart?

Will the Communist leaders of Red China be able to subdue and assimilate the people of Taiwan by levels of human force? Or will they lure them with overtures of a peace that is without honor?

The answer is: If the people allow it.

Men and women, one by one, can be the instrument of the salvation of earth and all nations if and when they allow God to work through them. Solutions sought by human means alone, neglecting the priority of the Logos, must come to naught. “But my words shall not pass away.” <5>

Kingdoms may rise and fall, but the soul tethered to the personal Christ Self through Jesus Christ, Saint Germain, Mother Mary, and every ascended master of the Great White Brotherhood will remain a pillar in the temple of my God, <6> both in heaven and in earth.

The Darjeeling Council sets forth its solution to world problems. It is Mission Amethyst Jewel. We stand in a vote of confidence around the Darjeeling Council table in honor of Saint Germain and all servant-sons and daughters who embody the Great Spirit of Freedom as a mystery of the Holy Grail.

We do not bargain with men’s souls. We do not trade a free nation, a free people, for the security of an alliance with those who have built their empires upon the blood of martyrs, millions upon millions of souls murdered for the dragon of World Communism—perverting the energies of Alpha and Omega, East and West, through the governments of the fallen ones in the Soviet Union and Red China.

The silent witness of the slain upon the altar of God is that the crucifixion which they have endured in the battle of world freedom leads not to the death of the soul or the death of the flame of freedom that yet burns upon the altar of the nations, but to a glorious resurrection of the soul and its freedom through the path of initiation opened to the Jew and Gentile nations by the Saviour Jesus Christ.

Through the crucifixion and the blood of the martyrs, spilled just as his blood was spilled upon the cross, there comes the judgment of the princes of darkness, of the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bondman and every free man <7> who has failed to acclaim the Lord Christ as the God who is the Life and the Person of every son and daughter.

Those who have denied the Word incarnate in his children, those who have failed to give God the preeminence due his holy name I AM THAT I AM, cry out to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” <8>

The Lamb is the Person of God, or Guru—always present in the embodied prophet and messenger—who sits upon the throne of the great threefold flame within the heart of every disciple of that Lamb and of that universal Christ in heaven and in earth, of whom the ascended masters and their embodied messengers and disciples are the logical extension.

Learn then the mystery of the Grail. The wrath of the Lamb is the white light of Alpha and Omega, always present in those who have not broken their tie to the great chain of hierarchy, the chain of all who share consciously in the universal being of God.

This white light of the Mother in the Matter sphere of being and of the Father in the Spirit
sphere is the acceleration of karma, as Above so below, which can take place only through
the embodiment of the Lamb. The Lamb, my beloved, is incarnate wherever there is the
Guru-chela relationship held intact by the cords of love that bind the soul to the universal law of being.

Think not that the martyrs of World Communism have died in vain, nor that they do not exercise the power of Almighty God as a counterweight to human infamy. For John the Revelator saw “under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

“And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.” <9> Unto them is the Word of the Lord spoken and through them he continues to utter his decree: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

The crucifixion is the judgment. Each time the Son of God is nailed to the cross of World Communism, the fallen ones are judged. And while their end is the second death before the Court of the Sacred Fire in the final judgment, <10> sons and daughters of the cross of Alpha and Omega go marching on to the Great Central Sun on the path of glory from sea to shining sea.

Now we contemplate the great mystery of the translation whereby, through the baptism of the Holy Ghost <11> and through the blessed violet transmuting flame, the gift of the immortal Saint Germain, chelas of the ascended masters in embodiment become the counterpart of the saints robed in white, holding the balance of life in Matter on behalf of earth and her evolutions and the souls “slain for the word of God” abiding in the etheric plane.

Thus those “that should be killed” yet abiding in time and space understand the meaning of the translation of the very spirit of prophecy. They understand death as the death of the carnal mind and of the human ego and the ultimate triumph of the Son of God and his victory over hell and death <12> to be reenacted by the Piscean conqueror in the Aquarian age right within their very own body temples—even in the secret chamber of the heart.

These stand in life this hour as they stand in the violet transmuting flame to transmute the liar and his lie, the murderer and his murder. They know the meaning of the amethyst jewel, for
they have become that jewel in the purple fiery heart of Saint Germain.

They will stand on the shores of a physical universe to behold the new heaven and the new earth within the configuration of their own stellar body, the great causal body of Life, and of their own Great Central Sun, the I AM THAT I AM. They will see the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ <13> in the white sphere of the Mother exalted and expanded in the Matter temple.

Just as the Person of Christ, when enthroned by the free will of the soul within the temple of his very own being, becomes the amethyst jewel for the crystallization of the soul’s alchemical marriage to the living Spirit—so the disciples of that path of God-realization who cluster around the One who is the Word, the Lamb incarnate, form the amethyst jewel of community: clusters of ‘neutrons’ and ‘protons’ as particles of participation in the great God-awareness which the Great White Brotherhood is committed to sustain within the earth body as a counterweight of Light midst an evolution yet in the darkness of spiritual neglect.

This multiplication of the light body of God-servers is the growing crystal of the amethyst jewel known as the mystery school which we have ordained in the community teaching centers of Church Universal and Triumphant.

Now let the amethyst jewel of Taiwan appear in physical dimension. Now let Saint Germain’s violet-flame diplomacy become the international coup that sets at naught the designs of the wicked and out of seeming setback produces the miracles of the causal body of his own Guru, the Great Divine Director, of the jeweled mind of the Buddha, and of his own vast storehouse of Merlin’s magical Mother light.

You who would see Camelot come again nation by nation, this is the year of the rallying of knights and ladies of the flame standing on the line with Morya and Mother where Light meets Darkness and consumes it.

I AM
GABRIEL

I ANNOUNCE TO YOU
THE AMETHYST JEWEL
FOR THE ALCHEMY OF God-FREEDOM
NATION BY NATION

1. U.S. recognition of Red China: On December 15, 1978, President Carter announced simultaneously with officials in Peking that after 30 years of nonrecognition, diplomatic relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the U.S. would be formally established as of January 1, 1979. The U.S. also agreed to sever diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (Taiwan), which it had previously recognized as the sole legal government of China, and to terminate the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty with Taiwan at the end of 1979. In his nationally televised speech, Carter said that by recognizing the PRC as the single government of China, “we are recognizing simple reality.”

He added that the U.S. would continue to maintain “cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.” The first major step in publicly acknowledging the legitimacy of the Communist regime had come in 1972 with the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué by the U.S. and Peking at the conclusion of President Nixon’s trip to China. In that communiqué the U.S. pledged to reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as “tension in the area diminishes.” But even though efforts toward normalization of relations had been underway for some time, Carter’s announcement still came as a surprise to many.

It drew angry responses from members of Congress who complained that the president had not informed them of his actions—despite the fact that Congress had earlier adopted a resolution specifically instructing the president to consult them before abrogating the Taiwan defense treaty. Senator Barry Goldwater and 25 other legislators actually contested the constitutionality of the president’s unilateral move in a legal suit, but their complaint was dismissed by the Supreme Court on December 13, 1979. In addition, many were concerned that Carter had not properly provided for the security of Taiwan. China, in fact, never pledged in the 1978 joint communiqué to refrain from using force against Taiwan.

The PRC’s long-standing position that the “liberation” of Taiwan by peaceful or nonpeaceful means did not involve the U.S. was reiterated by the Chinese in their normalization statement: “As for the way of bringing Taiwan back to the embrace of the motherland and reunifying the country, it is entirely China’s internal affair.” The Nationalist government on Taiwan remained firm in its response to the agreement, declaring that “the United States, by extending diplomatic recognition to the Chinese Communist regime, which owes its very existence to terror and suppression, is not in conformity with its professed position of safeguarding human rights and strengthening the capability of democratic nations to resist the totalitarian dictatorship.

The move is tantamount to denying the hundreds of millions of enslaved peoples on the Chinese mainland of their hope for an early restoration of freedom. Viewed from whatever aspect, the move by the United States constitutes a great setback to human freedom and democratic institutions...Under whatever circumstances, the Republic of China shall neither negotiate with the Communist Chinese regime, nor compromise with Communism, and it shall never give up its sacred task of recovering the mainland and delivering the compatriots there.” To offset what was considered by some to be a betrayal of Taiwan in the 1978 communiqué, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, signed into law on April 10, 1979.

It said that “it is the policy of the United States to consider any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.” In addition, it promised to provide the defensive arms necessary for Taiwan to “maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” and stated that the U.S. would “maintain the capacity” to, in effect, resist any use of force by the PRC to gain control of Taiwan. After 1978, the PRC began to issue a series of proposals aimed at peaceful “reunification of the motherland.”

The Nine-Point Proposal of September 30, 1981, for instance, offered Taiwan a “high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region” that would retain its armed forces and further promised that “the central government will not interfere with local affairs on Taiwan”—an offer flatly rejected by the Republic of China. In a significant development intended to ease U.S.-Peking disagreements over the arming of Taiwan, the U.S. signed a joint communiqué with Peking on August 17, 1982, pledging to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan “leading over a period of time to a final resolution.”

The U.S. also stated that arms sales would not exceed, qualitatively or quantitatively, the
level supplied in recent years since normalization of relations. Taiwan charged that the communiqué violated both the spirit and the letter of the Taiwan Relations Act—and according to some political observers, this could indeed be the case. As the military threat posed by modernization and improvement of the PRC’s defense capabilities increases, the quantity and quality of arms necessary to maintain Taiwan’s self-defense (a level which the U.S. promised to provide in the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act) will probably exceed the limits on arms sales set by a literal reading of the 1982 communiqué.

(See Jeffrey B. Gayner, The China Decision and the Future of Taiwan, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, no. 70 [Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1978]; John Tierney, Jr., ed., About Face: The China Decision and Its Consequences [New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1979]; Robert G. Sutter, China-U.S. Relations, Congressional Research Service, Issue Brief No. IB76053 [Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1982]; Luella S. Christopher, The August 17, 1982 U.S.-China Communique on Taiwan: A Summary of Its Terms and Possible Implications, Congressional Research Service, F/A IP 21 [Washington, D.C.: The Library of Congress, 1982]; Martin L. Lasater, Taiwan: Facing Mounting Threats [Washington, D.C.: Heritage Foundation, 1984].)

The course of events that led to the fall of Nationalist China in 1949, the take-over by the Chinese Communist Party, and normalization of relations in later years has been carefully studied by scholars. One school of thought holds that there was nothing the U.S. could have done to prevent the downfall of Chiang Kai-shek. Others take the view that the establishment of diplomatic relations with the PRC in 1979 was the logical extension of a “hidden” policy undertaken by some members of the American diplomatic corps in the pre-World War II period and possibly earlier.

They argue that Foreign Service officers and individuals in prominent positions in the Department of State actively worked to undermine Chiang Kai-shek and to promote the Chinese Communist Party—some working as Communist agents to carry out Moscow’s plans and others, such as members of the influential policy-making group called the Institute of Pacific Relations, representing the interests of the international financial coterie. Thus the question, according to these analysts, was never whether the U.S. should recognize the government of Communist China but when.

For further reading on this subject, see Anthony Kubek, How the Far East Was Lost: American Policy and the Creation of Communist China, 1941-1949 (1963; reprint ed., New York: Twin Circle Publishing Co., 1972); and Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (New York: Macmillan Co., 1966), pp. 818-19, 904-9, 945-56, 1000-1001.

2. Ezekiel 38:2; Revelation 20:8.

3. Revelation 21:16.

4. Revelation 19:11-16.

5. Matthew 24:35.

6. Revelation 3:12.

7. Revelation 6:15.

8. Revelation 6:16, 17.

9. Revelation 6:9-11.

10. Revelation 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8.

11. Matthew 3:11; John 1:33.

12. Revelation 1:18; 20:14; Isaiah 25:8; I Corinthians 15:54.

13. Revelation 11:15.

Mysteries of the Holy Grail

ARCHANGEL GABRIEL
ON THE MYSTERY OF EVIL
IX

Children of the Light of Taiwan,

You cannot hold the line of world freedom in Asia—in your economy, in your government, in your industry, or in your armed forces—without direct contact with God through the blessed mediator, your own individual Christ Self.

Your souls are sent as the survivors of an ancient battle between Light and Darkness where a handful of the children of Chin defeated a dragon of idolatry and ideology whose nucleus was death and the cult of death.

Understand that the dragons and beasts of the apocalyptic vision of John represent the momentums of individuals who have elected by free will to ensoul mass movements of an energy veil, or e-veil, known today as World Communism but existing and preexisting as a force of anti-Love (the cancerous consciousness of the seed of the wicked) before the flood of Noah, the fire of Mu, and even the destruction of the planets Maldek and Hedron. <1>

Great were the forces of the mechanical ones. Their spaceships were extensions of mother ships, and their black magicians under Satan extended their material power through clones of themselves—chemical humanoids programmed with malintent to the destruction of the souls of the standardbearers of the Lord’s Christ.

Star Wars is no mere science fiction but the surfacing of subconscious memories of ages past when the evolutions of Light and Darkness, as the wheat and the tares of Christ’s parable, <2> were strewn across the solar systems of this galaxy; and the battles of Lucifer’s fallen ones, waged against the teams of conquerors of Archangel Michael’s bands, were indeed a war of the worlds in the valley of the gods.

The earth bears record of their feats of power hurled against other feats of power as even the black magicians were divided against one another, expending the children of God in their planetary contests of “Who is greater and more glorious among the seed of the devil?”

The competition unto the death, as the fallen ones locked horns in their power struggle for the dominion of worlds, could be broken only by the Archdeceiver himself, that Lucifer who reunited the legions of darkness on the common theme of the common enemy: the Lord Christ and his legions. Seeing his blinding light and the imminent victory of the children of the sun, their competition now became “Who could destroy to the death more souls with greater subtlety and deftness?”

The cunning cruelty of the Chinese Communists from Mao to Hua Kuo-feng and Teng Hsiao-p’ing <3> derives from their fallen masters. These astral overlords control the chessboards and their pawns in governments bond and free, their goal being always to extend the line of their territory to include more and more of the ground of the children of the light, challenging their right to evolve in freedom upon that ground.

Children of the light of Taiwan, you have held that line with the legions of Jophiel and Christine for many an aeon and many an arena of the time/space continuums! And your own Chiang Kai-shek, Madame Chiang, and Chiang Ching-kuo <4> have figured again and again as heroes and heroine of your legions of light.

The people of Chin, both from the mainland and on the island of light, are of an ancient evolution. They are bearers of wisdom’s scrolls dictated by Lord Lanto and Lord Confucius as emissaries of the Cosmic Christs unto your root races <5> serving on the second ray—the ray of the incarnation of the Word.

You once knew the message of Messiah as the message of your own inner man of the heart, <6> exemplified in your sages. Now the Lord Christ as Saviour and as Word incarnate must become the ultimate reality of each individual selfhood, that you might see his victory through yourselves for freedom, God-freedom, in Asia and the world. For when he and his legions were attacked by Lucifer and his bands—and this did indeed occur as it is recorded in the Book of Life and in the annals of the history of these several systems of worlds—the children of Chin rallied and stood fast at their Thermopylae. <7>

But the final act of the numerous scenes of Armageddon is yet to be outplayed, and the players East and West are even now rehearsing their parts and their roles. They choose again and again according to free will, according to the light or the dark motif of the heart.

But the great sadness of all sadness is that those who align with the strategies of the fallen ones do so thinking they do God service, <8> convinced, as they say, “beyond all doubt” that they have pursued the right course of action for world peace, world trade, and the balance of power.

They are brainwashed so to think, they are indoctrinated so to be. Some are the programmed computers of the strategists of world conquest, soothing the fears of the people with their
self-esteem as the archarchitects of a world utopia.

The children of the light in all of China are one indissoluble Union. Their oneness is their
origin in God yet to be realized in their orientation of God-freedom, their culture of the Mother, and their victory in the light. While the masterminds of world dominion think they arrange
and rearrange power and anti-power by diplomatic maneuvering, the two-edged sword of righteousness forged of ‘molecules’ of souls East and West keeps the way of the Tree of Life for the children of God bond or free.

As the subsurface rocks of the sea part the most deliberate waves, so the rock of Christ in the consciousness of the embodied servant-sons and daughters of freedom, jutting out from the bedrock of Reality, parts the astral currents and the astral hordes.

The sons of dominion march by another route. It is the direct route of the descent of the light of the crystal cord from the I AM Presence to the altar of the heart. It is the direct route that connects the Mind of God to the mind of man, bypassing the byways of human reason and problem solving.

We come bearers of the amethyst jewel—the seventh-ray solution for the seventh age, the seventh-ray freedom for the seventh dispensation. Let noble knights and ladies volunteer
their individual amethyst crystals of the heart for Saint Germain’s three dots—Taipei, Vancouver, and Mexico City. Let diplomatic relations be established between Camelot and the lightbearers of the nations. Let outposts of Morya’s realm confide the mysteries of the Holy Grail, as two by two twin flames in love witness unto the nations.

Let the counterfeit Illuminati, <9> imitators of the Round Table and of the mystery schools, carve up the earth with their secret diplomacy and their trading in the souls of light! Saint Germain and Morya have never lost a fight! They hold the timing of the victory and they know their chelas whose time has come.

I AM Gabriel, emissary of the councils of goodwill of the Great White Brotherhood. I come from Darjeeling where I have attended closed sessions on Project Amethyst Jewel.

Let representatives of the courts of heaven be ministers with portfolio, presenting their credentials by their light and by their record of attainment. Let them be received extraordinary and plenipotentiary, their expertise in God-government and God-victory gained through the enlightenment of the “little book” <10> and the Everlasting Gospel, <11> and the tutoring and the testing of their souls by the Guru Mother who surveys the seas that cover the Motherland and penetrates the hermetically sealed alabaster cities of the deep.

From the flame room of the central altar of Mu and the twelve surrounding temples come the emissaries of God-government to the earth. They stand with the righteous, the tolerant, the patient, and the meek who, emboldened by the Word, endowed by its mysteries, will bear the Holy Grail to the nations and serve his Body and his Blood to those who have lost the memory of higher cons­ciousness—those children of the light of Asia who stand steadfast in the battle and who will now win by the enlightenment of the Cosmic Christ.

Enter Lord Maitreya into the halls of China.

I AM
GABRIEL

I ANNOUNCE TO YOU
THE MYSTERIES
OF THE ADEPTS OF THE AGES
WHO KNOW THE HOUR OF THE VICTORY
AND SUMMON IT

1. The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is what remains today of the planet Maldek, destroyed when its lifewaves waged a war ending in nuclear annihilation. A group of asteroids closer to the sun is the record and remains of the destroyed planet Hedron, overtaken by the pleasure cult of its lifewaves who, when reincarnated on earth, became known for their cult of hedonism. The existence of a planet between Mars and Jupiter was predicted by Johann Titius and restated in 1772 by German astronomer Johann Bode based on the numerical progression of the distances of the then-known planets from the sun.

Following the discovery in 1781 of Uranus, whose location conformed to Bode’s law, astronomers began to search for the missing planet, finding instead the asteroid belt. About 95 of the thousands of asteroids, or minor planets as they are called, that have since been discovered in our solar system are part of this main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers have also discovered a group of asteroids whose highly elliptical orbits take them at times among the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars) that are nearer to the sun. There is still much speculation among scientists over the origin of these minor planets; the two main hypotheses are that asteroids are either fragments of a planet that exploded or was destroyed, or they are particles that never condensed to form a planet.

2. Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43.

3. Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong): 1893-1976, one of the 12 founders of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921 and leader of Chinese Communists from 1935 to his death. So great was his influence that even after his death, Mao remained a key figure in Chinese politics. Summarizing Mao’s early years as chief of state of the Communist People’s Republic of China, Dr. Richard L. Walker notes in The Human Cost of Communism in China: “Millions were executed in the immediate post-power seizure period in Communist China. Many of the executions took place after mass public trials, in which the assembled crowds, whipped up to a frenzy by planted agitators, called invariably for the death penalty and for no mercy for the accused.

During this early period, Mao and his colleagues made no effort to conceal the violent course being followed. On the contrary, the most gruesome and detailed accounts were printed in the Communist press and broadcast over the official radio for the purpose of amplifying the condition of mass terror the trials were clearly intended to induce.” As Mao himself had foretold in 1927 in one of his earliest works, “to put it bluntly, it is necessary to create terror for a while
in every rural area.” There is a broad range of estimates as to the exact number of Chinese who have died at the hand of the Communists; Dr. Walker estimates that the figure was probably close to 50 million.

Some of the most brutal campaigns waged by the Communists under Chairman Mao were:
the Agrarian Reform (1949-52) resulting in the execution of several million landlords; invasion and take-over of Tibet (1950), promising Tibetan autonomy but eventually establishing a Chinese military dictatorship that killed hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, confiscated or destroyed monasteries and religious scriptures, stripped the people of their private property, and reorganized the country into peasant associations; campaign against counter­ revolutionaries (1951-52, 1955), leaving one and a half million dead in the first 12 months; purges in business, finance, and industrial circles leading to many executions and suicides (1951-53); a vehement liquidation campaign to silence rightist critics following Mao’s “Hundred Flowers” speech inviting intellectuals and others to voice their criticism (1957-58).

The Great Leap Forward (1958-60) was a disastrous attempt to rapidly increase economic development through the formation of large rural communes, in some cases separating families and forcing peasants to adopt a militarized lifestyle; the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-69), used by Mao to strike back at pragmatic leaders who had risen to power after his economic failures and to secure a group of successors devoted to his revolutionary ideals—included uncontrolled and violent attacks by radical youth organizations, called the
Red Guards, against those who were “taking the capitalist road,” purges of intellectuals who were forced to work in labor camps or were executed, and relocation to the countryside of an estimated 25 million youth, many of whom were assigned to work the land for life; the tearing down of traditional Chinese culture, customs, and religious practices with systematic destruction of libraries, shrines, and art works.

Hua Kuo-feng (Hua Guofeng): born 1920, succeeded Mao after his death in 1976 as Communist Party chairman. According to the research of leading Hong Kong journalist
Ting Wang, Hua was notorious for his brutality and ruthlessness during his early political career. As the man in charge of land reform in Chiaotung and Yangchu counties, he reportedly arrested, beat, tortured, and killed people at random, suppressing landlords and peasants who did not support the Communists—often under the guise of a program to root out “local bandits and bullies.”

During the anti-rightist campaigns starting in 1957, Hua reportedly supervised the purging of dissidents in the province of Hunan. He fanatically supported Mao’s programs and went out of his way to show that Mao’s theories could be implemented successfully, no doubt facilitating Hua’s rapid rise to power. After 1971, Hua worked in Peking directly under Premier Chou En-lai in agriculture and forestry and perhaps as a troubleshooter. He was elected to the Politburo in 1973 and was appointed minister of public security and sixth-rank­ing vice-premier in 1975.

Following Chou’s death in January 1976, Hua was named premier. In April he was also named first vice-chairman of the party and thus second in command under Mao, who is said to have remarked of Hua: “With you in charge, I am at ease.” During the power struggle that followed Mao’s death, Hua moved quickly to arrest the top radical leaders known as the “Gang of Four,” who were blamed for the excesses of the Cultural Revolution. Hua then became the first man to fill all three positions of premier, chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and chairman of the Military Commission.

After Teng Hsiao-p’ing’s comeback (see below), Hua’s power was reduced, though he continued to hold top positions. In 1980 Hua lost his position as premier, was succeeded by Teng Hsiao-p’ing as head of the Military Commission the following year, and in 1982 was ousted from the Politburo. Teng Hsiao-p’ing (Deng Xiaoping): born 1904, Communist leader noted for his pragmatic departure from Mao’s radical ideology and for his effort to modernize China through economic reform and contact with the West. Teng rose through the Communist Party ranks to become China’s vice-premier from 1952-66.

In 1956, when he was elected to the powerful standing committee of the Politburo and was given the responsibility for party administration as Communist Party general secretary,
Teng ranked among the four or five most powerful men in China. It is said that Teng, working alongside Chou En-lai, was the chief organizer of the ruthless purges that followed the “Hundred Flowers” speech. Twice during his political career, Teng was stripped of his posts —once from 1966-73 during the Cultural Revolution and again in 1976 for a little over a year —and was twice reinstated. In 1977, following the death of Mao, he regained his former positions and began to reestablish his strong power base.

Though Teng officially holds no government office today, he is nevertheless the leading power in China. In October 1983, Time magazine reported that a new campaign to reevaluate and confirm Chinese Communist Party membership was underway and that “in everything but name...it will be a purge, an attempt by China’s Deng Xiaoping, 79, to secure his own authority and that of his chosen successors...No personality cult has developed, but it is clear that Deng is being placed on a pedestal almost as high as the one once reserved for Mao Tse-tung.”

See Richard L. Walker, The Human Cost of Communism in China (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971); Ting Wang, Chairman Hua: Leader of the Chinese Communists (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1980); U.S., Congress, House, Representative Robert J. Lagomarsino citing “The Defacto Warden,” an article by John P. Roche, Congressional Record, 96th Cong., 1st sess., 1979, pt. 3: 3803; and “New Purges,” Time, 31 October 1983, p. 50.

4. Chiang Kai-shek: 1887-1975, soldier and statesman who ruled China from 1928-49 and headed the Chinese Nationalist government on Taiwan. Chiang Kai-shek was trained for a military career and took part in revolutionary activities against the Manchus and President Yuan Shih-k’ai. In 1918 he joined Sun Yat-sen (leader of the Kuomintang, or revolutionary Nationalist Party) in his attempt to unify China and overthrow the warlords. He served as chief of staff of a Cantonese army and was later named as commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy.

After Sun’s death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek, who had previously followed Sun’s policy of cooperating with the Communists, became the central figure of the growing anti-Communist movement. In 1927, he broke with the Communists in a bloody coup that marked the beginning of the long civil war between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. As commander in chief of the Nationalist army, he waged a campaign against the warlords from 1926-28 and in 1928 became head of the central government in Nanking and generalissimo of Chinese Nationalist forces. Chiang Kai-shek’s reign was fraught with intermittent fighting with the Communists and full-scale war with the Japanese.

After a Kuomintang-Communist alliance to fight Japanese aggression, hostilities between the two groups continued. A major Communist campaign against Chiang Kai-shek finally drove him off the mainland to Taiwan in 1949. There he established and headed the Nationalist government in exile, promising to retake the mainland. Madame Chiang (Soong Mayling): born 1897, belonged to the prominent, westernized Soong family. She was the sister of Soong Ch’ing-ling (wife of Sun Yat-sen) and T. V. Soong, famous industrialist and statesman. Mayling spent nine years in America as a young girl and was educated in the U.S., an honor graduate of Wellesley College.

She married Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 after he first agreed to become a Christian like herself. Madame Chiang did social service work in her homeland, was commander of the airforce during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and became a member of the central executive committee of the Kuomintang in 1945. She was the first Chinese woman to be decorated by the Nationalist government of China, receiving the highest military and civil decorations. She did much to promote her husband’s cause in the West and wrote articles on China published in U.S. journals.

In 1943 she became the second woman and the first Chinese to address Congress. So great was her popularity with the American public that from 1943-67 she was listed among the 10 most admired women of the world. Madame Chiang joined her husband in Taiwan in 1950 and organized the Chinese Women’s Anti-Aggression League. As of this writing, Madame Chiang is residing in New York. Chiang Ching-kuo: born 1910, the oldest son of Chiang Kai-shek by his first wife and current leader of the Nationalist government on Taiwan. He held various administrative and military offices in the Kuomintang government while his father was in power on the mainland and he accompanied Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan after the Communist take-over.

On Taiwan, Chiang Ching-kuo became his father’s personal aide and took command of the military intelligence and security agencies. In 1965 he was named minister of national defense in command of the army, served as vice-premier 1969-72, and was appointed prime minister by his father on June 1, 1972. After Chiang Kai-shek fell ill in October 1973, Chiang Ching-kuo acted as the effective ruler. He became chairman of the Kuomintang in 1976 and in March 1978 was elected, unopposed, to the office of president.

5. A root race is a group of souls, or a lifewave, who embody together and have a unique archetypal pattern, divine plan, and mission to fulfill. They are sponsored by Manus, who ensoul the Christic image for the root race. According to esoteric tradition, there are seven primary groups of souls, i.e., the first to seventh root races. See Mark L. Prophet and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Climb the Highest Mountain: The Path of the Higher Self, pp. 68, 411; and H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (Pasadena: Theosophical University Press, 1977), 1:42; :171-72, 248-51, 300-303, 433-36, 614-15, 768-70.

6. Ephesians 3:16.

7. Thermopylae, in ancient times a narrow pass between mountain and sea along the east coast of Greece, is celebrated in history and literature as the site of a heroic battle in the face of overwhelming odds. There, in 480 b.c., 300 Spartans led by King Leonidas temporarily halted the invasion of Greece by the Persians under Xerxes. Instead of fleeing the much larger Persian army, the Spartans put up a valorous fight for three days, dying almost to the last man, while the Persians lost 20,000 according to Greek historians. Although the Greeks were not victorious at Thermopylae, they soon turned the tide of the war by defeating the Persian fleet at Salamis—where but a few Greeks were lost—thus forcing Xerxes and half his army to retreat to Asia.

8. John 16:2.

9. The Illuminati (“Enlightened Ones”): a secret order founded in Bavaria May 1, 1776, by Adam Weishaupt (1748-1830), a professor of canon law at Ingolstadt University, Germany, and a former Jesuit. This order, originally called the Society of Perfectibilists, was divided into an intricate system of graded classes and degrees of initiation. Members observed strict oaths of secrecy and obedience to superiors, with secret confessions and mutual surveillance. At its height, the Illuminati operated throughout a wide area of Europe. It is said that Weishaupt’s real aim—hidden from novices at the outer rings of his group—was to replace Christianity with the worship of reason and to establish a world government through which the Illuminati would rule the world. The group was outlawed by edict of the Bavarian government in 1785, though some claim that the order and/or its ideals and methods have lived on. See John Robison, Proofs of a Conspiracy (1798; reprint ed., Los Angeles: Western Islands, 1967); and G. Edward Griffin, The Capitalist Conspiracy (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: American Media, 1971).

10. Revelation 10:2, 8-10.

11. Revelation 14:6.

---

China Today

Arriving in Beijing on June 1, 2006, we are amazed. First, by the cleanliness of the airport.
And then by the efficiency of the passport and immigration personnel. Stepping into the arrival zone, we are greeted by two valets from our hotel who welcome us in English, take our bags, and escort us to a waiting van. The driver gives us bottles of water and cold towels to refresh ourselves. We sit back and learn something about China:

- Its population, at 1.3 billion, has more than doubled since 1950.

- There are 100 cities in China with populations of 1 million or more.

- Its land mass is the third-largest in the world (after Russia and Canada).

Looking out the van window, we remark on the good condition of the road and how pretty everything is. Potted flowers line the median. Along the roadsides, poplar trees. "Why doesn't anyone talk about how clean this city is?" we want to know. We imagine how disappointed a Beijing tourist in New York or Miami might be.

Our hotel is large and modern and, again, immaculate. The service—we are not surprised to discover—is superb, from the doormen who rush to grab our bags, to the greeters who welcome us as we step through the revolving doors, to the smiling receptionists, solicitous concierges, capable operators, et al. Everyone is courteous, smart, and efficient. Nothing is ignored or neglected. They are all:

* clean
* well-groomed
* well-trained
* well-spoken
* courteous
* respectful
* upbeat
* positive
* eager to please

This is what awaits us in our hotel suite, $250 per night:

* an abundant fruit basket
* a small bottle of complimentary wine and two wine glasses
* two sets of robes, one terrycloth and the other silk
* a fully stocked mini-bar
* an easy-to-use safe
* four "free" bottles of water
* a fully equipped desk, including a tray with rulers, staples, paper clips, etc.
* a fax machine
* high-speed Internet (cable and wireless)
* a welcome letter from the manager
* a sofa table stacked with hardbound books on China
* coffeepot, cups, and a selection of coffees
* a basket of toiletries for women, including skin creams, hair products, etc.
* a packet of toiletries for men, including razor, shaving cream, and aftershave
* in the evening, cotton slippers beside the bed, cookies on the night table, and
a rose on the sheets

Only in Asia can you enjoy service this good. It's undoubtedly a result of the unusual combination of a highly cultivated—yet largely poor—population. It will be interesting to see if, as China becomes wealthier, its service declines.

We take a walk in the afternoon and are once again amazed - this time by the size and modernity of the city. This is not at all what we expected: dirt roads . . . drab, Communist-era buildings . . . gloomy people . . . etc. We had heard stories about how big and impressive Shanghai is, with its towering buildings of steel and glass - but we had heard nothing much about Beijing.

These days, there are four million cars circulating through Beijing, our guide tells us. Just five years ago, there were only a few hundred thousand. Everywhere we look, new buildings are going up and every good-sized parcel of land is being prepared for some future construction.
In preparation for the 2008 Olympics, all the beautiful wooden palaces and pagodas are being restored. And bustling workers are everywhere—repairing roofs, trimming hedges, relining sewers, fixing streetlights, repainting woodwork, and sweeping the pavement.

You can't help but have the thought everyone seems to have when they come to China: This country is booming.

"We'd better get on the ball," BP told me. "At this rate, they'll be way ahead of us in no time. They are already making everything we buy. And now, with all this building, they are going to be using up all the oil and gas."

"China's growth has hit us in the construction industry," EP, a real estate developer in South Florida, said. "They are buying up all the cement and steel they can get their hands on, and it has sent our costs skyrocketing."

Only six percent of China's population is middle-class, our guide tells us. Still, that's 90 million people. If that population triples in the next 10 years (which is probably a conservative estimate), that means the country's consumer economy in 2015 will be as big as the U.S. economy is today.

Why would that be a threat to us? It means more stuff we can sell them—assuming, of course, that we have something useful to sell in 2015.

It's Good to Know: About China

- English is the most widely spoken foreign language in China. Millions of Chinese study English, beginning in primary school. Universities offer several specialized programs, including Tourism English and Business English.

- The official policy in China is one child per family. This policy, meant to reverse the population explosion that the Communists created, has succeeded in reversing population growth. But the longstanding Chinese cultural preference for boy babies has resulted in some reprehensible practices, such as gender-based abortions and baby selling.

- The Chinese invented the art of working with lacquer about 2,500 years ago, during the feudal Zhou dynasty. Lacquer is used to decorate boxes, fans, plates, musical instruments, furniture, and the pillars of temples and palaces.

- China is the world's longest-running civilization. During the Xia dynasty, 4,000 years ago, the Chinese were using a written language and had mastered making silk.

- Among the many firsts the Chinese can claim are the production of cast iron in the 4th century BC (1,800 years before Europe discovered it), paper in the 1st century (1,000 years before Europe), block printing in the 9th century (500 years before Europe), and mechanical clocks (powered by the water-wheel) in the 8th century. Other firsts include suspension bridges, the foot stirrup (which revolutionized cavalry warfare), and (the two every Westerner knows) gunpowder and rockets.

1. Don't raise your voice. The trick to getting what you want in China is the same as it is anywhere else: persistence. Calmly pursuing your objective despite passivity or even resistance will eventually work for you, regardless of how difficult the circumstances are.

2. Don't be dismissive. All people, regardless of where they come from, want to be treated
with courtesy and respect. Taking the time to look people in the eyes when you speak to them,
to speak in a well-modulated tone, and to say "please" and "thank you" go a long way.

3. Don't be gloomy. We all cheer up when we are in the presence of cheerful people. If you want to get the best reaction out of the people you meet, smile at them.