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Opinion
Letzte Aktualisierung: August 6, 2021

China's worship of the new potato god

By Johnny Erling
Ein Bild von Johnny Erling

The People's Republic feels superior to the rest of the world as a technological and economic high-roller. But its Achilles' heel is whether it can feed its 1.4 billion-strong population in the long term. Of all people, the ideologue Xi Jinping clearly warns against this.

Just one block away from Beijing's Foreign Ministry, devout Chinese light incense sticks day by day in front of hundreds of holy figures in the Dongyue temple, asking their respective patron saint to watch over life, death and fate, wealth, happiness or health. Founded in 1319, the once most important Daoist monastery complex in northern China was destroyed several times but had always been rebuilt. Twenty years ago, atheist Beijing reopened it as a "people's art museum" and provided replicas of the 1,316 deity figures counted in 1928. Nevertheless, the temple has not lost its spiritual attraction.
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