So perhaps Peking should be a little more wary when in a contest with an entity that can match history for history and continuity for continuity--the Roman Catholic Church (tip to Instapundit):
Rome isn’t making many waves with Beijing right now, but then Rome always takes the long view. Look at what happened in Poland. The party there thought the new Cardinal was a quiet scholar. Imagine their shock when they discovered that he had secretly built an army of the best minds in the country, one student at a time. Those 50 million Bibles are going to explode one of these days, when Beijing least expects it.
Indeed, I wrote about this possibility 2-1/2 years ago:
Given the role of the Church in bringing down Soviet Communism and their empire in Eastern Europe, you'd think the thugs of Peking would be wary of accepting the Roman "gift" of abandoning Taiwan into their Middle Kingdom. Anything that gives hope to those who struggle and sometimes riot under the provocations of poverty and anger against the authorities could bypass the Great Wall and bring down the regime.
Interesting times, indeed.
Or perhaps a ruler of China will be in the blast radius of one of those bombs:
The king has become a Jew. He has detroyed Bel, killed the dragon, and put the priests to death.
The corrupt high priests of the Chinese Communist Party who continue to benefit from the communist political control even as they no longer believe in that pseudo-religion could meet their end when the party is destroyed and China is killed.
You don't need to believe in prophecies to take lessons from men who witnessed intense political and inter-state struggles around them and wrote based on their experience.
Interesting times, indeed.