Since western astrology represents the western matrix, let's analyze China's natal chart. When we do this, remember that we're actually analyzing China through the gaze of the West, or through it's own gaze of itself as fit modernized (or westernized). The spiritual principles we use to analyze the PRC here are western, which makes for a good analysis since the PRC was a reaction to the West, using an western ideology.

The China we analyze here will be the People's Republic of China. Since there are many national projects that have made China and remade China, there are many Chinas or natal charts that we can use to look at the various Chinas throughout history. The one we're looking at here is the Communist one, the one with Chairman Mao, and today lead by Xi Jinping.

Aquarius Moon/Rising

This may surprise westerners, who tend to view China through an orientalist lens of being both ancient and controlling, but the People's Republic of China was founded on new and revolutionary principles.

The rising sign of a country is the image that country tends to portray to the world. China was an experimental project. Mao wanted to unite all the third world nations against the colonizers. In it's early days, all the way until today, the image that it wants to portray to the world, most specifically the nations of the third world, is that of anti-imperialism. China wants to unite all the third world nations in solidarity, with itself as leader. How Aquarian is that?

There's a lot of radicalness with this Aquarian-ness of China. The PRC was a class struggle and an anti-racism project. It's power came from the working people. It established communal ownership over private ones. Early Communist China refused to establish diplomatic relations with white America, but welcomed black American ambassadors as representatives of an independent black third world nation within the United States. Mao spoke in support of empowering people of color. China basically saw their struggle as against a much larger narrative of imperialism and it was this need for revolution that they wanted to import into the world.



If a person's Moon represents (their heart, haha) their heritage, then a nation's Moon represents their history. Aquarius Moon wants to forfeit all history. It only likes what is new and revolutionary. It hates all that is traditional, sentimental, and nostalgic.

With Moon in Aquarius, China's national project was to repress its heritage and recreate itself as a new and revolutionary country.

China's Moon in Aquarius is echoed by an Uranus in Cancer. If Moon in Aquarius is a history that seeks to escape historicity, then Uranus in Cancer is a revolutionary principle that begins with the clan. It tries to recreate the primary unit of belonging in a society. China replaced the ancestral family with a socialist community. As it utilizes capitalism, it also utilizes the nuclear family.

Personally, Moon in Aquarius tries to resist feelings. Nationally, Moon in Aquarius tries to resist history. It wants to recreate history. That's exactly what China tried to do inside its own borders, with the Cultural Revolution, and outside its borders, campaigning for a third world resistance to imperialist powers.

Sun in Libra/Venus in Scorpio

While the rising sign may be the image of a country it presents to the world, the Sun sign is image of the country that it itself recognizes. Personally, a Sun sign is the ego. It's what makes you recognize yourself in the mirror. For a nation, the Sun sign are national traits that make Chinese people recognize Chinese-ness.

Libra is the only sign of the zodiac that is a machine. Sun in Libra is a little cold. The Libra symbol I like to use the most is the mirror. The mirror is a symbol of assimilation, of comparison, and mimicry. It's a game of seeing how much you are like your friend, your enemy, your rival and how much you are different to create your own meaning. Since Libra rules the skin, it's interested in superficial things or things that happen on the surface of a being.



Fundamental Chinese values are social values. Your network or relationships tend to spell out your destiny. It's a society of keeping everyone accountable. There's concepts like losing face (the face being a Libran surface) or comparison (with one's neighbors, friends, and coworkers) that keep everyone really socially conscious. The point of constant comparison isn't to be the best or number one, but rather to know your own place, whether you're exceptional, mediocre, or need work in some area. It's an exercise in social awareness.

China also sees society, and the world, through the lens of Libran stratification. Despite, or maybe because of, it's Aquarius rising, or image as the world's third world leader, China sees the world through social hierarchy. During my last visit, someone told me: "We see the white man as being very high, and China used to be down here with the black man but now we are rising up. We haven't surpassed the white man yet, but we're rising faster. Sorry, my black brothers!" Then he laughed.

This is China's weird antagonism. Despite it being revolutionary through image, what it's actually really good at is copying its neighbor. The way it resists imperialism is by copying it. It sees this assimilation as leveling the unbalanced scale of China-US relations. As it imitates the West, it absorbs anti-black ideology. Today China's relationship with Africa is really weird, because it uses the language of third world solidarity and colonization together.

China's Libra Sun is in the eighth house, where it represents the social values of the nation. It's ruler is in the ninth house of ideology, in Scorpio. This Libra middle of the road-ness comes out in politics, where no one really says what they're thinking but tries to say things that are bland, go unnoticed, or are acceptable for a diverse point of view. It's an ideology that doesn't perform conflict but one that orchestrates consensus.

Why is Chinese ideology, despite it's revolutionary image, so empty? Since the ruler of China's Sun sign is in Scorpio, conjunct a Scorpio Midheaven, this means that no one wants to actually be known. This Scorpio Venus can be seen in Deng Xiaoping's policy of hiding and biding. He tells China to hide its capabilities and wait. Such a Scorpio tactic!

So, it's not that Chinese people have no thoughts. It's that it's national character prioritizes the appropriateness of a statement. Chinese ideology is socially conscious. It may not have any content by itself, but is fundamentally adaptive to whatever social context it finds itself within. It also tends to hide its own self awareness and only represent what is absolutely necessary.

As a Libra, China is also trying to balance ideas of fairness and unfairness in a really weird way. "It's not fair that you got to pollute all last century and we're just getting started!" it yells to the West as flood waters rise worldwide. It doesn't really see it's exploitation of Africa and Southeast Asia as unfair, since China also exploits its own people the same way. It's justice is always comparison. After comparing itself to the USA, it finds itself morally acceptable since nothing can really compare to the level of genocide done by the United States.

That's the thing about Libras. They know how to manipulate their social position based on how they want to be seen. China knows when to play the victim ("You bullied and colonized us for a hundred years!") and the superior ("Our GDP can grow the fastest out of everyone!") at the same time. It's national identity is one of mediating between inferiority and superiority.

Seventh House

This is where is gets kind of intense. The seventh house of a nation's natal chart is its relationships with other nations. It's how the nation defines what is outside of itself. With Saturn, Pluto, and Mars here, China has an extreme relationship with outsiders. I'm going to only talk about China's seventh house as its relationship with the West, since that's the institution China tries to differentiate itself against the most.

Today's China would not exist without America. That's simple fact. That's because China is always comparing itself against the West. This is a country that collected all the metal people had and melted it down, just so it could say to the West that it has just as much metal. More recently, the Chinese Dream propagated by the state is China measuring itself by American standards again, since it is imitating the language of the American Dream.

With Mars here, the relationship China has with the West is antagonistic. It competes with and wants to provoke the West. With Saturn here, China also feels oppressed by and feels like it must establish business relationships with the West. With Pluto here, it's China's image of the West that makes it go to extremes.

All this seventh house stuff reinforces China's Libran tendencies. What we have, when we look at China from the West, is a giant mirror. The US is afraid of China not really on China's terms, but because it echoes and mirrors all that is western. It is afraid of China's totalitarianism because it is afraid of its own totalitarianism. It is afraid of China's pollution because it is afraid of its own pollution. It's afraid of China's nationalism because it's afraid of its own nationalism. It's afraid of China's consumerism because its afraid of its own consumerism.



China's power (Pluto) is found in its relationships (seventh house). This appears in Chinese society and China's relationships with other countries. There is simply no way anyone can cut off relations with China and that's its power. Everything is made in China, sold in China, and mirrored by China. It is a social animal, one that defines itself through its relationships, but also defines everything it has a relationship with.

Aries North Node

Finally, China has North Node in Aries, meaning that it is on a quest to find and define its own authenticity. It is trying to see itself through its own eyes and from the inside out, rather than the outside in.

Since the South Node is close to the Sun, this is a chart that loses energy, or constantly vents. The ruler of the North Node is a Mars that asserts itself only in relation with the other, since it is in the seventh house. The authenticity that China defines is never going to be an asocial one but one that constantly adapts to changing circumstances.

The primal wound of China is in the Aries-Libra axis, which is about how it is seen and how that image affects how it is able to see itself. It's issue of authenticity is one of vision.