Asia All things China.

[little graham]

Tell that to up to a possible 20 to 45 million dead with an estimated 6% of those also dead after human rights abuse external of the starvation of the rest under the forced collectivisation during The Great Leaf Forward that China has not had human rights problems.

What do you know about the 100 million Indians killed in the Indian wars across north america? Why is it different to mention American human rights violations compared to chinese? Its not a racist thing is it?

America should be held accountable for the atrocities it gained from and the perpetrators of those atrocities against Chinese women and children ,they protected.

 

[John]

Mate this is a thread about China. Start a thread about the US and I might contribute though based on your previous efforts on this board I suspect your inability to discuss anything without turning it into some kind of conspiracy may turn me off.

 

[The_Reaper]

My mother always goes on about how Tibet used to bully China when ever Tibet is brought up.

 

[Borry]

Never say that Taiwan is a seperate country.

 

[John]

Really useful site about Chinese Archaeology.

http://www.kaogu.net.cn/html/en/News/

 

[John]

Ornate Clothing from the Ming Dynasty Unearthed in China

http://www.livescience.com/49044-clothing-unearthed-china-tomb-ming-dynasty.html

 

[John]

I am half way through Frank Dikötter 's Mao's Great Famine and it is a chilling read. For those that have some fantasy as to China's human rights record and a further fantasy as to Mao's place as a defender of the working classes need to give serious consideration to their thoughts.

A review in the Guardian is worth reading. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/05/maos-great-famine-dikotter-review

The first sentence alone says this book should be read "........by anybody concerned with the way in which a simple idea propagated by an autocratic national leader can lead a country to disaster, in this case to a degree that beggars the imagination." Cannot agree more. Beggers the imagination sums it up. I read page after page of footnoted tragedy from the starvation of the farmers to the appalling working conditions of the workers in factories. Do some really believe that this was all done to aid the masses in some class warfare against evil capitalism? Because if they do they are utterly deluded. They in fact insult the dead millions who perished under the evil perpetrated on behalf of class warfare.

Mao was a profoundly evil individual who was an egotistical paranoid dictator who sits easily with Hitler, Stalin and any other despotic dictator that could be named. Taking away the starving of millions of his own countrymen for the sake of some ego driven attempt to outstrip Britain economically via the ham fisted collectivisation of the countries industry and agriculture his treatment alone of many of his CP comrades with specific reference to Liu Shaoqi during the equally appalling Cultural Revolution should surely give some cheerleaders food for thought. After reading about the Opium Wars and a brief read of the treatment of China by Europeans the Chinese had the right to question the motives of those nations involved. Be that as it may nothing can ever come even close to the depths of depravity that the sheer bloody minded idiocy of the Great Leap Forward reaped on the Chinese masses. I say bollocks to any that even attempt to defend China's descent into savagery based on capitalist wars of the previous century. To quote someone else that would be "nasty stuff".

 

[little graham]

American kids ate food Stalin stole from the Ukraine in the 30's. Food that killed millions in one winter. Then they armed stalin to fight hitler. a hitler scared shiftless of what happened in the ukraiine as Stalin massed an army on his border afraid of the american funding of Hitler.. Then the americans freed japanese soldiers who did similar to the Chinese.

While you keep telling us how evil china is, china enters its 4th decade of trying to combat global warming. your lovely poms and yanks have yet to start.

 

[John]

American kids ate food Stalin stole from the Ukraine in the 30's. Food that killed millions in one winter. Then they armed stalin to fight hitler. a hitler scared shiftless of what happened in the ukraiine as Stalin massed an army on his border afraid of the american funding of Hitler.. Then the americans freed japanese soldiers who did similar to the Chinese.

While you keep telling us how evil china is, china enters its 4th decade of trying to combat global warming. your lovely poms and yanks have yet to start.

I do not tell anybody that China is evil and your utter inability to understand that is telling. There is a reason for this and the truth of the matter is that you are a weird mix of extreme left and extreme right views that utterly cloud your abilty to see that history is generally a black arm view even if you, John Howard and the IPA like it or not. I have no doubt that you would have been clapping the Nazis in the 30's and Pol Pot during the killing fields such is the lot of the extremist.

Now take this in. Get it into your head. I am reading Chinese history as I find it very interesting. So with that I am reading on such diverse Chinese subject matters such as the Opium Wars and now time under Mao. I will be reading more and delving deeper as it it fascinating. I will also write about what I learn and will not fail to discuss the Chinese on any subject be that mass killings or the invention of moveable type and stiff if you are not able to understand that that it what history is about, diversity.

The killings perpetrated in the name of the masses and called The Great Leap Forward is nothing, and I repeat the word NOTHING to you so get it that into your very thick and very dense skull, to do with American kids eating food Stalin stole from the Ukraine nor any of the other shit that you just posted. It is to do with the evil perpetrated by an evil man. Deal with it! Stop talking about events from elsewhere that have NOTHING to do with the subject at hand. You have tried this before and with that in mind I started a thread that you could use and you have said **** all. You are a fraud pal.

With that fraud call I am going to call you out as a racist as well. "poms and yanks" FFS while supposedly trying to have a serious conversation. Are you not someone who IIRC claims Aboriginal descent and rants periodically about racism? If so would you like it if someone made trite insults by calling indigenous peoples boongs? Pull you head in.

 

[telsor]

American kids ate food Stalin stole from the Ukraine in the 30's. Food that killed millions in one winter. Then they armed stalin to fight hitler. a hitler scared shiftless of what happened in the ukraiine as Stalin massed an army on his border afraid of the american funding of Hitler.. Then the americans freed japanese soldiers who did similar to the Chinese.

While you keep telling us how evil china is, china enters its 4th decade of trying to combat global warming. your lovely poms and yanks have yet to start.

Isn't this supposed to be the history board?

 

[telsor]

American kids ate food Stalin stole from the Ukraine in the 30's. Food that killed millions in one winter.

The US produced far more food than they needed, why would they buy from anywhere else?
In 1933, they passed the 'Agricultural Adjustment Act', which basically tried to cut the surplus production by paying farmers to leave fields fallow and kill off excess livestock. (it was an attempt to raise prices to deal with the depression, but the surplus production was a genuine issue).

Then they armed stalin to fight hitler.

Not until after they joined the war. Pre war, Churchill considered the possibility of joining with Germany to fight the Russians, not knowing that the Germans and Russians had been cooperating (early German tank exercises had been done in Russia), lots of trade and the 1939 Nazi Soviet pact to divide eastern Europe. True, neither Stalin nor Hitler thought it would last, but the west's opinion is best demonstrated by the allied plans to help Finland against Russia in the winter war.

a hitler scared shiftless of what happened in the ukraiine as Stalin massed an army on his border afraid of the american funding of Hitler.

Hitler scared shiftless....Yeah, nah...He was pretty confident (over confident as it turned out). Certainly not concerned about what happened in Ukraine.

As for American funding of Hitler...WTF???

Then the americans freed japanese soldiers who did similar to the Chinese.

When/where did they do this?

A large part of the reason the US and Japan went to war is the US standing up for China (increasingly harsh trade embargoes, which force Japan into action). Why would they then turn around and Help Japan against them? (remembering that the war in China was (mostly) Japan Vs the Nationalists through most of WW2, with the communists sitting by the side and husbanding their forces).

While you keep telling us how evil china is, china enters its 4th decade of trying to combat global warming. your lovely poms and yanks have yet to start.

So they've been trying to stop global warming since before the theory was around?

In that case, Australia's been doing it for ~80 years, since we build the snowy mountains scheme...

Mind you, considering China's latest (non enforcable) plan is to keep increasing emissions for the next 16 years, then if they've been working on it for over 30 years already, they're clearly not very good at it.



There are a great many impressive things about China, and it's history. Making crap up does nobody any good.

 

[John]

Baron von Richhofen reported in the 1870's that Northern China was destitute of trees. Basically every peoce of the tree was foraged for everything from the smallest twigs to roots. It got worse in 1949. The CP under Mao considered nature an enemy. At the launching of The Great Leap Forward Mao said "that there is a new war: we should open fire on nature" He made this statement to The Supreme State Conferance in January 58.

What was left was decimated even further to fuel backyard furnaces to produce useless Iron in some dictatorial drive to outstrip Britain. Sadly this was an utter failure as the vast majority of what was produced was low grade and useless. Even East Block European allies complained about the poor quality.

 

[clogged]

Are you not someone who IIRC claims Aboriginal descent and rants periodically about racism?

He's the son of two £10 poms, has said so on these boards before. No indigenous heritage, just appropriates their culture for political ends.

 

[nut]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balangay

These are interesting boats.... before the vikings too.


The first wooden watercraft excavated in Southeast Asia, the balangay is only found in the Philippines where a flotilla of such prehistoric wooden boats exists.[10] Nine specimens were discovered in 1976 in Butuan, Agusan Del Norte, Mindanao, and 3 have already been excavated. Examination and extensive investigation reveals that the extant boats found at the excavation site date back to 320, 990 and 1250 AD.[4][7]

 

[evo]

I am half way through Frank Dikötter 's Mao's Great Famine and it is a chilling read. For those that have some fantasy as to China's human rights record and a further fantasy as to Mao's place as a defender of the working classes need to give serious consideration to their thoughts.

A review in the Guardian is worth reading. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/05/maos-great-famine-dikotter-review

The first sentence alone says this book should be read "........by anybody concerned with the way in which a simple idea propagated by an autocratic national leader can lead a country to disaster, in this case to a degree that beggars the imagination." Cannot agree more. Beggers the imagination sums it up. I read page after page of footnoted tragedy from the starvation of the farmers to the appalling working conditions of the workers in factories. Do some really believe that this was all done to aid the masses in some class warfare against evil capitalism? Because if they do they are utterly deluded. They in fact insult the dead millions who perished under the evil perpetrated on behalf of class warfare.

Mao was a profoundly evil individual who was an egotistical paranoid dictator who sits easily with Hitler, Stalin and any other despotic dictator that could be named. Taking away the starving of millions of his own countrymen for the sake of some ego driven attempt to outstrip Britain economically via the ham fisted collectivisation of the countries industry and agriculture his treatment alone of many of his CP comrades with specific reference to Liu Shaoqi during the equally appalling Cultural Revolution should surely give some cheerleaders food for thought. After reading about the Opium Wars and a brief read of the treatment of China by Europeans the Chinese had the right to question the motives of those nations involved. Be that as it may nothing can ever come even close to the depths of depravity that the sheer bloody minded idiocy of the Great Leap Forward reaped on the Chinese masses. I say bollocks to any that even attempt to defend China's descent into savagery based on capitalist wars of the previous century. To quote someone else that would be "nasty stuff".

yep, I have bought up the the famine a few times here over the years to no avail. It was an absolute disaster.

 

[John]

yep, I have bought up the the famine a few times here over the years to no avail. It was an absolute disaster.

It is the blame of others for this tragedy that does me in. Everyone else other than the Great Helmsman were to blame for the workers working in their own faeces and urine because the only toilet was blocked, the three canteens to serve serve 5,700 workers at one establishment that closed after one hour each day that left many working 12 hour strait shifts with no food, the 40,000 exposed to silicon dust, the rotting of food forcibly requisitioned by the authorities from starving farmers to sit in railway sidings as the entire transport system disintegrated, death by heatstroke and cold. I have not even got into detail as to the absolute starvation of the farmers and their families and the devastation wrought on their communities. But apparently others were to blame such as "American kids eating food Stalin stole from the Ukraine". Seriously!

To this day the Chinese public at large still blame the USSR though. Why? Because the truth is that Mao was just the first emperor of one a new dynasty to join all the others. Once in place dynasties never allow the founder to be spoken ill of. Blame the USSR for this tragedy, not the egomaniac who was really to blame.

 

[evo]

My understanding is that one of the biggest problems was that the local bureaucrats were too scared or competitive to tell the central government that the crops were failing so each year they were just submitting ever increasing crop yield figures. Thus no-one in government really knew how bad it was until the damage had been done.

Stupid system.

 

[John]

My understanding is that one of the biggest problems was that the local bureaucrats were too scared or competitive to tell the central government that the crops were failing so each year they were just submitting ever increasing crop yield figures. Thus no-one in government really knew how bad it was until the damage had been done.

Stupid system.

Yes but to say yes to your question as an all encompassing reason is too simplistic. There was plenty of warnings that a disaster was and eventually had unfolded but Mao ego was as big as any other autocratic dictator.

Frank Dikötter research is from reports from various local archives that had a limited 30 year release in some Chinese Provinces and counties. He has footnoted every incident and event. Mao received numerous reports, personal letters, complaints by cadres and there were even reports as to the issues. There is still a lot of archival records unavailable. I stagger to think about what they will bring out in the open.

The crop yields you refer to and all other economic commands be it steel, whatever were oddly produced in a form of competition by the Provinces, counties, factories etc as to who could produce more. There were rewards such as red flags, go figure, and with this basically as the figures got released they collectivity revealed a surplus that was used as export to firstly the eastern block countries and after the Sino/USSR fallout to others. The CP was very debt conscious as well. In fact Dikötter claims that the CP willingly starved the masses to pay back debt to the USSR. The USSR was willing to have a moratorium on debt to aid in what it's advisers new was a disaster in the making. A very interesting read is that chapter.

But the famine issue was in a ham fisted attempt to bolster yeilds. Mao pushed for close cropping and deep ploughing as a solution. This was a disaster as the crops began to fail. With the price set and yield per farmer set when production failed the producer still had to hand over what was originally demanded by the state and pay the set price. There was not enough to feed the family let alone the village and the payment was below the cost to produce.

It seems that Mao was willing to support the over inflated production demands at the cost of millions of lives to have utopia in the future. Dikötter implies that the CP was used to hardship, having fought in various wars, having long marches so struggle was inevitable and if some fell along the way that was inevitable. For mine anyone that claims that this was all done for the working class needs to have a good hard look at this event. Maybe the author is exaggerating? I have little else to compare this book to but be that as it may if he has got half of this right then even then Mao's name still gets put on the same tainted pedestal along with all other autocratic dictators who were the cause of the deaths of millions based on false ideals.

 

[evo]

what you are saying pretty much accords with a documentary I saw. Perhaps it was made on the back of what your author discovered. I'll see if I can remember what it was called and try hunt it down.

 

[John]

The Great Leap Forward even produced a war on Sparrows. The entire country for 3 days yelled and screamed and banged drums and forced the sparrows to eventually die of exhaustion. It was a disaster as the ecological balance was upset and there was plagues of insects that ate the crops. Wiki has a bit on it for those that want a Greg Hunt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

and also the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3371659.stm

Who would have thunk it, the humble sparrow robbing the people of the fruits of their labour.

 

[John]

Well worth a read.

http://www.nature.com/news/genghis-khan-s-genetic-legacy-has-competition-1.16767

 

[The_Reaper]

I'm interested if someone like John could do some research on Tibet just before the Chinese invasion.

Whenever my mother hears people complaining about Chinese occupation of Tibet she always brings up all these stories about how Tibet was a slave society, the poor people were incredibly mistreated, people were allowed to marry multiple partners and how apparently Tibet used to 'bully' China in the past.

I'm curious if there is any truth to this at all

 

[John]

Will do a bit of researching The_Reaper. Give me bit of time. Just out of curiosity I presume your mum is Chinese descent?

 

[The_Reaper]

Will do a bit of researching The_Reaper. Give me bit of time. Just out of curiosity I presume your mum is Chinese descent?

Yep.

Ethnic Chinese from Penang.

 

[John]

I'm interested if someone like John could do some research on Tibet just before the Chinese invasion.

Whenever my mother hears people complaining about Chinese occupation of Tibet she always brings up all these stories about how Tibet was a slave society, the poor people were incredibly mistreated, people were allowed to marry multiple partners and how apparently Tibet used to 'bully' China in the past.

I'm curious if there is any truth to this at all

One of my observations on what I have read so far is that the Chinese are no different than any other race, nation etc and will use foreign peoples for internal political propaganda purposes. I presume that your mum being a Malay Chinese will be anti communist but still supportive of the Chinese people being of ethnic descent. From my readings so far Mao may well have been a communist but in the end he was still Han Chinese and would probably have had the prejudices that went with his ethnicity.

I have not read Mao The Unknown Story as of yet but I did just read a short chapter called The Tibetans Rebel. First the treatment of the Tibetans was poor and like the rest of China suffered appallingly under the Great Leap Forward. In the late 50's Mao was enqueuing about Tibetan practices with specific reference to the ruling classes using torture and lamas being skinned alive. He then began a vigorous propaganda campaign that the authors say was effective as it was "Aided by age-old prejudices" The Authors write that "There had been a very dark side to the rule of old Tibetan theocracy" but Maos rule was far worse.

Mao is without a doubt one of the most brutal autocrats in history. Nothing the Tibetans did could compare to his killings of millions via starvation or otherwise of his own people. I would also add that Chinese history is littered with large amounts of killings and my original post in this thread makes reference to many. In my opinion they can hardly make a case for the invasion of Tibet based on theocratic torture and slavery based on their own bloody past.

Be that as it may you asked about Tibet and its past. Wiki covers this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy

US left historian writes a very interesting piece here. It does not read much different to the limited Chinese and Japanese history I have read when he discusses the historical events, and in truth anywhere else in the world. Never ending violence, subjugation etc.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.ht
At one point he writes
"This grim history remains largely unvisited by present-day followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West." And his use of the word 'Grim' is IMO correct as some of the things he discuss's makes grim reading. Parenti is in the end writing a critique of western love for some mythical Shangri-la but also "China’s emerging free-market paradise" and what it may mean to present day Tibetans so make of that what you will but...... IMO he may prove what your mum has said.

I have read a couple more items on the subject though nothing too long so far.
In the end though I go back to what I wrote before. It is not a good argument to defend the invasion of another country and use the excuse of the past and present treatment of the people especially if your present is very unsavory as it was under Mao at the time. So are the Tibetans better of under the Chinese? Probably would be my answer for now.

If I come across anything else of interest I will post it here and thanks for the question.