Plavt wrote:tyianchang wrote:
Thanks for the recommedations. I'm all too familair with the China flop stories and China bashing. I will get the writers from the other side of the coin for you - in goodtime.
Might be an idea if you did
actually read those books instead of making an opinion based on conjecture. Neither David Bonavia nor John Frazer were indulging in 'China Bashing' as you so blithely assume.
Frazer was merely observing some economic,social and technical facts along with misunderstandings of westerners.
Mao may have done some good but the fact remains he was a dictator who caused division and hatred amongst his own people not too mention the facist government that resulted. Did you know Jian Qing had a whole public park closed just so she could ride her horse there in private? Maybe that is something else you call equals?
Read acrefully before you lash out. I was making a general remark that in no way implied either Bonavia or Frazer. To me, writers who have not lived through or read of the harrowing grinding lives of the mainland Chinese for 2.5 centuries cannot really understand the context for the way its politics have been shaped. Mao was as much a dictator as the imperial context of China set him up to be - in actaul fact, if you read the writings of those close to Mao, he was compassionate, always against killing, and wanted democracy for China, but it's impossible to be a dictator in modern China. Mao worked with his group of veterans who sacrificed their own lives and families to put China on its feet. Like everything else, there were good and bad in the party but Mao gets the blame i.e. unless one researched for the truth.
You'd agree China is an ancient civiisation so the people are bonded through their language, history and culture That is an iron mass that is landlocked in geophysical terms but can also be mobilized. That is the Chinese cycle.
I'm not a mainland Chinese myself but an avid reader since a child, have British missionary friends, Chinese/ students friends, been there twice and have researched libararies and written about it.
Regarding national leaders, it's too easy to blame whoever leads. It makes common sense that even in a small country like Sri Lanka, nothing is ever in black and white; to take it to the extreme. not even for you or I as individuals. For me, Mao was and is loved by many Chinese . They recognise his unfailing love for humanity in an old China torn apart by internal strifes and foreign brutality. I won't go into his biography - but he is even blamed for famines that occurred , and China had had huge disastrous famines, floods, earthquakes and such like natural disasters even before his time. In fact, other leaders made revolution in his name, and of course, Jian Qing was a power mad radical and nothing like Mao's first wife who was killed by the nationalist. Chinese love Mao for he was incorruptible - he sent his own son to the front instead of setting him up with business ties/concessions like Deng Xiao Ping. Mao was born in the earth bound honest peasant soil of Hunan while Deng Xioa Ping was from the balmy south of commercial Canton.
China is a country full of hard core selfish family centred warlords and such like feudal lords who never forgive Mao for turning their aristocratic middle kingdom into an egalitarian country. And it's full of greedy and impatient peasants wanting to get rich quick too. The middle clsses - educated, well read and professionals are, to my mind, rather malleable, quirky and sentimental, but on the whole quite stable. Judging from the spills out of the current ME crisis, boy do we all need countries to be stable.
What's the alternative to a strong and stable China, regardless of the teething problems that need time to resolve? From this discussion and the lessons learnt from the last UK elections, I'm beginning to wonder if western style democary will work for China with its billions + population. Will it continue to work for the US and UK either, with its diminishing numbers of natives and increasing numbers of immigrants???
I just find it personnaly difficult to decide which candidate to vote for the council - how much do we know of this person? So we vote for the party as usual and as usual, politicians are not to be trusted.
More than anything else, the Eurovision song contest and its tactical voting, should make us rethink the outdated concept of democarcy from the ancient Greeks. Free speeech, yes but volatile changes of governments and constitutions forced on by sheer numers? What's demoracy without nationhood, trust, security and justice ?