March 9, 2010
Originally Published at Speak Without Interruption on February 16, 2010 by Bob Grant — publisher/editor for Speak Without Interruption. Posted on iLook China, 3/9/10 at 08:00
On October 1, 1949 the People’s Republic of China was formally established in a speech given by Mao Zedong from the Imperial Gate at Tiananmen Square. I stood at the very spot where Mao gave his speech and took the photo at the right. From speaking with people – in China – who lived through his reign it was beyond believable. What he put his people through is an unforgivable act of power and brutality. However, it is images from Mao’s era that some – outside of China – still have of the Chinese people. Nothing could be farther from the truth!
Mao Speech
I never met a Chinese government official – did not even see one at least that I can recall. What I did meet were the people of China – the people with whom I had my business and personal interactions. I did not ask them questions about their government nor did they ask questions of mine. The only political statement that I ever heard was a reference that China’s policy would probably change when the younger generation came into power, someday. (for more on this topic read Changing the Guard at http://wp.me/pN4pY-e9 )
In meetings, over two years ago, I heard about the oil pipeline being built directly from Iran to China. None of the people in that meeting expressed an opinion one way or the other regarding this pipeline. It was a decision the Chinese government made. Maybe my associates did not approve of dealing with Iran—maybe they did? The point being here is their government made this decision—not my associates.
Whether the officials in power in the US are republican or democrat, they have all made decisions of which I don’t agree. They did not consult me or ask my opinion—am I my government in these situations?
The point I am trying to make is that I found the Chinese people I met just like me in a lot of respects. I enjoyed doing business with them – learning their culture – and becoming their friends. No government – or its actions – is ever going to change that for me!
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 8, 2010
On my last flight to China on United Airlines, I got sick from the food. I knew airline food is often horrible, but I was an idiot and ate anyway.
After landing in China, I went to a Chinese pharmacy for help. The Shanghai pharmacist took an American medicine for diarrhea off the shelf. I said no. She looked surprised.
“Give me Chinese medicine. Western medicine does too much damage to the body.”
She smiled and looked impressed. “He knows,” she said. “You do know that the Chinese medicine will take longer to heal you.”
I know that Yin and Yang underlie all aspects of Chinese philosophy and medicine. I know that the Chinese believe in balance so the body remains healthy. That’s one of the reasons you often see Chinese up early in the morning doing Tai Chi in parks. Maintaining health is more than eating properly. It also includes exercise. That doesn’t mean everyone in China follows the philosophy of Yin and Yang.
Tai Chi
Western medicine, on the other hand, waits until the patient is sick—then uses drugs, many that are dangerous, surgery, chemicals and radiation to try to fix things often with side effects that are worse than the disease.
See attitudes toward health in China http://wp.me/pN4pY-bC
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 8, 2010
Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun, Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler, Tamerlane, Mussolini, Stalin, Togo and all the rest of the great conquerors failed where Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s First Emperor, succeeded. National Geographic has a short film that is worth watching.
Qin Shi Huangdi, the man who made China
While history records this emperor as a cruel and brutal tyrant, he did several things that made sure China would stay unified. First, he forced every nation he conquered to accept one written language. Anyone who protested was killed. Today, more than twenty-two hundred years later, China still has one written language but many spoken languages. He also created one form of money and a code of laws that everyone had to obey. Soon after the man who made China died, a rebellion swept the Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 B.C.) away and the Han Dynasty replaced it (206 B.C. to 219 A.D.).
Qin Shi Huangdi may have been the only conqueror in history who did not allow those he defeated to retain their written language. Because of this, China has survived for more than two millennia—something no other civilization may claim.
Visit Xian and see Qin Shi Huangdi’s capital. http://wp.me/pN4pY-8o
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 8, 2010
The fifth generation of Communist leadership in China will take charge in 2012, as the fourth generation steps down. Retirement from public office is mandatory at 67.
Who are these people? There are two factions (recognized by the Western media) competing for leadership of the country.
One faction is the Gang of Princelings whose parents were powerful members of the Communist Party. The other faction comes from those that climbed the ranks from China’s Youth League. This year’s session of the National People’s Congress marks the unofficial start of the campaign season for 2012 when most of the current leadership will retire.
One rival is Wang Yang, once a member of the Communist Youth League. Wang has talked about having new, capital-intensive industries replace the old, labor-intensive industries in Guangdong.
One princiling has been in the spotlight recently. He has achieved celebrity status in China because he was successful fighting organized crime in Chongqing, a city with a population that is more than thirty million. His name is Bo Xilai, one of the princelings, and his father was one of China’s eight Communist Immortals.
Bo Xilai
In China, family history is important and always has been. The Chinese look at the history of the family, the father, the mother and believe that will show them who the child will be and if that man or woman can be trusted.
Read Family Connections http://wp.me/pN4pY-e4
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 7, 2010
In China, if you can’t trust anyone else, you should be able to trust your family. That belief also applied to the emperors.
In China, when a minority king became too powerful and caused unrest, the emperor proposed that this king marry the emperor’s real daughter (instead of an adopted daughter), as if to say, “You will be a member of my family so stop what you are doing—stop fighting with The Middle Kingdom. Since we are soon to be related through marriage, there is no need to fight.”
This happened more than a thousand years ago with Tibet when the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty married his daughter to the Tibetan king so the Tibetans would stop raiding China.
Traditional Chinese Wedding
Under the rule of emperors, minorities were not forced to pay taxes like the Han Chinese. It was believed that minorities were less fortunate and did not have the same advantages. After Mao, China’s government, with few exceptions, continued this policy.
More about a few of China’s Minorities
China’s Zhuang & Yao ethnic people
Li River Minority area
Li River Minority area # 2
Why Tibet http://wp.me/pN4pY-3k
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 7, 2010
When emperors ruled China, those men often wanted to be seen as benevolent—embracing every kind of beauty under heaven. To do this, the emperors encouraged minorities to stay where they had lived for centuries if not millennia. Even in Tibet, China has not driven out or slaughtered in mass (http://wp.me/pN4pY-6S) the minorities as Europeans did to North American natives, who lived off that land for more than ten thousand years.
History shows that the Chinese emperors did not force minorities from their land with false promises followed by broken treaties. In China, if a minority king proposed a marriage alliance with the Emperor, the Emperor adopted a Chinese beauty as his daughter and sent her to the minority king. This is portrayed in The Dream of Red Mansions, a Chinese classic written in the 18th century.
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 7, 2010
China’s one-child policy is due to a population of 1.3 billion people in a country where food crops may be grown on only sixteen percent of the land. What isn’t well known is that the one-child policy applies only to the Han majority. That policy does not apply to the hundred million people that belong to the fifty-six minorities in China. That means Tibetans may not be able to worship and maintain the feudal, nomadic lifestyle like they had before Mao’s reoccupation of Tibet in 1951, but they can have as many children as they want.
Crowded China
The biggest challenge is growing enough food to feed the bulging Chinese population of 1.3 billion people. The Chinese government says if it weren’t for the one-child policy, there would be another four-hundred million mouths to feed and provide shelter for.
Meanwhile, Christians in the West (people who believe abortion is wrong) criticize China for this policy. If China did not have the one-child policy, I doubt if these antiabortion voices would have stepped up to feed four-hundred million people. How many would have starved if a famine struck?
There are other exceptions to the one child policy, and you may read about them at the Asian Correspondent .
You may also learn more about China from Tom Carter’s Book, China: Portrait of a People http://wp.me/pN4pY-c8
1 Comment | China, Christianity, Tibet, family values, food, health care, parenting, religion | Tagged: antiabortion, China, famine, food, hunger, Lloyd Lofthouse, one child policy, pollution, starvation | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 6, 2010
The changing role of Chinese women has been dramatic since Mao won China in 1949. Prior to that time, China was ruled by the Kuomintang—a dictatorship. There were never national elections held in China. There wasn’t much that changed under the Kuomintang leadership regarding the role of women. When my wife was born in the late 1950s, her grandmother had bound feet.
Chinese girl with bound feet
Before Mao, women were grass to be stepped on. Their role was to serve men.
The changes ushered in by Mao set the stage for his wife to become China’s leader after her husband’s death. The only reason she did not assume the leadership was because she was arrested as a member of the Gang of Four and sent to prison for crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution.
Modern Chinese woman
Since Mao, the changes have been even more dramatic. Woman own businesses, hold political posts in the government, have jobs, and cannot be sold to become a wife or bought to serve as a concubine. They are not property. They are equals to men in many ways.
To learn more about China’s women read Mother’s Face at http://wp.me/pN4pY-82
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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
March 6, 2010
In the Western media, we often hear about America’s leaders and their concerns for the size of China’s military.
Look at these facts and decide why China has a large military. Then you will know why Chinese generals laughed when they heard about the concerns of America’s leaders.
China’s military often has important roles in disasters like the earthquake that struck Southwest China, and the military must deal with violent, internal strife in Tibet and with Islamic extremists in Xinjiang province. It is no secret that there are Cantonese who, after two thousand years, still want to break from Beijing. There has also been unrest in rural China due to the slow pace of lifestyle improvements there.
Soldier carrying injured Chinese girl after major earthquake
America’s total active military equals almost 1% of the population with close to three million men and women in uniform. America has a dozen aircraft carriers, more than fifteen-hundred navy ships, and almost twenty-three thousand military aircraft.
China has less than .25% (that is less than 1% if you missed the decimal) of its population in uniform—a quarter of America’s ratio with about three million troops. China has one aircraft carrier and a navy that is less than half the size of America’s. China’s airforce has about twenty-five hundred aircraft—a ten to one ratio in America’s favor.
Nuclear Weapons—America has 10,000 and China less than 400.
China’s defense budget was about sixty-billion in 2008 compared to more than five-hundred billion spent in the United States. America is spending closer to seven hundred billion this year while China is cutting defense spending due to the world’s economic crises. The Chinese plan to put the money cut from the defense budget into the private sector. Do you think something like that will ever happen in the United States?
Source: www.Globalfirepower.com
To understand the reasons for some of the rural unrest in China, read http://wp.me/pN4pY-bO
3 Comments | America, China, government, media, military spending, politics | Tagged: America's military, China's military, Islamic extremists in Xinjiang, Lloyd Lofthouse, Southwest China earthquake, unrest in Tibet | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse
