225 replies to this topic

[brightness]

What today's ROC/Taiwan leadership believes in is quite different from what ChiangKaiShek's value system. Chiang was an old fashion Chinese totalitarian nationalist, whereas today's ROC/Taiwan is a consitutional republic with reasonably democratic polity. Unlike Chiang, today's ROC/Taiwan leadership has no ambition of ruling all of Mainland; frankly, if given a choice, they'd probably rather prefer be left alone, by both China and the US, while trading with both. Okay, that's enough skirting on current affairs; let's focus on the history.

[General_Zhaoyun]

I remember my history professor saying that during Mao's Great Leap forward, there are few propaganda photos who were fabricated to illustrate that the "crops were well-harvested and grown at a meter height". Those were of course lies, but illustrated to make up that "China's crops were well-harvested". I have never seen these photos.

Does anyone happen to have some photo of these propaganda "crops"?

[mariusj]

China has the capability more capable than the small island of Taiwan; the problem was just like the Qing dynasty who refused to interact with the Western nations, China under Mao did the same thing too. China was with the wrong side, the communist block nations led by the USSR were all too restrictive and their rmain concentration was in the development of the military neglecting the civilian sector. That is why China of today is becoming more successful than the island of Taiwan, the nation of Singapore, Japan, South Korea and is expected to equal that of the USA and this is so because China of today is wisely allowing its' citizens to expand and explore their free intellectual knowledege something that did not happen during Mao's era.

I think its a lot less of Mao saying, screw the west, but more of the West saying screw China. [I won't repeat this comment again, I promise]
I harbor question about 'more successful' as in, successful in what? Economic advances? Technological advances? Advance as human in general?

They were in control they had every opportunity to rebuild war-torn China just like Japan, Germany, Italy and Europe for that matter was able to rise up from the ashes of wars and surpass China in every field of technoligical, economical and social programs. ANd again, it was because Mao refused to interact with the West. Taiwan under the ROC took advantage of western technology and focus on educating all Taiwanese to become more progressive. Back in 1975 when China finally convince the world that they will reform and that inviting foreign investors, welcoming intellectuals as well as opening China to all overseas Chinese that all the programs was not a trap anymore money by the billions started to pour in. These funds that went to roads, hiways, schools, hospitals, factories etc. etc. China under Mao did not do any of this and that was another reason why China under him in general the Great Leap Forward failed.

Have you forgotten how much money was granted to German and Japan? [I remember my promise] China's aide came from USSR, and anyone who knows that part of history, they know China got the bad end of the stick. As China was part of the Communist block and CANNOT trade with the West for the West is in 'blockade' against the Red China. No, no. China didn't convince anyone they will reform after 1978.

Just like North Korea who have stubbornly refused to interact with the world especially the more technological advance nations, China would have been like that if China had stucked with Mao way and chances are China would have also collaps just like the USSR and all the communist block nation. Vietnam too, Vietnamese leaders did not waste too much time they saw what was happening to all the communist nations and immidiately went on to interact with all nations especially with their former enemy the USA.

No, no, you don't know that.


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In Macro Econ, there are something [whose name I forgot since it was years ago] that determine a nation's growth. I think it is its 'national capital' or some sort of name akin to it. It is said that the greater increase its capital, the better off the nation. These capital refers to both human capital and capitals in your other sense. The growth take the path of exponential, that is to say the growth is exponential.
However, every nation's growth came from two part, increase from further investment and decrease due to capital decay. Decay also have exponential growth. So in order for a nation to grow, its decay must be surpass by its investment. Many poor African nation lies in the point where their decay is greater then their capacities to invest.
China after WWII, was poor as dirt. That is to say, China's main infrastructure, if not destroyed, was taken by either Russian or Japanese. Mao have to work with an economy that have no Capital in the sense that investment was very, very low; human capital was quite low since most educated man who return to their homeland were killed in the war that began with the [First] Sino-Japanese War [I dislike the name when people add [First] to it, since I like to call the so-called Second Sino Japanese War WWII. And besides which, it can get confusing as China also fought Japan in another /Sino-Japanese War/ in Ming dynasty, again, to protect Korea.]
I do not disagree that Mao made plenty of wrong turns; I do not disagree that he isn't a God; I do not disagree that he is one horny B******; but I also cannot condone anyone saying China grow 'despite' of Mao, that is simply not true. You cannot say, that China grows, but Mao can't get any credit to it. This reminds me of the extreme opposite of Hero-Worshiping; you slap c**p on the hero. No, Mao is essential to China's growth as Mao is the leader of China, thus there are no 'if' and 'but' in a History that has already proven that Mao's path was correct. To blame Culture Revolution on Mao solely and alone is ridiculous, however, to not blame him at all is also silly and stupid. To say Deng should reap all the credit is absurd, as he did little to advance this nation, if not dragging it backward.

[mariusj]

1. The intellectually abstract model of "big wok meal"/dining hall as a system of economy of scale is deeply flawed. Individual initiative is of paramount importance in production, especially in a non-mechanised farm economy. Perhaps a guy sitting in a GPS-controlled big combine in Nebraska today can fall asleep or read newspaper while on the job witout too much disruption to productivity, the same can not be said of the gangs of workers who were working with simple hand tools in the fields of 1950's China. What the "big wok meal"/dining hall system accomplished was the total detachment of real labor productivity and wage/reward from each other. Farmers would just show up, and sit on their butts reading political propaganda because "revolutionary spirit" not productivity was their ticket to their next meal. The result was of course that farm productivity plummetted. Contrary to what a lot of armchair economist may think, crops need a lot of tending during the growing season, both sowing and harvesting are hard work, especially in a non-mechanized farm system. When farm workers are no longer encouraged to work, in fact discouraged (peer pressure to be lazy so you do not make your "comrade" look bad for sitting on his butt), harvest declined dramaticly. "Economy of scale" is a farce when there is no proper incentive system; the politically appointed "specialist" cooks had no incentive to cook better, nor did individual farmers under the "workday" system have any incentive to produce any thing after showing up for work.

My friend, Capitalism rewards worker with incentives. This is a communist China. You are ridiculous to use Capitalistic view of society to judge a Communist society; as they see human advances in different light. One values wealth, the other advance into a Utopia [thus society without conflict, approached through the destruction of classes.] It is like Austrian aristocrats commenting on the French revolutionaries, that their lives are worth c**p. Well, certainly to that view it is; but one should not judge so.

2. Agrarian intellectuals (both Chinese and other parts of the world) have a tendency to model traders as net resource consumers who do not add any value. In reality traders accomplish two very important tasks: (1) balancing supply and demand between regions of temporary bumper crop and regions of temporary lean crop; (2) promote specialization. Specialization (created under competition pressure due to market economy) is what increases producvity (ecomomy of scale, etc.); not to mention not all regions are suitable to produce identical mix of crops. The agrarian intellectuals propose that bureacrats can do just as a good job at distributing goods and services from one location to another . . . but they forget that the bureacrats have to eat too, just like the traders, so their service is not free lunch. It gets worse: bureacrats are not answerable to their clients like traders. Instead bureacrats' primary motivation is bureacratic promotion by kissing up to their superiors. Great Leap Forward saw exactly that in action: under normal circumstances, when a local food shortage takes place, traders would bring food in from elsewhere because a food shortage would make food more expensive in the location with shortage. However, traders were outlawed in the late 1950's. The bureacrats in charge instead of transfering food in, decided to fulfill their quotas assigned from the central government . . . and because their promotion was based on their own reports, so they covered up the local famine situation (due to work discouragement as mentioned above), and reported great harvests. The result was that areas that had the worst famines (due to the most thoroughly discouraging work environment) also had bosses who were most eager to ship the most food out of the region to the central government. The result was one of the worst man-made famines in human history.

No, you are wrong. Traders are not looked down because they are net resources consumer [whatever this term meant] but rather, their wealth is built upon the hard work of others. Believe me, China has known the importance of trade. Because without that, why the heck would government monopolize salt? I mean, sure, you can justify monopolizing iron and copper for national security, but salt?
And no, agrarian intellectuals propose that they themselves distribute the goods. Have you heard of something called 士大夫情节？

3. Chinese economy is in better shape in 2008 than it was in 1948; so was 1976 compared to 1949: life expectancy is/was longer, and infant mortality is/was lower. However, can Mao take credit for that? Hardly. The improvement from 1949 to 1976 was more like taking place despite Mao instead of "because of Mao":

Take an econ class somewhere, or read a book. If China was worse off then 1948, then its call a "Depression."

a) Life expectancy went up dramaticly and infant mortality came down dramaticly in the second half of the 20th century the world over, due to technologies that Mao could not possibly take credit for. One of the most important reason was antibiotics, which ws invented in WWII; the patent for Pennicilin did not expire until the 1950's. Of the two dozen or so antibiotics commonly used in the last 50 years of the 20th century, not a single one was invented any of the socialist countries that accounted for 80% of the world's populaiton during that time.

Again, don't be ridiculous. Life Expectancy depends on medical treatment and technological advances. What does this have to do with Mao? Or better yet, what COULD OF MAO POSSIBLY DONE?

Chinese economy underwent dramatic growth from 1949 to 1956, under the leadership of Liu Shao-qi, who followed a semblence of "New Economic Policy" of semi-free market economy. Recovery from the wars and soviet assistance certainly helped too, as well as anti-Chinese policies in the US which caused a number of intellectuals to go back to China. Then Mao stepped in in 1957 and accused Liu of being "Capitalist Roader"; what followed was the GLF economic disaster. By 1960, economic reality caused Mao to be sidelined, Deng Xiao-ping and Zhou En-lai were in charge of economy, and the economy started to recover. Half a decade into that recovery, Mao once again stepped in and brought with him the turmoil of Cultural Revolution. The country nearly went into civil war by 1967.

This is crazy talk. I will admit I am wrong if you can show me prof of what you said. None of which I seen anywhere.

c) By 1976, it was quite obvious that Mainland China was in grinding poverty compared to Taiwan. Deng's take-over in 1976 and once again allowed individual intiatives. By 1984, Chinese economy was well on its way to become one of the leading economies of the world. A common saw in CCP propaganda is to compare Chinese economy to Indian economy as an example of socialims vs. capitalism . . . the problem with that comparison is that India was socialist ever since that country's founding in 1948, and Nehru said as much. It was an fellow-traveller of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. India's own market economy reform did not start until the mid 1980's, nearly a decade after Deng's reform began in China, or two decades after open market economic reform began in Taiwan.

No. Check your timeline. We don't have color TV till 90s. On the way to become leading economies? I mean, like passing some of the weak G7?

4. Compare JiangJieShi/ChiangKaiShek to Mao: Chiang was a much more staunch nationalist than Mao, and he paid the price for it. Chiang was putting on pressure to reduce foreign privileges in China and removing some concessions (such Weihaiwei, Wuhan) as early as the late 1920's and early 30's . . . while Mao was calling his regime in the mountains as "Soviets" and had real Russian appointees as head of their statelet. After WWII, Chiang refused American and British resumption of navigation rights in the major Chinese rivers, rights that the west had for over a century; that cost him American and British material support in the Civil War. Aside from transportation provided more or less due to lower-level personal contacts among American military officers in the fast east, Chiang had to figh the civil war with lend-lease equipment that he received in WWII. Mao on the other hand received substantial Soviet support after selling out Manchuria (50/50) after Chiang intially refused Stalin's proposal to split 50/50 what Japanese left in Manchuria. Chiang also refused continued Soviet use of Port Arhur, which Mao conceded; Mao also recognized Outer Mongolia indepedence (under Soviet tutulage) whereas Chiang did not recognize that. In fact, Chiang was so obsessed with Chinese values that he was a down-right racist: he refused presence of any African American troops in China . . . whereas Mao actually went out of his way to offer "millions of Chinese women" for "export" in his initial talks with Kissinger in 1972, essentially for use as sex slaves (according to recently declassified Kissinger notes from that time). So much for the man who pronounced that China stood up . . . perhaps for himself, but the rest of the nation was condemned to slavery, literally and figuratively.

I am uncertain with what you said. I think you are wrong. However, all this junk are all personal opinions mixed with some information in improper order. And you are 'brilliant' to say Mao offered woman as sex slaves. Please, point to the part where he did that, or are you just assuming you know everything about what Mao think?

5. The Nanjing Decade of 1927-1937 witnessed the verge of Chinese economic take-off (rapid year-on-year economic growth showing up as an exponential curve on a linear Cartesian graph) that was very similar to what has been happening in China in the last decade or two. At the same time, Mao's YenAn ZhengFeng/Rectification Movement was a complete disaster from 1934-37 (look to Stalin's purge around the same time for comparison). Mao used a communist agent to provoke Japanese at LuGouQiao/MarcoPoloBridge in order to salvage his untenable position vis-a-vis the rapidly strengthening Nanjing government. The result was using Japanese to bleed Chiang white, while the communist guerilla army avoided major battles with the Japanese invaders and had room and time to grow and prosper while suffering very little casualties.

You are crazy. I realize you are crazy after this. Yet I wasted my precious time over crazy talk like this. Why?

[Wan Ren aka Danny]

I think its a lot less of Mao saying, screw the west, but more of the West saying screw China. [I won't repeat this comment again, I promise]
I harbor question about 'more successful' as in, successful in what? Economic advances? Technological advances? Advance as human in general?

In all those fields; economics, technology and human.

Have you forgotten how much money was granted to German and Japan? [I remember my promise] China's aide came from USSR, and anyone who knows that part of history, they know China got the bad end of the stick. As China was part of the Communist block and CANNOT trade with the West for the West is in 'blockade' against the Red China. No, no. China didn't convince anyone they will reform after 1978.

Yes, Japan and Germany made good use of those money granted to help rebuild their war torn nation they also build a healthy relationship with them too.

Yes again China under Mao relay on the USSR that is why China under Mao failed and the USSR with all the war saw pact nations fell apart.

Uhm, suddenly mainlanders after 1978 where allowed to operate private businesses, freedom to travel, freedom to choose fashion clothing, own properties, freedom to be rich, foreign investors were given access to invest in China to help build hiways, roads, hospitals, schools, the USA awarded China most favored nation status in terms of trade, China is no wgoing to host the 2008 Olympic etc. etc. during Mao's time all of these were none existance China under Mao was known as the "bamboo" curtain, I guess all these improvements and changes just happen with no reasons?

No, no, you don't know that.

I don't have to know informations are readily available to the public, the events are well documented and is available in news media and books for the public to read.

China after WWII, was poor as dirt. That is to say, China's main infrastructure, if not destroyed, was taken by either Russian or Japanese. Mao have to work with an economy that have no Capital in the sense that investment was very, very low; human capital was quite low since most educated man who return to their homeland were killed in the war that began with the [First] Sino-Japanese War [I dislike the name when people add [First] to it, since I like to call the so-called Second Sino Japanese War WWII. And besides which, it can get confusing as China also fought Japan in another /Sino-Japanese War/ in Ming dynasty, again, to protect Korea.]

Mao after taking control of China had many capital, but he squandrel it. Intellectuals, scholars and business people were prosecuted, Mao choosed to deal with the USSR only.....any fighting against Japan was mostly between the Nationalist of KMT and Japan.

I do not disagree that Mao made plenty of wrong turns; I do not disagree that he isn't a God; I do not disagree that he is one horny B******; but I also cannot condone anyone saying China grow 'despite' of Mao, that is simply not true. You cannot say, that China grows, but Mao can't get any credit to it. This reminds me of the extreme opposite of Hero-Worshiping; you slap c**p on the hero. No, Mao is essential to China's growth as Mao is the leader of China, thus there are no 'if' and 'but' in a History that has already proven that Mao's path was correct. To blame Culture Revolution on Mao solely and alone is ridiculous, however, to not blame him at all is also silly and stupid. To say Deng should reap all the credit is absurd, as he did little to advance this nation, if not dragging it backward.

I think, you are a little bit contradictory there I don't think history has prooven that Mao's path was correct, correct in what sense? Mao had the opportunity and history have pointed out Mao did not try to stop the CR in fact he encourage it because he blames the failure of the GLF to his detractors and counter revolutionaries. The CR was his answer for the failure of the GLF.

Edited by Wan Ren aka Danny, 03 March 2008 - 04:01 PM.

[mariusj]

In all those fields; economics, technology and human.

Hum. I certainly do agree with technology and humanity field, China was and is lacking. I do not think anyone save some Great Sage can change few thousands years of outcome. Chinese do not focus on creativity in general; haven't before during dynasty, haven't under Communists; I don't think Mao is to be blamed for that. As for economics, I think I should clarify something: Mao receive a war torn, beaten up China from Jiang, Mao receive a nation that was in debt, that was closed off NOT DUE to decision of her own, and Mao in turn turn that nation around; you think without Mao China would be better, I say there is no way you can tell, but Mao certainly did lay the foundation that help to move China forward in 80s. Of course, he could of done better, but to gave him no credit is wrong.

Yes, Japan and Germany made good use of those money granted to help rebuild their war torn nation they also build a healthy relationship with them too.
Yes again China under Mao relay on the USSR that is why China under Mao failed and the USSR with all the war saw pact nations fell apart.

What are you implying? China should keep better term with America? I think you need to redo your homework.
No, China under Mao relies on USSR not because USSR is offering a better deal then USA, but rather USA doesn't want anything to do with Mao, and China needs technology and capital only two nation at that time can offer- one of whom doesn't want to deal with China.
Get your history straight.

Uhm, suddenly mainlanders after 1978 where allowed to operate private businesses, freedom to travel, freedom to choose fashion clothing, own properties, freedom to be rich, foreign investors were given access to invest in China to help build hiways, roads, hospitals, schools, the USA awarded China most favored nation status in terms of trade, China is no wgoing to host the 2008 Olympic etc. etc. during Mao's time all of these were none existance China under Mao was known as the "bamboo" curtain, I guess all these improvements and changes just happen with no reasons?

That is ridiculous. Where are you from? Have you been to mainland? Own properties? Freedom to be rich? Free access to invest?
Your time line is distorted at best, wrong at worst. Deng's opening of China is a slow and long process; it wasn't until his second time to the south that China is actually opened.
China is hosting Olympic because now China has the capacities. China doesn't have the capacities to host Olympic during Mao's time, because Mao doesn't have a genie, and he can't pull money out of his a**. You are insane to think anyone, even GOD, could have hosted Olympics in China prior to 2000. China and Chinese were simply NOT READY.
China is most favored nation status in trade? Actually, I don't think you understand what that meant. Let me explain that to you. MFN means that the receiving nation will be granted all trade advantages, such as low tariffs that any third nation also receives; in English, you won't be treated any worse then anyone else. What does that imply? Nothing. Trade should always be fair, else its called Imperialism.


You said and I quote

Just like North Korea who have stubbornly refused to interact with the world especially the more technological advance nations, China would have been like that if China had stucked with Mao way and chances are China would have also collaps just like the USSR and all the communist block nation. Vietnam too, Vietnamese leaders did not waste too much time they saw what was happening to all the communist nations and immidiately went on to interact with all nations especially with their former enemy the USA.

to which I reply No, you don't know that. And you said, and I quote.

I don't have to know informations are readily available to the public, the events are well documented and is available in news media and books for the public to read.

Again, either you can predict the future as it will happen, or can read the wind to know the past that have happen as it is, how could you know China with Mao would of collapse like USSR? Very well, tell me which book and which theory that allows you to formulate this ridiculous claim.

Mao after taking control of China had many capital, but he squandrel it. Intellectuals, scholars and business people were prosecuted, Mao choosed to deal with the USSR only.....any fighting against Japan was mostly between the Nationalist of KMT and Japan.

You are correct. I have no reason to love Mao. My grandfather was executed on the ground for treason, but all he did was fought the Japanese during WWII; he fled to Taiwan because Nationalist retreat and he is a high ranking officer, but return when Mao issued an decree to forgave all past sin, upon return, however, all ports were sealed and Mao turn on his own words and capture KMT officers who returned. My grandfather was executed and my family prosecuted.
However, to distort history is wrong in the fundamental. Tell me what China has inherit at the end of the Civil War? KMT has taken the gold reserve of China into Taiwan; I know. KMT has gathered as many intellectuals as they can and they went to Taiwan. What capital did Mao inherit and squandered?

I think, you are a little bit contradictory there I don't think history has prooven that Mao's path was correct, correct in what sense? Mao had the opportunity and history have pointed out Mao did not try to stop the CR in fact he encourage it because he blames the failure of the GLF to his detractors and counter revolutionaries. The CR was his answer for the failure of the GLF.

Fine. What has history proven Mao to be wrong, wrong in what sense?

Your comments are based on little or no historical information or historical timeline. Mao is a communist; China is a communist nation; by definition, it is to shed what you are and become Communist. Mao did not stop the CR because he wanted it and he started it; GLF was both his mistakes and other man-made mistakes; to blame everything on Mao is as if to say, Germany did no wrong save to have Hitler in Power.

CR was Mao's answer BACK TO POWER.

[brightness]

My friend, Capitalism rewards worker with incentives. This is a communist China. You are ridiculous to use Capitalistic view of society to judge a Communist society; as they see human advances in different light. One values wealth, the other advance into a Utopia [thus society without conflict, approached through the destruction of classes.] It is like Austrian aristocrats commenting on the French revolutionaries, that their lives are worth c**p. Well, certainly to that view it is; but one should not judge so.

Human beings are human beings, regardless what society they live in. Human beings need food, clothing, shelter and entertainment to survive and prosper. Entertainment can include recreation, sex, drugs and self-induced endorphines (similar to drugs) through religious and political propaganda. Human beings work for incentives is something acknowledged by even Karl Marx, the founder of Communism; that's how he explained why Slavery gave way to Feudlism, which in turn gave way to Capitalism . . . because at each transition the laborers get more direct incentives for their work. Then Marx made the quntum leap into the abyss that somehow through a combination of prapangada brainwashing and overall material aboundance, human beings will be driven entirely by endorphines produced while doing volunteer works. Obviously, 80+ years of experiment has proven that not even the gulag camps and the shooting squad could produce the The New Socialist Man. Sure, the communist propagandist can tell everyone that money no longer counts in their society, but people are not easily deluded when they see Mao can do all the young and pretty chicks and why the heck they can't do those same chicks: money is only a unit of count for allocating resources and power; removing money doesn't remove the fundamental inequality in the distribution of resources and power, in fact probably making it worse if power is now centralized into the hands of one man.

No, you are wrong. Traders are not looked down because they are net resources consumer [whatever this term meant] but rather, their wealth is built upon the hard work of others. Believe me, China has known the importance of trade. Because without that, why the heck would government monopolize salt? I mean, sure, you can justify monopolizing iron and copper for national security, but salt?
And no, agrarian intellectuals propose that they themselves distribute the goods. Have you heard of something called 士大夫情节？

You say I was wrong, then you proceed to rephrase what I said. Agrarian intellectuals fancied themselves to be more efficient at fulfilling the role of traders than traders themselves. The problem is of course that:
1. Bureacrats (i.e. Agrarian intellectuals who get the power that they propose) need to eat too just like traders, so there is no intrinsic saving there;
2. Bureacrats' pay/fortune is not set by his customers, like a trader would be; so he is not particularly keen on optimizing for the benefit of his customers;
3. Bureacrats are beholden to their superiors, and there is a strong incentive to do everything possible to kiss up to the superior at the expense of his "customers." GLF saw plenty of that, as food was shipped from already starving farms/communes in order to fulfill and exceed fanciful quotas set from above.

Take an econ class somewhere, or read a book. If China was worse off then 1948, then its call a "Depression."

I have taken quite a few econ classes, taught directly by the professors who wrote some of the most widely used college econ textbooks in the world today. In addition, I have read numerous books on Monetarist (Chicagoan/Friedmenite) and Austrian (Hayekian and Misean) Economics. Not a single one of them called 1948 China economy as "Depression"; Chinese economy in 1948 was in a hyperinflaiton caused by war. Wars tend to do that kind of things. For what it's worth, I also read Das Kapital in full.

Again, don't be ridiculous. Life Expectancy depends on medical treatment and technological advances. What does this have to do with Mao? Or better yet, what COULD OF MAO POSSIBLY DONE?

Life Expectancy also depends on economic stabilty (starving to death tends to shorten life expectancy) and economic well being. That's the point I was making: it's easy to have life expectancy increase in absolute terms for any ruler in the second half of 20th century (largely due to the "wonder drug" antibiotics, led off by pennicillin). Even a nortorious despot like Mobutu Sose Seko could boast that. What's important was whether the country achive better living standards growth rate compared its contemporaries. Chinese economy under Mao's hands-on years suffered great setbacks in relative terms . . . in some of the years even in absolute terms.

This is crazy talk. I will admit I am wrong if you can show me prof of what you said. None of which I seen anywhere.

Please do some research on Mao's influence within the CCP from 1950 to 1967 . . . the reasons why he initiated the two big political movements: to revitalized his own political influence after being sidelined due to economic mismanagement in his hands-on years.

No. Check your timeline. We don't have color TV till 90s. On the way to become leading economies? I mean, like passing some of the weak G7?

By 1984, China had the fastest growing major economy in the world. Within a couple years after that, the rapid transformation was becoming so obvious that Soviet Union and India started their own market reforms to emulate the Chinese success.

I am uncertain with what you said. I think you are wrong. However, all this junk are all personal opinions mixed with some information in improper order. And you are 'brilliant' to say Mao offered woman as sex slaves. Please, point to the part where he did that, or are you just assuming you know everything about what Mao think?

Mao offering "millions" of Chinese women to Kissinger as possible trade item from China was in recently declassified archives from the meeting. Mao's concession to Soviet Russia regarding Manchuria was codified in the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, which included the continued lease of Port Arthur etc.. For proof about the point on Outer Mongolia, you only need to look at maps from Mainland China, and compare them to Maps published by ROC around the same time (in fact, all the way till at least the 70's), which included Outer Mongolia as a province of China. BTW, I'm NOT advocating China should claim Outer Mongolia.

You are crazy. I realize you are crazy after this. Yet I wasted my precious time over crazy talk like this. Why?

Sure, name calling is a very convincing way of debating; I'm so impressed.

Edited by brightness, 04 March 2008 - 09:12 PM.

[brightness]

Have you forgotten how much money was granted to German and Japan? [I remember my promise] China's aide came from USSR, and anyone who knows that part of history, they know China got the bad end of the stick. As China was part of the Communist block and CANNOT trade with the West for the West is in 'blockade' against the Red China. No, no. China didn't convince anyone they will reform after 1978.

Germany and Japan received loans, not grants. At the same time, Allies confiscated vast amount of German intellectual capital, such as patents. In any case, Wirtschaftswunder (German Economic Miracle) was the result of Ludwig Erhard's policy of sound money and low taxation. In fact, what's funny is that, most countries that routinely receive foreign grants have a tendency to become economic basket cases: because the distribution of economic aid tend to be from top to bottom, killing domestic entreprenureship and strengthening the political establishment class all at the same time.

In Macro Econ, there are something [whose name I forgot since it was years ago] that determine a nation's growth. I think it is its 'national capital' or some sort of name akin to it. It is said that the greater increase its capital, the better off the nation. These capital refers to both human capital and capitals in your other sense. The growth take the path of exponential, that is to say the growth is exponential.
However, every nation's growth came from two part, increase from further investment and decrease due to capital decay. Decay also have exponential growth. So in order for a nation to grow, its decay must be surpass by its investment. Many poor African nation lies in the point where their decay is greater then their capacities to invest.

I have no idea where you took Macro Econ, but what you wrote doesn't even sound like economics, more like political rationalization. "Human capital" is not even an economics term, not even quantifiable, hence probably unloved by the econometrists who run MacroEcons. In any case, Many poor African nations are poor because chronicle civil wars righting over the natural resources, the export of which enables a top-down hirarchy that lives off the "rent" of natural resource export. Fundamentally the situation is no different from a country living off foreign aid: money coming in to the government first, then distribute to the rest of the country through a system of bureacratic cronies.

China after WWII, was poor as dirt. That is to say, China's main infrastructure, if not destroyed, was taken by either Russian or Japanese. Mao have to work with an economy that have no Capital in the sense that investment was very, very low; human capital was quite low

Not true. In the years immeidatly after WWII, Shanghai accounted for nearly half of China's GDP. The city was captured nearly intact by the Communists. In fact, the disruption was so little that the ex-pat community, including a lot of Jews who escaped to Shanghai before WWII, intially wanted to stay. So did the majority of native Chinese capitalists. That's why economic recovery in the first 4-5 years after 1949 was very rapid. Then things started to change around the middle of the 1950's . . . Mao and his cronies started to implement a set of policies that essentially killed the goose that laid golden eggs. You can verify both the intactness of the capture and the misgovernment of Mao years just by looking at the Shanghai skyline: nearly all the big buildings were either built before 1949 or after 1984 . . . hardly anything in between. That's a city that accounted for nearly half of China's GDP in the late 1940's. Mao's policy drove people and capital away from China more effectively than even the wars.

China' joining the soviet bloc and isolation from the rest of the west in the 50's and 60's was also Mao's doing. US didn't really care whether Chiang or Mao won the civil war. In fact, US was the last to pull out embassy, only to have its representative arrested by Mao as a way to prove to Stalin of his loyalty. Mao picked Stalin over US because Stalin was willing to give Mao weapons to fight the civil war, after Chiang declined to pay Stalin the same price (splitting Manchuria). US instituted embargo against both Chiang and Mao when the Chinese Civil War resumed after Japanese surrender. Stalin probably wanted Mao and Chiang to weaken each other, but he over-estimated Chiang, both in material and competency; no one expected Chiang would gamble away all his chips on the northern China plain, hundreds of miles away of his own supply base.

You cannot say, that China grows, but Mao can't get any credit to it.

Mao can take credit for the explosive population growth of the Chinese baby-boomer generation; that's about it. Chinese economy grew relatively quickly when Mao was sidelined by his "comrades," but suffered greatly whenever Mao decided to cashier his "comrades" and get his own hands on running the country. He either had no clue how economics works (that human beings have free will) or was set out to destroy that free will so that he could rule a nation of machine cogs (or "iron screws" in Chinese propaganda, "Study Comrade Lei Feng").

To blame Culture Revolution on Mao solely and alone is ridiculous, however, to not blame him at all is also silly and stupid. To say Deng should reap all the credit is absurd, as he did little to advance this nation, if not dragging it backward.

Sure, many sycophants carried out Mao's ridiculous instructions, but that doesn't ameliorate the fact that Mao was the prime mover of Cultural Revolution. Without him, there wouldn't be Cultural Revolution. Of course Deng has his own short-comings (hahaha), but his pragmatism is what has enabled the Chinese economic take-off that's been happening for the last two decades.

Edited by brightness, 04 March 2008 - 01:11 AM.

[brightness]

Hum. I certainly do agree with technology and humanity field, China was and is lacking. I do not think anyone save some Great Sage can change few thousands years of outcome. Chinese do not focus on creativity in general

Please don't embarass the rest of us if you do not find yourself to be creative. Historically, Chinese were responsible for some of the most important inventions in world history. In more recent times, much of Chinese creativity by necessity have been applied to more practical subjects, such as how to make a better living. Just to be politically incorrect for a moment, Chinese diaspora communities have a reputation for being the "Asian Jews" for a reason.

What are you implying? China should keep better term with America? I think you need to redo your homework.
No, China under Mao relies on USSR not because USSR is offering a better deal then USA, but rather USA doesn't want anything to do with Mao, and China needs technology and capital only two nation at that time can offer- one of whom doesn't want to deal with China.
Get your history straight.

That's simply not true. US did not even recall its Ambassador when Communists took over Nanjing. The ambassador, John Leighton Stuart, was an American born in China and previously had been a the president of Yenching University and led his Chinese students in street protests when Japanese took over Manchuria. Stuart had instructions to stay behind and get in contact with the the new regime in China. PRC could have have established diplomatic relationship with the US then and there. However, Mao preferred Stalin's arms in exchange for half of Manchuria instead of the US' offer of neutrality (between PRC and ROC) plus free trade. Mao kicked out Stuart, then to further prove his Communist Bloc credentials, sponsored Kim's invasion of South Korea with two divisions of ethnic Koreans sorted out of the People's Liberation Army. Up until the Korean War, the US was not committed to defending Taiwan at all. Truman administration followed the State Department "old China hands" recommendation of letting the chips fall where they may. Later on, a lot of the "old China hands" were suspected of being closet communists.

China is hosting Olympic because now China has the capacities. China doesn't have the capacities to host Olympic during Mao's time, because Mao doesn't have a genie, and he can't pull money out of his a**. You are insane to think anyone, even GOD, could have hosted Olympics in China prior to 2000. China and Chinese were simply NOT READY.

Guess why was China so poor? Much of it had to do with Mao's statist economic policies. China could have had Deng's economic policies as early as the 1950's . . . that would have moved up the timeline by about 20-30 years.

how could you know China with Mao would of collapse like USSR? Very well, tell me which book and which theory that allows you to formulate this ridiculous claim.

Mao's economic policies almost led to collapse as early as 1959. That's why he was sidelined in the early 1960's, leaving Liu and Deng to handle the actual running of he country. If you read any sound economics books, you'd know that policies like Mao's would inevitably lead to collapse, in Asia, in Europe or in North America . . . heck, the original settlers coming of the Mayflower had a farm commune idea very similar to Mao's (without the daily study of Marxism-Leninism-Chairman-Mao-Thoughts of course, just toss in a bible instead): shared communal farming without private holdings. The result was nearly death. The second year, they divided up the plots to different families in a big hurry . . . "Christian selflessness" be damned.

Tell me what China has inherit at the end of the Civil War? KMT has taken the gold reserve of China into Taiwan; I know. KMT has gathered as many intellectuals as they can and they went to Taiwan. What capital did Mao inherit and squandered?

Everything that KMT didn't cart away, and there was plenty of that. Human capital is not just about people who have papers to show how many years schooling they have had. Human capital include, espeically, those who built a fishing village into a metropolis like Hongkong. Obviously, everything that went into building Honkong back up after WWII (and after 70 years of relative decline since the center of China trade moved to Shanghai in the late 19th century) was not carted off by KMT to Taiwan. That would include the largest bank in the world today HSBC (Hongkong-Shanghai Bank), one of the largest insurance companies AIG (American International Group), David Sassoon & Co. ("the Rothschild of the East"), etc. etc. They all had their primary business operations in Shanghai. These are but the best known names. There were literally hundreds of thousands of small enterprises that made up the back bone of a vibrant economy. Like you mentioned, your own family suffered from the duplicitous political games of the Mao years. Guess what Mao's cronies did to those businesses and their owners? That's why many of them fled in the 50's to Hongkong.

Fine. What has history proven Mao to be wrong, wrong in what sense?

1. His economic policies were utter catastrophes;
2. His political theory, based on "class struggle" is self-contradictory. In practice, it's just a scheme for getting everyone killed, because if you lead the killings in this round, you become the "elite, oppressor class" and eligible for liquidation in the next round. That's pretty much what happened in CR. This policy may not even be an accident . . . as the net result would be killing off all who had leadership ambitions or abilities, so it would be a nation of sychophant sheeples worshipping Mao himself.

Frankly, Mao's theories were proven wrong by history long before he even started. His economic and political themes essentially boil down to the elimination of specialization (except for himself, specializing in being demi-god or outright being the GOD). In the west, Adam Smith had written a thorough treatise on the need for specialization as the source of the wealth of nations as early as the 18th century; in China, Guanzi touched on the subject more than 2400 years ago.

Mao is a communist; China is a communist nation; by definition, it is to shed what you are and become Communist. Mao did not stop the CR because he wanted it and he started it . . . CR was Mao's answer BACK TO POWER.

Since when was it written in Communist theoretical works that Mao had to be back to power?? Since you suggest Mao can only be judged as a communist.

His being a communist doesn't excuse his behavior and policy as a murderous and conniving despot who ran the economy to the ground and killed tens of millions of people in the process . . . just as Hitler's being a self-avowed racist didn't excuse him being a mass murderer who brought a catastrophe to the German people who had him as national leader (both Jewish and otherwise). If you want a historical Chinese figure for comparison, my choice would be Wang Mong of the short-lived Xin "dynasty" (usurping Han). Sure Wang was a staunch believer in his warped version of Confucianism, in his own mind anyway; in practice, he's nothing more than a greedy and murderous despot who ran the economy into the ground by trying to institute pie-in-the-sky socialism. Sure, it would have all worked if everyone were stripped of his/her own self-interest . . . but how could Mao or Wang get so fat in a starving country if they didn't indulge in self-interest themselves? IMHO, Mao's dead body should one day suffer the same disgrace of Wang's: being dragged into the street and having its adipose tissue lit on fire. Supposedly Wang's dead body burned like a candle for days because of all the fat. Too bad it's a little too late for that; the contrast would have been more dramatic when he died and China was so poor that there was hardly any overweight people besides himself.

Edited by brightness, 04 March 2008 - 01:30 AM.

[Mei Houwang]

I agree that Mao was a really inept economist, but on this statement I have some questions.

Mao offering "millions" of Chinese women to Kissinger as possible trade item from China was in recently declassified archives from the meeting. Mao's concession to Soviet Russia regarding Manchuria was codified in the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, which included the continued lease of Port Arthur etc.. For proof about the point on Outer Mongolia, you only need to look at maps from Mainland China, and compare them to Maps published by ROC around the same time (in fact, all the way till the 70's), which included Outer Mongolia as a province of China. BTW, I'm NOT advocating China should claim Outer Mongolia.

1) On the "offering millions of Chinese women" part, I must say that when studying history, if something is too wild to be believed, then it's too wild to be believed. In fact we have went over this, and it's said that he was joking, very crudely. Mao may be a bad economist, but he's not stupid enough to think people would even consider such an ... original offer. http://news.bbc.co.u...fic/7243500.stm

2) I always thought that it was the Nationalists who lost Outer Mongolia, not the Communists. The communists just came in and took what the Nationalists had, which by then did not include Outer Mongolia. This is due to allied pressure doing WW2, and thus the KMT signed a treaty with the Soviets in 1945 which recognized Mongolian independence IF they wanted it. As a result outer Mongolians succeeded(even though they already declared independence way before then), and the Inner Mongolians didn't. The same treaty also called for continued lease of Port Author. In fact I'm more than certain it was the Nationalists who had done this, instead of the Communists. However, the Communists may have signed a similar treaty due to that the Nationalists were pretty much of non-importance by the 1950s(and thus, a new treaty must be signed due to the change in gov), which is the signing of the Sino-Soviet Treaty. Do you have any quote of it related to this, along with the concession of Manchuria? What part of Manchuria did he lose?

Edited by Anthrophobia, 04 March 2008 - 08:35 AM.

[brightness]

I agree that Mao was a really inept economist, but on this statement I have some questions.

Glad we are in agreement . . . although IMHO, it's a big understatement. Somone who fails a engineering course exam is an inept engineer, but someone who builds a bridge that collapses and kills dozens of people in the process is a criminal. Likewise, Marx is an inept economist, but Lenin and Stalin, who used that set of bad economics for self-aggrandizement and killing millions of people in the process were worse than being bad economists . . . the same with Mao.

1) On the "offering millions of Chinese women" part, I must say that when studying history, if something is too wild to be believed, then it's too wild to be believed.

Yes, I saw that link too . . . however, two factors stand out: (1) Mao brought up the topic twice in one evening . . . it's hard to discern if the suggestion was a joke, half-joke, serious, or have alternative intentions, as in point (2) Kissinger was newly single at the time when he went to China; Communists under Mao had a long history of offering brain-washed young and pretty women to foreigners . . . in fact, every single foreigner who visited YenAn was offered one by the party aparatus. At some point, the line delineating "too wild to be believed" becomes very fuzzy when it comes to Mao's methods.

2) I always thought that it was the Nationalists who lost Outer Mongolia, not the Communists. The communists just came in and took what the Nationalists had, which by then did not include Outer Mongolia. This is due to allied pressure doing WW2 . . . Do you have any quote of it related to this, along with the concession of Manchuria? What part of Manchuria did he lose?

Outer Mongolia had been in de facto independence since the early 1910's. Like later PRC, ROC had a long history of not recognizing reality on the ground regarding territory disputes that China was too weak to assert itself . . . just like Manchuria, which achieved de facto independence from China two decades after Outer Mongolia did. ROC entered a treaty with the USSR recognizing Mongolia independence at the end of WWII, then renounced the treaty shortly afterwards. That's why all maps printed in ROC, all the way till the late 1990's or so, had Outer Mongolia as a ROC province. Port Arthur "lease" as signed in Mao's treaty with Stalin was supposed to be 30 years, with expectation of renewal. Only after Chinese paying the bloody price in Korean War did soviets loosen up and withdrew voluntarily in the late 1950's.

[brightness]

My arguement was that the PRC was more beneficial then detrimental in the economic sense. I am not interested in any other sentimental arguments. Their benefits dwarfed their mistakes.
The GLP and the RV are hardly the two worst catastrophes in Chinese history in relative terms, they were easily dwarfed by catastrophes that struck at the end of every Chinese dynasty or the famines that arose in the middle of the regime, which often killed as much as 1/5-1/3 of the entire Chinese population. It was miniscule compared to these other catastrophes.

We need some baseline adjustment here. A lot people survived in GLF and CR despite Mao's policies, not because of them. It was simply easier to travel long distance escaping from famine (tao huang) in the middle of 20th century than it was before the middle of 19th century: stow-away on a railroad car was not an option in the 19th century. The same industrial technology that has been available to allow Chinese population to have grown to over 500 million in Mao's time also enabled a lot of people to survive despite Mao's terrible policy choices, who would otherwise long have died under the policies without the industrial technologies that Mao couldn't take credit for. That's why the death toll itself, at 30-80 million, is a monument enough to mark Mao's misrule. The per centage argument is misleading, because, while widespread famine killing significant per centage of people was common in all countries' history before 19th century, by the 20th century, high per centage of people starving to death was exceedingly rare, especially in peace time. Stalin, Maol and Pol Pot have accomplished something few others could take credit for.

Edited by brightness, 04 March 2008 - 09:34 PM.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

We need some baseline adjustment here. A lot people survived in GLF and CR despite Mao's policies, not because of them. It was simply easier to travel long distance escaping from famine (tao huang) in the middle of 20th century than it was before the middle of 19th century: stow-away on a railroad car was not an option in the 19th century. The same industrial technology that has been available to allow Chinese population to have grown to over 500 million in Mao's time also enabled a lot of people to survive despite Mao's terrible policy choices, who would otherwise long have died under the policies without the industrial technologies that Mao couldn't take credit for. That's why the death toll itself, at 30-80 million, is a monument enough to mark Mao's misrule. The per centage argument is misleading, because, while widespread famine killing significant per centage of people was common in all countries' history before 19th century, by the 20th century, high per centage of people starving to death was exceedingly rare, especially in peace time. Stalin, Maol and Pol Pot have accomplished something few others could take credit for.

I never claimed that the PRC growth was relatively greater than that of the world. But several members on this forum claim that the living standard during the PRC regressed when compared to those of early time. That is just downright nonsense because they don't understand the basics of economic history of the 20th century.(which as you already pointed out, the living standard increased in most parts of the world due to enhanced technology.)
The death toll you gave has already been challenged in this very thread.

Edited by warhead, 22 March 2008 - 09:46 PM.

[Mei Houwang]

Yes, I saw that link too . . . however, two factors stand out: (1) Mao brought up the topic twice in one evening . . . it's hard to discern if the suggestion was a joke, half-joke, serious, or have alternative intentions, as in point (2) Kissinger was newly single at the time when he went to China; Communists under Mao had a long history of offering brain-washed young and pretty women to foreigners . . . in fact, every single foreigner who visited YenAn was offered one by the party aparatus. At some point, the line delineating "too wild to be believed" becomes very fuzzy when it comes to Mao's methods.

I know that Mao was a womanizer due to the records of his physician, but there is a lack of info that he used females as some type of currency(only for sex, and at times his need for sex was so great he started hitting on his MALE bodyguards, to their horror). Trust me, if he did use women as a currency, his personal physcian would be the first to write about it.

However, the offering of women at YenAn I have never heard. Can you give me more info on it?

Glad we are in agreement . . . although IMHO, it's a big understatement. Somone who fails a engineering course exam is an inept engineer, but someone who builds a bridge that collapses and kills dozens of people in the process is a criminal. Likewise, Marx is an inept economist, but Lenin and Stalin, who used that set of bad economics for self-aggrandizement and killing millions of people in the process were worse than being bad economists . . . the same with Mao.
Outer Mongolia had been in de facto independence since the early 1910's. Like later PRC, ROC had a long history of not recognizing reality on the ground regarding territory disputes that China was too weak to assert itself . . . just like Manchuria, which achieved de facto independence from China two decades after Outer Mongolia did. ROC entered a treaty with the USSR recognizing Mongolia independence at the end of WWII, then renounced the treaty shortly afterwards. That's why all maps printed in ROC, all the way till the late 1990's or so, had Outer Mongolia as a ROC province. Port Arthur "lease" as signed in Mao's treaty with Stalin was supposed to be 30 years, with expectation of renewal. Only after Chinese paying the bloody price in Korean War did soviets loosen up and withdrew voluntarily in the late 1950's.

I'm just trying to not be too emotional over history, but that's just a personal standard. Anyway, I'm confused on your other paragraph concerning land grands. Hate to annoy you with questions, but I want to make clear your answer to my question. Was the "Port Authur lease" the one where Mao granted Manchuria? Do you know which treaty the communists signed that gave away the specified land?

[neil]

I read somewhere that Ah Mao is the greatest butcher ( of human beings ) in modern world history. He is number 1 in world ranking, moustache Hitler is number 2 and our old chiang is number 3 or 4 in the list. Stalin is in the top 5 for your info but I forget which position. ( number 3? )

2 chinese in Top 5. what to say?

In ther absolute term, I don't know who is No. 1, but in the relative term, Suharto is definitely No. 1 in term of his genocide in East Timor (1/3 of the population vanished). Ok, some said Stalin achieved the same feat, but I think taht is only propaganda of the right from the US and its allies.
================

Good and Bad Genocide
Double standards in coverage of Suharto and Pol Pot
By Edward S. Herman

Coverage of the fall of Suharto reveals with startling clarity the ideological biases and propaganda role of the mainstream media. Suharto was a ruthless dictator, a grand larcenist and a mass killer with as many victims as Cambodia's Pol Pot. But he served U.S. economic and geopolitical interests, was helped into power by Washington, and his dictatorial rule was warmly supported for 32 years by the U.S. economic and political establishment. The U.S. was still training the most repressive elements of Indonesia's security forces as Suharto's rule was collapsing in 1998, and the Clinton administration had established especially close relations with the dictator ("our kind of guy," according to a senior administration official quoted in the New York Times, 10/31/95).
Suharto's overthrow of the Sukarno government in 1965-66 turned Indonesia from Cold War "neutralism" to fervent anti-Communism, and wiped out the Indonesian Communist Party—exterminating a sizable part of its mass base in the process, in widespread massacres that claimed at least 500,000 and perhaps more than a million victims. The U.S. establishment's enthusiasm for the coup-cum-mass murder was ecstatic (see Chomsky and Herman, Washington Connection and Third World Fascism); "almost everyone is pleased by the changes being wrought," New York Times columnist C.L. Sulzberger commented (4/8/66).
Suharto quickly transformed Indonesia into an "investors' paradise," only slightly qualified by the steep bribery charge for entry. Investors flocked in to exploit the timber, mineral and oil resources, as well as the cheap, repressed labor, often in joint ventures with Suharto family members and cronies. Investor enthusiasm for this favorable climate of investment was expressed in political support and even in public advertisements; e.g., the full page ad in the New York Times (9/24/92) by Chevron and Texaco entitled "Indonesia: A Model for Economic Development."
The U.S. support and investment did not slacken when Suharto's army invaded and occupied East Timor in 1975, which resulted in an estimated 200,000 deaths in a population of only 700,000. Combined with the 500,000-1,000,000+ slaughtered within Indonesia in 1965-66, the double genocide would seem to put Suharto in at least the same class of mass murderer as Pol Pot.
Good and bad genocidists
But Suharto's killings of 1965-66 were what Noam Chomsky and I, in The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, called "constructive terror," with results viewed as favorable to Western interests. His mass killings in East Timor were "benign terror," carried out by a valued client and therefore tolerable. Pol Pot's were "nefarious terror," done by an enemy, therefore appalling and to be severely condemned. Pol Pot's victims were "worthy," Suharto's "unworthy."
This politicized classification system was unfailingly employed by the media in the period of Suharto's decline and fall (1997-98). When Pol Pot died in April 1998, the media were unstinting in condemnation, calling him "wicked," "loathsome," and "monumentally evil" (Chicago Tribune, 4/18/98), a "lethal mass killer" and "war criminal" (L.A. Times, 4/17/98), "blood-soaked" and an "egregious mass murderer" (Washington Post, 4/17/98, 4/18/98). His rule was repeatedly described as a "reign of terror" and he was guilty of "genocide." Although he inherited a devastated country with starvation rampant, all excess deaths during his rule were attributed to him, and he was evaluated on the basis of those deaths.
Although Suharto's regime was responsible for a comparable number of deaths in Indonesia, along with more than a quarter of the population of East Timor, the word "genocide" is virtually never used in mainstream accounts of his rule. A Nexis search of major papers for the first half of 1998 turned up no news articles and only a handful of letters and opinion pieces that used the term in connection with Suharto.
Earlier, in a rare case where the word came up in a discussion of East Timor (New York Times, 2/15/81), reporter Henry Kamm referred to it as "hyperbole—accusations of 'genocide' rather than mass deaths from cruel warfare and the starvation that accompanies it on this historically food short island." No such "hyperbole" was applied to the long-useful Suharto; one looks in vain for editorial descriptions of him as "blood-soaked" or a "murderer."
In the months of his exit, he was referred to as Indonesia's "soft-spoken, enigmatic president" (USA Today, 5/14/98), a "profoundly spiritual man" (New York Times, 5/17/98), a "reforming autocrat" (New York Times, 5/22/98). His motives were benign: "It was not simply personal ambition that led Mr. Suharto to clamp down so hard for so long; it was a fear, shared by many in this country of 210 million people, of chaos" (New York Times, 6/2/98); he "failed to comprehend the intensity of his people's discontent" (New York Times, 5/21/98), otherwise he undoubtedly would have stepped down earlier. He was sometimes described as "authoritarian," occasionally as a "dictator," but never as a mass murderer. Suharto's mass killings were referred to—if at all—in a brief and antiseptic paragraph.
It is interesting to see how the same reporters move between Pol Pot and Suharto, indignant at the former's killings, somehow unconcerned by the killings of the good genocidist. Seth Mydans, the New York Times principal reporter on the two leaders during the past two years, called Pol Pot (4/19/98) "one of the century's great mass killers...who drove Cambodia to ruin, causing the deaths of more than a million people," and who "launched one of the world's most terrifying attempts at utopia." (4/13/98) But in reference to Suharto, this same Mydans said (4/8/98) that "more than 500,000 Indonesians are estimated to have died in a purge of leftists in 1965, the year Mr. Suharto came to power." Note that Suharto is not even the killer, let alone a "great mass killer," and this "purge"—not "murder" or "slaughter"—was not "terrifying," and was not allocated to any particular agent.
The use of the passive voice is common in dealing with Suharto's victims: They "died" instead of being killed ("the violence left a reported 500,000 people dead"—New York Times, 1/15/98), or "were killed" without reference to the author of the killings (e.g., Washington Post, 2/23/98, 5/26/98). In referring to East Timor, Mydans (New York Times, 7/28/96) spoke of protestors shouting grievances about "the suppression of opposition in East Timor and Irian Jaya." Is "suppression of opposition" the proper description of an invasion and occupation that eliminated 200,000 out of 700,000 people?
The good and bad genocidists are handled differently in other ways. For Suharto, the numbers killed always tend to the 500,000 official Indonesian estimate or below, although independent estimates run from 700,000 to well over a million. For Pol Pot, the media numbers usually range from 1million-2 million, although the best estimates of numbers executed run from 100,000-400,000, with excess deaths from all causes (including residual effects of the prior devastation) ranging upward from 750,000 (Michael Vickery, Cambodia; Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent).
Pol Pot's killings are always attributed to him personally—the New York Times' Philip Shenon (4/18/98) refers to him as "the man responsible for the deaths of more than a million Cambodians." Although some analysts of the Khmer Rouge have claimed that the suffering of Cambodia under the intense U.S. bombing made them vengeful, and although the conditions they inherited were disastrous, for the media nothing mitigates Pol Pot's responsibility. The only "context" allowed explaining his killing is his "crazed Maoist-inspiration" (New York Times, 4/18/98), his Marxist ideological training in France and his desire to create a "utopia of equality" (Boston Globe editorial, 4/17/98).
With Suharto, by contrast, not only is he not responsible for the mass killings, there was a mitigating circumstance: namely, a failed leftist or Communist coup, or "leftist onslaught" (New York Times, 6/17/79), which "touched off a wave of violence" (New York Times, 8/7/96). In the New York Times' historical summary (5/21/98): "General Suharto routs communist forces who killed six senior generals in an alleged coup attempt. Estimated 500,000 people killed in backlash against Communists."
This formula is repeated in most mainstream media accounts of the 1965-66 slaughter. Some mention that the "communist plot" was "alleged," but none try to examine its truth or falsehood. What's interesting is that the six deaths are seen as a plausible catalyst for the Indonesian massacres, while the 450,000 killed and maimed in the U.S. bombing of Cambodia (the Washington Post's estimate, 4/24/75) are virtually never mentioned in connection with the Khmer Rouge's violence.
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