...Those thousands of years of culture didn't have today's technology and armaments to contend with. How long do you think the China of a century ago would have survived? And would it have survived in any better form for the average worker?
They did alright until the Boxer Rebellion, when they finally saw that firearms were a little more lethal than magic. Until that point they were doing fine. It was a game-changer, yes, but sometimes low tech keeps the playing field even.
The "average worker" was blessed with NOT knowing - of not knowing about playing the capitalist game of Keep Up With The Jones's, of not knowing about Trotsky and Lenin and of being happy with the simple things in life.
If China had remained under the Emperor's rule I doubt that it would have resisted at least a disruption and dilution of it's culture due to 'investor' and political wrangling. Hong Kong isn't exactly a reflection of the real China, and look how well that paid it's working class. Do you think the rest of that vast workforce wouldn't have been exploited by the West if the commies didn't field an army big enough to keep the carpetbaggers out?
Maybe it's due to my only having had a few sips of coffee so far but I don't quite get what you're saying here - I'm sorry. The Communists kept the Westerners out? The Kingdom was doing that quite well previously ...
I don't think the average Chinese 'chose' communism as much as it chose them. Most peasants wouldn't have had a clue what it was, just that it offered them a new pair of boots and a secure food supply.
Communism in China (let alone in the former Soviet Union) was a spectacular failure. The Great Leap Forward was more like a hop, skip and fall and Mousie Dung's plan led to the Great Famine.
It's a long bow to draw to compare those in the US with those who live in outlying parts of China. Those high minded egalitarian ideals of democracy don't occur naturally, nor are circumstances always suited to implementing them.
I agree, which is why China should have held onto their isolationist policies. At one point, for a very long period, they were the light of the world as regards technology, culture and many other aspects of life. What have they done since the Commie takeover?
Education is so very different and so vital in forming mindsets. What seems perfectly logical to the average democratically educated American is an alien concept to someone educated in the strictures of Communist or for that matter Islamic ideology.
There are all types of education, and book learnin' isn't necessarily the end-all/be-all of successful life.
Remember too that when the Commos took over, China's population was largely uneducated to what we'd consider a literate level at all. To a struggling coolie the new system must have seemed pretty damned good. He was just changing one master for another with no opportunity at all for banner waving nor education to enable philosophying about the 'isms' of it.
Those gentle Eastern teachings you revere were written by an infinitesimally small number of people compared to the total population of China. They weren't all in a position to be free to stargaze and philosophize. They didn't all understand the concepts of Democracy or Communism at all, just feudalism. They weren't therefore really in a position to be blamed for 'choosing' communism.
And with all due respect I'm not quite sure you understand those philosophies, which were at heart designed for practical everyday application ...
Well this could explain why Bruce Lee wasn't running the joint.
Try that
soft approach next time someone blows something up, I'm sure that'll impress 'em no end. In 'hard' cultures a soft approach is seen as a personality defect. It may work in single combat but Nations don't work that way usually. It worked for Russia when they let 'em in as far as Leningrad but that was only because they were running out of ammo and were 'hard' enough to sacrifice their own people for a future shot at beating the invader on their own ground. Is that the
soft you mean?
layful: Who really won that one, anyone?
I'll overlook your blatant and uncalled for attack upon The Master, but only because my arms aren't long enough to reach through the screen and deliver a crippling knife-hand strike to your monitor.
layful:
When someone blows something up, a hard response would be to blow up something of theirs. A soft response is to send the cops after 'em. Which is the more commonly-used response in "civilized" countries?
In China a soft approach was seen by everyone except the West-lovers as being an ideal form of life. If a farm wasn't producing enough food to feed the family you didn't start spraying toxic growth compounds on the ground and mounting a civil war to take over your neighbor's farm (the hard approach); you just conformed with Nature's signs and planted a different crop in a different location (soft).
Did you ever read The Art of War? It is literally a Bible of how to win through the philosophy of being malleable, of retreating when necessary and of eschewing the harder means of warfare as the only possible method of victory. It was used to great success earlier in China's history and only failed them when they began to ignore its wisdom.
Granted it's not at the level of international warfare, but I've been in a shite-load of scenarios where the soft method works much, much better than the hard. I've learned, through personal experience, that soft overcomes hard in combat. Soft doesn't mean weak, though - that's a common misconception. It is the iron hand in the velvet glove, the delayed punch and the disruption of the timing of an attack. It is giving way to induce false confidence in your opponent and it is borrowing their own momentum only to return it to them a hundred-fold.
I'm not sure what 'real problems' you refer to. Sure they're not in Utopia, but they're not starving in the rice paddys either. There are more millionaires in Communist China than our entire population so more of them are doing okay now than they were pre commies. You can't honestly expect any form of government to guarantee equal outcomes for a billion people. There will always be losers, but I dare suspect the ratio of losers has dropped somewhat.
Thirty-six million Chinese starved to death during the Great Famine.
Some of them might have millions of
yen but they have lost their souls in the process of gaining it - not a good exchange.
Rather than shout shame at the one child policy we should be sending them thank you notes. Sure it was 'hard' on individuals but really? Worse than their children starving? They were still allowed one child at least and not culled in the millions. That would have been more 'savage' surely?
They are easing the policy now because they're faced with an aging population, same as the rest of us. If life was so tough there they wouldn't be around long enough to age.
layful:
Seriously? You're in favor of dropping newborns down a well? You endorse painful, illegal abortions?
And this is just personal opinion, but don't you think it's more likely they're easing the policy so as to fit into the Western concept of playing nice society-wise?
They may appear to be doing it tough from your view from the living room but at ground level they're better off than the vast majority of their grandparents were.
"Better off" is one of those nebulous terms that can mean anything one chooses it to mean ... I am "better off" than my grandparents in that I have automobiles to drive, a large choice of food to eat and the wonder of the Internet.
I am WORSE off because I see people dying by the score every day from automobiles, the food is for
gotz (an old and honored Italian term referring to a certain portion of the male anatomy) and, well, you know about all the wonders of the Internet ...
I don't agree that China as a whole is merely surviving, from what I see, regardless of opinion of their 'rights' records they've come an awful long way from that in less than a century. I don't give Communism itself credit for that, just for their own particular blend of it with individual endeavour and their age old barter and enterprise system being incorporated into it. As you say, they still have a long way to go so batten your hatches.
I agree that, as with all systems, there will be survivors and there will be those who live a plush life. Often it's merely a roll of the dice; sometimes it's influenced by the specific form of government in place at the time; other times it boils down to individual effort.
My hatches are battened down, Cap'n!
irate:
Try that soft approach next time someone blows something up, I'm sure that'll impress 'em no end. In 'hard' cultures a soft approach is seen as a personality defect. It may work in single combat but Nations don't work that way usually. It worked for Russia when they let 'em in as far as Leningrad but that was only because they were running out of ammo and were 'hard' enough to sacrifice their own people for a future shot at beating the invader on their own ground. Is that the soft you mean? 
