[Watermoon]

China bought a lot of american bonds. The same.

Japs request help to it's father --America

[kamiraito]

China bought a lot of american bonds. The same.

American depend on many Chinese products.The same.

[Noelnada]

I can dream first to change history in object world later

You can join my dream and togheter, we will show history what great men can do without resorting to physical violence

Ok, dreams are cheap.

Dreams > Nightmares.

[Vigil of Reason]

Mao was a true revolutionary. He managed to defeat the KMT, even with its authoritarian regime during the early days. Without Mao, China would not be where it is today; but without him, the same tragedies would have still unfolded, except under ROC. I despise him for his messing around with the ROC, but I like him simply as a friendly, witty, fat man.

[smallpox]

HoniSoit:

Well, you repeatedly ignored the enormous improvement of standard of livings under Mao, and disregarded the broader political context that sees, among many things, the isolation of China from access to market and essential raw materials from industrialisation. If you overlook all the social, economic and political conditions at the time, and attempt to attribute all the evils to one leader, is it really surprising you would reach the mistaken view that Mao has done nothing good at all (which is not really better than people praising Mao as if he's a god, both of whom primarily base their conclusion more on emotions than sound scholarship)?

There is an econometric studies which shows that without Mao, people's standards of living would have been 3 times higher by today. It's easy to increase standards of living after 1949, the country was recovering from two centuries of war. You could have thrown a loaf of bread in the country and that would have increased standards by a dozen percent. Yet, when Mao tries to "help" the economy (Great Leap Forward), he still manages to decrease standards of living by 2 folds. And then again with his dumb Cultural Revolution.
What context? The US was dying for a capitalist Asia. They would have thrown another Marshall-like plan to China would Mao put his dumb ideologies aside and turned his back from Stalin. After all, Stalin supported Chang Kai Shiek during most of the civil war and turned his back to Mao several times. The international cooperation decisions Mao made politically were astouningly idiotic also.
Again, none of this is a single good thing Mao did. I can't believe how hard it is to find one good Maoist policy.

[Lone Gunman]

Chairman Mao started off like any other caring leader and he was a charismatic man. He was hardly insane and he was still human. All the barbaric, evil things he did and selfishness he had inside are all human 'qualities'. It's the same with other dictators. While some things they did can be tolerated or even respected, the final outcome all lead to them gaining unthinkable amounts of power for personal benefit and profit. Their lust and greed destroyed nations and I think while Mao's ideology was staunchly different from say Hitler's, his apathy towards human suffering made him almost as evil.

[DarkInsight]

but without him, the same tragedies would have still unfolded, except under ROC.

Are you saying the Great Leap and Cultural Revolution would still have happened under the leadership of KMT, which is not a communism party at all?


For those who think Mao as someone who "has a good intention but fail to do things right", you are deluded.
Yes, you can describe the Great Leap and other economic programs as "good-intentioned programs go terribly wrong", but what about the Cultural Revolution or the 反右 (Anti Right-wing)? The above are programs designed to eliminate any individuals who don't share the same political beliefs or stand in the way of Mao's to authoritarianism. Are these "good-intentioned" too?

Are instigating and motivating students to kill/report/torture their teachers "good-intentioned but go terribly wrong" too? Are banishing these students to the countryside and allow the whole fcking generation,repeat, WHOLE GENERATION, of youngster to suffer at the local bureaucrats who held power similarly "good-intentioned but go terribly wrong" too?

Without Mao, there won't be
1.separation of Taiwan and China
2.existence of North Korea "democratic" republic and hence, the thousands who died of famine or trying to escape
3.MILLIONS, not hundred of thousands, mind you, but millions of people who died in famine, political purging,genocide,war that is no business of Chinese people (Korean War),and so on.


Answer me, do you like Chairman Mao?

[Vigil of Reason]

Answer me, do you like Chairman Mao?

I said, I like him only as a friendly, witty, fat man. But really, I never met him, so I cannot say.
I concede from my comment about the same tragedies happening under ROC, but not because it is not communist.

Yes, you can describe the Great Leap and other economic programs as "good-intentioned programs go terribly wrong", but what about the Cultural Revolution or the 反右 (Anti Right-wing)? The above are programs designed to eliminate any individuals who don't share the same political beliefs or stand in the way of Mao's to authoritarianism. Are these "good-intentioned" too?

The Great Leap was not and did not do anything in eliminating dissent. It was a proof that corporations or direct government control are the only way to industrialization, and not the working class. Also, floods helped worsen the situation; the floods would have hit if ROC was in control. As to anti-dissent campaigns, the separatists here are always so nostalgic about KMT authoritarianism, anti-left purges, and the White Terror. So if you want to blame everything on only one person, you can only do so to God for creating everything.

[HoniSoit]

There is an econometric studies which shows that without Mao, people's standards of living would have been 3 times higher by today.

I would certainly like to see it if you happen to have the reference. But I would doubt it take into consideration the political context, and the historical forces that will necessarily affect a country's economic development.

You may also know of Sen's work on comparing China and India which finds the state-socialist model probably has saved millions of life relative to the state-capitalist model adopted by India.

It's easy to increase standards of living after 1949, the country was recovering from two centuries of war. You could have thrown a loaf of bread in the country and that would have increased standards by a dozen percent.

[1] - it was the Communist Party and no other political force that ensure the stability which paved the way for economic development.
[2] - it's certainly true that the People's Republic started with a primitive economic base which has been devastated by at least a century but that makes it all the more difficult to get serious industrialisation off the ground and to feed people.

What context? The US was dying for a capitalist Asia. They would have thrown another Marshall-like plan to China would Mao put his dumb ideologies aside and turned his back from Stalin.

Again, it's good to look at Sen's work and the experience of much of the Latin American, Asian and even some African countries which adopted capitalist development after decolonisation and see where they are now.

It's important to see that economic development doesn't take place in a vacuum. For example, the economy of many of the Latin American countries have been molded and constrained in such a way that their functions are to export primary resources and import Western European and American products while at the same time having a large percentage of their population in deep poverty and starvation.

The international cooperation decisions Mao made politically were astouningly idiotic also.

Such as?

I can't believe how hard it is to find one good Maoist policy.

It's really hard to find one when you have emotionally predisposed yourself to that assumption.

For example, the elimination of gentry as a class which has suppressed the rural population for thousands of years was one of the early great achievements under Mao.

[DarkInsight]

I said, I like him only as a friendly, witty, fat man. But really, I never met him, so I cannot say.
I concede from my comment about the same tragedies happening under ROC, but not because it is not communist.

How do you find him friendly when you have never met him before? Friendly to whom? Since all the political figures always put up an amicable face whenever in public , you might as well claim you like every figures in the world.

And pray enlighten us what drives PRC into decades of cultural recession, corruption and demise of the whole generation, the collapse of the whole society and millions of death if not their Marxism ideology and hence the various "movements" and "economic programs"?
Besides communism nations, which other country ever collapse into situation mentioned above due to the said movements and programs?
Besides communism nations, which other country has ever had such large scale of political purging? You know,even the then vice president of CCP himself cannot escape the "people movement" zeal and eventually get overthrown.

So how do you "like" someone whom you never met before,if you really like him because of his characteristic as you claimed. And if you take his "achievements" into accounts, it is ridiculous for anyone to "like" a person who has committed such atrocities, good-intentioned or not.The best you can do is maybe not blaming him for it.

The Great Leap was not and did not do anything in eliminating dissent. It was a proof that corporations or direct government control are the only way to industrialization, and not the working class. Also, floods helped worsen the situation; the floods would have hit if ROC was in control. As to anti-dissent campaigns, the separatists here are always so nostalgic about KMT authoritarianism, anti-left purges, and the White Terror. So if you want to blame everything on only one person, you can only do so to God for creating everything.

Do you have trouble understanding English? I have never suggest that The Great Leap has anything to do with eliminating opposition.Please reread my post.
And how in the hell does it proves that "corporations or direct government control are the only way to industrialization"? Didn't the whole tragedy of all these economic program started when the government tried to run a "designed market" instead of a free market which follows economic rule?

Please answer me, do you honestly have any idea what happened during the reign of Mao?

And lastly, if someone doesn't like Mao, that doesn't mean they like KMT or Jiang.Bringing atrocities done by another party doesn't lessen the sin we are talking about. "A is bad doesn't mean B is good".

And if we don't blame Mao for all the lives lost,all the culture that has been erased, who shall be blamed?If we simply cover our eyes for someone who had committed such atrocities, there is nothing we can't forgive.
Hell, we can't even blame Hitler for the Holocaust if we follow this kind of logic.

[Vigil of Reason]

I concede from my stance that I might personally like Mao if I met him. And blame all you want, a scapegoat is usually needed to put all the blame on. I am not saying Mao is innocent from the atrocities, but that there is not much point in blaming him. Yes, it does give people a place to direct their anger, and I will now stop interfering with that.

I have never suggest that The Great Leap has anything to do with eliminating opposition.

Yes, I misunderstood.

Didn't the whole tragedy of all these economic program started when the government tried to run a "designed market" instead of a free market which follows economic rule?

It happened because the designed market was much too decentralized. The communes (or whatever) operated on their own, and did not have enough direct hierarchy above to control them. That and several natural disasters.

all the culture that has been erased

What culture that has been erased? The Cultural Revolution was unsuccessful in not obliterating all of Chinese culture; the only that might do that is the Internet.

If we simply cover our eyes for someone who had committed such atrocities, there is nothing we can't forgive.

You cannot forgive anyone who killed people, because the people are already dead. (Or are you dead?)

[DarkInsight]

I concede from my stance that I might personally like Mao if I met him. And blame all you want, a scapegoat is usually needed to put all the blame on. I am not saying Mao is innocent from the atrocities, but that there is not much point in blaming him. Yes, it does give people a place to direct their anger, and I will now stop interfering with that.

So now you "might" like Mao if you met him, don't you? Well, at least that's a start. And secondly, do understand the true meaning of scapegoat. If Mao has no power of influence over what had happened during his reign, if he have no say in the direction of the policy, then maybe we can say he is a scapegoat, but is that so?
He was literally the God of PRC at that time(and still is, to the ignorant and uneducated), his portrait was hung in every household, his sayings being recited, was the president of CCP, and had personally written in the newspaper to condemn the "right wing", are you telling me he has no responsibility whatsoever in the atrocities done in the name of reconstruction and reformation of society?

Yes, the whole country and party was going crazy, but he, as the leader of nation and party didn't help much either, in fact, it is he who started and encouraged the zealots.His criticism of the right-wing,published in the paper, was seen as an encouragement to students to openly incriminate their teachers. Are you telling me he ,the leader of both the party and nation, held no responsibility?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolution
Read this:It was launched by Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Communist Party of China, on May 16, 1966, officially as a campaign to rid China of its “liberal bourgeoisie” elements and to continue revolutionary class struggle by mobilizing the thoughts and actions of China’s youth, who formed Red Guards groups around the country. It is widely recognized, however, as a method to regain control of the party after the disastrous Great Leap Forward led to a significant loss of Mao’s power to rivals Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping, and would eventually descend into waves of power struggles between rival factions both nationally and locally.

And this:Although differing assessments continue to exist, in its official, historical judgment of the Cultural Revolution in 1981, the Party assigned chief responsibility to Mao Zedong, but also laid significant blame on Lin Biao and the Gang of Four (most prominently its leader, Jiang Qing) for causing its worst excesses.
He is a scapegoat???Wtf?

Again, if the word can be used on Mao, why can't it be used to describe Hitler too? Maybe we can claim the whole German was at the peak of zeal over ethnic hygiene and that Hitler is merely a scapegoat? Is that what you are implying?

What culture that has been erased? The Cultural Revolution was unsuccessful in not obliterating all of Chinese culture; the only that might do that is the Internet.

Are you kidding me? Don't tell me you have never heard of "打倒孔家店" （Overthrow Confucianism)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_revolution#Destruction_of_antiques.2C_historical_sites_and_culture
Are you that ignorant of what had happened during those times?
It seems naive to claim that you "might" like Mao when you have no idea what has happened.

It happened because the designed market was much too decentralized. The communes (or whatever) operated on their own, and did not have enough direct hierarchy above to control them. That and several natural disasters.

This is perhaps the most stupid quote I have ever read in my entire life. I now realize I have just wasted so much time on someone who totally doesn't deserve it.

My piece of advice , go read some more documents before you make such crazy claims as above.

[DarkInsight]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Climate_conditions_and_famine

Flood?Natural disaster?

Wake up!

Liu Shaoqi made a speech in 1962 at Seven Thousand Man's Assembly criticizing that "The economic disaster was 30% fault of nature, 70% human error."[7] It was principally to crush this opposition that Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in early 1966.

Innocent scapegoat?

[Vigil of Reason]

I am not saying Mao is innocent at all, and neither I am I saying scapegoats are bad.

Your link to Wikipedia yields:

In 1959 and 1960 the weather was less favorable, and the situation got considerably worse, with many of China's provinces experiencing severe famine. Droughts, floods, and general bad weather caught China completely by surprise. In July 1959, the Yellow River flooded in East China. According to the Disaster Center [3], it directly killed, either through starvation from crop failure or drowning, an estimated 2 million people.

In 1960, at least some degree of drought and other bad weather affected 55 percent of cultivated land, while an estimated 60 percent of northern agricultural land received no rain at all [4].

About my comment on culture not being erased, I think it was due to a slight misuse of the words "culture" and "erased". Yes, historical artifacts were destroyed, but Chinese culture is not simply antiques and ancient sites. Confucianism was not overthrown. Chinese culture survives in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinatowns. But do not get implications from me again, the Cultural Revolution was terrible and useless.

And I clearly said I have abandoned being able to "might like Mao" ("I concede from my stance").

[smallpox]

HoniSoit:

I would certainly like to see it if you happen to have the reference. But I would doubt it take into consideration the political context, and the historical forces that will necessarily affect a country's economic development.

http://www.geocities.com/smallp0x86/ChowCh80.pdf

Sure they do, with dummy variables. Don't under-estimate experts in the field.

You may also know of Sen's work on comparing China and India which finds the state-socialist model probably has saved millions of life relative to the state-capitalist model adopted by India.

No I haven't, but I disagree with almost everything Sen states. Considering he doesn't differentiates between big ticket items and low utility activities in his work, "Rational Fools", I'd be surprised if he considered the difference between sustained long term growth and short term growth.
Also, China's real growth has been in the Deng Xiaoping years, and this was a sponteneous evolution, it was not centrally planned what's so ever. In fact, at first, the CCP opposed the reforms which proved to fuel China's impressive growth. So no, China did not grow thanks to state-socialism in the first place.

[1] - it was the Communist Party and no other political force that ensure the stability which paved the way for economic development.

False. It was "corrupted" local government officials and foreign/domestic entrepreneurs who established rural businesses despite being illegal as legislated by the CCP. There was a political force which ended the civil war in China, but the fact that they were communist is irrelevant. They could have very well turned to capitalism and accepted Marshall-like plan loans which did wonders in other places.

[2] - it's certainly true that the People's Republic started with a primitive economic base which has been devastated by at least a century but that makes it all the more difficult to get serious industrialisation off the ground and to feed people.

Again, false. It's FAR easier for the planner to boost the economy when it is underdeveloped. In an under-developed economy, your workers need hammers and simple tools. It's not much of a challenge to plan for hammers and other simple tools, you produce them and see tremendous growth. A work with a hammer is FAR more effecient than a worker without a hammer. But then they need power tools, and the power tool factory needs the part to make power tools, and the workers need more electricity. So you gather more, diversified resources and increase the nomenklatura to accomodate this demand. It's a lot harder AND while effeciency might go up when you give workers power tools, the increase is far lesser than when you gave shitless workers hammer. Then the workers want services to entertain themselves and do something with their wages...that is incredibly complicated and far less rewarding in terms of efficiency. That is where the USSR failed.
There is a diminishing return to capital, especially when the economy is planned.

Again, it's good to look at Sen's work and the experience of much of the Latin American, Asian and even some African countries which adopted capitalist development after decolonisation and see where they are now.

You mean hard budget constraints? This further proves Sen's disregard for long term growth v. short term benefits. Let's take the example of the USSR. The USSR had soft-budget constraints, because it was a planned economy. This worked great at first. People were moving to the country side, production was up while the rest of the world was in an international depression. Though this method is unsustainable. Partly because of the diminishing return to capital I mentioned above, but also because it lacks incentives and is too heavily interdependent, this way to economic growth fails in the long run.
Same thing was going to happen to China, and behold, state ran enterprises in China are currently running a defecit - like all situations of soft-budget constraints. It's the hard-budget constraint companies (the private ones) who are fueling China's economic growth. This is so successful that the competition has spilled over into the SOE's and they are more effecient than before (though miles behind private enterprises).
Hard-budget contraints worked in China because it has many geographical advantages over Latin America. So the issue is not that competitive markets wouldn't have worked in China because they failed in Latin America. China proved that competitive makret is what was needed by the time Deng Xiaoping was in office.

It's important to see that economic development doesn't take place in a vacuum. For example, the economy of many of the Latin American countries have been molded and constrained in such a way that their functions are to export primary resources and import Western European and American products while at the same time having a large percentage of their population in deep poverty and starvation.

I'm not too familiar with Latin America but Canada pulled the same trick and it really paid off. There's nothing wrong with buying from abroad. And many countries in South America are doing pretty good and/or are growing very fast. Of course Argentina and Brazil come to mind. Though I would like to stay on the Chinese topic. Like you said, don't take things into a vaccuum. Obviously hard-budget constraint worked in China, Latin America's situation relates very little to that.

Such as?

Siding with Stalin at first.

It's really hard to find one when you have emotionally predisposed yourself to that assumption.

I don't have any emotions about the guy, I never met him. All I know from him is his policies, and so, based solely on that, I call him a complete mess, or an idiot. Both fit adequately.

For example, the elimination of gentry as a class which has suppressed the rural population for thousands of years was one of the early great achievements under Mao.

And he replaced them with government officials which starved the rural population like never before. Plus million of innocents were falsely accused of being bourgeois and therefore attacked. They had a quota of bourgeois prosecution to fulfill... ?! Even in his supposedly "great" achivement, he committed countless of turmoil.

[Lone Gunman]

Mao's economic planning and social ideals gradually became more of a mess as his leadership entered its final years. Many close to him new this but, like Hitler, many just couldn't do anything about for their loyalties were confirmed by the threat of death. It's quite obvious that China did NOT prosper under Mao and that Mao's earlier 'good deeds' could have been reproduced by almost anyone. In fact China's history since the end of WW2 has far too many variables but what we can say with some certainty is that:

-If Mao never became a dictator maybe someone else would have? I mean come on the CCP are COMMUNIST, someone's gotta be in charge.

-If the Communists NEVER won the Civil War, Chiang Kai Shek would have ruled China with an iron fist ANYWAY however economically speaking he would have probably been more open to capitalism and foreign assistance.

-China would have lived under some kind of dictatorship or quails-democratic rule for several decades.

-Like opponents of Mao, opponents of the KMT and Chiang Kai Shek would have been persecuted and murdered also.


The outcome would have largely been similar except economically speaking the Nationalists MAY have become more open to capitalist principles and which, if not anything else, would have been better for at least some Chinese people than Communism.

[liberalgirl]

I hate Mao from the bottom of my heart just like many of other Chinese. He treated Chinese like a number he used Chinese to fulfill his own "social experiment" dream. Even after so many people died of hunger and another CCP leader Liu Shao Qi had made some postive changes after his mess. To cover his failure, he pointed his finger to Liu and ask other people to against Liu. He also secretly or openly punished a lot of people who was not totally agree with his policy. He was such a evil and suspicious person and couldn't tolerate anyone against him or better than him, that's why he made cultural revolution happen and tortured so many intellectuals. He destroyed so many Chinese historical buildings and cultures, during cultural revolution so many books and paintings got burned. He was just a pathetic clown in Chinese history and there will be more and more dark secrets revealed in the future when China become more free on information. Just look at his wife Jiang Qing she was as evil as him. Only evil people stuck together, there is a famous saying "Cou Qi Xiang Tou". And he had been with so many women during that time when infidelity was considered a serious scandal in China.

[Eauz]

[Eauz Edit: Please note that even though we are in the sub-forum for discussion about topics related to China and other countries in the region, please be sure to post in English. I've deleted the post that was written in Chinese characters and the other posts in reply, since they didn't add anything of value or use to the discussion. I don't care if you love, hate or have no opinion towards the actions of Mao, however, since this is an English language forum, we should be using English. Kamiraito is welcome to repost what he did, as long as it is within the rules and regulations of the forum.]

[corleniet]

Mao did mistake, Mao cause to many people's death,But Mao didnt ever KILL anyone include Liu Shaoqi who may is innocent in culture revolution dead in prison.
Mao's economic mistake is not only his,but Marx's,and many powerful people in Chinese Party Central Committee who support Mao and didn't against Mao.

[DarkInsight]

Mao did mistake, Mao cause to many people's death,But Mao didnt ever KILL anyone include Liu Shaoqi who may is innocent in culture revolution dead in prison.
Mao's economic mistake is not only his,but Marx's,and many powerful people in Chinese Party Central Committee who support Mao and didn't against Mao.

Are you claiming that Mao shouldn't be held responsible for the death of many during the cultural revolution because he didn't do the deeds himself?