In 2012, the new rulers of China will “all” have been educated in the West.
After Mao died, Deng Xiaoping and his supporters “rebuilt” the government. The party instituted term limits, two five-year terms for any political position and an age limit of sixty-seven.
Mao
These changes were implemented to avoid having another modern emperor like Mao. Those who spoke out against Mao while he ruled China were usually killed, went to prison or fell out of favor. Deng Xiaoping’s son was dropped from a high rise and paralyzed for life—the message to Deng was to “shut up or else”.
A high-ranking, retired Communist who fought with Mao during World War II and the revolution told me that the seventy million party members (like America’s Democrats and Republicans) do not always agree on issues.
The difference is that the world hears little of what goes on behind the scenes in China. Doing business that way has little to do with the party. That type of behavior is classically Chinese—not to talk about the elephant in the room or to hang out your dirty laundry for everyone to see as the West does. Behaving like that goes against what “face” means in China.
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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The Sinica crew has yet to dissucs Ai Wei Wei, and I’m wondering why (or maybe I missed it?). Seems like something you’d cover. Just curious… love the podcast and have been waiting to hear you all talk about this. Very thirsty… garden hose please.
Rafael,
I’m not familiar with the Sincia Crew. I used Google and found this: http://imagethief.com/ Is this what you are talking about?
As for Ai Wei Wei, I do not know enough about him and his situation in China yet to write about this topic, and I feel most of what I find in the West may be biased, which is usually the case in incidents such as this. The best source I have found may be found at Wiki, which seems to be as balanced and unbiased as possible and warns readers when that may not be the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei
It makes sense that any activist of any kind anywhere will be biased for his own beliefs and opinions and I do not feel that I can trust whatever the CCP says any more than I can trust the Western media. I’m really not sure what to make of Ai Wei Wei. For some reason, I feel he isn’t sincere and only speaks out for democracy and human rights to gain attention.
One thing I do know, Ai Wei Wei hasn’t vanished, isn’t dead and was released by the CCP authorities on June 22, 2011. In addition, from his pictures, it doesn’t look as if he lost any weight while he was locked up so he couldnt have suffered much. However, I have no opinion over the issue of him owing back taxes as the Beijing Taxation Bureau claims. I do recall that Ai Wei Wei had a studio demolished in November 2010 and he protested that.
After I saw his nude self-portrat in Wiki, my first thought was that this guy is crackers (crazy).
He makes claims. Then the CCP authorities then make claims. Who knows what the truth is? We may never know. I do know this, anyone that is a China enemy/critic in the West will believe Ai Wei Wei no matter what.
I often wonder what the Western media would do if the CCP allowed Taiwanese political parties to run people for office in China if Taiwan would rejoin. Since in most Asian republics (known as so-called democracies) the people tend to keep voting in the same party for decades and polls/studies in China say that if the CCP allowed other political parties to field candidates for election in the National Congress that the CCP would probably get more than 80% of the vote.
All we need do is look at Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore to discover that one party seems to hold the majority most of the time.
My guess is that if the CCP did win as studies predict, the Western media would shout out that the CCP cheated.
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