Merriam-Webster’s Online dictionary says that to defect means to forsake one cause, party, or nation for another often because of a change in ideology.
Other reasons for defecting not mentioned in the dictionary might have more to do with greed and selfishness, and one country’s defector/hero is another country’s traitor.
Benedict Arnold is considered a traitor to most Americans. He defected to the British during the fight for independence. What most don’t consider is that Arnold left the rebels to join the British and prior to the success of the rebellion, the King of England was the ruler of the colonies. In England, Arnold was rewarded for his act and treated as a hero. In the colonies, he was a traitor.
If George Washington and the Founding Fathers had lost the American revolution, who would be the traitors?
Cultural differences also play a role in what happens when an individual defects. That’s why I decided to learn more about Chinese defectors to the West.
Discovering a list of Chinese defectors was not easy. I did a Google search and found two, short lists on Wikipedia. However, there have been more defectors than those I found on Wiki. In fact, I had a recent conversation about one defector who doesn’t appear on any of the lists I researched for this post.
Learn about Mao Zedong, the Poet or go to Defector/Traitor -Part 2
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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