Second Question [Parfitt]: You (Lofthouse) mention Mao Zedong in your first question and reference his statement that women hold up half the sky. The Chinese Communist Party’s official line about Mao’s rule is that it was 70 percent good and 30 percent bad. What’s your assessment of Mao’s reign?
Answer [Lofthouse]:
A Museum of Tragedy near China’s port city of Shantou offers evidence of why most Chinese decided Mao was 30%”bad”.
The “bad” refers to Mao’s Cultural Revolution [1966 – 1976] leading to the many suicides of those that could not cope, as Mao’s teenage Red Guard waged war on Confucianism and persecuted people accused of bourgeois tendencies.
In addition, there were millions of deaths by starvation mostly in 1960 caused by droughts and food shortages during Mao’s Great Leap Forward.
Opinions of how many died of starvation from 1959 into early 1961 vary dramatically, and it is a controversial hot-button issue. Claims range from 16.5 million to a high of 60 million.
For example, Henry Kissinger on page 184 of “On China” says, “From 1959 to 1962, China experienced one of the worst famines in human history, leading to the deaths of over twenty million people.”
Judith Banister’s work, China’s Changing Population [Stanford University Press – 1987], agrees with Kissinger’s quote.
In fact, Banister shows that the greatest loss of life took place in 1960 and returned closer to normal in 1961.
It didn’t help that the US had a complete embargo of China (1949 – 1963), which was designed to cause suffering among the people leading to an overthrow of the Chinese Communist Party and a return to power of Chiang Kai-shek.
If Australia, Canada and France had not shipped wheat to China in 1961, the loss of life would have been worse.
What Mao did to earn the 70% “good” rating is due to his early land-reform policies ending feudalism in rural China, in addition to improving health care, which led to dramatic improvements in life expectancy.
In 1949, the average life expectancy was 36 years. By 1970, during the Cultural Revolution, average life expectancy was almost 62 years — a 71% improvement.
Today, life expectancy is 74.68 years.
Facts show that more people benefited from Mao’s “good” policies than those that suffered from the “bad”. However, critics in the West prefer to focus on a glass almost empty instead of admitting the glass was more than half-full.
Response [Parfitt]:
Chinese people believe the reign of the former Communist Party chairman was 70 percent good and 30 percent bad because that’s what the Communist Party tells them.
Historian Jonathan Spence tells a different story, one not muddled by contemporary life-expectancy statistics or charges against America. According to Spence, Mao’s land reform involved the brutal seizure and redistribution of property, with Mao admitting 700,000 “evil gentry” were justly killed.
The program didn’t put a dent in private ownership, but was a violent failure resulting in Party scorn.
Mao responded with his Hundred Flowers Movement and Anti-Rightist Campaign, part one in his trilogy of campaigns, which, along with the Korean War, may have caused 70 million deaths. Since Mao’s death, the Party has made significant strides in material development, the welfare state, national security, and prosperity, but locating a valid academic source concluding Mao’s reign was more beneficial than not is impossible.
Final Word [Lofthouse]:
Proving China prospered [on average] under Mao at the same time it suffered due to his Anti-Rightist Campaigns was easy.
Professor Stephen Thomas [University of Colorado at Denver] wrote for the World Bank’s Forum on Public Policy, “In 1949, the newly established People’s Republic of China designed and carried out economic development policies that led to an annual average economic growth rate of about 4 percent from 1953 to 1978, among the highest in the developing world…”
Then, Compton’s Living Encyclopedia says, “After the Communist revolution in 1949… Private ownership of land was abolished, but each peasant family was given a small plot to farm. Health care improved. The fluctuations in the food supply leveled off and life expectancy increased.”
I do not dispute landowners were tried, convicted and executed by the peasants they allegedly abused and exploited.
As for Mao’s policies killing 70 million—”MAY HAVE CAUSED” proves nothing.
Continued on November 30, 2011 in Discussion with Troy Parfitt, the author of “Why China Will Never Rule the World – Travels in the Two Chinas” – Part 4 or return to Part 2.
See Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 1
______________
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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Mr.Parfitt,
How would you compare how lifewas under Mao’s rule to that of the typical Chinese who lived in the time period from the first opium war up until 1949?
Yes, I have.
Mr.Parfitt,
Have you ever studied what life was like for the typical Chinese between 1840 and 1949?
Well, assuming that life expectancies did increase from 36 years of age in 1949 to 62 by 1970, that’s a good thing. A very good thing. Thank you.
Mr Parfitt said:
“but locating a valid academic source concluding Mao’s reign was more beneficial than not is impossible.”
I can only assume that you mean Mao made life worse for the Chinese people, or at least he didn’t improve their livelihoods at all.
When you say “massive increase in life expectancy,” what do you mean? Could you please provide me with a valid source and statistics?
Also, could you kindly quote where I said “Mao made life worse for the Chinese people”? Worse than what?
Thank you.
Honestly these are facts that someone tackling a broad an issue as you are should have on the tip of your fingers. There are many many reputable third party sources on life expectancy in China during that period easily accessible through Google.
China population profile (including life expectancy)
http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Multiple-Figures/multiple-figures_1.htm
Source: World Population Prospects, the 2010 Revision. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Population Division, New York
For a clue as to how Mao’s policies were directly responsible for the increase in life expectancy, see Amartya Sen’s comparative treatment of health care in China and India, and how ‘barefoot doctors’ worked implement basic health care in China.
http://asiasociety.org/business/development/amartya-sen-what-china-could-teach-india-then-and-now
(Amartya Sen is recognized as world’s leading famine scholar and is the 1998 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics)
To see the role that better nutrition played in life expectancy see the peer reviewed article.
Nutrition and health in China, 1949 to 1989.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2293245
from a previous post from Mr. Lofthouse.
Mr. Parfitt asked Terry K. Chen, “When you say “massive increase in life expectancy,” what do you mean? Could you please provide me with a valid source and statistics?”
If Terry Chen doesn’t mind, why ask Terry to do the research required to answer the first two questions since I already have the information available.
Judith Banister’s “China’s Changing Population” published by Stanford University Press is one source.
Source:
http://books.google.com/books?id=1_yrbXvyv0YC&pg=PA98&lpg=PA98&dq=Judith+Banister+mortality+rates+in+Asia&source=bl&ots=DhO9605ImG&sig=VCNVKhy_x7KOqEhB55Fx4XpDdv0&hl=en&ei=zAaiTpOHHumkiQK-_JGAAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=1958&f=false
Another source is World Life Expectancy.com (WLE), which quotes data from the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, UNESCO, the CIA and individual country databases for global health and causes of death. WLE also uses date from the CDC, NIH and individual state and county databases for verification and supplementation for USA data.
Source:
http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/history-of-life-expectancy
In 1970, six years before Mao’s death, average life expectancy in China was age 61.7. In 1949, when Mao became the leader of China, the average life expectancy was age 36. Increasing the average life expectancy by more than 58% and achieving this in spite of the famine that took place during the Great Leap Forward and the anarchy caused by The Cultural Revolution is not only amazing but incredible since there is nothing in global history that equals it.
Mr.Parfitt,
In that case, if Mao made life worse for the Chinese people, how do you explain the massive increase in life expectancy under his rule?
I was under the impression that comments made here by the debaters were to be in response to comments and questions made by the readers, not extensions or additional rounds of the debate. I was under the impression that’s why there was a debate – one that followed a balanced format, with word number contraints, etc. – to keep things even. If I spot an error in my statements, I may clarify. If readers spot what they think is an error in my statements, I may address it; and if readers have an intelligent question, I may address that, too. However, I’m not going to counter Mr. Lofthouse’s comments, because I don’t think that would be fair to the debate, or Mr. Lofthouse. Thank you.
Troy Parfitt,
It is regrettable that you did not voice your “assumptions” before and during the debate. Since I am not a mind reader, I had no idea that you “assumed” there would be no comments from either of the debaters after the debate started to appear.
However, as the debate progressed, I realized the only way to respond to all of your often-unsupported and misleading opinions was to wait and do it in comments outside of the format of the debate, which I am doing.
If you choose to ignore my comments and not respond to them, I have no problems with that.
Besides, letting readers form opinions from opinions without all the facts is unacceptable since that would be the same as standing by and allowing history to be revised until millions believed those opinions to be true. One example is claiming Mao was responsible for 70 million deaths without clarifying that the accusations are supported by exaggerated and inflated facts and that many scholars do not support those claims.
Were Mao’s failed policies responsible for people dying? Yes.
How many died from Mao’s failed policies? Anyone may claim outrageous numbers until blue in the face but there is no way to prove how many actually died. In addition, there is no proof that Mao deliberately set out to murder and/or butcher tens of millions of his own people at the same time that he was helping them.
However, Mao deserves another question. How many lived longer, healthier lives because of Mao’s successful policies?
One example is the Bare Foot Doctor’s program that Mao launched.
In fact, an award winning Cambridge Documentary Film, “Barefoot Doctors of Rural China”, provides compelling evidence that Mao did not fail at everything he set in motion as China’s leader from 1949-1976.
The 52 minute film, produced and directed by Diane Li (with associate producer Victor H. Li), presented a unique view of the development of the barefoot doctors in the Chinese countryside in the 1970s.
One of the first films about China made by Americans of Chinese descent, “Barefoot Doctors of Rural China” presented an intimate view of life in rural China. Filmed entirely in the People’s Republic of China, this film examined China’s innovative efforts to provide adequate health care services for its agrarian population of over 600,000,000 people. The film focused on the training and activities of peasant paramedics, known as ‘barefoot doctors,’ and their ‘walk on two legs’ policy of combining both western and Chinese medical techniques. The Cambridge documentary also discussed the barefoot doctor’s role in China’s current family planning campaign and the importance of jobs for women to the success of the program.
Source: http://www.cambridgedocumentaryfilms.org/barefoot.html
Then in a 135-page paper by Cedric Howshan Bien, class of 2008, Wesleyan University, we discover that “The legacy of China’s barefoot doctors program continues to reverberate across China. It is instructive that despite the negative repercussions of the Cultural Revolution, the barefoot doctors are considered by many to be a positive product of Maoist China. Furthermore, during a period of poor socioeconomic development in the 1960s and 1970s, barefoot doctors provided a basic system of health care that contributed to enviable improvements in human wellbeing during this period.”
Source: http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=etd_hon_theses
It may well be that more people in China benefited from Mao’s successful programs than those that suffered from his failed policies and Mao deserves credit for both his failures and his successes.
It does not take much to express an opinion verbally or in writing but often it may require books to clarify and correct misplaced and misleading opinions.
Lloyd,
I knew we could both comment. You mentioned, twice, I believe, that readers could comment and we could respond to those comments with our own. But what wasn’t mentioned – at least I don’t recall it being mentioned – is that the debate would continue in the comments section. I assumed that wouldn’t happen because that is not the nature of a debate. In a debate, the debaters do not contining arguing after a round. They stop, and go on to the next round. Now, I know this is not one of the Munk Debates, but debates follow a format, and that format is not being followed here. You’ve been very kind, not to mention tolerant, in having me on as debater, but I feel that arguing after the agreed upon argument is over undermines the integrity, and civility, of the debate. Thank you very much.
Troy
Troy Parfitt,
And what happens if one of the readers asks me to comment further on one of your claims and opinions?
Troy, did you publish your book as “FICTION” or “NONFICTION”? If you say “FICTION” and it is clear to the reader that you wrote a FICTION, than I have no reason to continue to comment. In addition, do you have a disclaimer on the editorial page of your book that says your opinions of China are your own opinions and there are scholars, authors, facts and data that do not support those opinions but you are not going to use any of that work in your book because your book was only written to offer your own opinions on the subject?
However, if you claim your book is “NONFICTION”, than I have an obligation to continue for the sake of clarity and setting the record straight. Your work appears to be an editorial or personal opinions masquerading as “NONFICTION” based on handpicked facts and data. In a newspaper, your work clearly does not fit into the category of news, feature or sports but would fit on an opinion page that supports your own opinions and opinions often do not face the reality that actually took place.
I was trained to be a journalist (BA 1973) and I taught award winning journalism and the work my students wrote and published was recognized locally, nationally and internationally [one of my former students that I know of went on to become a news anchor for one of the three major networks in a midsized American city], and I know the difference between opinions and facts, but many people do not and are easily mislead, which is the reason I started this Blog—to make sure every time I read someone’s own opinion of China masquerading as a reality based on handpicked facts and data, I then research those claims to see if they stand up under scrutiny and when they don’t, I write posts that offer more information on the topic so there is another voice countering the one that appears biased.
For example, a recent post on steel production is an example. Another example was when that high-speed rail accident happened in China a few months ago, and the Western media criticized China so viciously. I researched that topic too and found it to be slanted and misleading making China look bad when in fact, the US and India were much worse when it came to rail accidents so I wrote about that too pointing out that anyone in the West that condemned China for that one accident was either ignorant or a hypocrite and had no right to condemn China without condemning the US and India too. That post was picked up by Foreign Policy magazine and the Hindustan Times.
An opinion by its nature if “FICTION”. I have never stated an opinion that Mao was a monster or not a monster. He certainly set in motion events that led to suffering and death while at the same time facts and data support that some of his policies led to improvements in China. Nevertheless, to make unsupportable claims that all the facts and data do not support is not acceptable to me.
It appears to me that when you state an opinion as if it is fact, you go “cherry picking” among the authors and scholars you have read and select what you want to support your theories.
I do not consider it an argument when all the facts and data does not support an opinion that may be biased based on faulty logic.
You have a right to all your own opinions, and I’m sure there will be others that agree with you because they hold similar opinions.
However, you said, “I feel that arguing after the agreed upon argument is over undermines the integrity, and civility, of the debate,” and I feel his is disingenuous due to the fact that so many of your claims and opinions appear to have been stated with the assumption that they would not be challenged beyond the debate.
Often, you rattled these opinions and claims off as if they were shots making outrageous, unsupported claims to support the thesis and opinions of your books and for the sake of clarity responses beyond the format of the debate are called for and that means comments outside the agreed upon format of the debate.
In fact, I am not arguing with you. You have a right to believe whatever you want about China and the Chinese. It is not an “argument” when all I’m doing is offering facts and data that do not support your own opinions and I do not expect you to respond.
All I’m doing is what I’ve done all along in this Blog—offering the readers more facts and data so they are better able to decide for themselves if they accept your opinions and make them their own. Clearly, you may not have been aware of what you were getting into when you agreed to the rules of the debate format, which never included comments.
If people that read my Blog do not like the format of my Blog and what I write, they do not need to read it or return ever, and any reader of this Blog may ask me to comment further on your opinions and I would. For example, if a reader asks me to respond further to one of your comments, than I would do that too.
You say, “Debates follow a format.” You are correct but most traditional TV and radio debates (where they have traditionally taken place in the past) do not have comment sections as a Blog does. Even live debates are limited by the time scheduled for the debate. If there was an opinion piece in a traditional newspaper or magazine, later “letters to the editor” a month or so later might continue the topic and even ask questions and the authors of these opinionated pieces often respond.
The Internet offers us new territory to explore. This Blog is a form of print journalism and it covers news, features and offers editorials and opinions based on facts, which may provide direct links to the source of information an author uses in his work for readers to easily verify, so we may be breaking new ground here as the media is being reinvented due to this technology.
The Internet is challenging the traditional ways people interacted in the past and our debate is another example. In fact, the Internet and Blogs offer people a way to interact in ways that the old, traditional media never offered due to its limitations. With an Internet Blog, there is no time limit and no commerical breaks and responses may be quick instead of taking weeks or months to appear in a letter to the editor column. The constraints of the 20th century media had limitations that do not exist on the 21st century Internet and communications have truely become a two way street happening in the moment and staying there for all to see weeks, months and years in the future.
“if readers spot what they think is an error in my statements, I may address it; and if readers have an intelligent question, I may address that, too.”
Quite an arrogant statement u make here, Mr. Parfitt…u seem to assume that u and ur ideas are intelligent and valuable by default, and that u may graciously answer some question from the “people”, provided they are at least intelligent….Especially considering the kind of gross, superficial, and often baseless, things u said till now.
Mr.Lofthouse,
No one is denying that many people died under Mao’s rule and that his policies had many problems. However, Mr.Parfitt makes it sound as if he made life worse for the Chinese people, an absurd accusation that can be easily disproved. The typical Chinese certainly was better off than one that lived during the period of time from the first opium war up until 1949, when Chinese had to endure several civil wars, brutal landlords, and oppressive foreigners.
Parfitt wrote, “Mao responded with his Hundred Flowers Movement and Anti-Rightist Campaign, part one in his trilogy of campaigns…”
I have no idea why Mr. Parfitt mentioned the Hundred Flowers Movement and how this had an impact on the 70/30% opinion rating of Mao. This movement only lasted a few weeks and achieved little or nothing.
As for the trilogy of campaigns, they were started to strengthen and improve China so it would not fall victim to foreigners telling China what to do or invading as the West did during the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion and Japan did in World War II. The evidence says that some of these campaigns failed (two miserably) and more succeeded or there would have been no steady improvement in lifestyle and lifespan, which is a HUGE measurement that is very difficult to refute.
To be honest, I didn’t know much about the Hundred Flowers Movement so I did some research to answer, “What was the Hundred Flowers Movement?”
The Hundred Flowers Campaign, also termed the Hundred Flowers Movement, refers mainly to a brief six weeks in the PRC in the early summer of 1957 during which the CCP encouraged a variety of views and solutions to national policy issues, launched under the slogan: “Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.”
The idea was to have intellectuals discuss the country’s problems in order to promote new forms of arts and new cultural institutions. Mao, however, also saw this as the chance to promote socialism. He believed that after discussion it would be apparent that socialist ideology was the dominant ideology over capitalism, even amongst non-communist Chinese, and would thus propel the development and spread of the goals of socialism.
The campaign publicly began in late 1956. In the opening stage of the movement, issues discussed were relatively minor and unimportant in the grand scheme. The Central Government did not receive much criticism, although there was a significant rise in letters of conservative advice.
Premier Zhou Enlai received some of these letters, and once again realized that, although the campaign had gained notable publicity, it was not progressing as had been hoped. Zhou approached Mao about the situation, stating that more encouragement was needed from the central bureaucracy to lead the intellectuals into further discussion.
By the spring of 1957, Mao had announced that criticism was “preferred” and had begun to mount pressure on those who did not turn in healthy criticism on policy to the Central Government. From this point on, the “preferred” criticisms led to denunciations and witch-hunts and the situation deteriorated. By the time the situation turned dark, Mao had cancelled the Hundred Flowers Movement. After all, it only ran a few weeks and didn’t lead to the changes Mao and the Party was hoping for.
It is obvious that in the beginning, the CCP was encouraging the people to be part of the process of change that would strengthen the nation so the history of the previous century would not repeat itself, but that didn’t happen so Mao stepped in to lead the changes that would strengthen China and improve life and the results (on average) did improve life for the majority of people from what it had been.