The Connection between Opium, Christianity, Cults and Cannon Balls in China

March 1, 2011

Organized religions and cults such as the Falun Gong have been in China for centuries, but have never played a major role in the culture until the 19th century when Christianity was forced on China.

C.M. Cipolla wrote in his book, Guns, Sails and Empires, “While Buddha came to China on white elephants, Christ was born on cannon balls” powered by opium.

The treaty that ended the opium wars included a clause that required China to allow Christian missionaries free access to all of China to convert the heathens.

Then the Taiping Rebellion led by Hong Xiuquan, God’s Chinese son and a Christian convert, was responsible for more than 20 million deaths. Hong claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. Millions believed him.

In the early months of 1900, thousands of Boxers, officially known as Fists of Righteous Harmony, roamed the countryside attacking Christian missions, slaughtering foreign missionaries and Chinese converts.

Confucius and possibly Lao-Tse have influenced the foundation of Chinese culture and morality the most. These two along with Buddha offer more of a blended influence on Chinese culture than Christianity or Islam.

Thanks to Confucius, China’s mainstream culture understands the importance of people within the family and society more so than many other countries and cultures.

This may explain why China is a powerhouse of industry today.

Learn of Christianity and Islam 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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China March 11, 2010 as post # 128. This revised version reappears as post # 1095.

7 Comments | China, Chinese history, Christianity, Confucianism, crime, cults, cultural differences, history, Islam, Taoism | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 8/9

March 1, 2011

When you read what happened to the UN POW’s, keep in mind that from 1949 to 1976, Revolutionary Maoist doctrine ruled China with an iron fist.

Most of the powerful Communist generals and politicians that fought with Mao to win the Civil War from 1925 to 1949 spoke out against his harsh actions as the leader of China.

Those men, with few exceptions, were killed or went to prison. A few survived by learning to stay out of sight and shutting up. Deng Xiaoping was one of the few that protested and survived.

After Mao’s death, Deng Xiaoping reappeared, gained the leadership and embarked on a campaign to convert China to an open-market economy mixing socialism with capitalism creating a hybrid form of government never seen before.

The reeducation camps that existed for much of Mao’s rule and the labor camps that appeared during the Cultural Revolution do not exist in China today.  In fact, I know of a cousin of my father-in-law that spent decades in these camps but today, in his 80s, he is free and lives with his son and daughter-in-law in Shanghai.

When the current central government of China came to power after the 1982 Constitution was written, many of the political prisoners that survived were released and received a small pension. This cousin was one of them.

Do we blame today’s Americans for slavery in the US in the 18th and 19th century until the end of the Civil War?

Do we blame them for discrimination that ended with the Civil Right era of the 1960s?

Do we blame them for all the American natives that were killed during the Indian Wars of the 19th century?

Do we blame them for the concentrations camps that locked up Japanese-Americans during World War II?

Do we blame them for the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882—the only act of its kind in US history?

In Korea, the UN POWs that survived shared horror stories of the torture, brainwashing and severe hunger they suffered. They told of terrifying campaigns to reeducate them and turn them against the cause of democracy.

The POWs reported that they were forced at gunpoint to speak out against America on the radio.

Many of the POWs went crazy and starved to death.

The UN POW camps in South Korea had problems too. The Chinese POWs split into two factions. One was anticommunist and the other procommunist.

Like rival street gangs in US prisons, the Chinese POWs turned against each other and there was violence.

The peace negotiations were tense and difficult and dragged on.

The fighting continued. The last two years of the war were a series of skirmishes. However, there were also hours without combat when the troops waited to see what happened next.

The armies fought repeatedly for the same hills. The most famous was called Old Baldy.  After nine months of fierce battles as the hill changed hands often, Old Baldy finally stayed in UN hands.

To force a compromise at the peace negotiations, the UN turned to air power. The one area where the UN held an advantage over China was air power and UN air forces ruled the skies over Korea. In 1952, the US air force had about 1500 planes flying missions and more from the Navy, Marines and other UN nations.

Korea was the hot button issue of the 1952 American presidential election. Legendary five-star General Dwight Eisenhower promised he would end the war, while his opponent, Adlai Stephenson said he would not withdraw from Korea.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 7

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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POW Deaths During the Korean War

February 28, 2011

I planned another post for this spot but decided to write about UN POW deaths during the Korean War since that topic came up at the end of Part 7 of this documentary summarizing the Korean War.

It mentions how 87% of POW’s captured by the People’s Liberation Army and/or North Korean troops during the war died in captivity.  It doesn’t explain how.

The lack of context may provide Sinophobes with ammunition to criticize China for the behavior of its troops during the Korean War.

In fact, while there was strong evidence that North Korean Troops executed UN POWs, “the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their Korean counterparts (since) mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese POW camps during the winter of 1950-51. About 43 percent of all US POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were also suffering mass starvation and diseases due to the lack of competent logistics system.” Source: Wikipedia

Surviving UN POWs, however, dispute this claim. Click on the link to see what the POWs had to say but know that Mao ruled China from 1949 to 1976. Revolutionary Maoism died with him.

In 1951, the Western rules of war did not apply to China or North Korea. China wouldn’t join the United Nations until October 25, 1971 — twenty years later.  North Korea would become a member of the UN September 1991.

If you were to study the International Treaties on the Laws of War, you would discover that most were written in Geneva and the Hague. Source: Wikipedia

What I found interesting in this list was the 1938 League of Nations declaration for the “Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing from the Air in Case of War.”

During World War II, the US air forces killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany and Japan. Many of the bombs dropped were napalm (jellied gasoline) and the innocent were roasted including the elderly, women and children.

The Geneva Convention for the treatment of Prisoners of War was written in 1949, the year the Chinese Communists won the Civil War in China.

There is an old saying — the friend of my enemy is my enemy.

The United States has been an ally of the Nationalist Chinese since well before World War II and protected Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in Taiwan after 1949.

However, Chiang Kai-shek was a brutal dictator that ruled Taiwan with martial law and is responsible for the deaths of more than thirty thousand civilians there. Learn of the 2/28 Massacre in Taiwan.

Chinese history shows that since the time of Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor (221 – 207 B.C.), the standard practice in war was to execute POWs because they were a burden that might lead to defeat.  An army that doesn’t’ have to feed and/or guard POWs is more effective at fighting and winning.  Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan knew this too.

While the behavior of PLA and North Korean troops when it came to POW’s was unacceptable by Western humanitarian standards, US forces are just as guilty when it came to killing innocent civilians. There are estimates that the US killed about two million civilians in Vietnam and left behind a horrible legacy due to the use of Agent Orange.

When it comes to war, both combatants are usually guilty of atrocities against POWs and/or civilians. However, the victor decides who is guilty of those crimes and the punishment.

The rules of war to use are Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 7/9

February 28, 2011

Morale for UN troops was high. By March 1951, UN forces were within striking distance of the 38th parallel.

Behind the lines, famous Western actors, singers and comedians arrived with USO shows to entertain the troops. Marilyn Monroe and Bob Hope were two examples. In fact, Bob Hope entertained troops in USO shows every year from 1948 to 1990.

Once UN forces reached the 38th parallel, the politicians debated if they should cross the line into North Korea again.

US President Harry Truman (an officer and combat veteran of World War I) wanted a settlement. As he saw it, the first attempt at reunifying Korea had been a mistake and a second attempt would cost more American lives.

However, General MacArthur disagreed. He wanted the war expanded. He wanted to blockade China’s coast and bomb its cities.

Truman fired MacArthur. The president said the cause of world peace was more important than an individual.

General Ridgway replaced MacArthur as supreme commander. General James Van Fleet became the field commander.

Van Fleet had been a colonel at the Normandy Invasion of Europe in World War II, and he hated Communists.

Intelligence reported the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was massing for a spring attack.

Ridgway, having learned the PLA’s tactics, planned to move forward in stages building defensive lines on the way.

On April 22, a second major PLA assault was launched against UN forces. The heaviest attacks were against the weakest section of the UN defensive line.

Ridgway’s strategy of building a series of defensive lines worked. When one line appeared to be in danger of collapse, he ordered troops to fall back to the next fortified line.

Within a week, the PLA ran low of supplies and suffered massive casualties for small gains. Two weeks later, resupplied, the PLA attacked again.  Van Fleet broke combat records for firing artillery shells into the advancing PLA troops killing 35,000 while only losing 900.

Ridgway wired Truman in Washington D.C.saying the time to talk peace had arrived.  The Chinese agreed to meet in July to negotiate an end to the war.

The negotiations were not easy. Both sides treated the other as the loser.

The UN wanted to keep all occupied North Korean territory. The Chinese wanted to return the border to the 38th parallel and have all Chinese prisoners of war returned. Most UN troops taken prisoner had been killed. Of about 100,000 only 13,000 survived.

Return to China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea – Part 6

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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.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Dictatorship or One-Party Republic

February 27, 2011

There is so much misleading information on the Internet and from the Western media regarding China that it boggles the mind. For example, China’s President is listed as a dictator but by definition, he cannot be a dictator.

Dictatorship: 1) government by a ruler who has complete power 2) a country that is ruled by one person who has complete power (source: Longman Advanced American Dictionary)

Chinese Constitution: Article 1

Article 1. The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants. The socialist system is the basic system of the People’s Republic of China. Sabotage of the socialist system by any organization or individual is prohibited. Source: Chinese Constitution

I asked my wife, “How can China use the term dictatorship in Article 1 if China isn’t ruled by a dictator?”

She replied, “In Chinese, ‘people’s democratic dictatorship‘ means the people have the power. It’s a translation error.”

I then Googled dictatorship and discovered Parade’s Annual list of…the World’s 10 Worst Dictators.

Parade’s definition of a dictator says, “A ‘dictator‘ is a head of state who exercises arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens and who cannot be removed from power through legal means.”

Hu Jintao, China’s president, was number six on Parade’s list.

Since the Chinese Constitution rules China, Hu Jintao does not exercise arbitrary authority over the lives of his citizens. In fact, I doubt if he makes any legal decisions since the Chinese Constitution puts that power in the hands of China’s legal system. Discover more at China Law and Justice System

Parade is also wrong that China’s president cannot be removed from power through legal means.

Article 79 says, “The term of office of the President and Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China is the same as that of the National People’s Congress, and they shall serve no more than two consecutive terms.”

Article 59. The National People’s Congress is composed of deputies elected by the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government, and by the armed forces.

Article 63. The National People’s Congress has the power to recall or remove from office the following persons:

(1) The President and the Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China;

(2) The Premier, Vice-Premiers, State Councillors, Ministers in charge of Ministries or Commissions and the Auditor-General and the Secretary-General of the State Council;

(3) The Chairman of the Central Military Commission and others on the commission;

(4) The President of the Supreme People’s Court; and

(5) The Procurator-General of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate.

If China is anything, it is an autocratic, one-party republic that makes decisions by consensus within the Communist Party of more than 80 million members.

How’s that different from the US of 1776 when there were no political parties when George Washington was president and about 10% of the population was allowed to vote—white men that owned property?

Discover No Political Machine

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. 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.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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