2012 – Changing the Guard

March 8, 2010

The fifth generation of Communist leadership in China will take charge in 2012, as the fourth generation steps down.  Retirement from public office is mandatory at 67.

Who are these people? There are two factions (recognized by the Western media) competing for leadership of the country.

One faction is the Gang of Princelings whose parents were powerful members of the Communist Party. The other faction comes from those that climbed the ranks from China’s Youth League. This year’s session of the National People’s Congress marks the unofficial start of the campaign season for 2012 when most of the current leadership will retire.

One rival is Wang Yang, once a member of the Communist Youth League. Wang has talked about having new, capital-intensive industries replace the old, labor-intensive industries in Guangdong.

One princiling has been in the spotlight recently. He has achieved celebrity status in China because he was successful fighting organized crime in Chongqing, a city with a population that is more than thirty million.  His name is Bo Xilai, one of the princelings, and his father was one of China’s eight Communist Immortals.

Bo Xilai

In China, family history is important and always has been. The Chinese look at the history of the family, the father, the mother and believe that will show them who the child will be and if that man or woman can be trusted.

See Family Connections

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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.

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, family values, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Family Connections

March 7, 2010

In China, if you can’t trust anyone else, you should be able to trust your family. That belief also applied to the emperors.

In China, when a minority king became too powerful and caused unrest, the emperor proposed that this king marry the emperor’s real daughter (instead of an adopted daughter), as if to say, “You will be a member of my family so stop what you are doing—stop fighting with The Middle Kingdom. Since we are soon to be related through marriage, there is no need to fight.”

This happened more than a thousand years ago with Tibet when the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty married his daughter to the Tibetan king so the Tibetans would stop raiding China.

Traditional Chinese Wedding

Under the rule of emperors, minorities were not forced to pay taxes like the Han Chinese. It was believed that minorities were less fortunate and did not have the same advantages. After Mao, China’s government, with few exceptions, continued this policy.

More about a few of China’s Minorities
China’s Zhuang & Yao ethnic people
Li River Minority area
Li River Minority area # 2

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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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese Culture, Chinese history, Chinese minorities, family values, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

One Child

March 7, 2010

China’s one-child policy is due to a population of 1.3 billion people in a country where food crops may be grown on only sixteen percent of the land. What isn’t well known is that the one-child policy applies only to the Han majority. That policy does not apply to the hundred million people that belong to the fifty-six minorities in China. That means Tibetans may not be able to worship and maintain the feudal, nomadic lifestyle like they had before Mao’s reoccupation of Tibet in 1951, but they can have as many children as they want.

Crowded China

The biggest challenge is growing enough food to feed the bulging Chinese population of 1.3 billion people.  The Chinese government says if it weren’t for the one-child policy, there would be another four-hundred million mouths to feed and provide shelter for.

Meanwhile, Christians in the West (people who believe abortion is wrong) criticize China for this policy. If China did not have the one-child policy, I doubt if these antiabortion voices would have stepped up to feed four-hundred million people. How many would have starved if a famine struck?

There are other exceptions to the one child policy, and you may read about them at the Asian Correspondent .

You may also learn more about China from Tom Carter’s Book, China: Portrait of a People

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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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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

2 Comments | China, Christianity, family values, food, health care, parenting, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Modern Women

March 6, 2010

The changing role of Chinese women has been dramatic since Mao won China in 1949. Prior to that time, China was ruled by the Kuomintang—a dictatorship. There were never national elections held in China. There wasn’t much that changed under the Kuomintang leadership regarding the role of women. When my wife was born in the late 1950s, her grandmother had bound feet.

Chinese girl with bound feet

Before Mao, women were grass to be stepped on. Their role was to serve men.

The changes ushered in by Mao set the stage for his wife to become China’s leader after her husband’s death. The only reason she did not assume the leadership was because she was arrested as a member of the Gang of Four and sent to prison for crimes committed during the Cultural Revolution.

Modern Chinese woman

Since Mao, the changes have been even more dramatic.  Woman own businesses, hold political posts in the government, have jobs, and cannot be sold to become a wife or bought to serve as a concubine. They are not property. They are equals to men in many ways.

Learn about Marriage and Money in China.

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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.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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When the Generals Laughed

March 6, 2010

In the Western media, we often hear about America’s leaders and their concerns for the size of China’s military.

Look at these facts and decide why China has a large military. Then you will know why Chinese generals laughed when they heard about the concerns of America’s leaders.

China’s military often has important roles in disasters like the earthquake that struck Southwest China, and the military must deal with violent, internal strife in Tibet and with Islamic extremists in Xinjiang province. It is no secret that there are Cantonese who, after two thousand years, still want to break from Beijing. There has also been unrest in rural China due to the slow pace of lifestyle improvements there.

Soldier carrying injured Chinese girl after major earthquake

America’s total active military equals almost 1% of the population with close to three million men and women in uniform. America has a dozen aircraft carriers, more than fifteen-hundred navy ships, and almost twenty-three thousand military aircraft.

China has less than .25% (that is less than 1% if you missed the decimal) of its population in uniform—a quarter of America’s ratio with about three million troops. China has one aircraft carrier and a navy that is less than half the size of America’s. China’s airforce has about twenty-five hundred aircraft—a ten to one ratio in America’s favor.

Nuclear Weapons—America has 10,000 and China less than 400.

China’s defense budget was about sixty-billion in 2008 compared to more than five-hundred billion spent in the United States. America is spending closer to seven hundred billion this year while China is cutting defense spending due to the world’s economic crises. The Chinese plan to put the money cut from the defense budget into the private sector. Do you think something like that will ever happen in the United States?

Source: www.Globalfirepower.com

Discover Basic Health Care in China

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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, Running with the Enemy, was awarded an honorable mention in general fiction at the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival.

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

4 Comments | America, China, government, media, military spending, politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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