Defector / Traitor (3/4)

August 5, 2010

The most famous Chinese defector/traitor may have been Sun Tianqin, a fighter pilot in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, who flew to South Korea in 1983 in an advanced fighter aircraft.

From there, Sun went to Taiwan to live. He left behind his mother, Mrs. Liu, his 18-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter.

While Americans see these defectors as heroes, the Chinese see dishonorable and selfish individuals. While Americans help one Chinese man or woman defect, an entire village in China pays the price.

Before defecting, Sun’s mother was so proud of her son that she displayed a large picture of him in uniform at their home and after learning of her son’s defection, she was so devastated that she fell ill and never recovered, finally dying, for which Sun’s family members put the blame on him.

Sun eventually married another defector, Ms. Li Tianhui, a musician. The sad fact is that all Chinese defectors leave knowing that those left behind related to them will pay a price. After all, they are Chinese and they grew up in the same collective culture.


Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese Diplomat, defected and liberated his spirit, but how many suffered in China for that act?

Sun Tianqin was not the first PLA fighter pilot to defect. Soon after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, Jiang Wenhao, defected to Taiwan. Wiki lists the first PLA pilot defecting on January 12, 1960 and the last in August 1990. Source: Wikipedia

Since the standard of living has improved in China and people have more personal freedom, defections have decreased and it is much easier to travel to the US.

Return to Defector/Traitor – Part 2 or go to Part 4

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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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Defector / Traitor (2/4)

August 5, 2010

One of the few defector/traitors I discovered was Chen Yonglin, a former Chinese diplomat, who defected to Australia in 2005. He was a university student in Beijing during the so-called “pro-democracy” movement that led to the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. (also discover What is the Truth about Tiananmen Square?)

Some of the student leaders were Chen’s friends. However, the Tiananmen Square incident did not start as a “pro-democracy” movement as many in the West believe.  It started as a protest by Chinese workers over political corruption in the government.  If you want to learn more about the Tiananmen Square incident, I recommend seeing all nine parts of China’s Capitalist Revolution.


The Communists say that  Shen Yun is a political tool of Falun Gong

Another Chinese defector was Hu Na, a former professional tennis player, who defected to the United States in 1982, which kicked off a Cold War era diplomatic incident between the US and China.

In July 1982, while touring California with a Chinese government-sponsored tennis team, Hu Na sought refuge in the home of friends. In April 1983, she requested political asylum, claiming that she feared the Chinese government would compel her to join the Communist Party of China against her will under threat of persecution.

That is a strange excuse to defect, since the rulers of China, the members of the Communist Party, are the elite. Of course, in 1982 at the beginning of Den Xiaoping‘s “Getting Rich is Glorious” capitalist movement, the benefits hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe Hu Na didn’t want to wait like the 1.3 billion left behind who had no choice.

Return to Defector/Traitor – Part 1, go to Part 3 or discover more about The Falun Gong Machine

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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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Defector / Traitor (1/4)

August 4, 2010

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.

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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Piety’s Flaw

August 3, 2010

I’ve heard that it was Confucianism that caused China to fall victim to Western Imperialism in the 19th century, and the reason Mao started the Cultural Revolution his last decade was to correct this imperfection.

However, I believe that the collective culture created in China by Emperor Han Wudi (156-87 BCE), considered one of the most influential emperors in Chinese history, is the reason that China’s civilization survived for thousands of years without suffering the fate of Europe after the Roman Empire collapsed.

Han Dynasty 100 BC

The problem is not from Confucianism but a flaw in the way an element of Confucianism has been interpreted over the centuries.  In fact, this flaw is buried so deep in the Chinese psyche that Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward and the tragic Cultural Revolution were not stopped because of it. 

There were powerful individuals in the Communist Party who did not agree with what Mao was doing but did not speak out when they could have. Some of those individuals even suffered during the Cultural Revolution but still kept silent due to the power of piety.

It wasn’t until after Mao’s death that those same people acted and Deng Xiaoping came to power stopping the madness of the Cultural Revolution.

To criticize an elder in China, even when that individual is power hungry, senile or maybe a bit crazy, is considered similar to Christian heresy during the Spanish Inquisition. Piety means elders must be treated with respect as if they can do no wrong. There must be a way to find a balance.

See China’s Capitalist Revolution

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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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Education and Cultures Collide in the US (5/5)

August 3, 2010

Another example may be found at Nogales High School, where I taught. When I was there, seventy percent of the student population was Hispanic/Latino and less than 5% of my students turned in the assigned homework or did the reading. However, most of my Asian students did the homework and the reading—they were among the 5%.

Percentage of Students Scoring at Proficient or Advanced for English-Language Arts at Nogales High School:

Hispanic or Latino 36%
African American 37%
White 52%
Filipino 60%
Asian 70%

California High School Exit Examination Results by Student (ethnic) Group

Hispanic or Latino 37.5%
African American 40%
White (no data)
Filipino 65.5%
Asian 85.7%

Some will say, as my foolish “old” friend will argue, that it is the teacher’s responsibility to teach the kids. My reply is that “few” teachers can teach a kid who won’t cooperate, refuses to read daily for thirty minutes to an hour and will not do homework. After all, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

What kind of teacher was I? Click here to find out out about Lloyd Lofthouse as a teacher. Make sure to scroll and read everything on this page.

The success of China’s civilization and culture for several-thousand years is due to the value the Chinese put on an education, which appears much higher than other cultures. The home environment and the parents are the difference.

Return to Education and Cultures Collide in the US (4/5)

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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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