How one Amazon reader review Misleads and what many in the West do not know about China

August 28, 2012

There is always two sides to every issue so it is time to hear both sides in the same post—again.

A one-star Amazon Reader review written by an Adnil Nevets of “The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village” by Dongping Han said, “The author’s credentials are indisputable. He grew up in China and has an intimate knowledge of Chinese history and Mao’s policies. But, his version of history does not agree with 99% of the (note: Western) academic community, and indeed, official Chinese history.”

Adnil says, “I would suggest that readers keep in mind that there were intelligent, well-educated, scientific and academic members of the Nazi party who were completely smitten with Hitler and defended him to their graves. Sometimes closeness to a historical event does not yield clarity of thought.”

Hmmm, when I checked, Adnil Nevets’ Review Ranking on Amazon was 10,356,111.

Here is my response at Adnil’s reader review.

Regardless of the negative aspects of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Mao era, there is another side to China’s history—a positive one that is not all doom and gloom as Adnil infers.

In 1949, the average lifespan in China was age 35, more than 90% of Chinese lived in severe poverty, 80% were illiterate and China suffered from loss of life caused by famines in one or more provinces on an annual basis—deaths by starvation from famines have been documented going back annually for more than 2000 years.  For the first time in China’s history, deaths from famine have not happened in sixty of the sixty-three years that China has been ruled by the CCP.

During the Mao’s era, the average lifespan in years doubled, the population doubled, there was only one famine that caused deaths from starvation (1959-1961), but in the West Mao was blamed for that famine while Western authors and politicians ignore two thousand years of Chinese history, and people living in severe poverty have almost vanished (there are still many that live in poverty but it is not as severe as it was before 1949).

In fact, since 1976, literacy improved from 20% to more than 90% and China’s middle class grew from almost nothing to about 300-million people today with estimates that there may be 600-to-800 million middle-class Chinese by 2025.


The CCP is the only government in China’s LONG history to set goals and do something about poverty.

All of these improvements in lifestyle quality in China have been documented by the World Bank and other reputable international agencies,  although we seldom if ever hear about these positive changes in the Western media or in books written by so-called experts in Western Academia that focus only on the dark side of the CCP.


From 1982 to 2005 China succeeded in lifting over 600-million of its citizens out of grinding poverty.

How about if we focus on the dark-side of American democracy instead?

There was a bloody Civil War to end slavery (that has returned today but in a different form), the battle for women’s rights, poverty (more than 40-million Americans live in poverty), starvation in America exists, endless foreign wars (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc), and continued racism, etc.


News that should be covered more than it is in the United States

Is there anyone out there that cares about both sides of the truth supported with facts?

Discover Health Care During Mao’s Time

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Dog that Turned on its Master

August 27, 2012

This morning while reading a few Blog Posts on China topics, I ran into another example of manipulating the facts to influence public opinion—we could call it a white lie but I believe it is much worse than that because one day telling such half truths may lead to a war that kills millions of people and does unimaginable destruction to human civilization.

The Buffalo Hair Gazette International, claiming to be a News and Video and Resource Portal (in the worst possible way), reported that the “Free Syria Army Stocks Up  with Weapons Captured (Thank You Russia and China For Supplies).”

Besides a photo of weapons and bombs, that was it.  What that headline says may be the truth, but what was your first impression? Did you think that Russia and China were supporting the Assad government in Syria?  How about America—did you feel that America was a role model in this area and believed that it would never do the same thing as a champion of democracy in the Middle East?

If you formed an opinion that America was the good guy and Russia and China were evil, then you have been mislead by another example of how the media in the West twists facts and manipulates public opinion.

For example, America and other Western democracies have praised Egypt’s recent democratic election, which saw an Islamic fundamentalist president voted into power. Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s new civilian president, is the leader of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

What does this mean for the West?  Who knows? We may only guess.

However, the Muslim Brotherhood’s credo was and is, “God is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader, Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.”

Correct me if I am wrong, but the current government of Iran was voted into power through democratic elections and yet Iran is considered one of America’s most dangerous enemies second only to al Qaeda and one day soon, we may be at war with Iran.

Again, correct me if I’m wrong, there is a reason why America’s Founding Fathers despised democracy—they believed it would lead to mob rule and eventually the end of the freedoms spelled out in the US Bill of Rights.

After all, doesn’t a democratically elected mob rule Iran?

Oh, I thought you should know that Syria’s Bashar al-Assad is known as an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Syria, this Islamic fundamentalist political party has been suppressed for decades. His father, Hafiz al-Assad was ruthless with the Muslim Brotherhood too.

Sometimes it’s better to stay with the devil you know.

Anyway, back to Buffalo Hair Gazette International’s manipulation of public opinion by only telling some of the truth.

War is Business.com reported, “Between 1950 and 2009, American weapons merchants sold 47.6% of the weapons that ended up in Muslim countries. In 2009, that percent was 52.7%.”

In fact, if it weren’t for America, there would be no al Qaeda.  The US funded and trained al Qaeda to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan and when the Soviets were defeated, al Qaeda turned on America.

Have you forgotten 9/11 yet?

The Economist also ran a piece on this topic. Click on the link and read what The Economist has to say. You will discover that between 2006 – 2010, Russia sold 23% of the global share of weapons while the US sold 30%.  In fact, if we add up four of the top five weapons merchants—the United States, Germany, France and Great Britain—the total is 52% of all global weapons sales. France even sells to China as does Russia.

When we look at a ranking of the World’s largest arms exporters, China ranks sixth place while the US is first place.

1. United States

2. Russia

3. Germany

4. France

5. United Kingdom

6. China
(In fact, China sold less than one eighth of the weapons US arms manufacturers in the private sector sold to other countries with the blessing of the U.S. government.) Source: Arms industry.Wiki.org

Then we have the clincher—a story reported by Foreign Policy Magazine that fills in the rest of the blanks ignored by the Buffalo Hair Gazette International.

Foreign Policy asks, “Why is the U.S. Selling Billions in Weapons to Autocrats?” — Published Saturday, June 23, 2012

An excerpt from Foreign Policy Magazine says, “The Export of American arms to countries around the world—even those actively repressing their own citizens—is booming.

“Every May and June, different branches of the State Department paint contrasting portraits of how Washington views dozens of strategically significant countries around the world, in seemingly rivalrous reports by its Human Rights and Political-Military Affairs bureaus.

“The former routinely criticizes other nations for a lack of fealty to democratic principles, citing abuses of the right to expression, assembly, speech, and political choice. The latter tallies the government’s latest successes in the export of American weaponry, often to the same countries criticized by the former.”

Discover What is the Truth about Tiananmen Square?

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Oprah Times Four in China

August 13, 2012

Oprah may have retired in America, but her Chinese counterparts are still at work with a combined audience approaching one billion people.

After doing research for this post, I thought, how could these four Chinese women be compared to Oprah when her average US audience was a little more than 7 million? Source: Answers.com

The four women I discovered in China that have been described as an Oprah are Chen Luyu, Yue-sai Khan, Hung Huang, and Yang Lan.

I’ve written about Luyu before at You’ve Come a Long Ways, Babe.

Luyu’s audience in China averages 140 million. Her show is called A Date With Luyu, which tackles issues that traditionally have been censored by Chinese media officials. The show’s guests have included people who are HIV-positive, lesbians and transsexuals.

Of Yue-sai Kan, The Conversation: The Most Famous Woman in China says she is a journalist, television host, entrepreneur and author and has been a key figure in modern Chinese culture for 20 years. About 300 million Chinese watch her show.

People Magazine called Yue-sai Kan the most famous woman in China. Money Magazine described her as a Modern Day Marco Polo.

After Kan hosted a live broadcast from China in 1984 for PBS, China’s government asked her to produce One World, the first television series ever produced and hosted by an American on China’s only national network, CCTV. Source: Women of China

The next Chinese Oprah is Hong Huang, who hosts a TV show called Crossing Over. Huang’s mother was Mao Zedong’s English teacher. She was sent to the U.S. for an education as a teenager and returned to become one of the most influential entrepreneurs in Chinese print media.

Hung Huang is the chief executive of the China Interactive Media Group and publishes fashion magazines such as I Look, Time Out and Seventeen. Her Blog, which has an audience of about 15 million, is one of China’s most popular and continues to be one of the top five on Sina.com.

The fourth Chinese Oprah I discovered was Yang Lan, who rose to fame as the host of the Zheng Da Variety Show, which often has an audience of 200 million viewers.

In the following YouTube video clip, Yang Lan talks about how Chinese women are making their mark on China’s future.

She says the younger generation in China is turning away from television and using the Internet for entertainment and information.

If you do the math, you will discover that these four Chinese Oprahs reach an audience of about 700 million compared to America’s Oprah, which had an average audience of seven million when she was still on the air.

Maybe the US Oprah’s claim to fame is because she was the first one, and it has nothing to do with the size of the audience. Did you notice that all of these Chinese Oprahs speak excellent English? I am sure that America’s Oprah doesn’t speak Mandarin.

Now that the US Oprah is gone, her audience may want to see if they can switch to one of China’s four Oprahs.

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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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Note: This revised and edited post first appeared on November 24, 2010

1 Comment | America, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Chinese women, Communism, media | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption- Part 3/3

August 1, 2012

The top three scandals that come to mind, as I finish writing this post, is the Watergate Scandal, which involved President Nixon leading to his resignation, and the Iran Contra Scandal that involved President Reagan’s White House and last the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal with President Clinton.

In addition, if you want to learn of political murders in the United States, I refer you to Wikipedia’s list of Assassinated American Politicians.  At the bottom of this list are links to United States federal judges killed in office and US Congress members killed or wounded in office.

Meanwhile, can we believe everything we read or hear from the media since conservative Republicans often let us know that the media in the US, especially when it reports on corruption and scandals of Republicans, is controlled by a liberal bias, and the GOP does not mention that it was Republican President Ronald Reagan that vetoed the Fairness Doctrine that would have required the media to balance its reporting by allowing both sides of an issue equal space/time to explain each respective point of view.

Then in 1991, another Republican President, George H. W. Bush, threatened another veto if Congress attempted to bring The Fairness Doctrine back.


You Can Buy and Sell Anything!

When the Fairness Doctrine was in place, citizen groups used it as a tool to expand speech and debate. For instance, it prevented stations from allowing only one side to be heard on ballot measures. Source: Common Dreams.org

What does this teach us about politics and honesty in the United States?

And last, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota reported on a comparison of false statements during political campaigns in the United States and said, “PolitiFact assigns ‘Pants on Fire’ or ‘False’ ratings to 39 percent of Republican statements compared to just 12 percent of Democrats since January 2010,” which may indicate that Republicans lie three times more than Democrats but both still make false statements.

In conclusion, if we follow the advice of Jesus Christ when he confronted the mob that was ready to stone a woman accused of adultery, then the United States as a nation with almost 247 million Christians does not have the right to condemn China as the cover of Time Magazine’s May 14, 2012 issue did with “The People’s Republic of Scandal – Murder. Lies. Corruption. Can China face the truth?”

The real question should be, “Are most American’s capable of facing the truth and dealing with it?”

What do you think?

Return to The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption – Part 2 or start with Part 1

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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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15 Comments | America, American culture, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Christianity, Communism, crime, democracy, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption- Part 2/3

July 31, 2012

Frisky.com offers a comparison/score of sex scandals between democrats and republicans. The low score wins (see Frisky.com for the details).

Final score: Republicans 67 and Democrats 75

Next, Kickin’ the Darkness.com says, “It’s easy to find Democrats in sex scandals, and Republicans in financial ones, but there just seems to be a party-dependent bias in the nature of scandals… Those principles to which a party most strongly clings seem to also be the ones on which their weaker members seem most likely to stumble.”

However, Salem News.com said, “Republican Sex Scandals Dwarf Those of Democrats  (if you click on the link and scroll down, you will see a long detailed list of republicans and their sex scandals) in the last decade…” and Nerve.com claims, “Republican sex scandals outnumber Democrat sex scandals two to one…”

Then the Washington Monthly reported, “As a rule, when a high-profile U.S. senator is facing a criminal investigation, the media shows at least some interest. When that investigation involves sex, the media tends to show quite a bit of interest… Here we have John Ensign, a ‘family values’ conservative Republican, who had an extra-marital sexual relationship with his friend’s wife, while condemning others’ moral failings. Ensign’s parents offered to pay hush-money. He ignored ethics laws and tried to use his office to arrange lobbying jobs for his mistress’ husband. The likelihood of Ensign being indicted seems fairly high… And yet, there’s no media frenzy. No reporters staked out in front of Ensign’s home. No op-eds speculating about the need for Ensign to resign in disgrace. Instead, the media’s fascinated with Charlie Rangel.”


United States: A Long History of Political Corruption

Then from a known conservative media source, Fox Business.com listed America’s Most Corrupt States in March 2012, and the top eight are listed below.

Taking it further, I researched each of these states to see which political party the governor belonged to and which party held the majority in both houses of each state legislature, which Fox did not do.

The most corrupt states in America according to Fox Business.com:

8. Michigan — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
7. North Dakota — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
6. South Carolina — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
5. Maine — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
4. Virginia — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
3. Wyoming — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
2. South Dakota — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP
1. Georgia — Republican governor and both houses controlled by the GOP

According to Fox, states with stagnant political environments often encourage corruption. Governments with high levels of corruption tend to have a political party—either the Democrats or Republicans—in power for too long. The states that have had a “machine” in place for a long time often tend to be the most corrupt. Machines tend to want to protect themselves.

It would seem from this Fox Business.com report, that there isn’t much of a difference between the US and China—in fact, many in China complain of corruption but most believe it takes place at the provincial or city level and that the national leaders in Beijing are honest. The difference is that corruption and scandals in the US often start at the state level and lead to Washington D.C. and even, at times, the White House.

Continued August 1, 2012 in The real “INFAMOUS” role model of scandals and corruption – Part 3 or return to Part 1

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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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5 Comments | America, American culture, capitalism, China, Chinese Culture, Communism, democracy, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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