In the National Interest

March 1, 2010

In World War II, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and woke the sleeping tiger, America.

Then in the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban missile crises, brought the United States to the brink of nuclear Armageddon. He did this believing it was in the National Interest.

Last night (2/28/2010), I watched an episode on 60 Minutes about a Taiwanese man in the pay of China gathering information about the 6.5 billion-dollar arms sale to Taiwan. Does that make China evil? This morning, I had my answer.

From the dawn of rival civilizations, there have been spies.  It’s all about survival and the national interest. Robert Hart (19th century), who knew the Chinese better than any Westerner, wrote, After China picks its conquerors’ brains; it will be a super-power again. I don’t know what they will do when that times comes. They will decide to either get along with the world or seek revenge for what the world did to them.

In the 19th century, France, England, Germany, Russia, Japan, and the United States attacked China in a series of wars. The devastation visited on a peaceful China started with the Opium Wars and ended with World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Those wars woke the sleeping dragon.

America supports Taiwan—China’s Cuba. The difference is that China sees Taiwan as part of the mainland. What would America do if Hawaii separated from the union, and China supplied the islands with weapons to defend itself? Don’t be surprised if China responds the same way over Taiwan.

The China Americans learned about in school has changed. See Deng Xiaoping’s 20/20 Vision

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Basic Health Care in China

March 1, 2010

Basic care in China does not include a stay in a hospital, which would cost about $100 a night compared to a thousand or more in America. Since the best doctors live in the major cities, the best-equipped hospitals are there too.

If a peasant living in the countryside becomes seriously ill, he may have to travel a long distance to get proper medical care. That is, if he has the money. Medical care in China is all about money just like in the United States. Money opens hospital doors and pays the rent for the surgeon’s scalpel.  To understand the challenges that come with living in China’s rural areas, I suggest reading this post on Mark’s China Blog.

Chinese pharmacy

However, when it comes to drugs, the Chinese government has factories in every province that manufactures drugs at a low cost. This is one commodity where the prices are controlled. For example, a bottle of antibiotics in the U.S. that costs $80 would cost $14 in China. That cost is still out of reach for many rural peasants living on an average hundred dollars a year (six or seven hundred yuan). 

Maybe Emperor Wudi from the Han Dyansty had the right idea when he decided that certain necessary commodities and services should not be part of the private market economy.

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Future of Health Care in China at Risk

February 28, 2010

Although China’s government has promised that by 2010, basic medical and health care will cover all rural residents, if someone becomes seriously ill and can’t afford medical care, he or she is out of luck.

Under this proposed basic medical system, subscribers will be funded at a level of fifty yuan per person (twenty yuan from the central government, twenty from the local government and ten from the individual).

Chinese peasant

Rural health care in China has become a challenge. For many peasants in rural areas, this could mean as much as ten percent or more of their annual income would have to go toward basic health care insurance. The rural people do not have a choice. The government will force everyone to pay his or her share.

Read about the Rural-Urban Divide at http://wp.me/pN4pY-69

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Health Care Today

February 28, 2010

The health care system built under Mao’s leadership no longer exists. Doctors and nurses are trained the same as in the United States. Since Mao’s death, in one of the greatest policy reversals of modern times, China dissolved free medical care in its rural communities, privatized vast areas of the economy and shifted public-health resources toward the cities. Socialized medicine vanished.

President Ronald Reagan

President Ronald Reagan’s administration seems to have been the role model for these changes. During Reagan’s years, the U.S. saw a steep rise in the for-profit sector in medicine, in particular the for-profit hospital chains.

Other Republican presidents like the first George Bush continued this rush toward a for-profit, free market approach to health care. What has happened in the United States is starting to happen in China. There is no room for the poor and uninsured and uninsurable beyond what is considered basic services like blood pressure tests and taking your temperature along with a bit of advice.  

If you don’t have the money or a health plan linked to retirement, you face a death sentence. And like America, everyone working for the government (elected or not) has the best health care.

See China’s Health Under Mao

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Only a Name

February 27, 2010

I’ve heard and read that the United States has the greatest government on the earth.

I disagree.

It’s true that America is the wealthiest and most powerful country on the planet. But the most important difference is that the United States has a “Bill of Rights” designed to protect the citizens from government abuse. Remove the “Bill of Rights” and what do we have—a government that will get carried away with unrestricted powers like so many have in the past.

The Founding Father’s (at least the key players) understood that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. King George taught them that, so they developed a structure to limit that corruption so it would not spill over and hurt the citizens.

The sad thing is that the “Bill of Rights” doesn’t protect citizens from street gangs and drug dealers and all the other crazy things that go on in a country with the largest prison population on the planet. China has the second largest prison population and that is about half of those locked up in America while China has four times the population.

And many ignorant people in the United States believe China is a bad place to live because of a government with the word “Communist” in front of it. Words are words. There is little difference between the word Democrat (8 letters), Communist (9 letters) and Republican (10 letters).

See “China’s Modern Dynasty” at http://wp.me/pN4pY-9j

 

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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