An anonymous individual named “Kier” left a scathing comment for a post I wrote of China’s Great Leap Forward, but I deleted the comment so there would be no link back to his Blog, since links help build search engine rank.
However, I copied and pasted Kier’s comment into this four-part series, so I could respond to it.
I am doing this to make a point. Kier’s opinion and accusations of Mao are an example of the beliefs of many ignorant people in the West.
Kier wrote, “A population the size of Canada wiped out in horrific circumstances in a mere three years but, as that was a blip in Mao’s life and didn’t prevent him from penning pretentious lines far from the terror, that’s all right then.“
Correct me if I’m wrong, but drought and floods cause crop losses, which leads to famines. In China, the famine that took place during China’s Great Leap Forward was caused by a mixture of droughts, floods, government bungling, lack of communication, and a complete embargo of China by the United States and its allies.
In the West, for decades, the media has focused on exaggerating and blaming the loss of life during China’s Great Famine of 1959-1960 on Mao Zedong. If there had been no droughts and floods those years, which are common in China, there would have been no famine.
In fact, there is no evidence to support Western claims of 30 to 70 million deaths during those years, while scholars have studied the documents that exist and say the loss of life may have been closer to 15 – 20 million.
Kier makes no mention of the fact that the Chinese Communists won the Civil War in 1949 and eight years later, The Great Leap Forward was implemented as part of a five-year plan, which started in 1958. Due to bumper crops the first year, it was considered the beginning of a success story, which led to errors in judgment by the central government and Mao.
There are rumors that Mao learned of the famine and ignored it, but there is no proof those rumors/accusations are true.
Then in 1959, there were droughts and floods, which are considered an act of nature. If you have read the four part series I wrote of China’s Great Famine, then you would have learned more of the complex circumstances that contributed to this tragedy, which included a “complete embargo” of China by the US, but we never hear about that in the West. The reason for the embargo was to cause suffering among China’s people hopefully leading to unrest that might topple China’s Communist Party.
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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After writing the post about Detective Dee, I decided to combine the four-part series of Emperor Wu Zetian (624 – 705 AD), who was the only woman in China’s history to be an emperor.
Her rise and reign has been criticized harshly by Confucian historians but after the 1950s has been viewed in a better light.
Emperor Zetian ranks alongside Cleopatra—the last Pharaoh of Egypt, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen Isabella of Spain, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great and Queen Victoria.
However, In 637 AD at fourteen, Zetian did not have the official status of a court concubine. She was a serving girl in the Imperial palace.
The second and third emperors of the Tang Dynasty were her husbands and seventeen of the emperors that ruled after her second husband died were her children and their children. Empress Zetian gave birth to four sons and two daughters.
After her first husband Emperor Taizong died, she became a nun in Ganye (Buddhist) Temple where she stayed for several years before being chosen at the age of twenty-seven to be a low ranking wife of Emperor Gaozong, the second Tang emperor’s son.
Historical records say Zetian was a stunning beauty and that because of this Emperor Gaozong was attracted to her, but some scholars say it was her intelligence that won him over.
One year after being married to Gaozong, Zetian outperformed the other wives and concubines to become the Empress.
After becoming Empress, she advised Gaozong on many political issues, which benefited the empire. Eventually, she earned the title of “Queen of Heaven”.
When Emperor Gaozong became seriously ill, he named Zetian to deal with the affairs of state in his name. He died in 683 AD, and Zetian’s third son Lixian became emperor.
However, a month later, Zetian, as the Empress Dowager, removed Lixian from power. Then she turned to her fourth son, but at first, he refused and then eventually accepted the title and became known as Emperor Tang Ruizong.
Zetian believed her sons were weak, so she continued to control the affairs of state as the Dowager Empress.
After Gaozong’s death, she funded the carving of the 17 meter high (almost 56 feet) Lu Shena Buddha, the largest rock carved Buddha in the Longmen Grotto.
It is believed that the Buddha’s face is modeled after Zetian, since she funded the project.
Although there are rumors and gossip that Zetian had many lovers, it is obvious from her age when Emperor Gaozong died that the stories are exaggerations encouraged by her political enemies and the imaginations of future scholars of history texts and authors of fiction, such as the Detective Dee movie.
Mandarin
After eight years of ruling the empire without officially being the Emperor, Zetian made a shocking decision. In 690 AD, she changed the Tang Dynasty into the Zhou Dynasty and declared herself an Emperor when she was age sixty-seven.
While Zetian ruled the Tang Dynasty, the economy, culture, social and political affairs prospered. She was also a talented military leader who reformed the army. After the reforms, without leaving her palace, she managed military conflicts with rival states and defeated them.
Under her leadership, the empire expanded and grew stronger.
Near her death in 704 AD, Zetian returned the throne to her third son Lixian, who became Emperor again.
Some scholars claim that she became a Buddhist for political reasons, but she had many Buddhist temples built and sculptures of Buddha made, and these projects were expensive.
However, as far as affairs of state were concerned, she did not allow her Buddhist beliefs to influence her decisions. For example, she promoted officials that earned the right through merit. There is no evidence of favoritism. In fact, officials convicted of failing in their duties to the people were punished and often beheaded.
Mandarin
She also did not rule as a tyrant. Before making decisions, she listened to all opinions on an issue. Today, historians study her ruling style, and the evidence says her political decisions were wise ones.
During the fifty years that Zetian ruled the Tang Dynasty as Dowager Empress and then as an Emperor, China’s borders expanded north, south and west and she did not lose any of the territory gained.
She understood that with the people’s support, political stability was guaranteed. When there were tragedies such as floods, the dynasty quickly offered relief so recovery was swift.
Although imperial family members of the Tang Dynasty staged revolutions, most of the rebellions were suppressed in a few months.
While Zetian ruled China, the role of women in society changed drastically and due to her, feminism existed in China more than 1,300 years ago. Women didn’t have to worry about the clothing they wore. They were free to explore the arts such as writing poetry. Women rode horses, played Chinese chess, wrote and played music and practiced archery as men did.
Even after Zetian was forced to retire at age eighty, there were officials that called for her return. The historical records show that the Tang emperors that followed her were not as wise or trusting as she was.
There is a collection of fifty-eight of Zetian’s poems. Most of her poetry was written for temple ceremonies and some for travel.
She also wrote many books and collected art. For example, Zetian edited the Book of Agriculture, which influenced agricultural development during the Tang Dynasty.
In fact, there is evidence that Zetian respected decisive men such as her Prime Minister De Renji (represented by the fictional Detective Dee in the recent epic Chinese movie), and she often talked about Li Shimin, her first husband, with respect.
After her death in 705 AD, her third son, Lixian, was removed as emperor due to a plot.
In 710 AD, Zetian’s grandson, Li Longji, defeated a rebellion that intended to take over the dynasty and returned his father to the throne. Eventually, Longji would become Emperor Tang Xuanzong, and under his rule the Dynasty prospered again.
However, when Yuanzong grew old, he neglected his duties and spent too much time with his favorite concubine. During those years, the officials became corrupt and this led to the Shi Rebellion, which his son, the next emperor, suppressed.
After that, the eunuchs gained too much power, and the next fourteen emperors from 756 to 907 AD were weak leading to the eventual collapse of the Tang Dynasty.
The historical evidence says Emperor Wu Zetian, as an ancient feminist, should have earned praise since she did a better job as Emperor than most of the men that ruled the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 AD) did.
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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 lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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The first time I learned of the Emperor Wu Zetian, who was a woman, was when I wrote a four part series of her starting with Wu Zetian, China’s Female Emperor – Part 1, October 9, 2010.
In fact, while researching Emperor Wu, I learned that under her rule, the economy, culture, social and political affairs prospered. She was also a talented military leader who reformed the army. After the reforms, without leaving her palace, she managed victorious military conflicts with rival states.
If you decide to see the movie, you will discover that the film depicts her as a brutal, scheming tyrant. Historically, China’s historians often demonize powerful women. In reality, the facts say that she was no worse than most male emperors were and was more talented, open-minded in addition to being an early feminist.
The last time I attended the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA, I had an opportunity to talk to a film agent that said Hollywood wasn’t making epic blockbusters anymore because they cost too much.
Consider that the 2004 Alexander the Great cost $155 million to produce and the gross box office was about $164 million and in 2007, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End cost $300 million to produce.
The film was based on the Chinese folk hero Di Renjie, popularized in the West by a series of detective novels written by Robert Van Gulik (1910 – 1967), who called him “Judge Dee“.
When I went to see the film, I discovered that it was an action mystery of epic proportions with classic palace intrigue that rivaled a Hollywood epic, which today would cost twenty times the estimated budget I mentioned earlier.
Tsui Hark Director of “Detective Dee” interviewed by Film Steve 3
I enjoyed the film and walked away thinking that anyone interested in a glimpse of how powerful China was thirteen hundred years ago, this lavish spectacle provides a hint of that former time.
The mystery that Dee solves is the spontaneous combustion of two high-ranking court officials that exploded in flame when exposed to sunlight. Do not expect the ending to be the stereotypical Western conclusion.
These ‘murders’ take place before the coronation of Wu Zetian as China’s first female emperor. Detective Dee, the films hero, is based on a real person but there is a lot of fiction and fantasy mixed into this epic film.
The real Detective Dee was originally Duke Wenhui of Liang, an official of the Tang Dynasty and of Emperor Wu Zetian’s Zhou Dynasty. He was one of the most celebrated officials of Wu Zetian’s reign.
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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The prescription that leads to a successful “noble or big lie” is keeping people semi-literate or illiterate so it is more difficult to recognize the “Politics of Fear”.
However, what is literacy and how do we define it? There are no universal definitions and standards of literacy. Unless otherwise specified, the most common definition is the ability to read and write at a specified age.
In addition, literacy is learned, while illiteracy is passed along by parents who cannot read or write, and in 2003, 5% of Americans that read Below Basic did not graduate from high school, 44% spoke no English before starting school, 39% are Hispanic/Latino adults, 20% are African-American/Black adults, 25% are age 65+ and 21% have multiple disabilities.
But, at 18, many of these illiterate people are eligible to vote and votes can be influenced with little and BIG lies—especially when the voter reads at Basic or below, which is more than 40% of the population of the United States.
Manufacturing Consent: Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
NCES.ed.gov says that in the United States, “14% of the people read ‘Below Basic’, which means no more than the most simple and concrete literacy skills; 29% read at the ‘Basic’ level, which means these people can perform simple and everyday literacy activities; 44% read at the ‘Intermediate’ level, which means they can perform moderately challenging literacy activates, and 13% of readers are ‘Proficient’, which means many of these readers can perform complex and challenging literacy activates” and are the most difficult to fool.What is more shocking is that compared to the rest of the world, the U.S. is doing well.
According to the latest International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), between 19% and 23% of American adults performed at the top levels for each of the three literacy scales: document literacy, prose literacy and quantitative (number) literacy. Sweden is the only country that scored higher. People that are literate and read often are harder to fool.
Yet, many Americans are being left behind. The same survey found that between 21% and 24% of U.S. adults performed at the lowest level. Source: Education-Portal.com
The state of literacy in America explains why neoconservative voices such as Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck may influence millions of listeners and talk to them as if they cannot think or reason.
In fact, Rush Limbaugh often says on his neo-conservative radio talk show that he will dothethinking for his audience so they do not have to, and his audience may be as large as 30 million—which is a large number of votes to influence.
This also may explain why ABC World News started their piece about China’s first aircraft carrier with, “the U.S. government directed a pointed question at the Chinese military: Why would you need a warship like that?”
Since China is now the world’s number one energy consumer and the second largest economy, why not, if it is in China’s national interest to have an aircraft carrier?
In addition, if Brazil, France, India, Italy, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Britain all have one or more aircraft carriers, why can’t China join that club?
How is this a threat to America, which has twenty aircraft carriers?
What we have is simple language for simple minds to generate fear and control public opinion. If you read the ABC World News piece, you will notice they don’t mention the other countries that have aircraft carriers or how many the U.S. has.
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.
In Part 1, the Nazis and US neoconservatives were mentioned together in the lead paragraph. In this post, a connection between the two will be made.
Adolf Hitler’s primary rules were: “never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.”
Then Liberty Defined.org says, “Present-day champions of the noble lie are the neoconservatives, and their influence is strongly bipartisan. The principle of lying and deception for the people’s “benefit” is endorsed by each administration regardless of party. The lies are considered noble since a cohesive society is sought. Modern-day neoconservatives have been largely influenced by Leo Strauss, who studied and was influenced by Plato and especially by Machiavelli. According to the neoconservatives, lying is reserved for the nobility; it’s not for the common person who may lie on an IRS form. Lying is reserved for the powerful and those who claim they are the only ones who can take care of the ignorant masses.”
In addition, journalists, such as Seymour Hersh, have declared that Strauss endorsed noble lies, “myths used by political leaders seeking to maintain a cohesive society”.
Bazillion makes a strong case in his scholarly work linking these two men, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss, to America’s neoconservative movement.
Schmitt joined the Nazi party in May 1933, and is sometimes referred to as “the crown jurist of the Third Reich.” His ideas had a powerful influence over neoconservatives. Crusading Spirit links these dangerous Straussian ideas to the George W. Bush Whitehouse and many of the president’s influential advisors (including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Abram Shulsky, Stephen Cambone, Elliott Abrams, Stephen Hadley, and Douglas Feith–page 65).
The most important tool of the “noble lie”, which was endorsed by Hitler, Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss is illiteracy. When individuals are ‘Proficient’ readers and are capable of performing complex and challenging literacy activities, these individuals are difficult to fool.
However, when we discover how many readers in America are ‘Proficient’, we learn why neoconservatives may not want the public schools to be successful, which explains the demonizing of America’s public school teachers and their unions.
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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