Border Crossings and the Blood on Our Hands

March 11, 2011

In 2006, China was crucified in the Western media due to a few unarmed Tibetans being killed attempting to illegally cross the border into India.

Buzzle.com repeated this news that originally ran in the UK’s Guardian. I recall the incident because it was on the news in the US at the time.

Of these few border deaths in China, Buzzle says, “A Romanian cameraman, whose footage of the incident revealed that snipers shot the unarmed Tibetans as they waded through thick snow. The shaky video shows two figures in a column of refugees fall to the ground. “They’re shooting them like, like dogs,” says a witness next to the cameraman.”

The headline shouted “International Anger Grows Over Tibet Shooting. Human Rights groups are calling for a UN Investigation into the killing of a nun by Chinese border patrol guards, writes Jonathan Watts in Beijing.”

Recently, I read another story I’d never heard of before from The Economist of another border where similar killings happen often, but I found no demand for a UN Investigation in the Western media. Even The Economist, which reported the story, did not call for an investigation.

Instead, The Economist concludes with, “Shooting the people you claim to want to do business with is a poor start.”

Maybe the difference is that the border killings reported by The Economist took place between two democracies — India and Bangladesh.


I couldn’t find a report of this India-Bangladesh incident in English on YouTube

The Economist says, “On January 7th India’s Border Security Force (BSF) shot dead Mr. Nur Islam’s 15-year-old (daughter) Felani, at an illegal crossing into Bangladesh from the Indian state of West Bengal. Felani’s body hung from the barbed-wired fence for five hours. Then the Indians took her down, tied her hands and feet to a bamboo pole, and carried her away. Her body was handed over the next day and buried in the yard at home.”

“The BSF (India’s Border Security Force) kills with such impunity along India’s 4,100-kilometer (2,550-mile) border with Bangladesh that one local journalist wonders what the story is about. According to Human Rights Watch, India’s force has killed almost 1,000 Bangladeshis over the past ten years.”

How many were reported killed by witnesses of the China incident? Two or three?

What about deaths along the US border? The Snow Report says, “Border deaths for illegal immigrants hit record high in Arizona sector.”

The Snow Report says, “The discovery of record numbers of bodies along the Tucson sector of the US-Mexico border suggests that border crossings for illegal immigrants are becoming deadlier as heightened security forces migrants into remoter and more forbidding areas.”

Maybe democracies (which are billed as better places to live), sort of like James Bond, get a free pass from the Western media to kill.

Discover more about India Falling Short

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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.

23 Comments | America, China, crime, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Communist Revolution or Civil War

March 5, 2011

In Russia and Cuba, there were Communist Revolutions. In China, it was a Civil War. There is a difference.

Dictionary.com says a revolution is an overthrow or repudiation and the thorough replacement of an established government or political system by the people governed.

A civil war is a war between political factions or regions within the same country.

The United States of America fought a Revolution from 1775 to 1783. The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865. Both fit the definitions.

PBS.org gets it wrong when it says, “Mao Zedong led China’s Communist revolution in the 1920s and 1930s.”

In fact, many Blogs and Websites get the facts wrong with it comes to China’s civil war. 

However, the PBS report clearly shows that in 1923, Sun Yat-sen, known as the father of China’s republic and the leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), allied with the Communist Party (CCP) to strengthen the republic and take China back from the warlords.

Then in 1927, after Sun Yat-sen’s death in 1925, the KMT broke from the CCP shattering the alliance that Sun Yat-sen had formed.

Chiang Kai-shek, the new leader of the KMT, launched a brutal purge to kill all Communists in China.

The CCP had no choice but to fight or be exterminated by Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT. With the support of China’s peasants, the CCP won the civil war in 1949. The US backed the loser.

In fact, both the CCP and the KMT honor Sun Yat-sen as the father of the republic.

In mainland China, the Memorial Hall for Sun Yat-sen is in Guangzhou on the southern slope of Yuexiu Hill and was constructed between 1929 and 1931.

Another memorial hall dedicated to Sun Yat-sen is in Taipei and was completed on May 16, 1972.

So, why do so many call it China’s Communist Revolution when it was a civil war between the KMT and the CCP? Could they be confused?

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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.

4 Comments | China, Chinese history, Communism, history, media, politics, Taiwan | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Real Threat of Nationalism

March 4, 2011

After writing about The Economist’s report on The dangers of a rising China, I became curious about China’s nationalism, which has been seen in the West as a bad thing.

While in China, I have never experienced Chinese nationalism as it has been featured in the West’s media or from the mouths of US politicians.

During the 2010 midterm elections, since the US economy was in pain and millions were out of work, China was used (primary by GOP politicians) as a scapegoat and this tactic, among others, paid off when the GOP gained a majority in the House and closed the gap in the Senate.

The China Herald reported on China’s nationalism and what Helen Wang wrote in Forbes. Wang says, “China suspects that America seeks to stop China from rising and interprets everything the US does (or says publicly through the media) through this lens. America worries about China’s nationalism and sees China as a growing power that will challenge its global hegemony. Such mistrust can be a self-fulfilling prophecy and a source of global instability.”

Instead of believing the myths and fictions born of political agendas, I prefer what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says, “The term ‘nationalism’ is generally used to describe two phenomena: (1) the attitude that the members of a nation have when they care about their national identity, and (2) the actions that the members of a nation take when seeking to achieve (or sustain) self-determination.

Anthony D. Smith, who wrote Nationalism: theory, ideology, history, says “It is misleading to seek to compare nationalism tout court (simply) with other ‘mainstream’ political ideologies, even within the West, their home and main arena.”

The truth is that the rise of China’s nationalism is not the real danger to America.

In fact, the real threat may be a selective form of nationalism growing roots in America, which is the rise of American religious fanaticism.

This embedded YouTube video explores the emerging religious, ultra right-wing mass movement seeking dominion over all aspects of contemporary American society.

Also, discover how the religious right has already infiltrated the US government in Separation of Church and State.

If the religious right achieves its political agenda, the US may become a theocracy.

No matter what you read or hear, nowhere does the definition of theocracy say republic or democracy.

Instead, the definition in Merriam-Webster says, “a government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided (such as the Pope in the Vatican),” and Wikipedia says, “a state ruled by clergy…”

Iran is the perfect example of a religious mass movement giving birth to a theocracy.

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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 » | America, China, Christianity, cultural differences, media, politics, religion | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Tibet as a Province of China – the unresolved issue

March 2, 2011

While Korea is the unresolved war, Tibet is the unresolved issue. Both events are more complex than the propaganda that the media often presents.

China maintains that Tibet has been part of its territory for centuries, but many Tibetans say the region was functionally independent for much of its history.

Since Tibetan separatists have claimed that China “never” ruled over Tibet prior to Mao’s reoccupation in 1950, every time the Dali Lama wins another award for humanitarianism or meets a world leader, it is a slap in the face for most Chinese — not just their government.

Have you ever been treated as if you were a liar when it wasn’t true?

The Chinese are proud of their history, and they don’t like foreigners believing lies about their country.


The facts presented in this video are supported by the October 1912 issue of National Geographic Magazine and Robert Hart’s 19th century journals.

Tibet was first occupied by China during the Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367), and it was a Mongol emperor or king that made a Dalai Lama the spiritual leader for Tibet in the 13th century.

Before that, the Tibetans were a warlike race and were a plague on a peaceful China. Warlike Tibetans, not exactly the image the Western media paints, raided China for centuries from their mountain fortresses.

When the Ming Dynasty drove the Mongols from China in 1368, the Ming emperor sent an army to Tibet.

For the next six hundred years, the Tibetans were never easy to rule.

Sir Robert Hart, considered the godfather of China’s modernization, said the same thing. He wrote in 1888, “China will regard England as an ally and helper in reducing trouble-some tributaries (meaning Tibet) to a proper sense of position!”

Discover Invisible White Elephants

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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.

 

Note: This post first appeared on iLook China February 8, 2010 as post # 34. This revised version reappears as post # 1098.

3 Comments | China, Chinese history, history, politics, religion, Tibet | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

POW Deaths During the Korean War

February 28, 2011

I planned another post for this spot but decided to write about UN POW deaths during the Korean War since that topic came up at the end of Part 7 of this documentary summarizing the Korean War.

It mentions how 87% of POW’s captured by the People’s Liberation Army and/or North Korean troops during the war died in captivity.  It doesn’t explain how.

The lack of context may provide Sinophobes with ammunition to criticize China for the behavior of its troops during the Korean War.

In fact, while there was strong evidence that North Korean Troops executed UN POWs, “the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their Korean counterparts (since) mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese POW camps during the winter of 1950-51. About 43 percent of all US POWs died during this period. The Chinese defended their actions by stating that all Chinese soldiers during this period were also suffering mass starvation and diseases due to the lack of competent logistics system.” Source: Wikipedia

Surviving UN POWs, however, dispute this claim. Click on the link to see what the POWs had to say but know that Mao ruled China from 1949 to 1976. Revolutionary Maoism died with him.

In 1951, the Western rules of war did not apply to China or North Korea. China wouldn’t join the United Nations until October 25, 1971 — twenty years later.  North Korea would become a member of the UN September 1991.

If you were to study the International Treaties on the Laws of War, you would discover that most were written in Geneva and the Hague. Source: Wikipedia

What I found interesting in this list was the 1938 League of Nations declaration for the “Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing from the Air in Case of War.”

During World War II, the US air forces killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany and Japan. Many of the bombs dropped were napalm (jellied gasoline) and the innocent were roasted including the elderly, women and children.

The Geneva Convention for the treatment of Prisoners of War was written in 1949, the year the Chinese Communists won the Civil War in China.

There is an old saying — the friend of my enemy is my enemy.

The United States has been an ally of the Nationalist Chinese since well before World War II and protected Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in Taiwan after 1949.

However, Chiang Kai-shek was a brutal dictator that ruled Taiwan with martial law and is responsible for the deaths of more than thirty thousand civilians there. Learn of the 2/28 Massacre in Taiwan.

Chinese history shows that since the time of Qin Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor (221 – 207 B.C.), the standard practice in war was to execute POWs because they were a burden that might lead to defeat.  An army that doesn’t’ have to feed and/or guard POWs is more effective at fighting and winning.  Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan knew this too.

While the behavior of PLA and North Korean troops when it came to POW’s was unacceptable by Western humanitarian standards, US forces are just as guilty when it came to killing innocent civilians. There are estimates that the US killed about two million civilians in Vietnam and left behind a horrible legacy due to the use of Agent Orange.

When it comes to war, both combatants are usually guilty of atrocities against POWs and/or civilians. However, the victor decides who is guilty of those crimes and the punishment.

The rules of war to use are Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.

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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 » | America, capitalism, China, Communism, military, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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