China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 3 of 9)

July 2, 2010

In May 1978, Deng invited President Carter’s National Security Advisor to Beijing. Deng needed a deal with the US but he wanted something in return. The US had to end its friendship with the breakaway republic of Taiwan—an island China considered theirs. America agreed and closed its embassy in Taiwan to open full diplomatic relations in China. A few weeks later, Deng became the first Chinese leader to visit the US.

Deng Xiaoping meets President Carter in the White House and signs the new alliance.  Deng says, “Mr. President, we share the sense of being on a historic mission.  Sino-US relations have reached a new beginning.”

Later in the White House, Carter mentions human rights and says that people in China should have the right to leave if they wanted to. Deng says, “Sure, how many Chinese would you want—forty or fifty million?”  Deng tours the US.

After US diplomats arrive in China, a new cultural revolution starts.  With the Chinese and Americans now the best of friends, Deng opened China to American companies, who would get cheap labor while China would get money to grow an economy.

Return to China’s Capitalist Revolution 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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China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 2 of 9)

July 1, 2010

In 1978, Deng was elected leader of the Communist Party beating the Maoists.  His goal was to have China’s economy catch up with the West within 20 years. “In this new age we will focus our efforts on modernizing industry, agriculture, technology and national defense to transform the country by the end of the century in a Chinese way.”

The first challenge was to grow food for China’s starving peasants. During Mao’s failed programs, millions had died. At the end of 1979, peasants in Anhui had started a private farming system. In one year, food production had increased three fold.

Deng was happy to support whatever worked, but local party bosses resisted change after 30 years of Maoism. There was a saying, “We’d rather have the weeds of socialism than the fruits of capitalism.”

Deng surprised the Maoists by giving his blessing to the farmers of Anhui, and by 1981, Anhui was feeding itself. They said, “We’ve been liberated. It’s not like in the past when peasants were rounded up like an army.”

The next step was to modernize China’s industry and that meant China had to work with the United States. Deng also wanted and ally because of threats from the Soviet Union.

Return to China’s Capitalist Revolution Part 1 or go to Part 3

_________________________

 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

Sinophobia and the Nation With the Soul of a Church

July 1, 2010

An old friend of mine once wrote in an e-mail that Communism was evil and if China didn’t do what America wanted, the US would spank them. That and his endless born-again preaching bruised about five decades of friendship. Now, we don’t communicate much.

The definition for Sinophobia is one who fears or dislikes China, its people or its culture—in other words, an ignorant, brainwashed bigot (my opinion).

This morning, I finished reading  An Exceptional Obsession by John Lee, which was published in The American Interest. On page 42, Lee wrote, “Above all, Chinese leaders are anxious about having to deal with a society so different from their own, and by different we don’t mean a superficial contrast between communism and capitalism.  China’s is a communal culture; America’s is individualist. China is rooted in its land longer and more deeply than any society on earth. America is an immigrant society and an unprecedentedly mobile one at that. China has never institutionalized the rule of law; America is fundamentally based on it. China has never experienced deistic religions; America, as Chesterton once said is “a nation with the soul of a church.”

Lee’s comparison reminded me of the few shallow Communist haters and Sinophobic people I’ve run into on the Internet, who live in this nation with the soul of a church. Occasionally, one crawls out of the woodpile on a thousand legs.

Discover Power Corrupts

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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

China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 1 of 9)

June 30, 2010

When Chairman Mao died in 1976, he left China in chaos due to the Cultural Revolution. Under Mao, who led the revolution and built the People’s Republic, millions had starved and died (due to poor decisions, droughts, floods, crop losses and a complete embargo by the United States). Deng Xiaoping, who overturned Maoism and taught the Chinese to love capitalism, succeeded him but not without a struggle.

Today, China has transformed the lives of many of its citizens and is challenging the world.  This BBC series is the story of how Communist China learned to love capitalism.  It is also the story of Deng Xiaoping—a survivor often punished by Mao, who refused to quit.

Unfortunately, for all the success Deng had in transforming China into a modern nation, his reputation was stained by what happened during the Tiananmen Square incident. During the demonstrations, Deng, who had been a military man most of his life, was faced with a choice between his modernizing instincts and his commitment to national stability to the party he had served for seventy years since 16.

By bringing wealth and stability to China, Deng defied those who said capitalism could not succeed without Western style politics.  He often said, “Our system has its advantages. We can make decisions quickly.”

If you enjoyed this, see The Roots of Madness or go to Part 2 of China’s Capitalist Revolution.

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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

The Opium Wars in the 19th Century (1800s)

June 28, 2010

China began the 19th century confident of its superiority over the rest of the world.  China’s population numbered 400 million. The Qing (Manchu) Empire controlled the world’s biggest economy.  China enjoyed a favorable balance of trade with the West—receiving a huge amount of money for its silk, porcelain, and tea.

By 1800, the British consumed 10,000 tons of tea annually.  So much money poured into China, that one Chinese merchant became the richest man in the world, and all foreign business with was restricted to one city, Canton.

However, Britain had a product to reverse that balance of trade—opium. The British shipped opium into China and up its rivers to almost every part of China.  So many became addicted to the drug, the stability China was threatened.

Then in 1839, the Emperor acted to stop the opium trade. Lin, the man in charge, wrote to Queen Victoria asking for her help. Ignored by Great Britain, Lin resorted to confiscating the opium and destroying it, which led to the Opium Wars started by Britain and France, who respected nothing but force. China lost the war and was forced to pay for a war they did not want and did not start.

In the British parliament, William Gladstone criticized his government calling the Opium war a disgrace.

See Mao’s War Against Illegal Drugs

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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.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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