Deadly Fat Profits

July 24, 2010

CNNMoney.com reports in China: The new fast food nation, that Yum Brand, the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, has seen its profits in China jump 33% in the second quarter.… In fact, American fast food is very popular in China.  Yum opens one new KFC every day in China with nearly 3,000 and a long-term goal to have 20,000 fast-food outlets in Chinese cities.

Keeping pace with fast food consumption is the increase in obesity, diabetes and cancer rates in China.  Bullfax.com reports that the growing popularity of Western junk food is fueling a diabetes boom across Asia. In fact, China is facing a diabetes epidemic and 92 million Chinese men and women have diabetes and almost 150 million more are close to having it.

CBS News reports that China’s soaring cancer rates appear to be keeping pace with the increase in urban Chinese eating Western fast food. When Deng Xiaoping said, “Getting rich is glorious,” did he mean that business people should become parasites causing this to happen?

See The Challenge of Rural Health Care in America and China

________________________

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. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

1 Comment | capitalism, China, food, health care | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Tiananmen Square Revisited

July 23, 2010

When I was writing and posting Part 8 for China’s Capitalist Revolution, there was a scene in that segment of the documentary of a student dressed in pajamas sitting in a chair.  This so-called student leader for the Tiananmen Square incident was rude, arrogant and demanding.

There was no sign of the piety I see everyday—that I have lived with and witnessed since I married into a Chinese family. My wife and her family lived in China during Mao’s time. They suffered through the same changes everyone else did but their respect for piety never changed.

I read the “What is the truth about Tiananmen Square?” post again.

Why did President H. W. Bush change ambassadors in the middle of the incident with a man who had once been an operative for the CIA working in Asia inserting agents into China? James Lilly wouldn’t have to meet with the students himself. He knew who the double agents in China were. He had to know.

“The protesters were not demanding Western style politics or an end to Communist Party rule as many in the West believe.  They wanted the government to listen to their opinions about   reforms and corruption.  The banners the protesters carried said, “We Support the Great Glorious Communist Party of China.” Source: China’s Capitalist Revolution, Part 7

It was the Western media and the rude, arrogant students, who turned the event into a democracy movement but only after Lilly was in the country or on his way. Did President Bush seize an opportunity?

In fact, it wasn’t until after that student treated his elders with disrespect, that Deng Xiaoping sent the troops in—a reaction to be expected in a country with a collective culture like China’s where practicing piety is the same as breathing.

What choice did he have?  After all, the students had demanded the negotiations be broadcast live on TV to the nation. Embarrassed in front of the country he ruled, Deng had no choice. It was a great loss of face for him and the government.  Loss of face is probably the leading cause of suicide in Asian countries like Japan and the two Koreas.

That student acted as if he was untouchable–that he had insurance. Maybe he did. He had taken a huge risk to gain face, and it turned into a tragedy.

Moreover, why has America’s media made such a big deal out of the Tiananmen Square incident where hundreds died and almost nothing about the slaughter conducted by (an American ally) Chiang Kai-shek’s troops in Taiwan where almost thirty thousand were murdered? See 2/28 Massacre in Taiwan

_________________________

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. 

Sign up for an RSS Feed for iLook China

2 Comments | China, Chinese Culture, cultural differences, family values, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Chiang Kai-shek

July 23, 2010

Chiang Kai-shek (also known as Jiang Jieshi) was born on October 31, 1887. His family was from the upper class and was wine merchants. At 18, he attended a military college in Japan. Chiang had four wives during his life. His first wife died in the Second Sino-Japanese War. His second wife contracted gonorrhea from Chiang (a known womanizer) soon after they married. His most famous wife lived to 106 and died in 2003. Before one marriage, he converted to Christianity as a condition to marry.

After training in Japan, he went to Russia to study the Soviet government and decided he did not care for the Communists. Returning to China, Sun Yat-sin appointed Chiang to command a military academy

Under Sun Yat-sen the Communists and the Nationalists worked together to rule China, and Soviet advisers provided the help needed to increase their power since most of China was ruled by warlords.

However, when Sun died in 1925, Chiang led the Kuomintang army north to defeat the warlords and destroy the Communists.

Meanwhile, in Shanghai, the Communist Party had organized labor unions to improve working conditions in the low paying sweat-shop factories. During Communist organized labor strikes, these factories were shut down.

When Chiang Kai-shek army reached Shanghai, he joined forces with gangsters then went on a killing spree known as the White Terror. Tens of thousands of workers, who belonged to the labor unions organized by the Communists, were hunted down and killed along with their Communist leaders. One of the few to escape was Mao Zedong.

For the next few years, Chiang would rule China unchallenged until 1931, when Japan invaded. During the early months of the war, Chiang ignored Japan and continued hunting for the Communist survivors, who had fled into the countryside.

In 1949, when Mao won the civil war, Chiang Kai-shek took the survivors of his nationalist army to Taiwan where, protected by the US military, he declared brutal martial law and ruled as a dictator until he died on April 5, 1975 at the age of eighty-seven.

______________________________

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.

#1 - Joanna Daneman review posted June 19 2014

Where to Buy

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

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

Growing China’s Legal System

July 18, 2010

In October 2008, Stephen Yao, talked about the evolution of the Chinese legal System. During the Cultural Revolution, for ten years, China had no law or legal system.  Then in 1979, Deng Xiaoping initiated the “Open Market Policy”.

Law schools, the ministry of justice and legal services were started in the early 1980s.  Another milestone was in 2001, after China joined the WTO (World Trade Organization).  The economic changes were taking place faster than the legal system was developing.

In 2008, the Chinese legal system had the minimum standards as recognized by the WTO.

In the video, Stephen Yao displays a chart for China’s Legal System and explains briefly what it means.  The second slide shows China’s legal market overview and the multilayered legal structure.

Yao says that the death penalty must be referred to China’s higher court and the lower courts do not have the power to apply the death penalty.

See China Law and Justice System

______________

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.

Subscribe to “iLook China”
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page.

About iLook China

1 Comment | China, legal system | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

China’s Capitalist Revolution (Part 9 of 9)

July 6, 2010

Because of what happened in Tiananmen Square, foreign investors pulled out of China. Western businessmen fled. Foreign leaders and Deng’s Western friends criticized him.

The Maoists were back in power. Jiang Zemin said private companies had benefited from the reforms but in the turmoil, they supported the students against the government. We need to destroy them.

Deng Xiaoping was forced into retirement and his policies were reversed. Peasants were encouraged to reform collectives and private business was banned from competing with state enterprises.   The Maoists decided to clean house and close China’s doors to the West.

Desperate to save his reforms, at 87, Deng set out to save his reforms.  He went to Shanghai to encouraged supporters there to speak out.  When they did, the Maoists wanted to know who was criticizing them in the newspapers. Deng said he was responsible—don’t attack anyone but me.  Then Deng met with his old comrades in the People’s Liberation Army and the army announced they would protect Deng’s reforms and anyone who resisted would be dealt with.

Deng said, “Without reform and the Open Door policy, economic growth and improved living standards —any path for our country will be a dead end.” Deng’s call to arms worked.  In 1994, Jiang Zemin switched sides to support Deng. It was okay to get rich again.

Deng Xiaoping died in 1997. The country he inherited from Mao was the one of the world’s poorest. Today, it is one of the wealthiest.

Return to China’s Capitalist Revolution Part 8 or start with Part 1

_________________________

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.

3 Comments | business, capitalism, China, Chinese history, Communism, economy, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »