Understanding the Party that Rules China

October 3, 2010

People tend to distrust and fear that which they do not understand, and the roots of American Sinophobia go deep.

The 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was directed solely against Chinese. Today, the Chinese in America are still often treated as if they are outsiders.

The Washington Post published a piece in February 2010 on “Polls show growing American resentment and fear of China.”

In fact, it doesn’t matter how anyone feels about China. China is here to stay. For more than two millennia, China has demonstrated an ability to burn and rise like the phoenix to be reborn again.

That’s why Richard McGregor’s book, The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers is vital for understanding what is going on in today’s China.

McGregor not only shows how the Party works, but why the Party fears  losing control and helplessly watching China revert back into the pre-revolutionary chaos and anarchy which almost destroyed the nation when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists ruled the mainland.

As an organization with more than seventy million members, the Party has a grip on every aspect of government, from the largest, richest cities to the smallest villages. It also presides over all official religions, the media, the military and large state-owned businesses.

The picture that emerges is of a creative, adaptable, self-aware and resilient social network that is alert to the internal and external dangers it faces and has proven able to respond to challenge with remarkable agility, creativity and effectiveness.

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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

The Sinophobia Epidemic

September 29, 2010

After being called “Pro China” and a “Panda Lover”, along with a few other tags, I wondered how many people in America have the mental illness called Sinophobia.

The Ramblings of a Political Psychology Major provided an answer. “There is a majority opinion in the US that China is a country we should be concerned with. In a February 2010 Gallup poll, 53% of Americans rated China as being unfavorable or very unfavorable.”

Sinophobia is especially common in Japan. If you don’t believe me, read what Japan did to the Chinese during World War II.

After that, check out what the British, French, Americans and a few others did to China in the 19th century during the Opium Wars.


Do you detect anger in this video?

The notion of “yellow peril” manifested itself in government policy with the U.S. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which reduced Chinese immigration from 30,000 annually to 105.

Jack London’s 1914 story, The Unparalleled Invasion, takes place in a fictional 1975, and describes a China with an ever-increasing population taking over and colonizing its neighbors with the intention of eventually taking over the Earth. 

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that was Hitler’s German Nazis who wanted to do that.

Fili’s World provides an example of Sinophobia in the Israeli media. “You know something is wrong when you hear everyone in the media quoting the exact same clichés, even if they sound so moral and enlightened.… The Chinese have no way of winning the PR battle. If they perform well, they’re described as machine-like and cold. If they mess things up a bit, they are described as losing control. If they tighten up security, they’re violating human rights. If they’re loosening it up a bit, then it’s a sign that China is breaking apart. If they’re on time, they’re fascists. If they’re late, they’re incompetent.”

The Glittering Eye says, “I think I could devote an entire Blog to Sinophobia rather than just to an occasional post seen in the news media.”

Most Chinese Americans I know say they are afraid to speak out about this illness, because a white-faced, round-eyed, big nosed Sinophobe will tell them to go home.

Sinophobia is so serious, it even appears on the Phobia List.

If 53% of Americans have this illness, it should qualify as an epidemic. Along with the annual flu shot, there should be an anti-Sinophobia injection.

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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.

3 Comments | America, American culture, China, Chinese history, cultural differences, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Sky is Falling but only in China

September 4, 2010

The Los Angeles Times published a piece that says, “Airline crash shows China safety standards have fallen, critics say.”

In the lead paragraph, the Times mentioned that China’s overall air safety record has been one of the best in the world for six years.

In China, “State media said Wednesday that the plane carrying 96 people overshot the runway on a fog-shrouded night…”

Let’s put this crash in perspective by looking at a list Wikipedia provides of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft around the globe.  

Remember US Airways flight 1549 on January 15, 2009, which ditched in the Hudson River with no fatalities, or Cogan Air flight 3407 on February 12 that hit a house in Clarence, New York killing all 49 passengers on board.

Then there is Southwest Airlines Flight 2294 on July 13, 2009, that made an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia with no injuries.

How about October 21, 2009, when the pilot of Northwest Airlines flight 188 was distracted by his personal laptop computer and missed his destination in San Diego by 150 miles.

On December 22, American Airlines flight 331 overruns the runway in Kingston, Jamaica and there are 40 injuries and no fatalities.

If you visit the List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft, scroll from 2004 to 2010 to see how long that global list is.  Then there is the list of accidents and incidents involving military aircraft.

Yet a crash in China, with a great safety record for six years, has Sinophobes leaping out of their swamps shouting in morbid joy as if they are celebrating.

An excellent post on Telos does a good job explaining why so many hate China. “China-bashing is the new anti-capitalism.”

See Dragon Air

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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

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

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