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 guard POWs is more effective at fighting and winning. Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan knew this fact too.
Some time ago I watched a documentary on the Korean War that mentioned that 87% of United Nations (U.N.) troops captured by the People’s Liberation Army or North Korean troops during the war died in captivity, but it doesn’t explain how they died.
In fact, while there was strong evidence that North Korean Troops executed U.N. POWs, the Chinese rarely executed prisoners like their North Korean counterparts did. Instead, mass starvation and diseases swept through the Chinese POW camps during the winter of 1950-51. “About 43 percent of all U.S. POWs died during this period.” The Chinese defended what happened because Chinese troops during this period also suffered mass starvation and diseases due to an incompetent logistics supply system. Even the civilian population behind the Communist lines didn’t have enough to eat. –wikipedia.org
Surviving U.N. POWs, however, have disagreed with this claim. Click on the previous link to see what the POWs had to say.
Even though the Wiki piece claims “both the Communists and United Nations forces were committed to the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions III, regarding the treatment of POWs,” China didn’t join the United Nations until October 25, 1971 — twenty years later, and North Korea wouldn’t become a member of the U.N. until September 1991.
The International Treaties on the Laws of War written in Geneva and the Hague in 1938 by the League of Nations was meant for the “Protection of Civilian Populations Against Bombing from the Air in Case of War,” but during World War II, the US Air Force killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Germany and Japan. Many of the bombs dropped were napalm (jellied gasoline) and the innocent along with enemy troops were roasted alive and that included the elderly, women and children.
In addition, the Geneva Convention for the treatment of Prisoners of War was written in 1949, the same year the Chinese Communists won the Civil War in China, but the U.S. had been an ally of the Nationalist Chinese since well before World War II and protected Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in Taiwan after 1949 in spite of the fact that Chiang Kai-shek was a brutal dictator who ruled Taiwan with martial law and was responsible for the killing of more than thirty-thousand civilians in 1947 in the 2/28 Massacre in Taiwan.
While the behavior of Chinese and North Korean troops when it came to POW’s was unacceptable by Western humanitarian written standards, US forces are just as guilty when it comes to killing innocent civilians. It is estimated that the US killed between 1.5 and 3.6 million people in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (note that the US bombings in Laos and Cambodia were illegal and were not approved by the U.S. Congress), and left behind a horrible legacy due to the use of Agent Orange.
“Not only did Nixon and Kissinger not seek the necessary approval from Congress to bomb Cambodia, (and Laos 1962-1969) they tried to conceal the bombing not only from the American public but Congress as well.” – Third World Traveler
In conclusion, written agreements seldom are practiced in war, and it is obvious these agreements do not save innocent lives. To learn more about the illegal US bombing in Laos, read National Geographic Magazine’s recent Life After the Bombs. “The total weight of the bombs dropped was many times greater than the weight of the people living in Laos, which at the time had a population of perhaps two million. It worked out to as much as a ton of bombs per person. … The bombs didn’t distinguish between communists and anticommunists any more than they distinguished between soldiers and children.”
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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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Here’s an “AGGRESSION” comparison between People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States (USA). To keep score, I will only count casualties (those killed on both sides—the wounded and cost of the wars will not be counted). The most aggressive nation will have the highest score.
First Tibet (1950): Technically Tibet was an independent country from 1911-12 to 1950—thirty-eight years.
Before that, Tibet was ruled over by China starting with the Yuan Dynasty (1277-1367) ), Ming Dynasty (1368-1643) and Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) —five-hundred-forty-three years.
To read about this from a reputable Western source (because few in the West trust PRC sources), I suggest the October 1912 issue of The National Geographic Magazine. There’s a piece in the magazine written by a Western trained, Qing-Dynasty doctor that the Chinese emperor sent to Tibet in 1907 for two years. His name was Shaoching H. Chuan, M.D. ( I have an original copy of this almost 100-year-old magazine).
When the Chinese Communist Party won the Civil War against Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT Party, in 1950, Mao sent the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to take Tibet back. For a comparison, when the United States declared its independence from the British Empire, the revolution lasted from 1776 to 1783—seven years.
Casualties and losses comparing the America’s Revolution with the British Empire to Tibet’s Revolution with China
Total American causalities 25,000 dead
America’s allies: The French and Spanish lost about 8,000 in Europe and America
The British lost about 20,000.
In comparison to America’s Revolution that cost 53,000 lives over seven years, in 1950 after the PLA reoccupied Tibet, the war was over in a matter of days/weeks.
The Tibetan government in exile exaggerated the number killed in Tibet at 1.2 million and has accused China of genocide.
However, Michael Parenti wrote this in his book Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth: “The official 1953 census–six years before the Chinese crackdown–recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000. Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million.”
In addition, China puts the actual combat losses at 114 PLA soldiers and 180 Tibetan troops, while a Western source, Thomas Laird, claims 5,000 (for the comparison, I will use Laird’s number) Tibetan troops were killed.
“Tibetan prisoners of war were generally well treated. After confiscating their weapons, the PLA soldiers gave the prisoners lectures on socialism and a small amount of money, before allowing them to return to their homes. According to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, the PLA did not attack civilians.”
Note: In 1949, the average life expectancy in years in Tibet was 35 years. Today it is close to 70 years. The average life expectancy in a nation may indicate the quality of life.
Korean Conflict (June 1950 – July 1953) – this war never resolved. Technically, America and South Korea are still at war with North Korea.
America and its allies lost 776,360 troops (America’s share of those losses was about 40,000 dead)
China and its allies lost 1,545,822–1,648,582 (easily twice the other side)
America’s Vietnam War (1955 – 1975) – It has been proven that America’s President L. B. Johnson started this war with a lie—watch the video.
America and its allies lost 676,585 – 1,035,585 (America’s share 58,220 dead)
North Vietnam and its allies–the PRC and the USSR lost 588,462 – 1,672,462
Civilians = 486,000 – 1,200,000.
China’s Vietnam War (1979) Note: China occupied and ruled over Vietnam for 1,000 years
“The first major threat to Vietnam’s existence as a separate people and nation was the conquest of the Red River Delta by the Chinese, under the mighty Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), in the first century B.C. At that time, and in later centuries, the expanding Chinese empire assimilated a number of small bordering nations politically and culturally. Although Vietnam spent 1,000 years under Chinese rule, it succeeded in throwing off the yoke of its powerful neighbor in the tenth century.”
China’s casualties = 6,954 – 26,000 (depending on who you believe)
Vietnam’s casualties = 10,000 to 30,000 (depending on who you believe)
China’s War with India (1962 for about two months)
Note: China has clearly been successful in resolving border disputes with most of its neighbours in a ‘win-win’ situation since the 1990s.
However, India has had border wars with three of its neighbors: China, Pakistan and Nepal. In comparison, China has negotiated border disputes peacefully with North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma/Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam.
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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In August 2010, I ran a twelve part series on Sun Tzu’sThe Art of War starting with Part 1. In this post, I’ve brought together the series in one post and added more content.
The reason for revisiting Sun Tzu’s The Art of War has to do with a recent study by The Pew Research Center, which says, one in three Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of the post-9/11 military see these wars as a waste.
Then NPR’s Jackie Northam reported as the wars drag on, interest among Americans has dropped from 90 percent supporting the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan before the war started to 25 percent today.
Northam quotes Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center. “The public soured on the decision to go to war in Iraq by 2004, when not only were there no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) found, but all of a sudden, the cost of that war began to increase, [and] casualties began to be rather substantial.”
In addition, Fair Game (2010), a movie of CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband, who wrote a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece on the topic of WMD in Iraq, alleged that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq—an accusation of fraud in the White House.
According to the wisdom of Sun Tzu, these three points are enough to indicate a “high” possibility of defeat for the United States.
So, who better to turn to than Sun Tzu to see if the goals of these wars are possible to achieve.
It is time to reexamine the master that West Point cadets study. Sun Tzu dates to China’s Warring States Period (476 – 221 BC). Traditional accounts place him in the Spring and Autumn Period of China as a military general serving under King Helu of Wu (544-496 BC).
You have to be good to still be taken seriously about 2500 years after your death.
There are three key principals to The Art of War.
1. Know your enemy and know yourself — understanding your opponent is crucial to victory.
2. Sun Tzu prizes the general who can outwit instead of outfight his opponent — to subdue the enemy without fighting is the height of skill.
3. Avoid what is strong. Attack what is weak.
In the case of President George W. Bush, when he went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is now clear that he did not know his enemy (or much at all about the culture and politics of the Middle East and of Islam).
Bush also resorted to subduing his enemy with force instead of outwitting him—as if President Bush was capable of outwitting Al-Qaeda, since finding the weakness of an organization that is like smoke would be a challenge to any president.
As for Sun Tzu, around 500 BC, the King of Wu summons him, one of the greatest military minds in history, to save his kingdom from a more powerful enemy.
Sun Tzu was a warrior and a philosopher. He was important because he had a cohesive, holistic philosophy on strategy.
Sun Tzu tells the King of Wu he can defeat the enemy with a smaller army. Doubting him, the king challenges Sun Tzu to turn the palace concubines into a fighting force and Sun Tzu accepts.
Sun Tzu shows the concubines what to do, selects the best two students and puts them in charge of the others. When Sun Tzu orders the exercise to begin, the woman laugh.
He tries again but the concubines laugh again.
Sun Tzu says, “If instructions are not clear and commands not explicit, it is the fault of the general. But if the orders are clear, and my orders are clear, it is the fault of the subordinate officers.”
Without warning, Sun Tzu beheads the two concubines he had selected to lead the others. To Sun Tzu, war is a matter of life and death. This is the key principal of his teachings. Once understood, everyone from the general to the solider will be motivated to win.
However, in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States fought wars with rules that hamper victory and ignore the fact that war is a matter of life and death.
Instead, politics and public opinion decide the rules of the battle field.
While the bodies of the first two concubines are still warm, Sun Tzu appoints two new concubines to lead the others. This time the concubines follow his orders without hesitation. The king of Wu is convinced and appoints Sun Tzu commander of the Wu army.
Sun Tzu now must train an army of 30 thousand troops to fight a force ten times larger.
The state of Wu has only 33,000 troops while Chu can field a force of 300 thousand.
Outnumbered ten to one, Sun Tzu could build his defenses and wait for the attack. However, he does the unexpected. He invades Chu.
He doesn’t attack Chu’s main army. Instead, he attacks outposts and weaker targets. When Chu sends an army to fight, Sun Tzu slips away emphasizing maneuver, surprise and deception.
After every battle, Sun Tzu learns more about his enemy.
During another war more than two thousand years later, Sun Tzu’s ultimate secret becomes more evident. In the mid 1960s, the world’s largest super power is fighting in Vietnam—a country smaller than the state of Montana.
The American general sees the battlefield like a chessboard where armies stand and fight. However, Vietnam has no clear objectives to attack and destroy.
The Communist general understands Sun Tzu and uses the Viet Cong in hit and run attacks against fixed US positions.
Sun Tzu said, “It is more important to outthink your enemy than outfight him. In war, numbers alone confer no advantage. Do not advance relying on sheer military power.”
The US commander breaks these rules.
Sun Tzu liked the enemy to maneuver and respond to his moves. This way he was in charge of the battlefield.
A US report after the Vietnam War revealed that 80% of the time, it was the North Vietnamese and Vietcong who decided where and when to fight.
Sun Tzu said, “Once you know the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, you can avoid the strengths and attack the weaknesses.” At the beginning of the war, almost 80% of Americans supported it.
As the Vietnam War continued with mounting US causalities, that support at home shifted against the war, which achieved another of Sun Tzu’s rules, “The skillful leader subdues enemy’s troops without any fighting. One does not win wars by winning battles.”
Although the North Vietnamese and Vietcong did not win battles, they won the war by turning the American people against it. To achieve this goal, the North Vietnamese commander was willing to lose ten men for every American killed.
In the end, the US lost 53 thousand troops and the North Vietnamese and Vietcong more than a million with several million more noncombatants killed as collateral damage to the American bombing.
Sun Tzu felt spies were important, and he devoted one chapter to spies. He said, “Use your spies for every kind of business,” and the North Vietnamese and Vietcong followed that advice.
Sun Tzu said, “An accurate knowledge of the enemy is worth ten divisions.”
He also said, “Let your plans be as dark as night – then strike like a thunderbolt.” The Tet Offensive in January of 1968 was that thunderbolt.
Sun Tzu said, “Keep plans as dark as night.”
The NVA (North Vietnamese Army) and Vietcong did this by moving supplies and troops through miles of tunnels built in the 1950 and 60s.
Deception was also one of Sun Tzu’s rules.
To achieve deception, the NVA and Vietcong announced they would honor a cease-fire on January 31, 1968, the Tet New-Year Holiday.
Sun Tzu said, “In battle use a direct attack to engage and an indirect attack to win,” meaning to deceive your enemy so you can win your real objective.
To achieve this goal, the NVA launched a surprise attack on Khe Sanh, a remote US base, one week before the Tet Offensive.
The South Vietnamese and American military are surprised when the NVA launches the Tet Offensive. At first, it looks like the Vietcong will win, but the NVA ignored one of Sun Tzu’s rules—moral influence.
Moral influence means a leader must have the people behind him to win.
During the early days of the Tet, the Vietcong rounded up and brutally assassinated several-thousand South Vietnamese government workers and killed many Catholic nuns losing the support of the people.
However, in America, watching the violence of the Tet Offensive on TV turned more Americans against the war.
Eight years later, in 1975, Saigon falls to the NVA and America loses the war even though the US had military superiority.
It is about 500 BC in China and Sun Tzu’s hit-and-run campaign against the state of Chu is working. The Chu prime minister is starting to lose support and the moral of his troops is dropping.
Throughout the countryside of Chu, there is fear of where Sun Tzu will strike next. When the larger Chu army threatens one of Sun Tzu’s allies, Sun Tzu uses another rule of war, “To move your enemy, entice him with something he is certain to take.”
Then, when his own forces are surrounded, Sun Tzu says, “Put the army in the face of death where there is no escape and they will not flee or be afraid – there is nothing they cannot achieve.” See The Long March
What happened to Sun Tzu in China when his small army was surrounded also happened on June 6, 1944 when allied troops in World War II invaded Europe during D-day.
Sun Tzu says, “All warfare is deception. If you can deceive your enemy before battle, you are more likely to win.”
That’s what General Eisenhower did before the invasion of Normandy. To succeed, the allies used deception to convince the Germans the attack would not take place in Normandy.
Sun Tzu says, “It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to spy against you and bribe them to serve you.” In The Art of War, double agents are the most important spies.
That is what the Allies did in World War II before the Normandy Invasion of France. No one used double agents better than the British did.
Britain turned almost every spy Germany sent during the war. These double agents made the Germans believed the invasion would take place at Pas de Calais and not Normandy.
Sun Tzu says, “The way a wise general can achieve greatness beyond ordinary men is through foreknowledge.” The allies had foreknowledge because they broke the German code and knew what the Germans were thinking and planning.
Sun Tzu would have praised the allied preparation for the invasion and the use of deception but he would have condemned the actual assault.
Sun Tzu says, “When a falcon’s strike breaks the body of its prey, it is because of timing. When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of momentum.”
Sun Tzu believes that the best attack can be ruined if momentum is lost, and he would have predicted the cost of lives during the Normandy invasion more than two-thousand years before it took place.
During the invasion of Normandy, the allies survived on death ground exactly as Sun Tzu predicted by fighting together and never giving up.
Sun Tzu meant when you put troops in a combat position where they must fight or die, there is no choice but to fight.
Another reason the Allies succeeded during D-day was another of Sun Tzu’s rules of war. He said, “It is essential for victory that generals are unconstrained by their leaders.”
The allied command structure gives total authority to General Eisenhower as supreme commander.
However, Germany under Hitler did not have the same command structure.
Hitler had set up a confusing system of overlapping authority so no one had total control over the military leaving Hitler the only one who made final decisions.
Hitler’s command structure is a perfect example of what Sun Tzu says about “no interference from the leader”.
The allies in France are bogged down in difficult terrain. The combat losses are horrible and little progress is made.
The solution is found in Sun Tzu’s rules of war. “Make your enemy prepare on his left and he will be weak on his right.”
The allies will follow this rule.
Sun Tzu says you must behave like the snake. When your enemy attacks, you must be flexible.
Throughout the invasion of Normandy, France, Sun Tzu’s rules of war guide the Allies to victory. The Allies used deception, foreknowledge, and a superior command structure that motivated the army to fight as one.
Sun Tzu says, “The winning army realizes the conditions for victory first then fights. The losing army fights first then seeks victory.”
More than two thousand years before the Battle of Normandy, the battle between the kingdoms of Wu and Chu raged on.
Even with a smaller army, Sun Tzu is not worried. He has split his army. While the Chu army is surrounding his smaller force, the main part of his army is moving toward the unprotected Chu capital.
The Chu commander turns from the smaller Wu force under Sun Tzu’s command and rushes back to save the capital.
Sun Tzu says, “No nation has ever benefitted from prolonged war.” The American Civil War is Sun Tzu’s nightmare scenario. Possibly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the same since so many of Sun Tzu’s rules of war have been ignored.
Sun Tzu says, “Those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle. They are not brought by him.” This will happen to General Robert E. Lee in 1863.
China’s Sun Tzu says if the orders are unclear, it is the fault of the commanding general.
General Lee told one of his generals to “Attack when you think it is practical.” That general decides it is not practical and does nothing.
At the Battle Gettysburg, Lee did not give clear orders.
Robert E. Lee made a tactical mistake when he did not follow Sun Tzu’s rule to “Move only when you see an advantage and there is something to gain. Only fight if a position is critical.”
Sun Tzu says, “When the enemy occupies high ground, do not confront him. If he attacks downhill, do not oppose him.” Robert E. Lee did not listen and decides to attack the Union positions on the high ground.
General Longstreet disagrees. He does not want to attack the high ground. Instead, he wants to go around the Union Army toward the North’s capital, Washington D.C.
Sun Tzu says, “There are some armies that should not be fought and some ground that should not be contested.”
After two days of horrible losses, Robert E. Lee orders what is left of his army to attack uphill a third time. General Longstreet urges Lee not to do this. Lee ignores him.
On the third day of Gettysburg during Picket’s charge up another hill, only 5,000 survived of 12,000 troops. Sun Tzu would have been horrified.
Sun Tzu says, “When troops flee, are insubordinate, collapse or are routed in battle, it is the fault of the general.”
Sun Tzu sees a commanding general as someone intelligent and cunning and never rash or arrogant, which is the opposite of the commander of the Chu army more than two thousand years ago.
Sun Tzu won the war against Chu, which had an army ten times larger than his. He did this through preparation, deception and indirect attacks.
After winning the war against Chu, Sun Tzu retires and writes The Art of War.
The first line of Sun Tzu’s rules of war says, “War is a matter of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, survival or ruin.
As I finished the series on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, I thought of President Lyndon Johnson who invaded Vietnam (1950 to 1975)—a war where a super power lost to a third-world country as Chu did to Wu about twenty-five hundred years ago.
Nations that fought with the United States lost more than 300 thousand troops with almost 1.5 million wounded. North Vietnam and the Communists lost almost 1.2 million troops and more than 4 million civilian dead. Source: Vietnam War – Wiki
President G. W. Bush rushed into a war in Iraq and Afghanistan on faulty evidence, which may have been based on lies. For these wars, the casualties and losses continue.
Several American presidents ignored Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
Since World War II, America has spent more than 23 trillion dollars fighting wars and in defense. The U.S. won the Cold War against Soviet Russia without fighting.
Too bad the citizen of the US, Presidents Johnson and G. W. Bush did not learn from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War.
China’s Sun Tzu said, “Sometimes, the best way to win is not to fight.”
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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.
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In conclusion, I ask this question of the Kiers of the world.
Do we blame China’s central government when the manufacturing sector (many of the private companies in China are controlled by Western corporations) hasn’t cooperated regarding environmental laws in China designed to clean the air and water?
To cooperate would mean raising prices and Western/American consumers refuse to pay more so violations of these new environmental laws often go unpunished due to the sheer numbers of Chinese that do not want to see their source of income flow to Vietnam or another country willing to ignore environmental disasters.
Talking about Vietnam—during the Vietnam War, America sprayed a defoliant called Agent Orange, which led to generations of birth defects and health problems among Vietnam’s people and American veterans.
In fact, since I served in Vietnam and was exposed to Agent Orange, the VA added my name to the Agent Orange watch list. I read recently that two-thirds of US servicemen that served in Vietnam and were exposed to Agent Orange are now dead.
In 1990, Time Magazine wrote, “Critics charge that the agency (CDC) and one of its senior officials, Dr. Vernon Houk, helped scuttle a $63 million study that might have determined once and for all whether U.S. troops exposed to Agent Orange suffered serious damage to their health.”
Then in 2009, Time World said,, “Agent Orange Poisons New Generations in Vietnam.”
Do we blame that on China and/or Mao too?
In addition, have we forgotten Erin Brockovich (2000) starring Julia Roberts, where she plays an unemployed single mother that becomes a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brings down a California power company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.
Erin Brokovich was based on a true story, and recently in the news, it was revealed that another cover up may be happening with the same company in the same location, and this is not the only time cover-ups have been attempted in the West/America by government agencies or private sector corporations.
Another example would be The Ford Pinto Conspiracy, a deliberate cover up of the danger of fires being caused by rear end collisions of its Pinto car. I had a close friend whose daughter burned up in the back seat of a Pinto after a rear end collision. Ford fought long and hard in the courts to avoid responsibility for that failed conspiracy until a memo was leaked that revealed the facts.
The same could be said of America’s tobacco industry, which knew tobacco was addictive and caused cancer and emphysema and covered that up as long as possible until another leaked memo revealed the truth.
According to the World Health Organization, tobacco kills up to half of its users—nearly six million people each year and tobacco caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century. If current trends continue, it will cause up to one billion deaths in the 21st century. My dad died ten to fifteen years early because he started smoking when he was 14. It was a horrible death.
Tobacco executives know their product causes people to suffer and die but they keep growing and selling it. How many of these executives have gone to jail?
I could probably spend a long week researching and writing about similar cover-ups in the Untied States and Europe—the ones that were caught that is. Remember Enron and how many lives were ruined?
The environmental pollution in China is a fact since China joined the World Trade Organization and allowed Western companies to manufacture products there to boost corporate profits, but all of China’s pollution since the early 1980s does not compare to the pollution from the West’s Industrial Revolution which started in the later 18th century in England, and then spread to Europe and the United States.
It is convenient for the Kiers of the world to forget two centuries of pollution in the West while blaming China for three decades of pollution and ignoring the fact that in the last few years China has emerged as the largest manufacture of alternative forms of solar and wind energy in the world, while replacing its old coal burning power plants with modern cleaner ones.
However, in the United States, not one coal burning power plant has been replaced with a modern one. The old ones are still spewing pollution into the air.
One last question — Does patriotism mean ignoring the facts and supporting lies?
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 other factors that may have contributed to China’s so-called Great Famine will be listed in order of influence with the most damaging factor listed first and the least damaging last.
The first factors that may have contributed to the famine were droughts, floods and general bad weather.
In 1959 and 1960, the weather was less favorable, and the situation grew considerably worse, with many of China’s provinces experiencing severe famine.
Droughts, floods, and bad weather caught China completely by surprise, and in July 1959, the Yellow River flooded in East China and directly killed,either through starvation from crop failure or drowning, an estimated 2 million people.
In fact, droughts and famine are common in China. Between 108 BC and 1911 AD, there were no fewer than 1,828 major famines in China or one nearly every year in one or another province.
In the West, most if not all of what we hear about Mao is that he was a brutal monster responsible for the deaths of about 30 million people during the Great Leap Forward as if he pulled the trigger and ordered others to deliberately kill people by the millions as Hitler and Stalin did.
However, the facts do not support this claim.
The first time I heard that droughts and extremely bad weather also played a role in the so-called Great Famine was early July 2011 while I was researching another topic for this Blog and stumbled on that mostly unknown fact by accident.
Then I discovered another more insidious factor when I started working on this post, which may have contributed significantly to the early deaths of millions in China and no one in China was responsible for this one.
This factor was influenced by both American and Chinese paranoia generated by the Korean War (1950 – 1953), America’s involvement in Vietnam (1955 – 1975), McCarthyism‘s Red Scare (1947 – 1957) and the Cold War with Communist Russia (1945 – 1991).
From Griffith University, Australia, Poverty, by David C. Schak, Associate Professor
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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.
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