Seriously, are you incapable of objectively looking at something beyond your cold war era thinking?
After Deng took over, China has been modernizing in a way like no country has ever done. Its policies brought an estimated 300 million people out of poverty from the end of Mao to the present day. Modern day China is nothing like the rural farms and intellectual-hating peasants of Mao’s day. Its mostly benign if you compare it to its inception, and has been a positive force for most Chinese. It shows that despite Communism, the leaders and actual policies on the ground are what matters. If we had spent more time fighting against the bad leaders in the world instead of the word “Communist” and the color red, we would have done a lot better.
China today is every bit the competitor on the world stage in terms of wealth and growing prosperity. Its people enjoy a standard of living incomparable to a few generations ago. Part of that has to do with adopting Communism to a more capitalistic society, but just as the US has socialistic institutions like the post office, China can have some capitalism without being Democratic. Again, Communism isn’t the enemy here, its a vague, immaterial term. The actual bad guys are those with the guns shooting at you. They could call themselves whatever the hell they want and they still will be bad.
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Seriously, are you incapable of objectively looking at something beyond your cold war era thinking?
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You think it’s ‘cold war era thinking’ that I’m critical of the CCP? That’s hilarious. You really have no idea of the things that the CCP has done? Falun Gong? Tibet? Great Firewall of China? Executions for organ harvesting? Ecological disaster? Economic disaster? Any of these mean anything to you? And this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg…it’s not even an atom on the tip of the iceberg of the heinous things the CCP has and is doing.
Even if all of this rose colored glasses stuff were true, do you have any concept of the price the Chinese people have paid and continue to pay? It’s not been anything LIKE benign, mostly or otherwise, and you clearly are either drinking the kool-aide or don’t have any idea of the things that have been and are happening in China.
I’m sorry, but you are wrong. The CCP IS the enemy and they are vile and heinous. And none of this has anything to do with the cold war.
Compare China with India, China being Communist and India being democratic. Are you going to say the standard of living in India is higher? Are you going to say India doesn’t have ecological disasters?..
Its cold war thinking that you refuse to acknowledge any good that the CCP has done, pretend they are still the communists of conservative fantasies, don’t recognize they have changed over the decades, and assume they are still completely to blame because they are communist and not because they are just bad people.
Why don’t you make a topic about all the bad things China has done and you can discuss it with people who wants to explore that specific topic?
I’m sure I can think of a few in the appropriate topic for people who want to discuss those issues
All irrelevant when we’re talking about how fear of communism affected America’s past foreign policies
Communism did one thing well: mobilize the entire resources of a nation for one purpose, whether that purpose was repelling invaders or getting into space first. And that’s about it.
As for its overall value as an ideology, one could argue that the Russians can’t do anything right, so it wasn’t really tested in Russia. Russia didn’t do monarchy, democracy, or right totalitarianism any better. But China has tested it, and because China is a lot more competent a nation, have mostly discarded the economic aspects of it. Because that’s what competent nations do.
I didn’t know we were comparing India to China. I also didn’t know we were talking solely about standard of living.
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Its cold war thinking that you refuse to acknowledge any good that the CCP has done, pretend they are still the communists of conservative fantasies, don’t recognize they have changed over the decades, and assume they are still completely to blame because they are communist and not because they are just bad people.
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Horseshit. You are batting at a strawman. Admit it…you have no idea what I’m even talking about and you think it’s just ‘conservative fantasies’ wrt the actions of the CCP.
It’s been discussed on this board in the past. You seem to have missed those threads.
You were the one who brought up China, chief. I was merely shocked at your seeming total lack of understanding of what the CCP is and has done and continues to do.
Again, you were the one who brought this up…I merely responded by asking if you were serious. Sadly, you were. If you’d now like to resume the interrupted thread, having demonstrated your lack of understanding of the CCP and having pigeonholed me properly in your own mind as a ranting conservative and cold warrior, feel free.
And the whole period between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI. Britain was the greatest of the Great Powers then, but not in any sense their leader. No power felt obliged to follow Britain’s lead unless an alliance of the moment required it, and the alliances were always shifting.
Just as soon as you admit that the China of today is much different than the China of 50 years ago.
Again you miss the point. Its so that you won’t derail this topic with your anti-communist stance where it isn’t appropriate
No, you’re shocked because I don’t hate something as much as you hate something
I brought it up as a boogeyman conservatives use to justify American imperialism. You basically proved my point, as you are unable to look beyond the word communism and see the bad guys for what they really are
But we’ve also had good democracies. There have been no good communist countries. You’re holding up China (which I consider very dubious) but even they’ve started moving away from Communism.
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Just as soon as you admit that the China of today is much different than the China of 50 years ago.
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What has that got to do with your assertion that the CCP for the last few decades is ‘mostly benign’?? I never said that China today was the same as China 50 years ago.
No, I think the point was missed by you, but if you want to just move on then that’s fine by me.
I’m shocked by your seeming ignorance of the subject you are making assertions on.
Or, could be that you don’t actually know much about the subject and are allowing your own preconceptions of supposed ‘boogeyman conservatives’ to blind you to the fact that while the CCP isn’t the same today as it was 50 years ago, they are far from ‘mostly benign’…they just do horrendous things today in ways that are different than they did 50 years ago. And while they are just as corrupt, they aren’t quite the over the top monsters that Mao and his gang were (would be kind of hard for them to be, since Mao set such a high bar). That doesn’t mean they are good guys, or that what they are doing either within their own borders or in their region should be hand waved away. Seriously…educate yourself on what the CCP is and what they do before spouting off about them being ‘mostly benign’. And don’t let your prejudice for supposed ‘conservatives’ such as myself (:p) blind you or cause your knee to jerk spasmodically…perhaps take the time to see if, maybe, the CCP isn’t the font of goodness and light you seem to think it is, and that maybe there is some fire around all that smoke. Or not (I’m sure not) and just keep on keeping on, secure in your ignorance.
Viet Nam.
Then again, most anything would be better than “oppressed under the thumb of the X”, which is what the Vietnamese had been since before Christ ;).
Yet that said, today it’s one of the fastest growing economies in the world and one of the “Asian tigers”. In terms of average living standard, it’s better than the Philippines or India. Communism or not.
After the war when the communists took over almost 2 million people were sent to re-education camps. Around 165,000 died in those camps. Almost 1 million people were removed from their homes and sent to special economic zones in the mountain regions. About 100,000 people died doing hard labor in these zones. Around two million people fled the country by boat and about 300,000 of these people died at sea.
The economy was also mismanaged by the communists and by 1984 per capita income was about $250 per year.
In 1986 Vietnam abandoned communist economics and allowed private enterprise and foreign companies to build factories. This has allowed the economy to do much better.
If Vietnam had not been taken over by communists hundreds of thousands would not have died and millions would not have fled. The economic reforms would have had another 10 years and the economy would be much better than it currently is.
Communism in China has been evolving. It may not be “good” in the objective sense, but its a lot better than before. If we can separate the idea of communism that the US was fighting against from the people, you’ll see pretty clearly that it was the leaders of communism that we were fighting against. The ideology itself is nothing new, or inherently bad, proven by many socialistic aspects of our own democracy that continue to thrive and provide service to people. The point I was making to that other guy doesn’t change: the US was wrong to exaggerate communism to project its own imperialism. We should not do that any more on the world stage. We should let communism land where it may, and influence the leaders to be better communists, and not try to turn them away from that form of government with guns.
Again, you can’t seem to understand me because your mind is clouded with anti-communism fear that you probably grew up with.
I said “the last few decades in China have been mostly benign”. I mentioned 50 years ago because the “last few decades” is the positive aspect of communism that has changed over 50 years.
Last 50 years =/= mostly benign
Last few decades (starting from Deng) == mostly benign
What’s the point of that? It proves that communism isn’t the static, Soviet-era bully America claims it has been. It is not static, it is not unchanging. Communism, like democracy, is an ever-evolving government ideology that can be good or bad depending on who’s leading it. In the last few decades in China, it has become a mostly positive force that brought up over 300 million people out of poverty. It can be used to do good. And that’s why America’s opposition to “Communism!” was wrong, they should have simply opposed the leaders that were exploiting their people instead. We should have traded with Cuba, allied with China much sooner, and allowed socialism to take root in many places around the world that we sent armies in to stop. Those were bad policies. We should not repeat them
You’re just repeating yourself in the rest of your posts. Its obviously you’ll never give communism a fair shake and refuse to see reason. You have probably grown up with this fear, I get it, its natural to you, its embedded, you can’t reject the programming. I hope you get better someday
[QUOTE=YogSothoth]
Again, you can’t seem to understand me because your mind is clouded with anti-communism fear that you probably grew up with.
I said “the last few decades in China have been mostly benign”. I mentioned 50 years ago because the “last few decades” is the positive aspect of communism that has changed over 50 years.
Last 50 years =/= mostly benign
Last few decades (starting from Deng) == mostly benign
What’s the point of that? It proves that communism isn’t the static, Soviet-era bully America claims it has been. It is not static, it is not unchanging. Communism, like democracy, is an ever-evolving government ideology that can be good or bad depending on who’s leading it. In the last few decades in China, it has become a mostly positive force that brought up over 300 million people out of poverty. It can be used to do good. And that’s why America’s opposition to “Communism!” was wrong, they should have simply opposed the leaders that were exploiting their people instead. We should have traded with Cuba, allied with China much sooner, and allowed socialism to take root in many places around the world that we sent armies in to stop. Those were bad policies. We should not repeat them
You’re just repeating yourself in the rest of your posts. Its obviously you’ll never give communism a fair shake and refuse to see reason. You have probably grown up with this fear, I get it, its natural to you, its embedded, you can’t reject the programming. I hope you get better someday
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Since it’s obvious to me that YOU don’t get it, I’ll simply sum up…you are wrong. The last few decades under the CCP has NOT been ‘mostly benign’, by any yard stick. You seem to have this knee jerk reaction, and obviously you don’t want to get the point so I’ll just leave it there. I have no hope that someday you will get it…not until you actually sit down, open your mind and LOOK at the reality of the CCP, both today, 10 years ago and since it’s founding. Until you do that there is really no point in discussing it further since you have no basis by which you are making your assertions except your own ideological blinkers…it’s certainly not facts based.
I’m sorry but you have no understanding of the history of Communism. One of the founding principles of Communism is that it will eventually take over the world (which, like so many other things about Communism, was completely wrong). Khrushchev famously said “We will bury you!” and meant it. The US was absolutely right to oppose Communism and it astounds me that someone would actually think that Communism has any merit today.
Not as aggressive as it sounds in English. It’s a translation of a Russian idiom meaning “I will attend your funeral,” i.e., “I will outlive you,” i.e., Communism will not conquer but will simply outlast capitalism.
I understand why you are making the parallel, but I don’t think China is merely repeating Japan’s experience 30 years later.
Some reasons are Japan currently labors under restrictions due to post-WW2 agreements; fear of force because what was done to it, and a protective umbrella from the US, even if that is now more diplomatic than military. Japanese historians have reason to warn and say, “never again.” Japan is not expanding military power to any degree.
China had no post-war restrictions, didn’t feel the effects of an atomic bomb and never had any protection from the US. China is flexing its muscles without fear of historians reigning it in. Maybe a better comparison would be China today with Japan’s pre-WW2 “Co-Prosperity Sphere.”
Please stop spreading incorrect information on a language you don’t understand. This is a board to fight ignorance, not increase it.
So what if the guy who came up with communism said it should take over the world? How many ideologies say “we should just spread it a little bit to some people”? Irrelevant.
What the US did right was opposing some really bad people who lead countries to ruin and increased the arms race. That they were communists were incidental. We did not need to be in Vietnam, or isolate Cuba, or do anything about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (though it lead to one of the best Olympics ever). Its enough that we stand opposed to killing people indiscriminately or invading innocent countries. Now we have a choice to do the same or back off. Given how terribly imposing our imperialism on countries has been in the past, we need to withdraw from policing the world for democracy and just promote peace through investments or example
You think it’s ‘cold war era thinking’ that I’m critical of the CCP? That’s hilarious. You really have no idea of the things that the CCP has done? Falun Gong? Tibet? Great Firewall of China? Executions for organ harvesting? Ecological disaster? Economic disaster? Any of these mean anything to you? And this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg…it’s not even an atom on the tip of the iceberg of the heinous things the CCP has and is doing.
I never said that China today was the same as China 50 years ago.