When did America stop using the terms Red China or Communist China when i was young that was all we ever referred to it as? Why
I assume it was when the R.O.C. stopped refering to itself as Free China and started calling itself Taiwan
Lou Dobbs always uses “Red China.”
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22+red+china+%22+lou+dobbs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&client=firefox#q=%22+red+china+%22+lou+dobbs&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox&hs=OM2&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&prmd=ivnso&ei=S6MoTsm7KI22tweP5dC7Cg&start=10&sa=N&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=804c136e9e03bc4a&biw=1280&bih=511
Which may be why few other people use it any more…
More like when the United States abandoned official support for the Republic of China as the “real” China and opened up diplomatic relations with the Peoples Republic of China, recognizing it as being the official government of China (while maintaining cognitive dissonance about the “rogue” provence and supplying the ROC with weapons and support). It also sounds very anachronistically 'Fifties-ish and out of style, although now that Mad Men has raised nostalgia for the good old days when cars had fins, men drank whiskey neat before and after (and not just occasionally during) meetings, and women and the coloreds knew their place, perhaps we can get a resurgence and start talking about “Commies in the closet” and “Reds under the Beds”. I mean, terrorists are all the rage, but they really lack the flair of monomaniacal fascists or the style of radical socialists. I mean, they don’t even have parades. How can you make a really fearful enemy of guys hiding in the mountains wearing pajamas all day.
Stranger
During the fifties/sixties, the lexicon was:
Red China–very informal and/or pejorative; common in newspaper headlines and in red-baiting
Communist China–semi-formal; common within the body of newspaper stories and in conversation
People’s Republic of China–formal
Taiwan or Formosa–informal
Nationalist China–semi-formal
Republic of China–formal
After Nixon’s visit to the PRC in 1972, but before normalization, “red China” faded from popularity. At that point Peking was a quasi-ally against the Soviet Union, so a generic “red menace” with red countries no longer made much sense. And, headline-speak in general went out of style; later presidents were no longer called by initials.
But at that time, “Communist China” was still common; you needed to distinguish between the two countries, because when the US government said “China”, without qualification, it still meant Taiwan.
After normalization, “Communist China” also became less common. As China opened up to tourism and business, references to the mainland vastly outnumbered references to Taiwan. It became easier to adopt the new style of the US government, in which “China” without qualification meant the PRC and Taiwan meant the ROC. If a person says today, “I’m going to China,” you can assume they mean the PRC, and you’ll almost certainly be right.
Thanks to all for their answers. Drohegda