Today in History.......

[Made in China]

On December 13th, 1937, Nanking, the capital city of Nationalist China, fell to the Japanese. For Japan, This was to have been the decisive turning point in the war, The triumphant culmination of half year struggle against Chiang Kai-Shek's armies in the Yangtze Valley For Chinese Forces, whose heroic defense of Shanghai had finally failed, and whose best troops had suffered crippling casualties, the fall of Nanking was a bitter perhaps fatal defeat.

On this day, December 13th, 1937, Nanking fell to the Japanese. In the next six weeks, the Japanese committed the infamous Nanking Massacre, or the Rape of Nanking, during which an estimated 350,000 Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed, and 80,000 women were raped.


On December 13th, a large number of refugees tried to escape from the Japanese by trying to cross the Yangtze River. They were trapped on the east bank because no transportation was available; many of them tried to swim across the river. Meanwhile, the Japanese arrived and fired at the people on the shore and in the river. A Japanese soldier reported that the next day he saw an uncountable number of dead bodies of adults and children covering the whole river. He estimated that more than 50,000 people were killed at this tragic incident of the Nanking massacre.

When the Japanese troops first entered the city on the 13th, the streets were crowded with more than 100,000 refugees or injured Chinese soldiers. The Japanese relentlessly fired at these people. The next morning, tanks and artilleries entered the city and killing of people continued. Dead bodies covered the two major streets of the city. The streets became "streets of blood" as a result of the two-day annihilation.

[Made in China]

Let us have a 2 minute silence, for the 50,000 men women and children that died on this day, 66 years ago.

Can you imagine 50,000 people in the Yangstze River Yellow River ? The blood of these victims would change the Yellow River into the Red River.

[SunWuKong]

never forget.

[kasia]

The Atrocities of the Massacre
During the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre, the Chinese were not simply murdered. They were tortured, humiliated, and raped. The Japanese used a wide variety of methods of murder. They chased the Chinese into the Yangtze River with machine guns, drowning them. They poured gasoline on people, and shot them, so the victims flickered up like candles. They cut the eyeballs out of men, and then burned the people while they were still living. They tied Chinese civilians up on posts, and threw grenades to watch their flesh fly. A Japanese general poured acid on a man until he died of corrosion. Some Chinese were attacked with awls. Others were castrated. Some Chinese even had their hearts cut out. Some women were beaten at the vagina with fists and other objects until they died. Even babies were victims; they were skewered and tossed into boiling water. Hakudo Nagatomi, a Japanese war veteran, described, "I remember smiling proudly as I took his [another general's] sword and began killing people...The head was cut clean off and tumbled away on the ground as the body slumped forward, blood spurting in two great gushing fountains from the neck."


Japanese soldiers laughingly made games out of these atrocities. The Japanese generals organized contests to see how many Chinese one soldier could murder in a given time. Whoever killed the most won. News reporters and visitors came to observe the competitions and raise praise for the victor back in Japan. Sometimes the number of bodies reached as high as five-hundred in a single contest. In one such contest, two officers were racing to one hundred. However, they lost count, so they continued to one hundred and fifty. A short while later, the Nichi-nichi, a Tokyo newspaper, printed the story with pride. Highly respected Japanese doctors and scientists went to China to do scientific research on unwilling Chinese victims. In many cases, the subjects were American and Russian prisoners. Tests were done without anesthesia or pain killers. The Japanese placed people in pressure chambers to see how long it would take until their eyes popped out of the sockets. Lethal bacteria and other biological weapons were tested on people tied to stakes. Fetuses were cut from pregnant women and preserved in jars. The Japanese government also sponsored bombings of bubonic plague on villages to test germ warfare for later use on the United States.


Because over twenty thousand women and girls were raped, the Nanking Massacre is also referred to as the Rape of Nanking. The Japanese officers encouraged their soldiers to rape wherever they went. One officer told his soldiers, "To avoid troubles,... kill them after that." So, soldiers raped in gangs of dozens and murdered the women afterward. The victims had their stomachs cut open or their breasts chopped off. "Comfort women" were kept as sex slaves in wood cabins to service the Japanese soldiers throughout the day. In one incident, a mother, two teenage daughters, and a one year old baby were raped in their own home. The family was raped and killed on their own tables and beds. When the International Committee entered the house to photograph the incident, they found blood everywhere.


The Japanese finally left China when the United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the six weeks of horror, Nanking was left in ruins. The storehouses were empty, and the civilians had lost everything. Their jewelry, coins, food, clothes, heirlooms, pets, and even everyday objects like dental floss were stolen. Only bodies were in abundance. So many dead bodies clogged the streets it was hard to move around, even on foot. They floated in the river for a year afterwards, emitting a smell for miles around. The International Committee buried the bodies in mass graves and kept close count of the marked sites.

[younggiftedandblack]

Personal question guys.

Do any of you hold any grudges or resentments towards Japan or the Japanese of today?

[kasia]

Personal question guys.

Do any of you hold any grudges or resentments towards Japan or the Japanese of today?

i don't. just as i don't hold germans today responsible for hitler. the purpose of this thread is just to remember this part of our history and how our ancestors were brutally murdered in the name of greed.

[mr. x]

Personal question guys.

Do any of you hold any grudges or resentments towards Japan or the Japanese of today?

it pisses me off when govt people try to sweep it under the rug with the whole textbook thing

i dont hate japanese tho, neither do my grandparents (taiwanese)

[rice cracker]

Personal question guys.

Do any of you hold any grudges or resentments towards Japan or the Japanese of today?


Personally, to individual Japanese, no. I can be angry about the past and the terrible things that happened and how none of this is taught in any history classes today, but it's more of a situational resentment than a personal one, much like how I feel about Native Americans and their struggle. As for how I feel about the Japanese today, other than one or two of their government officials I don't feel any anguish towards the general population.

[kasia]

i should edit my answer and say that i do hold resentment towards the japanese government for refusing to apologize for the Nanking Massacre. this was the same year that they demanded and *received* an apology from the American government for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Blue dice]

Personal question guys.

Do any of you hold any grudges or resentments towards Japan or the Japanese of today?
I only hold grudges against the Japanese who try to revise or conceal their history.

[Emperor_Mike]

Personal question guys.

Do any of you hold any grudges or resentments towards Japan or the Japanese of today?

Not to Japanese people as a whole, but I do frown on the fact that certain elements of the Japanese Government are trying or have tried to sweep the ugly incident under the rug. It's akin to the German Government denying that the Holocaust had occured. Let's not pretend that what happened in Nanking was not a mini-Holocaust in itself because it was. When you're dealing with mass indescriminate killing no better word can be used and one can argue that no other word ought to be adopted because numbers aside, the very act of engaging in wholesale slaughter and its accompanying evils should be enough to make people think of the iniquities humanity can be capable of and, hopefully, instill some design of sensibility within us all to prevent any such occurence in the future.

What I find deeply troubling in Western history is the fact that the event has largely been forgotten and delegated to the footnotes of the past. True, the calamity that befell Europe's Jewish population was nearly one hundred times more horrific than what happened in Nanking, but to neglect the victims of an act that is equal in abhorrence insofar as respect for human rights is concerned would not be doing justice to the ones who lost their lives in the massacre.

[ChinaLama]

:frown:

[AngryABCGirl]

My grandparents who were on the mainland at the time of WW2 definitely hold resentment toward Japanese people, and I definitely resent the Japanese government for not fessing up and history for nearly forgetting this.

[Tao]

My grandparents who were on the mainland at the time of WW2 definitely hold resentment toward Japanese people, and I definitely resent the Japanese government for not fessing up and history for nearly forgetting this.
yep, mine too.....obviously i don't let this dictate the way i treat the people...unless of course they refuse to admit it happened

[John0101]

I think my parents are pretty xenophobic against the japanese, they're just traditional hardline chinese. They seem to like japanese electronics and cars thou, my dad always puts down american electronics and go straight for the japanese ones.

[ayumi]

There's a good book on this subject by Iris Chang called "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" In it, she writes:
"Nanking... served as a kind of laboratory in which Japanese soldiers were taught to slaughter unarmed, unresisting civilians, as they would later do throughout Asia. Likening their victims to insects and animals, the Japanese commanders orchestrated a campaign in which several hundred thousand--no one is sure just how many--Chinese soldiers and noncombatants alike were killed."
The unspeakable atrocities that were committed by the Japanese are, to me, simply incomprehensible. I've seen pictures, but they just don't register in my brain.

[VV o n g B a]

as has been said above, i don't hold grudges except against the japanese who deny the atrocities. unfortunately, that includes some prominent politicians who come to power partially b/c they deny the atrocities.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

I think if I settled for hating or resenting people with family-tree-related or ethnic roots tied to societies or governments in history who fucked up royally, I'd be hating a lotta people, if not everybody. Unless you're Fijian. I don't think Fijians ever did anything wrong. Mm...yea.

[krome]

Ultimately, you are responsible for you own self-defense. First the Opium War, then this. Pathetic. I hope China is never fractured and militarily weak again. Fvck Marx, our leaders should have been reading Nietszche, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Lao Tse, Darwin, etc. How could we let a tiny inland invade and rape/pillage us like that? Ridiculous. Time for the Middle Kingdom to enter the real world.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Ultimately, you are responsible for you own self-defense. First the Opium War, then this. Pathetic. I hope China is never fractured and militarily weak again. Fvck Marx, our leaders should have been reading Nietszche, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Lao Tse, Darwin, etc. How could we let a tiny inland invade and rape/pillage us like that? Ridiculous. Time for the Middle Kingdom to enter the real world.

Not to make assumptions about your knowledge based on the judgment of a single post, but...how much do you actually know about Marx?

[Blue dice]

Ultimately, you are responsible for you own self-defense. First the Opium War, then this. Pathetic. I hope China is never fractured and militarily weak again.

I think China learned its lesson after ww2, notice that the sentiment has been hardline nationalist ever since. China takes an aggressive approach now to any perceived foreign incursions. The conflict with india, Tibet, Vietnam, etc..

Time for the Middle Kingdom to enter the real world.
It has already, time will tell how far China goes but I believe it's a new era. It's hard to stop a determined juggernaut. The people really want to better themselves and their nation.

[ellsworth81]

Ultimately, you are responsible for you own self-defense. First the Opium War, then this. Pathetic. I hope China is never fractured and militarily weak again. Fvck Marx, our leaders should have been reading Nietszche, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Lao Tse, Darwin, etc.


What exactly would have resulted if communism didn't sweep through China? Would Darwin and Lao Zi have helped China to prepare against the Japanese military?


How could we let a tiny inland invade and rape/pillage us like that? Ridiculous.

I think we were too busy fighting each other so that we couldn't consolidate our power and having revolutions. Japan had a minor headstart in the late 1800s to stabilize and change.

[BeTheReds]

The Japanese government is frustrating...

[SunWuKong]

Ultimately, you are responsible for you own self-defense. First the Opium War, then this. Pathetic. I hope China is never fractured and militarily weak again. Fvck Marx, our leaders should have been reading Nietszche, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Lao Tse, Darwin, etc. How could we let a tiny inland invade and rape/pillage us like that? Ridiculous. Time for the Middle Kingdom to enter the real world.

1) Marx was very anti-imperialistic.

2) China subscribed to Mao, not Marx. Mao was also very anti-imperialistic, but he was staunchly nationalistic as well. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao

3) Darwin was one of Mao's favourite authors.

4) umm... you do know that Lao Tse argued that we should not do or want anything, right? Daoism is all about inaction.

[Blue dice]

I think we were too busy fighting each other so that we couldn't consolidate our power and having revolutions. Japan had a minor headstart in the late 1800s to stabilize and change.
Things started going downhill for China around the 18th century. Right after the time the Manchus conquered the Han and set up the incompetant isolationist Qing dynasty.


Western diplomatic efforts to expand trade on equal terms were rebuffed, the official Chinese assumption being that the empire was not in need of foreign--and thus inferior--products



The chief threat to China's integrity did not come overland, as it had so often in the past, but by sea, reaching the southern coastal area first. Western traders, missionaries, and soldiers of fortune began to arrive in large numbers even before the Qing, in the sixteenth century. The empire's inability to evaluate correctly the nature of the new challenge or to respond flexibly to it resulted in the demise of the Qing and the collapse of the entire millennia-old framework of dynastic rule.


http://www-chaos.umd.edu/history/modern.html#western

Now compare and contrast the Qing reaction to the modern PRC. Instead of steeping the country in further backward ideologies there's been a massive rush to upgrade since Deng's reforms. The PRC may be assholes but they are still guiding China in the right direction.

[SunWuKong]

Things started going downhill for China around the 18th century. Right after the time the Manchus conquered the Han and set up the incompetant isolationist Qing dynasty.

actually early Qing was a pretty good period and the rulers were well-liked by the people because they were good to the people.

the Manchus were much smarter than the Mongols in that the Manchus quickly assimilated and they gave the Chinese representatives in the government.

[Blue dice]

actually early Qing was a pretty good period and the rulers were well-liked by the people because they were good to the people.

They also encouraged isolationism and harbored ill will with the rest of the world during China's formative years. I won't blame them for everything but they were still instrumental in causing the eventual downfall of China. I still maintain the greatest and most unforgivable fuckups happened during the 1644-1911 Qing dynasty. The doors were swung open the foreigners let in to pillage and the pendulum swayed in favor of the west for almost 3 centuries. China has been in recovery mode ever since.


Ever suspicious of Han Chinese, the Qing rulers put into effect measures aimed at preventing the absorption of the Manchus into the dominant Han Chinese population. Han Chinese were prohibited from migrating into the Manchu homeland, and Manchus were forbidden to engage in trade or manual labor. Intermarriage between the two groups was forbidden. In many government positions a system of dual appointments was used--the Chinese appointee was required to do the substantive work and the Manchu to ensure Han loyalty to Qing rule.


Didn't sound that great to me.. The han were basically manchu house and field negros.

[ellsworth81]

not everyone wanted to give in to the western standard of "modernity". what's wrong with sticking to old customs and shit? the reason why Japan emerged somewhat stable is because they knew that the imperialist West powers was going to come around and conquer everything, so they figured might as well beat them to the punch. And while China still had an emperor "running" the country, Japan already reformed. But when everyone started coming in with their guns and technology shooting shit up, China was not ready to fight everyone off.

and i agree with SWK, the Qing were alright in the beginning in terms of how they ran the country. They might not have ethnic Han, but is that really so important to you?


Things started going downhill for China around the 18th century. Right after the time the Manchus conquered the Han and set up the incompetant isolationist Qing dynasty.

[Blue dice]

not everyone wanted to give in to the western standard of "modernity". what's wrong with sticking to old customs and shit?

If you don't modernize you get fucked in the ass that's why. Keeping old customs sounds good in principle but if you're using swords when your enemies have muskets/blunderbuss/cannons you will come up short damn near everytime. Even the most backward european nations knew that to keep up you had to stay in the competition or risk being swallowed up by the next imperialist juggernaut. The europeans have been doing that to each other for centuries. They basically took the same game globally when Asia was completely unprepared for this type of foreign dominance. Industrialization gave the west the necessary tech advantage it needed to barge in and take shit over by force. There's no other era where the west could have pulled that shit on Asia. Not in the roman or medieval ages (where mongolians conquered half of europe) or any other time. They just happened to come around right when we had our pants down stroking it as a backwards agrarian confucian disneyland willfully blind to the quickly innovating world around us.

the reason why Japan emerged somewhat stable is because they knew that the imperialist West powers was going to come around and conquer everything, so they figured might as well beat them to the punch. And while China still had an emperor "running" the country, Japan already reformed. But when everyone started coming in with their guns and technology shooting shit up, China was not ready to fight everyone off.

So you answered your own question as to why modernization is a necessity. We all have romantic notions of horseback riding and swinging around swords but in the new world you better have your shit together or you will get conquered. Maybe it's not so much the case now but modernization is still important if you want to keep up a decent standard of living and wield economic power on your side of the hemisphere. These days GDP talks and bullshit walks. Look how gay and backwards Africa is for example, euros still walk right in and mine everything right under their noses while leaving the people to fight over neighborhoods with machetes and AK-47s.

and i agree with SWK, the Qing were alright in the beginning in terms of how they ran the country. They might not have ethnic Han, but is that really so important to you?
Hey read that paragraph I quoted last post, it was still a two tiered society. Sorry, but i'm against anything that isn't close to egalitarian. Maybe some people like being treated like second class citizens but if I was under that system I doubt I would have been happy with it. If you settle for second best you've already stopped trying. When you stagnate like old China then you might as well roll over and let the imperialist limeys come in.

[SunWuKong]

They also encouraged isolationism and harbored ill will with the rest of the world during China's formative years. I won't blame them for everything but they were still instrumental in causing the eventual downfall of China. I still maintain the greatest and most unforgivable fuckups happened during the 1644-1911 Qing dynasty. The doors were swung open the foreigners let in to pillage and the pendulum swayed in favor of the west for almost 3 centuries. China has been in recovery mode ever since.

well, i wouldn't argue against the fact that Qing dynasty fucked up majorly. but i'm not sure if it's the "most unforgivable fuckup". it just so happened that during the Qing fuckup, Western and Japanese powers were able to capitalise on it. sort of like how the Mongols conquered a Song dynasty in decline, and how the Manchus conquered a Ming dynasty in decline. and i don't think the pendulum swung in favour of the West for 3 centuries. it was only around mid-1800s that the West started encrouching on China. as for isolationism, that was already happening in Ming dynasty when the Confucian scholars gain more influence than they should have ever been allowed to gain.


Didn't sound that great to me.. The han were basically manchu house and field negros.

which was still better than how the Mongols ruled. but like i said, the smartest thing they ever did was to assimilating (culturally) to Han Chinese culture so that Han Chinese people didn't consider them to be outsiders or foreigners. it gave the Manchus legitimacy in the eyes of Han Chinese.

[krome]

Ok, I think we all know about Marx's flawed logic and faulty reasoning. It boils down to a basic naive misunderstanding of human nature. You cannot base a system on idealized human behavior - or it is bound to fail. As we have globally seen with Marxist-inspired Communism. And bleeding-heart liberalism to a lesser degree. Rather, one should formulate the governing system to be driven by (and thus take advantage/harness the power of) human greed and self-survival instinct. In short - replicate Darwinian nature. Which is also what Taoism advocates - naturally following the Taoist source - to call it "inactivism" is a common misunderstanding. It is more akin to a jazz soloist "in the zone" where his localized ego has harmonized with the universal ego and function as one. Bruce Lee was heavily Taoist as well - and he was hardly "inactive." While your ego may become less active, your id becomes more active. You cannot understand this philosophy with an oversimplistic definition of "you."

Mao started out as an idealistic idiotic moron with his huge misguided state-sponsored "grass-roots" revolutions. He did wise up in his later years though, and even reversed himself on policies such as the 1-child limit (whereas he had previously advocated large families to increase the national labor force :rolleyes:). I've heard his "gun" quote before - but the full quote is:
‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun’

‘Whoever wants to seize and hold state power must have a strong army. Some people ridicule us as advocates of the "omnipotence of war". Yes, we are advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war; that is good, not bad, it is Marxist ... Experience in the class struggle in the era of imperialism teaches us that it is only by the power of the gun that the working class and the labouring masses can defeat the armed bourgeoisie and landlords; in this sense we may say that only with guns can the whole world be transformed ... In order to get rid of the gun we must take up the gun’. (http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/wpnz/jly1200-trots.htm)
Ironic b/c Chinese citizens are now not allowed to own guns under the Commy regime. Well, I guess he was following his own logic to suppress the working class here? Can the people sucessfully revolt without arms? Even Mao argues "no" here, despite what the Boxer Rebels may have thought. :biggrin: :frown:

And he also said Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy. (http://www.ariga.com/frosties/maotsetung.shtml) Uh, who's the enemy here? The people? The proletariats? Surely not the bourgeoisie who he and his cronies became?

Marxism falsely glorifies and champions the proletariat class while demonizing the bourgeoisie. Yes, that is certainly true some of the time, but not all of the time. In the long run, water seeks its own level. Ambitious people who apply themselves will achieve what they desire - whether that be wealth or contentment in a less lavish lifestyle. Communism strives for equal results - falsely assuming equal effort and ambition. A fair system would strive for equal opportunity and fair competition only, thus letting individual effort and ability fairly reward itself. That may mean occasionally breaking up entrenched suffocating monopolies, but it doesn't mean blindly championing the proletariats at all costs either.

I agree though that China's leaders have progressed immensely - particularly since WWII. They have become far more realistic and pragmatic. In fact, China is actually a de facto capitalist state already. So, hopefully they will continue and learn from the past. My whole point to my post was that to constructively learn from such humiliating "recent" defeats - we must view them as weaknesses in ourselves, not just take victim mentalities of unjust aggressors. Every encounter is also an opportunity to beat, not get beaten by, your opponent. And that outcome is largely pre-determined already by your preparation for it (or lack thereof).

PS - "Han" Chinese is a relatively modern designation - more political than biological in nature. Foreigners and the Chinese themselves typically picture China's population as a vast monolithic Han majority with a sprinkling of exotic minorities living along the country's borders. This understates China's tremendous cultural, geographic, and linguistic diversity -- in particular the important cultural differences within the Han population. This ignores the fact that China is officially a multi-national country with 56 recognized "nationalities."

Sun Yat-Sen, leader of the republican movement that toppled the last imperial dynasty of China (the Qing) in 1911, popularized the idea that there were "Five Peoples of China"--the majority Han being one and the others being the Manchus, Mongolian, Tibetan, and Hui (a term that included all Muslims in China, now divided into Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Hui, etc.). (http://www.ndu.edu/inss/symposia/pacific2000/gladneypaper.htm)
SYS minimized ethnic/cultural diversity in China in order to achieve greater political unity. In doing so, he created a false impression of a nearly monolithic Chinese people. When, in fact, it is a HUGE country with a lot of ethnodiversity. So, let's just be aware of the inaccuracy and political origins of lumping a billion people together as simply "Han's." These labels are somewhat arbitrary and one could often be hard-pressed to visually segregate any given Chinese individual into any such categories.

[seanp]

They also encouraged isolationism and harbored ill will with the rest of the world during China's formative years. I won't blame them for everything but they were still instrumental in causing the eventual downfall of China. I still maintain the greatest and most unforgivable fuckups happened during the 1644-1911 Qing dynasty. The doors were swung open the foreigners let in to pillage and the pendulum swayed in favor of the west for almost 3 centuries. China has been in recovery mode ever since.



Didn't sound that great to me.. The han were basically manchu house and field negros.


Actually the Ming dynasty started to encourage isolationism

[Blue dice]

Actually the Ming dynasty started to encourage isolationism
I'm not arguing that it didn't have roots in earlier dynasties but the Qing institutionalized it when the situation was critical. Like I said before China missed out on its formative years as a global power largely in part of the Qing's actions.

[yoMAMA]

If you guys ever watched the CCTV productions of qing dynasty films/tv series, you will notice that all the prime ministesers and government officials call themselves "nu cai", which means slave, in front of the emperor.

The Manchus definitely established a slave mentality among the chinese that is still prevelant today IMO.

I don't think in any other dynasty (other than the mongol controlled yuan) where every government officials calls themselve slave.

And another thing:

did you guys know that the braids chinese men has was a manchu custom that they forced upon the han chinese after they conqured china?

it was a symbol of conquest and domination over the han.

[ellsworth81]

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that you have to do whatever it takes to survive, and China definitely failed to do that. But why should they have to fight a war? The Western powers were the aggressor. If you believe that might is right, and that survival of the fittest is all that matters, then you are free to say what you are saying right now. But to me, if modernity means building tanks and conquering every nation on the planet, I don't want any part of that.

Dunno what it is, but you keep referring to the West as advanced and innovative, and for some reason, that doesn't sit well with me. Yea, they produced some inventions and philosophy, but that doesn't give them an excuse to conquer the fucking world. Maybe it just stems from this imposition of modernity upon the rest of the world. Some would say it was not "forced" on us, but the survival of certain civilizations required playing along the new system.

Egalatarian? Don't hold your breath. That'll never happen in our lifetime, if we haven't blown the planet up yet. People are selfish and greedy, and I doubt that will ever change. And I wasn't really saying that the Qing citizens were "happy" about that arrangement, but are people ever happy? You've even said yourself that you aren't liking living in the US. How exactly do you create an egalatarian society? Somehow, conquering people doesn't sound like the solution...

Open-ended question(s): Was China really "stagnating"? When exactly did they start stagnating? Was it before or after the Western influence emerged? My impression is when the West decided that it was their right to do as they pleased in a different world.

In short, this "catch up or get fucked" way of living ... that's not really "modernity". That's just caveman type shit 10,000 years in the future.


If you don't modernize you get fucked in the ass that's why. Keeping old customs sounds good in principle but if you're using swords when your enemies have muskets/blunderbuss/cannons you will come up short damn near everytime. Even the most backward european nations knew that to keep up you had to stay in the competition or risk being swallowed up by the next imperialist juggernaut. The europeans have been doing that to each other for centuries. They basically took the same game globally when Asia was completely unprepared for this type of foreign dominance. Industrialization gave the west the necessary tech advantage it needed to barge in and take shit over by force. There's no other era where the west could have pulled that shit on Asia. Not in the roman or medieval ages (where mongolians conquered half of europe) or any other time. They just happened to come around right when we had our pants down stroking it as a backwards agrarian confucian disneyland willfully blind to the quickly innovating world around us.

So you answered your own question as to why modernization is a necessity. We all have romantic notions of horseback riding and swinging around swords but in the new world you better have your shit together or you will get conquered. Maybe it's not so much the case now but modernization is still important if you want to keep up a decent standard of living and wield economic power on your side of the hemisphere. These days GDP talks and bullshit walks. Look how gay and backwards Africa is for example, euros still walk right in and mine everything right under their noses while leaving the people to fight over neighborhoods with machetes and AK-47s.

Hey read that paragraph I quoted last post, it was still a two tiered society. Sorry, but i'm against anything that isn't close to egalitarian. Maybe some people like being treated like second class citizens but if I was under that system I doubt I would have been happy with it. If you settle for second best you've already stopped trying. When you stagnate like old China then you might as well roll over and let the imperialist limeys come in.

[Blue dice]

it just so happened that during the Qing fuckup, Western and Japanese powers were able to capitalise on it.

This is precisely why I view it as unforgivable. They left China vulnerable to outside enemies who mercilously plundered it. The reason why China still isn't at the forefront of anything right now (and why Asia as a whole still lags behind the west) is due in part to these critical errors in judgement.

which was still better than how the Mongols ruled.
Which isn't saying much the Manchus were simply the lesser of the two evils in history.

[ChinaLama]

well, if you wanted to talk about critical errors, how about:

1. Sun Yat-Sen and Yuan Shih-Kai's ineffective leadership
2. Chiang Kai-Shek's turning a blind eye to corruption and internecine fighting (such as let's beat the crap out of the Communists but completely ignore the Japanese threat until it's too late)
3. Mao Zedong's isolationism of China from the world
4. modern leaders' winking at political corruption.

You can't blame things on 200 years in the past. If anyone deserves blame, it should be people in the PRESENT or near past. Japan was isolationist up till the 1800s yet it never fell back, and it even grew stronger (economically) after it was devastasted by WWII.

[krome]

But why should they have to fight a war? The Western powers were the aggressor. If you believe that might is right, and that survival of the fittest is all that matters, then you are free to say what you are saying right now. But to me, if modernity means building tanks and conquering every nation on the planet, I don't want any part of that.
This is the type of naive mentality I'm talking about. No one's advocating imperialistic expansionism here. Just self-defense and peace thru strength. Political power thru a gun barrel. Remember, bullies only prey on the weak. You can fairly blame the bullies, but you can also blame yourself for being weak. And this is not merely about lagging technology, but also internal political strife and flawed political theories. That is weakness of mind. We wrote the books on war and philosophy, maybe we need to start re-reading them again ourselves? No more excuses, time to stand up and let our balls hang to the floor.
People are selfish and greedy, and I doubt that will ever change.Exactly! That's why any successful form of government should run off and HARNESS these perpetual oh-so-human qualities, not fall victim to them. A system of government must run IN ACCORDANCE with human nature, NOT against it.

[yoMAMA]

This is the type of naive mentality I'm talking about. No one's advocating imperialistic expansionism here. Just self-defense and peace thru strength. Political power thru a gun barrel. Remember, bullies only prey on the weak. You can fairly blame the bullies, but you can also blame yourself for being weak. And this is not merely about lagging technology, but also internal political strife and flawed political theories. That is weakness of mind. We wrote the books on war and philosophy, maybe we need to start re-reading them ourselves? No more excuses, time to stand up and let our balls hang to the floor.

You got a point.

bullies prey on the weak and respect the strong.

That's just how the world works.

[Blue dice]

I'm not disagreeing with the fact that you have to do whatever it takes to survive, and China definitely failed to do that. But why should they have to fight a war? The Western powers were the aggressor. If you believe that might is right, and that survival of the fittest is all that matters, then you are free to say what you are saying right now.

It is survival of the fittest if your country does not quickly adapt to the changing times it will be exploited for all it's worth. Maybe we would all like to live in a world where people don't fuck each other over at the drop of a hat but it's the way things are. At the heart of it that's why capitalism works so well because we are essentially selfish competitive beings. In order to prevent getting the short end of the stick you either make concessions or you put yourself in a position of dominance. Even the U.S. is not a passive-aggressive superpower, it engages in the same geopolitical maneuvering and shady wars that every nation has in the past. The U.S. is just better at justifying and rationalizing its decisions as the "correct" ones. It's not like anyone else can DO anything about it anyways.

But to me, if modernity means building tanks and conquering every nation on the planet, I don't want any part of that.

A nation doesn't necessarily have to go imperialist and conquer everyone it just needs to secure itself as a sovereign world power that won't be pushed around.

Dunno what it is, but you keep referring to the West as advanced and innovative, and for some reason, that doesn't sit well with me. Yea, they produced some inventions and philosophy, but that doesn't give them an excuse to conquer the fucking world.

If you look at history the west got the advantage during industrialization. Let's face facts the west really was advanced and innovative at a time when the east stagnated due in part to isolationism with large agrarian confucian societies who were a little too self sufficient and satisfied with the world. I never said the west had the right to conquer the world. I'm the biggest opponent of western imperialism there is but if you want to withstand the incoming foreign powers you BETTER be able to defend yourself.

Some would say it was not "forced" on us, but the survival of certain civilizations required playing along the new system.

If the cavemen in the tribe next to you invent spears and oiled furs before your tribe then expect to starve during the winter. Sure you might work together but during this period of time you are solely at the mercy of the dominant party.

Egalatarian? Don't hold your breath. That'll never happen in our lifetime, if we haven't blown the planet up yet.

There's no such thing as a perfectly egalitarian society and I never said it was possible. I'd just rather live in a society that fits my ideals of what egalitarian should be.

In short, this "catch up or get fucked" way of living ... that's not really "modernity". That's just caveman type shit 10,000 years in the future.
This is how the world operates.

[krome]

You got a point.

bullies prey on the weak and respect the strong.

That's just how the world works.
Exactly - just like car thieves and muggers go for the easiest prey. Protect yourself and they will go for someone else. Predators always cull the weakest, slowest and smallest prey from their herds. In the big picture - this is nature's way of strengthening the species as a whole - see evolution. Nature has all sorts of checks and balances. Take any bit out of context and it may seem "wrong." But within the context of the big picture, it works. At least, it has for millenia. "Right" or "wrong" - that's the way of the world (but those are only subjective judgments anyways). But, we wouldn't be here today if not for such continually brutal natural selection.

Just think, the strongest & fastest (minus luck) sp*rm out of millions is what fertilized the egg that made you. Are you gonna cry for all the sp*rm that died? Would you have rather a weak slow sp*rm made you? Or a random lottery pick? Or are you glad that the strongest one made you?

[Blue dice]

well, if you wanted to talk about critical errors, how about:

Of course i'm not saying recent people are blameless but the root blame still lies in the Qing dynasty. Back during the periods when China could have jumped on the reformist/innovation bandwagon it chose to cling to centuries old ideals. The arrogance of the Qing created the domino effect along with the situations in which we're dealing with today.

You can't blame things on 200 years in the past. If anyone deserves blame, it should be people in the PRESENT or near past. Japan was isolationist up till the 1800s yet it never fell back, and it even grew stronger (economically) after it was devastasted by WWII.
I believe Japan could have been more powerful than it is now if it didn't become mired in its own hubris. They could have continued with an upward trend of development and allowed the european powers to annihilate each other during two successive world wars. They could have lifted their asian brothers up by setting an example and maybe we would have RESPECTED them as leaders in the eastern hemisphere instead of bloodthirsty conquerers. Instead they chose to follow the follies of western imperialism and sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Sure they have bounced back today but it's still a dollar short and a day late. Is Japan really anything except a U.S. lackey these days? It's not true self determination if a foreign military has its bases parked right on your shores and you rely on their protection. It could have been so much more, we could have been a pan asian superpower.

[ellsworth81]

This is the type of naive mentality I'm talking about. No one's advocating imperialistic expansionism here. Just self-defense and peace thru strength. Political power thru a gun barrel. Remember, bullies only prey on the weak.

I wouldn't say I'm naive. I know idealism doesn't work, but doesn't mean I have to agree with the way things are done. Actually, ppl are advocating it because "peace and self-defense" are established through an imbalance of power. How many countries achieved self-defense and peace without spilling any blood? This peace thing is an illusion. We enjoy killing each other as it stands now. As long as people prescribe to this survival of the fittest shit.

besides, we're not supposed to deal with the "survival of the fittest" - that applies to animals. are humans animals? I thought humans were supposed to be develop beyond our carnal roots. It may have worked in years past, but we're supposed to better. Right?


Remember, bullies only prey on the weak.

Off topic, but bullies themselves are weak by preying on those weaker than them. It's "smart", but not strong. Strong would be challenging someone bigger than them or someone of equal size.

And am I glad the strongest sperm made me? I suppose. I'm more glad that I wasn't born fucked up without an arm or something. But there's plenty of healthy sperm that produces congenital birth defects and other genetic mishaps.

[Blue dice]

We enjoy killing each other as it stands now. As long as people prescribe to this survival of the fittest shit.

People aren't going to wake up one day and decide to go against their inherent nature.

besides, we're not supposed to deal with the "survival of the fittest" - that applies to animals. are humans animals? I thought humans were supposed to be develop beyond our carnal roots. It may have worked in years past, but we're supposed to better. Right?

Look at the people around you and how you conduct your daily life. In the bigger picture everyone competes for scarce resources whether you want to believe it or not.

[ellsworth81]

It is survival of the fittest if your country does not quickly adapt to the changing times it will be exploited for all it's worth. Maybe we would all like to live in a world where people don't fuck each other over at the drop of a hat but it's the way things are. At the heart of it that's why capitalism works so well because we are essentially selfish competitive beings. In order to prevent getting the short end of the stick you either make concessions or you put yourself in a position of dominance. Even the U.S. is not a passive-aggressive superpower, it engages in the same geopolitical maneuvering and shady wars that every nation has in the past. The U.S. is just better at justifying and rationalizing its decisions as the "correct" ones. It's not like anyone else can DO anything about it anyways.

The US isn't really better at justifying. Everyone knows the government is full of shit. We just have the missiles and other ammo to back it up.

If you look at history the west got the advantage during industrialization. Let's face facts the west really was advanced and innovative at a time when the east stagnated due in part to isolationism with large agrarian confucian societies who were a little too self sufficient and satisfied with the world.


I'm not denying that the West was responsible for lots of things. I'm ready to concede to that China was stagnant and backwards in terms of getting fucked up. But that part aside, was China really that "stagnant and backwards" I'm not scholarly enough to presume that. What are you basing it on?


I never said the west had the right to conquer the world. I'm the biggest opponent of western imperialism there is but if you want to withstand the incoming foreign powers you BETTER be able to defend yourself.

I agree. It's their fault for not figuring out how to fight them off. But the most of the fault is on the aggressor.


If the cavemen in the tribe next to you invent spears and oiled furs before your tribe then expect to starve during the winter. Sure you might work together but during this period of time you are solely at the mercy of the dominant party.

would you leave and go to another place where fuckers weren't harassing you with spears and competing for the same source of food, or would you build your own spears and go to war for the land?


This is how the world operates.

yea. we've evolved a lot, haven't we.

[krome]

yea. we've evolved a lot, haven't we.
Sorry, but nature is not idealistic nor politically-correct. And if it weren't for "cruel" evolution, you'd be a bacteria right now. Not to mention, your parents chose to immigrate here to the US for the same reasons why you decry it - absolute power and whatever it took to get there. So, come down out of your ivory tower, idealist you!

[ellsworth81]

People aren't going to wake up one day and decide to go against their inherent nature.

That's why things have to change. We shouldn't resign ourselves to this king of the hill mentality. Our instincts are artifacts from a past era. They don't work anymore in this world. People are still afraid of snakes even though few people dies from snake bites. People end up thousands of $ in debt because "saving" was never in our habits. Having meat on your bones is no longer an attractive quality. So on and so forth.

I'm not against change. Perhaps I have a different idea of change in mind...

Look at the people around you and how you conduct your daily life. In the bigger picture everyone competes for scarce resources whether you want to believe it or not.

Fortunately, scarcity is the first thing they teach you as an economics major.

So are you saying if resources were plentiful, then things would be all peace 'n love? Not likely. Even so, resources are finite, but relatively plentiful. "Scarcity" is not an excuse for anyone to kill each other or freeze someone out of a resource. There's still a lot to go around. It's just that we compete for control of resources, which stems from greed.

[Blue dice]

The US isn't really better at justifying. Everyone knows the government is full of shit. We just have the missiles and other ammo to back it up.

Precisely, the U.S. spews a lot of half truths and justifications to the world to make it seem like it's the moral guiding force. When I say "justifications" I don't mean it to be the actual truth.

I'm not denying that the West was responsible for lots of things. I'm ready to concede to that China was stagnant and backwards in terms of getting fucked up. But that part aside, was China really that "stagnant and backwards" I'm not scholarly enough to presume that. What are you basing it on?

China produced tons of beautiful art, architecture, poetry, literature, and other artifacts that are the hallmark of a great civilization but it rested on its ancient laurels content that it had no further room for growth. This was reflected in the confucian traditions at the time and the attitude of the reigning Qing dynasty. In that sense it was backwards, it stopped becoming introspective and advancing.

I agree. It's their fault for not figuring out how to fight them off. But the most of the fault is on the aggressor.

It doesn't matter whose fault it was in the end. You can point fingers all you want but it doesn't matter if they are living in your house, eating your food, and fucking your wife at the end of the day. You still lost, playing the victimization role only keeps you down and in your place.

would you leave and go to another place where fuckers weren't harassing you with spears and competing for the same source of food, or would you build your own spears and go to war for the land?

Why give up the land you tilled, cultivated, and perspired for? Maybe in a place where resources are unlimited it wouldn't be a consideration.

yea. we've evolved a lot, haven't we.
We haven't really evolved at all. We've just learned to make better use of the resources we have and create bigger tribes.

[ellsworth81]

Not to mention, your parents chose to immigrate here to the US for the same reasons why you decry it - absolute power and whatever it took to get there.


I'm not against survival. I'm against all the shit that has happened that has lead us up to this point. They came to the US because China was fucked up. Why? Because someone else helped get them there.

So, come down out of your ivory tower, idealist you!
Never!!! :biggrin:


Being a bacteria doesn't sound so bad right about now. :rolleyes:

[Blue dice]

That's why things have to change. We shouldn't resign ourselves to this king of the hill mentality. Our instincts are artifacts from a past era. They don't work anymore in this world.

On the contrary our instincts work in the real world which is precisely why capitalism is so successful. If we were truly care bears sharing and loving each other then everyone would have adopted a perfectly socialist utopian society a long long time ago.

[krome]

They came to the US because China was ------ up. Why? Because someone else helped get them there.
Uh, we helped get ourselves there. It's naive ivory tower attitudes like yours, in fact! :biggrin: So, let's quit continually blaming the bully. They are only products of nature. And nature will never change - evolution has been going on as such for millions of years. In that case - one is better off learning to accept and roll with it. In a nutshell - Taoism is about putting on shoes rather than carpeting the world. One thing about Westerners is they are very practical-minded. That is a great key to their success. While idealism is a great thing to strive for (and sometimes even achieve) - you always need pragmatic solutions to fall back on.

Again, by choosing to live here, we implicitly support whatever steps America took to achieve its current power. If we really had that big problems with it, we wouldn't be living here. I mean, CKS's wife had to beg the US to bail out China in WWII, for g0d's sakes! Think about it. Let's not be total hypocrites now. OUT of the ivory tower!!!!! :biggrin:

[ellsworth81]

China produced tons of beautiful art, architecture, poetry, literature, and other artifacts that are the hallmark of a great civilization but it rested on its ancient laurels content that it had no further room for growth. This was reflected in the confucian traditions at the time and the attitude of the reigning Qing dynasty. In that sense it was backwards, it stopped becoming introspective and advancing.


No further room for growth? What kind of growth?


It doesn't matter whose fault it was in the end. You can point fingers all you want but it doesn't matter if they are living in your house, eating your food, and fucking your wife at the end of the day. You still lost, playing the victimization role only keeps you down and in your place.



Why give up the land you tilled, cultivated, and perspired for? Maybe in a place where resources are unlimited it wouldn't be a consideration.

Another example of taking by force. We should move beyond that. Otherwise, we're just talking apes.

We haven't really evolved at all. We've just learned to make better use of the resources we have and create bigger tribes.
Joy. See above.

yeesh, how come i'm the only idealist here fighting in the trenches

[krome]

On the contrary our instincts work in the real world which is precisely why capitalism is so successful. If we were truly care bears sharing and loving each other then everyone would have adopted a perfectly socialist utopian society a long long time ago.
Agreed! Capitalism does not forbid de facto socialism - it basically just allows humans to be themselves. We could all live in communes if we wanted. Nothing stopping us. But we don't. Our true nature comes out - and it is competitive. Just like the rest of fvckin nature! Why is that so "wrong?" Fact is, it's not.

[ellsworth81]

On the contrary our instincts work in the real world which is precisely why capitalism is so successful. If we were truly care bears sharing and loving each other then everyone would have adopted a perfectly socialist utopian society a long long time ago.

"successful". heh. If it's so successful, why aren't you (or most of the world) beaming with happiness?

and how can you be arguing for capitalism when you think an egaliarian system is ideal? capitalism is the lesser of other evils?

[ellsworth81]

I can accept our animal instincts. But I want to believe there's something better out there - a more equitable solution.



Let's not be total hypocrites now. OUT of the ivory tower!!!!! :biggrin:

Hey, I'm only a partial hypocrite.

So basically we've agreed to disagree. :biggrin:

[Blue dice]

No further room for growth? What kind of growth?

Social, philosophical, and technological growth? China decided it was content with what it had and shut off everything else and frowned on new things introduced into its stodgy society.

Another example of taking by force. We should move beyond that. Otherwise, we're just talking apes.

Who says we aren't just talking apes? As human beings we like to believe lots of things but the reality is our motivations are still driven by primal instincts. I'm not going to start preaching Maslow's hierarchy of needs or anything but there is some merit as to how people strive to fulfill their most _basic_ needs in life first before looking outwards towards other things.

yeesh, how come i'm the only idealist here fighting in the trenches
Hippies never created any noteworthy societies.

[Blue dice]

"successful". heh. If it's so successful, why aren't you (or most of the world) beaming with happiness?

It's successful in the sense that it's relatively efficient compared with other means of survival that we've experienced in the past.

and how can you be arguing for capitalism when you think an egaliarian system is ideal?

Egalitarianism does not necessarily contradict capitalism.

capitalism is the lesser of other evils?
It's just the system most compatible with who we are.

[SunWuKong]

Hey read that paragraph I quoted last post, it was still a two tiered society. Sorry, but i'm against anything that isn't close to egalitarian. Maybe some people like being treated like second class citizens but if I was under that system I doubt I would have been happy with it. If you settle for second best you've already stopped trying. When you stagnate like old China then you might as well roll over and let the imperialist limeys come in.

it's all about context. the concept of egalitarianism is probably incomprehensible to people in China in the 1600s.

[SunWuKong]

In short - replicate Darwinian nature. Which is also what Taoism advocates - naturally following the Taoist source - to call it "inactivism" is a common misunderstanding. It is more akin to a jazz soloist "in the zone" where his localized ego has harmonized with the universal ego and function as one. Bruce Lee was heavily Taoist as well - and he was hardly "inactive." While your ego may become less active, your id becomes more active. You cannot understand this philosophy with an oversimplistic definition of "you."

that's great. how do you think Lao Zi would feel about a strong military? in case you did not know, much of Confucianism was intertwined with ideals of Chinese Buddhism and Daoism. it is a huge leap of logic to jump from Daoism to a strong military. Daoism is naturally against development and reveres old traditions.

Mao started out as an idealistic idiotic moron with his huge misguided state-sponsored "grass-roots" revolutions. He did wise up in his later years though, and even reversed himself on policies such as the 1-child limit (whereas he had previously advocated large families to increase the national labor force :rolleyes:).

you really, really need to read more Chinese history. first you say that Chinese leaders should have been reading Darwin... when Darwin was one of Mao's favourite authors, now you claim that he implemented the one-child policy... when it was actually Deng Xiaoping that implemented it in 1979 after Mao died.

[SunWuKong]

I'm not arguing that it didn't have roots in earlier dynasties but the Qing institutionalized it when the situation was critical. Like I said before China missed out on its formative years as a global power largely in part of the Qing's actions.

institutionalised? well, really, it was the Ming that institutionalised it. i'm sure you know that it was the Confucian scholars in the Ming court that recalled Zheng He's voyage and closed the country off. the Manchus were just following the Chinese model.

[SunWuKong]

If you guys ever watched the CCTV productions of qing dynasty films/tv series, you will notice that all the prime ministesers and government officials call themselves "nu cai", which means slave, in front of the emperor.

ahh... yeah... except all the Manchu officials also called themselves nu cai... going along with films and tv series as references, you know that there is rarely even a distinction made between the Manchus and the Han.

[SunWuKong]

This is precisely why I view it as unforgivable. They left China vulnerable to outside enemies who mercilously plundered it. The reason why China still isn't at the forefront of anything right now (and why Asia as a whole still lags behind the west) is due in part to these critical errors in judgement.

not exactly. Qing dynasty really fucked up, but if Mao and the CCP had their act together, China would have caught up quite a bit already. in my opinion, Mao and the CCP were much more to be blamed.

[ChinaLama]

not exactly. Qing dynasty really fucked up, but if Mao and the CCP had their act together, China would have caught up quite a bit already. in my opinion, Mao and the CCP were much more to be blamed.

and the KMT isn't?

[SunWuKong]

and the KMT isn't?

sure, the 1911-1949 civil war had a lot to do with it also, but i'm talking about all the mistakes that Mao and the CCP made.

[krome]

Just a short bit of mental floss for you all:

Nature favors the Tao over the universe, the universe over the earth, the earth over species, the species over the individual, etc... This is the hierarchy of needs that Nature accords to. The individual is not first, he is last.

But the egocentric individual views it backwards and bases their morality (judgments) on the individual first. Therein lies the problem and mental distress. The, "why G0d?" But, if Nature were to truly function that way, one can imagine the far bigger mess this world would be in - if it would even exist.

Instead, sometimes the lesser individual needs must be sacrificed for the greater collective good. When one expands his perspective universally, he can see the overall logic and fairness in that. We are all products of millions of generations of successive evolution and sacrificed individuals. Can you expand your mind beyond yourself and see this? Not that personal egos and self-concern are "wrong" either, but realize the proper place they have in the bigger picture. Obviously, individuals must have a will to live in order for the species to live. But, which is more important - what's good for the individual or the species? Nature says the latter, although obviously individuals would say the former.

So, should we allow nature to take its course, or try to stop/counter it? This represents the most basic political division amongst men - realistic/right-wing/conservative/capitalist/Taoist vs idealistic/left-wing/liberal/Marxist/Confucian (yes, these all blur/don't fit perfectly or may actually straddle the fence on various issues, but I'm just using them as over-generalized examples). Ok, debate amongst yourselves... :biggrin:

[Blue dice]

not exactly. Qing dynasty really fucked up, but if Mao and the CCP had their act together, China would have caught up quite a bit already. in my opinion, Mao and the CCP were much more to be blamed.
This will be one of history's what ifs but I believe if the Qing modernized then a lot of the events such as the opium war, revolution, japanese invasion, etc.. would have never occurred to begin with. So the events that transpired in the Qing dynasty would have directly effected the future of China much more. The CCP were a bunch of guerilla fighters, revolutionaries, peasants, and idealists without a real clue on how to run a country. They scraped by with what they had to rebuild a completely devastated China. Plus they were surrounded by nations who were less than willing to lend a hand.

Mao is definitely one of China's largest fuckups but under the circumstances he tried to do the best he could even though his ideology was utterly wrong. The PRC might still redeem itself in the future..

[SunWuKong]

This will be one of history's what ifs but I believe if the Qing modernized then a lot of the events such as the opium war, revolution, japanese invasion, etc.. would have never occurred to begin with. So the events that transpired in the Qing dynasty would have directly effected the future of China much more. The CCP were a bunch of guerilla fighters, revolutionaries, peasants, and idealists without a real clue on how to run a country. They scraped by with what they had to rebuild a completely devastated China. Plus they were surrounded by nations who were less than willing to lend a hand.

i suppose we can argue this to eternity, but refusing to modernise was not exactly a characteristic that was specific to the Qing dynasty, or the entire period of the Qing dynasty, for that matter. like i said before, early Qing was actually a pretty good era, and they even managed to take Taiwan back. the Ming dynasty in decline was also very isolationistic, as was the Song dynasty, before the Mongols came in. in fact, this is a pattern that repeats in almost every single dynasty. you can take the "if the X dynasty had modernised, or had not been isolationistic, it wouldn't have been conquered" to almost every single dynasty.

Mao is definitely one of China's largest fuckups but under the circumstances he tried to do the best he could even though his ideology was utterly wrong. The PRC might still redeem itself in the future..

it's really a lot more complicated than wrong ideology. Mao was a childish egomaniac. it wasn't so much as ideology as was his implementation. China was ruined by one after another of Mao's crazy policies.

[yoMAMA]

The Qing dynasty definitely fucked up in the later period though.

There was a mini reform movement going on aiming to do a constituional monarchy like they did in europe, but was quickly cracked down by the dowager empress.......most of the leaders were excecuted.

heck the emperor himself wass imprisoned for the rest of his life and died of poisioning.

[ChinaLama]

Cixi = badass. And to think, she started off a mere concubine.

somehow in the midst of all this "Qing fucked us up by letting foreigners rape us," no one's mentioned the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping Tianguo emperor is another badass-- too bad Westerners ended up hating him and tho at first they supported him, they later supported the Qing troops instead. :p
By the way isnt general tso's chicken named after the main general who fought against the Taiping?

[yoMAMA]

Cixi = badass. And to think, she started off a mere concubine.

somehow in the midst of all this "Qing fucked us up by letting foreigners rape us," no one's mentioned the Taiping Rebellion. The Taiping Tianguo emperor is another badass-- too bad Westerners ended up hating him and tho at first they supported him, they later supported the Qing troops instead. :p
By the way isnt general tso's chicken named after the main general who fought against the Taiping?

yes, it was....general zuo zong tang in pinyin :biggrin:

Anyways, hong xiouquan, the taiping tianguo leader, claims to be jesus's younger brother........ :smile:

[ChinaLama]

see what balls that dude had? he claimed to be The Son of God. And instead the Westerners would rather help the Qing? *sigh*

oh well, on the other hand, if it weren't for the West, I guess Shanghai wouldn't be what it is today. And in my worldview, being dominated by white people isn't any worse than being dominated by so called fellow Chinese aka northern barbarians who rape us and then have the balls to impose their language on us and say they have more culture.

oops sorry did i go on another one of those rants? ... carry on, folks. just ignore my last comment. I must have really REALLY hated going to Chinese school as a kid. :P

[Napoleon Chynamite]

1) Marx was very anti-imperialistic.

2) China subscribed to Mao, not Marx. Mao was also very anti-imperialistic, but he was staunchly nationalistic as well. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." - Mao

3) Darwin was one of Mao's favourite authors.

4) umm... you do know that Lao Tse argued that we should not do or want anything, right? Daoism is all about inaction.

Marxism also supports equality of the sexes. It's the Chinese government (or any other government that tries to incorporate modern communism) who is at fault if they continue to oppress the women or try to conveniently omit certain elements of key emphasis in the model they have chosen.

Sorry a little tangent there.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

And in my worldview, being dominated by white people isn't any worse than being dominated by so called fellow Chinese aka northern barbarians who rape us and then have the balls to impose their language on us and say they have more culture.

Damn don't hold back. Where is the unity? Stop hating on them mongolian mantou-eaters and know your place.^^

[yoMAMA]

Marxism also supports equality of the sexes. It's the Chinese government (or any other government that tries to incorporate modern communism) who is at fault if they continue to oppress the women or try to conveniently omit certain elements of key emphasis in the model they have chosen.

Sorry a little tangent there.

For a second, i thought you said "Maximism"......... :wink:

[Blue dice]

oh well, on the other hand, if it weren't for the West, I guess Shanghai wouldn't be what it is today.

It's a pile of steaming shit compared to what it _could_ have been. I don't want to always look backward for the ifs and maybes but I believe asia lost its chance and is now just regaining the momentum for a come back. Let's not forget that it's because of various western influences (spread of communism) and imperialism which ended up fucking us in the ass for long periods of time too.

And in my worldview, being dominated by white people isn't any worse than being dominated by so called fellow Chinese aka northern barbarians who rape us and then have the balls to impose their language on us and say they have more culture.

I don't think so the european imperialist nations were only concerned with profiting off us. They were driven in part by their own racial dogma that chinese (and other asians) were lower than the average european. Whereas most asian dynasties (even the mongols to some extent) had at least a basic enough respect to see us as people. That's not freedom it's slavery and we're just starting to see the cracks in the shackles that held us down for so long.

[Chester]

It's a pile of steaming shit compared to what it _could_ have been. I don't want to always look backward for the ifs and maybes but I believe asia lost its chance and is now just regaining the momentum for a come back. Let's not forget that it's because of various western influences (spread of communism) and imperialism which ended up fucking us in the ass for long periods of time too.
I'm not sold on that, as it seems to me that the reason why the West held so much sway over China was because "we" were so busy fucking ourselves in the ass.

[SunWuKong]

Marxism also supports equality of the sexes. It's the Chinese government (or any other government that tries to incorporate modern communism) who is at fault if they continue to oppress the women or try to conveniently omit certain elements of key emphasis in the model they have chosen.

Sorry a little tangent there.

actually there was more gender equality before China opened up and began re-introducing capitalistic practices. people now have more liberty and money to discriminate on gender, and some wives are able to afford to stay home, thus making some men the sole breadwinner of families. etc etc.

not that there was no gender discrimination, but the CCP wiped away all forms of legalised gender discrimination in one fell swoop when they took power.

[Made in China]

Japanese are cool. I hate Japan though. there is massive evidence that millions were brutally killed, Yet they Deny that any of these happen.

Woah, How did half a million dead bodies suddenly appear in Yangtze River?

Atleast apologize and repay the family of the lost ones.

The Germans did repay the jews and constently said "sorry", but the Japanese simply denie it and ignore it.

the weirdest thing is that more people died under Japan, than Nazi Germany.

[Made in China]

Guys, Remember. While your enjoying your delicous Christmas meals and enjoying the holidays, 8,333 are dying per day.......

Imagine the destruction of 3 September 11th Attacks PER day, for 6 weeks straight.....

[Emperor_Mike]

...
the weirdest thing is that more people died under Japan, than Nazi Germany.

I'd like to see some supporting figures on that. You can't make a statement like that without evidence to back up your conclusion. Have you considered the Russian front? Or the Holocaust for that matter? Link me to a page with some credible facts if possible.

And likewise, the word "hate" should never be used arbitrarily. How can you hate someone without knowing who they are? How can wounds heal when people continue to revive the animosities of the past? It's utterly irresponsible to lay blame like this and its actions like these that serve to poison relations between countries for decades or even centuries.

[krome]

I don't remember the link, but I remember reading that even Nazis were shocked at some of the Japanese war atrocities they committed. I don't know about overall comparative body counts, though.

Nanjing massacre (http://www.cnd.org/NJMassacre/)

Japanese Unit 731 used human beings for vivisection in order to develop biological weapons. Equally unbelievable is that the United States has covered up the crime in exchange for the data on human experiments, an act utterly ignoring international laws and human justice.

Totally disregarding international laws and human morality, Japan employed poison gas bombs in the Wusung-Shanghai campaign at the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese war in August 1937. But not until Japan dropped bacterial bombs at Changte, (http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/germwar/731rev.htm)

[ellsworth81]

Japanese are cool. I hate Japan though. there is massive evidence that millions were brutally killed, Yet they Deny that any of these happen.

Woah, How did half a million dead bodies suddenly appear in Yangtze River?

Atleast apologize and repay the family of the lost ones.

The Germans did repay the jews and constently said "sorry", but the Japanese simply denie it and ignore it.

the weirdest thing is that more people died under Japan, than Nazi Germany.

whatever. unless your family was directly affected by this, i see no feasible grounds for you to "hate" japanese ppl. their govt is a bitch for not 'fessing up to whatever they did ... but sometimes i wonder why they refuse to acknowledge wrong-doings but decry the US for dropping nukes on their ass... :confused:

keep in mind every country (including ours) has done countless things they never admitted to either.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

actually there was more gender equality before China opened up and began re-introducing capitalistic practices. people now have more liberty and money to discriminate on gender, and some wives are able to afford to stay home, thus making some men the sole breadwinner of families. etc etc.

not that there was no gender discrimination, but the CCP wiped away all forms of legalised gender discrimination in one fell swoop when they took power.

Whoa haha, I was like, wtf, after seeing your avatar, I was thinkin' 'this is Kim responding???'. Then I saw the SN.

Well okay anyways...yeah...then it makes sense. Under the socialist model, there was more gender equality, and then it began to decrease after capitalist practices became (re)introduced.

[Made in China]

I'd like to see some supporting figures on that. You can't make a statement like that without evidence to back up your conclusion. Have you considered the Russian front? Or the Holocaust for that matter? Link me to a page with some credible facts if possible.

And likewise, the word "hate" should never be used arbitrarily. How can you hate someone without knowing who they are? How can wounds heal when people continue to revive the animosities of the past? It's utterly irresponsible to lay blame like this and its actions like these that serve to poison relations between countries for decades or even centuries.
I was talking about a comparison of Holocausts created by Nazi Germany and Japan. More people died under Chinese holocaust than Jewish Holocaust.

At Japanese camps, the POW death rate was 27 percent, compared to a 4 percent rate in Allied camps.

Victims of Chinese Holocaust: 35 million
Victims of Jewish Holocaust: 6 million

You can't blame the victims of the holocaust to "hate" them. Have you heard of the ways they tortured and killed people? Those gruesome ways of torturing is beyound human imagination. You cannot imagine 50,000 Victims in ONE Execution.

50,000 people is a extremely large amount of people.:redface:

[Made in China]

Not even the nuclear bombs kill more people than the Nanking Massacre.

Have you heard of Unit 731? how they tested Anthrax and Plague on Chinese People?

They forced thousands to run naked into a field of poisonus gas. They tested potassum cynaide and dissected them to see what they poison have done to internal organs.

Members of Unit 731 is still alive, without punishment because the US made a secret deal with Japan that they exchange valueable Biological data, and the members of Unit 731 get off without prosecution and they can deny everything.

Most of the former members todate say they are proud to be apart of the First Biological Exploratory group for Japan.

Using Humans for Guinea Pigs testing for Weapons of Mass Destruction? Not even the crazy Hitler would do something like that.

You can barely test Hair Gel on animals, let alone HUMANS.

[Made in China]

China is strong nation because it has been outlasted Japan's massacres and invasion for 16 years.

And remember, China was in a serious decade long Civil War when Japanese Attacked.

China has about 46+ Years of War in this Century

If you count Revoultion China to date, its over 100+ years of War.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

China is strong nation because it has been outlasted Japan's massacres and invasion for 16 years.

And remember, China was in a serious decade long Civil War when Japanese Attacked.

China has about 46+ Years of War in this Century

If you count Revoultion China to date, its over 100+ years of War.

Ok we get it, you like China. You're proud of China. Eeeeesh....

[Made in China]

Arent you Area51? Hi.

No, I dont like Communist China. I like Taiwan.

[SunWuKong]

Arent you Area51? Hi.

No, I dont like Communist China. I like Taiwan.

the DPP isn't really that much better than the KMT.

[Blue dice]

I was talking about a comparison of Holocausts created by Nazi Germany and Japan. More people died under Chinese holocaust than Jewish Holocaust.

Victims of Chinese Holocaust: 35 million
Victims of Jewish Holocaust: 6 million

You see this is why people don't take the things you say seriously. Did a LOT of people die in China during WW2? Yes, certainly. From what i've read it was second only to Russia after the eastern front battles. However, it's a stretch to say that 35 million were systematically murdered by Japanese and then call it a holocaust. NANKING was a holocaust and certainly the various evil Japanese experiments conducted on people were part of that. But you're failing to take into account the fact that there was a full blown civil war going on with Chinese killing Chinese too. A lot of people succumbed to the living conditions during the war by starving to death etc..

Just for your information, from some estimates Russia lost nearly 25% of its total population. Yes, that's a quarter dead during a war. For instance there were hardly two sticks left to prop up Leningrad after the German invasion.
Ditto for the Ukraine, Poland, and various other european nations.

[xdlin22]

i think the russians lost like 20 million in ww2 and china is like second with like 12 million, but 35 million sounds too much

[Blue dice]

i think the russians lost like 20 million in ww2 and china is like second with like 12 million, but 35 million sounds too much
That sounds about right, although I think China's total casualities were higher than that more on the order of 16-17 million. I remember it wasn't too far behind Russias.

Ok, I just found a source on WW2 casuality estimates, actually 1/6th of Russia's total population died but it's still a hell of a lot.

[ChinaLama]

the DPP isn't really that much better than the KMT.

i think he is a KMT fan aka been foolin' me all along. I feel betrayed, mic. :frown:

[Made in China]

You see this is why people don't take the things you say seriously. Did a LOT of people die in China during WW2? Yes, certainly. From what i've read it was second only to Russia after the eastern front battles. However, it's a stretch to say that 35 million were systematically murdered by Japanese and then call it a holocaust. NANKING was a holocaust and certainly the various evil Japanese experiments conducted on people were part of that. But you're failing to take into account the fact that there was a full blown civil war going on with Chinese killing Chinese too. A lot of people succumbed to the living conditions during the war by starving to death etc..

Just for your information, from some estimates Russia lost nearly 25% of its total population. Yes, that's a quarter dead during a war. For instance there were hardly two sticks left to prop up Leningrad after the German invasion.
Ditto for the Ukraine, Poland, and various other european nations.
Ok, I have to be More specific in what I will say.

Victims of Chinese Holocaust (Japanese CReated): 35 million
Victims of Jew Holocaust (Nazi created): 6 million

Nanking was a Massacre, Not a Holocaust.

Russia Battlefront? We are taking about Deaths in Holocaust, not Deaths Battles.

And those Biological and Toxic Experiments happened over the 16 years that China fought Japan, not only in Nanking.

"Russian-hurt-Russian" Holocaust: 40 million
"Chinese-hurt-Chinese" Holocaust: 35 million

"Japanese-hurt-Chinese" Holocaust: 35 million
"Nazi-hurt Jewish" Holocaust: 6 million

Suppositivly, Holocaust created by their OWN people are worse than ones inflicted by foreigners.

But the Japanese Case is frightening. "Chinese-hurt-Chinese" Holocaust was meant to HELP China, with Cultural Revoultion and Greap Leap Forward. But it went horribly Wrong.

"Japanese-hurt-Chinese" Holocaust Mission was to Kill off Chinese PURPOSELY.

One was to Help the Chinese, the other was to kill them off.

[Made in China]

i think he is a KMT fan aka been foolin' me all along. I feel betrayed, mic. :frown:
No, no, Don't leave me:frown: :crying: I am hurt:frown:

Can I get a kiss and a hug ? :smile:

[Ogumo]

i think the russians lost like 20 million in ww2 and china is like second with like 12 million, but 35 million sounds too much

27 million to be more exact.

[deez nuts]

chinamen everywhere can exact revenge for this atrocity by banging as many japanese girls as possible.

[Ogumo]

chinamen everywhere can exact revenge for this atrocity by banging as many japanese girls as possible.

and I will join them in the adventure.

[deez nuts]

and I will join them in the adventure.


thereby bringing harmony and peace amongst the chinese and japanese.

[amietron]

thereby bringing harmony and peace amongst the chinese and japanese.
=O

[deez nuts]

=O

;]

[mr. x]

i heard some of the people involved in that orgy in china got life sentences. man thats hardcore. even the prostitutes got it too

[Ogumo]

I thought it was only the hotel manager and the woman that aided in the orgys organization? Wait isnt this the wrong thread?

[mr. x]

I thought it was only the hotel manager and the woman that aided in the orgys organization? Wait isnt this the wrong thread?

how so? the orgy made chinese pissed at the japanese

[Ogumo]

how so? the orgy made chinese pissed at the japanese

Do not ask me. From what undestand those were the only two with life in jail.

[deez nuts]

how so? the orgy made chinese pissed at the japanese


eh...they take some of our bitches. we take some of theirs. besides they were hookers, no loss.

[mr. x]

eh...they take some of our bitches. we take some of theirs. besides they were hookers, no loss.

i thought u were fukinese or something.

[deez nuts]

i thought u were fukinese or something.


que pasa

[xdlin22]

fukinese= snakehead center of teh world, fujian province of china, and MY PEOPLES

[Made in China]

ooo, Hong Kong today fell to the Japanese.

The Brits (Mainly Canadians) fought bravely. Almost half never saw home ever again. :(

Important Allied Base in Asia was taken.

....Crap :(

[Made in China]

I think today is the ending of the Nanking massacre, Starting from The day I made this thread, to 6 weeks later on Jan 24?

yup, 350,000 some people left lying on the streets, ponds, etc.

[yangbahn50]

Sadly, up to this day, some Japanese government officials are racist towards its asian neighbors.

I am really fed up with the Japanese court system of refusing sex slaves their compensation for suffering and pain during WWII.

There weare also lawsuits against the Japanese government for torturing men while they worked in coal mines. I've heard stories of young boys from China, Korea, Vietnam ...etc....being forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions. If they were thirsty, they had to drink their own piss.