China's Textbooks: History Coverup, Racist Bias, and Politics

[yuuteya]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/worl.../15/2003250536

China's history books also leave out some key events

UNMENTIONABLE: As China criticizes Japanese books for minimizing its abuses, China's own texts have yet to investigate a number of bloody events

AP , SHANGHAI, CHINA
Friday, Apr 15, 2005,Page 5

Some things you won't find in Chinese history textbooks: the 1989 democracy movement, the millions who died in a famine caused by misguided communist policies or China's military attacks on India and Vietnam.

As China criticizes Japan for new textbooks that critics say minimize wartime abuses like the Japanese military forcing Asian women into sexual slavery, Beijing's own schoolbooks have significant omissions about the communist system's own history and relations with its neighbors.

"With rising Chinese nationalism, the efforts to rewrite history, to reinterpret history according to the demands of nationalism have become a major national pastime," said Maochun Yu, a history professor at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.

Experts say China's textbooks are written to heighten a sense of national victimhood and glorify the Communist Party that seized power in a 1949 revolution and lashes out at any threat to its rule.

The books describe those who died fighting Japan and other outsiders as having "gloriously sacrificed" themselves for China.

Propaganda paintings reproduced in schoolbooks show Chinese struggling against foreign invaders -- poses imitated by protesters who threw rocks at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing over the weekend during violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in several Chinese cities.

An eighth-grade history book used in Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city, repeatedly refers to Japanese by an insulting phrase that roughly translates as "Jap bandits."
[Chinese people are educated by RACISM in a state approved textbook!]

The book focuses on Japanese atrocities and repeats China's claim that 35 million Chinese died or were injured during their 1937-45 war.

"Wherever the Japanese army went, they burned, killed, stole and plundered," the book says. "There was no wickedness they didn't commit."

Omissions of major events appear aimed at shoring up China's image of itself as a non-aggressor, especially since the 1949 revolution. The books don't mention the brief but bloody 1962 border war with India that broke out when Chinese troops attacked Indian positions to enforce territorial claims.

There is nothing on the 1979 war when Chinese troops attacked Vietnam. The assault was ordered to punish Hanoi for ousting the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, which was an ally of Beijing.
[Chinese people are not taught about their history of imperial aggression since it is erased from the texts]

Also missing:

-- The 1989 crackdown on democracy demonstrations, when Chinese troops killed hundreds and possibly thousands of unarmed protesters.

-- The estimated 30 million Chinese who starved to death during the 1958-61 "Great Leap Forward," revolutionary leader Mao Zedong's (§ÚøA™F) attempt to speed up China's farm and factory output through mass collectivization.

Textbooks gloss over ally North Korea's invasion of South Korea at the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, a conflict that drew in troops from the US and other countries on the side of the South and China's army in support of the North.

The texts say only that "civil war broke out," without mentioning how it started. America is portrayed as an invader that forced Beijing to intervene by threatening Chinese territory.

A seventh-grade text also accuses the US military of using biological weapons during the Korean War, repeating a claim made by China, North Korea and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War but never proven.

While Japan's distortions of its history appear driven by a reluctance to accept shame, China's are aimed at preserving communist rule, said Sin-ming Shaw, a China scholar at Oxford University.

"Not owning up is a calculated political policy," Shaw said.

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/stdn/std/others/print.htm
Buried past is a lesson in control

Mark Magnier

May 12, 2005

When Li Xuanyao, a student at Beijing's No55 Middle School, wants to learn about the Great Leap Forward, she has her work cut out for her. Mao Zedong's disastrous 1950s policy, which saw 30 million mainlanders die of starvation, is relegated to a few paragraphs in her 163-page history textbook.

The text blames bad central planning for its failure and is quick to add: "During the Great Leap Forward, every village in China built its commune. Members of the commune could eat in its dining hall free of charge.''

Although Xuanyao's history teach-ers have taught her much about Japanese atrocities, she said, they are reluctant to talk about the Great Leap Forward. And they never mention the deadly Tiananmen Square protests.

"Studying Chinese history is very important because it helps increase our knowledge and our patriotism,'' said Xuanyao, 16, dressed in purple jeans and a matching backpack. "I wasn't taught anything about Tiananmen. But what the Japanese did, particularly the Nanjing massacre, is unforgivable. Remembering this is very, very important for our national pride.''
[Nationalism is an important part of Chinese textbooks]

Beijing has criticized Japan in recent weeks for whitewashing its militarist history, focusing in particular on a junior high school textbook recently approved by Tokyo.

A close look at the mainland's corresponding textbook, Chinese History - Textbook for Junior High School, however, finds several areas where China's official history appears to have gaps of its own.

"The embarrassing fact for the Communist Party, and one that is not taught in Chinese schools, is that the party itself is responsible for many more deaths of Chinese people than those caused by Japanese militarism,'' said Sam Crane, Asian studies professor at Williams College in Massachusetts.

Historians and China scholars say an underlying theme in many mainland textbooks is the country's victimization at the hands of foreign powers, particularly the Japanese. Although this is true, they say, the mainland tends to underplay the long periods that it dominated its neighbors.

The focus on being a victim can easily spark social indignation and the sort of emotional outpouring and violence seen in recent weeks, some argue. Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura echoed this theme last month on a TV talk show, accusing Beijing of indoctrinating its students with an unbalanced view of the past.

``There is a tendency towards this in any country,'' he said. ``But the Chinese textbooks are extreme in the way they uniformly convey the `our country is correct' perspective.''

Machimura said Japan would consider mounting its own review of Chinese history textbooks. According to a survey released last month by Japan's Asahi newspaper, more than 80 percent of Japanese believe the mainland's nationalistic education system encouraged the recent protest, which saw Japan's embassy and consulates attacked, Japanese cars overturned and businesses vandalized.

In recent days, Beijing has moved to quell the demonstrations. Last month, officials detained 42 anti-Japanese protesters, some caught on security cameras hurling bottles, and paraded them on television in a warning to the nation. The government, apparently fearful that the protesters could turn their focus on it, wanted to prevent further disturbances before the historically significant May 1 and May 4 holidays.

In addition to ignoring the Tiananmen Square massacre, China's main junior high history text makes short work of most of the surrounding decade. Under chapter subheadings such as ``Great Achievements of Socialist Construction,'' the text skips from Deng Xiaoping's market-oriented policy after 1978 to the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997.

``These textbooks don't make any sense,'' said Jasper Becker, author of Hungry Ghosts, about the Great Leap Forward. ``All sorts of things are brushed under the carpet.''[Chinese whitewash of history]

The Chinese History textbook, the most popular of seven approved by the Education Ministry for nationwide use, also gives the Communist Party a disproportionate role in fighting the Japanese in the 1930s and '40s. In fact, many historians say, most of the heavy lifting was done by the Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang, whose members fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing the civil war to Mao's forces.

Mao's 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, a period of chaos marked by purges and the tyranny of the fanatical Red Guards, does merit a (five-page) chapter that concedes Mao made a ``wrong analysis of the class struggle.''

But much of the blame is pinned on Mao's fourth wife, Jiang Qing, part of the Gang of Four, for trying to take over the party. Nor is there any mention of the extreme suffering people endured.

Officials with the Education Ministry and the textbook publisher could not be reached for comment.

Mainland historians, however, say the field is becoming more objective. ``No country has perfect textbooks, and China is no exception,'' said Zhang Sheng, history professor at Nanjing University. ``But they are improving. While 30 years ago they were based mostly on class struggle, now they're increasingly based on facts.''

Zhang said three decades is not enough time for mainland historians to come to a definitive view of the Cultural Revolution. ``Those who experienced the Cultural Revolution drew their own lessons, so you don't need a lot of words in the chapter on this,'' he added.

Mainland history is a sensitive enough topic that the nation's cyberpolice block Web sites on key events, and history professors worry about losing their jobs for expressing views that do not follow the party line.

One historian, who asked not to be identified, said Beijing used the history issue as a weapon against the Japanese when it was convenient. ``It's useful as a diplomatic card, to cover up the real issue - economic confrontation,'' he said. ``Domestically, the Communist Party has crafted its own version of history to bolster its legitimacy. That's why it's still impossible to look objectively at Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution or Tiananmen Square.'

LOS ANGELES TIMES

Copyright 2005, The Standard, Sing Tao Newspaper Group and Global China Group. All rights reserved. No content may be redistributed or republished, either electronically or in print, without express written consent of The Standard.

So Chinese textbooks and education is full of blind nationalism, racism, whitewashing of atrocities, coverup of aggression, and party politics.

Based on the clear absense of information about this in here, the Chinese people in the United States seem to be ignorant about the serious problems in China's education system and nationalistic textbooks. They are either ignorant about it, or choose to ignore the injustice, and so are complicit in injustic. Unfortunately the Chinese youth are caught in the middle, and blind nationalism, racism and glorification of imperialism continues to grow and pollute their minds.

Where are the liberal minded pacifist non-nationalisitic Chinese people when we need them? In jail being tortured?

[LaiSteve66]

Hmmm, seems like Japan isn't the only one whitewashing history.

[Player 0]

Oh please, this article is about as useful as something Jung Chang wrote, it doesn't even give the title of which textbooks are specifically like this, plus i've met people from the mainland who live in Beijing and know a great deal about the problems in previous decades.

I also do not trust those sources, the Taipei times is known to be strongly pro DPP and anti-Chinese, it is not a trustworthy source, neither is the standard seeing as articles like http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...d_str=20051122 clearly show their pro-Tibetan and pro-US stance

[AngryABCGirl]

Originally Posted by Player 0

Oh please, this article is about as useful as something Jung Chang wrote, it doesn't even give the title of which textbooks are specifically like this, plus i've met people from the mainland who live in Beijing and know a great deal about the problems in previous decades.

I also do not trust those sources, the Taipei times is known to be strongly pro DPP and anti-Chinese, it is not a trustworthy source, neither is the standard seeing as articles like http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_d...d_str=20051122 clearly show their pro-Tibetan and pro-US stance

There's not such thing as an unbiased source, it's useful to examine all different points of view, because they are all seeing different sides of one picture and interpretting the facts different. There is a truth in most of the core though.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

about the serious problems in China's education system and nationalistic textbooks. They are either ignorant about it, or choose to ignore the injustice, and so are complicit in injustic. Unfortunately the Chinese youth are caught in the middle, and blind nationalism, racism and glorification of imperialism continues to grow and pollute their minds.

Where are the liberal minded pacifist non-nationalisitic Chinese people when we need them? In jail being tortured?

I think in general right, most Chinese people in the world, in China and overseas, including myself, are in an extremely optimistic stage about the future and proud of the things happening right now. After being humiliated for so long and finally rising again, nobody really wants to criticize and look at the faults, which are many.

These attitudes that you mention, unforuntately exist due to various circumstances should change with the natural progress of time as the country continues to open up with greater and progress and education that comes with it. It really depends on good governance now by the CCP and how they handle things, and they have no easy task ahead of them. The CCP really has done a good job so far, but I do believe they need to soon deliberately decide how they are going to shape Chinese nationalism sometime in the near future instead of the multiple directions its offshooting now (including racist and imperalist notions, but that is not exclusive to Chinese society by any mean).

[ahsingjai]

Someone should keep count on how many these threads he going to post.

Taipei Times is Pro-Japan Rightest and Pan Green forces.

[yuuteya]

Originally Posted by AngryABCGirl

I think in general right, most Chinese people in the world, in China and overseas, including myself, are in an extremely optimistic stage about the future and proud of the things happening right now. After being humiliated for so long and finally rising again, nobody really wants to criticize and look at the faults, which are many.

lets just hope its not all about remembering the good and forgetting all the bad. like what happened with humiliated germany after ww1 and before ww2. both have to be remembered for the truth to come out and prevent rise of dangerous nationalist ideologies from taking over. otherwise its simply a state of nationalist glorification.

These attitudes that you mention, unforuntately exist due to various circumstances should change with the natural progress of time as the country continues to open up with greater and progress and education that comes with it. It really depends on good governance now by the CCP and how they handle things, and they have no easy task ahead of them. The CCP really has done a good job so far, but I do believe they need to soon deliberately decide how they are going to shape Chinese nationalism sometime in the near future instead of the multiple directions its offshooting now (including racist and imperalist notions, but that is not exclusive to Chinese society by any mean).

thanks abc, excellent points.
frankly i think other than the current china government, what stable realistic alternative is there? none yet. and nobody wants a violent revolution and radical nationalists to take over, right? (you dont have to be chinese to agree with that) so despite the cover ups, whitewash and political games, theres not much better choice than the communists at this point. but hope they can peacefully evolve to a higher level and move beyond nationalism to a better alternative, thinking about reality of a multi-polar world.

the idea "superpower" is simply a coverup term for new imperialism. the colonial apologists/pro-empire builders among the chinese are frankly scary. why? because the one arrogant world empire USA that we have is bad enough already. who really wants a second world empire to appear? who really wants a new bipolar imperialist competition to happen? other than those blinded nationalists/imperial apologists, whether in china or america. the world must be made multipolar to prevent to much concentration of power in a couple of imperialist countries

here is the general question to everybody:

if you are chinese and totally against american imperialism, then why the heck are you in support of a new chinese imperialism to rise again???

and please dont use colonial apologist terms like "superpower" to cover up pro-neoimperialism.

that makes no sense. you condem one empire, just to support dream of a new chinese empire??? its wierd and frankly hypocritical. (how else can you have an imperialist double standard??) thats why ideologiy of Nationalism is used to excuse themselves of double standard. in reality you dont really have anything against the use of imperialism. you support imperialism as long as your own nationality is in control of the imperialism. if you do you are no better than Bush and Rice and the gang. you have no legitimacy to criticize Bush and gang.

whos going to be the new Chinese Bush of the future?
scary possibility.

Originally Posted by ahsingjai

Someone should keep count on how many these threads he going to post.

well thats easy to count because theres only one of me. im isolated, and most chinese in here hate my guts. must be the ethnic thing.

but if you want a really challenge in counting, try counting all the anti-japanese bashing racist threads posted by all the chinese/korean nationalists that have happened in this YW for the past few years. if you count that it will take you a very long long time... this all began long before you came to this site. ok. ready 3..2..1..start counting.

Originally Posted by ahsingjai

Someone should keep count on how many these threads he going to post.

well thats easy to count because theres only one of me. im isolated, and most chinese in here hate my guts. must be the ethnic thing.

but if you want a really challenge in counting, try counting all the anti-japanese bashing racist threads posted by all the chinese/korean nationalists that have happened in this YW for the past few years. if you count that it will take you a very long long time... this all began long before you came to this site. ok. ready 3..2..1..start counting.


ok back to the topic and important issue of Chinese textbooks nationalism and bias. thanks friend.

[didu]

Originally Posted by yuuteya

if you are chinese and totally against american imperialism, then why the heck are you in support of a new chinese imperialism to rise again???

Your question is very flawed, you are assuming that a powerful China
is the same as Chinese imperialism, when in fact they are two totally
different things. During the past 2000 years, even when China was at
the peak of its power, it never went around conquering and colonizing
to the same extent that the European and Japanese powers did. On the
other hand, every single time when China was weak, it was invaded
and conquered by a foreign power at the cost of millions of the Chinese
lives.

Now just as China is slowing regaining its power, people like you start
jumping out to accuse China for being an imperialism -- when in fact
that the current European and American imperialisms are doing
everything they can to stop the rise of China and there is very little
evidence to show that a powerful China would behave in the same
way as the Europeans did in the last 200 years.

What shocks me more is that the Americans for some reason feel that
they have the moral high ground to accuse the Chinese for being
nationalistic, when the Americans themsleves are probably the most
nationalistic people in the world.

What do you want China to do? Stay as a weak and poor third world
country forever? That's hardly in China's national interests, is it? Oops,
I used the phrase "China's national interests", are you gonna accuse
me for being a Chinese nationalist? And would you like your own country
to be a weak and poor? If not, why do you want China to be so?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

that makes no sense. you condem one empire, just to support dream of a new chinese empire??? its wierd and frankly hypocritical. (how else can you have an imperialist double standard??)

I don't understand how you can accuse other people for being
hypocritical when you've been hypocritical the whole time. You keep accusing
China for being an evil empire, but where the hell is this evil Chinese
empire? I don't see it. When was the last time that China was an evil
empire, and what did it do? Did it do anything like going around the
world conquering other countries, waging wars in order to sell opiums and making
people slaves? You keep accusing China for something it has done yet
and will most likely never do, while keeping a blind eye for the countries
that have done exactly the things you accuse China for, and you are
calling other people hypocrites?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

whos going to be the new Chinese Bush of the future?
scary possibility.

Yeah, and do you know what's really scary? There is a George W. Bush IN AMERICAN, RIGHT NOW.

[yuuteya]

Originally Posted by didu

Your question is very flawed, you are assuming that a powerful China
is the same as Chinese imperialism, when in fact they are two totally
different things. During the past 2000 years, even when China was at
the peak of its power, it never went around conquering and colonizing
to the same extent that the European and Japanese powers did. On the
other hand, every single time when China was weak, it was invaded
and conquered by a foreign power at the cost of millions of the Chinese
lives.

imperialism is a social-cultural phenomena that various kinds with the social-cultural context. empires are not identical, but the same thread of political domination and economic expliotation of the oppressed periphery groups in favor of the dominators is a similar structure. not to mention the cultural mixing when the peripheral groups are aggressively assimilated into the imperialist network.
so what terrible enemy is the use of chinese nationalism/pro-neoimperialism supposed to be defense against? its a phantom enemy that doesnt exist. its manipulation of textbooks to invent an neiboring enemy (that has actually been a long time supporter) to continue the communist authoritarianism.

nationalism is a convenient tool for pro-imperialists. look at any history of imperialism in asia, europe or america, and the same combination of nationalism and imperialism is made.

What do you want China to do? Stay as a weak and poor third world
country forever? That's hardly in China's national interests, is it? Oops,
I used the phrase "China's national interests", are you gonna accuse
me for being a Chinese nationalist? And would you like your own country
to be a weak and poor? If not, why do you want China to be so?

haaa??? what are you imaging about??? wierd... i think you have not been in this site long to know what i think, if thats what you write. you have wierd and strange assumptions. search this site again.

guess which neigboring country of china has long generously supported the economic and infrastructural development of china and chinese society by both financial and hand-to-hand real human assistance which keeps continuing. guess which asian country has always been the big helper and supporter of china in reality? even if the corrupt political coverups and biased racist textbooks wrongly demonize that friendly present country by confusing chinese people with past and present. the past enemy that NO longer exists since over 60 years past is imagined to look like its still happening. and the true present friendly china-supporter which has existed for several decades is made to look like it never happened.

a weak/poor china would not be in the best interests of mutual asian regional development. china must be stable and strong, along with all of asia, together. but an agressive dominating imperialistic china is also NOT in the best interests of mutual asian regional development. unless you want china to singlehandedly control asia??? so use your rational head. not your emotional imperialism.

I don't understand how you can accuse other people for being
hypocritical when you've been hypocritical the whole time. You keep accusing
China for being an evil empire, but where the hell is this evil Chinese
empire? I don't see it. When was the last time that China was an evil
empire, and what did it do? Did it do anything like going around the
world conquering other countries

you must be speaking from the perspective of the extreme eastern regions, maybe if we ask people from the extreme western/south/western regions, they would have a different opinion...

there are whites who dont think any white racism or western imperialism exists. ever wonder why? must be their privileged point of view to say such things never happened...

[didu]

Originally Posted by yuuteya

so what terrible enemy is the use of chinese nationalism/pro-neoimperialism supposed to be defense against? its a phantom enemy that doesnt exist. its manipulation of textbooks to invent an neiboring enemy (that has actually been a long time supporter) to continue the communist authoritarianism.

The phantom enemy of China that doesn't exist? Are you joking? Let
me give you a hint about who these enemies are: try do a google
search on which countries have called China a "threat".

Manipulation of textbooks to invent a neighbouring enemy? Well, please
excuse China for being paranoid about Japan who about 50 years ago
invaded China and killed millions Chinese civilians and is yet to make
a formal apology and acknowledge what they did was wrong. You know
what they say: people who don't learn from the history are bound to
make the same mistake in the future, and this saying applies to both
China and Japan. Oh, please don't lecture me about Japan's peaceful
constitution and government, laws are written by people, therefore can
be changed by people. Words are cheap.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

nationalism is a convenient tool for pro-imperialists. look at any history of imperialism in asia, europe or america, and the same combination of nationalism and imperialism is made.

Yeah, and it's also a convienient tool for the hypocritical imperialists to
bash other country which have the potential of becoming a challenge.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

haaa??? what are you imaging about??? wierd... i think you have not been in this site long to know what i think, if thats what you write. you have wierd and strange assumptions. search this site again.

You are the one who's been assuming that today's China -- a poor
third world country, is going to become the next evil empire, and you
are accusing me of making assumptions? I've been browsing this
site long enough and I've met plenty of people who think like you.
So please don't make any assumptions about me.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

guess which neigboring country of china has long generously supported the economic and infrastructural development of china and chinese society by both financial and hand-to-hand real human assistance which keeps continuing.

Sure, China has been supporting NK -- well, what's the alternative? The
SKs are not gonna help, and would you rather see millions of NKs starve
to death and total chaos break out on the Chinese border? Well, maybe
you would, but the Chinese wouldn't.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

guess which asian country has always been the big helper and supporter of china in reality?

Are you serious? Do you realise that China didn't demand any
compensation from Japan for the astronomical damages that Japan
did to China -- AS A FRIENDLY GESTURE TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

even if the corrupt political coverups and biased racist textbooks wrongly demonize that friendly present country by confusing chinese people with past and present. the past enemy that NO longer exists since over 60 years past is imagined to look like its still happening.

Well, unless the evil Chinese government has accquired the secret
power of mass mind controlling, I don't see how they could have
made everyone in the world see that the current Japanese PM has
been making annual visit to the most infamous shine that hosts the
worst WW2 war criminals who were personally responsible for the death
of millions of Chinese civilians, or the frequent denial of WW2 atrocities
by Japanese politicians, or the constant attempts to gloss over Japan's
WW2 war crimes, or the frequent attempts by the current Japanese
govenment to rewrite the current peaceful constitutions. "The past
enemy that NO longer exists"? Yeah right. You think the Chinese people
are all morons?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

and the true present friendly china-supporter which has existed for several decades is made to look like it never happened.

Well, you have to be either ignorant or a liar to say something like this.
In the ingorant scenario -- if you don't read Chinese or English, you
probably wouldn't see the news articles written by the mouth
piece of the evil Chinese government to praise the friendly Japanese
people and politicans who make an effort to strengthen Japan and
China's relationship.

In the liar case, you know about these articles, but you choose to
ignore them. So tell me, are you ignorant, or a liar?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

a weak/poor china would not be in the best interests of mutual asian regional development. china must be stable and strong, along with all of asia, together. but an agressive dominating imperialistic china is also NOT in the best interests of mutual asian regional development. unless you want china to singlehandedly control asia??? so use your rational head. not your emotional imperialism.

Again, you are assuming that a powerful China is going to be an
aggressive dominating imperialistic China when there has been no
historical evidence to suggest so, and many many evidences to
suggest the opposite. I'm using my rational head and I look at the
history of China and use it to predict its future. Whereas you are using
your head and the history of Japan -- which was once an aggressive and
imperialistic country, to predict China's future. It's no wonder that
you've managed to come to the wrong conclusions.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

you must be speaking from the perspective of the extreme eastern regions, maybe if we ask people from the extreme western/south/western regions, they would have a different opinion...

What are you talking about?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

there are whites who dont think any white racism or western imperialism exists. ever wonder why? must be their privileged point of view to say such things never happened...

And do you ever wonder why these whites constantly scream the
"China threat" to the world?

[smorgasbord]

i'm just going to comment on one thing because i'm not too familiar with the current situation with china and japan, and how it fits into the larger context of US global dominance.

re: the claims about the Great Leap Forward in both articles -- there was a famine in 1961-62, but the "estimated 30 million Chinese who starved to death" is an exaggerated number and the attribution only to "Mao Zedong's attempt to speed up China's farm and factory output through mass collectivization" is just plain wrong.

i suggest people google for "Great Leap Forward not all bad" "Henry CK Liu" for an excellent article on the GLF and its causes. i can't post links yet.

[uhhden]

And in all this talk of Chinese and Japanese textbooks...how quickly people forget how much is omitted from American textbooks...

[A.R.A.M.]

Originally Posted by uhhden

And in all this talk of Chinese and Japanese textbooks...how quickly people forget how much is omitted from American textbooks...

Schools aren't really about education, so much as indoctrination and training future employees to be punctual, deferential to authority, and able to perform mindless repetive tasks. History textbooks everywhere are always ideological. An interesting look at American history books can be found in "Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James Loewen.

[uhhden]

Originally Posted by A.R.A.M.

Schools aren't really about education, so much as indoctrination and training future employees to be punctual, deferential to authority, and able to perform mindless repetive tasks. History textbooks everywhere are always ideological. An interesting look at American history books can be found in "Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" by James Loewen.

I've heard of that book before actually, but I just have never gotten around to looking for it. It's quite true though that schools nowadays are about nothing but mindless repetition and crushing of individualistic thought... Even as a university student when you're supposedly told to think for yourself and make your own decisions, it's all pretty much slapped in front of you and it's your decision only to make it easier on yourself or not to "know your place in society."

[yuuteya]

Originally Posted by didu

The phantom enemy of China that doesn't exist? Are you joking? Let
me give you a hint about who these enemies are: try do a google
search on which countries have called China a "threat".

wow increadible. you sound pretty paranoid. do you mean japan is the enemy and threat? lets see, if we compare *present day* japan (please lets keep our sense of time and chronology in order shall we) compare it to *present day* china.. so now which is actual the potential military threat to whom. lets see, one country has no pacifist clause, in fact it has no pacifist ideology to speak of, just a tendency to send in the Peoples Liberation Army when it gets frustrated, it has a huge inflated military buget, which means lots and lots of guns and funky tanks too, oh of course all the soldiers to fire those guns and tanks...and did we forget the nuclear weapons? ok lets not forget the nukes.... while, that other country, well it has no nukes, ingrained pacifism, and the average person faints at the sight of blood or even a butchered chicken. but hey, "phantom enemy", wasnt that a star wars episode?

Originally Posted by didu

Manipulation of textbooks to invent a neighbouring enemy? Well, please
excuse China for being paranoid about Japan who about 50 years ago
invaded China and killed millions Chinese civilians

oh, okay, so it is paranoia. so irrational overly emotional paranoia explains the vast leaps of temporal logic when the time understanding and chronology are juggled around, past and present mixed up, reveresed, and nationalistic propanganda do that magical trick, by making the long dead empire seem like it never died, and make the present living democracy seem like it never existed at all. if they can make 60 years of post war history disappear without a trace. they are the time lords.

Originally Posted by didu

and is yet to make
a formal apology and acknowledge what they did was wrong.

hmm sounds like you are a product of the chinese education system and their nationalistic whitewashed textbooks.

Originally Posted by didu

You know what they say: people who don't learn from the history are bound to make the same mistake in the future, and this saying applies to both China and Japan.

ok thats cool.

Originally Posted by didu

Oh, please don't lecture me about Japan's peaceful constitution and government, laws are written by people, therefore can be changed by people. Words are cheap.

militarism, colonies and nuclear weapons are quite expensive, but they make human life cheap. yes words are cheap. but you dont seem to have an understanding about present day/post war japan in 2005. i guess many people cant get past 1937 yet. must be those textbooks.

Originally Posted by didu

Yeah, and it's also a convienient tool for the hypocritical imperialists to
bash other country which have the potential of becoming a challenge.

which asian country has been supporting china for decades in order to become the economic "challege" you want. your welcome.

Originally Posted by didu

Sure, China has been supporting NK -- well, what's the alternative? The SKs are not gonna help, and would you rather see millions of NKs starve to death and total chaos break out on the Chinese border? Well, maybe you would, but the Chinese wouldn't.

first of all i wasnt talking about North Korea at all. read again. but since you brought it up, do you think china is the only one that has been giving aid to NK. Japan gave/gives much aid (ie. help) to both NK and China, do they ever mention that in Chinese Textbooks (which to remind you is the topic of this thread)?? based on your replies, i dont think so, seems like they still cant get past 1937.

Originally Posted by didu

Are you serious? Do you realise that China didn't demand any compensation from Japan for the astronomical damages that Japan did to China -- AS A FRIENDLY GESTURE TO THE JAPANESE PEOPLE.

an are you honestly joking?? Japan has been giving aid and assistance (figure the difference) to China -- AS A FRIENDLY GESTURE TO THE CHINESE PEOPLE in compensation for ww2 invasion and promotion of good bilateral relations. is this ever informed to the chinese people? is this ever mentioned in chinese textbooks (which to inform you is the topic of this thread)? seems like not.

Originally Posted by didu

Well, unless the evil Chinese government has accquired the secret power of mass mind controlling,

ahem, sorry but as we all know, china is a one-party authoritarian state with a well known oppressive government and a well known "peoples liberation" army (oxymoron term) that enforces that obvious power, not to mention the ideological power of nationalistic education system and whitewashed textbooks (which to inform you is the topic of this thread). that has existed for most of the 20th century and into the 21st century (and i wont mention the atrocities and disasterous social engineering practices because you already know about that right?) so you were saying...

Originally Posted by didu

or the frequent denial of WW2 atrocities by Japanese politicians, or the constant attempts to gloss over Japan's WW2 war crimes, or the frequent attempts by the current Japanese govenment to rewrite the current peaceful constitutions.

frequent and constant? sounds like alot. do you know much about what actually happens/has happened in japan btw.

Originally Posted by didu

"The past enemy that NO longer exists"? Yeah right. You think the Chinese people are all morons?

lets see... the past enemy still exists you say??... so that means, the japanese empire has never died, its alive and well all this time, all the radical militarists are in control of the country, and the imperial forces are threatening china's borders as we speak... hhhmm... sorry, but yes, that does sound pretty moronic to the point of paranoid delusion.

Originally Posted by didu

So tell me, are you ignorant, or a liar?

nope. but as we have seen you seem to be paranoid and delusional. or am i mistaken.

Originally Posted by didu

Again, you are assuming that a powerful China is going to be an aggressive dominating imperialistic China when there has been no historical evidence to suggest so, and many many evidences to suggest the opposite. I'm using my rational head and I look at the
history of China and use it to predict its future.

the history of China to predict its future? well lets see. china (lets leave out modern taiwan here) has never had any long uninterupted history of actual democracy. and we can forget about lofty concepts like "human rights" and "pacifism". instead china's history is about centuries of imperialism. im guessing they dont talk much about the history of the chinese empire in chinese education system do they? ir is it glossed over? how long was it? over several centuries? 2000 years, give or take a couple hundred? what about places like vietnam, tibet, xinjiang, chosen etc. that were/are part of the chinese empire. it was/is never a democratic federation. but the traditional chinese empire weakened and eventually attacked by modern empires, the communists eventually inherited the old chinese empire, and the rest is history...

Originally Posted by didu

What are you talking about?

i guess its not covered in chinese nationalist textbooks so you dont know about it (which to remind you is the topic of this thread)

[didu]

Originally Posted by yuuteya

wow increadible. you sound pretty paranoid. do you mean japan is the enemy and threat? lets see, if we compare *present day* japan (please lets keep our sense of time and chronology in order shall we) compare it to *present day* china.. so now which is actual the potential military threat to whom. lets see, one country has no pacifist clause, in fact it has no pacifist ideology to speak of, just a tendency to send in the Peoples Liberation Army when it gets frustrated, it has a huge inflated military buget, which means lots and lots of guns and funky tanks too, oh of course all the soldiers to fire those guns and tanks...and did we forget the nuclear weapons? ok lets not forget the nukes.... while, that other country, well it has no nukes, ingrained pacifism, and the average person faints at the sight of blood or even a butchered chicken. but hey, "phantom enemy", wasnt that a star wars episode?

You seem to have the habbit of totally ignoring Japan's problems and
have the illustion that Japan is the saint country that is being
threatened by an evil China. Well, let's look at the facts:

In the past, it was Japan that invaded China and killed millions of
Chinese civilians and caused astronomical amounts of damage to
China. China's never done anything like that to Japan.

At the present, it is the Japanese right-wing politicians who constantly
scream the China threat, and Japan's present anual defense budge is
almost US$50 billion, as compared with China's near US$30 billion.
Now one would ask: "why would a peaceful country" spend so much
money on its defense budget? But then if one remembers what the
right-wing politicians of that country have been doing for the past a few
years, everything becomes logical and clear.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

oh, okay, so it is paranoia. so irrational overly emotional paranoia explains the vast leaps of temporal logic when the time understanding and chronology are juggled around, past and present mixed up, reveresed, and nationalistic propanganda do that magical trick, by making the long dead empire seem like it never died, and make the present living democracy seem like it never existed at all. if they can make 60 years of post war history disappear without a trace. they are the time lords.

Well, I think hypocracy is probably the reaons why you've been glossing over
Japan's past war crimes and present attempts to revive the imperail
dreams. Oh, and every person who thinks China has a right to rise up
and take measures to stop its people from getting mass-murdered
again is totally irrational and acting out of shear paranoia -- how dare
they accuse the Japanese government who have repeatedly tried to
gloss over its WW2 atrocities for not having learnt its lessons? A
democracy in Japan? Does it make everything alright then? Is it ok to
have a right-wing facist government as long as it's elected by the
Japanese people? What the hell does it say about the Japanese people
then?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

hmm sounds like you are a product of the chinese education system and their nationalistic whitewashed textbooks.

Sounds like you are one of those hypocritical pseudo-liberal Japanese
"peace activists" who think everything Japanese is right and everything
Chinese is wrong.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

militarism, colonies and nuclear weapons are quite expensive, but they make human life cheap. yes words are cheap. but you dont seem to have an understanding about present day/post war japan in 2005. i guess many people cant get past 1937 yet. must be those textbooks.

It's common for the victims to be unable to get past the crimes
committed aginst them, but it's also common for the offenders to
keep trying to hide or gloss over their crimes. This situation is often made
worse for the victim when the offender shows a lack of remorse.
Nuclear weapons are expensive, but I'm sure with nearly US$50 billion,
Japan can make quite a few of them in a rather short amount of time,
hypothetically speaking of course.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

which asian country has been supporting china for decades in order to become the economic "challege" you want. your welcome.

Sure, China has, and if China had demanded the astronomical amounts
of WW2 compentation from Japan, China'd be doing much much better.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

first of all i wasnt talking about North Korea at all. read again. but since you brought it up, do you think china is the only one that has been giving aid to NK. Japan gave/gives much aid (ie. help) to both NK and China, do they ever mention that in Chinese Textbooks (which to remind you is the topic of this thread)?? based on your replies, i dont think so, seems like they still cant get past 1937.

Well, I know you like to make your comments vague so you can change
the interpretation in whatever way that suits you, and I know I'm not
a mind reader, so why don't you give us a straight answer in the first
place? What, you are afraid your own statements might be used against
you?

Sure, Japan gives aid to NK ... considering Japan colonized Korea for
quite a few decades and was the root cause of the Korean war. But it's
funny how you or most Japanese politicians and media rarely speak of
this, instead, all I see in the western medias is how Japan is
screaming the NK threat and preparing itself with missiles in case NK
attacked.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

an are you honestly joking?? Japan has been giving aid and assistance (figure the difference) to China -- AS A FRIENDLY GESTURE TO THE CHINESE PEOPLE in compensation for ww2 invasion and promotion of good bilateral relations. is this ever informed to the chinese people? is this ever mentioned in chinese textbooks (which to inform you is the topic of this thread)? seems like not.

Yeah, it's mentioned very frequently actually, but also most of these
aids come in the form of interest free loans --- meaning they will have
to be payed back. Oh, and if you do the accounting, the aids that
China has received from Japan for the past a few decades is NOTHING
compared with what China was entitiled to demand from Japan as
compensation for WW2. It's funny how you seem to think that China
should be grateful to Japan for the fractions of the compensation it's
receiving for its astronimical lose in WW2.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

ahem, sorry but as we all know, china is a one-party authoritarian state with a well known oppressive government and a well known "peoples liberation" army (oxymoron term) that enforces that obvious power, not to mention the ideological power of nationalistic education system and whitewashed textbooks (which to inform you is the topic of this thread). that has existed for most of the 20th century and into the 21st century (and i wont mention the atrocities and disasterous social engineering practices because you already know about that right?) so you were saying...

*Cough*, sorry but as we know, Japan has only been a "democracy"
for the past 60 years AFTER the U.S took over Japan. Oh, did you know
that a Single (right-wing) party has been in the Japanese
government for at least 50 years ... I guess the Japanese people
cannot really tell the differences between the government and the
Emperor ... well, who can blame them after at least 1000 years of
feudal society with no trace of democracy.

As far as I know, the Chinese education system tells its people all sorts
of bad things about China --corrupted governments, hundreds of years
of civil wars between the warlords, bad communist decisions, the
disasters of the culture revolution and great leap forward, oh, and the
Japanese atrocities in WW2. Which one of these things is nationalistic?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

frequent and constant? sounds like alot. do you know much about what actually happens/has happened in japan btw.

What's happening in Japan right now ... gee, let me guess, they are
trying to rebuild the Japanese army and revive the old dream of the
grand Japanese empire? Did I miss anything?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

lets see... the past enemy still exists you say??... so that means, the japanese empire has never died, its alive and well all this time, all the radical militarists are in control of the country, and the imperial forces are threatening china's borders as we speak...

Bingo!! You got it!! I'm glad you can speak sense occasionaly, so what
do you say, shall we start a petition to get your Japanese naval ships to
stay away from China's diaoyutai island, and stop your right-wing
Japanese government from trying to remake Taiwan a Japanese colony?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

nope. but as we have seen you seem to be paranoid and delusional. or am i mistaken.

We have seen you being hyporcitical and a liar, say it ain't so.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

the history of China to predict its future? well lets see. china (lets leave out modern taiwan here) has never had any long uninterupted history of actual democracy. and we can forget about lofty concepts like "human rights" and "pacifism". instead china's history is about centuries of imperialism. im guessing they dont talk much about the history of the chinese empire in chinese education system do they?

Wow, let's have a look at Japan's glories history which has been a
beacon of democracy in the dark ages of feudalistic east Asia!!! Wait,
Japan only has had a democractic system for 60 years, and the same
government for at least 50 of the 60 years, and before this Japan
was ruled by a god emperor and many warlords for at least 1000 years
and they waged several wars against two of its neighbouring countries
and killed millions of innocent civilians. Um... when was the last time the
Chinese did something like this ... oh, there is Tibet ... but wait, wasn't
Tibet part of China and the Dalai(a Mongolian word) Lama was given his
title by an emperor of China ? Oh, there is Taiwan ... but wait, isn't the
official name of Taiwan "The Republic of China"?

Originally Posted by yuuteya

ir is it glossed over? how long was it? over several centuries? 2000 years, give or take a couple hundred? what about places like vietnam, tibet, xinjiang, chosen etc. that were/are part of the chinese empire. it was/is never a democratic federation. but the traditional chinese empire weakened and eventually attacked by modern empires, the communists eventually inherited the old chinese empire, and the rest is history...

Vietnam was part of China? Gee, I wonder why I was not taught about
this, could that be because China recognizes Vietnam as a separate
country and wants to have a clear border with Vietnam? Oh, did you
ever hear the Chinese government say they want to incorporate
Vietnam as part of China? -- I haven't.

Originally Posted by yuuteya

i guess its not covered in chinese nationalist textbooks so you dont know about it (which to remind you is the topic of this thread)

Are you some sort of experts on the Chinese education systems? Have
you read any of the Chinese nationalist textbooks? You seem to be
making a hell out of assumptions -- then turn around to accuse other
people for assuming things .. hmmm... I see a trend here.