Posted on 01/30/2013 11:35:44 PM PST by Olog-hai
Faced with a group of farmers refusing to give up their land for a housing project, the Communist Party officials negotiating the deal devised a solution: They went to a bank, opened accounts in the names of the holdouts and deposited what they decided was fair compensation. Then they took the land.
The farmers, angry at the sum and now forced to compete for jobs in a stuttering economy, blocked the main road connecting the capital to the north of the country for one day in December. In a macabre gesture, some clambered into coffins. Police who came to break up the demonstration were pelted with rocks. Several people were arrested. …
Forced confiscations of land like this one are a major and growing source of public anger against Vietnam’s authoritarian one-party government. They often go hand-in-hand with corruption; local Communist Party elites have a monopoly on land deals, and many are alleged to have used it to make themselves rich. …
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The sad thing for me is, I can’t just automatically agree with you now, I actually have to stop and consider what you just said.
THAT is a sad state of affairs. There was a time when you could reliably be branded as a lunatic and idiot for even comparing Chinese and American business environments, and rightfully so.
With the way business is treated in this country right now...one has to consider the comparisons.
Faced with a group of farmers refusing to give up their land for a housing project, the Communist Party officials negotiating the deal devised a solution: They went to a bank, opened accounts in the names of the holdouts and deposited what they decided was fair compensation. Then they took the land.Trying to bomb them back into the stone age was like carrying coals to Newcastle.
Ever heard of Eminent Domain, here in the USA? Same communism.
You have to remember ALL the Chinese politicians came from an authoritarian background back then ~ they had no idea you could govern a country with something other than brutality and terror.
Today even their worst thugs are still better than the nicest democracy advocates back then.
Yes, many S. Vietnamese fought valiantly for their freedom, while Nancy Pelosi’s ilk fought with the communists.
Jon f’n Cary said nothing bad happened in VN after we left.
My dad flew the Hump in the CBI and had plenty of KMT corruption stories.
The KMT was allied with the Bolshies up to 1927, when Chiang turned on them. The KMT was obviously and logically heavily influenced by the fascist movements that were in the air throughout the world at the time.
Otherwise, I pretty much agree with you.
If you read much Chinese history, one of the things that jump out at you is that the decline and fall of the Qing and their eventual replacement first by the KMT and then by the commies was actually a relatively mild "change of dynasty" by Chinese standards.
Probably cost the lives of at least 100M Chinese all told, but that was a slight death toll by historical standards. Most Changes of the Mandate resulted in 1/3 to 2/3 of the Chinese population dying.
The 20th century death toll didn't come close to that.
I am aware that some of those reporting to American agencies were knowing or unknowing accessories of the commies.
Others were not.
The problem here is that when the commie agents said the KMT just was incapable of winning, they were serving their masters. That does not mean what they said may not also have been objectively true.
I agree that the Chetniks were treated shamefully. But the problem is that bad things happen in war. The Allies were understandably focused on the defeat of the country they were actually at war with, not on heading off expansion of power by a present ally.
Given the reality of the forces involved (the Red Army killed 90% of the German soldiers who died in the war) American and British diplomatic agreements with the Reds were more or less irrelevant. Facts on the ground meant that the Red Army would take over most or all of Eastern Europe no matter what America did. Unless we were willing to march across Germany and go straight into battle against the Soviets. This might have been wise from a long-term political POV, but neither the American nor British people would have agreed to it.
The Germans had also just had a detailed demonstration of how difficult it was to conquer Russia. There is no guarantee we would have done any better.
http://www.penang-traveltips.com/pics/sun-yat-sen-memorial-centre-1.jpg Trivia picture. Most folks don’t know this place exists.
The point I was making isn’t really about the Soviet Union or the territories they conquered, it was about the fact that many people today still see history a certain way, because that is the way that liberals wanted it to be seen and they controlled (and still control) the language and the history books.
That was the point the other poster was addressing.
As for the Chinese Communists, there are many reliable accounts that they were simply collaborating with the Japanese because they were only interested in occupying the areas vacated by the KMT.
As there are many reliable accounts of the KMT, or factions within it, doing the same.
By our standards there weren't really any good guys running around East Asia at the time, just bad guys and worse guys.
I read somewhere that between 20% and 40% of Chinese draftees under the KMT died of starvation in boot camp.
Their officers embezzled the funds allocated to feed them. That is one of the unfortunate side effects of the Confucian "family first" ideology. If you ain't family, your life is worth nothing.
Well, that any member of the KMT or any other person with any stature living in China since 1930 is corrupt or capable of great corruption isn’t in question...we can agree on that pretty readily.
20 or 30 million people dying of either starvation, being worked to death or simply executed outright by the Great Leap Forward Communists makes the KMT look like pikers.
I gather you feel that the Communists are either probably the lesser of two evils or that neither side was worth choosing. I wasn’t there, so...I can’t argue with you on that.
I will say that if I had to make a choice of making a go of it by backing the nationalists and taking a chance they could defeat the communists with minimal direct involvement and lots of material involvement, as General Wedermeyer had proposed, I would have gone that way.
It was the end of WWII, and we were dumping fighter aircraft in the ocean, flying planes back to the states to be cut up, munitions, supplies and so on were simply being left to rot. We could have just GIVEN that material to the nationalists instead of wasting it in massive amounts as we did.
But instead of doing that and at least trying, on the advice of people like John Stuart Service and Solomon Adler, people who said we should just cut off the nationalists at the legs, giving them absolutely NOTHING, not even aid, including the supposedly staunchly anti-communist Truman and Marshall (whose actions remain baffling to me in that time frame) just gave the country to the Red Chinese. Gave it to them, and stabbed an ostensible ally in the back. Chaing Kai-Shek wasn’t a jewel, and perhaps he would have coldly done away with 30 million of his own people as well, but I would have rather had that.
I will just have to agree to disagree with you.
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