http://www.salon.com/2013/02/10/to_get_the_gold_they_will_have_to_kill_every_one_of_us/
(This entry is adapted from my novel, The Seven Bowls. In the novel, a fictional character writes an editorial much like the one below, setting up the central conflicts in the story. I have adapted the "editorial" to reflect my experience.)
I have long been taking note of issues relating to China, particularly the myriad reports of tainted, shoddy, misrepresented products, construction nightmares, prison labor, oppressed workers, and more recently the financial hegemony they are establishing throughout Africa and South America (reference the link above). Taiwan was very much like China in this regard, but it realized early that business would have to be done quite differently if was to achieve a lasting and significant participation in the world economy. Though an economic giant in its way, China has yet to come to terms with this reality. Its future depends upon it. But then, there is a past to be reckoned with in both Chinas.
No warheads will be lobbed over the Taiwan Straits in either direction, there will be no violent reunification of the "two Chinas", and there is in fact—has been, since Deng Xiaoping—only one China: Gold China ( I would use "Green China," but China is anything but green). And while their historically unprecedented prosperity redounds to the benefit of many, critical historical reckonings are being neglected, and are in danger of being forgotten.
In Taiwan, I once consumed “Free China”propaganda like the rice I ate as a staple with every meal. Jiang, the bloodied, unbowed old paladin in exile, forced from the Mainland by the communist cancer, had plotted his return like a messiah, a MacArthur, a King Arthur, unsupported by a weak-willed United States that had lost its appetite for the conflict. We were daily assured in the media that the son, Chiang Jing Guo's eyes, as the old man's had been, were still set like flint towards Beijing.
But here were millions of Taiwanese who never bought into his dream of retaking the Mainland. They weren't communists, but Taiwanese Chinese with bitter memories of a brutal, officially unacknowledged past. Between 1947 and 1949, tens of thousands of them were murdered by Jiang's Guomindang during the “White Terror.” It continued into the 1980s though less virulent and less visible. On the Mainland, similar crimes on the left were committed, greater by orders of magnitude, and not just during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. There were crimes long before, and crimes continue, though they are now more identifiably crimes of naked greed.
I once spent countless hours walking the streets of Taipei, full days at times, getting lost in the maze of hutungs, always captivatedby the myriad ways Chinese people adapt to life. One afternoon I toured the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. The place was full of "freedom" medals and awards given to Jiang Kai Shek, and photographs with group pictures of Guomindang officials shaking hands with a who's who of right-wing dictators: Ferdinand Marcos, Francisco Franco, Anastasio Samoza, Park Chung-hee, Ngo Dinh Diem, Suharto, Pinochet, Salazar . . . the list went on, a right-wing rogues gallery. U.S. military officers, senators and congressmen were also well represented, along with framed citations from right-wing foreign governments and organizations.
These organizations grew out of the post-Chinese Civil War and Korean War experience. The Asian People's Anti Communist League (APACL) came first, founded in 1954 by Japanese gangsters and war criminals, the Reverend Sun Yung Moon, Park Chung Hee and other Korean politicians and, most significantly, Jiang's party, the Guomindang in Taiwan. This organization had major support in the U.S., principally the Free China Lobby, led in the media by Henry Luce and William Randolph Hearst, and in the U.S. Senate by Senators William F. Knowland and Joseph McCarthy, with many others in politics, banking, and industry. Among other activities, the Free China Lobby led the charge for Jiang's government here against a Truman administration that was prepared to dump “Free China" and recognize the People's Republic in 1949. The APACL evolved into the World Anti Communist League (WACL) in 1966, created in Taiwan with the sponsorship of Jiang Kai Shek. It was quickly joined by rightest and violent fascist groups all over the world, with particular enthusiasm in Latin America.
My epiphany came when an old, avowedly anti- communist missionary acquaintance returned from Hong Kong (when China was still "red") loaded down with cheap goods he'd hoarded at a Mainland run department store. He enthusiastically displayed item after item, announcing every bargain price, apparently unaware or unconcerned about their origin or the working conditions of those who had produced them. There it was: China, Taiwan, the missionaries, too . . . a new China, Gold China. The ideological struggles, the wars, the suffering and countless lives lost had come down to cheap goods and labor.
But at least the recalcitrant “China problem” was disappearing, as true believers in either freedom or Communism disappeared on both sides of the Straits, the primacy of profits blurring the old ideologies.
There is a dark history to be accounted for on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. In some ways Taiwan is decades ahead of the Mainland in this reckoning, in some ways many years behind it. Nevertheless, the danger exists that this financially, if not politically, reunited Gold China will walk away from history, move on, opaque to scrutiny and resistant to justice. There have long been courageous voices in both Chinas working for justice and the rule of law. Many have lost their lives or forfeited years of their lives in various gulags. It is in the best interest of all but the guilty that these voices be heard and that all the books be opened. Unfortunately, many of the guilty, and their descendants, still hold significant power in both Taiwan and on the Mainland.
I believe the books will one day be opened, with one caveat: During the Truman administration the FBI investigated the Soong and Kung clans. They had illegally (or “perhaps unethically,” as one author has recently soft-balled it) amassed stupefying wealth under the Nationalist regime in China, especially as it collapsed, and transferred that wealth to the U.S., where they used it to profoundly affect America's China policies. This was one buck that didn't stop with Harry. The Free China lobby and powerful American banking interests were deeply implicated. He chose to walk away from the evidence of graft, theft, violence, and influence that was placed before him. It was messy and complicated; too many dominoes were lined up to fall.
Individual Chinese people are as gracious and kind as any people on earth, but on the macro level, the political level, as in so many other nations, our own included, something else entirely takes over, inextricably connected to greed and power.
“Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown,” has always been the temptation of those who contemplate looking into these matters. China must look at itself, however, and decide just what kind of world citizen it aims to be. Reckoning fully with the past would be a good place to start.
(This entry is adapted from my novel, The Seven Bowls. In the novel, a fictional character writes an editorial much like the one below, setting up the central conflicts in the story. I have adapted the "editorial" to reflect my experience.)
I have long been taking note of issues relating to China, particularly the myriad reports of tainted, shoddy, misrepresented products, construction nightmares, prison labor, oppressed workers, and more recently the financial hegemony they are establishing throughout Africa and South America (reference the link above). Taiwan was very much like China in this regard, but it realized early that business would have to be done quite differently if was to achieve a lasting and significant participation in the world economy. Though an economic giant in its way, China has yet to come to terms with this reality. Its future depends upon it. But then, there is a past to be reckoned with in both Chinas.
No warheads will be lobbed over the Taiwan Straits in either direction, there will be no violent reunification of the "two Chinas", and there is in fact—has been, since Deng Xiaoping—only one China: Gold China ( I would use "Green China," but China is anything but green). And while their historically unprecedented prosperity redounds to the benefit of many, critical historical reckonings are being neglected, and are in danger of being forgotten.
In Taiwan, I once consumed “Free China”propaganda like the rice I ate as a staple with every meal. Jiang, the bloodied, unbowed old paladin in exile, forced from the Mainland by the communist cancer, had plotted his return like a messiah, a MacArthur, a King Arthur, unsupported by a weak-willed United States that had lost its appetite for the conflict. We were daily assured in the media that the son, Chiang Jing Guo's eyes, as the old man's had been, were still set like flint towards Beijing.
But here were millions of Taiwanese who never bought into his dream of retaking the Mainland. They weren't communists, but Taiwanese Chinese with bitter memories of a brutal, officially unacknowledged past. Between 1947 and 1949, tens of thousands of them were murdered by Jiang's Guomindang during the “White Terror.” It continued into the 1980s though less virulent and less visible. On the Mainland, similar crimes on the left were committed, greater by orders of magnitude, and not just during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. There were crimes long before, and crimes continue, though they are now more identifiably crimes of naked greed.
I once spent countless hours walking the streets of Taipei, full days at times, getting lost in the maze of hutungs, always captivatedby the myriad ways Chinese people adapt to life. One afternoon I toured the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. The place was full of "freedom" medals and awards given to Jiang Kai Shek, and photographs with group pictures of Guomindang officials shaking hands with a who's who of right-wing dictators: Ferdinand Marcos, Francisco Franco, Anastasio Samoza, Park Chung-hee, Ngo Dinh Diem, Suharto, Pinochet, Salazar . . . the list went on, a right-wing rogues gallery. U.S. military officers, senators and congressmen were also well represented, along with framed citations from right-wing foreign governments and organizations.
These organizations grew out of the post-Chinese Civil War and Korean War experience. The Asian People's Anti Communist League (APACL) came first, founded in 1954 by Japanese gangsters and war criminals, the Reverend Sun Yung Moon, Park Chung Hee and other Korean politicians and, most significantly, Jiang's party, the Guomindang in Taiwan. This organization had major support in the U.S., principally the Free China Lobby, led in the media by Henry Luce and William Randolph Hearst, and in the U.S. Senate by Senators William F. Knowland and Joseph McCarthy, with many others in politics, banking, and industry. Among other activities, the Free China Lobby led the charge for Jiang's government here against a Truman administration that was prepared to dump “Free China" and recognize the People's Republic in 1949. The APACL evolved into the World Anti Communist League (WACL) in 1966, created in Taiwan with the sponsorship of Jiang Kai Shek. It was quickly joined by rightest and violent fascist groups all over the world, with particular enthusiasm in Latin America.
My epiphany came when an old, avowedly anti- communist missionary acquaintance returned from Hong Kong (when China was still "red") loaded down with cheap goods he'd hoarded at a Mainland run department store. He enthusiastically displayed item after item, announcing every bargain price, apparently unaware or unconcerned about their origin or the working conditions of those who had produced them. There it was: China, Taiwan, the missionaries, too . . . a new China, Gold China. The ideological struggles, the wars, the suffering and countless lives lost had come down to cheap goods and labor.
But at least the recalcitrant “China problem” was disappearing, as true believers in either freedom or Communism disappeared on both sides of the Straits, the primacy of profits blurring the old ideologies.
There is a dark history to be accounted for on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. In some ways Taiwan is decades ahead of the Mainland in this reckoning, in some ways many years behind it. Nevertheless, the danger exists that this financially, if not politically, reunited Gold China will walk away from history, move on, opaque to scrutiny and resistant to justice. There have long been courageous voices in both Chinas working for justice and the rule of law. Many have lost their lives or forfeited years of their lives in various gulags. It is in the best interest of all but the guilty that these voices be heard and that all the books be opened. Unfortunately, many of the guilty, and their descendants, still hold significant power in both Taiwan and on the Mainland.
I believe the books will one day be opened, with one caveat: During the Truman administration the FBI investigated the Soong and Kung clans. They had illegally (or “perhaps unethically,” as one author has recently soft-balled it) amassed stupefying wealth under the Nationalist regime in China, especially as it collapsed, and transferred that wealth to the U.S., where they used it to profoundly affect America's China policies. This was one buck that didn't stop with Harry. The Free China lobby and powerful American banking interests were deeply implicated. He chose to walk away from the evidence of graft, theft, violence, and influence that was placed before him. It was messy and complicated; too many dominoes were lined up to fall.
Individual Chinese people are as gracious and kind as any people on earth, but on the macro level, the political level, as in so many other nations, our own included, something else entirely takes over, inextricably connected to greed and power.
“Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown,” has always been the temptation of those who contemplate looking into these matters. China must look at itself, however, and decide just what kind of world citizen it aims to be. Reckoning fully with the past would be a good place to start.
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