View Full Version : Secrets of Red China
xlwoo
08-27-2015, 09:43 AM
Chapter 1 How CPC (Communist Party of China) treats Tibet
I. Previous relationship between Tibet and China
The relationship between Tibet and China began the earliest in Tang Dynasty (618—907 AD). In the year of 640 AD, when the famous emperor Tang Taizong (01/28/598—07/10/649) was on the throne (626—649), Srongtsen Gampo, the sovereign of Tibet at the time, dispatched his premier to the capital of Tang Dynasty, bringing 5,000 taels of gold and many kinds of other treasures as gift and asked for the hand of a princess. The Tang emperor was pleased and granted the request of marriage. A legend had it that chieftains of other minorities close to the territory of Tang Dynasty also desired to marry the princess. The emperor wanted to test the wisdom of all the emissaries to decide whom he should choose as his foreign son-in-law, and so gave them a riddle to see who could solve it. He gave them a thin silk thread and a piece of jade with a zigzag hole in the middle, not straight through. Whoever could get the thread through the hole, his sovereign could marry the princess. No one could do it except the premier from Tibet. He got an ant and tied the thread on the ant. He blew his breath at the ant and it went through the winding hole carrying the thread through. Therefore, Princess Wencheng (625—680) was sent to Tibet and married the Tibetan sovereign. The princess brought with her the Chinese culture, the silkworm, seeds of grains, herb medicine and medical equipments, etc. The Tibetan sovereign built the Potala Palace in Lhasa for her, in imitation of the style of Tang palace. In the year of 740 AD, another princess of Tang Dynasty married the great grandson of Srongtsen Gampo. At that time, Tibet was an independent nation and did not belong to China. It was at most deemed a subordinative state to Tang Dynasty, but only in name, as they had marital relationship. Certainly not part of China.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty (1636—1912), Qing army had once conquered Tibet. However, Tibetans were still free to keep their culture and religion. But with the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Tibet declared its independence in 1913, which was recognized internationally at the time. So Tibet should be deemed an independent state. When the national government was established, Chiang Kai-shek had sent twice the envoy, but he did not take any military means to put Tibet under his rule.
II. CPC (Communist Party of China) wants to change Tibet to their liking
On the 6th of October, 1950, the communist army defeated the Tibetan army, which had to surrender. So under the order of communist government, Tibet had to send a delegation to Beijing. On the 23rd of May, 1951, the communist government forced Tibet to sign the “Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet.” (The Communist Party of China always uses ridiculous words to cover up the facts. Their so-called “Liberation” is the equivalent to vanquishing and rule by force. How can it be peaceful? Mao's famous quotation is “Political power comes out of gun.”) In the agreement, the Communist Party of China promised autonomy in Tibet, and freedom of religion, but when the communist army entered Tibet, they went back on their promise and never gave Tibet autonomy, and interfered with their belief, just like they had promised Chinese people a united government, democracy and freedom of speech, which are still written in their constitution, but when they seized power, they broke the promise and exercised one-party tyranny. That is the basic problem why the Tibetan people are opposing the communist party, for their breaking their promise. Their promise is not worth even a farthing. The believer in their promise is always found to be disappointed. In 1959 when Mao was pushing his reform all over the country, he wanted to have reform of some kind in Tibet, too. The communist party never wants to know what people really think and really need. They just force their ideas on people. If people refuse to take their ideas, they just exercise oppression or even slaughter. That was why from the 10th day to the 20th day of March, 1959, 100,000 Tibetans followed Dalai Lama over Mt. Himalaya and escaped to the north of India. Then the communist party began to persecute the Tibetans.
Why did Dalai Lama want to escape from Tibet to India? The event of Lhasa happened like this. In the morning of the 10th of March, 1959, people of Lhasa thronged outside Norbulingka summer palace, where Dalai Lama lived. Their purpose was to prevent Dalai Lama from going to the camp auditorium of the communist army to watch some performance. Why did they want to do this? The situation at that time in Tibet told the reason. The Tibetans were really angry with the communist army who came to occupy their land and didn't give them autonomy. CPC set up their puppet government called the “Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region” to rule over Tibet. So Tibetans vented their dissatisfaction by preventing their leader from going to mix with the communist army. People who surrounded Norbulingka shouted, “Chinese, get out of Tibet.” Though Dalai Lama declared that he wouldn't go in hopes that people would disperse. But they still gathered there without intention to leave whatsoever.
When the army leaders reported to the Central Party committee, CPC concluded that the reactionaries in Tibet wanted to kidnap Dalai Lama. Therefore, on the night of the 11th of March, CPC instructed the army leaders in Tibet to prepare for the military action. On the 12th of March, Mao instructed his army leaders “to induce the enemy to attack.” Why? Because the army could “counterattack” on the pretense that the enemy attacked first. It meant that CPC and Mao had already made the decision for killing, not having a peace talk with Tibetans to iron the differences. This is the rule of CPC to deal with people under their control, just like in the event of TianAnMen Square on the 4th of June, 1989, Deng Xiaoping had already decided for the killing of the students. No matter how Zhao Ziyang made efforts to have talks with students.
Actually in 1950, Dalai Lama decided to cooperate with the communist government, regardless of the advice of his brother in India then to leave Tibet as soon as possible. However, after his cooperation with CPC for five years, he was so disappointed in CPC as Tibetans grew angrier and angrier at the communist government since the government forced land reform in the region Tibetans lived. The resistance of the Tibetan people was already on the swing. So Dalai Lama was now between the devil and the deep sea. He didn't want to support his people for armed riot, not could he send his troops to kill his own people. So his last decision was to escape to India. At first he had still hesitated, but the explosion of two Mortar shells from the communist army very close to his residence expedited his escape. The event ended with the communist army killing the Tibetans in protestation.
How to maintain a peaceful relationship with minorities, there was much experience and examples in the history of China. Even the feudal rulers, that is, emperors, knew that if they wanted a peaceful relationship with minorities, they must win their hearts, not just conquer them physically. If they conquered them by force, they would not obey peacefully. The leaders of the communist party, especially Mao, who had read a lot of history books, should know the principle. But in reality, those leaders, including Mao himself, are the believers of force and violence. Whenever anything happens, they like to use strong angry words for threatening. They never know lenience. That's why people all over the world often criticize them just in hopes that they can change their attitudes to listen reasonably
to others and act to the common standards of the world.
xlwoo
08-28-2015, 08:56 AM
Chapter 2 How Korean War happened
I. North Korea invaded South Korea
About Korea and China, a legend went back to the end of the Shang Dynasty (1765—1122 BC). The last king of that dynasty was a tyrant and often killed innocent people, even his courtiers. When he was overthrown by the Zhou Dynasty he burned himself to death. His brother Jizi escaped to Korea with his followers, bringing Chinese culture, etiquette and government systems there. The natives supported him to be the first king of Korea. It was called Jizi Korea, which lasted from 1122 BC to 194 BC.
The Korean War, or Korean Conflict, began on the 25th day of June in 1950 when the North Korean army marched across the line of demarcation, the 38th parallel, and suddenly attacked the 17th Regiment of the South Korean army without any warning. The war ended on the 27th day of July in 1953 when the cease-fire agreement was signed.
Soviet Union instigated North Korea to wage the war, helped by China. Before the war, the leader of North Korea asked China to send over three divisions composed entirely of Koreans, which belonged to the 4th field army under Lin Biao. The three divisions doubled the military forces of North Korea. Then North Korea concentrated great numbers of tanks and troops to press South Korean army southward. Meanwhile North Korean troops made an amphibious landing at Kangnung on the east coast right on the south side of the 38th parallel. Then North Korean fighter aircrafts attacked Seoul and Kimpo Airfield, destroying a US Air Force C-54 on the ground on Kimpo Airfield. Therefore, John Muccio, the US Ambassador to South Korea, conveyed to US president Truman the request of South Korean government for air assistance and ammunition.
The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting, at which the representative of the Soviet Union was absent. The United Nations Security Council called in unison for immediate cease-fire and withdrawal of the North Korean army to the north of the 38th parallel and authorized the United Nations members to aid South Korea and requested that the US government establish a United Nations Command under an American officer. General MacArthur was appointed as the commander of the United Nations army, who ordered the US Air force to attack the North Korean units in the south of the 38th parallel.
The US government began the air evacuation of its citizens in South Korea. The next day, the North Korean army occupied Chunchon, Pochon, and Tongduchon in South Korea. So the US 7th fleet sailed north from the Philippines. The US Air Force started to attack the North Korean army, but failed to prevent it from advancing. Soon North Korean army captured Seoul, the capital of South Korea, overran the port of Inchon, seized the airfield at Kimpo, and threatened the city of Suwon. Then President Truman ordered some units of US navy to approach the Korean peninsula for the purpose of blockading the advance of the North Korea army.
At the end of July, as the North Korean troops kept advancing, the United Nations forces had to retreat to a new defensive line along the Naktong River. Then the troops of the United States launched its first ground offensive of the Korean war, marching from Masan westward toward Chinju to stabilize the southwestern end of the Pusan line. A few days later, US troops, with the aid of air strikes, drove the North Korean army at the Yongsan bridgehead back across the Naktong River.
September was the turning point of the Korean war. At the beginning, the North Korean army almost reached the brink of total victory, but at the end of the month, was in full withdrawal to the north side of the 38th parallel. The week-long offensive of the North Korean army did not succeed in driving the forces of United Nations and South Korea into the sea. By mid-September when the Eighth Army was ready to attack, the United Nations forces found that they were facing the North Korean army in lack of ammunition and other necessary supplies. Simultaneously, General MacArthur launched an amphibious attack at Inchon. The attackers drove a wedge between the North Korean army in the south and its chief supply routes in the north, intending to press the North Korean army against the Eighth Army marching from the southeast. So the North Korean army had to beat a quick retreat northward.
Close to the end of this month, US troops from Inchon and Pusan joined each other near Osan. United Nations army made 125,000 North Korean soldiers the prisoners of war. The South Korean government was now back to Seoul. And the forces of the United Nations and the South Korea reached the 38th parallel.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff commanded General MacArthur to wipe out the North Korean army once for all so that there would be no further conflict, which meant that they must march across the 38th parallel into North Korea. Only the South Korean army was allowed to do that. So for the first time the South Korean troops marched into North Korea. Toward the end of October, the South Korean army reached the Yalu River on the Korean side, but without the intension to cross the river into China.
II. CPC sent Chinese People's Volunteers into Korea
As the South Korean army did not enter the territory of China, according to the reason and the international rules, the Chinese communist party should not send its army into Korea. Anyway, the so-called Chinese People's Volunteers crossed the river into Korea, territory of another country. Could this also be called invasion? At first Marshal Lin Biao (There were 10 marshals in China.) was appointed the commander of the Chinese People's Volunteers, but he refused to take the assignment. Then Marshal Peng Dehuai took the position of the commander. The eldest son of Mao Zedong joined the Volunteers, though not as a fighter. No one knew the reason why Mao did so, or why Mao let his son join in it. Anyway, when the son died accidentally, it was said that Mao blamed Marshal Peng for it, for his not making enough arrangement to protect his son.
The Chinese forces seriously savaged a battalion of the South Korean army near Onjong. In this battle the first Chinese prisoners of war were captured. Then Chinese soldiers attacked the 6th Infantry Division of the South Korean army. Although US air forces bombarded the bridges on the Yalu River, the Chinese soldiers used the pontoon bridges and even crossed the river by walking on the thick ice on some part of the river. Toward the end of November, the Chinese army in double number attacked fiercely the army of the United Nations and stopped their further advance. Then the Eighth Army in the Northwest Korea and the X Corps in the northeast Korea withdrew southward and at last were back to the 38th parallel. The withdrawal of the X Corps was by sea. The thick snow provided a good cover for the targets in North Korea.
Some US troops were surrounded by the outnumbered Chinese army in the Changjin Reservoir area. The US troops in the Changjin Reservoir area fought their way to Hagaru-ri, and at the same time a relief column from Hungnam marched toward the troops, reaching Koto-ri almost seven miles away. The Chinese army in great numbers prevented the two groups from uniting and surrounded both respectively. The US troops got air supplies only. The US units tried to break out from Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri, and finally they linked. Then eight C-119s dropped bridge spans to the encircled US units so that they could cross a 1500-foot-deep gorge to break the encirclement of the Chinese army.
Toward the end of December, 1950, the Chinese forces crossed the 38th parallel and assaulted the United Nations troops. The Eighth Army built their defensive line 70 miles from the 38th parallel. Just at the beginning of the new year, 1951, almost half a million Chinese and North Korean army took a new ground offensive, and so the Fifth Air force raided their troop column. As great numbers of Chinese troops advanced, the Eighth Army began to evacuate from Seoul, the capital of South Korea. The South Korean government moved to Pusan. Seoul changed hands again as the Chinese troops rushed in. In the mid-January, the Chinese army took Wonju, reaching their farthest extent of advance into South Korea.
To disrupt a new offensive of the Chinese army, the US X Corps marched forth, aided by air force, to near Hoengsong. On the east coast the troops of South Korea crossed the 38th parallel and entered Yangyang. In mid-February, three Chinese divisions surrounded the United Nations troops, including members of the US 23rd Regimental Combat Team and the French Battalion at a road junction of Chipyong-ni in the central Korea. But a few days later, the Eighth Army wiped out a large number of Chinese troops and moved the United Nations line northward to the Han River. Therefore, no presence of the Chinese army was on the south side of the river. The Chinese communist party always used the same trick to wipe out the army of their opponents, but this time their own army was wiped out.
In mid-March, the Chinese forces abandoned Seoul without resistance when the US troops seized the high ground on either side of the city north of the Han River. Then US air transports, flying from Taegu to Munsan-ni, a region behind Chinese lines some 20 miles northwest of Seoul, dropped the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team and two Ranger companies—more than 3,400 men. The Fifth Air Force fighters and light bombers conquered the opposition of the Chinese army, and so the United Nations forces marched rapidly to the Imjin River, capturing 127 Chinese prisoners of war. The Eighth Army moved northward across the 38th parallel.
With the coming of spring, the Chinese launched an all-out offensive with over 330,000 troops, using their “human wave” tactics. By the end of this month, they advanced to the vicinity of Seoul again. But under the United Nations assaults on the ground and in the air, both men and supplies on the Chinese side reached their limits. So the Eighth Army successfully stopped their further progress.
In spite of the resistance of the Chinese and North Korean army, the United Nations forces broke into the Pyonggang-Chorwon-Kumhwa “Iron Triangle” fortified sanctuaries just north of the 38th parallel. Therefore, on the 23rd day of June, Jacob Malik, the Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations, called for negotiations between the representatives of the United Nations forces and those of the Chinese and North Korean forces for an armistice in Korea based on the separation of the armies along the 38th parallel.
On the 10th day of July, Vice Admiral Turner Joy, leading the United Nations delegation met the Chinese and North Korean delegation at Kaesong, some 30 miles northwest of Seoul on the south side of the 38th parallel, for the first conference of the armistice negotiations. Therefore, less actions on the ground and in the air was maintained. But on the 4th day of August, the Chinese ground forces violated the Kaesong neutral zone, resulting in suspension of the truce talks. Then on the 10th day of August the armistice negotiations resumed at Kaesong with the North Korea promise to respect the neutral zone. However, on the 22nd day of August, the Chinese and North Korean delegation trumped up evidence that a United Nations aircraft bombed Kaesong (not considering the safety of their own delegation?), which resulted in the suspension of the armistice negotiations once again.
Then actions on the ground and in the air resumed. United Nations ground forces withstood the battalion-sized attacks of the Chinese army in the “Punchbowl”, the circular valley in the eastern Korea, west of the Soyang River and rimmed by sharply rising hills. On the 25th day of October, at the request of the Chinese and North Korean delegation, the peace negotiations resumed at Kaesong after a two-month suspension. By that time the United Nations ground forces in the western and central sections had gained up to six miles in some places along the frontline.
On the 12th day of November, the peace negotiations moved to Panmunjom, a village less than 5 miles east of Kaesong, in a newly established demilitarized zone on the 38th parallel. The United Nations forces ceased offensive ground operations. Toward the end of 1951, the negotiators at Panmunjom argued over the arrangements for an armistice and provisions about the prisoners of war. Ground actions of both sides reduced to minimum. However, at Panmunjom, the negotiations made no progress. To prevent the further attack of the Chinese and North Korean army in the frontline, the main strategy of the United Nations was to hinder the transportation of equipment and supplies to their front positions. So the targets of the air raid concentrated on bridges on rivers, railroads, moving trains and trucks.
In April of 1952, there were two major ground engagements. The Chinese and North Korean forces attacked at night the positions held by the First Marine Division south of Panmunjom and later assaulted the First Commonwealth Division north of Korangpo-ri. The friendly units withstood these attacks. No other ground actions happened this month.
In June, US 45th Infantry Division in the central sector near Chorwon launched two attacks successfully to gain a high ground and repulsed the counterattack of the Chinese troops. But in July, in the eastern sector of Korea, near the coast and near Hill 266 in the US Second Infantry Division area, a battalion of the Chinese army attempted to seize the high ground. It changed hands several times, but remained under the friendly control at the end of the month.
In mid-August, some reinforced-battalions of the Chinese army attacked the United Nations positions in several sectors. Hills in the First Marine Division sector and in the South Korean Second Corps sector changed hands several times, but United Nations forces retained control of those sectors.
On the 29th day of August, at the request of the US Department of State, US Far East Air Force launched the largest air attack against Pyongyang to serve as a dramatic military action during the visit of China's premier, Zhou Enlai, to the Soviet Union. The State Department hoped that the attack might lead the Soviets to urge the Chinese to accept an armistice in the peace negotiations at Panmunjom.
In September, the heaviest ground activity centered in the sector of the Second Corps of South Korean army with intense seesaw fighting, but effected little change in the front lines.
Between the 6th day and the 15th day of October, the Chinese ground forces assaulted chiefly in the western IX Corps area northwest of Chorwon in a vain attempt to improve their position before the onset of winter. In mid-October, the Eighth Army launched an offensive to seize critical high ground in eastern IX Corps area northeast of Kumhwa. But it became a seesaw contest to retain domination terrain.
On the 8th day of October, truce talks at Panmunjom recessed over the issue of forced repatriation of the prisoners of war. The United Nations delegates proposed to allow the prisoners of war of the opposite side to choose repatriation or not, but the Chinese and North Korean delegates insisted on the repatriation of all the prisoners of war at the end of the war.
On the 16th day of October, 1952, North Korea sent a strongly worded protest to Far East Command concerning the recess in armistice negotiations, but they continued to persist in total repatriation of the Chinese and North Korean prisoners of war. On the end of this month they presented a new prisoners-of-war camp list. In Geneva, the League of Red Cross Societies recommended that the combatants exchange sick and wounded prisoners of war before the cease-fire.
On the 22nd day of January in 1953, Beijing radio announced the capture of Colonel Arnold who piloted a B-29 and was shot down on the 13th day of January. But the Chinese government refused to release him even in the repatriation of the prisoners of war. He was released in 1956.
On the 22nd day of February, in a letter to Kim Il Sung, Premier of North Korea government and Marshal Peng Dehuai, Chinese commander in North Korea, the United Nations command stated its readiness to repatriate immediately those seriously ill and wounded prisoners of war, who were fit to travel, and asked whether the North Korea and Chinese leaders were prepared to do the same.
During the first half of March, the attacks of the Chinese army were in company-sized strength in several areas, particularly along the central front in the Kumhwa and Kumsong regions. Later, sometimes, they attacked in regimental strength in central and western sectors. Then US Intelligence found growing military strength of the Chinese army with from one to three Chinese divisions en route or entering the Korean peninsula. The buildup of strength indicated a possible offensive to seize as much territory as possible before the armistice.
On the 21st day of March, North Korean truce negotiators expressed their willingness to observe the provisions of the Geneva Convention and exchange sick and wounded prisoners of war. At the same time they hinted that the exchange might lead to a resolution of other issues that had hindered the armistice so far.
On the 30th day of March, Zhou Enlai, the foreign minister of China, suggested that prisoners of war not desiring repatriation might be placed in the temporary custody of a neutral nation until negotiations determined their final status. Before his proposal, they had insisted on repatriating all the prisoners of war. Their new flexibility on this issue provided an opportunity to resume truce negotiations.
On the 26th day of April, after suspension for six months, armistice negotiations between the Chinese and North Korean delegation and the United Nations delegation reconvened in Panmunjom. Representatives of both sides negotiated details of the repatriation of prisoners of war. Then there followed the exchange of the seriously wounded and sick prisoners—6670 Chinese and North Koreans for 471 South Koreans, 149 Americans, and 64 other United Nations personnel, the count at that time.
US aircraft spread leaflets in North Korea, manifesting that anyone who delivered a MiG or other jet aircraft to the United Nations forces in South Korea would receive political asylum, resettlement in a noncommunist country, anonymity, and $50,000. An additional $50000 would go to the first person to take advantage of this offer. In September of 1953, after the cease-fire, a North Korean MiG-15 pilot flew his aircraft safely to Kimpo air base in South Korea.
In the last week of May, the Chinese and North Korean troops made a major ground offensive against the United nations positions on ridges dominating US I Corps sector, about 10 miles northeast of Panmunjom. Meanwhile, the armistice negotiations faltered over disagreements regarding the repatriation of the prisoners of war. The Chinese and North Korean delegates wanted North Korean prisoners unwilling to return to their homelands detained indefinitely, in effect, punishing them for their decision. The United Nations delegates wanted to release all prisoners to civilian status on the day the armistice became effective. To let the Chinese and North Koreans know that the continuance of the war would incur additional political and economic costs, US air force attacked the targets in North Korea untouched previously. They bombed irrigation dams. The destruction of them would disrupt further preparations for ground offensive on the part of the Chinese and North Korean army by flooding the rails and road networks.
By mid-June, both sides had agreed to establish a Neutral Nations Repatriation committee. The final session of armistice negotiations at Panmunjom convened. After meeting for one day, the top negotiators agreed to adjourn while technical experts worked out the cease-fire details.
At 10:00 in the morning on the 27th day of July, 1953, the armistice agreement was signed to produce the cease-fire in the Korean war between the United Nations forces, South Korea, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, North Korea. In accordance with the armistice agreement, in August, the prisoners of war were exchanged in Operation Big Switch—77,000 prisoners of war of the Chinese and North Korean army, for 12,700 prisoners from United Nations and South Korean army, including 3,597 Americans, the final count. (The above stuff taken from a US government booklet titled “The USAF in Korea”.)
xlwoo
08-29-2015, 09:07 AM
Chapter 3 What is great cultural revolution?
I. Background of so-called cultural revolution
During the so-called natural calamity, as three hundred millions of people were starved to death, the national economy got worse and worse. Therefore, Mao was forced to recede to the background on the political power stage, and Liu Shaoqi stepped into the foreground, helped by Deng, the secretary general of the central committee of the communist Party. Of course, such a very ambitious person as Mao would never, of his own accord, give up the political power he had enjoyed so far and now stand backstage watching others perform on the political stage right under his nose. No, he would never allow it. This was the reason of the occurrence of the cultural revolution he was scheming in his great mind.
In January, 1962, at a meeting of 7,000 people, Mao criticized himself for the mistakes he had committed, having made a mess of the national economy. Liu said then that it was three-tenth natural disaster and seven-tenth human error. But in August of the same year, on the meeting at Beidai River, Mao insisted in his theory of class fight, which was the main danger of the present society as he defined it. Mao thought that there was still the possibility of revisionism taking the upper hand, which meant the revival of capitalism according to his theory. In the later development of the events, one could see that Mao laid a time bomb in theory to turn the table for his benefits. This was his basic theory to wage the cultural revolution in future. Liu and Deng could never see the red lights—the approaching danger. Both were no equal rivals to Mao.
The cultural revolution was certainly unprecedented in the history of China, also in the history of the world. If Mao had his IQ tested, it should be very high. If his scheme for the movement went a bit amiss, the result would be different. He might never retrieve his power, or the whole country might be in civil war. His scheme was accurate in his arrangement, though he never cared how many people would die in the cultural revolution. He was a person cruel at heart. When his third wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested by Chiang Kai-shek's government and killed later, he didn't do anything to rescue her, but married another woman. He sent his son to the Korean War, who died there.
In February, 1963, the central committee of CPC decided on another political movement, proposed by Mao, imaginably. This was, indeed, Mao's strategy to retrieve his lost power. No one could see through him at the time. Liu, the chairman of the nation then, was of course the leader of the movement. As usual, Liu sent out work teams to the countryside for the movement. Liu thought that the target of this movement was still the common people as the previous movements did. The work teams made a mess there as they really had no idea whom they should target.
In December, 1964, at a meeting of the central committee of CPC, Mao said that it was wrong to aim at the common people. The target (this time) should be the cadres. Of course, Mao meant more than that. No one could understand at the time what he really pointed at. So Liu made self-criticism. A trap Mao set for him to fall in. Then in January, 1965, the central committee agreed with Mao that the target of this movement should be those in power within the Party, who were persisting in going the capitalist road. At that time, no one could guess who were those targeted in power and who were those insisting in going the capitalist road. But Mao had a certain goal in his mind. Another theoretical trap. It was based on this theory that Mao was the right person going the socialist road, and any other persons who held different opinions from Mao should be those going on the capitalist road. The worst thing was that all other leaders of CPC agreed to this theory, making Mao always standing on the summit of correctness. Mao could never be wrong theoretically. It was called the fight between the two roads: the socialist road and the capitalist road. As Mao declared himself and was also accepted as the representative of going the socialist road, Liu was, of course, deemed the representative of going the capitalist road. Going on capitalist road was wrong, according to Mao's theory, which was accepted by others. Liu already lost there. His tragic end was sealed even before the beginning of the cultural revolution since others were all got confused by Mao's theory and did not know how to contradict him.
However, Mao still let Liu lead this movement, as a Chinese saying goes, “If you want to get, you must give first.” Mao had read a lot of Chinese history books and was versed in all the stratagems in power redemption. Liu, as usual, sent out work teams again. Statistics showed that in the region of Changde Town, in HuNan province, 331 persons were criticized, among whom 21 were beaten, 65 bound hand and foot, 3 hung up, and 42 forced to kneel on the ground. In a suburb of Beijing, 40 people committed suicide. Only this time, the target was the lowest cadres in the countryside, not common people any more as Mao had planned to use common people as his chessmen. Pawns are powerful when getting in a certain position. The red guards were his chessmen too.
Meantime, Mao traveled all over the country. He talked secretly with some important generals and wanted to get their support. He always believed in gun. If he could get those holding the gun to support him, he could go on with his plan. Otherwise, he would stay backstage for the rest of his life. From the Chinese history, a conclusion is true: the wise can always gain the upper hand of the fool. Mao, the wise. Liu, the fool. Among all the generals, two of them were the most important ones, Lin Biao, minister of defense ministry then, and Xu Shiyou, commander of the army covering the area of Nanking and Shanghai. With their support, Mao was sure of his final victory. However, the procedures of the process must be taken very carefully. He could not have a step amiss.
xlwoo
08-30-2015, 10:44 AM
II. The cultural revolution did begin in the cultural field
1) Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, made public appearance
At that time, most of those in power in local governments were supporters of Liu and Deng. How to seize power from them was a problem. If most of the local government leaders supported Mao, he had no need to start the cultural revolution. Since the situation was otherwise, Mao had to get his ball rolling. However, Mao plotted wisely and nicely. Mao liked to control consensus first so that he could say anything using public opinion against his political enemies. So he commenced his plot in that field.
Mao wanted his wife, Jiang Qing, to help him. Mao married Jiang Qing while he still had his legal wife, He Zizhen, sister of Marshal He Long. At that time Mao's legal wife was in the Soviet Union for the treatment of presumed mental disease. Mao and Jiang held a banquet in a big cave in YanAn. It was the twenty-first of December, 1938. Jiang was twenty-four years old then, twenty-one years younger than Mao. The original name of Jiang Qing had been called Li Yunhe, and her stage name was Lanping. She changed her name to Jiang Qing when she went to YanAn. She had been married before to Tanner. A story went at that time about three couples who had their simple wedding ceremony held under the moonlight before the Liuhe Pagoda, in Hangzhou. The three couples were Jiang Qing and Tanner, Ye Luqian and Zhao Dan, Du Xiaojuan and Gu Eryi. All were movie stars. The witness to their marriage was Shen Junru, a man of letters. After their wedding, Jiang Qing always quarreled with Tanner. Their bad relationship developed and once Tanner wanted to kill himself by drink poison. It happened only sixty days after their marriage. In 1937, Jiang Qing lived together with Zhang Ming, the director of the movie. Then she put a notice on the newspapers to declare that she had separated with Tanner. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Jiang Qing went to YanAn. Later Tanner went to Paris, France and married Anna in 1952. He died in 1988 there. Later some of her former fellow movie stars explained that why Jiang (meaning River) Qing (meaning clear) wanted to change her name to the present one was because her dirty sex history with so many men could only be washed clear in river water.
Jiang Qing had been also an actress of Beijing opera before she had gone to YanAn and married Mao. She originally lived in Shandong Province. There she was enrolled in Shandong Beijing Opera Institute. Later when she took part in some activities against Japan, she caught the attention of the local government and had to escape secretly to Shanghai. She joined the Left-Wing Drama Union, acting in some plays for revolution. It was said that when she acted in dramas she was okay, but when she was in movies, she was no good. When she was the wife of Mao, she was ashamed of her history as a star and did not want people aware of it, particularly talking of it. In the cultural revolution, most of the stars who had worked with Jiang Qing were put into prison as Jiang Qing feared that they would spread her former history as a third class movie star, which, in her opinion, would make her lose face. Luckily for Tanner, he lived in France at that time. Anyone who mentioned or even hinted at it would be put in prison, too. That was why many people, besides famous actors and actresses who had worked with her before, were persecuted during the movement and many of them died in prison.
As Jiang Qing had learned to sing Beijing opera, she began in the area of Beijing opera reform, which happened between 1964 and 1966, after she published an article “Talk on Revolution of Beijing Opera.” It gave her a bridge over which she could take part in the political movements later. When she had married Mao, CPC had made a decision that she had been forbidden to be involved in politics. The opera reform only involved culture. That's why, maybe, the revolution called cultural revolution, an actual political revolution in disguise. So none in CPC had any objection. Generally Beijing opera was about old stories. The reform made it into modern stories. The ones known in China were “Red Lantern”, etc. Ballet was reformed, too. The famous ones were the “Red Detachment of Women” and the “White-haired Girl”.
On the 10th day of November, 1965, Mao let his wife, Jiang Qing, instruct Yao Wenyuan in Shanghai to write an article criticizing the new historical play “Dismissal of Hairui from Office”. The article was published in Wenhui Daily on the 30th day of November, 1965. It was because nothing could appear in newspapers in Beijing at the time. All officials there were Liu's men. The article said that the play wanted to redress the case of Peng Dehuai, because Hairui was the defense minister in Ming Dynasty equivalent to Peng before his dismissal. This play was written by Wu Han, who was a vice mayor of Beijing at the time. He became the first official Mao wanted to get rid of, which would be a breakthrough into Liu's circle.
2) The so-called February coup d'etat
Mao wanted Yao's article to be published in all the newspapers in Beijing. But Peng Zhen, the mayor of Beijing then, thought that such an article was not suitable to come out in Beijing's newspapers, and so refused to do it. Besides, the writer of the play, Wu Han, was a vice mayor of Beijing. To support Wu Han, Peng Zhen organized a “five-person cultural revolution group”, approved by Liu, Deng and Zhou Enlai, the premier of the State Council, intending to limit the criticism within the culture, not into politics. And Peng Zhen wanted to protect Wu Han, too. He did not realize the plan of Mao. But Mao would not allow it. So he wanted to get rid of Peng as well. As a Chinese saying goes, if a man of power wants to accuse anyone of any crime, he can easily find a reason whatsoever for the person, no matter if the reason sounds right or ridiculous.
Yao's article connected the play with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai, which smelled of political attack. Mayor Peng thought the criticism of a play was in the field of culture, and should not connect it with a political event. On the 13th day of February, Mayor Peng summoned a meeting of the five-person group, and criticized Yao for his connection of his article with a political event, intending to limit the criticism within the scope of culture. All the attenders supported him except Kang Sheng, a secretary of the central secretariat of CPC, who insisted in the rightness of the article.
Anyway, the five-person group drafted a report called “February Outline”, saying that any discussion in the field of culture must be based on facts, and respect facts, which meant the connection of the article with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai did not respect truth. On the 8th day of February, Mayor Peng, Kang Sheng and Lu Dingyi, the head of the propaganda department of CPC, went to see Mao and gave him the “February Outline.” Mao pointed out that the gist of the play was the “dismissal” and so had the connection with the dismissal of Peng Dehuai. Mao wanted to use this as a reason to rid of Wu Han, and further of Peng Zhen.
From the 17th day to the 20th day of March, at a meeting of the political bureau of CPC, Mao made a speech: Who controlling the newspapers, magazines and publishing presses is very important; those capitalist authorities in culture must be criticized; the magazine “Frontline” controlled by Wu Han and his supporters is anti-Party and anti-socialism; a cultural revolution must be waged in the areas of literature, history, philosophy, law, and economical theory; how much of Marxism-Leninism is in those areas? So the February Outline of the five-person group was also criticized. Mayor Peng and his supporters were all removed from office and were defined as an anti-Party clique.
It looked that Mayor Peng and his supporters only had different opinion from Mao. How could they plot a coup d'etat? On the 27th day of July, 1966, Kang Sheng said on a public meeting in Beijing Normal University that Peng Zhen planned to have coup d'etat because he had a battalion of soldiers in every university. The crowds believed him as he was a party leader. But that was not the truth. The fact was that in February, 1966, the central military committee decided to strengthen the local military forces and maneuvered a regiment into Beijing for training purpose. The regiment of soldiers was planned to lodge in some empty rooms of some universities. But afterwards, the soldiers found elsewhere to lodge and didn't sleep in any universities. However, the fact was distorted to become a crime of Peng Zhen and his supporters.
xlwoo
08-31-2015, 08:55 AM
III. Where did cultural revolution go next?
1) Lin Biao set up personal worship of Mao
On the 16th of May (5.16), 1966, on the meeting of the political bureau of the Party, a document, approved by Mao, was passed, known as “5.16 Notice”, which was officially deemed the actual beginning of the so-called Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the official name. At the same time the “Central Cultural Revolution Group” was organized to replace the “five-person cultural revolution group”. On the 8th day of May, Lin Biao, the minister of the defense ministry at the time, said that Chairman Mao was a genius, every word he said was truth, nothing but truth, and a sentence from him was worth ten thousand sentences from others. This began the “Personal Worship” the nation over. Anyone said anything disrespectful to Mao, let alone against Mao, would be defined as a reactionary and put in prison. For that reason many innocent people became prisoners during the cultural revolution. Ridiculous stories were circulated. A person killed a cat and was jailed because the Chinese word for cat had the same pronunciation as Mao. The person killing a cat was deemed to have the intention to kill Mao. Someone accidentally threw a stone, which hit the picture of Mao hanging on the wall, and he was deemed a reactionary. A person walked in a park and felt tired. He saw a bench, which was dirty from the rain of last night. He put the newspaper he had just bought on the bench and sat on it. He was reported and arrested because there was a picture of Mao on the newspaper. It was disrespect of Mao to sit on his picture, even by mistake. The personal worship of Mao developed to such a degree in the cultural revolution.
Why should Lin Biao set up Mao as the object of the so-called “Personal Worship”? It must be another tactics of Mao. The fact was so clear that those supporting Mao were much fewer than those supporting Liu and Deng. Mao, through Lin Biao, set up himself as the object of “Personal Worship” like a god being worshiped so that no one dared to oppose him. He could be always at an advantageous point. Then the slogan of “Four Greats” about Mao appeared: Great Guide, Great Leader, Great Commander, Great Helmsman. Then Lin Biao, or someone else in his name, invented a style of dance, called Loyalty Dance. Generally the dancers held a card board with the word loyalty written on it.
2) The red guards movement
On the 25th day of May, Nie, a woman Party leader in Beijing University, together with other six men, put up a so-called Big Word Paper, criticizing the Party committee of Beijing University and the municipal Party committee of Beijing City. At that time Mao was in Hangzhou. When he was reported about it, he praised it, calling it the first Marxist-Leninist Big Word Paper in the country. On the same day, an editorial appeared on the People Daily, calling upon ordinary people to join in the movement, to down all authorities.
On the 29th day, the first group of Red Guards was organized in the subsidiary middle school of Qinghua University. The chaos developed fast. Students in many middle schools and universities rose to oppose the leadership of the Party there. Quite a few university principals were criticized. Seeing this, Liu sent out work teams in an attempt to control the situation. The work teams made 10,211 students the rightists, and 2,591 teachers the reactionaries.
On the 18th day of July, Mao returned to Beijing. On the 24th, Mao held a meeting, criticizing Liu and Deng for sending out work teams. Liu confessed that he did not know how to lead the cultural revolution movement. Deng said that it was like an old revolutionary facing a new problem. That was where Mao set the snare to let them fall in. Naturally, Mao took over the leadership as Liu and Deng did not know what to do. Even if Liu and Deng had not sent out work teams and did something else, Mao could, at any rate, find faults with them easily. It always happened in the struggle for political power in the Chinese history. All the same, the result would be for Liu and Deng to be out of power. The goal of the cultural revolution. Mao's scheme. Now Mao was back in power. It looked as if Liu and Deng were not driven out of power, but as if they were willing to give up the power to Mao as they did not know how to wage the cultural revolution. A real wise move of Mao, so easily to take over the power.
Mao supported the Red Guards. On the 5th of August, Mao wrote a Big Word Paper, titled as “Gun Down Headquarters----my big word paper”. Mao meant that there was a “capitalist headquarters” within CPC, implying to Liu and Deng, who were already out of power. Then Lin Biao was made the vice chairman of CPC, a reward to him for his supporting Mao to get the power back from Liu and Deng.
At the end of May, Red Guards developed on a large scale. On the 13th day of June, the Central Committee of CPC and the State Council issued a notification that the entrance examination for the university was postponed for half a year. On the 18th day, the editorial of the People Daily said that the cultural revolution must be thoroughly carried out and the education system must be thoroughly reformed. The entrance examination system must be stopped. Therefore, for more than ten years, no new students were enrolled in universities, and for many years, no classes for students in schools. Thus appeared a gap of education and knowledge between the old generation and the young generation. The young generation did not have enough education and enough knowledge. The Chinese culture in a general sense degenerated. Then what were the students doing? They were all taking part in the cultural revolution. Students in universities and middle schools formed red guards of their own. Primary school students stayed at home, being too young.
The red guards began to travel all over the country to instigate riot. They did not need to buy tickets either on trains or buses. That was the Party's decision. All they needed was an armband with the words Red Guards on it. It was easy to make and get. So other people, who were not students, seized this chance to travel for free all over the nation for sightseeing.
The whole country got into chaos. That's what Mao wanted to retrieve power from so many Liu's local government supporters. So Mao wanted the red guards to “destroy four old things”, which were old thought, old culture, old tradition, and old custom. But it was not easy to define these. So everywhere the red guards went, they burned the old books published hundreds of years ago, the old paintings even by famous ancient painters, and broke curios and relics. They destroyed old wooden shop signs and replaced them with paper ones written in new names. They even proposed to change the name of Shanghai into “July-First City”, which Mao disapproved.
Why the red guards wanted to change Shanghai into July-First City was because the Party declared that the 1st day of July, 1921, was the birthday of the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai. But data on Internet revealed that it was established in August, 1920, under the instruction of the Soviet Communist Party. In April, that year, the Communist International sent Grigori Voitinsky to China. In May, he found Chen Duxiu, forth-two then, to contact some revolutionary young men in other cities for the establishment of Chinese Communist Party, which was founded in August, 1920. Why the Chinese Communist Party wanted to change their birthday to the 1st day of July, 1921, was that it might have two reasons. One was that they wanted to cover the fact that the Communist International had a finger in it. The other was that CPC did have a meeting in Shanghai and Mao attended it so that they could say that Mao was one of the founders to make Mao look better. But the meeting was on the 23rd day, not on the 1st day. Anyway, the Chinese Communist Party did not even give a correct day for their own birthday. How can we believe the narrations in the Party's history written by themselves? (For details of the establishment and development of CPC, please read my other book titled Two Republics in China.)
The red guards went to private houses and ransacked and destroyed or took away all the valuable personal belongings. They even beat people to death. Statistics showed that in one month from the 18th day of August, 1966, in Beijing only, houses of 114,000 families were ransacked, and 85,198 individuals were driven to where they came from in the countryside or other towns. From the 23rd day of August to the 8th day of September, in Shanghai, 84,222 families were openly robbed. And in Tianjin City, 12,000 families suffered the same disaster. Another statistics showed that during August and September, in Beijing only, the red guards got 103,000 taels of gold, equivalent to 5.7 tons, 345,200 taels of silver, 55,000,000 yuan Chinese paper currency, and 613,600 curios. In Shanghai, between the 23rd day of August and the 8th day of September, besides large quantity of gold, silver and gems, etc., they got 3,340,000 US dollars and other foreign currencies worth 3,300,000 Chinese currency, 2,400,000 yuan of silver coins and 3,700,000,000 yuan of Chinese currency. A Party document confessed that even before that, the red guards already got 1,180,000 taels of gold, equivalent to 65 tons. That was really the aim of “destroy four old things.” That's what Mao and CPC really wanted, in such a name, to rob people of their valuables. A broad daylight robbery! The robbed could not resist, nor even report to the police. The robbery was lawful, supported by CPC and Mao. That was also unprecedented in the robbery field of the world. What was the use of laws in such a country? Peng Zhen once said that the Party (supported by gun, of course) was above the law. Now all the valuables in possession of common people were taken. After that, they had nothing worth to be taken away by the Party. They were safe now, as poor as a lazy squirrel with nothing in store for winter. The pillaging action even affected some old workers who had something worth a little money saved through their hard work in the old time, before CPC came to reign.
And many antiques were destroyed, worth billions. From the 9th day of November to the 7th day of December, 1966, during less than a month, more than 6,000 articles of curio, more than 2,700 volumes of ancient edition, more than 900 rolls of paintings and calligraphy by famous ancient people, and more than 1,000 stone tablets, were destroyed. Who should be responsible for all the loss? The red guards or Mao and CPC?
As to death rate during the red terrorism, the official statistics showed that only in Beijing, the capital city, 1,700 people were beaten to death. A massacre took place in Daxing Town outside Beijing and during three days, 325 persons were killed by cruel means, including some buried alive, like the massacre in Nanking by the Japanese army. Those who made suicide reached 200,000. In the whole period of the cultural revolution, the estimate of the death rate in the whole country was between 2 million and 7 million, one percent of the whole population in China at that time. Who should be responsible for it? The red guards or Mao and CPC?
In Shanghai, the red guards of Shanghai Museum went to all the collectors on their list to take all the curios to the museum, they said, for the sake of protecting them, or the red guards from Beijing might destroy them. Some collectors even called the museum, asking it to send their red guards to their homes and take their curios away. Fortune sometimes means misfortune.
Other things happened in Shanghai during the red guards movement. At first, their action was only limited in the streets, destroying old shop signs. When they saw some women wearing high-heeled or pointed shoes, they would force them to take off and they would cut through them with scissors they seemed always carrying with them. They called it capitalist life style, included in the four old things. Once some red guards saw a girl wearing trousers in jeans. They thought it was the capitalist life style and forced the girl to take it off, and the girl had to run home in underwear. They laughed after her.
Then when they heard what their fellow red guards did in Beijing, they started to attack private houses, too. Mostly they went to big houses, generally belonging to the capitalists. Some stayed in one big house for months, eating their canned food and chocolate in store. Some embezzled gold and silver articles and diamond rings. Others took away the interesting novels for their own enjoyment. The stupid ones they were deemed. Some of the capitalists were forced to kneel on the ground and beaten or abused. Lots of red guards went to Canton and tried to break past the border sentinels to rush into Hongkong. They declared that they wanted to make revolution there, but were stopped by the Chinese army. The red guards even blamed Kim Il-Sung, leader of North Korea, as going the capitalist road and wanted to go to Korea to arrest him. So when Kim Il-Sung learned it, he was so enraged that he ordered the graves of the Chinese People's Volunteers broken, including the tomb of Mao's son, which was repaired after the cultural revolution.
In 1967, in Canton, there raised a wave to kill the released prisoners from labor reform camps, who were thought as bad people and deserved to die. From the 27th day of August to the 1st day of September, in six days, 325 of those people and their family members were killed. The oldest was 80 years of age and the youngest was only 38 days. What a nation for that!
All the professors in universities and old teachers in middle schools were criticized or even beaten. Some professors were forced to crawl around on the college playground. Some were made stand for long hours in a bowing posture with two arms stretching straight behind, looking like a jet airplane. Some were ordered to bow before the picture of Mao for a long time, too. In Shanghai Conservatory of Music, the professors were forced to slap each other's faces in public. Never say that Chinese people are not wise enough for invention. Since old time, they have invented a lot of new torture equipment and styles. A standing cage was one of them. Any offender would be put inside with his head on the top of it, the neck in a small hole so that he could not move his head down into the cage. He must keep in a standing position for how long he was sentenced to be. It was a trivial torment. For a prisoner, if he rejected to confess his crime what the government official wanted him to confess, two thick wooden sticks would be put on his forelegs, one above and one under, with ropes on both ends. When the ropes were tightened, the pressure on the forelegs through the wooden sticks inflicted pain to the prisoner. The tighter the ropes were, the acuter the pain grew, till the prisoner fainted. For women, small sticks were used between her fingers, with the same effect on her. Another invention was to use an iron piece, made hot in the fire, then put on the chest of the prisoner. His skin on that part would be burned. No one can imagine the pain this torment caused without experience. Brutal inventions of wise Chinese people!
IV. Power-seizing stage of great cultural revolution
Then, the target of the cultural revolution changed to the authorities of the local governments, under Mao's instruction. Mao thought that most of them were supporters of Liu and Deng. Therefore, so-called rebels rose and attacked the local government leaders. They seized power from the leaders and organized so-called Revolutionary Committees to replace the local governments.
Now the cultural revolution was on the power-seizing stage, which was really what Mao aimed at. It began with a movement targeting the petty cadres, really a false move of Mao to set up a snare for Liu; then it went to a stage to openly criticize a play to get rid of some important supporters of Liu in the capital Beijing; then it developed to the red guards stage to cause chaos in the country; then in the chaos, it got to the power seizing stage. It was the critical stage. If successful, smoothly, the last stage would be easy to tide over. The last stage was to put all the supporters of Mao in the local governments after getting rid of all Liu's supporters. The cultural revolution would thus end as planned by Mao and as we can see, looking back. On this critical stage, if Chiang Kai-shek had ordered his army to attack the mainland, no one could tell what would be the future of China. But the stupid Chiang Kai-shek let the opportunity go like sands through his fingers.
Many rebellious groups were organized and fought each other to vie for taking over the power. Generally, at first, they got into a debate. At that time, people all over the country were learning The Little Red Book. Every time people wanted to say something, anything, they must quote something from the Little Red Book first. Even when anyone was to write some self-criticism paper, he must also begin with a quotation from it. Sound ridiculous? That's the fact at the time. So when a debate began between two groups, the debater in each group must quote something from the Little Red Book to prove that what he was saying was in accordance with Mao's instruction. Then the debater from the other group followed suit. But no one could persuade the other. It was called “Quotation Battle” since both sides used Mao's quotations to prove they were the right side. Debates often continued in a fight. But it seemed that quotations from the Little Red Book contradicted each other, or how could the opposite groups both cite from it to support their different opinions?
The rebels among workers in Shanghai called their organization as Shanghai Worker Revolutionary Rebellious Headquarters. The commander-in-chief of this headquarters was Pan Guoping, a young worker from a factory. The famous Wang Hongwen was, at the beginning, the vice commander-in-chief, who was a Party member and a cadre of the lowest rank. On the 3rd of January, 1967, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, two members of the Gang of Four, came back to Shanghai from Beijing and supported Wang Hongwen to seize power from Shanghai municipal authorities. Pan, being too young, was out of power, and was only made a member of the revolutionary committee. This event was called “January Storm”, which caused the power-seizing action to develop to the whole nation. That was what Mao desired.
V. Quarrel in Huairen Hall in Beijing in February
Huairen Hall is in Beijing, a gathering place for meetings of the leaders of the central committee of CPC. The event began like this: during the “January Storm” in Shanghai, Chen Pixuan, the first secretary of Shanghai municipal party, was afraid of the chaos to paralyze the municipal administration and called Tao Zhu, a member of the central cultural revolutionary group on the 3rd day of January, 1967. Previously on the 25th day of December, 1966, to protect those old revolutionary cadres, Tao Zhu had had a severe quarrel with Jiang Qing, Kang Sheng, and Zhang Chunqiao, who were those tools Mao used to fight Liu and Deng, and their local supporters. After the power seizing, Zhang Chunqiao became the head of Shanghai.
When Tao Zhu received the call from Chen in Shanghai, he went to see Mao and reported it. Mao looked like supporting Tao when Tao was in his presence. But Tao was soon removed from office. Then, premier Zhou Enlai, said to be instructed by Mao, drafted a list of old cadres for protection, including all the first secretaries of provinces. They were escorted to Beijing so that no one could harm them. But Chen Pixuan, the first secretary of Shanghai, was detained by Zhang Chunqiao, which was the fuse of the dispute in Huairen Hall.
In the afternoon on the 16th day of February, 1967, premier Zhou summoned a meeting in Huairen Hall. When Tan Zhenlin met Zhang Chunqiao at the gate, Tan asked Zhang why Chen Pixuan was not coming. Zhang said that Chen was detained by the revolutionary crowds in Shanghai. At the meeting, the question of Chen's absence was mentioned again and other old cadres were also infuriated that the central cultural revolutionary group wanted to push aside all the old cadres and take over power into their hands. They used the so-called revolutionary crowds who had actually been organized by them as an excuse to fight old cadres. Ye Jianying, a leader of the liberation army, criticized Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao, etc., for their intention to let the revolutionary crowds to attack the army and take over the command of the army from the old cadres. Ye broke his little finger when he slapped his hand on the table in ire. If at the beginning of the cultural revolution, the old cadres did not yet realize what Mao and his supporters wanted, now they came to be clear that they wanted to push aside the old cadres, or even torture them to death so that they could rule China by themselves.
On the 18th day of February, Mao summoned the central political bureau, and taking off his two-faced mask, jumped forth to criticize old cadres, to the delight of Jiang Qing, Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao, and Yao Wenyuan, the so-called “Gang of Four.” This event was literally called “Current against the (revolutionary) flow in February” by the gang of four. Then the central political bureau stopped its administration and the central cultural revolutionary group replaced it, becoming the administrative center of the whole nation. That was what Mao wanted and long planned, but none of the gang of four had the abilities to run such a vast country like China, and so at length, Mao had to let Zhou Enlai took charge of the state affairs.
In 1971, after the event of Lin Biao crashing in an military airplane in Mongolia on the 13th day of September, the so-called “Current against the flow in February” event was redressed. Mao said that the event was to aim at Lin Biao, which meant that as now Lin “betrayed” the Party and escaped to the Soviet Union, the event against Lin Biao was correct and so must be redressed.
xlwoo
09-01-2015, 08:24 AM
VI. How did armed fight start the country over?
On the 6th day of May, 1967, the leftists pro the communist party in Hongkong, began a riot against Hongkong government. The riot started with strike and demonstration, and developed to assassinations, bombing and gun fight. Luckily, it ended in October. 52 people died, including 10 policemen. 1,167 bombs exploded.
Almost everywhere in the country, rebels had benefit conflicts among themselves and they formed different groups and fought one another. Some, supported by the army, got guns. So gun fight began. Once, even tanks appeared in the streets. The most serious fights were those:
From the 26th day of February to the 5th day of March, 1967, in XiNing Town of Qinghai province, T55 tanks appeared in the streets and 822 persons died and 1,355 persons wounded. From the 2nd day to the 25th day of August, 1967, in Yichun Town of Heilongjiang province, 37 government buildings were destroyed and two military camps were gunned down in cannonade. 1,944 persons died and 1,806 persons wounded. From August to November, the rebels in Huaihua Town of HuNan province occupied some labor-reform farms and factories and resisted the attack of the army. 37,700 persons died and wounded, including 430 military men. The death was 13,300. From June, 1967, to March, 1968, in Yibin Town of Sichuan province, more than 170,000 people joined in the fight, including two army regiments. 43,800 persons died and wounded, the death was 21,100. From October, 1967, to the end of May, 1969, in Inner Mongolia, 56,200 persons were killed, and over 377,000 persons imprisoned, and over 3,550,000 involved, one-fourth of the population of the Inner Mongolia. From April to July, 1968, in Nanning Town of Guuangxi province, 22 battles took place. Over 101,000 persons died, and 74,000 people wounded. From December, 1968, to February, 1969, in eight ammunition factories in Baoji area of Shaanxi province, out of 70,000 staff, over 45,400 workers were judged as reactionaries and 297 among them were executed, which caused rebellion. Tanks, armored cars, cannons, and fire-throwers were used. Over 13,300 persons died, including some government leaders. Later, Mao and the Party strictly forbade this and the fight gradually subsided in August, 1968, and no more fight after 1969.
The climax of fighting happened in WuHan City of Hubei province, called 7.20 event. At that time, many cities had set up so-called Revolutionary Committees to replace the local governments, but there were still places where the fight was going on. WuHan city was one of them. The largest group named themselves as “Million Heroic Division”, though they didn't have a million members. They were against the local authorities supported by the Independent Army Division. It was arranged that on the 16th day of July, 1967, Mao wanted to go to WuHan to swim in the Yangtze River. The health of the communist leaders is always a secret, and also a concern of the nation, or even of the world. At such a critical moment, Mao decided to swim in the river to show that he was still healthy at the age of over seventy. But in reality, he went there to solve the fighting problem himself. He never had a chance to swim that time. Openly there was a delegation sent there by the central committee of CPC to solve the problem. Later, Zhou Enlai went there too. But one of the delegation member by name of Wang Li was detained and beaten by the revolutionary people of Million Heroic Division, because they were deemed in the wrong. Their detention of a member of the delegation from the central committee of CPC was thereby defined as reactionary action. Once they were thought by authorities to be in the wrong, their doom was already sealed. And some other groups supporting the local authorities were in the right. That was the reason for fighting. As a rule, the wrong side would be persecuted. Therefore, they wanted to keep on fighting in the hope of turning the table. Why the central committee didn't think much of them was because they were mostly common people while their opposite groups were mostly veterans. When Mao and Zhou stayed in the city, crowds of Million Heroic Division were seen almost everywhere, carrying long swords and guns. So Mao and Zhou felt a danger and threat. Mao escaped secretly under the protection of his bodyguards. Then Zhou and his followers disguised themselves as members by wearing armbands of Million Heroic Division. When they met the real members in the streets, they even shouted, “Final victory is Million Heroic Division's!” Such things never happened before. In the Chinese idea, it is a shame for leaders to escape like this. Anyway, they safely reached the military airport and flew back to Beijing. Once in Beijing, Mao and Zhou maneuvered troops to WuHan for armed suppression. Wang Li, the member of the delegation, was safely back to Beijing at last. Thus ended the 7.20 event.
Supposing, under the most serious riotous circumstances, if Chiang Kai-shek sent his army to land on the mainland, the rebellious groups, who failed in power-seizing actions, would probably go to Chiang Kai-shek's army for support. Even Party members would do so for their own interests. Don't think that Party members are always loyal to the Party. Many Party members are opportunists. They join in the Party for benefits or for the hope of becoming a cadre. A cadre would surely get benefits easily. And look at the facts that many upright Party members are imprisoned for their criticisms of the Party. Zhang Zhixin, a woman Party member, was killed by the Gang of Four for criticizing the wrong-doings of the Party. For fear that she might shout out something unfavorable to the them, her throat was cut when she was taken to the execution site and killed. No government will do so except the communist government in China. A brutal deed.
But no gun fight happened in Shanghai. The army there was under strict control. The largest event was the fight in Shanghai Diesel Engine Factory, which was located in the northeast part of Shanghai and had 10,000 people working in it. At the beginning of the rebellious period, there were two groups in the factory: one called the East Red group consisting of Party members and cadres, and the other called United Headquarters group consisting of workers and other staff. At first, United Headquarters group seized power and was in the leadership of the factory, since majority of workers joined this group, but East Red group wanted to take over the leadership as they thought themselves to be the Party members and cadres and should be the leaders of the factory. Then fight began between the two groups. When Wang Hongwen became a leader of Shanghai, he supported the East Red group as he was also a Part member and a cadre. United Headquarters group rejected to give up the leadership.
On the 4th day of August, 1967, Wang Hongwen sent 10,000 people to attack the United Headquarters group in the factory, and the vanguards were the trained firefighters. He did not dare to send army or police force there. The United Headquarters group defended the factory with only 3,000 people. The weapons both sides used were mainly axes and steel bars. The defenders also used some glass bottles containing materials easily catching fire and big nuts to shoot from giant rubber bands.
Wang Hongwen acted as the commander and 10,000 people surrounded the factory. Finally the attackers used crawler crane to knock down the gate and rushed in. Every man captive got a good beating. Thousands of captives with blood all over walked between the attackers, singing the Internationale, into prison vans. Those who were injured seriously and could not walk were thrown into vans. The women were treated a little better. The next day, the members who had not been in the factory that day were arrested one by one. During the fight, thousands of people were hurt on both sides altogether. No one died, as no guns were used.
In all those days of power transferring, Big Word Paper, posted all over the walls and shop windows in the streets, revealing all the information most people generally did not know, information about the behavior and activities of the central leaders, which were national secrets before, about how a leader staying in a special hospital for minor health problem had raped a young nurse. Such wrong-doings were deemed nothing as long as he stood on Mao's side politically. If he was against Mao, this would be one of his crimes. If a high-ranked cadre killed a common person, he might be removed from his office. If a common person killed another common person, he would be sentenced to death. Life paid for life. But for a high-ranked cadre, only his rank paid for death of another.
Many jobless men also organized some rebellious groups and went to the Street Committee. They did not seize power from authorities there. They just waited there and if any factory or store or anywhere sent in a notice to hire someone, one of them would put in his own name and use the seal to stamp on the paper. He took the paper and went to, say, the factory to work. He at last got a job this way. The authorities there did not dare to prevent him, afraid that all jobless people would get angry and beat them.
Since universities did not enroll students from high schools, the high school graduates must be given jobs. However, there was no vacancy anywhere, and so it was impossible for them to have jobs. Then the Communist Party thought of a way to dispose of them. The high school students graduated in 1968 and 1969 must go to the countryside to be re-educated by peasants. It sounded so funny. From the theory of the Chinese communist party that the illiterate peasantry represented the backward productivity and had the backward thinking, how could such peasantry re-educate the high school students who had at least had 12 years of education? Ridiculous. It should be that the communist party wanted to throw the students who could not be given jobs in cities to the countryside to make them maintain their lives at the lowest level of living standards so that the government could save a lot from them.
How did those students fare in the countryside? They must work and live with peasant families. Life was hard in the countryside in that time in China. Some students who could not have enough to eat would steal something from peasants. If they were caught, they got a good beating. Some students who had families with money saved in banks got food parcels from time to time from families. If one of them could give gifts to leaders, he would become their favorite and got better treatment. City girls looked much better than village girls. So the sons of village leaders loved to marry city girls in the village by luring them with personal benefits or even by force. Some girls who could not bear the hard life there married the sons of the leaders and lived better.
But a few years afterwards, the communist party had a policy that the students thrown into the countryside could return to cities where they came from on certain conditions like they must still be single or have some sicknesses. Therefore, some girls having married the leaders' sons got divorces and went back to their parents. Sometimes two students married each other. Now under such policy, they had to divorce first and applied to return to cities separately; then got married again in the city if they still loved each other, or married someone else respectively.
xlwoo
09-02-2015, 08:34 AM
VII. Why did Lin Biao's betrayal of Mao happen?
1) Background of the “9.13” event
On the 8th day of March, 1970, Mao made a decision and informed all other leaders that China should no longer set the position of the National Chairman (as vs the Party Chairman as Mao had the position at the time). He also declared that he would not take the position of the national chairman in the future. Why did he make such a decision? It was said that since he had given up such a position and let Liu Shaoqi have it when he had brought China into an economically bad situation, if he took it again when Liu was driven out of it, he would lose face like a child who had given a toy to someone and then take it back when after a quarrel. People would think that he had not willingly, but forced to resign the position as the national chairman, and now when the position was vacant, he would take it again. In the idea of Chinese people, it looked ridiculous for anyone to do so. Mao would never do it to lose face. A typical Chinese idea. Therefore, he thought that it was not suitable for anyone else to take this position, except for himself in the present condition. Besides, he feared that anyone else taking this position would surely get part of power from him just like Liu Shaoqi had done before. He would never have such a threat like a time bomb by his side. So the best way to elude it was not to set such a position any more in the constitution. He even suggested to revise the constitution about this point.
The national chairman was deemed as the head of the nation. Theoretically, a nation could have no head to represent it in the world, but in reality, on certain occasions, there should be a head of the nation to receive foreign VIPs or attend some international ceremonies. A party chairman could not do the duties of the national chairman. Therefore, Lin Biao, the vice party chairman at the time, and other party leaders thought that China must have the national chairman. That was why Lin made the proposal to keep the position of the national chairman. Mao thought that Lin wanted to take this position, though Lin manifested that he would never take this position and even proposed that Mao resumed it. He did not know why Mao rejected the position.
2) Different opinions for that matter became open at a meeting on Mt. Lu
In the afternoon on the 23rd day of August, 1970, the second session of the ninth party conference started on Mt. Lu. Three items were to be discussed for final decisions. First was to revise the constitution. Second was to make national economical plan. Third was to make preparations for battles, because at that time the crisis of territory occupation between the Soviet Union and China arose with potential warfare in the north frontier.
The most severe debate happened in whether there should be the revision of the constitution to abolish the position of the national chairman. Many representatives supported Lin for his opinion to ask Mao to be the national chairman, and also proposed Lin as the vice national chairman, which Mao did not like. Mao did not want Lin to have more power as he had already had as the vice party chairman, though Lin showed no desire to usurp Mao's power. He was lawfully decided the successor of Mao.
Lin had quite a few followers in the army as he had been the commander of the 4th field army in the second civil war. Four of his followers in the army supported him on the meeting and also his wife. Mao determined that anyone who was in favor of the idea to keep the position of the national chairman was wrong and must have self-criticisms. So the four followers and Lin's wife had to criticize themselves, but not to Mao's satisfaction. Mao thought that Lin was behind all this and Lin should make self-criticism, too. However, Lin thought that he was not wrong in the proposal of Mao to be the national chairman. He had declared that he would not be the vice national chairman even if Mao was elected the national chairman.
3) How Mao pushed Lin Biao into a deadly snare
After the meeting, Mao wanted to get rid of Lin Biao as he had got rid of Liu Shaoqi. Anyone who had different opinions from him, he could not endure like ancient emperors to their courtiers. He needed absolute obedience. So he traveled outside Beijing again to make preparations, just like he had done so before his riddance of Liu. He went to talk to the army commanders in several major provinces about Lin's intention to be the national chairman, which was an action of anti-party since Mao thought himself to be the representative of the party and anyone against him was against the party. This was the traditional thinking of ancient emperors: “The state, it's me!” Mao demanded the absolute loyalty to him from those commanders. The trick lay there: he warned them to keep the talk as a secret. But secretly he let the talk leak out and let Lin Biao and his family get wind of it. Mao reckoned that if Lin was patient enough to wait for Mao's next step without any rash action, his wife and son were young and inexperienced and must take some drastic means to fall into his snare.
The official record of CPC said that Lin's son had organized a secret assassinating group, called “United fleet”, to murder Mao. But another article said that at first he organized it to deal with Wu Faxian, the command-in-chief of the air force, because Wu declared his loyalty to Lin Biao while he also declared loyalty to Jiang Qing, a typical two-faced man. But when he got the news having leaked out secretly that Mao wanted to get rid of his father, he plotted to use the United Fleet to kill Mao by using antiaircraft guns to level at the train Mao rode in from Hangzhou to Beijing, without the knowledge of Lin himself. (It was so said to all the Chinese people after the crash of Lin's plane.) But Mao made a false move, somehow, as the party told Chinese people in their official record, and safely arrived in Beijing. However, people doubted if there really had been a plan to murder Mao. As there really nothing happened to Mao, people could be in no way to know if this was the fact or just what CPC invented to tell people as the pretense to plot Lin's death since CPC always made up “facts” as they desired. Anyway, it was said in the official report to people that when their plot failed, Lin's wife and the son wanted to escape first to Canton to set up another central government against Moa's Beijing government. People was so told. On the 13th of September, 1971, Lin's wife dragged Lin out of bed and pushed him into a car to drive to a military airport, and when they boarded a military plane with the son and some followers, they were told that the gas in the tank was not enough to fly to Canton, and so they changed their plan to fly to Russia as Lin had been in Russia for treatment of his illness. (It is also on the official record.)
Then the Party told all nation that an event happened that Lin, his wife and his son died in the plane that crashed in Mongolian Republic. How could a leader's plane so easily crash? The explanation was not so satisfactory. Then a rumor was in circulation that the plane was downed by a missile from the inner Mongolian area just as the plane was crossing the border into Mongolian Republic. The commander of the army stationed there was General You Taizhong at that time. In communist China, rumors are always based on facts, as facts are always covered up. The saying “Rumors have short legs” is not fit to use in communist China. Facts have to be circulated in the form of rumors. Or the Party declares the fact as a rumor as they cannot deny the fact some other way. A new idiom was invented: “Rumor ends in transparency.” If the facts are shown in a glass house for everyone to see, who will make up a rumor and circulate it? In details, a rumor may be a little different from the truth, but very close basically. So if Lin's plane was not downed by a missile, the crash must be a schemed one.
Many years later, Zhang Ning, the girlfriend of Lin's son, wrote a book narrating the event. She was with Lin family when the event took place. According to her, readers can draw such a conclusion that Lin's death was a trap set up by Mao and Zhou Enlai, the premier. Mao had talks with some concerned leaders of local governments and warned them to keep it a top secret, but he let someone leak it to Lin's wife and son, as Lin was sick in bed. The secret leaking out was made to sound like Mao wanted to have Lin arrested or even killed. Lin's wife and son fell in panic and wanted to escape. They dragged Lin out of the house and pushed him into the car. The chief guard Li, who was sent here by Zhou Enlai to guard Lin for his safety, got into the car first so that Lin's family members would naturally follow him in without a second thought. But when Lin family sat in the car, he jumped out. He shot at himself at his left arm so that he would be sent to a clinic for treatment. If he went with Lin family, he would die in the crash, too. He must have known the result and acted like that to shun the inevitable death. When Lin's car sped away, the soldiers guarding the place could easily stop it, but no one took any action. Lin family got to the military airport and climbed on the plane especially used for them. A few minutes after the plane rose into the air, it seemed that the plane wanted to re-land, but all lights in the airport were out and the runway was in dark. How could that happen? It seemed that all this was arranged beforehand. They had to fly north. The Party added that at first Lin wanted to fly to Canton to establish another government against Mao, but as there was not enough gas in the tank of the plane, he had to fly to Russia, taking the shortest route. As the plane crossed the borderline, it fell in the territory of Mongolian Republic. Although Chinese people had doubts about the whole thing, yet they did not care that Lin died. He supported Mao, or the cultural revolution would not happen. There is a Chinese saying going like that: when there are no more rabbits, the running dogs will be cooked. This was a typical example of Lin. It was said that Mao wanted to wipe out all the old cadres from the Long March and YanAn to make way for the Gang of Four, Jiang Qing, his wife, Wang Hongwen, the vice chairman of the party at that time, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan. Later, Mao wanted to wipe Zhou Enlai out of power. His intention was so apparent, like the nose on the face.
Recently a recording of the last five-minutes conversation in Lin's plane was discovered. The pilot Pan Jingyin didn't take his co-pilots, his navigator and radio operator. What was his intention? The recording revealed it. Originally, Lin family wanted to go to Canton. So pilot Pan began to fly south, but then he made a wide roundabout turn to north without anyone else on the plane knowing it. The following is what the recording exposed:
Lin's son asked, “What's the time now?”
Liu Peifeng, working under Lin's son, “2:27.”
Lin's son, “Where are we now?”
Liu, “I'll go to ask.” (It seems he's going into the cockpit.)
Liu, “Old Pan, where are we now?”
Pan, “We are over HuNan province.” (It's a province in the south.)
Liu, “How long will it be to Canton?”
Pan, “Another half an hour.”
Liu (sounds like speaking to Lin's son), “Old Pan said that we are over HuNan, and half an hour to Canton.”
(Suddenly a sound of explosion and the plane shook for a while.)
Lin's son, “What's the matter?” (It seems that they looked outside the plane window.”
Lin's son, “There's flame on the right wing. Old Pan!”
Pan, “Really? Could it be the enemy's missile?”
Lin's son, “What did you say? What enemy?”
No answer from Pan, and the plane is making a wide turn.
Ye Qun (Lin's wife going into the cockpit), “What's the matter?”
Lin's son, “Old Pan, you are turning round. Why do you want to turn round?”
No answer from Pan.
Ye Qun, “Where are we now?”
Still no answer from Pan.
Lin's son, “Speak, Old Pan.”
(The plane violently shook again.)
Pan to the microphone, “Director Wang, Director Wang, please answer!” (Almost crying.)
Yang ZhenGang, shouting from the entrance of the cockpit, “Pilot, who are you talking to?”
Still no answer from Pan.
Lin's son, “The explosion sounded like a time bomb. Someone wants to murder Lin.”
(The plane is going downwards.)
Pan, “Too bad, too bad!”
Liu, “What's the matter?”
Pan, “We are over Mongolia. Now flying back to our country.”
Liu, “Mongolia?”
Lin's son, “Mongolia?”
Pan, “Before taking off, Director Wang wants me to fly into Mongolia and then wait for his further command. But now, he cuts connection with me.” (Looks like Director Wang deserted him.)
Liu, “Why didn't you bring two co-pilots?”
Pan, “Director Wang said it's a special task. We don't need them.”
Lin's son, “How long have we been in Mongolia?”
Pan, “I don't know. Maybe, about 10 minutes.”
Ye Qun, “If we enter Mongolia, we'll be deemed as traitors.”
Lin's son, “If we die here, we'll be deemed traitors forever.” (It's what Mao and Zhou planned for them to make them look like traitors.)
Pan, “I am too stupid. Director Ye (addressing to Ye Qun), I've betrayed you all.”
(The plane is still going downwards.)
Pan to the microphone, “Technicians, shut all three engines.”
Pan, “The speed can't be decreased. The air brake doesn't work now. Maybe it already broken. The wings are out of control now.”
Lin's son, “Let's have forced landing.”
Pan, “It's out of control. Someone sabotaged the plane.”
Yang, “Pilot, I can't die. I have wife and children.”
Pan to the microphone, “The plane will soon land. Everyone back to the seat and buckle the safety belt. Take off your shoes. Let destiny decide our life or death.”
Pan, crying, “Vice Chairman Lin, I'm sorry to you.”
Then a loud sound. The end of the recording.
xlwoo
09-03-2015, 09:03 AM
VIII. Why did Mao want to criticize Lin Biao connected with Confucius?
On the 18th day of January, 1974, Mao instructed to have another movement, called “criticize Lin and criticize Confucius.” What did Confucius have anything to do with Lin Biao? They lived thousands of years apart. It was said that after Lin's death, Lin's rooms were searched and some quotations from Confucius were found written on paper stuck on the walls. And Lin had said that Mao was like the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, the tyrant, who had buried alive hundreds of scholars and burned books he did not like. It resembled the anti-rightists movement of Mao against intellectuals. When Mao learned it, he said that he loved the tyrant emperor and hated Confucius. That was why Lin and Confucius were combined for criticisms.
Then at Mao's instruction, “criticize Zhou” was added. The slogan became “criticize Lin, criticize Confucius and criticize Zhou.” Zhou was meant premier Zhou Enlai. After getting rid of Liu, and then of Lin, now Mao wanted to get rid of Zhou to clear way for the gang of four to take over the national power. But as all the old cadres supported Zhou, and as Mao knew that Zhou was wise enough not to fall into any trap, Mao had to let this movement slip by without any results.
IX. April-Fifth event in 1976 on TianAnMen Square
1) Background of this event
After Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were out of their leading positions at the beginning of the great cultural revolution, both had different destinies waiting for them. Liu had serious diabetes and was lying in bed in a hospital with tubes in his nose and throat. In October, 1969, Lin Biao ordered Liu to be moved to a prison in Kaifeng City of HeNan province. He was put on a stretcher without clothes on, only covered with a blanket. He was flown to the city in a military plane. Since he had only a thin blanket on, he got cold and then pneumonia. He was thus thrown in a special cell in the prison. On the 13th day of November, when a nurse came to check on him, he was found without breath. So his body was sent to crematories and burned to ashes. On the paper work of the crematories, his name was written as Liu Weihuang, not Liu Shaoqi. His job title was vagabond, not the chairman of the People's Republic of China. His case was redressed in February of 1980.
As to Deng Xiaoping, when Liu was carried to jail, he was sent to labor in a factory repairing agricultural tractors in Xinjian Town in Jiangxi province. Luckily for Deng, the leader of the factory had been an subordinate of Deng in the war period and so took good care of him. Deng just did some light work. In February, 1973, Deng returned to Beijing. When premier Zhou was found to suffer from cancer, Deng was appointed to be in charge of the state affairs.
On the 19th day of May, 1975, in the annual routine checkup, Zhou was found to have cancer in bladder. The doctors in charge reported it to the central committee of CPC and got instructions: first, no more examination; second, don't have operation; third, keep it a secret from Zhou himself and his wife. This decision was made by the gang of four. They wanted Zhou to die as soon as possible.
On the 8th day of January, 1976, premier Zhou died. By his will, his ashes were not put in an urn and buried anywhere, but were spread on the land of China. A very bad tradition in ancient China was that anyone in power would dig up the body of his enemy and would flog the body to vent his fury. That was why Zhou did not want to keep his ashes in any special place lest his urn should be insulted some day when the gang of four got into power.
2) The April-Fifth event on TianAnMen Square
On the 4th day of April, 1976, the tomb-sweeping day for the dead, people in Beijing gathered on the TianAnMen Square in memory of Zhou Enlai and criticized the gang of four without mentioning their names. Sometimes, the people gathering there amounted to over 2 million. So in the night of that day, police were sent to clear the square of the wreaths and slogans and also began to arrest people, which prolonged till the dawn of the 5th day. There was a three-storeyed house in the southeast corner of the square used as a commanding center. Angry crowds burned some cars and surrounded the house, demanding to have a talk with someone in charge in the commanding center, but was refused. So crowds set fire to the house, but those inside escaped and no one was hurt. At night of that day, over 10,000 militiamen, five battalions of soldiers and 3,000 policemen rushed to the square to disperse the throngs. As the militiamen, soldiers and policemen only carried wooden sticks, no guns, there was no one bleeding. The gang of four thought that Deng was behind this as the crowds on the square had shouted their support of Deng, and so on the 7th day of April, Deng was out of office again and put in confinement. Then Hua Guofeng was appointed the premier and the first vice chairman of the central committee of CPC.
No slaughter on TianAnMen Square happened this time, but this event was defined as a reactionary event. In November of 1978, the case was redressed and all those who had been arrested and imprisoned were set free.
X. The arrest of the gang of four – end of cultural revolution
1) The downfall of the gang of four with the death of Mao
After the death of Lin Biao, the health of Mao turned bad. In 1972, he had a serious shock. Then he suffered from cataract and could not see like blind. In 1975, after operation, he could see something. On the 9th day of September, 1976, he died at the age of 83, of some kind of disease, no definite diagnosis mentioned. His title at the time was the chairman of the central committee of CPC, the chairman of the central military committee of CPC, and the honorary chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. So he was only the head of the communist party, not the head of the nation of China. But as he was the chairman of the military committee of CPC, he was the most powerful man in the country, because in China, the military forces were controlled by the communist party, not by the government, or the nation. That was why when he had given up the position of the chairman of the republic, but not the position of the military committee of CPC. Before his death, he appointed Hua Guofeng as his successor, as he clearly knew that none of the gang of four, not even his wife Jiang Qing, had abilities to administrate such a huge country like China. If he appointed his wife as his successor, the old cadres would surely oppose his decision. But if he appointed one of the old cadres as his successor, the gang of four and their followers would have objection, too. And Hua Guofeng, though also without enough abilities for the position, was acceptable to both sides. In any political play, a politician should make balance among all sides, and then he could stay safely in the center.
Chinese people knew that the gang of four was supported by Mao only. Now when Mao was out of the picture, the gang of four would not stay long in power. And now there lay before Hua Guofeng a choice: on which side he must lean, the gang of four or the old cadres. A wise man could see which side he must choose. And Hua was a wise man and stood with the old cadres.
2) The cultural revolution ended with the arrest of the gang of four
Just after the death of Mao, Jiang Qing, in the name of Mao's wife, demanded Zhang Yufeng, the personal secretary of Mao, to give her the key to Mao's safe, but Zhang refused, saying the everything belonging to Mao belonged to the Party. She must give the key to the chairman of the Party, Hua Guofeng at the time. Jiang had to leave without the key. What was so important of Mao's safe? It contained the top secret documents of the Party and the state, and some delating letters to reveal some personal secrets of high-ranked cadres, etc., besides Mao's passbook and check book. Whoever controlled those documents and letters could control certain persons, or even the state power. Zhang reported it to Hua Guofeng afterwards, and Hua came to know the importance of Mao's safe and sent Wang Dongxing, commander of the central security bureau for the safety of the Party and national leaders, to take care of it.
On the 21st day of September, Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao recommended Li Xing as the commander of the central security regiment. They wanted Li to report to them all the information of the security regiment and addresses of all the members of the political bureau and conditions of how to guard their residences, etc. Li promised to give them all the information they wanted, but at the same time, he reported it to Wang Dongxing, and then to Hua Guofeng. Both sensed the danger of coup d'etat from the gang of four. Before Mao's death, Mao's nephew, Mao Yuanxin, was appointed the liaison officer between Mao and the central political bureau of CPC. Naturally Mao Yuanxin worked under Jiang Qing, Mao's wife. At dawn of the 4th day of October, 1976, Li Xing heard Mao Yuanxin informing the gang of four at breakfast that he had maneuvered two divisions from Shenyang military zone, which stationed now only one day's distance from Beijing. If summoned, they could reach the capital in one day. Li immediately reported it to Hua. Hua decided that he must take action at once. So he went to see Li Xiannian and Ye Jianying, two old cadres in charge of the army. They decided to notify the gang of four to a meeting and would arrest them then and there. Meanwhile, they notified the commander of the Shenyang military zone to order the two divisions to return to their original camps.
Wang Dongxing was entrusted for the apprehension of them. Zhang Chunqiao came first and was caught in the dark corridor to the meeting room without any trouble. Then Wang Hongwen was put under custody and pushed into the room when he suddenly struggled out of the hands of the security guards and dashed to Ye Jianying with the intention to grip Ye's neck, but was stopped and handcuffed only one meter from Ye. Yao Wenyuan did not make any resistance when arrested. Jiang Qing was always quick-tempered and threw a porcelain vase to the guards, but was subdued at last.
In the morning of the 25th day of January, 1981, the gang of four were judged at court. Jiang Qing and Zhang Chunqiao got the death verdict, but suspended for two years, which generally meant that the prisoner would not be executed at the end of the suspended period, but the sentence would be changed for life. Zhang Chunqiao said nothing at court, by which he showed his contempt for the so-called people's court. After two years, Zhang's verdict was accordingly changed to life sentence in January, 1983, and in March, 1993, hie verdict was changed again for 18 years, but in January, 1997, he was released for medical treatment. He died of cancer on the 21st day of April, 2005, at the age of 88. At court, Jiang Qing made a lot of protests and even gave a speech that sounded like reading the composition of a primary school girl. In January, 1983, her verdict was also changed to life sentence. On the 4th day of May, 1984, she was released for medical treatment of throat cancer. But on the 14th day of May, 1991, she hanged herself in the bathroom using several handkerchiefs tied together. She died at the age of 77. Wang Hongwen was sentenced for life and since 1986, he was moved to a hospital in Beijing and died of liver disease on the 3rd day of August, 1992, at the age of 58. Yao Wenyuan was sentenced for 20 years and was released after 20 years on the 6th day of October, 1996, and died of diabetes on the 23rd day of December, 2005.
Chinese people watched the whole process on television like watching a drama. A political drama for people to enjoy. Nothing more. It was just a fight within the communist party, like dogs fighting for a bone—political power. Whoever won the game had nothing to do with common people. The winner became the king and the loser became the prisoner, as a Chinese saying goes. Thus ended the great cultural revolution and began a new era for China. Good or bad for Chinese people? Wait and see.
gustave dore
09-04-2015, 05:55 AM
What is this supposed to be exactly?
xlwoo
09-04-2015, 07:47 AM
[don't know what your question means. these are facts that happened in China.]
Chapter 4 Birth control policy began in 1970
I. The general regulations of the birth control policy
The one-child policy is only limited in the Han tribe, especially in the towns and cities. The party called upon young people to marry late, generally, boys after 30 and girls after 25, so that there would be less births. As to the minorities, there was no such a limit. The peasant families in the countryside, and the families of the couples, each of whom already was one child, could have a second birth. So the accurate name for the policy should be the birth control policy, not the one-child policy. The enforcement of the policy decreased the birth rate in China. In 2000, the nationwide census showed the decrease of 250 million child birth, and in 2010, the rate of the population growth reduced to 0.57%.
What would the government do if a couple wanted to have a second birth and the wife was already pregnant against the regulations? At first, the cadres of the resident committee would come to persuade them to have abortion, and leaders of where the couple worked would do the same. They would even threaten the couple by stopping the pay of wages or salary if the couple insisted to have the second birth. Without income, how could the couple live? So generally, the couple had to yield and had abortion. There was a special example in Shanghai. The wife did not have job and was pregnant again. And the government could not stop her pay. The stop of the husband's pay was no use, because his father had been a capitalist and had money to support the couple. As the regulations did not have any penalty to the father in such a situation, the government could do nothing to the father. So the only way the cadres of the resident committee could adopt was to go to see the wife everyday and sat in her house to persuade her all day long. If the wife could not bear the bothering any longer, she might have the abortion. But to the surprise of the local cadres, she played disappearance. They could not get any information where she had gone from the father and the husband. The wife went to hide in a relative's home in another town. She gave birth there and brought child back. The local cadres could not kill the child. No such policy. Afterwards, the policy decided that the couple against the regulations to have the second birth must pay a fine. However, in smaller towns or countryside, things could be very different.
II. Serious events happened concerning the one-child policy
Some illegal performance happened in carrying out the birth control policy in Shaoyang Town of HeNan province. The local cadres, in order to get money for government, “confiscated” by force the child born unlawfully, i.e., taking the baby away from the parents. The family must pay 10,000 yuan fine to get back the child within the time limit. If the family did not hand in the money, the child would be delivered to a local orphanage beyond the time due. They would make up a document to change the status of the child into an orphan, whose surname would be changed to Shao, which was the first word of the town Shaoyang. Some of the orphans were really lawful children of the one-child policy. They took them away from the families by force. The orphans stayed there to be adopted, often by foreigners through lawful procedures, but they must pay 3,000 American dollars. $1,000 would go to those local cadres as commission. This event began in 2000 through 2005. It was revealed on the 21st day of March, 2006, in the South China Morning Post in Hongkong.
Another event was that in Changli Town of Hebei province, where a couple must apply for a “birth service certificate” to have the baby delivered in a hospital. Yang Zhongchen, the husband, and Jin Yani, the wife, got the marriage certificate on the 5th day of May, 2000, and became lawful couple. Then when the wife was pregnant for 9 months and still did not get the birth service certificate, the local cadres forced her to go to the birth service station in the town and she was given an injection for abortion. The 9-month old baby died in the womb, but the dead baby was too big to be easily taken out. An instrument was put in the womb to crush the baby's head and taken out bits by bits. The woman got serious injured and was diagnosed to lose the ability to have child ever afterwards. And the couple was forced to pay the abortion service fee. On the 16th day of January, 2007, the couple sued them for some compensation. Although the court accepted the case, yet the court passed the judgment to overrule the case on the 18th day of May. A similar event happened in Ankang Town of Shaanxi province.
On the 25th day of February, 2007, an event took place in DunGu Town of Bobai county in Guangxi province. The town government decided to gather fines from those families who had had the second birth since 1980. They must pay the fine in three days. Besides, every local cadre must fulfill an allotted quota to have at least one married woman to have the Fallopian tube tied up, which was demanded by the government as one way for efficient birth control. (Sometimes, the husbands were demanded to tie up the seminal duct.) The quota also included the collection of the fines for 500 yuan by the end of August. This decision involved many families. So it developed on the 17th day of May that more than 300 people gathered before the gate of the town government. Some people attacked the government cadres and policemen. On the 18th and the 19th days, such things happened in other six towns. The people gathering once reached 3,000. The event was quieted down on the 23rd day under the pressure of the local governments. Statistics showed the the government income from the fine of the enforcement of the one-child policy reached more than 200 millions a year.
Some Chinese husbands with feudal thinking like boys and hate girls because boys can hand down the family name, in the countryside, some illiterate fathers will kill the baby girl so that he can have a boy born to him next time, especially since 1971 when child control policy was forcibly carried out. In the actual situation since China has such a giant population, the one child policy is correct, or China would have much more population than now, a heavy burden to the nation and to the world as well. What was wrong was Mao, who had encouraged people to have more children like the Soviet Union had done after the World War II. But the block-headed Mao never knew differences between different things. After the second world war, the population in the Soviet Union was only 167 million while that in the fifties in China was round 600 million. The right policy at that time should not encourage people to give more birth. If so, the population nowadays will not be so great. And one child policy is not needed. From all the facts in China, a conclusion can be easily drawn that Mao always made mistakes to bring China into all kinds of troubles: from economical plight to excessive population. Who can deny all the truth? Looking back, in 1950, Ma Yinchu, the president of Beijing University and the vice director of the central financial committee, had proposed the birth control, but Mao did not listen to him. In 1970, the population in China reached 813 million while that in India was only 549 million. If Mao listened to Ma Yinchu in 1950, the population problem will not be so serious.
xlwoo
09-05-2015, 08:59 AM
Chapter 5 The economical reform and the open policy
I. Deng Xiaoping came into power again
After the chaos of the 10 years of the cultural revolution, the whole nation wished for restoration of peace and production of necessities for living. At that time, the chief leader of the party and the country was Hua Guofeng, who had no abilities for the management of the national economy. And Ye Jianying was in charge of the army and was not deemed as a person who could shoulder the responsibilities for the national economy. Therefore, almost everyone, even Chinese people, thought of Deng Xiaoping, the famous person, in Mao's words, to go the capitalist road. Now China needed to go the capitalist road for the restoration of the national economy.
An old data showed that in 1820, the GDP of China was 32.4% of the world total GDP, the first in all the countries; in 1919, GDP was 9.1%; in 1952, GDP was 5.2%, while in 1978, after the cultural revolution, GDP fell to 1.8%. So the urgent task for China was to raise its GDP as fast as possible.
At the beginning of 1977, after the downfall of the gang of four, there lay before China a big question mark: where China should go? Hua Guofeng, as the successor of Mao and the new leader of the country and the party could not answer this question. He just put up his policy of “two whatevers”: “Whatever policies Mao had made, we must support; whatever instructions Mao had given, we mush follow.” But all the old cadres opposed the two whatevers as they looked upon it like Hua wanted to continued what Mao had been doing. They thought that China must get rid of Mao's leftist route and then could go the rightist route—the capitalist road, as Mao had put it. Therefore, the two whatevers policy was criticized and Hua was criticized likewise at the meeting of the central political bureau on the 16th day of November, 1980. But the most unforgivable fault of Hua was that he did not support the old cadres to restore to their former positions and work. So Chen Yun openly said that Hua was not suitable to be the leader. Therefore, Hua was forced to resign. On the 5th day of December, his resignation was approved by the central political bureau of CPC. Naturally Deng became the new leader of the party and the nation. Hua died of some kind of disease on the 20th day of August, 2008.
Deng had two famous quotations: One is “practice is the sole criterion to determine what is truth.” The other is “It doesn't matter whether it is a white cat or a black cat, the cat that can catch the mouse is a good cat.” The second quotation clearly reflects his pragmatism.
II. Deng's goal to let part of Chinese people get rich first
Deng did not say who could be get rich first. But from the later development of the economy and cases of many individuals, who got rich first, being then fined for tax evasion or whatever reasons the government could think of to be poor anew. Some were even imprisoned for violation of this law or that. But the family members and relatives of the party leaders and government high officials were all safe from penalty or jail though they were known publicly having violated laws.
Anyway, though Deng wanted to go the capitalist road as against Mao's socialist road, he met with oppositions, because just after the cultural revolution, Mao's leftist thinking was still maintained by many people. But it was the fault of Deng himself too, as he did not criticize Mao's leftist thinking first before he went the capitalist road. If he could have started a movement to criticize Mao's leftist thinking, it would be easier for him to go the capitalist road. Why did he still want to keep Mao as the idol of the communist party and not entirely abandon his influence? No one could have the answer. Since the signboard of Mao was still upheld in the present time, the reform, even in the economical field only, had certain limits, which tied the hands and feet of the party leaders. If China wants to make further advance without a hitch, the idol of Mao must be overthrown forever. They must declare to be entire capitalism, not the initial stage of the socialism, but going the capitalist road financially and the socialist road politically.
There were debates about certain problems. When going the capitalist road, there would be private businesses and the owners of the private businesses must hire employees. According to socialist thinking, there should not be exploitation of employees by the private business owners. The debates went on for a couple of years. Finally, Deng made the decision: Let there be exploitation if China must go the capitalist road. Deng's decision is actually opposite to the idea of socialism, as Marxism decided that exploitation is typical of capitalism, though Chinese communist party repeatedly declares that China is a socialist country. Of course, the world knows that it is a false declaration. And as the CPC always tells lies, it is no surprise to the world.
In the early 80s of the 20th century, as approved by the central political committee of CPC and the state council, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Shantou, and Amoy in the southern coast area became the special economic zones. Therefore, the local governments invited the investment of the foreign capital for the development of the local economy. Another problem arose. The foreign businesses might employ some Chinese personnel as managers. Thus there would be a new compradore class, which reminded some old people of the old China where the so-called imperialists had made the economical invasion.
On the 24th day of January, 1984, Deng went to inspect Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Amoy, three special economic zones, and was satisfied with the situation. He decided to open more harbor cities like Dalian and Qingdao, as the special economic zones. At that time, Deng was the director of the central counselor committee and the chairman of the central military committee of CPC. It meant that he had the control of the army. So every party leader must listen to him. His decision was the final, though he had no position in the central government.
In April of 1988, HaiNan Island was made an independent province and also a special economic zone. In June, the local government and a company from Hongkong signed an agreement that 30 square kilometers of land in Yangpu Peninsular would be leased to the company for 70 years. The company could use it at its own discretion. It was the first time that the communist party adopted such a style in its open policy. It was called Yangpu Style. Some old people connected it with the foreign settlements in old China, criticized it and opposed it. In March of 1989, this event developed into a so-called Yangpu Storm, politically. Many party leaders went there for inspection. Then Deng interfered and the storm quieted down. On the 9th day of March, 1992, the state council approved the official set-up of the “Yangpu Economic Developing Zone.”
xlwoo
09-06-2015, 10:01 AM
III. How Hu Yuebang got into and out of power
1) Hu Yuebang became general secretary of central secretariat of CPC
Hu Yuebang (11/20/1915—04/15/1989) was from a poor peasant family and joined the communist party in 1933. When Hua Guofeng was forced to resign in June, 1981, there arose the question who would be the chairman of the party? Deng Xiaoping, 77 of age at the time, wanted to be the chairman, but Ye Jianying did not support him because he did not like the resignation of Hua. Someone nominated Ye as the chairman, but Ye declined because he was over 80 then. Since Hu Yuebang had a lot of merits in his work to the party, he was agreed to be the chairman of the party. Zhao Ziyang (10/17/1919—01/17/2005) was made a vice chairman of the party. After Hua resigned all his positions, Zhao was made the premier of the state council. Then Hu Yuebang proposed to have Hua as a vice chairman of the party and his proposal was agreed upon. Deng was the chairman of the party military committee.
In the 12th party conference, Hu Yuebang wanted to resign from the position of the chairman of the party and proposed Deng to be the chairman, and Hu himself to be a vice chairman. Deng proposed Ye to be the chairman, but Ye declined once more and said, “You two dwarfs can work together for the party.” (Deng Xxiaoping and Hu Yuebang both had short stature.) But Hu insisted in not being the chairman of the party. He could take the position of the general secretary of the party. Then the position of the party chairman was vacant for many years. The general secretary took charge of the party affairs.
When Hu had been the minister of the organization ministry of the central committee of CPC, he had done a great job in the correction of many wrong cases, the biggest one being the case of the so-called anti-rightists movement, which involved over 550,000 rightists.
2) How Hu Yuebang was forced to resign from general secretary position
The cause of Hu's resignation was his different opinion with Deng about Deng's full retirement from power. Since Mao had stayed in power till death, Deng likewise wished to have power as long as possible. In May of 1986, Deng made a false move, a typical two-faced person like Mao. Maybe, he just learned it from Mao. Deng invited Hu to come to his home for the discussion of the personnel arrangement of the party positions in the 13th party conference. Hu said that he was over 70 and must retire in the 13th party conference. Deng said, “Chen Yun, Li Xiannian, and I will all retire. You (Hu) can half retire, no longer to be the general secretary, but still can be the chairman of the military committee or of the nation for a term. Then you'll see what to do.”
On the 22nd day of August, 1986, Deng had a birthday party for his 81st anniversary. At the party Deng said that he would retire in the 13th party conference. Hu believed it. The stupid dwarf, Hu, was no match for the wise dwarf, Deng. In October, on the meeting of the central political bureau, Hu openly said that he supported Deng to retire and then other old cadres would retire, too, so as to make way for the younger comrades. He added that he would retire from the office of the general secretary at the end of the term. Some old cadres agreed with Hu, including Wan Li. When Deng asked Wan why Hu wanted him to retire, which showed that Deng never actually wanted to retire, Wan said that Hu might just have a slip of the tongue. Deng asked again if Hu wanted to show himself off by so doing. Wan replied that Hu was not such a sort of person.
Anyway, on the 10th day of January, 1987, on an informal meeting of the political bureau, some of Deng's supporters criticized Hu and asked him to resign right away. Therefore, He had to resign on the spot. But people remembered him for his integrity. In the 13th party conference, he was elected the member of the central committee of CPC by over 1,800 votes, and was elected the member of the central political bureau with almost the full votes less 7.
xlwoo
09-07-2015, 09:12 AM
Chapter 6 The slaughter of students on TianAnMen Square
I. The background of the TianAnMen event
In 1986, there was a democratic atmosphere on the political stage in China. As the economical reform had an obstacle from the political system and the economical system, the reform, though somewhat having some achievements in the countryside, met with difficulties in cities. Prices of goods rose. Inflation happened. Officials became corrupt. Belief crisis worsened. Therefore, there originated the conflict of two different opinions among the party leaders. One was to support the reform and the other objected the reform by opposing the so-called bourgeois liberalization. Deng at first tended to the former, but then turned over to the latter. He might be afraid that the bourgeois liberalization would endanger the tyrannical rule of the communist party.
After the resignation of Hu Yuebang, Zhao Ziyang became the general secretary. Li Peng was made the premier of the state council. On the 13th day of May, 1987, Zhao Ziyang, instructed by Deng, gave a speech to actually cease the anti-bourgeois-liberalization movement. Deng changed his attitude again. At the suggestions of some economists, Zhao tried to carry on the reform from the prices of goods. The goods price reform caused a stampede of purchase that had an impact to the price control. Those who opposed the reform thereby persuaded Deng to stop. Criminal cases of all kinds increased.
College students had the sharpest sense to the change of the political situations and the social conditions. Some renowned intellectuals, especially the university professors, demanded to release all the political prisoners. On the 6th day of January, 1989, Fang Lizi, a famous scientist, wrote an open letter to Deng for amnesty of political prisoners, especially Wei Jingsheng, who later was allowed to leave China for the US.
In universities in Beijing at the time, there was a wall,on which students could openly post their opinions written on paper stuck on it. Since all the opinions could be openly expressed there, the wall was called “Democracy Wall.” The famous wall was the Xidan Democracy Wall, located in Xidan of Beijing, not within any of the university campus. It had developed from the big-character paper in the cultural revolution stuck on the wall. In 1978, a lot of articles and poems were posted there. On the 16th day of November, an article posted with an alias of Mechanician #0538 conveyed the criticism of the historic mistakes of Mao and requested to abolish the tyranny, and to have democracy and the freedom of speech. There gathered sometimes as many as more than 10,000 people, including foreign press.
On the 8th day of January, 1979, Fu Yuehua, a female textile worker, had a demonstration on TianAnMen Square with thousands of other people for the human rights. They held up a banner bearing the words: Democracy and human rights. On the 9th day of January, Fu Yuehua was apprehended. On the 22nd day of March, 1979, Beijing Daily published an article “Human rights are not the proletarian slogan.” On the 25th day of March, Wei Jingsheng posted his article on Xidan Democracy Wall titled “Democracy or new tyranny” to openly criticize Deng going the tyrannical road. On the 29th day, Wei was arrested. The reason for the arrest of Wei made open by the government was that Wei sold military information to foreigners at the price of 20 yuan of Chinese currency. It meant that Wei was so destitute in need of 20 yuan. Many Chinese people had 20 yuan at that time. Who would care for 20 yuan? And did they mean that Wei did not know the importance of military information and that he would sell it for only 20 yuan? No wonder. The communist government always tells lies. On the same day, Beijing government put up a public notice to prohibit this, prohibit that, anything to criticize the government and the party. They also forbade the posting of the big word paper and demonstrations.
On the Second Session of the Fifth National People's Congress in June, Hu Yuebang said that some comrades criticized him for supporting liberalization which would encourage anarchism, but he wanted to maintain his own viewpoint. As to the apprehension of Wei Jingsheng and others, Hu said that for these brave people, they did not care to be imprisoned. If Wei Jingsheng died in the prison, he would be deemed a martyr in the eye of people. Hu implied that it was not worth letting Wei die in prison. Hu's hint meant that political prisoners were always maltreated in jail.
II. The fuse to university students protesting on TianAnMen Square
On the 15th day of April, 1989, Hu Yuebang died of heart disease. He was thought by Chinese people, especially university students, as a firm political reformer. With the termination of the chaotic cultural revolution, people pinned hope on Deng to go the capitalist road, but Deng disappointed them by going the capitalist road financially only, and refusing to go the capitalist road politically. The disappointment of Deng also lay in his rejection to redress the anti-rightist movement as a whole and in his forcing Hu to resign.
From the 15th day to the 17th day, people kept coming to the TianAnMen Square and put wreaths, white banners, white flowers and paper couplets around the Monument of People's Heroes in memory of Hu. On the 16th day, a student from Beijing University quietly sat there on a small stool he had brought with a long slip of white paper on him bearing the words: “Eternal farewell, (Hu) Yuebang!” In many universities in Shanghai and other cities, students put up slogans in memory of Hu. Everything was in order.
On TianAnMen Square, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the 17th day, over 20 students played mourning music and shouted something like “Long live freedom!” “Long live democracy!” “Long live law system!” (In communist China, law is only a decoration. The party decides everything even against the law they make.) And some other slogans. At 4:30, a parade came into the square, singing L'Internationale. Then they dispersed quietly. Round 7 o'clock, about 3,000 people gathered there in memorial activities. Past 8 o'clock, the memorial service of the crowds reached its climax. Many students chanted poems of their own composition and applause sounded vehemently. Just past midnight on the 18th day, more than 1,000 students from Beijing University came, joined by students of other universities, totaling 3,000. They yelled with something like “Long live freedom!” “Long live democracy!” and “Down with bureaucratists!” while singing L'Internationale.
In the early morning of the 18th day, hundreds of students sat before the Great Hall of the People demanding the reception of the leaders to have a talk. They made 7-items requisition:
1, re-evaluate the merits and demerits of Hu Yuebang and acknowledge his points of view in democracy, freedom, leniency and harmony.
2, thoroughly negate decisions of anti-bourgeois-liberalization and clearing spiritual pollution. Redress the wrong cases for intellectuals.
3, yearly income from all sources of the national leaders and their family members must be open to people. Oppose corruption and embezzlement.
4, lift the ban and permit people to run private newspapers. Have freedom of speech.
5, increase the educational expenditure and pay of intellectuals.
6, denounce the 10 regulations issued by Beijing government about demonstration.
7, demand government leaders to make open self-criticisms to people for their mistakes and re-elect part of the leaders through democratic method.
The students demanded that the government should put their requisitions on newspapers and make an open answer to people. Would the party leaders meet the wishes of the students? Surely never. Most Chinese rulers from the history always resorted to arms in their dealing with common people. How could the communist party be an exception, though they said that they served people? Besides, all the requisitions were what they hated. They hated democracy, freedom of speech, of publication and of demonstration. The requisition they could not accept mostly was to let their illegal income open to public. Supposing if they yielded to demand of students, it would make them lose face. In Chinese tradition, face is very important to the individual, especially to those in power. They will never do anything to lose face if they can help it. Moreover, they were never lenient to common people. Therefore, the result was foreseeable and predictable. The bravery of the students was much admired by the world as they certainly knew that when they were doing so, they were taking the risk of imprisonment and even death.
At the time, Zhao Ziyang was the general secretary. According to theory and rules, he should be in charge of everything in the country. He should have the final say. So he sent someone to receive the representatives of the students and accept their letter of petition. However, he could not make the final decision about their requisitions. He had those old cadres over him or behind him. Those old cadres controlled the army while he did not. In communist China only those in control of the army had the final say to anything and everything.
In the night of the 19th day of April, 3,000 students gathered before Xinhua Gate, which is the entrance to Zhongnanhai, where the party leaders lived. There were also 7,000 spectators. The whole day, no leaders came out to see the students. So they yelled, “Come out, Li Peng!” Li Peng was the premier at the time. Leaders of the party and government divided into two different opinions towards the students. Zhao, the general secretary, wanted to have a talk with students while Li, the premier, and those old cadres, refused to talk with those youngsters. The leaders of Beijing City handed in a report to the central committee of CPC in a negative attitude.
From 11 o'clock at night of the 20th day, to 1 o'clock in early morning of the 21st day, students of Beijing University had a meeting to decide to set up the “Preparatory Committee of Solidarity Student Association of Beijing University” to organize the united action. They made another demand to release Wei Jingsheng. They contacted the students of other universities to set up a common organization for the petition. It was because three students, when returning to dorm after the memorial activities in the night of the 19th day, were attacked by police and one of the students, Wang Zhinyong was severely hurt. The students required to punish those attacking the students. They refused to go to classes like on strike. Some hundred students from Tianjin or other cities came to Beijing to join in the memorial activities in support to Beijing students. Even professors, writers, the press, and people of other callings, supported the students.
In the morning of the 22nd day of April, there was a funeral for Hu Yuebang in the People's Hall. During the whole process, till Hu's hearse went to the graveyard, everything was in order. Students quietly mourned. Three students knelt before the People's Hall, holding the letter of petition, because no one came out to take the letter from them yet. In front of them there lined up armed police and soldiers. There were more spectators than students. The crowds had somewhat body touch with the police. Some students came to tell crowds to stand back and order restored. Then two men came out to talk with the students. At round 1:30 in the afternoon, students went back to their dorms, but they still refused to have classes, as they were waiting for the reply from the government. News went round that the 38th army was maneuvering to Beijing. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the 23rd day of April, there appeared the declaration of the ph.d. students in the People's University of China, which read as follows:
1, entirely support the 7-items requisitions of the university students in Beijing, firmly support all the patriotic democratic movements of people of all classes.
2, all ph.d. students join the strike from this moment.
3, (now that it is) “collective leadership, and the mistakes from policies made collectively,” (words of Li Peng) leaders should resign collectively to show the honesty of the “collective responsibilities.” (words of Li Peng.) (This requisition meant that Li Peng's cabinet must resign collectively.)
4, strongly demand that all the leaders over 75 years old, either in the party, or in the government, or in the army, should resign.
5, stop violence, protect human rights. The army should not interfere with national affairs.
6, the expenditure of the CPC should not be paid from the national treasury.
7, lift the ban to newspapers. Freedom of the press. Permit private newspapers, radio and TV stations.
8, let people from different classes organize a probity committee to check the corruption among the leaders of the party and the government. Investigate the unlawful business activities of the children and relatives of the old cadres and publicize the results.
When Li Peng was reported about it, he said that this declaration was openly to challenge the party. In other cities students joined in the patriotic movement to save China from corruption. In XiAn, some students in the demonstration were beaten and wounded. Some even disappeared after arrest. In Shanghai, Jiang Zeming, the municipal party secretary ordered Qin Benli, the chief editor of World Economic Herald to be dismissed from office because he supported the students' movement. Jiang's suppression of the World Economic Herald was much appreciated by the old cadres and that was why he was later to be selected as the general secretary to replace Zhao Ziyang. Hu Jintao was selected as the successor of Jiang Zeming because he suppressed the Tibetans when he was the party secretary there. From this, the world can see that the Chinese communist party selected their successors by the rule that the successors should be firmly against the people, never for the people. Those for the people must go down from power like Hu Yuebang and Zhao Ziyang.
On the 26th day of April, the People Daily published an editorial to define the students' petition as a riot. The bugle for killing sounded, but the students ignored. Maybe, they were too young to be aware of such dirty political plots. A student told his family that he would sacrifice his dear life to save the country. He determined that once he left home, he would never come back alive. On the 27th day, besides in Beijing, students in many main cities held demonstrations. Under the approval of Deng, a tank division of the 38th corps maneuvered towards Beijing. But at the time, no soldiers interfered with students' demonstrations. Anyway, party leaders had different opinions about the students' movement. The general secretary Zhao maintained the idea to talk with students to solve the problems and to have press reform for freedom of report while Li Peng, the premier, opposed it, supported by Deng and old cadres.
On the 4th day of May, 1919, university students in Peking had a demonstration. Therefore, the 4th day of May was set as Youth Day when the communist party began their rule in mainland, China. Every Youth Day, students will have some activities for celebration. Now the Youth Day would soon come in 1989. The authorities knew that students would have a parade. So the general secretary Zhao would make a speech. The premier Li wanted Zhao to add “anti-bourgeois liberalization” in Zhao's speech, but Zhao said that it was not appropriate to add such a phrase in the speech at the time. Now it's time to appease but not to enrage students. The reasonable speech was welcomed by students, but some old cadres criticized Zhao for so saying. They wanted strong words to threaten students so that students could be quieted and go back to their desks. Therefore some leaders from Beijing government criticized the letter of petition handed in by students and declared that there were some evil conspirators behind all this. That was not the truth. Students could not accept it. As a matter of fact, this is the old ruse the communist party often uses. Whenever there are some riots among people for maintaining their lawful rights harmed by the local governments or those supported by local governments, the communist party will say that there must be some international plotters or imperialists behind the riots.
This May-4th was the 70th anniversary of May-4th movement in 1919. Students in Beijing and in other main cities held parades. Even newspapers staff took part in. General secretary Zhao gave an impromptu speech in order to assuage the students. But premier Li thought that Zhao's speech was against the spirit of the April-26th editorial, which had already defined the students' movement as a riot. In the communist notion, any riot should be suppressed by force, not smoothed off by talk and yielding.
In the afternoon of the 9th day of May, two newspaper reporters handed in a letter of petition with 1,013 signatures to the leaders in charge of the party's propaganda work to ask for a talk how to restore Qin Benli to be the chief editor of the World Economic Herald. Of course, it had no result.
III. The students' hunger strike began
Since the government did not give students a reasonable answer, the students decided to go on the hunger strike. Their slogan was “I love food, but I love truth more.” They did not say how long the hunger strike would be. A student said that it would be timeless, meaning till they got satisfactory answer from the government.
On the 13th day of May, in the morning, they made a Declaration of Hunger Strike, which read in the following (extract):
“In the sunshiny May, we go on hunger strike. In the best time of youthfulness, we have to leave behind us all the beauties of life. We are so unwilling, so reluctant. ...
Democracy in life is the greatest emotion for living. Liberty is the human rights endowed by Heaven with birth. So for these we will use our young lives to exchange. Is this the pride of the Chinese nation? …
We are still children, we are still children! Mother China, open thy eyes to look at thy children! Although hunger's mercilessly destroying their young lives, and Death's approaching them, how canst thou not be moved?
We don't want to die. We want to live happily, because we are in the prime of our years. We don't want to die. We want to learn more, as our motherland is still so short of things. We are not so heartless to die thus, leaving our motherland behind like this. Death is not what we are in pursuit of. But if death of someone, or some ones can make most people live better, can make our motherland flourishing, we have no reason to treasure our lives.
Fathers and mothers, when we are suffering from hunger, do not lament. Uncles and aunties, when we bid farewell to our lives, do not cry. We have only one wish to make you live better. We have only one request: don't forget what we are going after is not death. …
Farewell, our people, please allow us to have to thus end our lives to show our loyalty! ...”
Among those on hunger strike was the world-renowned Liu Xiaobo, the winner of Nobel peace prize. The communist government refused him to be present at the ceremony and receive it. In the evening of that day, 300 professors and young teachers of Beijing university wrote an open letter to the central committee of CPC, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and the state council. On the 14th day, part of the teaching staff of some universities proposed teachers' strike. Some government leaders did have a talk with the student representatives, who requested that for a good commence of the talk, the first question that should be solved was that this event was a patriotic movement to save the country from corruption and embezzlement, not a riot against the party and government. But the government leaders did not make a positive reply so that the talk could not be continued.
During the hunger strike, Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet communist party, came to China on a visit. Since the students occupied the TianAnMen Square, the Chinese government had to change the location for reception ritual, which, in their opinion, made them lose face. In their narrow mind, the relationship between students and the government should be like father and son. No equal rights between them. So the party leaders were angry. The general secretary Zhao was criticized for the weakness in his attitude towards the students. Besides, in Zhao's talk with Gorbachev, he was thought to have said something like Deng Xiaoping, though not the head of the nation or the party in name, could decide everything in national affairs. Those old cadres thought that this was a secret and should not be known to a foreign leader, but all the Chinese people knew it, let alone the foreign leaders, that Deng, though only the chairman of the central military committee in control of the army, was in fact over the general secretary Zhao in power. The Chinese party leaders always played the ostrich, burying its head in sands. They thought that once they controlled the press, the radio and TV stations, people would not know what happened in China. Besides the above-mentioned, Deng wanted to put Beijing under the martial law, supported by premier Li, but Zhao said that it was not the right time to do it. On such accusations, Zhao was removed from the office of general secretary and put in confinement ever since. All the time during his confinement, he just played golf and relaxed. He rejected to self-criticize as he thought he was not wrong. He died of kidney disease on the 16th day of January, 2005.
Then who would be the general secretary was an urgent question. According to the tradition of the communist party, the premier would be the first candidate, like when Hu Yuebang was out of the office of the general secretary, the premier Zhao Ziyang succeeded him. Now the premier Li Peng should be the successor, but some old cadres said that Li's disrepute among people made him improper to take this office. So finally, the old cadres decided that Jiang Zeming, the party secretary of Shanghai should be the general secretary as he was firm in opposition of the student movement. Jiang became the next general secretary of the party. In accordance with the communist party constitution, the change of the general secretary must be decided in the central committee of CPC, not decided privately by some old cadres. Therefore, this was deemed as a bloodless coup d'etat, not a routine procedure. Premier Li had expected to be made the general secretary, but now was disappointed. Deng, as a shrewd politician, had a talk with premier Li and hinted a warning to him not to form any clique.
xlwoo
09-08-2015, 09:30 AM
IV. The slaughter of the unarmed students on TianAnMen Square
Generally people thought that the slaughter mostly happened on TianAnMen Square, because foreign reporters mainly lodged in Beijing Hotel, and so they knew mostly what happened around TianAnMen Square in their reports. But most killings occurred in Muxidi in west Beijing, 3 or 4 km from TianAnMen Square. The army went through this place to TianAnMen Square. That is where the army began the killings. That is where most people were killed or wounded.
Therefore, the martial law was carried out. The armed forces in positions ready to act reached 180,000. The 24th army, the 27th army, the 28th army, the 38th army, the 63rd army, the 65th army, and the 39th army and the 40th army from Shenyang military zone, and the 54th army and the 67th army from JiNan military zone, were ordered to maneuver to the assigned positions. It looked like another civil war would have soon broken out. What the army facing was only the unarmed students. But the commander of the 38th army refused to move. Some army officers wrote an open letter to the central military committee of CPC not to suppress the innocent students, who were not the enemy of the nation.
The martial law incited students and common people in Beijing as it had never occurred since the establishment of this republic. So people in Beijing used everything to set up barriers to prevent the army from entering the city. Throngs of people went to meet military trucks and surrounded them so that the trucks were stuck there. At that time, the order was not to use weapons.
An alabaster Statue of Democracy was made. On the 30th day of May, this statue was erected in TianAnMen Square in comparison of the Statue of Liberty in New York City. Students on hunger strike knew that talk with the government was impossible to continue. But many students persisted. On the 1st day of June, the international children's day, some parents brought their children to TianAnMen Square and took photos under the Statue of Democracy. In the morning of the 2nd day of June, the old cadres had a meeting to determine to clear the square of the students on hunger strike.
At 6:30 in the evening on the 3rd day of June, the government of Beijing announced an urgent proclamation warning people not to go out, especially not to TianAnMen Square, and as long as people stayed at home, their safety was guaranteed. This public announcement smelled of gunpowder, but students on hunger strike did not think that way. They felt safe with the conviction that the communist party loved their people and the people's government would never kill their own people. If it did occur, it was really unprecedented. It is true that humans have short memory. Just over 10 years, the cultural revolution happened, which was thought unprecedented. If one thing unprecedented happened, why could not another unprecedented thing happen too?
After 10 o'clock at night, the 27th army marched into the city, people in Beijing still tried to stop soldiers from coming into the city. But this time it seemed that CPC determined to let their soldiers kill people. Common people in Beijing who supported the students began to push five trolley buses onto the Muxidi Bridge, through which way the army would come to TianAnMen Square. When a tank came to shovel the buses away, so many crowds forming a human wall on the other side of the buses pushed the buses against the tank. There was a loud bang. The tank didn't succeed to shovel away the buses. Crowds gave out loud cheers. It repeated several times. Such heroic scene had never been sees even in movies. Then the army used tear shells and people had to retreat and hide among bushes or after buildings. So more than a tank came to push aside the buses and soldiers rushed in while they randomly shot their guns. Gun reports were heard and the wounded were carried away for treatment. The soldiers came to the housing building where some old cadres lived, and so it was called the Minister Building. Some hundreds of people stood on the flat roof, watching. They never thought that the soldiers would shoot at them since they were just on-lookers. But the soldiers did fire at the building, which caused the protest of the old cadres later in the congress. Then some soldiers set fire to the buses, making it a false evidence that mobs did it and so they were right to shoot mobs, just like the case of Reichstag fire by Hitler in Germany.
At 11:30, the first tank appeared in TianAnMen Square. People put barriers before it too and then it went away, crushing the barriers. At 3 o'clock in the morning on the 4th day, Liu Xiaobo and three others told the students that bloodshed began and they must leave. At 4 o'clock, all lights went out on the square. Some soldiers shot down the big loudspeakers that the students tied on some lampposts. They drove students away with guns, not firing yet. So student started to retreat, but at 4:30, all lights were on, and the withdrawing students found facing soldiers and tanks in front. There still were around 200 students staying in the square. Soldiers encircled them. Many people, including students, were apprehended. The statistics of casualties and the wounded varied as the government never issued the exact numbers. They even denied that slaughter happened on the square, a typical lie with so many witnesses. Anyway, the Chinese red cross gave their statistics that the casualties were 2,600. Afterwards, an officer from International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies revealed that about 5,000 were killed and close to 30,000 wounded.
Since the slaughter caused the strong reaction from people and some old cadres, the CPC military committee maneuvered the 38th army to replace the 27th army for the aftermath clearance. But as the 27th army withdrew out of Beijing on the 7th day of June (07/06), on the way some soldiers fired at the Diplomatic Residence Compound, causing the escape of the frightened foreigners in Beijing, which was called the 07/06 event.
From the TV screen people in the world could see tanks moving forth and a young man jumped on one tank and then jumped down. He was later arrested and no one knew what became of him. A rumor went that all the soldiers participating in the massacre had been forced to have injection of some kind to make them exciting for killing, or not caring for killing. All countries in the world made protestations against such brutal action. All people in the world were shocked at the massacre of the unarmed students. It showed that the communist party of China can do anything for their own benefits. How can they be trustworthy?
Before CPC came into power on the mainland, they always criticized Chiang Kai-shek government when Chiang's police only used fire hydrant water to disperse students in demonstration. They never used guns to kill students.
xlwoo
09-09-2015, 09:20 AM
Chapter 7 What else happened before the death of Deng Xiaoping
I. The dispute of Hongkong issue
When it was still the Qing Dynasty, the Qing government was defeated in the first opium war by England and signed the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. For the second opium war in 1860, the Qing government signed the Treat of Peking. In both treaties, the Qing government agreed to alienate Hongkong and Kowloon to England forever. No time limit for these two regions. But on the 9th day of June in 1898, the Qing government signed The Convention for the Extension of Hong Kong Territory to lease the new territories to England for 99 years.
In March of 1979, Sir Murray McLehose visited China to start the negotiation for the Hongkong issue. On the 24th day of September, 1982, Mrs. Thatcher, British prime minister, came to China to negotiate with Deng Xiaoping about the Hongkong issue. Mrs. Thatcher held that since Hongkong and Kowloon were alienated to England forever, China should not take them back. China could take back the new territories at the end of the 99 year lease. However, Deng said that the communist party never acknowledged the legality of the occupation of Hongkong and Kowloon. And Deng added that China would take back them together with the new territories, even by forces, if needed. The argument of Mrs. Thatcher went against a wall. A wall with no reasoning.
What can a lady do in face of a thug? A thug will do everything by hook or by crook to serve his purpose. Therefore, Mrs. Thatcher had to consent to return Hongkong, Kowloon, and the new territories to China on the 1st day of July in 1997. And Deng guaranteed that the present system in Hongkong would not change in 50 years. What about after 50 years? Deng didn't say. But everyone could understand that changes would certainly occur.
Then Deng made a policy called “one nation, two systems.” Deng thought that this policy could be used to Taiwan issue too, if some day Taiwan surrendered to the mainland. Can the Chinese communist party permit the co-existence of the democratic system and the tyrannical system within their power? Impossible. Once the president of Taiwan declared that if the communist party could adopt democratic system, Taiwan would immediately unite with the mainland. It is thus simple for the mainland and Taiwan to unite. But the communist party will never change their tyrannical system and the solution of the Taiwan issue will surely be done by force, in the future, like in the Chinese history.
After the return of Hongkong, it was made a special administrative region. The head was called chief executive. But the chief executive was decided by the communist party in Beijing, even if by election. The communist party can use their influence to let the chosen person get more votes than others, if there are other candidates. So the chief executives in the special administrative region are all puppets of the communist central government. The communist party is trying to change the administrative system even before 50 years is over. Their scheme failed because of the strong opposition of Hongkong people. But it is foreseeable that sooner or later, the communist party will make changes in the political system in Hongkong by force as they have army already there.
xlwoo
09-10-2015, 09:46 AM
II. Two different views among party leaders: reform or not reform
After the June-4th event in 1989, especially after the breakup of the Soviet Union in August, 1991, there arose two different opinions about reform and open policy among the party leaders. Some thought that reform went too fast. When Jiang Zeming became the general secretary, he and premier Li Peng held conservative views about reform. There even sprang up the old question of whether going the capitalist road or the socialist road. Recent facts revealed that Jiang Zeming's father, Jiang Shijun, alias Jiang Guanqian, had worked in the puppet government of Wang Jingwei in Anti-Japanese War. Anyone worked with the Japanese was defined as traitor. It was, of course, that a son was not responsible for the action of his father. Only Jiang Zeming concealed this fact to the party, or he would never be chosen as the general secretary of CPC, the son of a traitor.
Accordingly, Deng was the one insisting on going the capitalist road. On the 18th day of January in 1992, Deng traveled south, imaginably imitating Mao traveling south before the cultural revolution, but this time no one had such strength and power to oppose him. Unlike Mao having secret talks with local leaders, Deng made open speeches to warn those in opposition to the reform. He said whoever against the reform must resign. Then the general secretary Jiang Zeming declared to support Deng. Unlike Zhao, the ex-general secretary, an upright man, persisting in his viewpoints, Jiang was a typical opportunist, changing his views easily. If he dared to say anything against reform, he would certainly be forced to resign. In China, power means safety for life. Once out of power, no one can predict what will become of him. Besides, power means personal benefits. So the reform and open policy was carried out without further objection.
III. The Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River
In the early years when the communist party came into power, party leaders intended to construct a colossal dam for the Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River. Only at that time, their weak economy could not support such a giant construction work.
The three gorges on the Yangtze River is a beautiful scenic zone in Sichuan province. A legend has it that there lived a goddess on Mt. Wu, who had sex with King Chu thousands of years ago. The ancient poets had written poems about the beauties of the zone.
Then there was a discussion about the goodness and badness of the project. The goodness was the generation of electricity, which could reach 84.6 billion kilowatts annually while able to save the consumption of about 50 million tons of coal; the control of flood or drought in the downstream areas; and the development of fisheries in the reservoir, etc. The badness was that the reservoir would be polluted by the accumulation of garbage or the like, causing epidemic and the water unable to drink; that the natural ecological system would be damaged; and that the geological disasters would happen like landslides, etc.
The party leaders supported the project while experts opposed it. Another reason for objection was that if a war broke out, the dams would be the target of attack. But party leaders had the final say. So on the 3rd day of April, 1992, a bill was passed in the congress about the project. On the 14th day of December, 1994, the project commenced. The reservoir would cover 632 square kilometers and 129 cities and towns would vanish and more than 1.2 million people were forced to relocate at little compensation from the government. The construction lasted for 17 years. A joke goes that the goddess must relocate, too.
The three gorges project on the Yangtze River was boasted of the control of flood in the downstream areas. However, from July to September in 1998, a huge flood took place along the Yangtze River. Several provinces were affected. More than 100 million people suffered from the disaster. 1,000 acres of crops were damaged and over 4,150 people died. 56 million people deserted their homes and went somewhere else for living. Over 4.3 million houses were crashed and the loss was over 255.1 billion yuan of Chinese currency.
xlwoo
09-11-2015, 09:18 AM
Chapter 8 What happened after the death of Deng Xiaoping
I. The issue of FaLunGong
After the death of Deng on the 19th day of February in 1997, the general secretary Jiang was now in full power. The major thing he did was his suppression of FaLunGong (FLG), which denotes not persons, but a kind of exercise for health. The persons learning the exercise are called FLG learners.
The event originated like this: a magazine in Tianjin City published an article to imply that anyone who practice FaLunGong would cause trouble, even the destruction of the whole nation. No one knows why an exercise style will have such an effect. When some learners read it they went to the magazine publisher to explain what the exercise really was on the 23rd day of April in 1999. Then came 300 policemen to disperse the crowd and beat and arrest 45 learners. The police said to the learners that if they wanted to petition, they must go to Beijing for it. That was later thought to be the induction to have them to be in Beijing so that the event could be made serious, because generally the local government did not like its people to go to Beijing to complain, which would show the inability of the local government. Now that they were urged to do so was very suspicious. It was naturally thought that the police in Tianjin was instructed to entice the learners to go to Beijing with some sort of purpose. The year of 1999 was the 10th anniversary of the June-4th slaughter. It was the sensitive time to be close to the 4th day of June. Petition of crowds could be deemed a political event against the Party. Anyway, early on the 25th day of April, over 10,000 learners gathered before the reception room of the state council, requesting to stop bothering learners and release learners under custody. The premier Zhu Rongji at the time received the representatives of the learners and learners under custody were released. Everything seemed okay now. But the general secretary Jiang was not happy. He criticized premier Zhu to be too weak in the talk with the learners.
Before this event, quite a few party leaders of high rank supported FaLunGong and said that it was a good exercise for health. Why Jiang wanted to suppress FLG learners was a hard guess. It attributed to that Jiang intended to get rid of some political enemies, who were also learners of this exercise. Nevertheless, Jiang was personally responsible for the suppression of the learners. Jiang set up the 610 Office for that aim. On the 22nd day of July, the government announced to prohibit the exercise of the FaLunGong and declared it to be an evil cult. In fact, FaLungong was only a form of exercise, not a religion. Anyway, in China, the party leaders want to say what you are, and you are whatever it is. No argument.
Then the police wanted to collect evidence for the accusation. They went to homes of the individual learners without a search warranty and took away personal things. A serious event took place on TianAnMen Square on the 23rd day of January, 2001. Xinhua News, the government organization, announced that five FLG learners burned themselves on TianAnMen Square that day. But FLG learners denied that any learners did such a thing. It was conducted by the communist party, just like the Reichstag fire in Germany conducted by Hitler in 1933. After that, learners were arrested and tortured in prison. Many were tormented to death.
If say that this is a political event, it is not true, because no learners had declared to overthrow the rule of the communist party and no learners had criticized the party before the event happened, unless Jiang had a political purpose in doing so.
xlwoo
09-12-2015, 09:12 AM
II. Human organs removal alive in China
Generally for donation or sale, human organs are taken from the body after death. But things in communist China are always different from those in the world. In Guangdong province, people eat the monkey brain alive. Somewhere, the cook cuts chicken meat when the chicken is still alive, which they think is more tasteful than after the chicken is dead. The gall of the bear can be used in Chinese drugs. Recently, people cut the gall out when the bear is alive. Therefore, it is believable that the communist party has the human organs removed alive from FLG learners they had imprisoned secretly somewhere. The targets for the purpose include Tibetans, Uygur people (a minor nationality living in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in China), Christians who were forced to gather secretly in the private houses for prayer, and those criticizing the Party.
The crime was first exposed in a hospital in Sujiatun Town. On the 9th day of March, 2006, a doctor there confessed that he himself removed 5,000 corneas from learners alive. 20 days later, the communist government disowned the accusation. But a secret witness pointed out that all the evidence was destroyed or transferred. An anonymous military doctor said that it needed only one day's time to transfer 5,000 people in locked-up train carriages.
Israeli government had apprehended an intermediary for sale of the human organs taken from learners and death-penalty prisoners, and he confessed that these organs were taken when humans were still alive. In 2007, the Canadian independent investigating team issued an investigating report that the accusation was correct. Manfred Nowak, a commissioner from the United Nations, wrote in 2007 to the Chinese government asking for the data of death prisoners. But the Chinese government refused to provide. In November of 2008, the United Nations Committee against Torture suggested that the Chinese government could let an independent team to investigate for this charge. But the Chinese government refused it either. Their refusal just made the world believe that their crime was true. Innocent people will surely let others investigate for the truth to prove their innocence. Such a crime is also unprecedented in the human history.
III. The cession of Chinese territory to Russia
On the 9th day of December, 1999, the general secretary Jiang and the Russian leader Putin signed a treaty that made China lose territory of 1.6 million square kilometers comprising of 2,444 islands along the eastern frontier between Russia and China. This news was kept secret from Chinese people, but it soon leaked out and Jiang was blamed as a traitor to the nation on the Internet. Then comments about this issue on the Internet were deleted and people were forbidden to say anything about it. A calculation was made that the territory lost in the northern China was equivalent to 11 times of the area of Taiwan and many many times of the area of Senkaku Islands.
xlwoo
09-13-2015, 09:06 AM
IV. The development of corruption and embezzlement
Corruption and embezzlement always exist in the history of China and has only different degrees in different times. They are almost the important reason for the collapse of every dynasty. That was why, after the communist party gained the reign of the mainland, Mao started a few movements against the corruption and embezzlement among the cadres. Mao himself did not need to embezzle anything, for he could have anything he wanted just like emperors did in the long history of China. That anyone else committed embezzlement was like to take money from his pocket. He must wage movements to stop it.
On the 10th day of February, 1952, two cadres, Liu Qingshan and Zhang Zishan, were executed for the embezzlement. Both embezzled only less than 20,000 yuan. The amount of embezzlement at present reached billions and most embezzlers were not executed. Those executed did not have powerful background as support or were not the family members and relatives of the powerful cadres, who were above the law.
Before the economical reform and open policy, the prices of goods were low and the income was also low. No one could embezzle a lot of money like nowadays. Afterwards when foreign visitors were allowed to come into China, there were two price systems. There were special restaurants and stores for foreigners and the prices were high because foreigners were thought to have high income. The Chinese people had low income, and so the prices set for them were low as they could not afford expensive things. If someone wants to ask: why not let foreign visitors buy things at low prices? The Chinese government wanted to earn more money from foreigners.
After the beginning of the reform and open policy, more and more foreign visitors came and even foreign investors, and so the two price systems had difficulty to maintain. Therefore, low prices were raised to the high level and pay was also raised to corresponding level. But the prices rose faster than the pay and so common people began to hate Deng. That was why the June-4th event happened.
After the death of Deng, the corruption and embezzlement developed rapidly. Anyone who reported and exposed the crime of a cadre would be persecuted. The communist law did not protect common people. On the contrary, it protected cadres even if they committed certain crimes, as long as they did not oppose party leaders. A cadre in a certain province was found guilty and removed from office, but some time afterwards, he was given a position in another province. The crime did not affect him at all.
There were some examples of the cadres who had verdicts. In 1985, Tao Siju, the ex-minister of the Ministry of Public Security, embezzled 700 millions and was only removed from office. In 1995, Chen Xitong, the ex-mayor of Beijing, was put in jail for the embezzlement of 40 millions and was sentenced for 16 years. From 1996 to 2003, Tian Fengshan, when he was the leader of Heilongjiang province and of the Ministry of Land and Resources, took accumulated bribes of 4.36 millions only, but was sentenced for life. On the 22nd day of May, 2005, Wang Zhenzhong, the deputy chief of the municipal police station in Fuzhou City of Fujian province, escaped to the United States with his mistress and with one million dollars. He died in New York City on the 10th day of June, 2007. Many embezzlers, following his example, escaped abroad. Some cadres only let their family members, like wife and children, go abroad, and they themselves still stayed in China, maybe for more embezzlement.
There are some funny things about the embezzling cadres, most of them have mistresses besides lawful wives. The statistics shows that some cadres have more than 100 mistresses. The cadres must support the mistresses if they have no jobs, or must give them expensive gifts like cars and housing, or even money. If not for those gifts or money, why will some younger women be their mistresses? Sometimes if a cadre treats his mistress badly or doesn't meet her demand, the mistress will expose and report his embezzlements and other crimes to authorities. The cadre will be dismissed from office or even arrested. Embezzlements also happen in the army. Wang Shouye, a vice commander of the navy, had a few mistresses, one of them was Jiang, much younger than he. Jiang had been an actress in an army performance troupe. They had a son. So Jiang wanted to be his lawful wife, but Wang could not meet such a demand of hers. Finally Jiang exposed his crimes to the government. On the 29th day of June, 2006, Xinhua News issued an important piece of news that Wang Shouye was removed from his office for the crime of embezzlement amounting to about 100 million. People suggested online that if the Party really wanted to oppose the embezzlement, the government could call on all the mistresses to report the crimes of the cadres.
Another case in Chongqing City is also interesting. Xiao Hua, owner of the dress company WALLENDA, used a female employee Zhao Hongxia to lure Lei Zhengfu, a government cadre, for sex and a photo was taken when they were in the action. Afterwards, the owner used the photo as a threat to the cadre, who had to meet all the owner's demands lest the photo be exposed publicly and he would be removed from office. It happened in 2008. On the 20th day of November, 2012, an article was posted on Internet, with photos of sex actions, revealing the illegal doings of Lei, together with some other cadres. The cadres were, of course, dismissed from office. Then the girl was deemed a heroine since her action caused the downfall of the cadres.
There was a report to the Party when Wu Guanzheng, the secretary of the discipling committee of CPC, left his office at the end of his term. Some statistics is interesting in the report. The value of the property of the high-ranked and mid-ranked cadres in Shanghai is: over 90% have more than 10 million worth of property. In Guangdong province, the percentage is over 99%. From 2003 to 2006, the expenditure from the national treasury for cadres in drinking, eating and other merry-makings reached 300—350 billions. The purchase or change for new cars for cadres to use was of 500,000—650,000 cars per year, costing 200 billions. 95% of the secret entertainment places for cadres had the so-called “red zone”, meaning secret whores, which was under the protection of the local government.
V. Chen Liangyu, victim of the political conflict between two party leaders
Sometimes, the arrest of an embezzling cadre was only for the aim of striking a blow to the political enemy. Chen Liangyu, the municipal party secretary of Shanghai, was a faithful follower of the general secretary Jiang Zeming. When Hu Jintao succeeded Jiang to be the general secretary, he wanted to take over the power, not just the name, of the leading position. For this purpose, he must get rid of the supporters of the former general secretary and appointed supporters of his own. Chen was chosen to be the one to rid of as Shanghai was an important place.
The accusations of Chen included the following crimes. Chen helped his brother Chen Liangjun to get illegal profit of 11.8 billions in the sale of land. In communist China, all land belongs to the government—the Party. Afterwards in the reform and open policy period, powerful people or their relatives and friends could get the right to the use of a certain piece of land. So through the influence of Chen, from 2002 to 2003, his brother got the right to the use of 600 mu (15 mu = 1 hectare), and then 100 mu, both illegally. Then he sold the right to the use of the land and gained vast profit. It was decided to be the “neglect of duties,” not a crime of embezzlement, for Chen Liangyu.
The second thing was that he assented to let some company use one billion of the Shanghai social security funds unlawfully in 2004. And with the consent of Chen, his son got a high position in the company and his annual salary was one million yuan. This was decided to be the abuse of duties. He was also accused of taking bribes amounting 230,000 Hongkong dollars and 100,000 yuan. His wife was assigned a position in Shanghai MWB factory, but never actually went to work there, and got pay amounting 430,000 yuan from 1996 to 2006. So on and so forth.
On the 11th day of April, 2008, Chen Liangyu was sentenced for 18 years and the payment of penalty for 300,000 yuan. Compared with other cases, Chen's case was trivial. Someone commented that Chen was a good cadre and if all the cadres could be like him, the situation in China was much better, and desirable.
xlwoo
09-14-2015, 09:02 AM
VI. Two attempts of assassination of Hu Jintao on the Yellow Sea
In early May of 2006, Hu Jintao, as the chairman of the military committee of CPC, went to Qingdao City to inspect the Chinese navy on the Yellow Sea. At the same time, Jiang Zeming went there, too, with his favorite woman Chen Zhili (not his wife), a member of the state council. Hu was on board of a missile destroyer for the inspection while suddenly two warships of the same fleet opened fire at his vessel. Five enlisted sailors around Hu for protection were killed. The missile destroyer turned round and accelerated away at top speed till it reached a safe zone. To avoid another trial of assassination, Hu rode on a helicopter on the missile destroyer and flew to the base in Qingdao. Then he flew directly to Yunnan province, not to Beijing, as he did not know what was waiting for him in Beijing.
When Jiang was reported that several persons fell on the spot Hu had stood, he was excited, but soon disappointed that Hu was not among those killed. The navy commander Zhang Dingfa was his man, who arranged it. After a week when Hu was sure of his safety, he went back to Beijing. But he could do anything to Jiang or to the navy commander. There was no evidence pointing to either one.
On the 23rd day of April, 2009, there would be a united military operation on the Yellow Sea, joined by 14 countries. Hu got a secret report that there would be another attempt of murder of him at 9 o'clock in the morning that day, which was the time of the beginning of the operation. Therefore, Hu took some preventive steps. 15 minutes before the operation, all of a sudden, Hu gave an order to invite the leaders of the navy delegations from 29 countries to be present at the welcome ceremony at 9:30, which meant that the time of the start of the operation would postpone and which meant that the arrangement of the murder leaked out. Jiang was enraged. The warships arranged for the murdering action must have been controlled by Hu. Another attempt aborted.
The operation began at 2:20 in the afternoon and safely ended at 3:10. The vessels taking part in the operation were the Russian missile cruiser “The Varyag,” the American destroyer “The Fitzgerald,” the French missile frigate “The Vendemiaire,” and the Indian missile destroyer “The Bombay,” etc. etc., plus many Chinese warships. Another victory for Hu over Jiang.
However, though Jiang lost twice against Hu, he had won once in 2002, on the 16th party conference. A decision was passed at the meeting of the political bureau that Jiang must resign from the position of the chairman of the military committee of CPC as well, not just from the position of the general secretary of CPC. But on the 13th day of November when the conference was still in session, out of the expectation of all the representatives, Zhang Wannian, a general of the army, put up a special motion together with other 19 generals, all promoted to the generalship by Jiang. The motion suggested that Jiang should continue to be the chairman of the military committee of CPC. As generals had the command of the army, no representatives dared to say NO. Furthermore, General Zhang forced Hu to say yes or no. He had to agree, though it was against the Party's rule. Nevertheless, Jiang could not be the chairman forever, like Mao till his death. He had to resign in the due time. It was deemed a kind of coup d'etat.
VII. How epidemic in China was treated
In the winter of 2003, SARS broke out in many countries in the world. China had SARS, too, first in the southern provinces and them spread to Shanghai and Beijing. The communist party was used to concealing anything bad from its own people and the world. So China didn't at first report it to the the World Health Organization, because it was round the National Day of the communist China. They planned to have a parade, which could not be canceled owing to the epidemic.
The government announced a SARS vaccine was found and would give it to people in Beijing, especially the students and soldiers who would take part in the parade. So the vaccine was used without first testing it for the actual result in humans. Then all the hospitals in Beijing received a lot of fevered patients, including 7,000 to 8,000 children. On the 27th day, October, a student from Beijing University of Aeronautics died of SARS. For so many SARS patients, some doctors told the truth that the epidemic was really caused by the SARS vaccine. People in other cities like Shanghai refused to have injection of this vaccine.
On the 28th day of October, the Health Ministry gave out SARS statistics that 6,345 cases were confirmed as SARS, including 4 people died of it. But a representative from World Health Organization said that as far as he learned, in Shanghai only, there were over 42,000 cases. It showed that China always gave out fake information about bad things while always exaggerating good things.
VIII. The labor reform system in China
The labor reform system was set up in 1950, which was learned from the Soviet Union. Although the regulations for the labor reform decided that the length of the labor reform was four years, yet there was really no time limit. It depended on the likes or dislikes of the cadres who ruled a certain labor reform camp. If a reformed person could flatter or even bribe the cadres, he or she would be released earlier. If a reformed person offended them, he or she would serve longer time than others. Who would be sent to the labor reform camps? The local government could send persons with minor offenses to the camps without even going through law procedures, such as stealing, fighting in public, some rightists, rapists, even those who had sex with someone other than the spouse. But it was revealed in the cultural revolution that some cadres of high rank stayed in special hospitals raped young nurses and were not punished for it. The communist law is used to deal with people at large, not themselves.
How did the reformed people fare in the labor reform camps? Some women wrote down what they had experienced in the camps and on the day they were released, they wrapped papers written in tiny words in plastic and stuffed it in their vagina, thus brought it out. It was because when they were released, they would be searched from head to toe. If it was found, they would surely get severe punishment or even beaten to death.
In the camps they were badly tortured, sometimes with electricity, cucking stool and other torments. Beating was ordinary. In September of 2011, Wang Guilan, a woman of 62, was released, who brought out a diary written by another woman called Wang Hua. Both lived in the same room. In the labor reform camps, every offender must labor and produce something to reach a certain quantity.
In the diary, on the 22nd day of June, 2011, a woman called Wen Nuan could not complete her assigned quantity and was beaten for several days with black and blue on face. She was forced to clean bathrooms in the daytime and work overtime at night. Once she failed in the suicide by cutting her wrist and got more tortures.
On the 18th day of August, 2011, a woman by the name of Zhang Yahua, was kicked at the crotch, which became swelling and she could not urinate. So on and so forth. Some were tortured to be handicapped. Martin Schulz, the chairman of the European Parliament, said that the labor reform system of China was against the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.” No one should be imprisoned without judgment.
xlwoo
09-15-2015, 09:21 AM
IX. Poisonous food and fake drugs in China
It is universally known that many sorts of food in China contain some bad substances that will harm the health of people, and some will even cause death. Here listed only part of them: milk for babies, soy sauce using materials from garbage containing protein like human hair and used medical cotton balls, fake chicken eggs made from chemicals, which is said to be able to bounce like ping-pong balls, flour mixed with talcum powder, etc.
The typical cases were baby milk powder of “Three Deer” brand containing over-dosed melamine which caused kidney stone in babies. By the 21st day of September, 2008, babies that were cured were 39,965; 12,892 were still in the hospital and 4 died. That's why people had no trust in milk products of China make and rushed to buy those of foreign make.
Another case was the poisonous dumplings, which were made by Tianyang food factory in the town of Shijiazhuang in Hebei province in China. The dumplings were exported to Japan and were found to contain methamidophos and DDT, causing over 200 people in Japan to be poisoned. At first the Chinese government said that Japan put in the poison. But on the 27th day of March in 2010, the police in Hebei province arrested the worker called Luu Yueting, who put poison in the dumplings. Maybe, he was just a scapegoat. Who knows?
One more case was the recycled cooking oil, which was the used oil let out into gutter from restaurants. The gutter oil was taken to be reproduced through process of filtering, heating, depositing, and separating, to become cooking oil. The recycled cooking oil is found to comprise cancer-causing substances, bacteria, viruses, and heavy metals, its toxicity being 100 times of that of arsenic.
Besides the poisonous food, there are also fake medications. Some fake medicine makers said that the profit from the fake medications were much higher than selling drugs like cocaine or making fake money, and with less risk. In February, 2012, the police in JiNan City of Shandong province found a place with 1,500 boxes of fake medicine for cancer and 8 machines to make the fake medicine. The medicine was sold in 14 provinces and worth over 11 millions. In June of the same year, in Tianjin City, the police arrested 9 suspects and the fake medicine was worth over 10 millions. The statistics from the prosecutors' office of Shenzhen City in Guangdong province showed that from 2009 to 2011, there were 17 cases of making fake medicines, involving 25 suspects.
It was said that a medicine selling for some thousand yuan had its cost only for 5.5 yuan. What profit! The police in Canton found a fake medicine case. The suspect confessed that he sold this medicine to some agency for 4,000 yuan and the agency sold it to some beauty parlor for 10,000 yuan and the beauty parlor sold it to their patronesses for 23,800 yuan.
There are also forged wine sold in China, generally made from methanol used in certain industries. During the Chinese new Year, 2013, five persons died of the forged wine. In 2012, 10,997 companies were found to have produced forged wine. There were 1,681 cases about it and the worth of all the forged wine was 1,116 millions.
xlwoo
09-16-2015, 08:18 AM
X. An 8 magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan
An 8 magnitude earthquake struck Wenchuan in Sichuan province, China, on the 12th day of August, 2008. The earthquake center was 79 km northwest from Chengdu City, the capital of Sichuan province. The area affected covered 100,000 square kilometers. The tremor was detectable even in Liaoning province in the north, in Shanghai in the east, in Pakistan in the west and in Thailand and Vietnam in the south. By the 18th day of September, 69,227 people had died, 374,643 wounded and 17,824 not found. It damaged lots of houses, school buildings, communications and traffic equipments, and changed geographic features, and affected the hygeian and biological environments. Volunteers for the rescue came from many areas of China and even from many countries in the world. And also did the donations. But people doubted why no donations came from those most wealthy persons who were the families and relatives of the party leaders and who monopolized most of the largest enterprises in China.
Since 5,335 students died among the dead, there arose a question about the bad quality of the school buildings which crumbled in the earthquake causing the death of students. There are always the problem of bad quality buildings almost everywhere in China, because the builders only considered about less cost and more profit, not about people's lives. If any building collapses and people die from it, the builders pay only a small sum of money as compensations. In the idea of Chinese people, whoever kills people will pay with his own life. That means that if a building collapses and kills people, the builder should be at least put in prison for it, but no such things happen. So some bold builders just use bad quality materials for the buildings to lessen the cost. If they will be imprisoned for the bad quality, less builders will be so brave to do it. The law system in communist China protects the rich and powerful, not the people at large.
A special case happened after the earthquake. Many parents of the dead students wanted to sue the builders for the bad quality school buildings that occasioned the death of the students. On the 3rd day of June, 2008, they gathered before the court to demand the acceptance of the case. Then the police came and arrested some of the protesters. They also detained two Japanese reporters from Kyodo News Agency for one hour. Huang Qi, a Chinese citizen, helped the parents to make investigations and was sentenced for three years, charged with the guilt of “illegally possessing the national secret document” on the 23rd day of November, 1009. Guo Quan, an assistant professor of Nanking Normal University, wrote an article to criticize the bad quality school buildings and was convicted for ten years, charged with “the intention of overthrowing the regime.” Tan Zuoren, a writer, investigated the problem of the bad quality school buildings and collected the names of the dead students, and was sentenced for five years, charged with “the intention of overthrowing the regime” on the 9th day of February, 2010. People had such a doubt that if the communist regime was so weak to be overthrown by an article to criticize the bad quality school buildings or by the collection of the names of the dead students, this regime had long been overthrown. It is very astonishing that the communist party of China can invent such a ridiculous criminal charge.
XI. The Olympic Games in Beijing
Why was the communist party so crazy about hosting the Olympic Games in China? They thought that Olympic Games would bring the economy of China to a higher level, just like South Korea did in 1988. Many Chinese people believed it. Therefore, on the night of the 13th day of July, 2001, when the International Olympic Committee announced its decision that Beijing would host the Olympic Games in August of 2008, 400,000 people in the city gathered on TianAnMen Square for the celebration.
Then the Chinese government made all the necessary preparations. First, they invested $40 billions, but actually $42 billions were spent, equivalent to 290 billions yuan of Chinese currency. Although the party bragged of having lots of foreign currency in possession, yet they asked people for donations of money. It was said that they even deducted some money from the salary or wages of those who worked in government-run enterprises before paid to them. The forced donations. Second, there must be enough space to build competition areas like stadiums. So houses of about 1.25 million families were pulled down to make the space for Olympic Games.
Freedom of news report was temporarily allowed within a certain limit during the days the Olympic Games were going on. However, before and after the games, they tightened the mouth of reporters as usual. To win the applause of the audience, they appealed to the means of falsehood. The typical case was that the girl who sang the song in the opening ceremony was found to open her mouth to the music like she was singing, but actually another girl was singing behind the scene, because the girl stood on the stage having a poor voice, but a pretty face, while the girl actually sang having a good voice, but a plain face. And the fireworks were made up through computer 3D technique, not real fireworks, except for those over the main building of the Bird Nest which were real. To win gold medals, the false age of some girl athletes was given to authorities. It was said that the tickets were not actually sold to the public, but distributed to the controlled people who would not take drastic actions in the competitions to make the communist party look bad to the world.
XII. Guess what happened in car accidents in China
A special case was that in deep night on the 20th day of October, 2010, Yao Jiaxin, a junior student in XiAn Conservatory of Music, drove his red Chevy and knocked down a girl Zhang Miao on a motor bike in the same direction. The girl fell on the ground. Yao got out of his car to check on the girl, but when he found that the girl was still alive, and afraid that she had seen the plate number of his car and would report to the police causing him further trouble, he took out a knife from his car and stabbed her 8 times till she had no breath on the spot. Then Yao was caught by crowds and sent to the police station. He was sentenced to death.
Some cases of a child ran across the street and was knocked over by a car. Generally the driver of the car should stop and take the child to hospital. But in China, no such things occurred. The driver just rolled his car again and again, backwards and forwards, over the child till he was sure the child was dead and then sped away as fast as he could. No bystanders would interfere for fear of revenge later by the driver.
Another case was in Hangzhou City of Zhejiang province. A couple of boyfriend and girlfriend knocked over an old woman. They got down and lifted the old woman into the back seat of their car when they told bystanders that they would drive the old woman to hospital. But as a matter of fact, they drove to a suburb and buried the old woman alive. Then they deserted the car and escaped. At last they were caught by the police. The boy was convicted for life and the girl got service for a couple of years as accomplice. Such things only happened in the communist China, seldom in other countries.
xlwoo
09-17-2015, 09:09 AM
XIII. Bo Xilai Event
1) Bo Xilai's demotion
Bo Xilai is the son of Bo Yibo (1908—2007), who joined CPC in 1925 and was defined as an old cadre. In China, people call sons (including daughters) of those old cadres as Clique of Crown Princes, because they are blue-blooded. Their fathers are newly-rising nobles in the communist red dynasty. Bo Xilai is one of them. He is very proud of his noble birth. He is always against traditions, for which he often had different ideas from others, even his superiors. His ambition was to be a party leader in the central committee of CPC, even the secretary general. At the time, Hu Jiaotao was the secretary general, who did not like the ambitious Bo, and nor did some old cadres. So finally he was demoted to be the party secretary of Chongqing City in Sichuan province in western China.
Once Bo arrived in Chongqing City, he complained to his buddies like Chen Gaosu, son of Chen Yi (1901—1972), the minister of foreign minister and a military marshal, and He Guangye, son of He Changgong (1900—1987). All three were from red families. They looked down on He Jiaotao, who came from the family of common people. They had a theory that when the fathers got the rule of the country, the sons were the lawful successors, like emperors and their sons. They deemed Hu Jiaotao as a CEO just working for the company while the Clique of Crown Princes were real owners. So they had a grudge against Hu.
Bo wanted to do something special to show that he was a talented man. Then he summoned Wang Lijun to Chongqing from Liaoning province, where Wang had worked under Bo. Wang was a very capable and cruel man. They both had a finger in the “taking human organs alive” crime. When Wang reached Chongqing, he was appointed a vice mayor and the municipal police commissioner. They had arrested and executed the head of some mafias, which had won the applause of people. Then they expanded their action to some so-called red businessmen and confiscated their property. By law the confiscated property should go to the local government treasury, but later, when a businessman escaped to Hongkong, he exposed that it all went to the pocket of Bo.
However, Bo planned something good economically, such as to let peasants relocate to the urban area from countryside, for which he wanted to build in three years 4,000 square kilometers of government-run low-rent housing. Once peasants relocated in the city, they could have permanent residence registration. All his plans were to develop local economy. His plans were called Chongqing model. He thought that his model could solve the financial problems in China, by which he hoped that he would be chosen to be a member of the standing central committee of CPC, but some party leaders did not think so while a few supported him. Anyway, his promotion looked promising without a hitch.
At the same time, Wang Lijun, on the pretense that he needed more supporters to deal with mafias, summoned more than 100 men that had worked under him from Liaoning province. He also secretly recruited 3,000 men as military police and police detectives so that he had an armed force under his control. The municipal police station in Chongqing became his independent regime outside the party leadership.
2) Gu Kailai's murder of Heywood
Gu Kailai is the wife of Bo. High officials of CPC often had mistresses besides the wife. So Bo had some mistresses, too, and ignored his wife sexually. In the early nineties of the last century, Neil Heywood, a British businessman, came to learn Chinese in Beijing Languages University. After graduation, he went to teach English to those noble posterities in Dalian City, where he got to know Bo Guagua, son of Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai, then got acquainted with the mother. As she was ignored a long time for love-making, she was thirsty for that and could not refrain herself before the handsome British man. If her husband could have mistresses, why couldn't she have a love partner? Did nowadays male and female have equal rights? Then Bo Xilai found it out, but he could not get divorce, nor expose it, because it would certainly affect his plan to get promotion to be a member of the central committee of CPC by this moral defect.
After a while, Heywood grew tired of the mid-aged woman and began to alienate her, and finally refused to meet her. But Gu Kailai did not give up and bothered him by phones and emails. Heywood did not make any answer, and meanwhile, he secretly took her money from her accounts in foreign banks. Now Gu got really angry and decided to get rid of him. On the 15th of November, 2011, Gu let Zhang Xiaojun, who worked under Bo Xilai, poison Heywood. The police detectives went to the crime scene for investigation and found evidence through video data and decided that the murderer was Zhang Xiaojun. So they reported to Wang Lijun. Wang was a sly man. On one side, he followed the instruction of Gu to cremate the body of Heywood to cover the crime, but on the other, he collected proofs of the murder, like the hair and blood sample of Heywood. He had them for forensic analysis in writing.
According to Gu Kailai, confessed when cross-questioned at court, Heywood kidnapped her son because they had economic dispute. That was why Gu wanted to kill him. At first, Wang Lijun had a part in the murder and even suggested to induce Heywood to Chongqing and kill him on the excuse that he was selling drugs. But afterwards, Wang withdrew from the action, and Gu had to do it herself. However, this was her side of the story. Since Heywood was dead, his side of the story could never be known. At length, Gu was sentenced for life. This case was exposed by Wang Lijun when he went to the US consulate, or the public would never know it.
With such hard evidence in hand, proving Bo's wife's murder of Heywood, Wang went to see Bo and asked for more benefits and higher promotion. Bo Xilai was not a man to be threatened to agree to unreasonable demands. Therefore, he removed Wang from the dangerous position of the municipal police commissioner and let him work in education and health department. This meant demotion. He summoned the meeting of municipal party committee to make this decision on the 2nd of February, 2012, but the mayor Huang Qifan disagreed, saying that such a decision must be approved by the Ministry of Public Security of the central government. Bo could not stand any objection and was infuriated. He just threw his tea glass towards Huang, who left the meeting room. Other committee members all signed their consent on the document.
3) Wang Lijun went to US consulate in Chengdu City
Wang Lijun was very familiar with the way of Bo's action. He felt an upcoming threat to his life. He want to escape from it. He made careful plan and preparations. On the 6th of February, with the help of his friends in the police station, he got the permission to go into the US Consulate in Chengdu City.
On the way there, he changed cars four times to escape from pursuit and assassination. Once he had to hide in the deserted car having traffic accident and let his friend drive his car to mislead the pursuers. Another time, he had to make a detour round the toll booths on foot. His friend drove the car through the toll booths and then he got into the car again at a safe distance.
He reached the consulate about between 1pm and 2pm next day, accompanied by the vice director of the police bureau of Sichuan province. He walked into the consulate hiding among the consulate personnel, which he explained later that he had seen some strangers standing by the consulate building with hands in pockets. Their posture revealed that they carried guns.
Once inside the consulate, he talked with the commercial attaché and told him the murder of the British businessman Neil Heywood by Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo, who wanted to kill him, because he had cracked the case. Then he produced a slip of paper written on it his request of political asylum, which stunned the consulate officials present. The situation was that soon after Wang entered the consulate, the police force from Chong1ing City sent by Bo under the command of the mayor Huang Qifan were surrounding the consulate. They came in seventy cars with the intention to arrest Wang. Meantime, the consulate reported the incident to the US embassy in Beijing, which reported to the administration in the United States for instructions how to deal with this emergency. The consulate was told not to grant the request of political asylum.
Mayor Huang Qifan came to talk with Wang Lijun and wanted him to surrender. But Wang said that he would only surrender to the central government, not to the local government Chongqing, because he knew clearly that once he went to Chongqing, he would soon be killed secretly. Then Hu Jiaotao learned the incident and ordered Liu Qibao, the party secretary of Sichuan province, to let provincial police force surround the police force from Chongqing. Then Hu called Bo and insisted that Bo should withdraw his police force. Bo had to accede and called Huang to beat a retreat.
Then Hu sent Qu Jin, a vice minister of Ministry of State Security, to take Wang to Beijing. Now Wang Lijun was safe, out of the reach of Bo Xilai. And now Bo feared that Wang would expose all the bad things he had done. Thus, Bo not only lost the chance of promotion, but also his life was at risk.
4) How Bo Xilai ended up
With such fear, Bo went to visit the 14th army group, of which his father had been the commander. This was really a bad move. Central party leaders would think that he wanted to launch a coup d'etat. So Hu Jiaotao sent his vice chairman of the central military commission of CPC, to warn the high-rank officers of that army group not to do anything wrong against the Party.
His buddies, Chen Gaosu and He Guangye, learned the incident, and advised by Zhou Yongkang, the head of The Central Politics and Law Commission of CPC, went to Chongqing City to comfort Bo while discussing how to deal with the situation. Zhou Yongkang wanted Bo to calm down first since it was the time that the term of Hu Jiaotao would soon be at end and Xi Jinping, who is also the son of an old cadre, belonging to the so-called clique of crown princes, would take over the power.
Chen Gaosu thought that Bo was too rash to make such a decision to remove Wang from so important and powerful position and urged Wang to take this exasperate step, which gave Hu Jiaotao a very good reason against Bo Xilai. It looked like Bo put the noose on his own neck. Anyway, their discussion brought up another decision that they had to struggle against Hu Jiaotao to the end, even to make the coup d'tat.
First they let the mayor Huang have an interview with the Phoenix New Media in Hongkong and deny that Huang had sent seventy police cars to surround the US consulate in Chengdu City. It was a rumor spread by their enemy (implying Hu Jiaotao). He said that he rode only in one car with three others. He said that since one of his vice mayor went into the US consulate, as the mayor, he had the responsibility to go there to take his vice mayor back to Chongqing. He also said that photos on websites showed the police cars, which belonged to Sichuan province government, not to Chongqing government. What he said was a challenge to the province police, who made a declaration to refute Huang. All this happened just before the opening of the National People's Congress. Hu wished to keep the safety and peace before the conference and so he sent He Guoqiang to see Chongqing delegation in Beijing with the real intention to warn Bo Xilai not to interfere with the opening of the conference, but Bo refused to comply with it. On the contrary, he boasted of his Chongqing model and said that Hu would go to Chongqing to affirm his achievements while Hu didn't have such an intention. As a matter of fact, Bo wanted to put Hu in an awkward position and do what he desired, which actually made Hu and other members of the standing central party committee furious.
At first, on the 16th of February, the central party committee already decided to give Bo only party discipline, like a warning fr something, not to the legal level. Now on the evening of the 13th of March, Hu held an emergent meeting and proposed to remove Bo from the position of the municipal party secretary of Chongqing City. Out of nine members, eight of them gave their pro votes except Zhou Yongkang, who gave his con vote. On the morning of the 14th of March, the day that the conference ended, Bo Xilai was arrested and put in confinement. On the 15th of March, Xinhua news agency made an official declaration to relieve Bo Xilai of the post of the party secretary of Chongqing. On the 25th day of October, 2013, Bo got the verdict for life.
5) 3.19 event
Chen Gaosu and He Guangye always had a deep hatred for Hu Jiaotao. It began when the trio worked in the central committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League. Chen and He despised Hu for his common birth background while they were very proud of their noble blood. Moreover, Hu got promotion after promotion while they almost stayed in the position of the same level. They never blamed themselves for their inabilities, which was the typical Chinese character. They never exerted themselves to do better than the one they hated. They just wished to make the one they hated fall from high position to where lower than their own posts so that they could laugh at him. Ridiculous?
As Bo Xilai was under custody, Chen Gaosu and He Guangye went to see Zhou Yongkang to instigate him for another attempt of coup d'tat. Zhou, as a member of the standing central committee of CPC, in charge of The Central Politics and Law Commission, had the command of the armed police. Since Zhou was a supporter of Bo Xilai, when Bo was out of power, the situation might develop unfavorable to him. Chen and He knew it and they wanted to persuade Zhou to use his armed police to attack ZhongNanHai, where the party leaders lived, and disposed of Hu Jiaotao. It was on 19th day of March (3.19), 2011.
Hu Jiaotao, as the chairman of CPC, of the military committee, and of China as a nation as well, had his own way to get the information. He sent for Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong, both the vice chairmen of the military committee of CPC. Another vice chairman, Xi Jinping was away from Beijing at the time. With the support of Xu and Guo, Hu ordered the 113th division, belonging to the 38th army group, to maneuver to Beijing immediately, together with the 6th tank division and the 8th regiment of the air force. Once they arrived in Beijing, they should surround the buildings of Ministry of Public Security, of the headquarters of the armed force, and of the 8th Bureau of Ministry of Public Security. Then they should wait for further order. At the same time, Chen and He was having an urgent talk with Zhou in Zhou's office in the building of The Central Politics and Law Commission.
Just then, an officer of the armed police came in to report that their building was surrounded by some divisions from the 38th army group. They knew that Hu acted faster than they. They were hopeless now. Zhou detained Chen and He. Zhou would deliver them to Hu as he did not start his coup d'tat yet. He would let Chen and He be responsible for it. Meanwhile, he took He's advice to call Jiang Zeming, the ex-chairman of the military committee of CPC, to report this, as he was deemed as Jiang's man.
There was an agreement when Jiang retired from the post of the chairman of the military committee that if Hu wanted to take any military action, he must get the ascent of Jiang and Jiang had the right to say NO. So now he called Hu and advised Hu to withdraw the army. Hu and Zhou should make explanations to all this happenings at a special meeting of the standing central party committee. Hu had to comply with Jiang and the event thus ended. Later, Zhou was put in confinement, too.
As for Chen Gaosu and He Guangye, at the request of Jiang, Hu pardoned them. If Hu insisted on punishing them, he might offend the so-called clique of Crown Princes as a whole. Now Xi Jinping took over the power and became the chairman. He may still conceal the coup d'tat and accuse Zhou only of his other crimes, such as taking bribes.
The End
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