Brain Fertilizer

HAHAHAHA!

I'm glad you have such a good sense of humor :-)

Well, I didn't used to...but I learned not to take myself so seriously, and that helps a lot.

Nathan-

I don't recall- did you read Iris Chang's book?

I haven't read the book.

I've seen the documentary based upon the book, and I'm fairly familiar with most of the numbers and many of the horrible techniques the Japanese used...worse, in many ways, than what was done at the German concentration camps.

Since when was the KMT an actual democracy? Since when after Sun Yatsen's resignation has Mainland China ever experienced democratic government?

Authoritarian dictatorships, be it in the form of the KMT/PRC, have been running China since the beginning of time, and were responsible for tens of millions of deaths. China has never experienced an actual democracy.

A label describes little.

Delto,
Exactly!
The "Our Friends in Democracy!" is the best way I can express sarcasm on that issue.

Now, Taiwan is kind of Democratic now...although from what I hear, the amount of corruption there means the country's political system is about as Democratic as Tammany Hall. But that's better than it was.

Yet we defended Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) and vilified Mao Zedong, although they were equally despotic and evil.

I'm not trying to say Mao was a great guy. But compared to the alternative, well, maybe history would have been different if Mao had sent an attractive wife who spoke English to the US Congress back in the 30s, instead of Chiang.

The KMT sure pulled a snow job on us back then!

Mao deserves all the flack he can get for what he did, much of which we are all still in the dark about. Chiang's despotism is also something we should be critical of.

As "corrupt" as Taiwan may be, its citizens enjoy the other "secondary benefits" of democracy, which are nearly always overlooked, such as an open and diverse civil society, public accountability, a working judiciary, the rule of law, etc. As a pretty new democracy, I wouldn't hold Taiwan to the level of other more established democracies.

I think that because the KMT's absolute power was severely diluted, and because Taiwan made a transition to democracy, whatever criticism of the past of the Republic of China (including in the mainland) was likewise lessened. Since the PRC is still an authoritarian society, the tragedies of its past are not mitigated by the effects of democratic society. Hence the contrast between the dark past and the present is more pronounced regarding the mainland, than it is for the Republic of China's past.

Right. As I'm fond of saying recently, "Voting" does not equal "Democracy"; there's a lot more to it.

Actually, what China needs most right now is Rule of Law, so its people can know there will be a consistent relationship between their actions and the consequences. Even in a harsh regime, if you can know 99% that certain actions bring specific penalties, and other actions will not be punished, then you can make intelligent choices about your actions. That's freedom.

But the thing is, I feel that Taiwan's move toward Democracy does...sort of...allow us to place some of their horrible actions in the past. But in my opinion, the PRC's market reforms do the same thing. Economic freedom is no small issue. People have much more freedom to emigrate out from under China's govt now.

And let's look at the Chinese people, themselves. Should we ignore their opinion to insist on our outrage? Many of the people I know in China would love to move the US. Many have no desire to leave China, even if given the chance. Many Overseas Chinese I know in the US are planning on going back. Many are happy here, but go back to visit whenever possible.

When the govt-ordered massacre happened in Tiananmen, the Chinese people were of course horrified and upset. But the ones I've talked to (including protest organizers in WuHan and participants in Beijing) reacted as if, "Okay, that was a mistake on our part as much as the govt. We are not allowed to determine our political destiny. Fine. Let's put our energy into getting rich, then." And they proceeded to do just that.

Based on the people I've talked to, most Chinese people are over the Tiananmen Square Massacre about as much as we in the US are over the Kent State "massacre". There are some people who make a living out of being outraged and never getting over things, and those people are still upset. The vast majority have moved on with their lives, and have new things to be upset about; usually, the breaking of their "Iron Rice Bowl."

The biggest problem I have with so easily excusing Taiwan for their bloody past is that we have expressed more regret over Viet Nam, over slavery, over our colonial past, and China has expressed more regret over the starvation, the Great Leap Forward, and Tiananmen than the KMT/Taiwanese EVER over their bloody past.

Chiang Kai-Shek was a bloodthirsty tyrant. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but he was FAR worse than Mao Zedong on many levels. Everything he did was to keep him and his cronies rich. He generally refused to fight the Japanese in WWII. He made agreements with the Communists that he broke by murdering his ostensibly allies by the thousands. He murdered native Taiwanese by the thousands to solidify his rule of the island, then kept martial law there throughout the rest of his life (it continued for 50 years), preventing the native Taiwanese from having any say in their own govt.

Every person who says anything about "Free Tibet" and never said a peep about "Free Taiwan" is a hypocrite due to their own vast ignorance.

And the attitude the US had that blocking communism justified any crime is truly dispicable. I'm glad we've done a lot to rectify that.