If not Mao, who?

Originally posted by YefeiPi
Jospeph, just shut your pity mouth. Nothing accurate ever come out of it.

You are comparing China to WWII Germany? What the hell? On what basis do you compare these two countries? Taiwan is more Chinese to China than Czech is German to Germany.

You are an (I really want to use the F word here for someone as low as you are) idiot! I just realized we are dealing with a low intelligence person here, where did you get the fact that God is forbidden in the Communist world? You think your U.S is heaven, then live in your dream, you idiot! Many Americans are atheist, and many people from communist countries have religions.

Man your words are as worthless as garbage. Please give proof to everything you say, your blind American "pride" is idiotic.

I hope you have a nice day.

[Tingkai]

This thread has drifted way off topic and, in my opinion, has ceased to be informative so this will be my last post.

The discussion here was interesting and many of you provided thought-provoking comments, even if I didn't agree with all of them.

I think we can agree that Mao was not a politically correct choice for the leader of China. While many consider him a great leader, many others dislike him.

The Civ Gods could have gone further back in history to find a truely interesting leader.

So that's all for me. See ya on the other lists.

[fred]

Long time since my last post, but something here is very very very wrong.

Ignorance leads the way; I don't proficize to be an expert of Chinese history (nor English) but what I have picked up from my 2 weeks in China (Too little, I want to go back soon and learn more about the country) but I can't allow this to continue.

1.) Communism is the extreme democracy. What happened in China and Russia was not communism. Call it Lennism or Maoism. They did not support the people, they did not allow the people to vote, they did not share their commodities equally. The only thing remotely communist (if you can even say so) was that the government took control of the farms etc. Please communism is not what was created by Mao and his reformers. Possibly they intended to make it communist, who knows. "Absolute power currupts absolutely"; can you judge Mao, early years, with out knowing Mao? You get what the west wants you to get. People can not love Mao as they do in China with out an ounce of justification. They have a saying "Mao was 70% right 30% wrong". Yes somethings were wrong, but other things should be taken into consideration. About people starving after the revolution please learn a bit about history before making any statement. Mao's government did not just fight KaignKai Sheck(sp), he was also fighting Japanese. Who might I add were commiting autoricites on the level of those being held in Germany (true fact, please no offense to Japanese). 5 million starved within 2 months because of the simple fact Mao just liberated his country (With help from Europe). Japan, would probably destroyed Chinese infrustructure, like any invasion and retreat. So Chinese farms etc. would have been demolished along with distrubution and markets. Added to the fact the Chinese had already been starved from atleast 6 years of occupation. That is not to say Mao did not become later influenced and did make the wrong decisions. But also who knows if Mao was actually in control? Just a bit that I know passed on to you.

2. Cultural revolution: Yes did try to eliminate religion. And was very bad. I can not defend an act that restricted human rights, another anti communist idea of equality (to allow some to restrict but others not to be given same control) . That brings us to the present. China, Anti-religious, yes and no. In their school pacifist teachings are still taught. But around or over 80% of the population is now religious (anti religion?). Most are Buddhist. Some Taoist, possibly a few confusion and yes christianity is around in the mix as well. And supported by the government (odd?). I saw a few churches rebuilt with government funding along with huge lite crosses in the middle of urban areas (huge). Point proven.

3. Taiwan: is going to rejoin China. And the US is going to have no say in it. China is already taking Taiwanese business is masses. Actually most of Taiwanese business has moved back to the main land. Taiwan is loosing its econmic edge specially in the last 10 years to China. Its only a matter of time before it becomes more profitable to be part of China.

4. China's Communism: Not communist. I could quote many chinese that felt Canada and European countries were more communist then China. Canada?. The fact that Canada provides medicare to its people and China doesnt. The fact that Canada has laws that attempt to make people equal. The fact that Canada has higher taxes so that rich and poor can equally share the countries profits. I could continue but you get the point. China is more capitalist then some Americans (maybe most, wont say all since in a population of 300 000 000 theres got to be atleast 1 smart person ) know.

5. US government likes to make up aggression against countries like China, why? American economy, very powerful.... when there is a war. Face it WWI, WWII, and the Cold War really made the US the economic power. It is true, whether many agree or not. The thing that frightens Americans about China is that its beginning its second "golden age" (probably more then second) and it can easily in 50 years be so far ahead of the modern world in terms of development, it will leave the US far behind (in the dust?). Please dont say it can't happen. It took 50 years for US and Canada to do it (1900-1950).

6. All countries have claims with in the borders of other countries, US is no different. I dont want to go into detail here. Other people can easily clean this up. China claims Mongolia not Russia. Even that they dont really care about. The obsession with Tibet goes back 1000s of years. They have been trying to co- urst or invade Tibet for a long time, nothing new. China is not overly aggressive about its borders as you would like to believe. They mearly say we want this land. And then never do anything about it. The one and only thing they feel is to be prepared for a Japanese invasion (another history lesson to be given). Just to add on to the Mongolia topic, it belonged to China before the Japanese invasion (since the Ming dynasty). At the end of WWII when Russia was clearing out the Japanese (to save words) they claimed Mongolia as their "pay back" for their assistance. In turn they created a Russian style government (ala Eastern Bloc.).

And to Chinese Leaders, exactly what kind of Leader the Civ team wants. If they want militristic leaders Pick Qin or Ming dynasty founders ( I apologize for the lack of exact names, it is hard to remember the names with out proper History education class). If they want to pick complete idiots second Qin Emporer. Lost the Empire quite quickly, hardly a dynasty. Taung dynasty was the cultural "golden age" or the first one. But the end of Taung also got whiped out by the Mongols. Who for a while established their own dynasty (don't believe chinese were very proud of this moment, since it is not mentioned very often in museums). Then the Ming dynasty over threw the Khans (possible dynasty name, but i believe they gave it a slightly different name). Ming had their capital in Nanjing (south capital[direct trans.]) The son of the ming emperor died leaving a grandson to the ming emperor. When THe 1st ming died he gave the empire to his grandson, not his 3 other sons. The sons got mad attacked 2nd ming emperor (still a child) took Nanjing, and the empire. The youngest son invited his brothers to a party in his principality, what is to become beijiing. Youngest son killed his brothers. Became emperor and moved capital to Beijing. Then began a fairly stable empire till 21 (i belive) emperors latter when the Qing over threw the Ming. And the Qing dynasty collapsed because of one old lady that put young little boys on the throne and spent all the empires money on a summer palace and a marble boat. (Yeah?) Then to be taken over by one revolution by the nationalist, at the same time as the first communist (said) revolution. And u can finish the rest.


Just a side comment:

Who said anything about Gods. I was talking our Lord God creator

Who said it was our god, yours yes, not mine. PLease leave your religion at home. I dont preach mine to you please I ask dont believe all white people are your religion. Leave ignorance at home. PLesthnks

Hope that helps something, there might have been more but i got side tracked.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Transcend
It's really ironic that most Mao supporters are Chinese or their descendents who may have suffered under him, while most Mao haters are foreigners who had never suffered under him.

You do realize that that doesn't make them right or us wrong.

I'm also questioning some people's assertion that Mao should not be included as the Chinese because he killed MANY. Well, that can be said for any "great" leaders such as Alexander, Caesar, Ghengis Khan, Tamerlane, Catherine of Russia, Oliver Cromwell, Edward III of England, Charles V of Spain, Louis XIV of France, and many many others. Even Vlad the Impaler, who enjoyed his lunch in front of 20,000 cruelly impaled villagers, is a celebrated national hero in Romania. Somehow people forgot to apply the same moral standard to these people while they passionately hated Mao, Stalin, and Hitler.

El Hidalgo, by your reasoning, the majority of the leaders included in Civ3 should be replaced by someone else.

You are correct, of course, all the other "great" leaders included have been murderers as well. I admit that including Mao just makes me uncomfortable, however, just as including Stain and Hitler would. The unprecidented scale of their murders makes them stand out.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Transcend
It's really ironic that most Mao supporters are Chinese or their descendents who may have suffered under him, while most Mao haters are foreigners who had never suffered under him.

You do realize that that doesn't make them right or us wrong.

I'm also questioning some people's assertion that Mao should not be included as the Chinese because he killed MANY. Well, that can be said for any "great" leaders such as Alexander, Caesar, Ghengis Khan, Tamerlane, Catherine of Russia, Oliver Cromwell, Edward III of England, Charles V of Spain, Louis XIV of France, and many many others. Even Vlad the Impaler, who enjoyed his lunch in front of 20,000 cruelly impaled villagers, is a celebrated national hero in Romania. Somehow people forgot to apply the same moral standard to these people while they passionately hated Mao, Stalin, and Hitler.

El Hidalgo, by your reasoning, the majority of the leaders included in Civ3 should be replaced by someone else.

You are correct, of course, most all the other "great" leaders included have been murderers as well. The unprecidented scale of their murders makes Hitler, Stalin, and Mao stand out, however. No doubt some people would enjoy playing as them, and I would not begrudge them that pleasure. It is after all just a game.

If someone wants to play as Mao, then I certainly have no problem with that. I don't even have any problem with his being included in the game, really. I myself, for my purely selfish reasons, would rather see a different Chinese leader included. That is because I would rather preside over the flourishing culture of the Tang period than the upheaval and mass-murder of the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, etc. And that's just my personal style, which I really have no wish to inflict on anyone else. But I'm just coming at this discussion from my point of view. Finally it comes down to a matter of personal taste, and de gustabus non est disputandum.

You are right about Vlad. And I add that Genghis Khan is considered a hero in Mongolia.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Tingkai
To El hidalgo:

In your last message, five of the six paragraphs were copied from another website. I don't think it is necessary to cut and paste large amounts of text when you can just provide a link. All of that text just takes up space.

I hope I did not give them impression that those words were mine. I should have used the quote tags, and thoughtlessly I did not. The reason I copied and pasted rather than simply linked was because I only wanted to quote a few sections. I didn't want to refer people to a big long Web site that no-one would read... so instead I copied big long text that no-one would read.

As for the links you provided, the information is rather tainted and hardly objective. The stuff from the free Tibet site is just a rant. The stuff from the econ professor is interesting, although I'm not convinced it is true. The guy sounds like he has an axe to grind. Nonetheless, his stuff is worth thinking about.

Well, one thing is certain, and that is that Mao was responsible for many millions of murders. Some may dispute that Mao deliberated engineered famine, but he was aware of the results of collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union. Anyway, I am glad to hear that you checked out the professor's site... I am not familiar with the site on Tibet (just found it through Google; it was just one of many that discussed Mao's criminality), but I have read quite a bit of the professor's stuff, and I will vouch for it.

[El hidalgo]

Originally posted by Tingkai
To El hidalgo:

In your last message, five of the six paragraphs were copied from another website. I don't think it is necessary to cut and paste large amounts of text when you can just provide a link. All of that text just takes up space.

I hope I did not give them impression that those words were mine. I should have used the quote tags, and thoughtlessly I did not. The reason I copied and pasted rather than simply linked was because I only wanted to quote a few sections. I didn't want to refer people to a big long Web site that no-one would read... so instead I copied a big long chunk of text that no-one would read. Anyway, I apologize if anyone got the impression that I was the author of everything I posted; it was not my intention to give that impression.

As for the links you provided, the information is rather tainted and hardly objective. The stuff from the free Tibet site is just a rant. The stuff from the econ professor is interesting, although I'm not convinced it is true. The guy sounds like he has an axe to grind. Nonetheless, his stuff is worth thinking about.

Well, one thing is certain, and that is that Mao was responsible for many millions of murders. Some may dispute that Mao deliberated engineered famine, but he was aware of the results of collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union. Anyway, I am glad to hear that you checked out the professor's site... I am not familiar with the site on Tibet (just found it through Google; it was just one of many that discussed Mao's criminality), but I have read quite a bit of the professor's stuff, and I will vouch for it.

[YefeiPi]

I hope you have a nice day.

I did have a nice day now that you bitterly swallowed the truth.