History's bloodiest hands?

[JBigjake]

New book suggests Mao responsible for 140 million deaths:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/books/59382.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/nightlife/stories/s1458172.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/2005-10-19-mao-review_x.htm
http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2005/07/07/maintaining_the_mao_myth/

[Excape Goat]

I did not read the book, but I had a master degree in Chinese politics focusing on the period(actually my main interests on 1980s, but then I was not interested in the 1950s as an undergraduate. So I spent a lot of time focusing in the 1950s in graduate school. To be exact, the Russian-Chinese tension of that era.

I am not surprised with that figure, but it is common knowledge among the Chinese. Many works have been written on that period of time and simliar stuffs have been mentioned in the last 40 years. If this was published in 1976, it might be revolutionary, but in 2006, please try something new. I just hate money-grabbing writer who calimed to be revolutionary, but her aim was to sell books.

While his people suffered in the worst famine in history, Mao mercilessly extracted food from his nation. He exported it to the U.S.S.R. and its satellite nations to fulfill his hunger for weapons and to expand his influence. .

Chang never read Kissinger's book on the period or Khrushchev. The GLF was in the middle of the tighest tension between the USSR and China.

The Cultural Revolution in the 1960s also killed millions and virtually destroyed China's spirit, the authors say.

I could have written this in High school. Of course, thousands of scholars were writting this back in 1981 or 1983 inside China. The entire theme of the 1980s and 1990s on Chinese research was based on this one.


To Mao, China's greatest asset was its enormous population, and he exploited it fully. It was acceptable for an estimated 400,000 Chinese soldiers to die in the Korean War if their deaths advanced Mao's goal of tying down the United States, Chang and Halliday say.

She forgot to mention that the Korean War was in the middle of the Chinese Civil War. It is a debate since the 1950s in the US whether MacArther wanted to invade China. Whether it is true or not, it remains a debate, but for Chang to claim that China's Korean War was to ty down the US. I question that. In fact, the Korean War ended up tying down China. The Korean War started less than a year after Chiang Kai-shek fleed to Taiwan. It was secret in the 1950s, but common knowledge among historians anywhere in the world that China did not want Korean war. Stalin asked Kim to move the invasion of the South three months earlier just ahead of Mao's planned attack on Taiwan. Anyway who know parts of Chinese history would tell you the question of Taiwan is the biggest issue for China since 1949.

Moreover, the authors charge that everything we think we know about Mao is false. His family was affluent, and he despised peasants.

Yeah, he sent people who did not support peasants to their death in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s and 1970s too. Most of them were false accusations too. Common knowledge again, but Chang does not know.

Mao was a puppet of Stalin and would have carved up China with Russia and Japan as long as he got a slice.

Common knowledge that Stalin hated Mao. Their relationship was more complex than what Chang claimed, but no puppet of Stalin. In fact, that realtionship dictated the entire relationship between China and the Soviet Union until the 1980s. It also affected Nixon's policy in Vietnam and China. mao was in a power position during the era where the Soviet and Japan carved up China.

Chiang Kai-shek, the authors say, allowed the Long March to succeed because Stalin held Chiang's son in Moscow as a hostage.

She better came up something to talk about Chiang's son. Even people in Taiwan knew that Chinag's sn was a communist before he succeeded his father as the president opf Taiwan in 1976. He might be a hostage, but howeffective was it to the Long March. Besides, the Long March started because Mao kicked out all the Chinese communists supported by Stalin out of the Chinese communists. They returned to Moscow and never returned to China again.

[dna77054]

To this point in history probably Mao. But as the years roll bye and if nothing changes it will be Rachel Carson, whose bullsh** "Silent Spring" book has and will continue to doom millions to death via malaria.

[blue32828]

To this point in history probably Mao. But as the years roll bye and if nothing changes it will be Rachel Carson, whose bullsh** "Silent Spring" book has and will continue to doom millions to death via malaria.


i don't read these politico forums that often but this is one of the best posts i've read on here

[spejic]

To this point in history probably Mao. But as the years roll bye and if nothing changes it will be Rachel Carson, whose bullsh** "Silent Spring" book has and will continue to doom millions to death via malaria.It wouldn't have mattered much. Mosquitoes get immune to DDT thanks to our old friend evolution. Thailand, which has always been using DDT, saw the number of cases of malaria more than double through the 1990s. DDT is now pretty much ineffective in India and Sri Lanka.

[nicephoras]

No, Spejic - god made the mosquitoes resistant.

[YankHibee]

No, Spejic - god made the mosquitoes resistant.


Talk about intelligent design!

[KevTheGooner]

To this point in history probably Mao. But as the years roll bye and if nothing changes it will be Rachel Carson, whose bullsh** "Silent Spring" book has and will continue to doom millions to death via malaria.

You have got to be kidding me. Who do you work for, DuPont or Dow?

[argentine soccer fan]

New book suggests Mao responsible for 140 million deaths:
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/books/59382.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/nightlife/stories/s1458172.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/2005-10-19-mao-review_x.htm
http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2005/07/07/maintaining_the_mao_myth/

He was really a nice guy. It was all his wife's fault.

[DoctorD]

As a percentage of the "target" population, doesn't Pol Pot rank highest?

[Smiley321]

To this point in history probably Mao. But as the years roll bye and if nothing changes it will be Rachel Carson, whose bullsh** "Silent Spring" book has and will continue to doom millions to death via malaria.

How many people does malaria kill each year?

[jamison]

No, Spejic - god made the mosquitoes resistant.

Would that be an intelligent retro-fit?

[dna77054]

How many people does malaria kill each year?

A quick seach has given me this

"Nearly 3,000 children die daily from malaria out of total annual malaria deaths worldwide of 1.5 million people (WHO, 1999). "

from
http://www.theperspective.org/2005/jan/malaria.html

So 1.5 million per year, multiplied by the (I think) 3 decades since the book came out equals appox 45 million. Of couse DDT would not have prevented all of those death, but would surely have prevented a lot of them.

[Mr. Bee]

Jesus of Nazareth

[Norsk Troll]

Lady MacBeth

[entropy]

I'm fairly sure the top four are:

1. Mao

2. Stalin

3. Chiang Kai Shek

4. Hitler

[YankHibee]

How far back are we going? Genghis Kahn would have to on there.

[Thomas A Fina]

How far back are we going? Genghis Kahn would have to on there.

Tamberlane leveled whole cities for the hell of it. He's probably up there, but I don't know if he had enough time to do more damage

[Norsk Troll]

Er ... how many people do you think were killed by The Flood?

[dreamer]

I'm fairly sure the top four are:

1. Mao

2. Stalin

3. Chiang Kai Shek

4. Hitler

Mao's number is way off. The numbers presented by this book was debunked by the Chinese language media around the world. The author had a personal vendetta against Mao because her family suffered some misfortunate during the worst days of the Mao era. She got her number by quantifying events based on speculations at such liberty that she would make the WorldCom CEO and Enron CEO proud.

How could anyone compare a person like Mao, with all his faults, who at least 1.3 billion people within China love and 1.6 billion Chinese around the world respect now to someone like Hilter is beyond me. Speaks volume to how poorly China is conducting its PR affairs around the world as well as how effective the anti-China voice is. As Colin Powell said, China needs to learn to make its case to the world better.