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Anyone who watches Zhang Yimou’s Hero (2002) is likely to want more. Thus I highly recommend Yimou’s next movie, House of Flying Daggers (2004), which is very much in the same vein: a martial arts film set in the exotic past with complex and interesting characters, impossible but spectacular fights, gorgeous landscapes, and dazzling costumes and sets. House of Flying Daggers was filmed in China and Ukraine. Most of it is set outdoors, in magnificent forests of birch and bamboo, filmed in the lushest colors imaginable.
House of Flying Daggers does, however, differ from Hero in important ways, and even though you must see it, it is frankly not as good a movie.
Hero is set in 227 BCE, just before the rise of the first Chinese Empire. It is springtime for China, a youthful, expansive phase of culture. There is great artistic and cultural refinement, but overall, society is characterized more by potentiality than actuality. Great vital energies are surging forth. Something new and glorious is on the horizon. The emergence of this new order both rests upon and inculcates heroism: single-minded civic virtue and self-sacrifice.
House of Flying Daggers is set more than 1,000 years later, in 859 CE, during the waning years of the great Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), one of China’s political, cultural, and artistic Golden Ages. It is a time of spectacular cultural refinement and beauty. But it is also a time of decadence and decay. People are emotionally self-indulgent, mercurial, and pleasure-oriented. The movie is set in a dazzlingly colorful autumn, which is appropriate, because civilization is in autumn phase, when the leaves display their greatest beauty before falling dead to the ground. It is also a time of political disintegration, in which civic virtue is weak, corruption is rampant, and new communities are arising to claim the allegiance and idealism once commanded by the empire.
The House of Flying Daggers is one such community. It is an initiatic martial-spiritual order of assassins that uses crime and terrorism to protect the people from the rich, corrupt, and powerful. Along with feudal warlords, such societies have challenged centralized imperial rule throughout Chinese history, stretching from the Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 CE under the Han Dynasty to the Boxer Rebellion of 1898 to 1901 under the Quing Dynasty. (This is one reason for the zealous repression of Falun Gong today.)
The character of the times is epitomized by the character of Jin (played by Okinawan-Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro), a young policeman who is a fantastically accomplished swordsman and bowman but who cannot take anything seriously. Jin is tall, handsome, and strong. Life presents him with endless opportunities for martial and amorous adventures, which are just games for him. Like the wind, he glides from one distraction to another, caressing the surfaces of life and never staying in one place.
At the beginning of House of Flying Daggers, we learn that the police have assassinated the old leader of the House, but a mysterious new leader has arisen to take his place. The police are given 10 days to assassinate him or her, an impossible deadline. It is decided that Jin will infiltrate the House. He goes undercover to the Peony Pavilion, a fantastically lavish brothel. He has learned that a girl assassin from the House is working there undercover. He discovers that she is a dancer named Mei (Zhang Ziyi, who played Moon in Hero). Mei is blind, but her other senses appear fantastically heightened.
Jin contrives a disturbance, which leads to him and Mei being arrested. Once in police custody, she is threatened with torture. Jin then contrives to break them out of jail, hoping that she will lead him, and the police, straight to the new leader of the House of Flying Daggers.
It is all a game to Jin. He feigns flight from the police. He feigns affection for Mei. But events take their own course. His feelings for Mei become real. So does his flight from the authorities, as he is forced to kill soldiers sent by a general who wants the chase to be believable and who cares nothing about the lives of Jin or his own soldiers. Jin, however, does not have the character to deal with serious emotions or serious danger. He flees — but he is also drawn back to Mei. His one constant is vacillation.
Mei is a much more serious and idealistic character. But she has also developed feelings for Jin, and when it becomes clear that her feelings do not matter to the House of Flying Daggers and that she is just as expendable to them as Jin is to the authorities, her loyalties also waver before the choice of duty or personal happiness.
A third character is introduced who is also in love with Mei. He is devastated to learn that Mei no longer loves him but loves Jin instead. So he too is faced with the choice of doing his duty or following his personal feelings.
This being the autumn phase of civilization, all three characters make the wrong decisions, and the movie comes to a grim and emotionally shattering conclusion as an autumn meadow is blanketed by a sudden snowstorm. Winter and death are triumphant. The movie ends, but life, we know, goes on. When the Tang Dynasty fell, a chaotic interregnum followed. But, eventually, spring came again for China, as it will come for our people too.
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21 comments
Zhang Yimou was admittedly a quite talented director but his talent has been used up now and/or replaced by his utilitarian and venal servility to the communist/neo-imperialist state power. Zhang used to direct some pro-liberty and politically dissent (albeit implicitly) movies from mid 1980s to mid 1990s which were thought-provoking and meant to reflect and deprecate the real poverty, sufferings, contradictions as well as heart-breaking yet intricate and enigmatic traditional customs and styles of the old rural China that were portrayed mercilessly and vividly as blindfolding, fettering and gagging the common folks of that country, and indigenous to its peculiar and ineffable culture further intensified and compounded by inconsiderate, unsympathetic and choking political and bureaucratic climate.
But later, with the climbing of his fame and status, and for the sake of keeping such status and which is main source of monetary gains, Zhang sold his soul to the demon that is the communist/neo-imperialist regime of China and started to take orders from the regime which is exemplified by his directing of a long list of propaganda films and other politically tinted cultural events to fully cooperate with the regime’s propagandist agenda of cultural control and self-glorification domestically and overseas. Zhang’s patent degeneration is a sign of despicable cowardice, cupidity, dishonesty and duplicity.
Zhang’s major contribution to the regime included his role as head director of the grandiose, vainglorious, overly-uniformed, heavily festooned, splashy, garish and gaudy, self-celebrating and self-serving opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games held in the Chinese capital amid international decrying of China’s stark human rights abuses and genocidal brutalities against Tibetan, Muslim Eastern Turk and Mongolian ethnic minorities under its political control maintained only by naked acts of state unleashed terror.
Zhang’s latest contribution to the sate, under the situation of and in synchrony with the Chinese regime’s militarist adventurism in the South and Eastern seas with a number of its smaller and less powerful neighboring countries and especially its willful and morbid acts of stoking up anti-Japanese virulence and deliberately escalating the tension in the region to intimidate those smaller nations and grab their island territories and undersea resources, is his directing of the lavishly state sponsored and relentlessly trumpeted, vicious and pernicious Japan smearing and bashing movie The Flowers of War with the naïve and self-righteous, starry-eyed American actor Christian Bell taking the role of the main male protagonist role in the movie.
As to Zhang’s directing of quite a number of purely commercial kungfu movies mainly from mid 1990s to mid 2000s with ancient Chinese dynasties set as the invariable time background, the one harped in this post and in another previous one of similar theme by the same author, most Chinese merely think them OK at best, or mundane, mediocre and meaningless at worst. I think the only reason a Westerner who is sincere, unbiased and uninformed in Chinese history and culture might find such movies whose only eye catching features were their hyperbolic artificial stunts and rich color interesting or even fascinating is because they feel curious and fresh at the Eastern ways in martial arts movie making which is indeed nothing deep or enduring, as many Chinese have believed and uttered to me personally.
By the way, when Zhang was a young student at the Beijing Film Academy, he was a fan of Japan (when China’s economy was a mere faction of that of Japan and depended on Japan to invest with both capital and technology) and an admirer of Yukio Mishima (most probably a shallow, insincere and clueless one as born out by his active cooperation with the Chinese regime in shooting anti-Japanese propaganda movies currently). His shortly cut hairstyle is alleged to be imitating Mishima as a friend of his observed that with such a hairstyle, he looked quite like Mishima (actually fairly so, I agree, yet only in head and face but not in spirit and soul).
The bottom line rule in China: Everything tangible or intangible, as long as concerning political, ideological, philosophical, cultural, intellectual, in a word, metaphysical, is controlled with an iron fist by the Communist-shifting-toward-Imperialist/militarist regime of that country and to be used to the hilt as a propagandist tool for brainwashing, whitewashing, or traducing and smearing to further the political/diplomatic/PR interest of the regime and the country dominated by it.
As to the unchallenged total ruler of the present day China, the Communists Party of China and many of its members old and new already have largely completed their transformation. They are now communist in name only, and not stop at mere nationalist either. They are far beyond that and are in fact rabid and frantic jingoist, chauvinist, militarist, imperialist, or ultra-nationalist if the soft term nationalist must be applied to them. They are incomparably vicious, ruthless and hopelessly bitter and vengeful against Japan in particular and the whole West in general.
Thanks to the ignorant, myopic, starry-eyed and stupid policies of the existing West toward China which include misjudged pacifism and unwarranted insouciance toward China, continued and wanton investment of stupendous amounts of capital and high-techs in China, and the reckless introducing and maintaining of the blind and self-destructive “free trade” with China which has subsidized and beefed up its fat war chest in the past two decades, the West will be paying direly for their collective and abysmal naivety, shortsightedness, laziness and stupidity.
While the Western nations are foolishly disarmed and at rest mentally, China has been vigorously and quietly building its strength in the last three decades or so. China is indeed 100 times if not more tricky, cunning, resourceful and duplicitous a strategic adversary than the former Soviet Union. It knows better than anyone else on this earth the essential effectiveness of the axiom “Build one’s strength and hide it in a bushel”, while the West seemed totally unable to come to terms with the biggest simple truth about China that is “the velvet paws hide sharp claws”. Now China reckons itself powerful enough, its muscle-flexing, goose-stepping, chest-thumping and saber-rattling militancy and arrogance are increasingly put up on show by itself day after day.
The only realistic and effectual remedy of self-salvation for the West which also strives to avoid a hot confrontation with China, in my honest albeit radical opinion, is to initiate the completely sovereign and legitimate act of disengaging with it economically, to stop all trade and investment relations with it which amounts to cut off all the nutrient-sucking tentacles of this monster octopus and is the best and most tenable and justifiable way of gutting and enfeebling it and defusing its menace without fighting a hot war, and to contain and deter it and hold it at bay with absolute and unswerving steely resolve and by having superior military strength over it without the necessity to actually fight the first shot, which will be easy to achieve indeed if the disengagement strategy is carried out that will definitely and successfully deny China necessary wealth and high-techs for building and maintaining an advanced and powerful military capable of threatening, let alone defeating, the West as the past 30 years of history have demonstrated to us unmistakably that China’s accumulation of power and affluence have all but been attributed to its super tricky and predatory trade practices, unceasing intellectual property piracy and rampant industrial espionage all over the Western nations (Japan included).
Without the West as the huge market and the dumping ground of its exported goods which were relatively cheap but massive in numbers, and cumulatively speaking astronomic amounts of outpouring foreign investments of capital and high-techs which it has successfully cajoled or swindled, China who is innately in short supply of independent creativity and savvy for crucial modern know-how simply could not have made its day as currently the case. China has lied, cheated and stolen to get to the near top of this world with no compunction, and its downfall is nailed once denied of such wonderful opportunities which have been wide open to it from a West that has acted all too carelessly and thoughtlessly in the past years. It time to wake up and reclaim the spirit of self-reliance, not just for outstripping and thwarting China though that must be done, but for the Western nations and ultimately for the White race itself.
PS: Jackie Chan is the same case, even more juvenile and moronic than Zhang. Jackie’s innumerable gaffes of recent years which were meant for apologizing or cheering for the mainland regime and orally ridiculing and abusing at the small and free nations defiant to the mainland China have made him a stinking abomination and a clownish figure in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and in oversea Chinese communities in the West. Those who are fans of Jackie and found this claim of mine unbelievable and hard to swallow may check themselves on the Internet. Of course, it one can read Chinese, that’s even better and much easier to locate such news and information on Jackie’s stench of disrepute among many of his fellow Chinese around the world.
Oh give me a break. The east has figured out the west. What do you expect? The west has yet to figure out the East. The smug Jewish-Anglo Saxon west does not get it. The East is so seductive that it towers above the west’s judeo-christian hysteria. Objectively, I have to laugh and then I think oh well it is not the Jews but the East that will make us slaves. They try and make us feel sorry for all their workers in slave positions and yet that is using our benevolence against us, just as the Jews use it. Why wouldn’t a Chinese creative individual be for the Chinese and try to gain our sympathy? I do have to admire their creativity. If we allow it, well so be it. Just for the record, it has been my experience that the so-called submissive Eastern woman is not so submissive. The western men I know who have married one, are very controlled by her. It’s called letting him think he is in control . Subversive, yet effective. Okay, I prefer an honest relationship if that is possible in this day and age.
We are not overall big fans of the Communist Party of China on Counter-Currents (which is an anti-egalitarian joint), but do not wish either to see it disappear in favour of a democracy.
China will, in my opinion, become worse and worse every year if it switches to a mass and parliamentary rule.
Which begs a question: what do you think would be a better government for China, and is it realistic to expect a regime change during the next century?
You are fully agreed. Perhaps my overt and over emphasis on the artistic degeneration of Zhang and his likes in China through their cheer leading for the regime produced a wrong impression that democracy is necessarily a good thing for China.
In fact, what we should and should only care about is not whether this or that system is good or bad for the Chinese, but their impact on the White nations and the Aryan race per se of this world. We should ruthlessly, meticulously and cool-headedly promote and advance anything that reduce the danger and threat of China to the rest of the world, which certainly and particularly includes the white people living in all Western nations and the Para-Aryan civilization and nation of Japan (as deemed by Hitler and Mussolini which I agree).
Considering the increasingly lurid and barely-veiled animosity, rabid jingoism, vaunting ambitions and avowed vengefulness of the Chinese against the West which they believed have wronged them badly in the past (not without an ounce of truth but also grossly exaggerated to feed their morbid and horrid ego and vicious ambition) and is standing in its way toward global ascendancy and domination, and its unabashed and provocative demonstrations of browbeating force, and its hubristic marching on the global stage sporting unmistakable actions of neo-imperialistic and neo-colonialist intentions including rapidly growing and unruly immigrations to the Western lands etc., it is indeed of vital importance for the white peoples of the world to come to grips with this new Yellow Peril (no shopworn stereotype here but only a plain depiction of the reality) which will determine the state of existentiality (living with right and dignity, or living in slavery under their Chinese masters, or even wholesale obliteration and replacement by the Chinese) of the children and grandchildren of the Aryan nations.
As to the future political state of China and the Chinese themselves, though I already said it is not a major concern, since you raised your question and showed your interest, I think if we say a regime change in the next ten to twenty years, that will be difficult and unlikely according to my years of observation and actual living experiences in the country until now. I would predict such a change to take place in this century, probably before 2050. The ChiCom regime, after all, is too corrupt and depraved to sustain. It also knows that fully itself, that’s why it has resorted to massive and continuous chauvinistic indoctrination and brainwashing campaigns targeted at its own 1.3 billion subjects in the past twenty years, and with huge successes as exemplified by a series of unceasing and horrid riots, violence and brutalities at the hands of the hate-filled, and blindly rancorous and spiteful youngsters against foreigners especially the life and properties of Japanese tourists and business in China and their high support and screaming calls for the Chinese military to smash, humiliate and subjugate nations from Taiwanese, to Vietnamese, the Philippines, Indians and Japanese. This I think is also very telling of the vehement and frenzied mentality and uncivilized and inferior quality Chinese masses which is a history tradition that can be dated back to pre-war times, and only gets more dangerous and eruptive with their gaining economic power and military brawn.
Again, I am in mo favor of democracy for China, and I fully agree with you that China will get much worse, and even more dangerous if it switches to the mass represented and parliamentary rule, at least at present or in a near to mid future. It will simply turns into a mob rule and a political game of shout-fest where the most extreme and nationalistic will shout down any other side by branding the latter as “Han-Jian”(the most politically potent and magically intimidating Chinese word of offense which means “Chinese traitors” literally) and then easily claim a victory in any election by promising and actually acting to invade, enslave and kill foreign nations with the same if not more hatred, vile and genocidal cruelty that the majority Han Chinese have used to treat the various ethnical minorities under their jackboot rule in the past 60 years. And they will be physically capable of doing all the evils at their will if its current economic empowerment subsidized by the West through trade and investment continues unabated.
So what we should care about China and Chinese, again in consideration of their existing and potential menace to other nations esp. the White people of the world based not only on their massive size and multiplying power due to decades of Western support of money, material and technology, but also on their inherent iniquity and egomania, their self-chosen and gleeful immersion in abhorrent and aggressive ideologies, their latent yet diabolic and truculent xenophobia, their unparalleled ruthlessness, chicanery and deception, their ancient and renewed passion for expansion and colonial settlement in foreign lands, and their perverse penchant and determination to conquer, robe and slaughter based on eternally unrepentant and unapologetic self-superiority, we have little sense in worrying about what would be a better government for China. Instead, we have every urgent interest in pondering what would be a better government of China for the Western and White nations and the Aryan race ultimately, regardless of the how the Chinese would like to have.
Incidentally, someone might want to tell me the ancient Chinese were largely a peaceful people with limited if any attempts and actual records for outward invasion. But that argument is a half-truth at best and an outright ignorant observation. The Han Chinese, the main stock and actual owner of China used to only inhabit a very small part of land in the Center-North of today’s China. It has expanded to current size by annexing the lands of innumerable minorities and depleting if not exterminating the indigenous minority populations and then establishing its own rules over theirs. As to the its few outward attempts of expansionary conquest overseas, the Chinese now are very regretting about that. Nowadays many Chinese newspapers and magazines are busily conducting a retrospection and collectively sighing and regretting the ancient China, when at the peak of its power, had not chosen to conquer the West. Such a country surely won’t miss another chance if they can get, will they?
The ideal response to the last sentence of the paragraph before the previous one, essentially, is a China that is made and kept weak, enfeebled, emasculated, languid, flaccid, yet self-contented and inwardly turning, irrespective of the fact whether there will one super corrupt and oppressive elite section ruling over the rest masses in dictatorship or not, so long as the ruler will be selfish and rational enough and tamable and amenable to the words of the West. Only by that, the rest of the world in general and the White nations in particular could be free from this over eagerly expansive and ambitious people if given the chance and bestowed upon with generous assistance to develop and prosper as it has been the case up to now as a result of the suicidally myopic and foolish Western policies dictated by the abject and detestable class of unpatriotic and un-racialist bigwig corporate merchants and bankers, treacherous Jewish aliens and traitorous gentiles alike, either duped because of their own greed or hand-in-glove with the Chinese, and whose treasonous acts were constantly backed and harped by the largely Jewish media serving the abovementioned interests using the brain-dead liberal political economic catchwords such as “free trade”, “global market”, “positive change through engagement”, “mutual benefits”, “strategic partnership” etc. aimed at deceiving and hoaxing the White working men and women and impoverish them while fattening the bellies of themselves and their Chinese pals (or masters), the righteous interest of the broad white working class be damned.
The only safe China to independent, decent and self-reliant white people is one that is as described in the previous paragraph, and it can only be achieved through a resolute and sturdy policy of containment, confinement and disengagement, not through the long approved bankrupt policies of starry-eyed and self-deceptive engagement preached by most Western political establishments today including both the Republican and the Democratic Parties in US and other mainstream political parties in Europe and Japan with an utterly unrealistic expectation to see China democratize and become more civilized and peace-minded which only had a consistent and proved record of complete and dismal failures and the reality witnesses a consequence being exactly contrary to the dreamy predictions of the self-anointed China experts and that it has cost the western nations and their honest working people dearly is beyond any doubt.
Finally, to repeat myself in my previous post, in my honest and well thought-out opinion, the only effective and the least costly solution, also salubrious to the long term and vital interest of the White people, is to de-link our nations and ourselves from China economically, diplomatically, socially, culturally, in a word, all-roundly because only this can cut off the blood-sucking tentacles of China and deny the creativity-short & high-tech savvy-devoid (in the substantive and genuine sense backed by numerous, serious and telling facts in spite of China’s superficially vast economic size and stupendous amounts of foreign reserve gained through dishonest and predatory trade practices that are by no means “free”) China all the nutrients (wealth and technologies) it has been sucking off from the bodies of the White nations and which are absolutely necessary for it to carry out its vicious agenda of world domination, global ethnical cleansing and enslavement of all other nations and ethnicities. And doing this will also help educate our swindled white middle class the true nature of the greedy and treacherous mercantile Jews and their pawn and followers and the incalculably disastrous and grievous harm they have done to the White peoples of the West and also enable us to defeat, de-power, and de-fang them eventually.
It is high time to wake up and act with vision and resolve to reclaim the spirit of self-reliance and to free the Western men from the slowly strangling yoke, the chronically deleterious, pernicious and destructive dependence on, and the pathological and abject addiction to the Chinese imports and the poisonous and atrophying idea of mass modern consumerism, not just for the purpose of outstripping and thwarting China’s dangerous ambitions and tyrannical agenda though that ought to be and will be done, but also for securing the health, vitality and long term survival of Western nations and ultimately for the White race itself.
You might like to read this short article on Chinese eugenics:
http://www.edge.org/response-detail/23838
I can’t verify any of the authors assertions independently but it seems like he should know what he’s talking about, judging from the his limited biography and the credentials of other contributors. If true, it is not only strong evidence for your thesis but could represent a serious crisis for the ruling ideology in the West. You mean eugenics isn’t just Nazi and “white supremacist” nonsense? The Chinese are heavily investing in it? Let’s see them explain that one away…
Good catch.
There was recently a discussion on the very same subject at Halfsigma; it was in fact the closing statement of the blog before his Jewish author moved on toward more lucrative things.
The consensus was that the government of China will not admit to being a fan of eugenics for diplomatic reasons, but it sure as hell won’t do anything against eugenic technologies once they become available, because of the absence of Christian influence, Jewish PC, and a mestizo population whose feelings must not be hurt.
If you find it hard to believe that the Chinese government endorses things that would meet an enormous condemnation in the West, consider that it has so far entirely backed the efforts of the Beijing Genomics Institute (https://www.cog-genomics.org/)
Expect a complete black-out in Western media. If the media are upset by something, they simply don’t talk about it.
Falun Gong seemed to come out of nowhere, rising very quickly. It’s origins and founder are obscure, with no clear tradition or lineage of Masters and Disciples. And its teachings and techniques are a mishmash of Taoism and Buddhism. Conclusion: Any chance that it is CIA creation? Likewise, some say that the NWO is advancing its plans to check the Chinese in Africa.
Falun Gong did not come out of nowhere. It was initially patronized by significant sections of the CCP and was portrayed as a sort of wholesome homegrown spiritual self-improvement teaching. Eventually, the organization grew to outnumber the CCP itself and had de facto infiltrated the CCP. The tipping point occurred when the Falun Gong tried to organize demonstrations to shut down criticism of their practices in some newspapers. The CCP leadership ultimately decided to side against the Falun Gong, the Falun Gong then organized a massive demonstration outside the leadership compound at Zhongnanhai as a show of strength…and then the repression kicked into high gear.
Was it organized by the American CIA from the outside? Possibly, but the CIA connection is not necessary to explain Falun Gong’s rise because it had a fair degree of institutional support in the beginning. What is clear is that, at some point, the Falun Gong threw in its own lot with Western intelligence. Its followers run both English-language and Chinese-language media. The English-language stuff is pure pro-US and pro-Israel in content. The Chinese-language stuff has tried to be more nationalistic than the CCP, but at the expense of Russia rather than at the expense of the US and Japan by criticizing former President Jiang Zemin for the border deal that he made with Russia.
John’s comment, in my honest opinion not intended to flatter, is very accurate, insightful and discerning. FG was a very dubious and nebulous occult organization from the very beginning tightly controlled and heavily influenced by its founder, an ambitious and disgruntled semi-intellectual man from the Northeast China, despite its innocuous and mass oriented and mass supported outlook. There have been innumerable such secretive or semi-secretive societies, many of militant goals and arms, from the old dynasties of China, the latest and most notable examples being the “Bai-Lian-Jiao” (Sect of White Lotus) and the famous and devastating “Taiping Tianguo” (The Kingdom of Heavenly Peace) in the 19th century China.
As pointed out by John, the FG is very active at publishing and propagandizing with its multi-lingual and vibrant publications in the West, Japan and overseas Chinese communities. And what’s more, the blindly “pro-democracy”, “pro-mainstream value (corrupt and anti-White status quo)”, “pro-Israel” tones and contents of their publications in the West, as well as their Russia-deprecating, Japan-bashing publications in Chinese language targeted at the overseas Chinese especially the younger generation readers are indeed quite telling examples revealing of their misguided and jingoist nature, their feigned veneer of loving democracy, equality and fraternity notwithstanding. In my candid opinion, this has more to do with the inner and innate characters and disposition of the Han Chinese nation and their “Central Empire” complexes of superiority driving their self-serving agenda and insidious ambitions. In a nutshell, to borrow a well-known Chinese proverb, FG might just be “Yi-Qiu-Zhi-He” (two badgers of the same hill) with the Chinese Communist Party establishment, locking horns with each other ferociously only for the power-grabbing.
While the communist regime of China is notorious, detestable and dangerous, especially with its steep shift to ultra-nationalism, militaristic outward expansion and neo-colonialism, which definitely threatens the Western nations (not merely the existing political states but ultimately to the White races herself on this point), White nationalists should not support and sympathize with the FG movement or lend weight and credence to them either without in-depth examination and scrutinizing of its real nature and motive. The FG and ChiCom are competing to “out-assert” and “out-tough guy” the other nowadays and both displaying the same disingenuousness and duplicity by talking from the both ends of their mouth, using different languages to the different audience. Yet their common objective is to invade and colonize foreign and especially White lands regardless of means, and will eventually turn against their host nations when they believe they are powerful enough to outweigh them with sheer numbers and backed by force. That’s the 21st century “Yellow Peril” I have talked about, the peril of pestilent masses of “locusts”.
China’s current muscle flexing and swashbuckling and intimidating posturing (cheered by an overwhelming majority of its mainlanders and an modest majority of its overseas expatriates) as demonstrated by the officially published new national map of China that rope the disputed territories large or small with many neighboring countries of it including India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines etc. in arrogant defiance of all the protest and criticism is the latest move indicative of the nature of the Chinese, both the government and the subjects of that government who are deeply disquieted and disaffected in terms of the domestic affairs of China but will instantly switch into high gear of jingoism and militant aggressiveness when the slightest mention of terms related to “Chinese glory”, ”China’s inviolable territories” are made.
All this boils down to the most deep and core nature of the Chinese, which few Westerners from the old time to today have been able to penetrated and expose including many officially recognized or self-anointed “China experts” and “Old China hands” with the precious exception of a very tiny number of insightful, honest and brave people who have both the conscience and the courage to speak out unfavorable and unpleasant truths about which they believed were in the best interest of the West and their fellow White countrymen. This made them very unpopular and even resulted in their totally unfair and deplorable persecutions on the hand of their own government considering the official US policy in the 20th century which has mostly aligned and allied Americans with China.
Former diplomat and honest and fearless patriot Mr. Ralph Townsend is such a man who spoke out the truths of China and Japan and sounded alarms on the danger and naivety of the witless US support of China during its frenzied xenophobic confrontations with Japan, and became an eyesore to the FDR regime, and discredited and penalized by it. You may refer to the following book (truly eye-opening) by him which is on sale at amazon. Another wise and honest gentleman on the menace and deception of China is Mr. Frederic Vincent Williams whose great book however is out of print. All the plain truths on China unveiled and debunked by such two brave and visionary gentlemen remain true today, and all the more so, pertaining to the vices and wickedness of the Chinese which is beyond ideology and immanent and entrenched in their culture and values.
Ways That Are Dark: The Truth About China by Ralph Townsend: (currently available)
http://www.amazon.com/Ways-That-Are-Dark-Truth/dp/B000H774CI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358480770&sr=1-1&keywords=ralph+townsend
And, http://www.amazon.com/Ways-that-are-dark-truth/dp/B0006QY4WS/ref=cm_rdp_product
Behind the News in China by Frederic Vincent Williams: (out of print)
http://www.amazon.com/Behind-China-Frederick-Vincent-Williams/dp/B0006DBQFY/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358484867&sr=1-2&keywords=frederic+vincent+williams
Is Riki-Eiki Japanese? I am Chinese and perhaps my own perspective would be useful to balance his.
Frankly, a united China is the natural dominant power of East Asia the way that a united Germany is the natural dominant power of Europe. The accusations that he makes regarding the gradual Sinification of the various non-Han tribes that once inhabitated `China proper` could also be levelled against the gradual Germanification of many central and eastern European Slavs that took place in the Middle Ages (or to be frank, the Japanization by the Yamato of the Japanese aborigines…and the attempt to do the same with the Koreans in the 19th century). At times, Sinification was the result of nomadic invasions which depopulated northern China and forced great numbers of Han to the south where they soon outnumbered the natives.
Most of China`s foreign wars have been defensive battles against steppe nomadic confederations who are structurally predatory societies which cannot live in peace for long with the agricultural societies that they border. The only neighbour that can truly complain of a long history of aggression from China is Vietnam.
Furthermore, just for the record, there is no Taiwanese nation except for the mountain aborigines. Most Taiwanese` ancestors went to Taiwan in the 17th century and they speak the same dialect as the people of neighbouring Fujian province. Given the short distance between Fujian and Taiwan, there was no real ethnogensis in Taiwan of the Chinese settlers. The Sino-Taiwanese have a distinct regional and political identity but they do not have a distinct ethnic identity.
Japan certainly has no right to complain of any such aggression as it was only attacked by China when China itself was under Mongol rule. However, from the time that Japan successfully adopted Western technology with the Meiji Restoration to its defeat in 1945, it`s elites have tried to subjugate China. Beyond material considerations, this Oedipus complex on the part of the Japanese elites was cultural. During Meiji times, Japan was plunged into Westernization and thus wanted to remove any association between it and its old cultural mentor that was China. Therefore, it saw China as a pie to be carved up in partnership with the other big powers of the time. When the Japanese elites became disillusioned with the West following the First World War (because of the Great Depression, Western unwillingness to see the Japanese as racial equals, and Western unwillingness to grant to Japan additional privileges in China), they plunged back into their own traditions and revalorized the old Japan that had been disparaged in Meiji times. Unfortunately for them, the old Japanese civilization developed in a world where Chinese cultural influence was paramount. The pre-Meiji Japanese did tend to see China as the `Middle Kingdom` even if they were outside of the tributary system. Consequently, for the Empire to Japan to lead Asia, it had to become the `Middle Kingdom` by subjugating and balkanizing the old Middle Kingdom. This mentality persists among a segment of Japanese nationalism which continues to use the Anglicized name of `Zhina` to refer to China rather than the traditional Japanese name of `Chuugoku` (which means `Middle Kingdom`).
Now, what does this have to do with ethnic Europeans? Culturally, there is much of interest that can be explored between Europe and East Asia. But geopolitically, each has little to do with the other’s old grudges.
John, your way of adopting this common English first name for yourself on this forum is really a little sly and confusing, isn’t it? But your comments are quite balanced and unbiased. You the one of the very few Chinese who do not resort to instant and blind carpet-bombing condemnation with vehement anti-Japanese slurs when talking about the historical, political and other issues between Japan and China. I salute your cool-headed and reasonable argumentation and your English is also truly good, better than mine. You have a decent, honest and admirable intellectual’s mind, unlike many of your country fellows. Thanks for that.
I mostly agree with your analysis on the contemporary historical relationship between China and Japan, and the mindset of the nations behind that, but I have some moderate reservations. First, I would like to correct one spelling of yours when you mention the old Latin style way of calling China by Japanese which was common before the war and lingers on in a section of Japanese nationalists as remarked by you. It is “Shina”, not “Zhina”, and the word is purely a borrowed word from West as many such words exist in the Japanese language, which has the same or highly similar pronunciation to the word of “China” in German, French, Italian languages, and the word in Japanese is a neutral one, with no particular intent of disparaging, and certainly no reverence neither, unlike the slanderous and hysterical accusation made by a many Chinese nowadays. It seems the Chinese only prefer their country be address in the most venerated way like the “Central Kingdom” or the Japanese term “Chugoku”, anything less than that notch is regarded by them as an affront to their fragile ego and easily hurt sense of self-respect.
I have some slight disagreement with your claim “Consequently, for the Empire to Japan to lead Asia, it had to become the `Middle Kingdom` by subjugating and balkanizing the old Middle Kingdom.” On balance, what you averred is not incorrect. But we should look and think deeper, not merely have our mind dominated by facts and occurrences on the surface. When Japan rose (not without many problems of her own) against an old, arrogant, yet declining and receding Chinese empire in late 19th century and after Japan roundly defeated China in the first major war between the two nations surrounding the interest at Korean Peninsula which was part of the Chinese tributary system where China has maintained a master-to-servant attitude and influences for centuries and a newly surged Japan wanted to challenge, the mentality of Japan toward China indeed changed significantly from the former cultural inferiority to equality if not superiority. But the cultural and intellectual elite of Japan still maintained some respect to China as its old mentor mainly in terms of the literary classics and Confucius moral codes which has admittedly influenced Japanese culture immensely. The viewing of Japan toward China was not a simple dismissal or disparagement, but more like one that pronounced “we are still culturally brothers. Only Japan is now the elder brother, and China the younger one, and we are going to lead and guide you and work together to create our great pan-Eastern Asian status in the treacherous jungles of the international politics dominated by the West. ” This of course sounded very condescending and patronizing to China but was based on the reality and Japan was sincere for all the pricking and piquing it gave to the self-esteem of China. The way Japan viewed its languishing and listless cultural brother can be summarized with the common Chinese phrase “Ai-qi-buxing, Nu-qi-buzheng” which means “lament one’s misfortune and resent one’s degeneracy”.
During the later upheaval of the “Boxers’ Rebellion” at the very beginning of the 20th century, the very small numbers of the Japanese garrison troops defending the diplomatic compound and people inside including many women and children, families of Western diplomats against waves of unrelenting onslaught of the boxers displayed great valor and impeccable discipline and won broad acclaim. This event was depicted in the movie “55 Days at Peking” starring the late Charlton Heston, though only giving Japan a much reserved and moderate role. After the war, all the eight foreign powers including Japan won concessions from the Manchurian Chinese dynasty and were permitted to station their troops to a certain level in China to protect their diplomatic and business presences. Then the dynasty crumbled and collapses soon and replaced by the so-called Republic of China. However, any expectation of the new Chinese authority being a sovereign and stable state was but a illusion, as decades of civil wars big or small among various warlord factions of China kicked in and China was enmeshed in endless political and social turmoil and chaos. Then in 1930s, Japan took over the Northeastern part of the current China and established the “Manshukoku”. It must be noted that this part of vast territory separated by the Great Walls built by the Han Chinese themselves were originally out of the Han-Chinese sphere of influence and inhabited by many minority nationalities including mainly the Manchurian, the Korean, the Mongolian and a limited number of Chinese. Japan’s bold and swift military success there and the subsequent setup of a Manchurian king from the genuine Manchurian royal family dethroned by the Chinese earlier was welcomed by many people of different ethnic groups there.
Note that I do not applaud and endorse this move unconditionally, as it was indeed plotted and carried out as a military adventure by a small clique of idealistic and ambitious young Japanese military officers in defiance of the orders and intentions of the central government of Japan with a lofty purpose of establishing a new nation bathed in the spirit of “Five Nation Co-prosperity”. Their idea was in fact genuine and sincere, though with the main strategic interest of Japan itself in mind, also brought real order and stability and chance for a better life to all the inhabitants of that land. The Manshukoku, compared to the Chinese homeland within the Great Walls, was a literal paradise, ruled by laws and the business flourished and millions of Chinese competed to rush to there in order to make a better living which they could only dream in the South. Again, I did not say what Japan did was completely right and free of any blame, but taking the historical reality into perspective and considering the decent life for every law-abiding citizens it provided to all different ethnic groups in that land, one should make a better and fairer judgment instead of swallowing the vicious and dishonest propaganda of the current Chinese government.
The Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945 was a tragedy, with the artificially stoked up and virulent anti-Japanese agitations, the smearing and boycotting of Japan, and a series of brutal violence and atrocities against peaceful Japanese civilians living in China in mid 1930s which fueled up the public rage in Japan and encouraged more military adventurism against China from the impetuous and overconfident Japanese Army all paving the way for the all-rounded confrontation that last eight years. But among so many complicated factors from the Chinese rancor, jealousy, barbarity and petty nationalism to the Japanese cockiness, insensitivity, unwarranted optimism and early indecisiveness, the primary and the cardinal factors leading to the outbreak and contributing to the lengthening of the tragic war was neither Japan nor the legitimate nationalist government of China headed by generalissimo Jiang Kai-shek (Shoh Kaiseki in Japanese), but by Moscow and its communist running dogs of China who had done everything tirelessly in order to lengthen the war and debilitate both Japan and the nationalist Chinese regime so that they could clench the final victory after the war’s end. Chinese communist headed by Mao staged all kinds of unimaginable tricks and chicanery one after another to enlarge and intensify the ongoing war and prevent numerous attempts at peace negotiations between Jiang and Japan to conclude the war earlier. meanwhile, the communist elements and sympathizers infesting the US government including FDR’s inner circle did their best to smear, traduce and demonize Japan in US politics and public life in order to lead the two nations into a head collision which they rightly predicted would eventually destroy Japan and give China to Mao and Stalin. Again, Japan and China had multiple chances to mend their ties and end the war, and US and Japan had no serious problems with each other that merited a bloody and costly fight that destroyed the traditional Japan and empowered the communist and led to nasty wars in Korea and Vietnam later. but good hope were buried by the hostile and wicked elements whose interest lied in the expansion and deepening of the conflict. (The little known yet highly critical Hull Note presented as a stringent and draconian ultimatum from the FDR regime to strangle Japan comes to mind. Japan chose to die fighting and the Pearl Harbor ensued which played into the hands of a gleeful FDR and his cohorts into commandeering the American nation into total wars with Japan and Germany.)
Finally, you stated that Europeans and Chinese had little to do with the other’s old grudges. This is of course historically true, but it does not prevent the evil strategic thinking and plotting of the current China to carry out its world-conquest agenda by which they aim to eventually destroy and enslave the White nations and their civilization. They reckon they will get to that after they finish off Japan. On this very point and context, it is not about the old grudges of history or the old China with little proven record of aggression carried to the West, it is about the current and future China which has this objective and will be hell-bent on carrying it out if it is not stopped. I have expounded on this in my previous long posts and will not intend to do more now. I only repeat my core belief in one last sentence here: China and its brainwashed zombies filled with hatred and determined to unleash genocidal conquest on the whole advanced nations must be kept at bay, and the best, cost-effective way of achieving that is to disengage with China and terminate all support and subsidies to it in the forms of direct capital and technological investment and ongoing trade relations the West has maintained with it for the past three decades. Act now before it’s too late!
Corrections of two of my own minor errors or inaccuracies:
1. To describe he attitude of “tough love” adopted by Japan toward China from roughly 1895 to 1945, I used an Chinese phrase “ai-qi-buxing, nu-qi-buzheng” to which the English translation I supplied was less than accurate. It should be better to put it like “to lament one’s misfortune and resent one’s fecklessness.”
2. The name of the nationalist Chinese leader who was educated in a military school of Japan in his younger days and was generally considered as pro-Japanese and unwilling to fight a war with Japan but nevertheless pulled into a debilitating long war with Japan by the communist ruses and trickery which eventually exhausted and incapacitated his political power and also brought down the Japanese empire is Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, in the correct form of the old Wade spelling system for Chinese names.
PS: Pity on Chiang and Japan, though with their respective share of vices and mistakes, both having fallen victims to the vicious and ruthless communist forces that outfoxed both of them. And, yes, Roosevelt too! But the last was a victim and a perpetrator at the same time, and certainly more of the latter than the former. The same can be said of Churchill. Only Stalin is the real victor of the War and claims my grudging respect for his demonic resourcefulness and toughness. Mao is the Chinese version of Stalin, only a crueler and more monstrous one.
Final concluding remark:
I think it is the time to call off the current discussion on the historical and political relations and all the hassles between China, Japan and also US. What matters now is not those long past events but the current reality, ongoing developments, and future trends. Although knowing historical truths (some might never be known fully and clearly) is instrumental to our correct understanding of the past, it is not worthy of endless arguments. I say Japan was largely good and honest, while someone else might say Japan was mostly bad and mainly did harms. There is no end to that pointless and worthless argument, and the same applies to China. It is neither wise nor effective to engage in incessant arguing and debating in such regards. What’s more important, it is not conducive to the purpose and theme of this site, which is about how to protect, preserve and promote the safety, healthy living and racial survival of White nations and the Aryan race per se on today and tomorrow’s earth. That is what counts at this site. So from now on I would no longer be inclined to engage in historical arguments and debates with anyone on the historical goodness or badness of Japan and China, or on what they have done to each other historically.
My only concern, and I believe also being the main concern of this site and its readers when it comes to any topic about China, is what it is doing, and is preparing to do in this century to the rest of the world including Japan and especially to the White peoples. Based on my decades of living experiences in China which continue now and my keen observation, investigation and examination of all the official policies, public sentiments and media functioning, I have perceived a real, substantive and serious threat from China manifest in its avowed and aggressive agendas, super-ambitious planning for wars of conquest, and all other mean for global domination, and I have made my own proposals which I honestly and confidently believe to be the best and most efficient strategy for the West to counter and dissolve this threat and keep her own lands, resources and population safe from the tentacles of the Chinese menace. I shall remain firm in my belief and impervious to any questioning on the nature of China, the goals and intentions it possesses, and the path it has embarked on as related and explained by me so far, while have an open mind to suggestions of strategies and tactics to be used to diffuse, thwart or defeat China and its heinous ambitions.
I would like to make some concluding remarks well:
1. China in the 1930s was caught between two formidable land powers: Japan and the USSR, and took great pains to avoid antagonizing both at the same time. Nanjing, Tokyo and Moscow (and by extension the CCP) each tried to sow discord between the other two. Certainly Soviet intrigues were abundent in China at the time. However, they do not excuse Japan’s own actions. The greatest obstacle to peace between the KMT and Japan was the fact that no Japanese government, despite not having ordered the conquest of Manchuria, was going to return that territory to China. Without the return of those three provinces, any peace between China and Japan would only be temporary. Japanese intentions had been obvious ever since the Japanese Army sallied forth to block the KMT’s Northern Expedition from penetrating Manchuria in 1927 and assasinated Marshal Chang Tso-lin for venturing to unite with the KMT. Chiang Kai-Shek had long since stopped expecting help from the Japanese and planned to drive them out once the CCP was dealt with. The differences between him and Mao Zedong on Japan were only tactical rather than strategic.
2. What was Japan in a position to teach China in the 1930s? Technology? China could do better by diversifying its partners. Political reform? Japan’s relatively successful revolution-from-above was due to structural factors such as its small size and lesser regional heterogeneity which could not be transplanted to the Chinese context. Socio-economic reform? Unlike Germany, Japan never got Fascism to work…seriously, Japan never conquered the Great Depression the way Germany did and the workers and peasants there continued to be miserable under the industrial order that replaced the bakufu. Hence the coup attempt of the frustrated young army officers of modest backgrounds in 1936 which was crushed by the oligarchy and their frustrations diverted into foreign conquests. It is true that a fair number of idealistic Japanese officers believed in the rhetoric of pan-Asian brotherhood. However, their naivete does not redeem the cynical policy of their high command which centered on economic exploitation above all else.
4. Is contemporary China a threat to the world? Only in the sense that China, barring a disaster, will become the economic center of world affairs within the next few decades. To guard that prosperity, it will need commensurate military strength. Post-war Japan itself knows that economic pre-eminence without military power does not lead to true independence. For the last 3 decades, the Western oligarchy has had an arrangement with the CCP whereby Chinese labour was made available to Western (and Japanese) corporations so that these big capitalists could claw back the concessions that they had made to labour movements in their own countries. In return, China received a certain measure of foreign technology via investment. However, this partnership cannot endure for much longer. On the Chinese side, the development model that it engenders for China is one of chronic social instability with a gapping rich-poor divide and severe environmental degradation. On the Western side, the efforts to maintain a technological edge over China in all strategic domains by selectively closing off certain areas to Chinese investment continues to erode. Sooner rather than later, China’s indigenous scientific and technological capability will be such that it does not need foreign investment so much (if it ever did…). In essence, it will be in the position of post-war Japan in the 1970s, only with strategic depth, a powerful military and independent links to energy-rich regions of the world.
Finally, what of this Yellow Peril-imagery that Riki-Eiki invokes of Chinese world colonization? The reality is that the high point of Chinese emigration, barring a disaster in China, has passed. Chinese demographics in the coming years, on account of population control measures, will increasingly resemble Japanese demographics and I expect all of the current fear of Chinese demographic overflow to have been re-directed against India by then.
It seems your so-called concluding remarks, unlike my previous one, was more of an attempt at retort and refutation of my early points as well as an initiation of a new round of debate and dispute. Since you have chosen to throw down the gauntlet, I will pick up, but only briefly. I would like to offer some quick comments to you concluding remarks and a few corrections of some factual errors in your remarks. I hope there would be no more. But if you will chose to continue, I would have no choice but to respond. Meanwhile, it seems you cloak of politeness and courtesy was begun to takeoff and it betrays your armor underneath. But I will let that go.
1. You very premise of arguing seemed to be based on that Manchuria (the three Northeastern provinces of the current China as a political entity out of the Great Walls) were historically Han-Chinese territory. It wasn’t. As I have explained in my post, it belonged to mainly the Manchurians and other minority ethnicities. In the Qing Dynasty which was founded by the Manchurian nobles and expanded to include the whole current China, there were only a handful of Han Chinese living there. The big masses of Han Chinese were even barred officially from crossing the Great Walls into that vast and rich and sparely inhabited territory in the North by government laws. The Manchurians very much bewared of the dangers from the size and corrosiveness of the Chinese settlers. The chaos and commotion which ensued after the collapse of the Qing Dynasty saw many Han Chinese emigrating to Manchuria who quickly displaced the indigenous locals and set up their rule over there. Also, as I explained earlier, the stability and prosperity of the Manshukoku established by Japan in early 1930s proved a enduring lure to the Han Chinese in the South who emigrated to there en masse.
One of the most staggering and hideous hubris and shamelessness of the Han Chinese is that whatever territory in the world that is within its reach, and however slight and slim the trace of relation it could claim between that territory and itself, real or imaginary, it will instantly claim the territory his own. This rule has unmistakably and unfailingly applies to many other nations including Japan that has the misfortune to be the neighbors of the Han Chinese. And, one of the most sinister and fiendish characteristics of the Han Chinese which it wears at its sleeve is its slow-motion suicidal policies and practices on the minority ethnicities under its rule whose traditions, religions, languages and cultural roots were slowly undermined, eroded, atrophied, and eventually destroyed and replaced by the Han Chinese. Look at the Tibetans, Mongolians, Eastern Turks, and Manchurians today, you get that fact. Since we are now talking about Manchuria, let me focus on the Manchurians, whose ancestors once established a huge kingdom that included today’s China and beyond, are a mere shadow of its past existence. The Manchurian population is dying slowly yet steadily, and what’s more, few young people of the Manchurian ethnicity in today’s China can still speak and write in their own national language, thanks to the education system planned and carried out for them by the Han Chinese.
2. Japan did not tried to block Chiang and his KMT to reunite China and to cross the border to forcibly annex Manchuria. The so-called Northern Expedition Army of the revolutionary regime of Chiang were running amok, burning, pillaging and raping on its way toward the North and conducted the notorious Ji-Nan Massacre of the Japanese residents in that capital city of Shandong Province, many of them women and children of the Japanese diplomats and businessmen. That’s when Japan had to dispatch some military to stop and punish the poorly disciplined Chinese troops of mobster. However, all such facts were taught and told in China completely to the contrary of the historical truths by the Chinese communist/neo-imperialist regime and its state-run propaganda machines whose only function as related to Japan is to churn out rabid and morbid anti-Japanese lies and deceptions 7/24. Furthermore, Chiang did “reunited” China soon by talking the vain and prodigal warlord ruler Zhang Xue-liang over to his side who handed Manchuria to Chiang without a fight. Japan didn’t interfere with it at all.
3. Chiang actually consented to the legitimate status of Manshukoku and never made the so-called return of it to China as preconditions of peace negotiation with Japan from mid 1930s to early 1940s. Of course he made some normal and symbolic protests at the beginning but he then signed a series of ceasefire agreements with Japan and conceded below the table to the status quo regarding the Manshukoku and its adjacent Northern China provinces with Japan. Chiang’s mortal enemy had always been the Chinese communist, and he knew all too well that Japan was someone he could rely on for its military campaigns against Mao and his increasingly powerful communist bandits that were gaining clout on the domestic political and military stage of China. He was also deeply aware and wary at the hyperactive and seriously destabilizing communist agents and saboteurs of Moscow. Only the “Lu-Gou-Qiao Incident” of July 1937 staged by the communist agents (admitted by the No.2 communist leader Liu Shao-qi later who was the one giving orders to the hyper-secretive operation) that provoked a fontal confrontation between him and Japan which cut off his premeditated and ongoing military mopping-up operations of the communists which seemed to be at the end of their tether then but whose ass was saved miraculously by the outbreak of the all-round Sino-Japanese War which it exploited to its own political advantage to the hilt. Again, Japan was not entirely blameless in terms of its impetuous and arrogant underestimation of the Chinese and rashly took the bait set by the communist fishermen.
4. The old warlord and overlord of Manchuria, a former bandit leader, Zhang Zuo-lin (or Chang Tsuo-lin as you prefer), who was also the father of the aforementioned Zhang Xue-liang who cooperated with Chiang and gave Manchuria temporarily into Chiang’s bosom, was not assassinated by the Japanese Army in a railway bombing incident, he was bombed and killed in the same incident by Soviet agents. You could do better than reading too much orthodox (read, mendacious and untrue) historical publications of the mainland China and regurgitating the tired and shopworn piece of anti-Japanese propaganda. Read books of diverse sources and unorthodox historical materials online, even those written by politically and historically dissenting, honest and conscientious ethnic Chinese living in the West (rest assured, there is a handful of such people existing on earth), and you will find out the truths pertaining to that historical period.
5. I largely agree with your statement and analysis in your second paragraph. The Japanese oligarchy class, the “Zaibatsu” (business tycoons) and their warlord associates should bear the brunt of responsibility for the totally foolish and inadvisable Japanese military adventurism in China during that time driven by their market and resource-hungry mercantile greed. Such people ought to receive their fair share of condemnations. And I, like Yukio Mishima, have my ardent and unreserved sympathy and support for the idealistic, sincere and passionate, though not without political naivety, young Japanese officers and soldiers who attempted that failed military coup and saw their dream for an honest, independent and healthily nationalistic Japan dashed.
6. In your third paragraph, you seemed to be totally confident, even ostentatious, with your notion of Chinese nation fully capable of industrial, scientific and technological creativity and innovation and reaching the top by its own strength independently without foreign investment and high-tech transfers which have been by no means modest but rather copious in the last three decades. Or, are you? But I seriously doubt China could ever achieve that without its ongoing rampant technology theft through bribing, cheating, lying and stealing as amply demonstrated by all too frequent Chinese industrial and military espionages in the West, particularly in US and Japan. All such news of Chinese wrong doings are of course, naturally and understandably, kept under the rugs to the Chinese public by the regime, and when they were mentioned, they were always whitewashed, distorted and/or blamed upon someone else, yes, the hated “American imperialist devils” and the “Japanese neo-militarists” who fear so much China’s “peaceful rise”. Those are the ones to be blamed for China’s stealing, lying and predating according to you, aren’t they?
And if what you have so confidently claimed for China, all the stupendous capabilities and prowess, were true, it would only prove my prediction that China is emerging as the biggest baleful challenger and menace to the mankind, and in that situation, especially so to the living space and the civilization of the West and White peoples. And you are making sly excuses for China’s outward neo-colonialist economic exploitation and military expansion by stating China needs “commensurate military strengths” to guard its own prosperity. Do you suggest somehow any Western nation under their current post-modern political and social structure would like to launch a military invasion into China someday in the future if China does not maintains its currently oversized, over-commensurate and increasingly aggression-oriented military muscle far beyond the purpose and requirement for self-defense which it chooses intimidate and browbeat its neighbors more and more, as demonstrated by both its minatory and lurid words and deeds?
I am neither trying to make any excuse for nor absolve the crime and guilt of those unpatriotic, rootless, unscrupulous, and venal transnational corporate bigwigs who are selling out the West and the future of White race to China and sacrificing the security and interests of their country fellows, the honest working class of the western nations on the altar of the fanciful and deceitful mantra of “free trade” and “free market” just to fatten their stinking private bellies and in the same process, to subsidize and empower the potential arch-adversary of the West that is China, not merely in terms of money as I understood China is now super rich and cash-overflowing as a state but in terms of the key science and technologies without which China would never become the “world economic center” you snootily proclaimed. Such people and their interest and agenda are exactly what we oppose, condemn, lambaste and try to defeat there at Counter Currents. They are traitors to their nations and race and should be called and dealt likewise. We need to reverse the current hazardous and self-destructive path direction of the West and rebuild, revive and restore the White nations and homelands toward a wholesome and robust state of self-reliance and self-sustain, as well as strong self-defense against the prospective Chinese attempts of conquest and domination. To do that, we need to rid ourselves of those traitorous and parasitic race traitors and sellouts hand-in-glove with the vicious and malicious Chinese imperialists and murders and to disengage with the Chinese parasites and predators for good.
But to reaffirm and reassert my firm and unswerving core belief: ALL THE CURRENT CHINESE ECONOMIC MIRACLES AND SUCCESSES AND ITS PROSPERITY ARE DUE TO THE PAST AND ONGOING IGNORANCE, NAIVETY, MYOPIA, STUPIDITY AND SELF-CHOSEN DEGENERACY OF THE WEST, NOT CHINA’S OWN MERIT, AND IT MUST BE AND CAN BE REVERSED IF WE ACT WITH RESOLUTION AND WISDOM.
7. In your last paragraph, you were contradicting your very point of your third paragraph yourself. Period.
If, by the criteria advanced by Riki-Eiki, Manchuria is not Chinese territory, then Okinawa and Hokkaido are not Japanese territory. Apparently, what is legitimate for Japan is not legitimate for China. Now, Japanese administration in Dalian had some positive features, but to credit Japanese rule in Manchuria for the region’s demographic Sinification is a bit too much. Despite official Qing dynasty prohibitions, Han migration to Manchuria had been going on for years prior to the establishment of Manchukuo and the Han were already the majority population at the time of the Japanese conquest.
The hypothesis that Soviet military intelligence killed the Old Marshal and then framed the Kwantung Army is interesting (the Soviets did try to kill him on other occasions, and this is admitted in contemporary mainland Chinese historical discourse on the subject) but far from proven. Once again, had Japan truly respected Chiang’s efforts to retake Manchuria, Tokyo would never have countenanced the Kwantung Army’s invasion in the first place. Even if the other original initiative came from young officers in the field, it was nonetheless in line with overrall policy (otherwise it would have been suppressed like the 1936 coup attempt).
About Chiang Kai-shek, he said that the Communists were a disease of the heart while the Japanese invaders were a disease of the skin. Tactical cooperation with Japan to destroy the CCP was therefore not out of the question (though it did make him rather unpopular) but it would only have been tactical cooperation. Imagine if Chiang had crushed the CCP at Yanan, what do you think that he would have done next?
Finally, regarding the contemporary situation, the priority of the Western oligarchy is not to invade China proper. Unlike the Japanese leadership of the 1930s, the Western oligarchy does not care which Asian country is pre-eminent so long as that country still remains within their system. Therefore, the Western oligarchy’s goal is to keep China caged so that they can benefit from its economic development without losing overrall control of the world situation. The carrot in their hands is a privileged existence for the CCP as second-rank comprador partners in a corporate world system (some Western strategists like Dr. Brzezinski would even offer Japanese concessions to China as a consolation prize) . The stick is overwhelming military might arrayed against China ready at any time to cut off its overseas supplies of raw materials. Once again, by Riki-Eiki’ standards, 1930s Japan did not need a powerful military since none of the other major powers was actually intent on invading Japan. Apparently, what is legitimate policy for Japan is not legitimate policy for China…
To the Chinese John: You actually stretched a lot of my points, and you focused too much on the wrestling of details and lost the overall perspective on that period of history. But I will pass that by and just point out one cardinal misfire of yours. I have never said what was legitimate for Japan is not legitimate for China. I never claimed Japan did things all right at that time. I said the contrary. And, I’ll stress the following. Please listen, what Japan did wrong at that time does not make what China is doing right today. Japan’s various mistakes and wrong policies concerning its attitude to and actions on the Chinese continent do not provide a justifying excuse for the rampant and flagrant wrong doings of China today. Do not try to confuse the two.
Also, let me repeat, what we should focus on now here at CC is the present and the future regarding the China question, not old historical disputes or grudges between China and Japan. we ought to focus on the possible consequences of China’s current ambition, its policies, and the momentum and trend which unmistakably and indisputably point to an unrestrained and willful course of expansion and conquest which constitutes a deadly and existential threat to the independent and sovereign existence, and the eventual physical survival of the White nations and the Aryan race. It might sound an incredible hyperbole, but I hold firm to this belief of mine and would not stop giving warnings and sounding alarms to the West in my best capacity based on my conscience and conviction and supported by obvious or latent hard facts and evidence. I hope this will truly conclude this discussion. Enough said. Goodbye.
Alright, I will put historical disputes aside and sum up my perspective on the so-called China threat that Riki-Eiki hypes.
If one believes that the continued world supremacy of ruling circles in the West is the key issue, then China’s policies are a vital threat to that continued supremacy. However, if one is concerned merely about the preservation of Europe and North America, then China’s policies are not an existential threat though limited conflicts of interest are bound to arise here and there.
Basically, the three most probable future scenarios are the following:
1. World War 3 and total world destruction.
2. Consolidated global hegemony of an internationalist oligarchy with its key centers in New York, Washington, and London and with satellite centers in Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, etc.
3. Some manner of multipolar world where there is no single hegemon.
For all of its problems, the ambitions of the Chinese state are geared towards securing the maximum stature for China in the context of the third scenario. I expect that, if there is to be a premier economic power, it would be China. Yet such a China could certainly accomodate a revived European civilization and a USA that restricts its power projection to its own part of the world. To be the largest economy in a multipolar world does not necessarily put China at the center of a global tributary system where everyone has to start kowtowing whenever they go to Beijing. Nor does Chinese culture have to be imposed as the criteria for everyone else. In any case, it is not at all clear whether China will reclaim the international cultural stature that it once had. The Chinese have to deal with the problems of modernity just the same as everyone else.
I appreciate your idealism and optimism on the subjective “kindness” and “moderateness” of China in the future’s world as beheld in your eyes. But I really cannot agree with you and our views have no confluence in regard to the nature, the size and the degree of China’s ambitions and intentions. In my candid and unflattering opinion, your key points as expressed in your last paragraph are in a willful disregard of and stark conflict with the actual words and deeds of the current China. I would rather believe you failed to penetrate the fogs and into the depth of the China issue than dismiss you as being purposely non-objective. Since both of us could not persuade the other to one’s own view on the issue, let’s leave the question to the future history to bear it out. No more response please. Bye-bye.
This exchange has been most informative. Thank you both.
I saw it after I read your rewiev and was moved by the beautyful love story. It’s truly a artistic movie, something you seldom see from the hebraic film industry of the west.
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