Should the Chinese forgive the Japanese?

[Ren Ying Ying]

The wealth gap between rich and poor during his era was at the minimum because he made everyone poor.

The era before him prior to the japanese invasion invovled very large socioeconomical gaps--hence why communisim influence even grew.

I totally agree and I still don't know why some people still worship Mao and think that he was a hero. What he did to Liu Shao Qi, the people and country are things that are hard to forgive and forget. I remember how mad I was when I was studying about modern Chinese history. Gosh was I mad!! We even had a guess speaker who lived through the cultural revolution come to our class. We all had chances to ask him questions. My question to him was "Do you hate Mao for what he did to you and China?" I was sort of shocked to hear that his answer was no.

While there are tons of terrible things that Mao has done, I don't think he is the worst thing to have happened to China. There are definitely people who have lost lives & led terrible lives, but there are others who stand to benefit. The cultural revolution was mostly uncalled for, but the Chinese civil war/revolution itself was not necessarily bad thing. The Cultural REvolution is only a part of what Mao had done. Without Mao, would China still be the same as it is today? Would it be better or worse than it is today? Who knows. I have relatives that had both suffered & gained. Some of the ones who suffered dislike the CCP and some of them are fine with the CCP.

While it is true that the communists probably would not have won w/o the Japanese invasion, Mao should be thanking Chiang instead of the Japanese. Without Chiang's inaction against the invasion, the people would never shift favor to the CCP. Mao may not have done better than Chiang in the situation, but he wasn't technically the "Ruler"of China as Chiang was. There were a lot of underground action with guerrilla warfare against the Japanese and the CCP did a better job at supporting them & garnering their support.

I think it funny that you mention Takeshi Kaneshiro since he is only half Japanese. His other half is Chinese/Taiwanese.I heard that it is hard to obtain Japanese citizenship but Takeshi got it. I wonder if it is because of his celebrity status??? I think that a lot of Japanese are better these days and don't seem to be as racist. A lot of them are marrying outside of their race/nationality. A number of my collegues and classmates that went to Japan to teach actually ended up marrying Japanese women. One of them was hispanic and one of them was african american. My cousin married a Japanese girl too, but she is 6th generation Japanese american so I guess that does not really count.

my uncle's wife's sister also married a Japanese guy, had two kids, and currently live in Nanjing. I wonder how the kids feel about the teaching of WWII in china, though.

[CC]

There should be one more option.

4.) Forgive the past but refuse to let them get away with revising history.

[jiang bao]

While it is true that the communists probably would not have won w/o the Japanese invasion, Mao should be thanking Chiang instead of the Japanese. Without Chiang's inaction against the invasion, the people would never shift favor to the CCP. Mao may not have done better than Chiang in the situation, but he wasn't technically the "Ruler"of China as Chiang was. There were a lot of underground action with guerrilla warfare against the Japanese and the CCP did a better job at supporting them & garnering their support.

Jiang’s inaction? You mean prior to the fullscale invasion?

During the invasion, he was for fighting to the end and committed his best men to fighting the Japs. If he hadn’t lost some of his best men, maybe the commies don’t win.

The people’s favoring of commies have more to do with the general crappy state of the country than with what they did during the invasion.

I personally think that the commies winning was good for China, but they had the wrong leader in charge. Mao was a monster and someone should have assassinated him.

The Japs committed atrocities all over the place. Nanjing just happened to be the most concentrated arena. Even as far south as where my family’s from, which is close to as south as you can go in China, they randomly killed people and came looking for women. My aunt and other women would run to graveyards to hide whether the lookout would warn that Jap patrols were coming. They weren’t as bad as in northern China however.

[Ren Ying Ying]

Jiang’s inaction? You mean prior to the fullscale invasion?

Prior to the "technical" date for the war, of course. It was a well known fact that the Japanese had already started invasion of northern china in the late 20s/early 30s while Chiang would rather defeat internal conflicts rather than resist the Japanese. Certainly, he had his reasons for concern in trying to delay war with Japan, but his lack of effort was not viewed pleasantly by the commoners. By then, damage done to his reputation (along with the KMT) is damage done.

Of course we can say only Chiang lost his "best men" to the Japanese, but then again, the CCP really didn't have any "best men" to start off with (mostly guerrilla warfare). Even after WWII, even after having lost his "best men" to the Japanese, the KMT were still better equiped and trained than the CCP.

[Trien Chieu]

Their all faken murders. I lost a couple of uncles thanks 2 pol pot and the khemer rogue. People were thrown in labour farms and starved to death....educated people were slaughtered and their bodies piled into mountains. My dad's friend was skinned alive because he was listening to updates of the war on the radio and was caught....

wat's your point here exactly by calling these f*cktards "champions of marxism?"..... their all murders who committed crimes against humanity....

Agree, they are not 'champions of marxism'. They just used 'marxism' to gain power for themselves.

Guys, I thought we already established that TC have not a clue what Marxism is about. Marx was against workers being exploited to produce/work more than they consume.

All the dictators intepreted their own version of Marxism. Many abused the ideology and used it as propaganda, and as a means to control the largely uneducated society.

My grandpa was arrested by the commie during Mao era because he was a wealthy farmer. He was disappeared ever since with rumor of being burried alive by the commie. All the farm land and property were confiscated. Since then, my dad really hate the communist and their philosophy. Countless millions have died and mostly are innocent.

As for Karl Marx, I don't know whether he was a good or evil man. However, leaders who have claimed to follow his philosophy were cruel and ruthless that cause ten of millions, if not hundred of millions, of deaths. Leaders such as Mao of China, Stalin of Rusia, Pol Pot of Cambodia, and Kim Jon Il of North Korea were all claimed to follow Karl Marx's philosophy.

[Guo Xiang]

TC, why don't you go read up on Marxism then? It's not that difficult.

[kidd]

My grandpa was arrested by the commie during Mao era because he was a wealthy farmer. He was disappeared ever since with rumor of being burried alive by the commie. All the farm land and property were confiscated. Since then, my dad really hate the communist and their philosophy. Countless millions have died and mostly are innocent.

As for Karl Marx, I don't know whether he was a good or evil man. However, leaders who have claimed to follow his philosophy were cruel and ruthless that cause ten of millions, if not hundred of millions, of deaths. Leaders such as Mao of China, Stalin of Rusia, Pol Pot of Cambodia, and Kim Jon Il of North Korea were all claimed to follow Karl Marx's philosophy.

TC, did you even get what duguxiaojing, yittz and me were saying?

What we were trying to point out is these leaders used Karl Marx philosophy to further their own agenda and did not truly follow Karl Marx philosophy.

Your grandpa being unjustly persecuted by commies and cruel leaders proclaiming they follow Karl Marx's philosophy does not prove otherwise.

Why don't you just do the simple thing and read up on Karl Marx? Afraid that you will find you have been wrong about KM?

Anyway, I predict that this post will just be a waste of space and energy (but still can't help posting ). TC will most probably just repeat this paragraph

"Leaders who have claimed to follow his philosophy were cruel and ruthless that cause ten of millions, if not hundred of millions, of deaths. Leaders such as Mao of China, Stalin of Rusia, Pol Pot of Cambodia, and Kim Jon Il of North Korea were all claimed to follow Karl Marx's philosophy."

[Guo Xiang]

A slight update of the issue:

Japan admits war 'act of aggression'


Tue, Feb 02, 2010
China Daily/Asia News Network




Japan admitted in a long-awaited report from the joint history study with China on Sunday that the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese war was an "act of aggression", but the two neighbors are still at odds on a number of issues, such as the death toll of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2...02-196139.html

[kidd]

Japan admitted in a long-awaited report from the joint history study with China on Sunday that the 1937-1945 Sino-Japanese war was an "act of aggression", but the two neighbors are still at odds on a number of issues, such as the death toll of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.

http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2...02-196139.html

It took so long for them to decide that the war was an act of "act of aggression"? What's the Japanese historians called it last time? "act of compassion", "act of unity"?

It will take them forever to decide on the numbers. Actually, I only care for it for historical accuracy sake.

The chinese keep holding on to this grudge is no good for them.

[yittz]

I think an act of liberation. They were attacking China to help the Chinese citizens.

[Guo Xiang]

I think an act of liberation. They were attacking China to help the Chinese citizens.

Yep. Genocide, rape and looting were good for the Chinese. At least in the then Japan's view.

[Lucre]

I voted yes, because I think God would have preferred forgiveness.

[kidd]

Just read something interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ja...ost-War_issues

Although China renounced the right to war reparations from Japan in the 1972 Joint Communiqué, Japan gave ODA (official development assistance), amounting to 3 trillion yen (30 billion USD, 90% of which are low interest loans). In Japan, this was perceived as a way of making amends to China for past military aggression. According to estimates, Japan accounts for more than 60 percent of China's ODA received. About 25 percent of the funding for all of China's infrastructure projects between 1994 and 1998 — including roads, railways, telecom systems and harbours — came from Japan.
Japanese aid to China was rarely formally publicized to the Chinese people by the Chinese government, until Japan announced that aid was to be phased out. It was finally publicly acknowledged by Chinese premier Wen Jiabao during his April 2007 trip to Japan.

Yes, they still have the shrine and all that and suppressing WW2 literature. But, they did try to make amends in a away, and the Japanese' premier did apologise several times as stated in earlier in this thread.

[Lucre]

Yep. Genocide, rape and looting were good for the Chinese. At least in the then Japan's view.

oh well, there was no war that didnt come with rape, loot & murder. =p

[Guo Xiang]

oh well, there was no war that didnt come with rape, loot & murder. =p

That wasn't really the point.

[Lucre]

That wasn't really the point.

i just thought that's not particularly a feature of the japanese in a broad context anyway.