Thoughts on 60 Years of Chinese Communist Rule

In recent days, the Canadians (long famed for their politeness and likeability) have nevertheless taken the lead on speaking the unvarnished truth about nasty regimes in the world. Let me wave a maple leaf in tribute, eh!

So, in contrast to the recent wicked stupidity of some Americans cheerleading for China, I give you this piquantly appropriate look at 60 years of Chinese Communism as expressed by Canada's National Post. Here is a piece of it:

. . . life in the PRC means having no freedom of religion or expression, and experiencing the full powers of the arbitrary police state, even if they are used more sparingly. China has enormous ecological problems, and the one-child policy -- the hallmark of the PRC's second thirty years --has wreaked havoc with its human ecology. State regulation of family size -- breeding licenses, forced sterilization, coerced abortions -- is a massive, systematic violation of human rights, even if human rights advocates prefer to avert their eyes.

. . . The epic tragedy of the PRC is proven by simply looking at what the Chinese have accomplished wherever they do not live under Beijing's rule: Hong Kong until 1997, Taiwan, Singapore, not to mention Vancouver and Toronto, as Canadians well know.

The second 30 years have been far better than the first thirty for the PRC, if only because the regime no longer engages in the mass slaughter of its citizens. China is no longer the worst place in the world to live. But compared to what might have been, the PRC is the last great failure of the 20th century that endures into the 21st.

Recall too that fully two-thirds of China's population -- some 800 million rural people, half of whom do not have access to safe drinking water (400 million people? that's more than the entire population of the US) -- still live in poverty far from the shiny, impressive new urban centers that Beijing likes to show the world (remember the 2008 Propaganda Games -- er, I mean, Beijing Olympics?). They're the invisible people, ignored by the outside world and exploited and ill-treated by Beijing and government officials (like this) and often pay a terrible price for the "new China" (recall "cancer villages"). Who remembers them?