Ignoring History - Dismissing Truth
The China Syndrome was a
1979 American thriller movie that tells the story of a television reporter and
her cameraman who discover safety cover ups at a nuclear power
plant.
Starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas it was released on March 16,
1979 at the Cold War peak when people were starting to become wary of those
"nuclear reactors" popping up all over the country.
What would happen if one
of those plants had a problem? If the
reactor core melted down and super-heated radioactive materials sank through
the reactor core en route to China ? That frightening scenario was the core of the
movie so to speak.
People may not remember
but the reference to "China syndrome" meant an American nuclear
reactor meltdown in which the radioactive core could sink all the way through
the Earth and contaminate China .
Of course back in that
time China was allied with
the Soviet Union so it was politically correct
to disparage the Communists with such negative innuendoes as suffering the
worst from an American nuclear accident.
Fate being the ever-fickle
player on the world stage, just 12 days after the release of the unsettling China
Syndrome movie the first real nuclear power plant accident in the world took
place at Three Mile Island (TMI) in Pennsylvania .
It would be five years
before the extent of damage from the melt down would be known and cost over $1
billion to clean up the mess and seal the contaminated reactor. By the way, there were no deaths or serious
injuries.
Well times have changed
since then. China is no longer a potential
enemy but now the holder of more American debt than any other nation on
Earth. With over one billion people it
is now the second largest economic force in the world.
Yet our American
government still doesn't get it.
President Obama and his administration still blame China for
problems ranging from tariff wars to cyber hacking, from the theft of patents
and intellectual property to investing in natural resources in other countries
as if that was a bad thing.
Somewhere along the line America decided China
was part of the dark force that cloaked the world and in the process we
conveniently forgot the 5,500 years that China has been contributing to the
advances of mankind. In truth it is the
rest of us who have pretty much ripped off the Chinese.
Now there is a new
president of the People's Republic of China , Xi Jinping. For the first time the largest country in the
world has a political leader who has experienced the world and understands the
role China
can play in the world.
Furthermore, Xi has a
First Lady, Peng Liyuan who is nearly as famous as her husband, the
president. Adept at opera, patriotic,
folk and pop singing while becoming a
major general in the Chinese military, she was the first in China to earn a
Master's Degree in Ethnic Music when the degree was first established in the
1980's.
Charismatic and
personable, she is the consummate performing artist both on and off the
stage. Oh, did I mention she is quite
beautiful as well whether dressed for opera, the military, or just hanging out
with the prez.
President Xi came from a
family deeply involved in the overthrow of what they considered to be the
corrupt Republic of China that came to power in 1911 and ruled until the
Communists took over in 1949.
By 1968 Xi's father, a
prominent member of the Communist ruling body, was arrested as part of the
brutal Cultural Revolution of Mao. When
asked about this experience later by state television, Xi recalled it saying,
"It was emotional. It was a mood. And when the ideals of the Cultural
Revolution could not be realised, it proved an illusion."
Other events that
influenced the evolvement of Xi included:
Over 20 million Chinese civilians were killed by the Japanese during World
War II, a war fought from 1937-1945.
The Republic of China overthrew the last dynasty in 1911, and ruled the
Chinese mainland until 1949 when Mao Zedong led the Communist revolution.
October 1, 1949 the People's
Republic of China
was declared by Mao Zedong who ruled from 1949 to 1976.
Population nearly doubled
under Mao (550 million to 900 million).
From 1958-61 under Mao's
"Great Leap Forward" campaign 45 million Chinese died, mostly of
starvation.
Mao's "Cultural
Revolution" lasted from 1966 until his death in 1976.
You can add to these the
fact that Joseph Stalin had been working since the Russian revolution (1917) to
bring about a revolution in China
and fold them into the Soviet umbrella.
One of the disasters of
World War II was that two allies, America
and the Soviet Union , would save the world
from Hitler and the Japanese yet whose distrust for each other would send the
world spiraling into a Cold War and the greatest arms race in history.
I think we forget that China had a
long and illustrious history from the time humans first showed up on Mother
Earth.
The area of China
was first populated between 250,000 and 2.4 billion years ago. A cave in Zhoukoudian contained fossils dated
300,000 to 750,000 years ago, fossils that proved the existence of civilized
man. The Peking Man site yielded remains
of Homo sapiens dating back 18,000-11,000 BC.
Over 5,000 years ago,
around 3,000 years before Jesus, Chinese were writing and the Xia dynasty began
a system of hereditary monarchies known as dynasties that ruled the land. By 221 BC several states were conquered and
thus began the Chinese Empire under the reign of the Qin Dynasty.
Along the way there were
some pretty powerful leaders like the Mongol leader Kublai Khan.
Also along the way the
Chinese literally wrote the book for mankind in terms of health care and
treatment, math, technology and even religion as Buddhism, Taoism and
Confucianism all evolved in the Chinese culture thousands of years before
Christianity.
I will be devoting future
articles to the Chinese contributions to mankind. But first I want to make my own little
contribution to the Chinese. I want to
recognize the fact that the word "China " has nothing to do with
the long and colorful history of the largest population in the world.
Zhongguo is the most common
name for China .
The first character zhōng (中) means "central" or "middle,"
while guó (國/国) means "state" or "states,"
and in modern times, "nation."
The term in ancient usage
referred to the “Central States” of the period before the unification of the
empire around 221 BC; a culturally distinct core area centered on the Yellow River valley.
In the 20th century students
began to spread the concept of Zhōnghuá (中华/中華), which
represented the people, including 56 minority ethnic groups and the Han-Chinese
with a single culture identifying themselves as "Chinese".
The Republic of China (1911) and the People's Republic of China (1949)
both used the title "Zhōnghuá" in their official names. Thus,
"Zhōngguó" became the common name for both governments.
As for the purpose of this
article, it is to begin to introduce you to the truth about China and the
Chinese. We have a most extraordinary
opportunity to turn our international relations away from using force and fear
to manage the world.
Because of his family
involvement he knows the good and bad of Communist politics and has already
demonstrated that what happened in the past will not be tolerated in his time
as president of the people of China .
The citizens of both America and China will be the
beneficiaries. Don't forget, while we
lay claim to the highest standard of living and most money in the world the
Chinese people live longer and have far fewer health problems than we do.
There is a lot of beauty in China, yes, like my favorite Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi.
.