The Chinese government’s ‘vacuum cleaner’ approach to espionage is worrying foreign governments, companies and overseas dissidents. They’re right to be concerned.
Beijing fiercely denies it. Much of the world ignores it. But according to analysts and officials, the communist-controlled People’s Republic of China operates the single largest intelligence-gathering apparatus in the world—and its growing appetite for secrets has apparently become insatiable.
From economic and military espionage to keeping tabs on exiled dissidents, China’s global spying operations are rapidly expanding. And, therefore, so is the threat. Some analysts even argue the regime—which is also gobbling up such key natural resources as farmland, energy, and minerals—has an eye on dominating the world.
Estimates on the number of spies and agents employed by the communist state vary widely. According to public statements by French author and investigative journalist Roger Faligot, who has written several books about the regime’s security services, there are around two million Chinese working directly or indirectly for China’s intelligence apparatus.
Other analysts say it would be impossible to count the exact number. ‘I doubt they know themselves,’ says Richard Fisher, a senior fellow on Asian military affairs at the Washington-based International Assessment and Strategy Center. Regardless, the number is undoubtedly extraordinary. ‘China can rightly claim to have the world’s largest, most amorphous, but also most active intelligence sector,’ he says.
That’s partly because it operates very differently from most. ‘When you consider that China’s intelligence community views any foreign-deployed Chinese citizen, any Chinese delegation, all Chinese criminal networks, and all overseas Chinese with any tangible affinity or connection to the Motherland as a target for recruitment, then you have to find a different way to measure,’ Fisher explains. ‘This has to start with the consideration that any Chinese, especially those from China, from student to CEO, are potential active intelligence assets.’
Other analysts echo his concerns, and a simple fact: the regime’s spies are increasingly active across the globe. Since 2008, more and more intelligence-training colleges—‘spy schools’—have been popping up at universities across the country. Meanwhile, Chinese satellite-reconnaissance and cyber espionage capabilities are expanding at an unprecedented speed.
Officials are, probably for good reason, skittish when discussing China and its intelligence collection operations. But there’s near unanimous agreement—and court convictions in countries around the globe support the premise—that, in terms of sophistication, scope, and international capabilities, the perils of Chinese espionage are on the rise.
‘The danger is pronounced,’ warns Charles Viar, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Intelligence Studies. ‘In my view, no one is really doing enough to deal with the Chinese threat. It is too large, and by Western standards, too unconventional.’
Among the array of growing dangers associated with Chinese spying: the regime’s increasingly advanced cyber capabilities. While the techniques are used to steal ever more information of all sorts, the potential for devastating offensive operations exists as well. Leaked US diplomatic cables and cyber-security analysts suggest that Chinese military intelligence has been involved in countless network penetrations in recent years. In some instances, evidence suggests that the regime is even able to remotely control sensitive systems.
Consider one example: In 2009, senior US officials reported that cyber spies—at least some of whom were Chinese—infiltrated the US electrical grid. And after breaking in, they left software behind that could be used to cause disruptions or possibly even shut the system down.
The Evolution of the Menace
Though the evolving threats are more advanced and dangerous today than ever before, Chinese espionage is nothing new. In fact, it began centuries ago—well before the communist regime rose to power.
‘China has a history of organized intelligence-gathering operations that goes back to the 15th century—perhaps even earlier,’ says Joseph Fitsanakis, a senior editor with Intel News who teaches classes on espionage, intelligence, and covert action at King College’s Department of History and Political Science. The Chinese, however, took it to a new level.
Up until two to three decades ago, the regime’s spying was largely domestic in nature, Fitsanakis explains—primarily targeting perceived enemies and dissidents within China. But in the post-1980s era, with economic reforms and growing affluence pacifying much of the internal unrest, Chinese intelligence collection efforts began to focus more on the outside world.
Today, according to experts and former counterintelligence officials, Chinese spying represents one of the largest threats to US security. And the sheer size of the regime’s espionage apparatus ‘is proving a good match for the more advanced automated systems used by its less populous regional rivals, including Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan,’ adds Fitsanakis.
Public awareness of the hidden menace is indeed on the rise. But available evidence indicates that the danger is still underestimated—and growing quickly.
‘The Chinese are the biggest problem we have with respect to the level of effort that they’re devoting against us versus the level of attention we are giving to them,’ former US counterintelligence chief Michelle Van Cleave told CBS during an interview. Officials with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), meanwhile, labelled China’s ‘aggressive and wide-ranging espionage’ the ‘leading threat to US technology.’
According to former Chinese intelligence officials who defected to the West, the United States is indeed China’s main target for espionage. But as China steps up its spying around the world, it’s becoming clear that no nation, company, military, or exiled dissident is immune.
Espionage & Influence
Like the intelligence services of most large and powerful countries, a significant segment of China’s spying apparatus is devoted to collecting information on foreign governments—particularly in terms of their military and political systems. Vast numbers of Chinese spies have been caught stealing such secrets.
In fact, it’s known that the regime has already acquired some of the United States’ most sensitive secrets. A US Congressional Committee and then-Director of National Intelligence George Tenet found as early as the late-1990s that China had even obtained information on the United States’ most advanced nuclear weapons.
That’s not all. ‘China has managed to gather a great deal of information on US stealth technology, naval propulsion systems, electronic warfare systems, and nuclear weapons through espionage,’ says Larry Wortzel, a commissioner and former chairman on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, and the ex-director of the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. ‘That is documented in convictions in US courts.’
The regime, however, wants more. A few Chinese espionage cases have made headlines recently, such as the scandal involving former weapons analyst Gregg Bergersen with the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency. A leaked video of him selling sensitive information about US military collaboration with Taiwan—a nation which the communist regime considers a breakaway territory—sparked a new level of public interest in Chinese espionage just last year.
But most cases barely cause a stir. According to an analysis of US Justice Department records by the Associated Press, there have been at least 58 defendants charged in federal court for China-related espionage since 2008. Most have been convicted, while the rest are awaiting trial or on the run. Hundreds of investigations are ongoing.
A leaked diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Santiago, Chile, also revealed that US officials were worried about Chinese espionage against the US military even in Latin America. ‘There’s concern that the Chinese could be using Chilean officers and access to the Army training school to learn more about joint programs, priorities, and techniques that the Chileans have developed with their US counterparts,’ noted the 2005 cable signed by then-Ambassador Craig Kelly, adding that even Chinese journalists were ‘assumed’ to be involved in some kind of collection activity.
‘(A)s the (US government) augments its support to the Chilean Armed Forces, Chinese interest in USG activities in the Southern Cone will most assuredly increase,’ according to the document released earlier this year by WikiLeaks. ‘The Chinese will likely attempt to learn more about US military strategies and techniques via Chilean participation in bilateral training programs and joint exercises.’
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Dr. Rice
I remember reading in the art of war something along the lines of “a small, but poorly funded army is still more expensive than a large, lavishly paid spy network.” This is all I am seeing when I read this.
I am sure the key to understanding the Chinese can be found when you look at their history and philosophies.
Lil
What does kremlinology and china watcher mean??? Study hard.
stevelaudig
America’s Already Grown Spy Threat. White Americans killed their own people, their fellow nationals, the Native Americans and African Americans; the American government peddled people to libya for torture in return for their answers; the american government has more than 750 military bases overseas and has invaded, since 1980, Grenada; Panama; Iraq twice; Afghanistan; Libya and others. China does execute the occasional corrupt banker/mayor/politician. The U.S. rewards them with cabinet positions instead. The Chinese national representative body is probably more representative, when measured by incomes, than the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Supreme Court has made U.S. elections a joke. they are now auctions, not elections. And CCTV is less propagandistic than Fox. Alex Newman is a dope; or a shill; or a lobbyist. but a journalist, he ain’t.
Charlie T.
What I have noticed about all of the attacks on Mr. Newman and the article is that not a single one of them disputes a single fact or claim made by one of the documents or people who are talked about in the article. Saying that the United States or white people or Europeans or whoever has done bad things in the past and in the future does not change anything and this article was obviously about China not what the United States has done.
You might be interested to know that I have followed Mr. Newman’s work closely for years and you might be surprised to know that he has done very much reporting on the activities of the United States regime and its spying and war making.
H. Olrik DeVore
All of this is likely true, plus more than you know. So what, why the sense of self-righteous yankee moral outrage? Are only the CIA and it thuggish affiliates and the american military allowed to bully its way around the globe in the name of “democracy” and expect no response? Well, soon there will be no option but to drastically curtain such american operations as your country will not be able to fund them and the Chinese are getting tired of banking your foreign adventures…
ozivan
@John Chan, Oro Invictus, CJT & Other bloggers.
John Chan replied to Oro Invictus on September 21, 2011 with this :
Tens of millions of lives snuffed out during the “Great Leap Forward” is a fabrication, most objective estimate was in hundreds of thousands due to crop failure resulting from Mao’s reckless adventurism and natural disasters.
I am inclined to agree with John Chan that the estimate was in hundreds of thousands instead of in millions, because foreign writers especially Western authors could have misunderstood the numbering system in China.
Let me relate to two TRUE…yes TRUE jokes that happened.
No. 1 Incident
————–
The Western commonly used numbers system have….
Tens…..Hundreds…..Thousands…..Millions…..Billions
The corresponding Chinese numbers system (in cantonese dialect, but same as mandarin in written form, I am told ) are :
(1) Tens = Sap…..(2) Hundreds = Bak…..(3) Thousands = Chin….. !!??…
thereafter !!??? the numbers changed differently !
In comes a unit of ” 10,000 ” known to Chinese as ” Yat Mun “, which is not in the Western system at all.
100,000 becomes ” Sap Mun ” which literally means 10 units of 10,000.
A million is ” Yat Bak Mun ” which literally means 100 units of 10,000
” Yat Chin Mun ” or 1,000 units of 10,000 is equivalent to Ten million.
The next highest is called a ” Yik ” which is only 100 million.
There is no other simplified word in Chinese for a billion, unlike the West. A billion is called by long winded way in Chinese as 100,000 units of 10,000.
Goodness gracious !
Now the crux….Believe it or not !
I am Chinese, and have only been educated in English. Till today, I don’t know how to read or write in Chinese, though I know a few spoken Chinese dialects. In the first 25 years of my early life, I thought that a ” Mun ” is a million. My Chinese educated friends later laughed their heads off at my ignorance.
Thus when @CJT in this blog quoted a historian stating that 45 million Chinese died during the Great Leap Forward,and if that historian is a whiteman and got the estimate from a Chinese source, he could have misunderstood 45 Mun as 45 million. BTW, in Chinese 45 Mun is only 450,000.
In short , a foreign writer could get into confusion with Chinese numbers.
No. 2 Incident.
—————
This a true story, though a bit out of sync. I am telling it to emphasise about possible cultural misconceptions by Westerners, as with the Chinese numbering system.
Some 25 years ago, my company head office in Europe posted a new German Managing Director to our Asian operation, who had never worked or visited Asia. Me and 4 colleagues took him to a Chinese Dim Sim restaurant for lunch on his first day of work.
The first order that came were 2 baskets of Chinese dumplings (quantity 6 ” Paus ” to the Chinese). The MD ate 3 dumplings at one go. Thinking that he loved
them, we quickly ordered another 2 baskets and he ate another 3 paus immediately and said it was delicious. Goodness gracious, he had eaten 8 dumplings by the time many more other dim sim delicacies arrived. He wailed why we didn’t tell him in advance that more were coming.
We all had a good laugh, because the MD said that in Germany, most of their meals come in one main meal plate. He thought that the Chinese dumplings was the only main meal. What a laugh !
So much for misinterpretation.
PS: Please take them as jokes, if you disagree with my prompting of possible misconception or misunderstanding.
jeff
To John Chan……… If you want to know the truth about the brutal Chinese Communist Party, you may go on line and read The Nine Commentaries. Thank you for giving the truth about the extreme cruelty of the CCP. They practice torture, organ harvesting and murder on their own people. No Western Government should be doing business with them but continue to so because of corporate greed.
John Chan
@jeff:
You have watched too many cold war movies from Hollywood. Only westerners use torture, such as water boarding, to extract information, because their simple mindedness and clumsiness.
Organ harvesting and murder on their own people are not unique to China, those things happen in democratic world too. India is a world-renowned destination for the White people to get their failing organs replaced on the cheap. But the White people need to go into hospitals back home to clean up their messy organ transplant operations in India.
Without China’s goods, the poor and the middle class in the West will go hungry and unclothed; their living standard would sink like a stone.
ozivan
@John Chan & @jeff forsythe. Hello Hello…The new record is held by @ChrisH in the Diplomat’s article : Debating Missile Defence
ChrisH
September 19, 2011 at 10:54 pm
The fact that the PRC happily murdered 100, 000, 000 of its own citizens is what worries the USA and its allies.
Any anti-China blogger wants to up the estimate/guess and be the new gold medallist ?
a_canadian_observer
@ozivan: I’ve never heard of the 100,000,000 figure before today. What is the real number, you have?
ozivan
@a_canadian_observer. I don’t have any numbers, but if I have, it would be low.
Actually, I intend to research into this issue since so many estimates/guesses have been put up by various bloggers from 40 million by @Bat to as high as 100 million by @ChrisH. Have you got any idea ?
a_canadian_observer
@ozivan: Here is one source and the PRC is the champion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
ozivan
@a_canadian_observer. Thank you
John Chan
@a_canadian_observer:
I do not have 100,000,000 figure, but I have 5,000,000,000 figure from EMRJ in the following link http://thediplomat.com/2011/09/06/chinas-s-shaped-threat/
The number inflates faster than Zimbabwe currency; I am not sure which one is more reliable, Zimbabwe currency or Westpec media.
Nobody knows the real number caused by GLF directly, because bad natural disasters happened during that time too, the statistics showed marginal higher than normal death during GLF, but the death number was noticeable higher than normal after GLF.
No doubt GLF was a bad failed experiment by Mao’s adventurism, it was no different comparing with the industrial revolution in the West that caused millions of people died in terrible living and working conditions, exploitation as well as poverty.
The westerners like you latched on one mistake of a self boot-up movement in China and demonized China relentlessly is disgusting and despicable, a typical mindset of wicked men, particular when they only know the event from hearsay.
a_canadian_observer
@John Chan: I don’t believe the 100,000,000 figure nor do I believe any figure you or CCP provide. I go by the link I provided ozivan.
No need to insult others.
CJT
The fact that the CCP has hidden the truth so well that it’s hard to estimate how many tens of millions have been murdered is not the issue the fact that it has murdered many many tens of millions is.
Does it really change anything about how the CCP should be perceived and dealt with if it murdered 60 million or 100 million? Murdering one is too many so we should stop distracting from the real point here with sarcasm … it is disrespectful to the victims and their families to trivialize tens of millions of deaths.
To other apologists for the CCP here: Since when is China a race? Since when is thinking that protecting Chinese dissidents overseas from a murderous bunch masquerading as a “government” considered “anti China”? Since when did criticizing the machinations of rulers become synonymous with an attack on their victims?
ozivan
@CJT. Of course, there are big differences.
First of all, I must declare that any significant number of deaths, whether by thousands or millions, are bad from any perspective eg wars, invasions, extermination of natives by Colonists, plundering of nations, seizure of territories, ethnic cleansing, the holocaust, deaths caused by famines and disasters due to poor corrupt governance , etc
If millions died because of a misjudgemnt of domestic policies eg China’s Great Leap Forward where most of the deaths were caused by the resulting famine that followed, then the degree of heinous and culpability are lessen. It was more of sheer stupidity and misadventure by Mao Tse Tung than the premeditated intention to murder millions.
When Nazi Germany under Hitler gassed and murdered the Jews in the holocaust, there was criminal intention or motivation, therefore the culpability is way much higher. It was pure murder by intention though the numbers were about 6 million Jews. Other examples are the Rwandan genocide, Stalin’s scorched earth tactics.
Should the number of deaths be the only measurement of guilt, or shouldn’t it include criminal intent and other evil motivation ?
Like I told @a_canadian_observer in this blog, I am researching into such catastrophes, and will post it somewhere when I have finished.
To give you some hint, my initial research showed that explorer Christopher Columbus discovery of South & North Americas , resulted in the merciless butchering of the natives( for gold, silver and territories ) by the Spaniards soldiers of fortune and European settlers, were about 100 million deaths. Most of all, the intention to kill were premeditated.
I am sure yet, but I reckon in my discourse on such deaths I would highlight a progressive scale of culpability caused by numbers and another for criminal intention.
ozivan
Correction to last paragraph. It should read : I am not sure yet, but I reckon…
Kung Pao
@Ozivan:
Hitler did not kill his own people. Mao did in land reform, cultural revolution. That’s the main difference between east and west.
CJT
Mao’s exterminations were not the result of accidental stupidity even though it seems plausible because everyone knows how ridiculous central planning is. These were deliberate exterminations.
Here are a few quotes from a historian who looked at this last year by checking out CCP official records:
“At least 45 million people were worked, starved or beaten to death in China over these four years;”
“State retribution for tiny thefts, such as stealing a potato, even by a child, would include being tied up and thrown into a pond; parents were forced to bury their children alive … others were set alight,”
“one piece of evidence revealed that 13,000 opponents of the new regime were killed in one region alone, in just three weeks.
“80 per cent of all the villagers in one region of a quarter of a million Chinese were banned from the official canteen because they were too old or ill to be effective workers, so were deliberately starved to death.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/maos-great-leap-forward-killed-45-million-in-four-years-2081630.html
nirvana
@Ozivan,
I look forward to the results of your research, and of course your judgment on Mao from this. Please keep in mind three things:
1)Take into account the duration factor. The Great Leap drama lasted only 2-3 years. So, apart from the absolute number, there is the intensity.
2)Take into account the intention or not to cover-up, minimize, distort facts and incriminate others. The use/abuse of power and governmental tools to do so. We are not discussing the responsibility of a low-level executive but that of a leader, a head of state.
3)Don’t mix things up like John Chan. Leave aside the “crimes” of Lady Marcos and the poems of Dr José Rizal will you?
ozivan
@CJT. You also wrote : To other apologists for the CCP here: Since when is China a race?
Could you enlighten me on what you mean by giving more elaboration ?
CJT
…”anti-China bigots”?…
Does being opposed to National Socialism (Nazi Party) make one an “anti-German bigot”?
ozivan
@Kung Pao. I am aware of your point.
There are many schools of thought, one of which is that killing your own is not as bad as killing not of your own kind. More so, if the victims were defenceless against the aggressors’ more modern weapons, like the South American Indians’ wooden spears, bows and arrows against the Spaniards’ guns and swords.
But my view is that killing any human is just as evil, at home or outside.
Nevertheless, thank you for pointing out.
Kung Pao
@Ozivan: Technically, they’re the same, but morally killing your own is worse (you know why). The irony is CCP wanted people to call him great hero; only in communist countries !
Mao and HCM were extremely violent guys. Ghandi should have offered crash course “Introduction to non-violent methods” to them.
ozivan
@CJT. Thank you. Will read up too on what you’ve drawn attention.
Cam
Don’t forget the CCP sponsor role of the Khmer rough regime in the 70s, which resulted in the killing of half population at the time. This should include in the account as well?
John Chan
@CJT:
Following your logic I can say every criminal executed in the West is a murder. The people executed in China all have gone through judiciary process irrespective to the quality of the process, indeed a lot of those judiciary processes were no more than Kangaroo courts. You only can call the deaths were despicable political execution, but not murder. The justice situation was no different from French Revolution or American civil war.
CJT, don’t fabricate facts because you can’t read Chinese. If number does not matter, why do you inflate the number recklessly? Following your logic, what shall I call the Europeans and the Japanese who have murdered hundreds of millions (it is fact not fabrication) in the last 300 years, barbarians, murderers, or wicked races?
CJT, do you think pointing to Chinese mistakes relentlessly can white wash the atrocity committed by the Europeans and Japanese?
CJT
We aren’t talking about the West here we are talking about China but even though I disagree with the death penalty at least we have trial by jury and the death penalty is only applied in murder cases in some states and so on.
I do not think you can compare the execution of a murderer convicted by a jury of his peers in a court of law to deliberately starving people because they are too old or sick to work or harvesting organs from people because they believe in a religion the state does not like.
I didn’t make up any facts I quoted from a historian who examined CCP records and came to those conclusions and saying that people in the West or Japan have committed heinous crimes centuries ago in no way justifies what the CCP is doing or has done. I feel like you are trying to distract from the reality in any way you can but it is not working very well in my opinion.
ashleyhk
Yang Jisheng, formerly of Xinhua researched and published Tombstone, in Hong Kong, of course, not in PRC. Based on years of reading and assessing local government documents he estimates some 40 million extra deaths due to the Great Leap Forward. Other recent research supports this figure.
This, ata time when Mao knew about the famine but was selling grain to the Soviet Union in exchange for nuclear weapons know how. John Chan, your ignorance and blindness to facts make very good companions to your inhumanity and heartlessness.
Shi Rong
I work for Xinhua news agency which acts as an extension of Beijing’s security apparatus in Canada. Unfortunately I just got busted shagging Bob Dechert, a Canadian politician. Go figure!
John Chan
@Shi Rong:
It is precisely this kind wild goose chase fabrication discredits the western media. It is a story of sex, espionage, and politician but nothing real, anyhow it is good to increase circulation so the Canadian media jump on it with all kind of conjectures, speculations and irresponsible suggestions at the expenses of lives of main figures in the story.
Because Xinhua presents information not to your liking, you labelled it as Beijing’s security apparatus, then what shall we label CBC which is funded by the government of Canada? A cover of the CSIS+RCMP?
mike flynn
if corruption and self-dealing is china’s stock-in-trade, maybe big business and gov’t leaders in USD are already on china payroll. they too, have pushed corruption and contempt for the ordinary people to new heights these past 20 years.
jeff forsythe
I find it quite sad that the Western World is being kept in the dark by their own media and governments about the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). All everyone talks about is finances. Bob Dylan said it well: Money doesn’t talk, it swears!
Nobody seems to know or care about the eighty million of its own people the CCP murdered since it took power in 1949.
There are five hundred thousand very rich people in Red China and over one billion who pay over twelve different taxes to keep this half a million in style. There are no human rights whatsoever.
There is an attempted genocide right now of the tens of millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners in Mainland China.This genocide consists of slavery, torture, organ harvesting and murder. One doctor just confessed to removing the cornea from one thousand living children’s eyes to sell to rich Westerners and CCP members. Unthinkable atrocities.
The list of heinous crimes is too long and all of these crimes are being ignored by the West because of corporate greed. Thank you for your consideration.
John Chan
@jeff forsythe:
You have just created new record, you inflated the number of Chinese killed by CCP from 78 millions to 80 millions in one day.
It seems you create sensation on the go, tell me what is the percentage of your comment is not created thru your hysteria emotion?
Kung Pao
The exact number is 78,218,924 !
ozivan
@Kung Pao. The exact number is 78,218,924 !
The dead must have submitted their census form too in order to get that exact number.
3 weeks ago Australia underwent a census, which we are required mandatorily to return the census form by mail or online.
To get an exact number, I suppose by common sense and logic, the “dead” must have submitted their census form.
Hooray.
nirvana
(Number of Chinese deaths due to Mao)
For sure there are inflated numbers floating around. The sad thing is that the actual number is a very large number, almost surely a two-digit number of millions. The curious thing is that you are debating here on the exact number as if inflated numbers could exonerate Mao, or worse could make this horrific drama a Western fabrication. Only the CPC knows the exact number, for sure, or else how could it conclude accurately in 1981 that Mao was 70% right and 30% wrong?
ozivan
@Nirvana. I have a question.
My Question : Should the number of deaths be the only measurement of guilt, or shouldn’t it include criminal intention and other evil motivation ?
If millions died because of a misjudgemnt of domestic policies eg China’s Great Leap Forward where most of the deaths were caused by the resulting famine that followed, then the degree of heinous and culpability is lessen. It was more of sheer stupidity by Mao Tse Tung than the premeditated intention to murder millions.
When Nazi Germany under Hitler gassed and murdered the Jews in the holocaust, there was criminal intention or motivation, therefore the culpability is way much higher. It was pure murder by intention though the numbers were about 6 million Jews. Other examples are the Rwandan genocide, Stalin’s scorched earth tactics.
Anyway, I am researching into such catastrophes and will post it when I have finished.
Regards
nirvana
@Ozivan,
Answer: All fair trials will take into account facts, then motivations, circumstances, complicity, sanity etc… But you have to start from facts (Chairman Mao himself said).
But you are avoiding my question with a question and a deviation. Forget about Hitler and Stalin. My point was, to be able to judge Mao and nail down a scientific ratio of right/wrong, the CPC must have compiled or have an accurate enough (say within a margin of +/- 500 thousands) estimate of the total deaths due to Mao’s policies. If you are debating on how much anti-China propaganda is inflating the official number, which is this number is the starting point for research? And since you raised the issue, what is the ratio between the non-intentional murders during “Great Leap” and the intentional murders during the “Hundred Flowers”?
ozivan
@Nirvana. Please re-read your post of September 22, 2011 at 3:53 am (Number of Chinese deaths due to Mao)
You were fidgeting about numbers. I interposed that numbers is not the only criteria. The cause of deaths by elements of criminal intention, premeditated intention to kill, or through fatal misjudgement of policies or economic adventurism are essential consideration too.
Using the examples of Hitler & Stalin is to make the distinction clearer.
Readers will figure it out.
John Chan
@nirvana:
If you have put in a little due diligence on the subject of Great Leap Forward, you would know any number into million is nothing but cold war propaganda to demonize China. You are carrying on this wild goose chase speculation relentlessly; the only explanation is that you are same as Bat, you have blinding hate toward China due to some kind unfortunate things that have happened to you personally.
Whether Mao was 70% right or 100% right it is Chinese business, what does it have to do with you as foreigner? Shall I question the percentage of quilt Filipino assigned to Dr. Jose Rizal?
nirvana
@John Chan,
I am interested in finding on which basis the CPC judged Mao after his death. Why? Because it allows me to infer whether promises from China today about peace, friendship and mutual trust are sincere reach-outs. How you judge Mao is not my business.
I understand how you feel when what is said about Mao is not only exaggeration, but a good part of it is the truth. All I can say is “welcome to the real world”.
If you insist, we can make the exercise of comparing the biography of Chairman Mao with that of Dr José Rizal (I hope Cyrus will help me). But I am not sure you are ready for this type of journey.
John Chian
@nirvana:
Even if Mao’s assessment is not to your satisfaction, what does Mao’s assessment methodology get to do with China’s future behaviour? You logic is really strange and puzzling, the only thing I can think of is you want to use ad hominem fallacy to smear China.
If you can’t take China’s word for it, how am I going to take Filipino’s word regarding Dr. Jose Rizal? It is simply make no sense to me.
China’s peaceful rise does not mean it can not defend itself. Squatters and trespassers encroaching China territory in South China Sea can either leave peacefully or be evicted by sheriff.