Comments on: The Historical Record for April 18, 2009: A tale of two leaders

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:46:21 +0000

Alternate history is always dangerous. It is, in fact, about as murky as predicting the future. It is tempting to extend a set of premises all the way to their logical conclusion, but there will always be unexpected and unforeseen consequences.

If the KMT had stayed in charge, it is not at all clear that China would’ve become as prosperous as Taiwan or South Korea. Why would China not have turned into, say, India, instead? The Communists defeated the warlords and established central authority from Beijing. Even the celebrated Northern Expedition merely left the KMT with allied warlords, rather than direct control. Even absent the Japanese, would the KMT have been able to manage that level of cohesion?

Similarly, if Liu and Deng had gotten their way and gotten the economic reforms started two decades earlier, it is not at all clear how far these reforms would’ve gone. Would they have turned China into the Soviet Union? Or into Tito’s Yugoslavia (minus the latent ethnic tensions)?

In “The Commanding Heights,” Yergin painted a picture of Deng in the tractor factory during the Cultural Revolution, spending “many hours pacing the courtyard, asking himself how modernization had failed and how it could be restored.”

Too neat a picture, but perhaps it was only the disaster and disillusionment of the Cultural Revolution that made possible the drastic changes of the last thirty years. Perhaps, absent the upheavals that shook up the party, the economic reforms would not have gone as far as they did. Such dramatic changes of direction in human history require multiple elements to come together at the right time.

By: Shu Jierui

Shu Jierui — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:06:40 +0000

You’re like the Bill Simmons of Chinese history. You should write a book in this style. Fun read.

By: david0fsangabriel

david0fsangabriel — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:29:12 +0000

The CCP should build a shrine to the Shinto Gods (Amaterasu?) and, facing east, bow towards Japan every morning. There should also be a statue of Zhang Xueliang inside…I’m no great fan of Chiang Kai-shek, but without the Japanese invasion, there’s no way the communists could have won the civil war. I remember reading as much, from the mouth of Chairman Mao (known for his offbeat sense of humor), quoted as saying so to a group of Japanese students in a book entitled The Revenge of Heaven.

Would the Chinese be better off today if they had skipped the first 30 years of communist social engineering chaos and instead simply gone directly to KMT Confucian-style authoritarianism?

By: J B

J B — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:37:12 +0000

But what a chihuahua!

By: wu ming

wu ming — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 10:11:09 +0000

i thought the first one was actually somewhat interesting in the way that it taught the dynamics of guerilla resistance to otherwise imperially-minded americans (also: wolverines!!!), but the remake looks awful.

and given that most americans i know actually form most of their opinions about the world by what they see on TV and in movies, it’s pretty disturbing, heading into a depression as we are. the *last* thing americans need to be told right now is that OMG the red chinamen are coming to get them!!!