China Molests Canada

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

New up to the minute  “now generation” quotations

An adult: 

“Taiwan (population 24 million, Chinese-speaking) has had only six COVID-19 deaths. SIX! But we are censored from knowing how they did it, and when they started doing it. This while their COVID progress graph line is never included on world graphs in the media, not like South Korea’s line, because the World Health Organization is ordered by China not to recognize Taiwan as existing.”

(National Post story with fun video of reporter quizzing the WHO)

A child in Canada (not Taiwan): 

“How come when fascists lie, we stop believing what they say, but when communists lie, we always hit the reset button and go back to believing?”

Someone on twitter: 

“China lied, people died.”

Hello Reader,

Got “shelter in place?”

I suppose I really should attempt a COVID-length post: long and leisurely, complete with music and art reviews.

But no. So here is only part one,  with links to THIS WEEK’S JAW-DROPPING NEWS. (see below)

Part One:

Old rerun

China and Communism

Next week:

Beauty and the New Art of War

Art and Music Of Japan and Germany

Old Rerun

China is on my mind, being twice in the media "this week" (in 2015) I will review The Art of War, but first:

China and communism

As a baby boomer, I still think of students as being longhaired idealistic “peace and love” types. At Harvard University’s model-United Nations this week the students from China were not peaceful, just hateful. They truly didn’t like Taiwan being called a free country. Their belief that Taiwan, covering the island of Formosa, “belongs” to China is, of course, part of their cradle-to-grave communist propaganda they are so used to hearing.

(In the dystopian Asia of the movie Cloud Atlas, the propaganda was “womb to tomb”)

We forget how powerful propaganda is, especially in a controlled environment, as do the students. For example, my buddy Blair once had a Chinese student, here on a student visa, tell him the followers of Falun Gong kill their parents. Blair paused for thought, and then pointed out that Canada doesn’t allow violators of human rights, such as parent killers, into the country as refugees. “But Falun Gong refugees are allowed in, right?” (Right) 

“Your government,” Blair said, “has been lying to you!” Blair told me this “really stopped him in his tracks.” 

As for Taiwan, never mind what Chinese schoolchildren are told, I have a Canadian viewpoint: A baby boy can come to Canada in 1919 from Germany or Japan and when he grows up, he will love Canada and then, if he becomes an adult during World War II, he will go off to fight against those fascists. Perhaps alongside my dad who advanced from the beaches of Normandy to Bremen.

Later, when Canadian troops fought and died in Korea, in the Commonwealth Division, my father was not pressured to rejoin: He remained a civilian, raising preschool children. From that war, I have an idea why China so fiercely resents Taiwan. 

I will tell you what I know: You may recall that during the Korean War China did not declare war on South Korea. The Chinese armies in Korea were not sent by China, at least not officially, but instead were officially "volunteers" from the People’s Liberation Army." These official volunteers, as prisoners of war, while being held behind barbed wire by the United Nations forces, told the UN they did not want to go “home.” No, they simply wanted to be released from the wire, set free, as soon as the war was over. Perhaps to make their way to Taiwan. 

To the UN this sounded fair but… No! Nay! Never!—peace negotiations dragged on, casualties mounted, the war prolonged—because the Chinese rulers insisted the volunteers be forcibly repatriated against their will… This would have been a few years after the western communists had built the Berlin Wall as part of an iron curtain across Europe. 

At last, to make peace, the UN agreed to force those innocent soldiers to disappear forever behind the bamboo curtain. A win for China… but I guess the Chinese Communist Party officials have never forgiven Taiwan for existing.

I am reminded of South Africa, back during my student years, when we might hypothetically say that “guest workers” are not citizens, AND we would surely say that any of their babies born and raised to adulthood in South Africa must given full rights and responsibilities to vote and love their country. 

In Taiwan the hopeful soldiers and idealistic young students who had escaped the communist takeover of the mainland in the late 1940’s would today be as old as my father—in their nineties. Their children, (baby boomers) and their children’s children, (Generation X, Generation Y and millennials) would have grown up loving the green hills of Taiwan, without any belief in communism.

(Writer’s note: My father, born 1919, who came to Canada when he was five, has since died)

Taiwan grandparents my age may, like me, own the Quotations of Chairman Mao, AND they relish their golden safety. Meaning: Safe to read the Common Sense of Tomas Paine, safe to think about the republican Sun Yat-Sen, and safe to speak with any Falun Gong… as I have. Near the British Museum, the Falun Gong handed out information brochures not just about their sunny religion, but also the dark oppression by the Chinese Communist Party/the regime/ Beijing—call it what you will. 

Late breaking news: From April 25 2020, comes this story of an imprisoned Hong Kong bookseller who escaped from China and safely opened a bookstore in Taiwan: A happy ending for folks who want life to be fair. 

Back in Canada, where my writer’s group meets at the old King Edward school, there were big beautiful paintings of gentle angels looking down as the communists harvest organs from the Falun Gong.

The other mention of China this week is in Maclean’s magazine (February 16, 2011?, p 74) where book reviewer notes a man “offers a rather frightful look into the mindset of China’s rulers.” The book is The Hundred Year Marathon by Michael Pillsbury. 

“His book would appear to be his attempt to make up for the neglectful advice he offered America’s leaders over the years. It concludes with a number of straightforward recommendations for the U.S. to adopt.” 

I read Michael Pillsbury’s Chinese quote: 

“Don’t let the enemy know you’re a rival until it’s too late for him to stop you,” Then I immediately thought of similar advice in The Art of War.

—WHOAH! Late breaking news MY GOD! 

This week, the Chinese quote is:

“Don’t let the Canadians know there will be a pandemic until it is too late for them to stop you from buying up all their Canadian PPE, while also accepting a donation from them of quote tons unquote of PPE.” (personal protective equipment, such as gowns and masks)

When China did that, they molested Canada..

Here is a link from Canada’s Global News for April 30. There are other links in cyberspace too.

If, dear reader, just like Canada’s Liberal Party folks who are Members of Parliament, you cannot “take in” this shocking news, and instead you just have to close your eyes and instantly forget, then I forgive you… Too bad the liberal MPs in positions of responsibility won’t exert themselves to keep their conscience-eyes open, won’t STOP believing in China. 

I feel like it’s again the 1930’s, my dad sees Adolph Hitler on the cover of Time Magazine as “man of the year,” and no one’s brain will retain anything bad about the Nazis. So I forgive you and me. Just as back when we bully-worshipped the Germans, I know in advance that (Hello to anyone reading this in some future year) this story of Chinese immorality will be as forgotten as a nightmare from yesterday morning. And for that, I am sorry.

Sean Crawford

Alberta,

May, 

2020 

Cloud Atlas movie review, 4 stars, “…a repeated motif is that all lives are connected by a thirst for freedom.”

Footnote for liberals: The patriots of Taiwan are just as much members of the Mongolian race as people in China: While trusting the one nation and distrusting the other, don’t let your local Liberal Party MP escape his conscience by calling you racist, not if he or she flatly refuses to watch this Global TV news report by an investigative journalist. Never mind the liberal party, the price of freedom is the rest of us having eternal vigilance.

You know what? The Chinese can keep their thought police. It’s time to recognize Taiwan.