China was not a modern country prior to 1949. The governments of warlords and KMT after the 1911 revolution were not qualified as competent governments. They did little to alleviate sufferings when natural diasters occurred. The average life expectancy of Chinese in this period was only 30 years. If you were lucky enough to live to 60, you were an anomaly. It's common for a mother to lose half of her children before they reached maturity.
When we examine the history of China under CCP we view it as basically a functional modern government and it was under its reign the true transition to a modern country was accomplished. I think no knowledgable person would object that this was an efficient and effective government that exerted much more complete control of the society than today or at any other time in history. However, we need to condemn the stupidity with which it decided the course of the nation, and its failure to use its power and resources to save its people from suffering, whether it was cause by nature or human errors. In this sense CCP was much to the wanting since fundamentally it was a revolution party that served a theory as its first goal. Very often, this was taken as the only goal and the rest could all be sacrified.
30 years ago Tangshan was flattened by an earthquake and a quarter million (official figure) perished, about the same amount as the tsunami killed last year. The PRC government proudly announced that it had no need of foreign volunteer rescue teams, because a socialist country does not look good to be aided by capitalist hands. Now we consider this as a very irresponsible act, but at that moment it was the politically correct response.
We are progressing into a more humane society (or are we?) and we should not be afraid to look at periods in our past, no matter how dark it was.
When we examine the history of China under CCP we view it as basically a functional modern government and it was under its reign the true transition to a modern country was accomplished. I think no knowledgable person would object that this was an efficient and effective government that exerted much more complete control of the society than today or at any other time in history. However, we need to condemn the stupidity with which it decided the course of the nation, and its failure to use its power and resources to save its people from suffering, whether it was cause by nature or human errors. In this sense CCP was much to the wanting since fundamentally it was a revolution party that served a theory as its first goal. Very often, this was taken as the only goal and the rest could all be sacrified.
30 years ago Tangshan was flattened by an earthquake and a quarter million (official figure) perished, about the same amount as the tsunami killed last year. The PRC government proudly announced that it had no need of foreign volunteer rescue teams, because a socialist country does not look good to be aided by capitalist hands. Now we consider this as a very irresponsible act, but at that moment it was the politically correct response.
We are progressing into a more humane society (or are we?) and we should not be afraid to look at periods in our past, no matter how dark it was.
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