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(Part
Two)
When
the First World War broke out in 1914, China joined the
allies. As recompense, China was promised that the German
concessions in the province of Shandong would be returned at
war's end. After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles,
which President Woodrow Wilson imposed on friends and foes
alike, the German colonies were transferred to Japan, a more
powerful allied than China.
Thousands of students gathered in Tiananmen Square on May 4,
1919 to protest this move. The first triumphant nationalist
movement in China was born there. Called the “May 4th
Movement”, it brought the petite and national bourgeoisie
and the workers and peasants under one coalition.
The
founding of the Kuomintang or National People’s Party had
consolidated the nationalist currents that emerged at the
close of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It was
headed by Dr. Sun Yatsen, a progressive intellectual and
revolutionary heavily influenced by the October Revolution,
with which he strengthened his party’s ties.
The
Chinese Communist Party was founded at a congress held from
July 23 to August 5, 1921. Lenin sent representatives of the
International to that Congress.
The
Communist movement devoted efforts to reunite China. The
young Mao Zedong was among its founding members. Between
1923 and 1924, the Chinese Communist Party and Kuomintang
joined forces to form the First United Front.
Following Sun Yatsen’s death in 1925, Chiang Kai-shek took
command of the Kuomintang. He focused on establishing firm
control of southern China, the Shanghai region in
particular.
Kaishek
did not sympathize with the communist doctrine and, in 1927;
he undertook a large-scale repression of communists within
the National Revolutionary Army, unions and other social
institutions in the country, especially in Shanghai. The
Left within the Kuomintang was also heavily repressed.
In
1932, following the five-month military occupation of
Manchuria, Japan established the state of Manchukuo, which
posed a great threat to China. Chiang Kaishek launched five
campaigns to besiege and eliminate the communists, who had
gathered strength in the bases set up in southern China.
In
1927, leading those who had managed to evade Chiang
Kai-shek’s treacherous move to the mountainous region of
Jiangsu and Fujian, Mao Zedong established an encompassing
center of armed resistance, primarily made up of devoted and
well-organized communists. This center came to be known as
the Soviet Republic of China.
In
1934, pitted against Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist forces,
which were vastly superior in number, nearly 100 thousand
Chinese combatants under Mao’s command undertook the Great
March towards China’s northeast. Skirting China’s central
region, the combatants traversed over 3,750 miles and fought
almost continually through a year. This unprecedented feat
made Mao the undisputed leader of both China's Communist
Party and Revolution. The application of Marx's and Lenin's
ideas to China’s political, economic, natural, geographic
and cultural conditions established him as the brilliant
political and military strategist who liberated a country
whose significance in today’s world cannot be
underestimated.
The
second Sino-Japanese War broke out on July 7, 1937. The
Japanese deliberately brought about the incident that
sparked the war. A Japanese soldier disappeared while his
troop was in a military parade at the Marco Polo Bridge,
over a river located some 10 miles west of Beijing. China’s
army, based across the river, was accused of kidnapping the
soldier, and an armed conflict which lasted several hours
ensued. The soldier reappeared, almost immediately after
combat began. The accusation was false, but the Japanese
commander had already ordered the attack. With its usual
arrogance, Tokyo made unacceptable demands from China and
ordered the deployment of three divisions, equipped with the
country’s best weapons. In a few weeks’ time, the Japanese
army secured control of the East-West corridor between the
Gulf of Chihli (today Bo Hai) and Beijing.
From
Beijing, the Japanese army headed to Nanjing, where Chiang
Kai-shek’s government was headquartered. They carried out
one of the most horrendous of terrorist campaigns known to
modern warfare. The city was razed to the ground, as were
others. Tens of thousands of women were raped and hundreds
of thousands of people brutally murdered.
China’s
Communist Party had prioritized the struggle for national
unity and against Japanese designs, aimed at taking control
of the enormous country and its natural resources and to
condemn over 500 million of its citizens to merciless
bondage.
Japan
was looking for lebensraum. It was guided by a
mixture of capitalist and racist values: it was Japan’s
version of fascism.
The
Anti-Japanese United Front had already been created that
same year, in 1937. The nationalists were also aware of the
danger. Japan occupied most of the coastal cities. At the
end of the Second World War, there were millions of Chinese
casualties.
During
the epic war, the communists stepped up their struggle
against the invaders and caused them significant damage.
The
United States aided the communists and nationalists. Sensing
that its entry into the war was imminent, it asked the
Chinese government permission to send a volunteer squadron
as well. The Flying Tigers were thus created. Roosevelt
deployed Captain Lee Chenault, who was retired at the time,
whose conduct expressed his admiration towards the
discipline, tactics and efficacy shown by the communist
combatants.
Following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the
United States entered the war. However, at no point during
the war was Japan able to withdraw its best troops, which,
near war’s end, numbered a million soldiers.
The
Truman administration, which, in an act of terror, dropped
nuclear weapons over Japan's civilian population, made Chang
Kaishek the United States' right hand man. He took up the
anti-communist struggle again, but his demoralized troops
were unable to hold up against the irrepressible advance of
the Chinese People’s Army.
When
the war ended in October 1949, Kuomintang members, backed by
the United States, fled to Taiwan, where they set up an
anti-communist government fully supported by the United
States. Chiang Kai-shek used the U.S. Naval Fleet to travel
to Taiwan.
Might
China be yet another dark corner of the world?
Before
Troy was built and the Greek city-states knew the Iliad and
Odyssey, unquestionably marvelous fruits of human
intelligence, a civilization that encompassed millions of
people were already taking shape on the long shores of the
Yellow River.
Chinese
culture finds its roots in the Zhou Dynasty, which existed
2,000 years before Christ was born. Its peculiar writing
system comprises several thousand graphic signs, which
generally represent the language’s words or morphemes, a
term coined by modern linguistics which is little known to
the lay public. The mysterious magic of this language, which
the natural intelligence of Chinese children assimilates in
the learning process, is beyond our grasp.
Many of
the products which first emerged in China, such as
gunpowder, the compass and other inventions, were totally
unknown in the Old Continent. Had the winds blown in a
direction opposite the route followed by Columbus, perhaps
the Chinese would have discovered Europe.
Since
2000, the Taiwanese government had been controlled by a
party whose neo-liberal and pro-imperialistic policies were
even worse than the Kuomintang's stances, a staunch opponent
of the principle of a unified China, the Chinese Communist
Party's historical proclamation. This thorny issue
threatened to unleash a war of unforeseeable consequences, a
new sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of over 1,300
million Chinese people.
The
election, this past March 23, of a candidate from the party
that provided Chiang Kaishek with his political foundations,
was undoubtedly a political and moral victory for China. It
removes from the Taiwanese government a party which, in
office for nearly 8 years, was about to take new, nefarious
steps.
According to press agencies, the party lost by a landslide,
securing a mere 4.4 million votes, from a population of 17.3
million people entitled to vote.
The new
President will be sworn in on May 20. “We will sign a peace
treaty with China,” he declared.
The
cables report that Ma Ying-Jeou supports the creation of a
Common Market with China, the island's main trade partner.
The
People’s Republic of China maintains a dignified and
cautious attitude towards the thorny issue. At Beijing's
State Council, Taiwan's official spokesperson declared that
Ma Ying-Jeou's victory proves that “independence is not a
popular issue among the Taiwanese.”
This
short statement speaks volumes.
The
works of prestigious U.S. historical researchers divulge
what took place in the Chinese territory of Tibet.
Kenneth
Conboy’s The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet (University
Press, Kansas) describes the sordid details of the
conspiracy. William Leary calls it “an excellent and
impressive study of a major CIA covert operation during the
Cold War”.
For
over two centuries, no country in the world had recognized
Tibet as an independent nation. It was considered to be an
integral part of China. In 1950, India conceived it as such,
following the triumph of the communist revolution. England
assumed the same stance. Until the Second World War, the
United States considered it a part of China and even brought
pressures to bear on England in this connection. Following
the war, however, they saw it as a religious stronghold that
could be used against communism.
When
the People’s Republic of China implemented the agrarian
reform on Tibetan soil, the elite saw its properties and
interests undermined and opposed the measures. This led to
an armed uprising in 1959. Tibet's armed rebellion —as
opposed to those in Guatemala, Cuba and other nations, where
fighting took place under truly harsh conditions— was
prepared for years by US secret services, as these studies
reveal.
Another
book —which essays an apology of the CIA— Mikel Dunshun's
Buddha’s Warriors, tells the story of how the agency
took hundreds of Tibetans to the United States, led and
equipped the rebellion, parachuted armaments to Tibetan
fighters and trained them in their use. The rebels moved on
horseback, as Arab warriors once did. The book's prologue
was written by the Dalai Lama, who writes: “Though I am
deeply convinced that the struggle of Tibetans will succeed
only through a long-term and peaceful process, I have always
admired these freedom fighters for their courage and their
unwavering determination.”
The
Dalai Lama, bestowed with the US Congress' Gold Medal,
praised George W. Bush for his efforts in defense of
freedom, democracy and human rights.
The
Dalai Lama called the war in Afghanistan a war of
“liberation”, the Korean War a war of "semi-liberation” and
the Vietnam War a “failure”.
I have
summarized information taken from the Internet, from the
site Rebelión, specifically. Because of space and
time limitations, I have not included the pages where the
quoted paragraphs were taken from.
There
are those who suffer from Chino-phobia, a condition shared
by many Westerners, accustomed by their education and
cultural differences to regard whatever comes from China
contemptuously.
I was
still virtually a child when people already spoke of a
"yellow menace". The Chinese revolution seemed impossible
back then. The true causes behind anti-Chinese sentiments
were racist at root.
Why is
imperialism so intent on forcing China, directly or
indirectly, to lose its international significance?
Some
time ago, that is to say, 50 years ago, it sought to deny it
the prerogatives it had heroically earned for itself as a
full member of the Security Council. Later, highlighting the
mistakes that led to the Tiananmen Square protests, it
deified the Statue of Liberty, the emblem of an empire which
today embodies the negation of all freedoms.
The
People’s Republic of China passed legislation which stood
out in proclaiming and enforcing respect for the rights and
cultures of 55 ethnic minorities.
The
People’s Republic of China is, at the same time, highly
sensitive with regards to all things related to the
integrity of its territory.
The
campaign orchestrated against China is like a bugle call
aimed at unleashing an attack on the country's well-earned
success and against its people, who will host the next
Olympic Games.
The
Cuban government issued a declaration categorically
expressing its support of China in connection with the
campaign undertaken against it on the issue of Tibet. This
was the right stance to assume. China respects the rights of
its citizens to hold religious beliefs or not. In China,
there are Muslim, Catholic and non-Catholic Christian and
other religious groups, not to mention dozens of ethnic
minorities, whose rights are guaranteed by the Chinese
constitution.
In our
Communist Party, one's religion does not represent an
obstacle in the way of becoming a Party member.
I
respect the Dalai Lama’s right to believe, but I am not
obliged to believe in the Dalai Lama.
I do
have many reasons to believe in China's victory.
Fidel
Castro Ruz
March
31, 2008
5:15
p.m. |
