Peters Slurs Patriots

Just heard Ralph Peters on the Laura Ingraham show. He is selling his newest book and he has written an article warning against right wing extremists who claim that Islam itself is un-reformable and must be defeated. Peter’s entire article is one long “but...” He catalogs a long list of his tough-guy bona fides, repeatedly asserting that he wants to kill bad guys, terrorists, extremists those who have hijacked a great faith. These bad guys are a “minority within a minority” who must be defeated while leaving the larger Islamic faith and those who practice it, intact. Peters says that the US military needs to buy time for the long overdue reformation of Islam. In Peters’ world, there are plenty of bad guys who need killing BUT Islam isn’t the problem. For Peters, the real problem is that some Christians look at the problems that adherents to Islam pose to the world and think the solution is to kill more than Peters thinks is prudent.

I have a pretty low opinion of Peters. I look at his as the columnist equivalent of James Webb. Peters thinks that he is smarter than his readers and worse, that anyone who is not as smart as him is morally deficient. His (and Webb’s) is the hubris of Custer; someone who knows better than others around him and who looks upon those who agree with him in kind but not degree as dangerous lunatics. Peters reminds me of the very worst kind of intelligence officer (which he once was), someone convinced he is right, and everyone else is too stupid or corrupt to see it as he does.

I have two problems with Peter’s thesis in the article. One problem is that Peters think that it is the fault of Christians who look at the atrocities committed by Moslem evildoers screaming “god is great” for thinking Islam is not compatible with civilized behavior. Rational people expect that when atrocities are committed by someone claiming to represent a larger group, actual representatives of that larger group will come out to publicly and repeatedly disclaim all connection with terrorism committed in their name. Where are the Islamic leaders? Where are the Imams, then business executives, the politicians, the sports figures, the entertainers? No where. Their silence condemns their entire faith.

Secondly, Peters makes the point that you can’t kill a billion Muslims so we had better find a way to accommodate them. Can you imagine Truman saying “you can’t kill all the Japanese, so we had better accommodate them?” No, certainly not. Truman, in contrast to Peters, had the benefits of clear thinking and courage. Truman realized that you could kill a large enough number of those who believed in the superiority and inevitability of the Japanese ideology, the remainder would realize the error of their beliefs, and change those beliefs. No, you can’t kill a billion Muslims, but you can kill enough of them, or make their lives miserable enough, that they realize that what they had believed is not working out so well, and it is time to change. Peters should stick to writing novels and computer games, and leave the slurring of Christians and other American patriots to the enemies of America like Islamic terrorists and Democrats.

Sinologist disses Rice

I came across this wrong headed article about the misuse of Chinese when making a point. I drafted a letter to send the good professor since he doesn't look at his email. His article is about Secretary of State Rice's assertion that the Chinese word for "crisis" contains the elements for danger and opportunity. The prof disagrees. Here is my take:

Sir,

I recently read your article “How a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray” which criticizes those who think wei1 ji1 contains the characters for “danger” and “opportunity” as “Pollyanaish,” “fatal misapprehension” and “fundamentally fallacious.” From what I can gather from your writing, you assert that people (Westerners or Chinese) should not look at the individual characters of the Chinese constructions because those individual characters do not retain their implied meaning in a combined construction when they are split apart from other combined constructions.

“Ji1” retains its meanings in the word for “airplane” “fei1 ji1” when the “ji1” is borrowed to make the word for “airport” “ji1 chang3.” Neither “fei1” or “ji1” necessarily means airplane, only “fei1 ji1” means airplane, but “ji1” means airplane when you combine it with “chang3” to make airport. So, I am not sure why I should accept your assertion that “ji1” cannot mean opportunity when it is combined with “wei1” when that same character retains the meaning of “airplane” when combined with “chang3.”

Words mean what people using the language think they mean. Just because a learned professor of East Asian languages thinks a combination of Chinese characters should mean one thing, and not another, does not necessarily make it so. You and I may think “三Q” is gibberish, but every Taiwanese kid knows it means “thank you.” If people think “wei1 ji1” means “danger + opportunity,” well then, it does. Further, it seems strange that someone who would coin and use an English word like “pollyanaish” would object to Chinese being used in the same way.

Finally, while your observation that: “Adopting a feel-good attitude toward adversity may not be the most rational, realistic approach to its solution” might be true of pessimists, Europeans and Penn academics, but most Americans, of whom the Secretary of State is most assuredly a fine example, prefer an optimistic view of world events. If optimists want to use Chinese characters to make that point, I would think that a “Sinologist” like yourself would applaud rather than throw brickbats.

Japanese Colonial Activity as Genocide: A Deliberate Case of Mistaken Identity

At the end of the 19th century, the Japanese has a desire to establish a colonial empire. This desire had three motivations. The first motivation was that the Japanese sought new markets for goods and new sources for raw materials. The prevailing economic theory was that the most efficient way for industrial powers to grow markets and secure a reliable supply of resources was to have access to all components of the trade cycle. A colonial power could extract resources from the colony, convert those resources into manufactured goods at home for export, some of which the colony would be required to purchase. Another motivator for Japanese colonialism was the desire to thwart Western colonial designs on Asia. Western powers had carved up Africa, Australia, and the subcontinent of Asia and were blocked from South American, so all that was left for Europe and the United States to pursue was Asia. The Meiji leaders were well aware that industrialization and expansion went hand in hand. They knew that European leaders invoked economic benefits to justify the acquisition of colonial territory (even if there was little evidence to support such claims) and that the European powers used trade, loans and investments as the entering wedge of political penetration. 1

The Western penetration into parts of Asia was extremely worrisome for the Japanese government and became the second impetus toward Japanese colonialism. In order to block or prevent Western powers from entering parts of Asia near Japan, the new Japanese empire would have to get to those parts of Asia first. Japan’s Foreign Minister Komura Jutaro, at the turn of the century, recognized the problem that faced Japan: “Competition through commercial and industrial activity and through overseas activities is a phenomenon of grave importance in recent international relations. Its emergence has been most prominent in the Far East. For a number of years, Western countries... have been zealous in expanding their rights in mining, railroads, in inland waterways and in various other directions on the Asian continent, especially in China.” 2 China and Korea were strategically, militarily and economically important for Japan. A colonial empire that included those two countries would keep the Western powers from encroaching on Japan proper.

A third reason that colonialism proved attractive to Japan was the fact that colonies meant prestige. Powerful countries had colonies, and weak countries were or were soon to be colonies. Having colonies also marked the colonial power as one of the wealthy countries of the world, something that caused pride in that country’s people. “In a way, Japanese colonialism was a matter of prestige. At the end of the nineteenth century and going on the first third of the twentieth, nationalists regarded colonies as a status symbol. Colonization was - among other things - a form of conspicuous consumption on a national scale. Great powers were expected to show their prowess by foreign conquests, past or present.” 3 Meiji Japan was eager to show its power, and eager to show itself the equal to any Western power. As Takekoshi Yokaburo, Diet Member, exclaimed after a visit to Formosa: “I cannot but rejoice that we, the Japanese, have passed our first examination as a colonizing power so creditably. The thought also of the future fills my heart with joy, because, as the Southern Cross seems to invite the wonders of the Southern Seas, so our successes in Formosa beckon us on to fulfill the great destiny that lies before us, and make our country Queen of the Pacific.” 4

Japan had a racist society. Any foreigner who has lived in Japan can tell stories about the stares and whispers encountered when one enters a train, or about the children who gawk and point when they are encountered on the street. A United Nations “Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance,” Doudou Diene, in early 2006 concluded that racism in Japan was endemic. “Finally, the most profound manifestations are of a cultural and historical nature. This type of discrimination affects principally the national minorities, but also descendents of former Japanese colonies. The fundamental sources of these discriminations are the identity construction of Japan, the writing and teaching of Japanese history, the image of the communities and people concerned and their perception by the society.” 5 What Diene found was the current manifestation of a historical trend in Japan, an inherent belief in the overall superiority of the Japanese people, and that others were inferior in intellect.

This belief originated in the late 19th century as a result of a series of events that shocked the Japanese consciousness. Admiral Perry, with his advanced military technology represented by his White Ships, forced Meiji Japan to open to the West and at the same time, highlighted Japanese inferiority vis a vis the West. Admiral Perry’s appearance also awakened the Japanese to the idea that they themselves, even though technologically deficient in relation to the West, were nonetheless superior to other Asian nations. “At the same time, aware of China’s backwardness, the Meiji elites began to hold China and other Asian countries in contempt. As a result, Japan chose to become an imperial power at the expense of Asia under the datsua nyuo slogan.” 6 “Datsua nyou” means “breaking away from Asia and joining Europe,” a slogan that gained purchase as the Japanese people became aware of the contrast between Western advances, and Asian backwardness. “This new view of Asia forged a sentiment of contempt toward Asians and even the depersonalization of Asians. Japanese have had a preconceived notion of Asia as being backward and inferior to this day.” 7

Additionally, Japanese colonialists consciously adopted the burden of colonialism because they felt the need to improve the lot of Asia by introducing Japanese influence. Takekoshi again gave voice to the imperial Japanese point of view. He recognized their racist attitudes inherent in the Japanese psyche, but thought these attitudes irrelevant to the good work that they were doing in Asia. “Western nations have long believed that on their shoulders alone rested the responsibility of colonizing the yet-unopened portions of the globe and extending to the inhabitants the benefits of civilization; but now we Japanese, rising from the ocean in the extreme Orient, wish as a nation to take part in this great and glorious work.” 8 This “pan-Asianism” of the Japanese was analogous to the “white man’s burden” in Africa and Asia, under which Western colonialists labored during this period. While no colonized people in Asia were excited or happy to be a Western colony, at the same time, the American and European examples were compelling, and less easy to resist that the Japanese method of rule. 9

Japan’s feeling of superiority toward other Asians, and the desire to compete with Western powers lead the Japanese to cultivate a colonial empire of their own. Arguably, Japan’s first colony was the Ainu lands of Hokkaido, where Matsumae fiefdom samurai assassinated Ainu leaders and asserted control of Hokkaido in 1669. Hokkaido became occupied territory and was eventually declared to be a colony of Japan by the Meiji Restoration in 1889. 10 Okinawa, or the Ryukyu Islands, was another early Japanese colony, exploited for its raw materials. The Meiji Restoration also formalized the colonial status of these islands as had been done with Hokkaido. 11 From 1895, Japan began to acquire colonies outside of the Japan archipelago. The first of these modern colonies was Taiwan or as it was alternately known, Formosa, acquired from China as reparations after Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese War in the Treaty of Shimonoseki. Although the Ming Dynasty ceded Taiwan to Japan, the Ming had but tenuous control of the major cities of Taiwan, and experienced difficulty in extracting taxes from the island. Japan, upon assuming nominal control of the Taiwan, was immediately faced with an insurgency they were forced to quell. In fact, in the interim between the time when China ceded control of Taiwan and Japan was able to arrive on the island to asset its authority, local revolutionaries declared a “Republic of Taiwan” with a flag and a set of principles. Japan dealt with this insurgency, and with other local flare ups of resistance, but no more ruthlessly than any other colonial power pacified any other average colony. Once the desultory resistance was put down in Taiwan, the Meiji Government of Japan attempted to enact policies to bring prosperity to the island. The Taiwanese, except for the Aboriginal people who lived in the mountain chain that runs down the middle of the island, and who traditionally resisted any outside authority, sensed the essential benevolence of the Japanese economic intentions. For the most part, the Taiwanese people went along with the Japanese colonial policies and the Japanese Army‘s rule. 12

The Treaty of Shimonoseki also ceded Korea and parts of Manchuria to Japanese control. Unlike Taiwan’s inhabitants, the peoples of Korea and Manchuria fiercely resisted Japan’s control. The Japanese initially attempted to control Korea by having the Army co-opt civilian organizations, but even this relatively unobtrusive intervention into Korean civil governance was resisted forcibly by Nationalists. The Japanese colonial administration proved skillful in establishing effective constabularies that doubled as intelligence services to keep control of the restive Korean population. Only rarely was it necessary to call for the regular army to put down uprisings. Although the Koreans had no more affection for the Japanese than did the Chinese, the proximity of Korea to the Japanese mainland, and the relative small size of the population in Korea made military reinforcements easier to recall and therefore made rebellion less likely to succeed.

Manchuria and the remainder of Mainland China proved much more difficult for the Japanese army to secure. Much of China proved to be part of Japan’s “informal empire.” An “informal empire” as opposed to one with some formal demarcation such as exited with the Japanese in Taiwan involved a “metropolitan society exercising some degree of political dominance over the peripheral one. What distinguishes informal imperialism from nonimperialisic trading methods, therefore, is the use of coercive methods.” 13 Coercive methods of control and colonization were some of the confluence of events that resulted in a restive population not at all amenable to rule by a foreign power, especially Japan. Other of these influences included the mutual racial animus between the Chinese and the Japanese, the fact that the population was primed to revolt against the prevailing power given the loss of control by the Ming Dynasty, and the huge population with which the Japanese Army had to deal. The results of this volatile mixture were brutalities and atrocities committed by both sides until Japan gained the upper hand against Nationalist forces and marched onto Nanking. On the way to Nanking, the Japanese enacted the “Three No” policies and vowed to kill every Chinese who resisted, about which there will be more later.

There is nothing unique to Japan and Japanese society in the intertwining of colonialism and racism. Given the friction that naturally exists between neighboring states or different peoples, and given the often-confrontational character of colonialism, racism would seem to be a natural by-product. “It is significant that racism is a part of colonialism throughout the world; and it is no coincidence. Racism sums up and symbolized the fundamental relation which unites colonialist and colonized.... [The colonialist’s] racism is as usual to his daily survival as is any other prerequisite for existence....” 14 The people of a colonial power saw themselves as distinct and better than their colonial subjects, even when that colonial relationship was, at best, informal. The nature of colonialism engendered racist attitudes and feelings of superiority and dehumanization regarding the colonized people.

George Orwell, during his time in Marrakesh, also noted the dehumanizing effects that colonialism has on the colonialist, making the colonialist question the humanity of those over whom he rules. “When you walk through a town like this—two hundred thousand inhabitants, of whom at least twenty thousand own literally nothing except the rags they stand up in—when you see how the people live, and still more how easily they die, it is always difficult to believe that you are walking among human beings. All colonial empires are in reality founded upon that fact. The people have brown faces—besides, there are so many of them! Are they really the same flesh as yourself? Do they even have names? Or are they merely a kind of undifferentiated brown stuff, about as individual as bees or coral insects? They rise out of the earth, they sweat and starve for a few years, and then they sink back into the nameless mounds of the graveyard and nobody notices that they are gone. And even the graves themselves soon fade back into the soil.” 15 Contempt towards the people who are colonized, and loathing by the colonized towards their masters are intrinsic to colonialism. The mutual lack of respect and understanding can have the effect of magnifying slights committed by either side to a point that results in violence on a massive scale, but such an outcome need not necessarily occur. Japan’s record as a colonial power illustrated this observation. In areas where the colonized people remained docile and compliant, colonies thrived. In areas that resisted Japanese rule, the outraged Japanese occupiers would react with massive brutality. These were unfortunate occurrences, but they were certainly not unique to the Japanese among all the colonial powers in the world.

In fact, Japan appropriated many of the terms and attitudes towards other races from the Western colonial discourse. This appropriation occurred in three phases. The first phase occurred in the late nineteenth century. Japanese thinkers began to discern that the Confucian belief that all individuals have a place in the world and in Heaven’s hierarchy fit nicely into Western “scientific” analyses of race. Many Japanese academics seized upon craniometry, Social Darwinism, and the notion of racial types and Western ethnolinguistic and phenotypical definitions of race to construct rustication for oppressive colonial policies. The second phase, beginning around 1895 to the mid 1930’s involved extended debates and discussions regarding the wisdom and necessity of assimilating colonial subjects, in essence, Japanizing them, or forcing those subjects to remain ethnically and linguistically distinct. During the period, Japan attempted to remain distinct from their colonial subjects. The third phase occurred after the mid 1930’s when Japan swung the other way from their earlier attempts to remain distinct from their colonial subjects and instead attempted to enforce Japanization on their largely unwilling subjects. The Japanese required their colonials to adopt Japanese names, used Japanese in everyday life, and the Shinto religion. 16

In mainland China, Japan’s decision to “Japanize” the population proved unpopular. “Rural people increasingly hated the Japanese. They told tales of how the enemy forced people to bow and crawl in a degrading manner, how a Chinese was pushed to his death from the top of a fortification or shot for sport. Indignities and injustices were the subjects of daily gossip and outrage... People came to believe that people in occupied towns and surrounding hamlets who cooperated with the Japanese were traitors, or as it was translated in peasant political culture, people devoid of any sense of moral duty. It was said of these morally tainted villagers on the outskirts of Raoyang town, ‘In Shao, XI, Cai, Bai, no one will bury you even if you die.’” 17 In the absence of reliable information, the peasants passed rumors from person to person, embellishing the atrocities with each telling. Each story, each misstep or reprisal by the Japanese were reported in the most negative light, which tended to increase the anger toward the colonial occupiers.

These cultural misunderstandings and frictions often led to tragic consequences. A Japanese soldier recounted a situation in which he was moving through a Chinese village and encountered some civilians outside their houses. “Everybody thinks that only men are plainclothes soldiers. But there are women, kids,...all kinds. Once, a young woman of twenty-two or twenty-three came up to me looking very friendly. There in front of her house stood a crippled old grandmother, again smiling in a friendly way; naturally I thought they were ryomin (civilians). But then I had a bad feeling about one of them and I shouted a warning. The old woman ran hobbling off. I strip searched the girl... she couldn’t understand me so I gestured with my hands... Underneath her clothes she was wearing two pairs of panties. Hidden inside, sure enough, there was a pistol. I did not want to kill her, but she tried to hit me with the gun and that is why she died. She said something abusive before she died. Afterwards I felt sorry for her but at the time if I did not handle it right I would have been done for. I was provoked.” {Ellipses in original} 18 These experiences were not so unlike those that British troops encountered in Iraq in the 1870’s, American Marines encountered in Afghanistan in 2002 and Israel encountered in southern Lebanon in 2006.

That the Japanese army often brutalized the civilian population in China is not contested. Whether the reason was from the effort to impose Japanese culture on the local population in China, or as retribution for continued resistance by the Chinese, the Japanese Army could be ruthless in dealing with civilian populations or surrendered soldiers. Numerous writers have detailed the conduct of the Japanese Army in Manchuria and throughout China and some have sought to explain what could have happened to a Japanese Army that behaved in exemplary fashion elsewhere in Asia. For Mikiso Hane, “the answer no doubt is to be found in the complicated intermeshing of individual and group psychological forces that were at work.” 19 These “forces” included “submitting docilely to power and authority from above while domineering over the weak and powerless below,” “a strong feeling of national pride coupled with a sense of superiority over other races,” and “the exceedingly harsh treatment that the young recruits were subjected to in the Japanese armed forces” that “no doubt brutalized their spirit and inclined them to behave in a bestial manner when restraining forces were absent.” 20

One factor in the brutality that Japan visited on Mainland China is that is the fact the colonial agency there was Japan’s Imperial Army. The Japanese army had to fight their way into Korea, Manchuria and down into China, not out of any particular plan to do so, but instead because the opportunity was there. “Japanese imperialism was less deliberate than situational in origin. The aggressive movement of Japanese forces into Korea, China and Micronesia was as much due to the absence of effective power to resist it as it was to specific policies and planning.” 21 Effective power to resist is not the same as lack of resistance. Although the Chinese governments were not able to militarily resist the incursion into their mainland, the fact that government has a desire to resist informed the actions of the Chinese people themselves to offer a home-grown resistance.

This “cue” from the government about the acceptability of resistance was crucial in differentiating the resistance to Japanese occupation in the mainland versus that in Taiwan. As established above, the Japanese forcibly subjugated Korea, Manchuria and Mainland China. The Japanese were given Taiwan by China as settlement in the Treaty of Shimonoseki that ended the Sino-Japan War. The Taiwanese had much less incentive to resist their “occupiers” since the former rulers of Taiwan had formally invited in the “occupiers.”

Other writers have been less inclined to see Japanese brutality as the result of psychological forces, but instead have argued that what actually occurred in China was state sanctioned “genocide.” These analysts have drawn a direct line from the contemptuous and racist attitudes of the Japanese toward other Asians and their desire for “genocide” of the Chinese in Asia. Most notable among these observers was Sir Martin Gilbert who wrote: “with the Japanese attack on China in 1937, a genocidal menace entered China together with the invading army.” 22 Gilbert quoted casualty figures to bolster his case for Japanese genocide. “The ‘Rape of Nanking’ was to take its place among the massacres not only of the century, but of modern times. When the Japanese entered the city, the population was estimated at between 600,000 and 700,000, of whom 150,000 were soldiers. In the ensuing slaughter, more than 200,000 civilians and 90,000 soldiers were killed.” 23

Another prominent critic of the Japanese has been Iris Chang. In her book Rape of Nanking, she offered the most searing and recent indictment of the Japanese Army, detailing the wantonness with which they conducted their operations. She did not use the term “genocide” to describe what happened in China, but she certainly wanted to leave her readers with the impression that the Japanese committed genocide. Chang called what occurred in Nanking in 1937 a “mass extermination” and she compared the “Rape” to the Jewish Holocaust and to Stalin’s purges in order to make the point that what the Japanese perpetrated in China was worse because it occurred over a shorter period of time. 24 Like other advocates of the argument that the Japanese were racists who were attempting genocide on the Chinese, Chang used numerous rhetorical devices to confuse, muddy and obfuscate the issue. For the subtitle of her book, The Rape of Nanking, she deliberately chose the provocative subtitle of “The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.” For most readers, the term “Holocaust,” when used in the context of World War II, brings to mind the Nazis’ concerted attempt to exterminate the Jews from Europe, and oftentimes, to burn the bodies of the murdered innocents. While the word “holocaust” literally means “burned offering” in Middle English, the word now means much more than that.

The “Holocaust” was the reason Raphael Lemke coined the word “genocide” in order to describe the peculiar horror that existed in Europe, directed against the Jews there. “Holocaust” has entered our lexicon as shorthand for all the events in Europe perpetrated against the Jews, as well as all the other racial groups that the Nazis tried to eliminate. The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC tells the story of that time. The name of the Museum is so evocative, that visitors will not mistake the contents for something other than the events in Europe from 1936-1945.
Chang appropriated the word “holocaust” to strengthen her contention that the actions of the Japanese Army were something more than a strategic response to the Republic’s resistance. While she does not call the actions of the Japanese Army “genocide,” Chang is content for the reader to make the association on his or her own. Chang cites the “Three All” policy not as orders for genocide but instead, as orders to “wipe out everyone in certain regions of China.” This was a distinction without a difference. She claims the depopulation in Northern China was the result of extermination of the Chinese people, alternately citing the figure of 19 million and 6.3 million killed by Japanese bayonets, gunfire, diseased fleas, looting, bombing and medical experiments. “If those deaths are added to the final count, then one can say that the Japanese killed more than 19 million Chinese people in its war against China.” 25

Chang has deliberately blurred the meaning of the words “genocide,” “holocaust,” “mass killing,” and “atrocity,” to argue that regardless of what one calls what happened in Northern China and Nanking, those actions were inexcusable and the Japanese should atone to the Chinese. The reality of the motivations of the Japanese actually fighting the war against China was different from the ones that Chang ascribes to those soldiers.

“Genocide” and “holocaust” are terms that are so charged with meaning that writers will appropriate them for use to describe situations for which the terms are not appropriate. The American Heritage Book of English Usage notes there is a specific link between the words: “But because of its associations with genocide, people may object to extended applications of holocaust.” 26 Both Gilbert and Chang have insisted on broadening both terms genocide and holocaust to mean “atrocity,” “mass killing” or both. However, the term genocide has a clear that has been adjudicated by the United Nations and war tribunals and should not be applied to any atrocious situation in the world. There is no doubt that the Japanese Army perpetrated mass killings in China, but their conduct in China did not constitute “genocide.”

The term “genocide” was created by Raphael Lemkin to describe his observations of the conduct of the Nazis in Europe. Lemkin asserted that the Nazis were attempting to destroy entire ethnic groups and this action was “genocide,” Lemke coined the work by combining the Greek “genos” for “race” or “tribe” with the common Latin ending “cide” to denote “killing.” Following his description of this new word, Lemke wrote: “Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.” 27 The key phrases from his observation were that genocide requires a “coordinated plan” and the aim of destroying the “national group as an entity.”

Japanese actions in China did not reach either threshold to be considered genocide.
The United Nations has since taken Lemke’s definition of genocide, and refined it. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines “genocide” as: Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. 28 The amount of killing that one group inflicts on another is irrelevant to whether the actions amount to genocide, but rather, the crucial determinant for genocide is the motivation of the killers: “The specificity of genocide does not arise from the extent of their killings nor their savagery nor resulting infamy, but solely from their intention: the destruction of a group.” 29

Another non-psychological explanation for the brutality displayed by the Japanese in China is that the Japanese Army was attempting to replicate some of the tactics of the US general William Tecumseh Sherman, in his “March to the Sea” during the Civil War. “Terror was the basic factor in Sherman’s policy as he openly says. Here are two quotations out of a number: ‘Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it; but the utter destruction of its roads, houses and people will cripple their military resources... I can make the march, and make Georgia howl.’ ‘We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor feel the hard hand of war... The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance.” 30 Sherman’s vision for Georgia and South Carolina was similar to what the Japanese Army visited on the Nationalist in Nanking and the Communists elsewhere. The Japanese conducted kind of a “scorched earth policy in reverse. Indiscriminate devastation was designed to break the will of the populace from supporting the resistance cause, and to deprive the Chinese Communist forces military sources of manpower and food supply. 31 Li echoed Chalmers Johnson idea that Japanese acted in China in pursuit of strategic goals through the “three ‘all’ policy; kill all, burn all, loot all.” “The essence of the ‘three all’ policy was to surround a given area, to kill everyone in it and to destroy everything in it, so that the area would be uninhabitable in the future.” 32

Chang specifically cites the strategic “three all” policy as a “holocaust” in China at the hands of the Japanese. She used the specific term to equate Japanese attempt to crush a guerrilla force that was supported by the local population with the Nazi’s attempt to exterminate Jews and other minorities in Europe. She thus has attempted to indict the Japanese civilian leadership and army as war criminals. As mentioned earlier, no honest commentator would deny the brutality and scale of Chinese deaths before and during World War II. Had Chang offered her work as a historical record of events, her book would be seen as a welcome testament to the brutality of total war, on those terms. However, Chang had a different agenda.

Fueled by her outrage by the events in China, and by what she considered the lack of candor on the part of the Japanese to accept their responsibility for the unjustified “holocaust” in Nanking, and other places, Chang attempted to thwart Japan’s modern engagement in the world by tarring the entire current government and army as unrepentant war criminals. Note her description, not of the events, but of the Japanese people’s attention to the “Rape of Nanking” in the years that have followed the events. “This book describes two related but discrete atrocities. One is the Rape of Nanking itself, the story of how the Japanese wiped out hundreds of thousands. The other is the cover-up, the story of how the Japanese, emboldened by the silence of the Chinese and Americans, tried to erase the entire massacre from public consciousness, thereby depriving its victims of their proper place in history.” 33

Later, she became even more explicit in her goals for writing the book: “When it comes to expressing remorse for its own wartime actions before the bar of world opinion, Japan remains to this day a renegade nation. Even in the period directly after the war, and despite the war crimes trials that found a few of its leaders guilty, the Japanese managed to avoid the moral judgment of the civilized world that the Germans were made to accept for their actions in this nightmare time.” 34 Chang’s anger at the Japanese for skirting the “judgment of the civilized world” has led her to ascribe to the bulk of the Japanese Army, a mindset similar to that of the most recalcitrant Nazi prison guard at Dachau in the hopes of poisoning world opinion about the Japanese. Lest readers miss the point, William Kirby, Harvard Professor of Modern History drives it home in the most explicit terms: “But the events of Nanking - to which Hitler surely took no exception - would later make them (Germany and Japan) moral co-conspirators, as violent aggressors, perpetrators of what would ultimately be called ’crimes against humanity.’ W.H. Auden, who visited the China war, made the connection earlier than most:
And the maps can really point to places
Where life is evil now:
Nanking; Dachau.” 35

Note the pernicious linking of events, the moral equivalence that Kirby and Chang have made between Hitler and the Japanese Army. Deconstruct the statement: “to which Hitler took no exception.” China was an enemy of his ally, and the world was at the time engaged in a total war. Hitler took no exception to the events in Western Russia either, at least the ones that resulted in the death of millions of Russians there. He also took no exception to the death of thousands of Japanese during the firebombing of Tokyo, except inasmuch as the bombing would effect the Japanese in prosecuting the war against America. What Kirby and Chang are explicitly attempting is to link Hitler’s lack of exception to the “rape of Nanking” and Japanese people’s indifference to events there and America’s refusal to consider the Japanese people’s indifference as an “atrocity.” So events that had been acceptable throughout history and around the world in waging war against a hated enemy have in retrospect been transformed into war crimes and atrocities that should continue to hamstring the international relations of the “offending” nation in the present day.

Supporters of the argument cannot point to a single instance where leader at the highest level of the Japanese Army or in the government gave orders regarding their conduct in China that could be construed to meet either the Lemke or the UN definition of “genocide.” The Japanese Army displayed extensive killing and savagery that Destrexhe deplored in his commentary, and certain elements conducted ghoulish experiments on prisoners but the Japanese Army never set out to exterminate all Chinese.

The most compelling counter-argument to Chang’s assertion of holocaust or genocide on the Chinese mainland was the behavior and comportment of Japanese troops on Taiwan. George Kerr, an American diplomat arrived in Taiwan soon after Japan’s surrender, was a close observer of all things in Taiwan. He made many contacts with local Taiwanese who recounted isolated incidents of Japanese brutality that Kerr documented in his book Formosa Betrayed. The Japanese quelled three concerted rebellions but were measured in their response and did not resort to collective punishments. In fact, compared, ironically to the Nationalist Chinese troops who came over to take over Taiwan from the Japanese, the Japanese were remarkably disciplined and restrained. In fact, the Formosans, when they first got a look at the dirty, bedraggled Chinese forces, were not impressed, especially in comparison to the Japanese who had garrisoned the island. “Formosans along the way laughed at the shambling, poorly disciplined, and very dirty Chinese troops. It was evident, they said, that the "victors" ventured into Formosa only because the United States stood between them and the dreaded Japanese. Much evil and many individual tragedies were to spring from these expressions of open scorn, for the mainland Chinese were losing face, dearer than life itself.” 36

Other authors have documented isolated Japanese atrocities committed against prisoners of war housed in Taiwan prisoner of war camps the likes for which Japanese commanders and troops were tried and executed. The Japanese never displayed the eagerness to destroy huge parts of Taiwan as they did in Manchuria and Nanking. If Chang’s assertion that the Japanese were motivated by racial animus to ethnically cleanse China, then it would have been logical to start such a policy in Taiwan. The Taiwanese people, except for the aboriginal people who resided in the mountains, were ethnically Chinese, with few means to resist the powerful Japanese military. Had the Japanese truly have been on a genocidal mission, such a policy could have rapidly depopulated Taiwan, and opened the island to resettlement by Japanese colonials. However, instead of ethnic cleansing or genocide, the Japanese did their best to be benevolent colonial rulers, in an effort to extract maximum economic benefit from the local population. Taiwan was the test case for Japanese colonial policies, and by far the most successful colonial effort by the Japanese. The Japanese attempted to duplicate the success in Korea and Manchuria, but were never able to duplicate the success. In fact, resistance by the locals, especially in China forced the Japanese into repressive security policies that proved counter productive to their economic efforts.

Japanese were racist, and not above committing atrocities in pursuit of their war aims. Their war crimes in their treatment of POWs of all races and their indefensible medical experiments were ghoulish and sadistic outrages. However, the idea that the Japanese attempted genocide in the mold of the Nazis is not supported by the facts and does not provide a useful lens with which to analyze the conduct of the Japanese as a colonial power. The Japanese sought colonies for the reasons that Western powers did; power and economic benefits. Once on the ground in China, they faced an indigenous resistance that was spirited and effective enough to provoke the Japanese to respond aggressively and ruthlessly. This ruthless aggression in Manchuria and around Nanking was further marred by sadistic atrocities. However, at no time did the Japanese attempt to exterminate all the Chinese people, even on the island of Formosa, where such a policy could have been quickly carried to completion. Finally, Japan, as a maturing democracy, has taken responsibility for its crimes in China, and has explicitly apologized for their atrocities. Many of the perpetrators have faced justice. 37

Nonetheless, many commentators insist that the Japanese committed atrocities on the scale of the Nazis in Europe. One of the reasons stated by the lead critic of the Japanese Army, Iris Chang, for asserting the idea that the Japanese were genocidal murderers was to keep pressure on the current Japanese government. As long as the Japanese must defend themselves against charges of genocide, the Japanese are less effective in the international diplomatic arena an outcome which serves an expansionistic China quite well. China’s attempt to demonize Japan has been deliberate and ongoing: “In fact, it was in the 1990s, when Japan was still China-friendly and the main aid provider to Beijing, that the Chinese Communists began a ‘political education’ campaign demonizing Japan for its past atrocities. That campaign laid the groundwork for the upsurge of nationalism and the deterioration of China-Japan relations. In seeking to address domestic political imperatives to replace the increasingly ineffectual Communist ideology with fervent nationalism, China's rulers have helped whip up Japanese nationalism.” 38 It seems that charges of Japanese genocide have less to do with crimes of the past than with politics of the present.

NOTES

1. Peter Duus, The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-1910 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1995), 20.
2. Gaimusho, ed. Nihon gaiko nenpyo oyobi shuyo busho, 2 vols. (Tokyo, 1955); cited Ibid.
3. Lewis H. Gann, “Western and Japanese Colonialism: Some Preliminary Comparisons” in Ramon H. Meyers and Mark R. Peattie, The Japanese Colonial Empire: 1895-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 502.
4. Yosaburo Takekoshi with George Braithwaite, trans., Japanese Rule in Formosa (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1907), 70.
5. Doudou Diene, Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia And All
Forms of Discrimination: Mission To Japan (New York: United Nations, 24 January 2006), 18.
6. Mayumi Itoh, Globalization of Japan: Japanese Sakoku Mentality and U.S. Efforts to Open Japan (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000), 68.
7. Ibid, 69.
8. Yosaburō Takekoshi, vii.
9. Albert Feurewerker, “Japanese Imperialism of China: A Commentary” in Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers and Mark Peattie, The Japanese Informal Empire in China, 1895-1937. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 207.
10. Brett Walker. The Conquest of Ainu Lands: Ecology and Culture in Japanese Expansion, 1590–1800 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001) Pg49.
11. Alan S. Christy, "The Making of Imperial Subjects in Okinawa," in Tani E. Barlow, ed., Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1997), 141.
12. Ramon H Myers and Mark R Peattie, 19.
13. Peter Duus, Ramon H. Myers and Mark Peattie, xvi.
14. Albert Mimmi. Colonizer and the Colonized (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967), 70.
15. George Orwell. “Marrakech 1939.” Collected Essays of George Orwell,(http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/orwell/george/o79e/part8.html). Internet
16. Louise Young, Japan’s Total Empire (Berkley: University of California Press, 1998), 364
17. Edward Friedman, Kay Johnson, Chinese Village, Socialist State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 40.
18. Louise Young, 100.
19. Mikiso Hane. Modern Japan: A Historical Survey (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001) pg 298.
20. Ibid.
21. Ramon H Myers and Mark R Peattie, 13.
22. Sir Martin Gilbert. “Twentieth Century Genocides” in Jay Winter, American and the Armenian Genocide of 1915 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 23.
23. Ibid.
24. Iris Chang. Rape of Nanking (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 5.
25. Iris Chang, 210-217.
26. American Heritage Book of English Usage (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 159.
27. Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 79.
28. Mary Jacobson. “Balkan Glossary of Terms.” FACSNET:
(http://www.facsnet.org/issues/specials/kosovo/glossary.php3) 18 Jan 2000. Internet.
29. Alan Destexhe. Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (London: Pluto Press, 1995), 4.
30. JFC Fuller, Military History of the Western World (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988), 85.
31. Lincoln Li, The Japanese Army in North China: 1937-1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 209.
32. Chalmers Johnson, Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937-1945 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 60-61.
33. Iris Chang, 14.
34. Ibid, 15.
35. Ibid, XI.
36. George Kerr, Formosa Betrayed (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), 74.
37. Joshua A. Fogel, The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography (Berkley: University of California Press, 2000), 96.
38. Brahma Chellaney, “Japan-China: Nationalism on the Rise,” International Herald Tribune, 15 August 2006 [newspaper on-line]; http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/08/15/opinion/edchell.php; Internet; accessed 15 August 2006.

Once, I wanted to be famous

Now, I would be content to achieve a level of notoriety that would compel the officials at a Busch Series race to invite me as part of a group to yell, "Gentlemen, start your engines!" at the start of a race.

Which Octogenarian do you hate more?

Steinbrenner or Castro? After watching the Yankees add $30 million in payroll and go 8 for 9 in the last week, it is no contest.

Webb is a Reagan Democrat?

Seems laughable, especially given these arguments.

This is what I sent to the author of the post above.

Did you read the comments below the Lowell post to which you linked?

One of the posters makes the point that Webb was standing up for more money for the 600 ship Navy instead of money for "Star Wars." What looks like a better deal today? More ships that would be essentially sitting out the War on Terror like the ones we have now? Or missile defense which may prove crucial in protecting civilization from crazies like Iran and North Korea?

I especially like the charge of "swiftboating" others in the thread make against you. I guess the definition of that word is "telling the truth about someone's past military or government service at an awkward or inconvenient time in that person's election campaign."

Oh, and the charge that you are a "chickenhawk." Can you comment on why liberals are desperate to cede the making of foreign policy to those who served in the military? I am in the military now, and I work with plenty of veterans. I can assure you that if we were allowed to set foreign policy, let's just say that policy would be a lot more muscular than it is now. I suspect Lowell, the NY Times and all the posters at raisingkaine would get the vapors to even contemplate what is openly discussed around here.

Why must sports writers infuse their stuff with liberal claptrap?

I read Uniwatchblog because I am fascinated by sports uniforms, and this guy knows his stuff. Reading his columns on ESPN and in his blog, has been a pleasure. I was jarred out of my reverie by the first few lines of this.

In reply, I wrote this: I know you were just trying to get in a cheap political shot when you wrote: "If Congress really wants to protect the American flag, they should stop promoting bogus Constitutional amendments that circumvent the Bill of Rights and instead turn their attention to Major League Baseball."

However, I would suggest you actually read the proposed amendment before you once again opine:

"The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."

If you truly want Congress to "turn its attention to Major League Baseball" to address the disrespectful display of the flag, I submit that the necessary prerequisite to the "attention" you seek is for Congress to pass the amendment which would allow them to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag that John Patterson's sideburn delivered. Only upon passage and ratification of the amendment would Congress have the power you want them to have to prevent such things.

But I know you are convinced that the rights in the 1st ten amendments are imperiled by this proposed flag amendment so tell us, which ones, and how? Will passing the flag amendment allow quartering of troops at Phil Knight's house in circumvention of the 3rd amendment? Or allow Anna Benson's guns to be seized in circumvention of the 2nd amendment? Or is passing the amendment, ironically, exactly the attention you want from Congress?

Lest you think this is all negative, I do enjoy your sartorial commentary; keep up the good work!

The superiority of baseball

Runs are the most important event in a baseball game. Teams need runs to be competitive, and they need at least one more run than their opponent in order to get the victory. However, given the crucial importance of runs in a game, it is interesting to me that the focus of fans in the stadium of a baseball game, and even the focus of the players on the field is away from the actual scoring of the runs. Instead, everyone focuses on the play that is happening hundreds of feet away from the actual scoring. For example, there is a tense 3-3 ballgame, top of the ninth inning, runner on third base. The batter works a 2 ball 2 strike count and hits a line drive into the gap. Huge cheers erupt as the fans watch the ball fly towards the wall and gets down for a double that drives in the run. No one actually watches the runner score (except the home plate umpire), but everyone in the stands cheers wildly because they know the runner will score, without actually seeing the score happen.

This is exactly the opposite of every other sport, where the entire focus of the spectators, and everyone playing is on the score itself. The quarterback in a football game slings a ball to the receiver in the end zone for the score, and everyone is watching the receiver. In a basketball game, everyone watches as the ball swishes through the hoop. Hockey fans look at the puck going into the net. Tennis observers watch to see whether the ball will hit the line.

Of course, sometimes, there is a play at the plate, with the determination of whether the runner will score in doubt. However, this is a comparatively rare occurrence, compared to the vast bulk of scoring that is done without anyone noting. Yet another reason why baseball is unique, and therefore, superior to all other pastimes on earth.

Mao’s Mandate of Heaven and the Dynastic Cycle

Chinese history in general and Chinese military history specifically has been characterized by certain trends that continue to this day. Those who would be emperors contested to receive the “Mandate of Heaven.”1 “Now this Mandate is not equivalent to fate or destiny, it is more of an imperative. Humans are free to rule unjustly, they are free to harm the people they rule over; their rule, however, will come to a swift end as Heaven passes on its mandate to another family. It is made evident by the fortunes of war.”2 Once success in battle had confirmed that the victor has received the Mandate, he moved to consolidate and extend his power. Inevitably, those who accepted the mandate of heaven to legitimize their power must have also been willing to accept its transient nature.

Those who have power and use it to establish a dynasty, will eventually lose this power. Sometimes over just a short period of time, and sometimes after centuries have passed, dynasties have found that Heaven gives and Heaven takes away.

“Mandate of Heaven” often turned on various factors that included: bad harvests, natural disasters, fortunate happenstance in combat, poor governance, corruption by the ruling elite or any other number of factors. So often, natural catastrophes mark the downfall of dynasties because those with the “Mandate of Heaven” were expected to look after the well-being of the people. Natural disasters, for which there were inadequate preparations, caused suffering and eroded the legitimacy of the dynasty in power. In fact, it had become something of a self fulfilling prophesy. “When Chinese statesmen thought they discerned the classic symptoms of dynastic decline, they qualified the support they gave to the ruling house and this contributed to its ultimate collapse.” Even though the “Mandate of Heaven” may be explained away as a psychological phenomenon, for many Chinese, the “Mandate of Heaven” is still a reality.

Informed by the idea of the “Mandate of Heaven,” it can be argued that the Chinese Communists have become something of a dynasty with Mao Tse Tung being the father of the dynastic line. Mao himself explicitly endorsed at least the ascendant part of the Mandate: “China will certainly go over to socialism in the future; that is an irresistible law.”3 But Mao had more than just the desire to bring socialism to the people, he also had heroic visions of himself. In 1936, Mao wrote a poem in which he gave the world a preview of his self assessment as the hero of China, above all others in history:

What a beauty this mountain and river,
Enticing countless heroes to vie and toil.
Regrettably, Emperor Qin Shihuang and Emperor Han Wudi were
deficient in literary taste.
Emperor Tang Taizong and Emperor Song Taizu lacked
romanticism.
Pride of an era, Genghis Khan, was only good at shooting
vultures with his bow.
They are all bygones.
Only today is one in the presence of the true hero.4

The Chinese people and the Chinese Communists accepted Mao’s view of history because it was so deeply rooted in their Confucian consciousness. “The eschatology is never seriously questioned, because to the Chinese Communist Party, it is the inevitable result of history.”5 Steven Mosher was even more explicit when he described China’s perception of its destiny: “The leader of the Chinese Communist Party believed that China’s historical greatness, no less than Communism’s universalism, demanded the reconstruction of the Qing empire that had collapsed nearly 40 years before. Lost territories must be recaptured, straying vassals must be recovered, and one-time tributary states must once again be forced to follow Beijing’s lead. Military action-engaging the Japanese invaders, defeating the Nationalists, and capturing the cities—had delivered China into his hands. Now military action would restore the empire.”6

A way to end the cycle of the “Mandate of Heaven” would be to give the people a say in their leadership. Since the “Mandate of Heaven” has been dependent on the emperor ruling in such a way that the welfare of the people is the leader’s primary concern, then the form of government which gives ultimate say to the people would be the culmination of the political theory. The Nationalists learned this lesson while on Taiwan and were able to change rulers without slaughtering the preceding government. Mao had different ideas.

Mao’s certainty was that socialism would be the answer to ensure the permanence of his dynasty, but Mao-style socialism has been repudiated by the current Chinese leadership in pursuit of a different, more successful style of authoritarianism. Clearly, Mao’s vision was not the right answer, and so far, given the internal strife in China, the Hu Jian Tao-style of rule is not the answer either. It is an open question if China itself will learn the lesson that Taiwan’s leaders have learned.

Once Mao assumed power, he implemented actions similar to those that other dynastic emperors attempted in order to retain power. Generally, emperors attempted to extend their control and power through technological advancement, internal improvements, internal repression, and military adventurism. These strategies, singularly, or in some combination, were the broad policy goals of Chinese emperors throughout history. Mao’s successors may have given up on Mao’s peculiar brand of socialism but they continue to pursue his traditional dynastic policies today.
The first instinct of those who founded new dynasties has been to extend and solidify power. Since no dynasty gave up power to its successor willingly, emperors found it imperative to devise the means to defend their rule. Emperors had to raise armies and assert their authority in all regions. There was no political mechanism for redress of grievances, and no way to dislodge an incompetent or unjust ruler. A challenger to the throne who would rule China in the place of the emperor ultimately had only one choice, to drive the ruling emperor from power by force. Dynasties succumbed to challengers who arose from within their own disaffected military force or from outside invaders.

All Chinese dynasties shared the same fate, if not the same path to that fate. At some point, and for some reason, the reign of the dynasty in power ended. One of two conditions prevailed after the fall of the previous dynasty, either chaos, or a new dynasty. If what succeeded the dynasty was chaos, eventually a strong regional power would assume power and attempt to exert his will on the rest of China. If a new dynasty followed quickly on the fall of the previous dynasty, that new emperor likewise sought to assert his rule.

Once he had power, the new emperor sought to entrench his political power by expanding the military into all geographic areas and into all aspects of life. The classic example of this was the Ming Dynasty. The Ming used force to pacify regions in or near China and then install a compliant chieftain who would keep the peace, but remain loyal to the central dynasty. Eventually, if the region remained quiescent, the Ming would send a non-military bureaucrat to administer the area to ensure that taxes flowed. The Ming insisted that bureaucrats used the Manchu language for official business, but were not as concerned that the local inhabitants learn a common language. In fact, the Manchus learned that they could pit one region against another if necessary to keep either or both from becoming a power to rival the central Manchu authority.

Mao Tse Tung emulated the Manchu. What Mao was perhaps most astute in learning was the necessity to rule China ruthlessly in order to stay in power. Mao, in an address in Hankou set out his famous formulation about the genesis of political influence: “From now on, we should pay the greatest attention to military affairs. We must know that political power is obtained out of the barrel of a gun.”7 Mao’s epigram about political power being dependent on military prowess recognized a central pillar of all Chinese dynasties. “Military organization and mobilization, conceptualizations of who was friend and ally, which sections of the population were assigned military tasks, and the position of the military in the larger bureaucratic framework helped define the Chinese world. Warding off foreign predators, mounting military expeditions and suppressing domestic challengers were regular activities of all dynasties.”8

The impulse to extend the army to all facets of life indicated the dynastic emperors’ belief that the only way to serve the people, to justify the “Mandate of Heaven,” was to control and dominate the actions of the people. Mao believed this and his successors shared this belief. Li Ximing, of the Beijing Party Committee exhorted the troops preparing to enforce the will of the Communist leadership by massacring unarmed students in Tiananmen Square by saying: “You came to the capital to enforce martial law. You have contributed greatly to security and order in the capital and to stabilization of the entire country. You are undertaking a sacred mission, and history will record your achievements.”9

Mao also learned that in order for his dynasty to retain power and continue into the future, he personally had to put into place all the mechanisms of power that successful emperors since the Sui Dynasty had adopted. Mao’s problems and those of his successors were not so different from “...those of the traditional emperors. He has to make sure that the second in command will not amass too much power, that his bureaucrats are compliant and do not abuse their powers outrageously, and that local officials will not become too independent.”10 Mao constructed a system, like those of the emperors who preceded him, that allowed him to retain ultimate power. “In the PRC political system, all powers are concentrated in the hands of the paramount leader. Every secondary leader is in charge of a limited range of affairs, and ultimately responsible directly to the paramount leader alone.”11

Mao exercised similar control over his military, in order to prevent any regional commander from gaining power and threatening the dynasty. One measure he adopted was to order rotation, in 1973, among eight of his eleven regional commanders to prevent any from establishing a personal power base.12 Even 24 years into his rule, Mao still demonstrated the need to undermine subordinates who might build a base of power from which to challenge him.

Some dynasties attempted to better the lot of their people through technological advancement. According to the ancient texts, technological advancement was a requirement for good government. The Da Yu Mo which dates from sometime around 100BC, stated that: “The morality and ability of a king are shown through the excellent governance of the country. The excellent governance must improve the living of the people. Improvement of the living of people must develop the technology of handicrafts related to water, metal, wood, soil, and crop. (These are a summary of important handicrafts.)”13 Da Yu, the first emperor, came to power because of his devotion to technological advancement. “A famous example is Da Yu, who was a specialist of water conservancy and was successful in controlling very big floods in his time. He had a crucial influence on the country. Then he won popular support and became the first king of the first dynasty of China.”14 The Sui Dynasty was notable among these dynasties interested in extending technology as they were the first to construct a canal of sufficient length and depth to transport goods and personnel between regions.

The development of technology in China went along in concert with the development of agriculture and military prowess. According to Confucian tenets, there was no other reason to develop technology than to make fields more fertile and improve the military to take better care of the people. Thus, there is consonance between the “Mandate of Heaven,” and the Confucian belief system that permeated China. “So, dynasty after dynasty, emperors after emperors paid great heed to the farms of Chinese countryside, giving incentives to agriculture productions and calculating the estimates of each year’s agricultural taxes, building great canals for farmland, building dams to prevent flood, and building Great Wall to protect the interior farmlands. Yet because nothing but food, military, and confidence of the people were on the menu of the government, as quoted by the Master Confucius, everything else was considered as corruptly decadent.”15 Dynasties pursued technological advancement out of a number of desires including the desire to feed and protect the people, to preserve the Mandate of Heaven, and to fulfill the Confucian mandate.

The primary example of a dynasty pursuing improvements in military technology was the Yongle dynasty. After assuming power by defeating Jianwen, Zhu Di ordered a major expansion in shipbuilding and overseas engagement. The proximate reason for the expansion was to construct a fleet of vessels large enough and powerful enough to chase down the contestant to the throne who was thought to have fled overseas. Zhu Di himself had hit upon the idea of sending a fleet to find and destroy Jianwen. However, Zhu Di was astute enough to discern the connection between the advancement of naval technology, trade, and the relative prosperity of the coastal cities. Zhu Di envisioned that his magnificent fleet would by its presence and grandness convince other regional potentates of his legitimacy and power. “Certainly the magnificence of the so-called treasure fleet seemed to have been designed to convince any foreign ruler who might be harboring the deposed emperor just who the rightful occupant of the dragon throne was. And it probably wasn’t far the emperor’s mind that the imperial treasury, depleted by a long civil war, was in need of replenishment by foreign trade.”16 The advancement of technology, in this case, naval technology, had three goals: the first was to enrich the treasury; the second, to extending political power in the region; and the third was to better the lot of the people. Meeting these goals confirmed the dynasty’s “Mandate of Heaven,” which was something particularly important to an emperor newly ascended to the throne.

Just as Zhu Yi sought to improve his technology and benefit his rule and his people, so too did Mao. While Zhu Yi ordered the building of a navy which produced the concomitant effects of technological advancement and economic benefit, Mao pursued two separate tracks. Mao sought agricultural reform while at the same time attempting to acquire the technology for nuclear weapons. Domestically, Mao attempted to better the lives of his people by providing them adequate food and an economy that would provide for their necessities. He called his personal plan to ensure the betterment of the Chinese people the “Great Leap Forward.” Mao decreed that his plan be implemented and pushed upon the people against the tepid protests of his top advisors. By ignoring 600 years of history, during which time the farmers of China had by and large been able to feed the people of China, Mao, without anyone to contradict him, set about to improve China’s agriculture and economics based on his own vision of agriculture and technology.

Mao personally rallied the people of China to enact the tenets of the plan. Those who did not accept the plan willingly were forced to accept the Great Leap Forward regardless of their reservations, on pain of death. “During 1957 and 1958 Mao Zedong was seized by a vision that economic development in China could proceed rapidly in leaps and bounds by relying on improvisation and mass spontaneity, rather than moderately by the planned and gradual way pursued during the First Five Year Plan (1FYP, 1953-7). Mao singlehandedly initiated the Great Leap Forward (GLP), pushing his views relentlessly, and his changing ideas and preferences shaped the momentous events of 1958 to 1960.”17

Given the decision making process, or lack of it, that went into the implementation of the Great Leap Forward, Mao acted as the emperor of his own dynasty. He had solidified his power, made all subordinates report directly to him, and began to enact his own ideas. He personally conceived and implemented the Great Leap Forward. Mao’s Great Leap Forward herded China’s peasants onto collective farms founded on land seized from land-owners. All members of the farm collectively held the materials of production as well as the farm and draft animals. To facilitate steel production, Mao directed that every backyard have a steel-making furnace.
Stalin’s experience with a similar policy that had proved so disastrous might have given Mao pause, had he seriously considered the example. However, Mao had a vision and had the “Mandate of Heaven” to make the right decisions for the people. The collective farms Mao implemented resulted in a decrease in economic production as people slaughtered plow animals rather than allow them to be collectivized without recompense. The backyard furnaces produced metal of little economic value, yet used up precious and dwindling supplies of fuel required to fire the furnaces. Unfortunately, for many in China, the decisions made by Mao were ruinous. Chan’s reference to the momentous events referred to the millions who died to fulfill Mao’s dynastic vision.

Many new emperors, once they had seized the “Mandate of Heaven,” immediately sought to extend or strengthen their hold on power by launching attacks against rivals internal or external to China. Khublai Khan, when he finally seized and held power in the north of China, turned his attention to his rivals, the Song, in the south of China. After defeating the Song, Khublai Khan decided to extend his influence outside of China by invading Japan. Khublai Khan incorporated Song naval technology into his fleet that he used twice in unsuccessful attempts to invade and conquer Japan.

Mao’s foreign policy was similar to that of Khublai Khan. Mao moved rapidly to consolidate his internal power by mopping up and destroying remnants of the Nationalist Army and repressing internal non-Chinese populations, notably the Tibetans, who resisted his rule. He threw his forces into combat against the Americans on the Korean peninsula to keep the US Army from marching into Manchuria. Once Mao was secure internally, and relatively free of external threats, Mao began to menace his neighbors. He fought border engagements against the Soviet Union and India and learned something vital about his conventional forces and his ability to project power. Mao discovered that overwhelming conventional force was effective in regional confrontations, but would not be worth much in projecting power. While Mao was initially ambivalent about nuclear weapons, he changed his assessment once it occurred to him that he could not have hegemony in Asia unless he pursued the powerful new weapons technology represented by nuclear weapons.

With conventional forces, Mao enjoyed initial success when he made the decision in 1950 to send his armies across the Yalu River into North Korea to confront the Americans. American forces had flanked the North Koreans at Inchon which relieved the pressure Kim was exerting on the combined forces inside the Pusan perimeter. The rapidity with which the Americans had erased the North Korean’s advantage and had rolled up the North Korean forces shocked and alarmed Mao. Rather than allow another conquering imperial power to march through Manchuria, he committed hundreds of thousands of troops to counter the Americans. Although successful in driving the US back to the status quo ante, the cost in troops and materiel was high. Nonetheless, Mao saw his confrontation with the US as a victory in that he was able to defeat or at least fight the technologically superior Americans to a stalemate.

Mao and the Chinese brought this confidence born of military success into the confrontation with the Indians along their shared border in the Himalayas. When negotiations to demarcate the border and regarding Indian support for the Dalai Lama broke down, China decided to attack India. “This operation was ostensibly designed to teach India a lesson for her perceived support to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan resistance. The border dispute was a pretext conveniently exploited by the Chinese to launch a swift and sudden invasion (that caught the Indians totally by surprise), inflict a humiliating local defeat and then stage a magnanimous unilateral withdrawal that was designed to underline the impotence of the victim nation.”18 Mao wanted the Indians, and by extension, the rest of China’s neighbors, to recognize China as the primary power in Asia.

Mao wanted to demonstrate in Asia that China’s concerns and interests must be accommodated lest China’s neighbors be forced to face a humiliating invasion at the hands of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

During the period when the PLA was teaching India a lesson with conventional forces, China was also attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. Mao made many dismissive and bizarre statements about nuclear weapons during the 50’s, ostensibly to make it seem as though China was not interested in atomic weapons. Mao expressed the view that even if nuclear bombs were used on China, it would “hardly mean anything to the universe as a whole, although it might be major event for the solar system.” On another occasion, he dismissed nuclear weapons as nothing but a “paper tiger.”19 However, it turned out that these statements by Mao were intended to deceive and misdirect the enemy, just as Sun Tzu, generations previously, had advised commanders to do.

Ultimately, China acquired the needed nuclear weapons. “Chinese leaders have long been acutely aware of the geopolitical importance of nuclear weapons and China’s vulnerability to nuclear threats. As a result, China launched a nuclear weapons program in January 1955. The initial Chinese program relied heavily on Soviet technical assistance, the Soviet Union ultimately reneged on a secret agreement to provide China with design information and a sample atomic bomb. As a result, China was forced to rely on its own scientific capabilities and technological infrastructure. These efforts ultimately produced a successful test of a highly enriched uranium fission bomb in October 1964 and a hydrogen bomb in June 1967.”20

In the years after the test of China’s first nuclear weapon, Deng Xiao Ping, one of Mao’s remain cohort from the victory over the Nationalists, started a war against another of China’s neighbors. In 1979, the People’s Liberation Army massed troops on the border of Vietnam, in response to Vietnam’s leadership’s threatened invasion of the Chinese client, Cambodia. Unable to offer logistical assistance or troops to Cambodia, Deng ordered the PLA to invade Vietnam to relieve the pressure on the Cambodia border. Bakshi argued that China’s invasion of Vietnam was another instance of China’s limited war/teach a lesson doctrine promulgated by Mao during the Sino-Indian Crisis of 1962.21 While Bakshi is correct in this assessment, the difference in the Vietnam conflict from the Indian invasion was that China did not actually win as convincing a victory as they had earlier. It was not even clear that China won any victory at all. The PLA did manage to advance into the Vietnamese border region but in the course of the invasion, the PLA suffered high losses and then withdrew, without appreciably altering the strategic balance in Southeast Asia. Vietnam did not learn the lesson that China wanted to teach about regional hegemony, but there are other lessons to learn from China’s adventure.

The first of the lessons that can be gleaned from the Sino-Vietnam conflict of 1979 is the fallacy of the “teach a lesson” doctrine. “Teach a lesson” only works when the country “learning” the lesson agrees to the education. In 1962, India agreed that they had been taught a lesson; in 1979, Vietnam did not. A more recent, non-Chinese example, emphasized this point. In 2001, al Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States, killing more than 3000 civilians, knocking down the World Trade Towers, and seriously disrupting the US economy. This was a classic “teach a lesson” operation, since there was no attempt to hold territory or capture anything other than the initiative. This mission ultimately proved to be a failure, in that the US in response launched a disproportionate attack on terrorist strongholds around the world that disrupted operations and killed many in the senior leadership. Whatever lesson the aggressor wanted to teach was lost in the response by the victim.

The second lesson is that this invasion of Vietnam, in 1979, was the last time Chinese troops conducted a “live” operation against anyone except unarmed students. Additionally, the Sino-Vietnam War was 17 years after the PLA’s last major engagement. The Sino-Vietnam conflict exposed serious gaps in PLA readiness, logistics and coordination, especially when compared to the experienced Vietnam Army. The time between the Vietnam conflict, and whatever the Chinese Communist leadership has planned is thirty-seven years and counting. Essentially, the PLA has had one engagement lasting approximately one month in the last 44 years. That is a long time for an expeditionary army to go without action and still expect to victorious. The various types of missions that the PLA might be called on to perform in the near future such as: a limited cross-border conflict, a large scale amphibious raid, or a division or larger sized para-drop synchronized with a missile strike, all require officers with a great deal of skill. This skill has not been evident of late. “American sailors are constantly exposed to examples of the poor training and leadership in the Chinese navy, whenever they encounter Chinese warships at sea. Foreigners living in China, and speaking Chinese, can pick up lots of anecdotes about the ineptitude and corruption found in the military. It's all rather taken for granted. But in wartime, this sort of thing would mean enormous problems for the troops, when they attempted to fight.”22 Given the inherent difficulties in such operations listed above and the lack of experience in their officer corps and the lack of veteran troops, it is not surprising that, of late, the PLA has been more adept at rattling its sabers than using them.

Given the long gap in time between operations, there is one final lesson to be gleaned from the China’s last war. The dynasty of the Chinese Communists established by Mao, is laboring under the same constraints that have afflicted Communist regimes since the Bolsheviks defeated the Czar in 1917. Communist dictatorships found it necessary to decentralize war-making ability while centralizing power. Therefore, only the founder of the Communist dictatorship, or one of his original cohorts, can single-handedly initiate a cross border war. Subsequent generations of Communists have been thwarted in their ambitions to expand their power externally for two reasons. First, they lack the unquestioned authority that stemmed from the dynamic personality of the main revolutionary. Without the authority of a single emperor, the highest levels of leadership must make decisions as a group.

The communal decision-making structure that inevitably arose to fill the void left upon the demise of the founder of the revolution prevents precipitous action. Succeeding generations of Communists found it necessary to work collectively since no one individual in the ruling politburo has been able to exert as much authority as could the founder of the Communist dynasty. Anyone who has been on a committee of any sort knows how hard it is to collectively decide to take decisive action. The high stakes involved for the Communist Chinese ruling politburo in committing the PLA to a war it might lose, make taking decisive action even more problematic. The dynamics of collective decision-making and the high stakes have made it impossible for second and third generation Communist dynasties to take the decision to prosecute cross-border war. It is unlikely that China, given the lack of experience of its armed forces and its decision making structure, will be the first to break this trend.

Chinese dynasties, of which Mao’s China is the most recent, acquire the “Mandate of Heaven” to legitimate its rule. Along with the Mandate comes the responsibility to protect the people from natural and man-made threats. When the dynasty fails in this responsibility, the “Mandate of Heaven” will be withdrawn, and the regime will fall. This has been the pattern throughout Chinese history, and given the way in which Mao acquired power and the way he and his successors have ruled, the dynastic cycle will continue to turn.

NOTES
1 Richard Hooker, “T’ien Ming: The Mandate of Heaven.” (accessed 11 May 2006); available from http://wsu.edu/~dee/GLOSSARY/TIENMING.HTM; Internet.
2 David Graff, Military History of China. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002), 41.
3 Mao Tse Tung, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung. (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), 243.
4 Fu Zhengyuan, Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 187.
5 Alan R Kluver, Legitimating the Chinese Economic Reforms: A Rhetoric of Myth and Orthodoxy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 31.
6 Steven W. Mosher, “Does the PRC Have a Grand Strategy of Hegemony?” [testimony presented to the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations] (Washington: US House of Representatives, 14 Feb 2006, accessed 12 May 2006); available from http://wwwa.house.gov/international_relations/109/mos021406.pdf; Internet.
7 Phillip Short, Mao: A Life. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999), 203.
8 Hans Van De Hen, Warfare in Chinese History. (London: Brill, 2000), 11.
9 Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, Tiananmen Papers: The Chinese Leadership’s Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People – In Their Own Words. (New York: Public Affairs Books, 2002), 302.
10 Fu, Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics, 217.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., 250.
13 Alan K.L. Chan, Perspectives on East Asia Science, Technology, and Medicine. (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003), 53.
14 Ibid., 55.
15 Chen Gu, In Search of the New Way. (College Station, TX: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, 2003), 36.
16 Louise Levathes, When China Ruled the Seas. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 74.
17 Alfred L Chan, Mao’s Crusade: Politics and Policy Implementation in China’s Great Leap Forward. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3.
18 G. D. Bakshi, “The Sino-Vietnam War-1979: Case Study in Limited Wars,” Indian Defence Review, Vol 14 (July-September 2000, accessed 13 May 06); available from http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/MONITOR/ISSUE3-3/bakshi.html; Internet.
19 Chen Jian, Mao’s China and the Cold War. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 190.
20 Alexander Millar, Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Emergent Threats in an Evolving Security Environment. (Dulles, VA: Brassey’s, 2003), 117.
21 Bakshi, “The Sino-Vietnam War-1979: Case Study in Limited Wars,” Internet.
22 Jim Dunnigan, “Illusion of Military Power.” Strategy Page, November 8, 2005; available from http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/china/articles/20051108.aspx; Internet; accessed 14 May 2006.

Laura and me

Listening to your visceral reaction to Ann Coulter, and your stumbling, "I think they are good people, even though they are liberal; can't we all get along" response to her reinforces an opinion about you that has been nagging at me for years.

I think that you are playing us.

You pretend to have these conservative views, but then you pal around with all these liberals, and tell them not to get too upset by the things you say, since you are just bilking the rubes on a lark. Yet, when confronted by the views of a real conservative, you blanch and stumble around, refuse to engage her arguments, and appeal to feelings. Just like the liberal I suspect you are.

I like you Laura, but I am tired of being played.

Her staff’s response to me:
1. Laura put her neck on the line as an 18 yr old college student at Dartmouth when she edited The Dartmouth Review, got sued by liberal professors for millions of dollars (eventually won).
2. Speechwriter in the Reagan White House.
3. Clerked for Clarence Thomas.
4. Launched the first conservative cable show EVER on MSNBC
5. Launched the first and biggest female hosted conservative radio talk show in the country.
6. Wrote The Hillary Trap, exposing Hillary's ABSURD political views.
7. Wrote the NYT bestseller Shut Up & Sing--telling the idiot elite left to shut up or put up (evidence that their ideas work).
8. Has called out Kristin Breitweiser ON HER POLITICAL INANITY for three years--without calling her a "harpie" or saying she would "be upset if her
husband came back."
9. Travelled to Iraq to support our troops and tell their stories six months after chemo, and right after Bob Woodruff was blown up there, with his same unit.
10. Yeah, she's a total sell-out.
11. Ann Coulter has a role. Laura has a role -- and demonstrates it every single day for 3 hrs a day to millions of listeners. There is room in the world for both.

My response:
A resume isn't an argument, and where you see bona fides, others see shrewd positioning. When 99% of your fellow journalists and DJs are liberal knuckleheads, the smart "conservative" will stand out and get the gigs. Ask John Stossel about that.

Here is one you can ask her to comment on; where does she stand on gay marriage? I suspect that is one issue a genuine conservative would be happy to opine about but which about which she would have a hard time concealing her real feelings.

Since I did not say "sell out," yet you put it in quotes in response #10 tells me you are hearing this point of view from many others. Whether she is conservative or not is ultimately not that important, rather, it matters how she is perceived by those who listen, and whether we will buy the things she endorses. I for one, don't and won't.

Have a nice weekend

Bonds, Grimsley, the Clueless Press and the Feds

Jason Grimsley, a pitcher for a number of teams for 16 years in the major leagues, got caught up in a Federal investigation that reaches into money laundering, wire fraud, abuse of the mails, and drug trafficking all related to baseball players using steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). I have a couple of observations:

How lame is the media that sends numerous reporters to every game that is played in major league baseball, who live with and travel with the players they cover, and yet did not have an inkling that illicit drug use was so pervasive in clubhouses that there were coffee makers labeled “Leaded” for the ones that contained amphetamines? Or were these reporters so complicit with illegality in the clubhouse that they deliberately did not report what they knew, for whatever reason?

Barry Bonds should be very afraid. According to the affidavit that the lead investigator on this case (who, not incidentally, is an IRS Agent) Grimsley attracted the attention of investigators when they developed information that he was going to receive HGH in the mail from a supplier. The investigator received a warrant to search Grimsley’s home on the theory that he possesses illegal drugs, has distributed illegal drugs to other players for profit, and then laundered the money. The Feds attempted to get Grimsley to collect evidence against Barry Bonds in exchange for leniency, and when he would not cooperate in that effort, they publicly exposed him. The reason Bonds should be afraid is that this entire task force of DEA, FBI, IRS, Customs, Postal Inspectors and US Attorneys are looking to make a case against Bonds and are strong arming associates of his to do it. I would say he is in deep kimchi. To Bonds illustrious titles of “wife beater” and “bad sport,” we can add “tax cheat,” “drug user” and “fraud.”

And yet, even with all these Federal law enforcement agencies, all over the US, looking into one person, who is also watched every day by scores of credentialed media, we read not a word of suspicion or analysis in any newspaper or on any sports show about what might be forthcoming. It is as if the paying news consumer would not be interested to know that virtually everyone playing baseball, including the “best player in this generation” is juiced up. Unless someone hands a press release to one of these high paid, clueless windbags in the media describing the location of his own ass with an included map, he would not be able to find it even with both hands.

Sports journalism is a disgrace. Barry Bonds is a disgrace. Baseball needs to clean house, and soon.

Party Control of the Chinese Military

The Chinese Communists recognized that they had, and still have, the same problem that bedeviled dynastic leaders throughout Chinese history. That problem is how to maintain sufficiently strong forces in all regions of the country yet maintain centralized control to prevent any one army from becoming so strong as to challenge central rule.

The solution has been to inculcate the entire army with the notion that the army does not serve the state, but rather, serves the interests of the Communist Party. Mao himself wrote that “Our principle is that the party controls the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to control the party." Guided by this principle, the officers of the Army were selected by the Communist Party more for their commitment to the party than for their military acumen. Additionally, Mao and the Communist Party assembled a parallel organization of military commissars who reported directly to the party and who ensured that the officers and men maintained their allegiance to the party. This system produced the results Mao wanted, but not because of the wisdom of the structure. Rather, Mao and his leadership cohort had a high level of mutual trust and commitment that recognized the supremacy of the Communist party. As this senior level of leadership began dying off, the men who replaced them did not share the experiences and outlook that would allow Mao’s system to perpetuate.

In recent years, the military has become more assertive in pursuit of its own prerogatives. As the military has become less fettered by the dictates of the party and has become more professional, the military has developed domestic and foreign policies independent of those desired by the CCP. Additionally, the regional groupings of the PLA have developed their own policies, with some regions developing in ways that make them more amenable to central control, and others, less so.

In 1989, the locally garrisoned troops of the 38th Army Group commander was relieved because his troops lacked the stomach to fire on their fellow Beijing ren. The Chinese Communist Party called up the 27th Army Group, a more reliable army, with roots that went back the 8th Route Army, filled out with provincial troops who spoke a dialect of Mandarin almost unintelligible by the Beijing residents in Tiananmen Square. In simple terms, the 38th was loyal to the nation, the 27th was loyal to the party.


There was a much touted initiative promulgated by Jiang
Zemin in 1998 that the PLA was to divest itself of all businesses and return to the barracks. There is doubt whether the Army has actually taken this step. The fact that the Army was so heavily involved in business ventures, and may still be, albeit in a camouflaged fashion, has implications for the party’s control. The party’s inability to force the Army to divest its business holdings is further evidence that the Army does not necessarily take orders from the party, and retains its advantage of firepower. It seems that the Mao’s principle of party control of the military may be in the process of inverting.

Marriage Amendment

An argument against the Marriage Amendment at the Volokh Conspiracy and my response:

There are four main arguments against the FMA. First, a constitutional amendment is unnecessary because federal and state laws, combined with the present state of the relevant constitutional doctrines, already make court-ordered nationwide same-sex marriage unlikely for the foreseeable future. An amendment banning same-sex marriage is a solution in search of a problem.

Is it possible to couch this “argument” in any more weasel words? Present state of relevant Constitutional doctrines make same sex marriage unlikely for foreseeable future. Forgive me if I don’t think these hollow assurances/blatherings from some law professor will keep a future supreme court from finding the penumumbras of emanations in the constitution mandating all states accept “gay marriage.”

Second, a constitutional amendment defining marriage would be a radical intrusion on the nation's founding commitment to federalism in an area traditionally reserved for state regulation, family law. There has been no showing that federalism has been unworkable in the area of family law.

Except that it isn’t, as Steve T pointed out with regard Utah’s statehood.

Third, a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage would be an unprecedented form of amendment, cutting short an ongoing national debate over what privileges and benefits, if any, ought to be conferred on same-sex couples and preventing democratic processes from recognizing more individual rights.

Going through the process of amending the constitution to preserve the unique status and importance of marriage to our nation and society is undemocratic? This “argument” is nonsensical.

Fourth, the amendment as proposed is constitutional overkill that reaches well beyond the stated concerns of its proponents, foreclosing not just courts but also state legislatures from recognizing same-sex marriages and perhaps other forms of legal support for same-sex relationships. Whatever one thinks of same-sex marriage as a matter of policy, no person who cares about our Constitution and public policy should support this unnecessary, radical, unprecedented, and overly broad departure from the nation's traditions and history.

This argument is the same as the first one, in that it assumes that future courts won’t do with gay marriage what Berger et al did with abortion. The only thing that will prevent gay marriage in the US is to write a prohibition to it in the constitution in unambiguous language. Arguing otherwise shows cluelessness or disingenuousness about jurisprudence in America in 2006.

Make no mistake, given current legal scholarship and supreme court interpretations, supporters of marriage have lost this debate. There is no legal justification not to call a contract between two men a marriage. You can be sure, in our lifetimes, this will come to pass. Unless we enact a constitutional amendment to remove marriage from interpretation by the courts, gays will be allowed to “get married” and enjoy the benefits that society has heretofore conferred on married couples. Absent this amendment, in twenty years, when we have a culture replete with gay marriage, polygamy, group marriages, and men marrying their grandsons to control inheritance, we will wonder how we got to this point. Or, more tragically, we won’t ask any questions at all, accepting those contracts as normal, and instead, wonder why society has gone to hell.