Latest / UK Column Radio / Jerm in China with Carl Zha (Part 3)

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Jerm in China with Carl Zha (Part 3) · UK Column Radio

0:34
None. It is morning time in Kashkar.
1:06
Yes, it's in fact 1134. Beijing time in Qashqar, which
1:12
it means. It's.
1:14
Not 34. Yeah, it's about.
1:16
No, it's it's about 8:34. OK, it's because Qashqar.
1:20
Ulunchi is about two hours behind Beijing time.
1:22
Qashqar is more West so we're like 3 hours behind Beijing
1:26
time. I know you've explained this.
1:27
Yeah, but do it again. Why?
1:30
So, so China. Runs one time zone on the
1:33
Beijing time. This is in order for the train
1:36
schedule to remain consistent throughout the country.
1:39
But we are right now in the city of Kashgar, which is
1:43
geographically closer to Baghdad than it is to Beijing.
1:48
So we're like almost three time zones removed.
1:51
So, so if it's 1135 in Beijing and it's really only 835 here
1:58
because the sun just came up and it's very nice.
2:01
It's very complicated, Yeah, very.
2:03
Because whenever you, whenever you ask anybody anything to do
2:06
with the time, you have to double check.
2:08
Is it Beijing time? In Xinjiang, yes, Yes.
2:12
If you're in Xinjiang, you just yeah, yeah.
2:15
But we'll just keep it consistent.
2:17
Beijing time 1, China one. This is 1 China policy, one time
2:21
zone. It's it's Chinese time with
2:23
socialist characteristics. Yes, yes.
2:28
We are in Kashkar and there is a statue of Chairman Mao that's
2:35
here, which you said has significance.
2:37
But not just that, today it's also quite an important day.
2:40
Today is a national day in China which celebrates the founding of
2:45
the People's Republic of China on October 1st, 1949, when
2:49
Chairman Mao ascended the Tiananmen Gate and announced
2:57
Chinese people have stood up. The People's Republic of China
3:02
is now formally founded. So now we're in year 2025.
3:06
So it's been what, like 70? Shit, I have to do math. 70
3:16
years this week since Xinjiang became autonomous.
3:20
It's 70, yeah. So, so that that was that
3:23
happened in 1955. So we just add six years to
3:26
that. So 76.
3:28
Today is the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People's
3:31
Republic of China. You are such a terrible
3:33
stereotype of a Chinese guy. You're supposed to be good at
3:36
math. I'm trying to break the
3:37
stereotype. And why is the Mao statue
3:42
significant here? Well, actually, because Mao.
3:47
So every Chinese city used to have a lot of Mao statues, but
3:53
many of them have calmed down since the end of Cultural
3:56
Revolution. So I live in, I grew up on the
3:59
campus of Chongqing University because my dad was a lecturer at
4:03
Chongqing University. And I remember on my When I
4:07
first arrived in Chongqing University for my elementary
4:10
school, I started at my elementary school there in 1982.
4:14
There was still a giant mouse statue in the middle of the
4:17
square. But before my first year of
4:22
elementary school is over, that Mao statue got pulled on.
4:26
And so so Kashgar is one of the few Chinese cities that still
4:29
has a Mao statue. So we are going to hopefully go
4:35
and find it. But I already found it on the
4:38
map. It's it's 25 minutes walk from
4:40
here all. Right.
4:41
So it's not for us. So we can find it with these and
4:43
hopefully it's it's close enough, close enough for us to
4:46
actually get to. Yeah, it's 25 minutes walk.
4:48
No, I mean the physical statue. Oh.
4:50
Right. So I don't know.
4:52
I don't know. I've never.
4:52
Been to cash card before, so this will be an adventure for
4:56
both of us. In the old days, you should just
4:59
walk right under the the statue. But because today is National
5:04
Day and also the 70th anniversary of the founding of
5:07
the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, there might be
5:10
additional security measure. We don't know yet.
5:12
We'll find out when we get there.
5:13
So Mao is probably one of the most interesting historical
5:20
figures in the world. I mean, he's right up there
5:23
alongside Stalin and Hitler. And just like Hitler and
5:31
possibly even Stalin, there's a huge amount of misunderstanding,
5:34
particularly in the West. Often in the West, you know,
5:37
Mao, Stalin, Hitler, they often juxtapose, juxtapose together,
5:44
but they're very three very different people.
5:47
So for Mao, he, he was born in 1895, the year when China was
5:53
defeated in the first Sino Japanese war.
5:57
It was a quite shocking event at the time because you know, for
6:01
for thousands of years China was a pre eminent power in East Asia
6:06
and Japan was like the student, you know, China was Sufu, the
6:10
master. But now the, the, the, the
6:13
student have defeated the master and, and it was, it sent shock
6:17
waves through kind of the Chinese elite.
6:19
They they realise, OK, we have to do something different now.
6:23
Whatever has worked before Confucianism, all that is not
6:26
working. We have to adjust to the times.
6:30
And the time was when all different Western imperial
6:33
powers was in China jostling for power, carving up sphere of
6:38
influence and Mao. So Mao, by the time he was 18,
6:46
the Chinese revolution happened in 1911.
6:49
Did I do my math right? More or less OK, so.
6:55
Maybe he wasn't born in 1895. Maybe he was born in 1885.
7:01
But anyway I have to check issue.
7:02
With maths is a recurring theme. I went to Caltech, I graduated
7:06
from Caltech just for people. And in any case, SO1911 rolled
7:12
around, Chinese revolution happened that overthrow 1000
7:18
year old monarchy in China. The emperor is gone.
7:20
So at the time, Mao was, I believe he was 18, and he
7:24
actually joined the revolution as his province of Hunan declare
7:28
independence from the Chin Empire.
7:31
But the revolution was quickly over because at the time it
7:36
resulted in a compromise truce. What happened was the Cheney
7:40
imperial army that sent General Yuansukai to suppress the
7:43
rebellion. But Yuansukai had his own ideas,
7:46
so he negotiated. He negotiated with
7:49
revolutionaries saying OK, how about I will just make the
7:53
Cheney imper abdicate, but you have to make me the president.
7:57
So that deal was reached and Rensukai went back to Beijing
8:00
and said sorry child emperor, you have to vacate your Thrones.
8:05
And he became the 1st president of the of the Republic of China,
8:10
Mao. So at when Mao was 18 years old,
8:13
he celebrated this, as you know, this big change in China.
8:16
But very soon Mao, like many young people at the time,
8:20
realised nothing has really changed.
8:21
The Emperor is gone, but nothing else has changed much.
8:27
China remained very poor, very weak, continued to be bullied by
8:32
other foreign powers, particularly in the World War
8:36
One. So during World War One, the
8:39
ally side wanted to drag China into the war against Axis power
8:45
against Germany and Austrian Hungarian Empire.
8:50
And and the the what they wanted is not necessarily have China to
8:55
send military to Europe, but what they wanted is Chinese men
9:00
to work in the European factories.
9:02
Because at that time all the European, a lot of European men
9:04
has been sent to the front and they needed literally men to
9:08
men, the factories. And so the deal was the, the,
9:12
the, the US President Woodrow Wilson told the Chinese
9:16
government at the time, if China joins a war on the Allied side
9:20
and sends these Chinese labourers to work in Europe, we
9:23
will give you the German colony of Qingdao in China.
9:27
Because German has occupied this city in Qingdao on the East
9:31
Coast of China for, for a while now.
9:33
They say, OK, we'll give that back to you as a prize for
9:35
joining the Allied side. And so China sent up a quarter
9:39
million men to Europe to manufacturers in France.
9:44
But when the Versailles Treaty of Versailles was signed, there
9:48
was a secret deal work between the United States and the Empire
9:52
of Japan to give the German colony of Qingdao to Japan.
9:56
With that news was announced. The Chinese public felt
10:02
betrayed, right? Because up to that point, many
10:05
have looked up to United States as a model of democracy and
10:10
people wish to model the Chinese society on the United States.
10:14
And a lot of young people, especially Mao, they saw that
10:19
that they need to look for a different model of development.
10:22
And it's right around the same time October Revolution happened
10:27
in Russia. When the Tsar was killed.
10:31
Yes, so, so a lot of Chinese youth thought, OK, so Western
10:36
liberalism is not the way to go. Maybe, maybe Bushshevism, maybe
10:42
Marxism is is the other path, is the alternative path.
10:46
So in 1921 Mao and group of other people, they went to
10:52
Shanghai to met a Soviet agent from the Kami intern to
10:58
officially form the Communist Party of China.
11:02
We saw, didn't we see the headquarters or the original
11:06
headquarters in Shanghai, The. Original meeting place.
11:09
Meeting place, Yes, yes, sorry, yes.
11:11
So for people like Mao, young people in China at that time,
11:15
their primary goal was actually nationalism.
11:18
What they wanted was for China no longer to be weak.
11:21
They wanted to strengthen China and they're looking for
11:24
different ways. So so they they experiment.
11:27
At that time there was a lot of experimentation in China.
11:29
You know, people tried anarchism, you know Marxism, you
11:34
know some, some human flirted with fascism, you know
11:37
nationalism, all kind of isms. And for Mao and his comrades,
11:43
they decide to try the Marxism as a path to save China.
11:49
To. Strengthen China.
11:50
So that's that led to the founding of the Communist Party
11:53
of China in 1921 on French concession in Shanghai.
11:57
And, and where do you want to go with this?
12:01
So I'm just giving a history right now.
12:03
Yeah. But that's yeah.
12:04
Continue. That's good.
12:05
So for Mao, you know, up to this point, I think his primary.
12:10
Motivation is still nationalism, you know, for hundreds of years.
12:14
Like he wanted to basically restore.
12:18
Perhaps. Make China great again.
12:19
Yes, yes. Because because China had been
12:23
the preeminent power in East Asia for for Millennium and but
12:27
he felt a really hard time in what's called now known as the
12:31
Century of humiliation from the starting from the first open war
12:35
in 1839. And So what?
12:38
This was around the 1920s, Nineteen 30s.
12:41
Yeah, yeah. So, so, so, so 1920s is when
12:45
Mao, they formed the Communist Party of China.
12:49
And then they they receive a strong back of course from
12:52
Soviet Union. Because for for the Soviet at
12:55
that time, Soviet Union still was trying to export revolution
12:58
all over the world. And later in a couple of years
13:02
later, Soviet decided to try a different approach because at
13:06
the birth of Soviet Union, there were besieged by the Western
13:09
Power in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.
13:13
And so the Soviet government want to break their diplomatic
13:17
isolation. So what they try to do is try to
13:19
support National Liberation movement all around the world,
13:23
kind of as an anti colonial movement.
13:26
So they supported out the Turkey in Turkey, for example.
13:29
And they decide to throw their because the Communist Party of
13:32
China is really small at that time.
13:34
It's just like small cell of some young, young people like
13:37
Mao. So they supported their this
13:40
throw their support behind Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat
13:44
Sen. So Sun Yat Sen was a leader of
13:47
the Chinese revolution back in 1911 to overthrow the monarchy.
13:51
But by 1921, ten years later, he also saw nothing was working
13:57
because the government was dominated by different warlords
14:01
on the ground. Warlords ruled different regions
14:04
of China. They collect taxes.
14:06
They have their own army, they fight with each other.
14:09
And Sun Yat Sen decided to form his own party called the
14:13
Nationalist Party of China, or KMT, you know, as an English
14:17
acronym. And the Soviet advisor offered
14:20
him a deal he couldn't refuse. He said, we'll fund you with
14:23
weapons, arms, whatever you need, and we'll support your
14:28
government, but with the condition that you got for a
14:31
coalition government with the Communist Party of China.
14:34
You have to walk on them into your ranks.
14:36
But for certainly that's something that that's not a
14:38
problem because his main goal is to get rid of the warlords,
14:42
unify China. And the Soviet then went to they
14:47
say say, OK, you know what your problem is?
14:49
Your problem is you don't have an army, so we will build you an
14:52
army. So Soviet advisor helped
14:55
Swinjatsen fund the one part Military Academy in Guangzhou
14:59
and and the communists and the nationalists work together to
15:03
train a new army that will unify China.
15:06
The army's new army's commander will be Swinjatsen's protege, a
15:12
guy named Zhang Kai Shet and and the But the the director of the
15:18
One Point Military Academy is a communist leader, Zhou Enlai,
15:23
who later become the premier of China in 1949.
15:27
And, and everything was hunky Dory until Swin Yatsen passed
15:31
away in 1925. And Zhang Kai Sheikh
15:35
consolidated his powers through his control of the military.
15:39
And then in 1927, they launched the Northern Expedition against
15:43
the Chinese warlords in the north from Guangzhou, which is
15:46
near Hong Kong. And they they marched across
15:49
China. When they when the army was
15:51
approaching Shanghai, Zhou and Lai snuck into Shanghai to
15:54
organise all the trade unions to stage a a uprising, A rebellion
16:00
against the warlords government in Shanghai and they were able
16:03
to take over the city of Shanghai under the warlord's
16:05
army fled. That actually alarmed Zhang Kai
16:09
Shek as the leader of the nationalist army.
16:11
He saw the power of the communists in organising the
16:15
leftist unions and all that to take over one of the largest
16:19
city in China. And he always had the suspicion
16:22
that communists ultimate goal is like complete takeover.
16:26
And so he decided to to strike out preemptively.
16:30
This started the Shanghai massacre in 1927.
16:33
He worked with the Shanghai mafia, the Green Gang to kill
16:38
5000 union members, communist sympathiser, et cetera.
16:42
So that led to the break with the KMT and the Communist Party.
16:48
But the KMT army went down. They keep on pushing N so
16:50
eventually all the northern Chinese warlords, they all bent
16:54
their knee and pledged allegiance to the KMT
16:56
government. So Zhang Kai Sheikh became the
16:58
nominally at least the leader of China while Mao at that time, he
17:02
went to, he went to hiding in the countryside where he led a
17:07
peasant rebellion. And then they marched into a
17:11
mountain couching Gangsan in southern China, where he founded
17:15
the kind of the first rural communist base in China in
17:20
Jiangxi. And then for the next.
17:25
So this was like 19/27/1920, 8:00-ish.
17:29
So for the next 7-8 years, Zhang Kai, she tried to send different
17:36
extermination campaigns to try to wipe out these rural
17:39
communist base. And one thing that Mao did was
17:44
he innovative upon the Soviet system.
17:47
So in the Soviet system, you would have a commander and
17:51
commissar, right? But Mao felt that was not
17:55
enough. You need to have a commissar
17:56
even at the company level. So he want, he's Mao famously
18:01
said the power come from the barrel of a gun, but the party
18:07
must control the gun. So he that's why he put the
18:12
commissar is a member of the Communist Party who will assist
18:18
and sometimes take over from the commander, you know, so he put a
18:22
commissar at every company level.
18:25
And by 19 in the mid 1930s, there's a lot of rural communist
18:34
base in China. So the Soviets send a German
18:37
guy, Otto, I think Otto Braun, to act as their envoy
18:46
representative. And somehow he, because he came
18:49
from the Soviet Union, you know, he had a lot of power.
18:52
He sort of kind of took over like Mao was kicked off to the
18:57
side and they decided to adopt he he kind of took over kind of
19:02
the military planning and everything, but it was a
19:04
disaster. The the nationalists.
19:07
They also had on their side assistance from from from Nazi
19:11
Germany, because Germany was a after World War One, Germany was
19:17
severely punished by the Allies. Yes.
19:19
And so for the arms industry, it was like absolute the dark ages,
19:25
except the only bright spot for the German arms manufacturer was
19:29
China, because at that time China was in the warlords
19:32
period. Everybody need guns.
19:34
And so they sourced from Germany and so that the Zhanggai Shen
19:39
maintained that relationship with Germany all the way to from
19:43
Weimarx Republic all the way to Nazi Germany.
19:45
And they were getting German advisors to train the Chinese
19:48
army and, and, and, and, and Zhang Kai, Shea's German advisor
19:54
was better than the communist German advisor.
19:57
So they forced the communist to abandon their base in southern
20:02
China to embark on the so called Long March.
20:05
At that time, the communists were just trying to flee.
20:08
They didn't know where they were going.
20:09
They were just wandering all all the way across China, all
20:12
through southern China. And in that process, Mao was
20:16
able to reassert control. He's like, OK, you guys.
20:20
You guys screwed up. Nothing was working and he had
20:23
enough army supporters who supported Mao's rise to power.
20:28
So Mao was affirmed to be the leader of the Communist Party of
20:32
China during the Long March because of previous failure of
20:37
the Soviet advisors. So and that that then Mao, one
20:42
day he read in the newspaper that there was another
20:45
nationalist the extermination campaign of the communist base
20:49
in Northwest China. And you thought, oh, there's
20:52
still a communist base left, so let's go there.
20:54
And that led to all these remaining communist army
20:58
survivors to March to North China base.
21:02
And this is when the Jiang Kai she want to wage a final
21:09
extermination campaign against the communists.
21:11
But instead. Of.
21:12
So at that time, Zhang Kai, she was nominally the head of the
21:16
government in China, but there's still many other warlords in
21:19
China. So what Zhang Kai she wanted to
21:20
do, he wanted to kill two birds with one stone.
21:23
So he wanted the other Chinese warlords to go fight the
21:27
Communists for him, so to weaken both, and so he can take over.
21:31
And one of the Chinese warlord he assigned this task is the
21:35
Manchurian warlord Zhang Shuidiang.
21:38
Now Zhuidiang was in control of all Manchuria before 1931 and at
21:43
that time Jiang Kai she was fighting a war with other
21:48
northern Chinese warlords. It's called the Central Plain
21:52
Wars. Over a million peoples million
21:54
troops were involved. And Zhang Shenyang being one of
21:57
the most powerful warlord decide to throw his support behind
22:01
Jiang Kai Shek. So he let his the bulk of his
22:04
army from Manchuria cross the Great Wall to take over Beijing
22:09
and Japan took that opportunity. This particularly is Japanese
22:13
Guangdong Army officer took that opportunity to launch the
22:16
Mukuden incident in 1931 to take over Manchuria.
22:19
So so for Zhang Shideng, he lost his home base, but he was being
22:26
sustained by budget from the Nationalist government of China.
22:30
Zhang Kai Shea said no problem, you can go fight the Communists
22:33
for me, I will still pay your army.
22:36
But Zhum Zhang Shideng felt that was a raw deal because his
22:39
troops would keep on getting defeated by the Communists and
22:43
he realised this was a ploy for Zhang Kaishi to weaken him and
22:46
the communists. So he plotted with a communist.
22:49
By 1936, when Zhang Kaishi arrived at the front line to
22:54
inspect the final extermination campaign, Zhang Shui launched a
22:57
coup. He had Zhang Kaishi arrested and
23:00
he forced Zhang Kaishi to sit down with the communist where
23:04
they agree they will form a coalition government to fight
23:07
the Japanese because some Shadean's own army, they all
23:12
want to go back home to Manchuria, which has been
23:14
occupied by Japan. So this led to 1937, the full
23:21
outbreak of war between China and Japan in the Marco Polo
23:26
incident. And so this is but all
23:28
throughout this time Mao was building his base in Northwest
23:32
China and when when the when the full on Japanese invasion of
23:37
northern China happened, the Japanese army were very quickly
23:41
to push away all the northern Chinese warlords that were no
23:46
match for them. That created a huge.
23:48
Power vacuum Because Japanese were primarily interested in
23:52
capturing big cities and they established control over the
23:55
transportation lines like like railroad in between them, They
23:59
don't have much interest in the countryside in the Chinese.
24:02
So that created a huge power vacuum in the Chinese
24:04
countryside. When the former control
24:07
collapsed, the communists took this opportunity.
24:10
Mao send his army to cross behind the enemy line in the
24:15
Occupy zone to establish communist rural bases in the
24:20
Japanese occupy zone. And this, this would be crucial
24:24
because the communists basically establish a parallel government
24:28
in the, in the occupied area. So, so all these village head,
24:33
you know, during the daytime they will have to answer to the
24:35
Japanese and pay taxes. But at nighttime, the Communists
24:39
will come. And collect taxes.
24:41
And and, and did dispensing justice so that that situation
24:45
lasted throughout the war. And the result was that
24:49
communists were able to gain control of much of northern
24:52
China countryside by by the time of Japanese surrender, because
24:58
by the time Japanese surrender, Japan essentially only control
25:01
the big cities and all the railroad linking them, but
25:05
nothing in between. And and this set the stage for
25:10
later for the Chinese Civil War when the you know by the by the
25:15
by the by the time Japanese surrenders, the communists
25:17
already had a million men under. They could already mobilise
25:22
1,000,000 men in their military, whereas Jiang Kai shed had about
25:26
4 million men. I'm getting hot and I think we
25:30
need to check on our washing I. Agree.
25:32
OK, let's let's let's let's pause, hold down that start and
25:36
we'll come back after. We haven't done washing in days
25:39
because we've been on the road. All Cashkar used to be like
26:02
Cashkar Old City and in fact in 2000 O 7 Hollywood made a film
26:09
here The Kite Runner to because the Kai Runner setting is Kabul,
26:14
Afghanistan and that that world doesn't exist anymore.
26:17
So they filmed it here in Kashgar, Xinjiang.
26:20
But after 2000 O 7 after the movie Kai Runner was made, the
26:26
Chinese government decided to demolish there are no more
26:31
people much of the old old city and only preserve like only
26:38
preserve the the the important part, what they consider the
26:41
important part. So that's what we're going to
26:43
see today. We're going to see the remaining
26:45
of the cash car old City and see how they devolved it because now
26:52
now it's a top tourist destination which.
26:55
Part of them. What is it?
26:56
It's a fourth. Tier City Cash Guard itself is
27:00
1/4 tier city, but what we're going to see is the heart of the
27:03
old Cash Guard town. And this, this, this city is,
27:10
has been continuously inhabited for at least 2000 years.
27:15
So people just build on top of it and we're going to see what's
27:20
remaining of it and what they have done it to, to make it
27:24
accessible for tourism. Because we're tourists.
27:27
That's what we do. I'm not dude.
27:30
I'm I'm I'm a local. Yes, you're you're a local
27:33
tajiker. Yeah.
27:34
Wait, wait, wait. Just tell the story.
27:36
Quick OK, so we we went through a lot of security checkpoints
27:40
and a lot of security checking point in Xinjiang.
27:43
They just tell you to look straight into the camera, you
27:46
know facial recognition camera and then they tell you to buckle
27:49
your safety belt and then the wave you are most cases in the
27:52
car in the car. But when we get close to the
27:54
border, because we went to the Tajikurgan, Tajika Autonomous
27:58
County, which borders Pakistan, Afghanistan, and what did they
28:03
say? Pakistan, Afghanistan,
28:05
Tajikistan. So there's a lot of border
28:08
security. So we went through their border
28:10
security, same thing. Our car would just get waved
28:12
through, but our second car, which has Pepe and our Russian
28:17
photographers stand on it, they always get stopped and get
28:21
checked for passport. So we were, we were puzzled for
28:24
a while. Why is that the case?
28:26
Until our driver. Until our driver has a very
28:30
plausible explanation. And.
28:36
Sorry they. Yeah, so they the, the, the, the
28:39
driver said. They must have mistaken you,
28:42
Jerm, as a local, as a local Tajik person.
28:47
So that's why they just wave us through every time.
28:50
So these are my people. You are among your people.
28:52
Now I am among my people. You are in a safe space.
28:55
This is. Kashkar is for me a safe space.
29:02
At the Mao statue in People Square in Kashkar, and our
29:10
original plan is to make a recording right underneath the
29:14
Mao statue. There's only one technical
29:17
difficulty right now. The Mao statue is very much
29:21
exposed and it's very, very hot under the sun.
29:26
When I walk over here, I find that there's a Big Blue sign on
29:32
the steps and in Chinese the sign reads you could, which
29:42
means tourists please stop here so we cannot go up these steps.
29:47
Here you go, one of the few remaining Mao statue in China.
30:03
This copy is not very good. Why can Chinese people not get
30:07
copyright? Well see, for the Chinese,
30:11
coffee is a western concept, so maybe this is what they thought
30:15
was their product. The statue of Mao is is there,
30:20
but it's just too hot and it's to the sun and you can't
30:23
actually get to it. Yeah, I can't remember now where
30:25
we left off. We were.
30:28
We're we're up to the World War 2.
30:30
So how the communists were managed able to build a lot of
30:33
rural bases essentially by the time of Japanese surrender, the
30:38
communist control the northern China countryside and then after
30:43
the Japanese surrender, then the race is on to see who ultimately
30:47
will control China. Because Japan had occupied wide
30:52
swath area of China, the nationalist government were
30:55
pushed all the way to the southwestern corner.
30:58
So for them to get to reach all the previously Japanese occupied
31:03
cities, they had to rely on American help.
31:06
So Americans sent their Navy ships, their planes tried to
31:12
send the Nationalist troops to those Japanese, to those
31:17
Japanese occupied cities as soon as possible.
31:19
There's a race between the communist and nationalist forces
31:23
to rush to those big cities that was occupied by Japanese to take
31:27
the Japanese surrender. And in that process, Chinese
31:30
civil war got started. And eventually, to make the
31:34
story short, communist won, communist won, they control the
31:38
country. So now Mao is running, ruling
31:42
over a country of at this time, roughly 500 million people,
31:51
about 500 million people in 1949, so exactly 76 years ago.
31:58
Which is 6 years after this province, Xinjiang.
32:03
Sorry, six years. Before, before, before, before.
32:06
Became autonomous. Right, right.
32:07
So this, this, so, so right. The problem China at that time
32:12
was desperately poor. It's mostly rural.
32:15
You know, 80% of the people were illiterate because the popular
32:19
literacy was very low. And after years of devastation,
32:25
of civil war, Japanese invasion, it's just a desperately poor
32:29
country. So Mao decided the top priority
32:33
is that China need to industrialise.
32:36
And he decided to do it by following the Soviet model.
32:40
You know, China, China is communist, Soviet is communist.
32:44
So let's just copy the Soviet model because at that time a
32:49
Soviet Union emerged out of World War 2.
32:52
It's at least to the Chinese, it's a very, very powerful
32:55
country. And you know, it's not, it's not
32:59
an option to rely on US anymore because US at the time was on
33:02
the opposite end of the Cold War.
33:05
And so and they supported Zhang Kaichet who fled to Taiwan.
33:10
So now the problem is how to do that, how to achieve
33:16
industrialization. Now, unlike a lot of the
33:19
European nations and including America, you know, where a lot
33:24
of capital was accumulated by acquiring colonies and and
33:28
getting resources from elsewhere, China has no option.
33:31
So the only way they can get the extra surplus to use as capital
33:38
to invest in new industrialization will have to
33:41
come from the countryside. Like I said, I mentioned this,
33:43
that time China was primarily a rural country.
33:47
So when when, when communists try to win the civil war against
33:51
nationalists, they had to adopt the strategy of land reform
33:55
because, you know, at, at at the end of the Japanese surrender,
33:59
everybody in China want peace. They don't want to fight a civil
34:01
war. So how do you convince them?
34:03
Say, hey, we, we got to takes a fight to the nationalist
34:07
government who's seen as legitimate government of China.
34:10
So what communists did is OK, we will do land reform.
34:14
We'll take away land from large land owners and landlords and
34:19
redistribute the land to the peasants.
34:22
Now that was immensely popular strategy to mobilise popular
34:25
support. Now the the interest of the poor
34:30
and even middle class farmers now are more aligned with the
34:34
communists because now they have a stake in the game because now,
34:37
now you decided with the communists they will receive
34:40
land and if the nationalists come back, they will lose all
34:43
that land. So this is how the communists
34:46
was able to. Win the Civil War.
34:48
Now Fast forward to 1950. The Communists already won, but
34:51
Mao decided, you know, we can't just continue this path of
34:56
subsistence economy for subsistence farming forever.
35:01
We need to industrialise and we to do that we need to
35:05
collectivise our agriculture. This is where this is where the
35:10
big moment in history begins. Yes, so around.
35:14
So according to my grandpa, my mother's side who was a school
35:19
principal at the time, he said the early 50 was actually pretty
35:22
good. Early 50s, because the war has
35:25
ended, the Japanese invasion, invasion was over, the civil war
35:30
ended. So the first few years of
35:33
communist war in the 1950s was pretty good, but then Mao
35:37
decided, you know, we're not moving fast enough.
35:40
We've got a push for collectivization of agriculture.
35:43
And sorry, but the term collectivization of agriculture,
35:46
we need to just quickly define that.
35:48
What does that mean? Well, the idea was that.
35:54
It's basically the surplus of a whole variety of forms.
35:59
So after the redistribution of land in the communist land
36:03
reform, most of the peasants already received our land.
36:06
But they, because China had a large population, 500 million
36:10
people, each family receive a relatively small part of land.
36:16
So mouse idea is, well, we can, we can have mechanised
36:21
agriculture if you have small part of land, right.
36:24
So to make that possible, we must have all the peasant to
36:29
pull their land all together into a commune.
36:32
Then you can invest in machines and you know, you pull all your
36:36
resources together then then that's what I call
36:39
collectivization. So instead of 1 individual
36:43
farming family own this plot of land, maybe like say 6 hectare
36:48
of land. Now if you have 100 families all
36:53
pull pull their all all their land together.
36:55
Now you have 600 hectares of land.
36:57
Then you can possibly employ machinery to do do the work.
37:03
That's in theory at least in theory.
37:05
And and they're following the Soviet model because Soviet
37:08
Union understood the collectivization back in the
37:10
1930s under Stalin. Yeah, OK.
37:13
But did they know about what was going on in the Soviet Union?
37:17
I mean, there was a great famine.
37:19
That is a good question because in the 1930's the communists in
37:24
China were still busy fighting against the nationalists or
37:27
fighting for survival. And I don't know if they have
37:31
the information like I don't know if the Soviet told them
37:35
there was great famine as a result of collectivization.
37:41
But what they saw in the 1950s was that Soviet Union is was one
37:45
of the two superpowers of the world.
37:48
And that's what they want to emulate.
37:50
They want to get to work. Soviet Union was in back in the
37:54
early 50s, mid 50s. Mao put a slogan, he said let's
37:59
serve, let's surpass Britain in 15 years and surpass United
38:04
States in 30 years. He was talking about steel
38:07
production surpassing steel UK in steel production in in 15
38:13
years and then surpass American steel production in 30 years.
38:16
Now that actually did happen, like maybe off by a year or two,
38:21
but actually that did happen eventually, but but not through
38:28
the mouth method by in the early 50s, because my answer was OK,
38:34
we just do the so adopt the Soviet model.
38:36
We collect device, we make all the farmers pull, pull their
38:39
resources together, land together to foreign commune and
38:43
the land will be public ownership, right?
38:46
The whole village will own own this land.
38:49
But the problem with that is you kind of skew the incentive.
38:54
Before you're working for yourself, you are working for
38:56
yourself and feeding your own family.
38:59
And now this has all become public land and everything is
39:04
public ownership. Who are you really working for?
39:08
The state. Yes, you're working for the
39:10
state. And that's not very strong
39:14
motivation for average farmers, right?
39:16
I mean, when they're working for yourself, the benefit is very
39:21
tangible. You know, if you work hard, you
39:24
might get more surplus grain and you sell and you get more
39:28
wealthier, right? Whereas when you're working
39:31
hard, the state, how does that work?
39:33
And, and, and on top of that, the state was actually taking,
39:39
they're mandating now all these farmers produce must be sold to
39:43
the state. They, they, they, they
39:45
monopolise the market, You know, you keep, they got rid of the
39:48
free market for, for rice. You know, one, one thing they
39:52
push for is nationalisation of industry as well in the cities.
39:56
So all the previously private enterprise in Shanghai, they
40:01
were all asked to be nationalised.
40:04
So, so like the now everything, the individual owners were asked
40:09
to sell their, their, their factory to the state.
40:12
So, so you know, they will have the tech, the unions running.
40:17
The factory but but in fact it's really having the state running
40:20
everything becomes state owned industries between 1955 to 1957,
40:27
like a period of three, two years and in the countryside
40:30
it's commune. All the peasants land now got
40:35
collectivised to became to foreign commune and you don't,
40:38
you no longer have individual private land ownership and a lot
40:45
of the produce surplus from the countryside now that was
40:49
extracted by the state mandating the farmers or the communists
40:55
have to send their food to the state, sell at a fixed price at
40:59
a fixed price. So what's actually happening is
41:03
the party was extracting the surplus value from the
41:07
agriculture sector and they're using that to invest in
41:11
industrialization in the cities because they had to build fact
41:14
to enable to build factories to buy machines from Soviet Union.
41:19
And, and because like I said, China didn't have colonies,
41:23
China didn't go out to, to grab resources.
41:25
So all that capital will have to come from somewhere.
41:28
It doesn't come from thin air. And a lot of that was basically
41:34
reaped by by by collectivising agriculture and forced the
41:39
farmers to sell their food to the state at fixed price and
41:43
essentially the state remove all the margins and, and use that to
41:48
invest in the cities. So this is what happened.
41:51
But this this whole policy got a little, little bit out of hand.
41:58
What what happened is so in China, a top leader like Mao, he
42:03
will say, OK, I think this is a good idea.
42:05
I think communization is a good idea.
42:07
And then what happened is next level down, the next level
42:10
communist official, they will try to overshoot the target.
42:14
They were trying to do like, OK, so Mao says 5% is growth is
42:19
good. We'll try for six seventh
42:20
percent, right? And then the the next level at
42:23
the county level people, OK, let's let's go for 8%.
42:27
That would look even better. And so each level when you go
42:31
down, they try to outdo themselves.
42:33
So they know Mao thinks communization collectivization
42:38
is a good idea. Then let's tell report to say
42:41
because we collectivise we had a greater harvest than we did
42:46
previous year and but pretty soon it became a competition
42:51
between like different provinces, different counties to
42:53
compete who had better harvest and a lot of these numbers were
42:57
made up. OK.
42:58
So they artificially inflated the numbers.
43:00
Yes, so they start so appear to the central government, they
43:05
seems like oh, we had bumper harvest and and everybody is
43:09
saying like this is because of collectivization now we are able
43:12
to boost the agricultural output by like, I don't know 200%, you
43:17
know, which is completely bogus. You know, you can't do that
43:20
without using capital fertiliser or something.
43:23
And now because the the central government received the report
43:28
as there's so many grain available, so OK, well we need
43:31
this grain so we can export to Soviet Union to buy exchange for
43:35
machinery, right? Makes sense.
43:37
But then that's when the problem occurs because there's not 200%
43:42
bumper harvest. It would just a regular harvest,
43:45
maybe a little bit more than before.
43:47
But now you have to send the extra grain to the centre.
43:51
And that's where the problem occurs because they take when
43:56
they took the, the, the, the, when they had to send the grain
43:59
to, to the central government, they're taking away the reserve
44:03
grains from the passage. Try and make up for that, for
44:06
that loss. Exactly.
44:07
Exactly. Which means that ultimately,
44:10
they were now digging into the sort of personal food.
44:15
Yes. Yes, the personal supplies of
44:17
food which would have led to starvation.
44:19
Yeah, yeah. So this is exact and and the
44:21
harvest and also the the the IT just, it was bad wet weather
44:26
also combined with bad weather in the year 195819591960.
44:33
This is the period when Mao was pushing for collectivization.
44:37
It was known as Great Leap Forward.
44:40
The the policy largely failed because they're also push some
44:44
ridiculous attempt like they were pushing, for example, the
44:48
peasants to make steel in their backyard furnaces and the way
44:53
they makes how they're going to make steel, they melt down their
44:57
farm tools to try to make steel, but those backyard furnaces
45:01
really not very equipped to make real steel.
45:05
So in the end you kind of you just destroy your farm tools and
45:08
you still have no steel. And so all these badly planned
45:15
effort resulted in the Grey Famine.
45:17
So, so hang on. All right, So Mao's policies led
45:24
to millions, potentially millions, yes, Or say
45:28
potentially 10s of millions. We don't know the exact numbers
45:31
of people dying. Did Mao know about it?
45:35
Now this is a. This is a good question.
45:37
I mean, eventually they did eventually.
45:39
I mean, after three years you can't hide the size of the Fabin
45:45
So because. It's possible that in the first
45:47
year you wouldn't have known. Right, right.
45:49
So what happened was the. So actually this is interesting
45:54
because in even as early as 19581959, there were already
46:00
reports from some sectors say, OK, we can't, we can't do this
46:04
because there's not going to be enough food around.
46:07
And so Mao convened a a conference in Lusan like a
46:14
resort, mountain resort or have all the top communist officials
46:18
to attend to discuss. How they're going to carry out
46:22
the Great Leap Forward, right Like to discuss any problem,
46:25
including any potential problems SO11 the defence minister of
46:30
China penned the Hawaii at the. Time he did his own research and
46:34
he realised Great Leap Forward wasn't working, so he wrote a
46:39
his own critique, like in a report sent to Mao.
46:42
And but this was bad timing because this this coincided with
46:48
what Khrushchev was doing in the Soviet Union, which is
46:51
destalinization. You know, Khrushchev denounced
46:55
Stalin and including for, you know, failures of
46:58
collectivization and stuff like that.
47:01
And Mao didn't like that. Mao thought Khrushchev was
47:04
destroying the prestige of the Communist Party because at that
47:07
time people have to realise Stalin was, you know, was held
47:13
in very high regard after World War 2IN many, many countries.
47:17
And he was seen as like kind of this father figure for many
47:22
Communist parties all around the world.
47:25
And Mao thought Khrushchev's desalinization destroyed.
47:31
There's a, There's a bit of a. Convulsion happening.
47:33
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
47:35
There's a bunch of people walking behind us.
47:36
Some guy fell. OK, looks like that's a wedding
47:40
party, actually. And now I hear drums and music
47:42
and I have no idea if it's coming through in the
47:44
microphone. That sounds like a wedding party
47:47
and these guys looks like they might be groomsmen making
47:52
wedding photos. Let's see if we can get it on
47:54
the camera, yeah? This is there's there's going to
47:59
be a Uyghur wedding, which is is going to be lit because you
48:03
know, there's going to be dancing lots of dances back.
48:06
Yeah. And right now, they're still
48:08
drinking coffee. But.
48:10
It's another one. You've seen a few of them,
48:11
haven't you? Because you know why?
48:13
Because our tour guide told me wedding and cash guard could
48:16
take place for three days straight.
48:19
That's. Insane.
48:20
Three days and yesterday was China's National Day, which
48:24
kicks off a day 8 days China's national week like holiday 8
48:31
days holidays so a lot of people choose to have wedding right now
48:36
I see the bride now I found the reflection I saw the bride so
48:41
there's a lot of people choosing to have their weddings right now
48:44
because it's a long vacation all right let's.
48:46
Get back to where you were. So back in the 1950s.
48:50
Oh, yeah, yeah. So when the defence minister,
48:53
Pendel Huai sent his critique of Mao, Mao immediately thought
48:57
about what Khrushchev was doing. And he was, he was thinking.
49:02
He was thinking this could happen in China, His own
49:04
authority could be challenged. And so he publicised Pendel
49:11
Huai's report. He had many copies made and
49:15
distributed to the rest of the Communist Poly Bureau and as a
49:20
result Panda Huai was the one who was was criticised during
49:24
the conference. So that suppress any kind of
49:27
descending voice, any any opposition to the programme of
49:31
Great Leap Forward. And that led to again, the
49:36
continuation of the disastrous policies for the next three
49:41
years that led to 10s of millions of people being that
49:44
family. How many people died?
49:47
We don't really know so after because back then it's not like
49:51
the government was doing census and tabulating the debt.
49:55
But what we did know is after in the 1980s there was a high
49:59
Communist rank official. I think he did like a back of
50:03
the envelope estimate, he said. It could be as high as 30
50:07
million people that died because of the family.
50:13
Let me let me tell you a personal story because yes, my
50:17
home province of Sichuan was one of the hardest hit, but.
50:21
It makes I think my favourite meal here in in China.
50:24
Sichuan is known to have very good food, very good cooking.
50:28
But Sichuan is also known as a bread basket of China, kind of
50:32
like what Ukraine was for the for the for the Taurus, Russia
50:36
and the Soviet Union. And now I'm quoting A Communist
50:43
Party official obituary for the then governor of Sichuan, who
50:49
was the governor during that time.
50:51
It says the the central government sent the orders to
50:56
him that he needs to send food out of the province because why?
51:03
Because if they had, they cannot afford to have people starve
51:07
being city like Beijing or Shanghai, everyone will know it
51:10
know about it will be bad publicity will be big PR
51:13
disaster if people in Beijing and Shanghai are dying.
51:17
So that's why Siswan as a bread basket needs to send food.
51:23
And it's also said everybody knew what the consequence that
51:27
would that would be. You're right, here comes the
51:30
bride. My great grandma at that time,
51:37
what she would do so a lot. So as a result of the decree
51:43
from the central government, all the surplus food from Sichuan
51:46
was sent out of the province and that led to not enough food for
51:51
the farmers in Sichuan. And my my great grandma at the
51:56
time, she would try to conserve food.
51:59
She would try to give all her her portion to her only
52:04
granddaughter at that time, which is my mom.
52:07
My mom. Yeah.
52:08
So she then because of that, because of malnutrition and not
52:13
enough to eat, she fell sick and died.
52:16
She fell ill and died. That's terrible.
52:18
And that's that's the that's the cause of the deaths.
52:21
For most people. It was because of malnutrition,
52:24
not enough to eat. And they became susceptible to
52:27
illness and many of them became ill and died.
52:30
And Suezwanda was one of the most hard, hardest hit province.
52:35
And but we, we still don't know the exact number, but the, the
52:39
governor at the time was one of the most hated person in the
52:43
Sichuan province because everybody knew he carried out
52:46
the policy of sending out all the reserve grains from Sichuan
52:50
out of the province. So, so, but when the Cultural
52:52
Revolution come around, which we'll get to later when the
52:55
Cultural Revolution come around, they a mob of people took his
53:02
son and beat him half to death and toss him into a furnace
53:08
while he's still alive. And but because because they
53:12
there was so much hatred for what happened before.
53:15
Was then responsible? Was it Mao Well?
53:19
I think he bears responsibility because he's, because of his
53:23
vision of China moving China towards this path to utopia that
53:29
and he I think he had a sense of urgency because, you know, Mao
53:34
felt he was not getting any younger.
53:36
So he wanted to push China along this path towards the communist
53:42
utopia that he imagined, which is, you know, equality and
53:46
abundance and all that. And that's why he had the slogan
53:50
of surpassing UK in 15 years and US in 30 years in steel
53:55
production. But I think he's not, he's not
53:59
an economics expert. And in this instance, he, he, he
54:04
committed a grave error. And he, he committed even a
54:08
grave grave, even a bigger error when he suppressed any dissent
54:11
to his policy, when he had his defence minister arrested for
54:16
voicing opposition. And, and that kind of
54:19
effectually silenced any other China of dissent because they
54:22
saw what happened to the defence minister that was arrested
54:26
because his opposition. So, so nobody dared to speak up.
54:30
And, and that led to the continuation of the policy for
54:33
two more years. And, and that led to, you know,
54:36
a lot of lot of unnatural death. Then why?
54:43
Why is he so revered? OK.
54:45
So so I'll get to that. OK, but but but Mouse think his
54:50
legacy is not down because he because of the great famine Mao
54:56
actually then he took responsibility.
54:58
He stepped down. He kind of semi went to semi
55:01
retirement. He led the day to day running of
55:05
the country to his designated successor Neo Saochi and Neo
55:09
Saochi's deputy Deng Xiaoping. So Neo Saochi and Deng Xiaoping
55:13
when they came power this like, OK, let's let let parrot let the
55:18
farmers keep some lamb for themselves, let them produce for
55:22
themselves, let them keep supporting of the produce ones
55:24
themselves. So I will encourage them to, you
55:27
know, farm again and that that worked.
55:30
And then they allow some limited private enterprise and and you
55:33
know, wait, that allowed the economy to recover.
55:36
But then after three more years of that, by 1966, Mao get the
55:43
sense that he was kind of losing the control over the the
55:48
direction where where the country is going because he want
55:51
to push again. He had this idea of what China
55:54
should be, should be a more place with equality.
56:00
And, and, and what he saw was with with policies of Duo Xiao
56:05
and then Xiaoping. He thought it was a reversion
56:07
back to the old days of China when, you know, he he saw that
56:12
free market economy will eventually lead to, you know,
56:17
different classes and exploitation and all that.
56:20
He didn't want that. He thought that was a reversion.
56:22
So that's why he launched the Great Cultural Revolution.
56:25
One is to purge people like Liu Xiao Qi and Deng Xiaoping from
56:29
power. You know, Deng Xiaoping was
56:31
labelled as capitalist Roder as saying he was trying to restore
56:35
capitalism in China. And then so Deng Xiaoping got
56:39
sent to the countryside to raise pigs and and to do that because
56:45
Mao to able to effectively did a coup.
56:49
But in order to do that, Mao decide to use forces outside the
56:54
government. He tried to get the.
56:57
Students. To rebel against authorities now
57:01
he encouraged the students, college students particularly,
57:04
to rebel against their authorities.
57:06
And, and by authority he means the whole communist bureaucracy,
57:10
because he thought Mao is a kind of radical thinker.
57:14
He thought all these, the communist bureaucracy which he
57:16
helped build, he thought that was becoming like the new ruling
57:20
elite of China, which is not in his vision.
57:24
He didn't want like just to, to overthrow the emperor and the
57:28
the Mandarin class just to replace them with another class,
57:32
but call them self communist, right?
57:34
That's not his vision for, for the for future of China.
57:38
So he, he, he wanted to destroy the entire communist
57:41
bureaucracy. And he to do that, he decided to
57:45
incite all the college students to attack figures of authority,
57:49
which included the bureaucrats in the government like Deng
57:53
Xiaoping and Liu Xiaoqi. And that's so that's how
57:56
Cultural Revolution got started. And it was, you know, to mouse
58:02
satisfaction, you know, that that he did kind of overthrow
58:06
the government. And, and but this is when, you
58:12
know, a lot of other scores were settled.
58:13
For example, I told I was telling you about the former
58:16
governor of Sichuan who carried out the policies of sending
58:20
grains out of Sichuan, right, that caused the famine.
58:23
And you know, some so people now during Cultural Revolution took
58:28
this opportunity to attack him and his family and then
58:31
including toss killing his son in the process.
58:35
And, and I remember I, I had a conversation with my mom because
58:38
my mom, so, you know, obviously my mom does not like Cultural
58:42
Revolution. But then he said something
58:43
interesting. She said if it wasn't for the
58:46
Cultural Revolution, those communist officials would have
58:50
never known what is it like to be at the end of struggle
58:54
session like what they did to others in 1956 when they did the
58:59
anti rightist campaign. You know, there were other
59:02
political campaign before that. You know, my, my, my grandpa was
59:04
labelled as a, as a rightist in the, in the 1956 anti rightist
59:10
campaign. And my grandpa got sent to the
59:12
labour camp. So, so my mom says if it wasn't
59:15
for the Cultural Revolution in 1956, this those communist
59:19
official, you know, would not have got a taste of their own
59:22
medicine. You know what they did to?
59:24
It was a positive. This is like looking at the
59:30
brighter side of things like Monty Python when the Brian was
59:34
now on the cross and they were singing Look on the price side.
59:39
You set the ball quite low. Yes, yes.
59:43
OK. Any questions?
59:47
OK, but then. OK, so let me ask again, why
59:49
then is Mao revealed? I mean, I know that it's
59:53
controversial, but I've seen a lot of his pictures.
59:56
Yeah, so there's a famous, famous communist official, I
1:00:01
can't remember his name right now.
1:00:04
And this is how we talk about Mao, he said.
1:00:06
If Mao had died. In 1949, right after he
1:00:10
established the People's Republic of China, he will be
1:00:13
die a St like he will be. He's kind of like a Nelson
1:00:17
Mandela figure by except like even more right.
1:00:21
And if he died after he had launched the anti rightist
1:00:30
campaign in 1956 and then launched the great leap forward
1:00:36
now he would still have died a hero, but a flawed, deeply
1:00:40
flawed hero, right. If he died before 1966, before
1:00:47
he launched Cultural Revolution, he would, you know, he would die
1:00:54
like kind of a great, he would die a great man, but with a very
1:01:00
complex legacy. Well, unfortunately, Mao died in
1:01:03
1976. So I mean, at the time after
1:01:10
Mao's death, there's actually a growing voice within the
1:01:15
Communist Party of China to denounce Mao, like the way
1:01:18
Khrushchev denounced Stalin, right?
1:01:21
But then Xiaoping actually put a stop to that.
1:01:23
He said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
1:01:24
Let's not get carried away because the Mao was so tight.
1:01:28
His legacy is so closely intertwined with the Communist
1:01:32
Party of China. If we denounce Mao, we're
1:01:35
denouncing the party, you know? So let's, let's do this.
1:01:39
Let's just say Mao made some mistakes and he's 70% good and
1:01:44
30% bad. So that is the official line of
1:01:48
the Communist Party. Mau is 70 percent, 70% good, 30%
1:01:54
bad. I don't think those figures are
1:01:56
exact, but you know, it's a metaphorical speaking, but I
1:02:00
mean, but let me get, I'm trying to address your question.
1:02:03
So why is Mau Revere? So today the, the memory of
1:02:09
famine and cultural revolution now is kind of fading memory
1:02:14
because those are memories carried on by my parents
1:02:16
generation. They live through it.
1:02:18
For them, it's still very vivid. Like my, my, my mom really hated
1:02:21
it, right? So, but me, I'm born after
1:02:26
cultural revolution, I'm born after Mao's death.
1:02:29
So ever since I grew up, I've seen things getting better and
1:02:33
better every day. So I mean, I understand the bad
1:02:36
days of cultural revolution because I hear stories from my
1:02:39
parents, my grandparents, but I didn't live it.
1:02:42
For me, my experience is everything is getting better and
1:02:46
for my youngest cousin who is 20 years younger than me.
1:02:51
She grew up in a totally different world.
1:02:53
She only knows this massive, this massive growth.
1:02:57
Yes, she only knew the massive because I still knew the poverty
1:03:00
in 1980s China was still poor, but she would have grown up when
1:03:04
like China is already powerful. And the world's leading economy.
1:03:09
Right. So for the other, for these
1:03:11
younger generation of people, they see Mao as the guy who
1:03:17
unified China, who finally brought put the Chinese state
1:03:21
back together after like hundreds, after the century of
1:03:25
humiliation, after the, you know, invasions and, you know,
1:03:30
put after China was broke into pieces, this Mao that put put it
1:03:33
back together. They kind of vaguely understand,
1:03:36
yeah, Mao made some mistakes. But now they're they're looking
1:03:38
this and they do. They do see this as Mao's legacy
1:03:42
as well. Is it though?
1:03:46
I would say, I would say yes. I mean, Mao might not like this.
1:03:50
Mao would be shocked if he sees China today.
1:03:53
With all this capitalism going on.
1:03:55
With all these yeah, yeah, I think Mao would think this is
1:03:59
capitalism and but, but, but, but original aim of Mao was to
1:04:05
make China strong and powerful. To that end, I think it
1:04:08
happened. It already happened and and but
1:04:13
but, but but the The thing is people, I think most people are
1:04:20
kind of result oriented, right? And and because now China is is
1:04:25
is is, you know, quite powerful position and it's on its road to
1:04:30
prosperity. Now, now people can look at the
1:04:33
past and say OK, well yes, Ma made.
1:04:37
Mistakes. But that was a long time ago.
1:04:40
Because they're not. Affected as much today, but did
1:04:44
Mao build the basis for today? I would say yes, because I think
1:04:50
obviously Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution are great
1:04:53
setbacks. It was not necessary.
1:04:56
It was, it was just a big distraction.
1:04:59
But it's despite those things, you know, during Mao era, China
1:05:05
had raised the literacy rate. 25 That's wrong, but was it under
1:05:11
Mao where they decided to change traditional Chinese to simplify
1:05:15
the Chinese they? Did they did.
1:05:17
No, the original argument for that is to improve literacy.
1:05:20
They say, well, OK, maybe one of the reason, you know, only 10%
1:05:26
of the people know how to read it right is because it takes too
1:05:29
long. So they thought, OK, we'll
1:05:30
simplify the characters. I mean, at the one time they
1:05:33
even thought about getting rid of the character altogether and
1:05:35
go pure Latinization. I'm kind of glad that didn't
1:05:40
happen, but so. But I mean, can you understand
1:05:44
traditional Chinese? Yeah, I can, because I read it
1:05:47
like, like I think it's more difficult the other way around.
1:05:53
I mean, I've asked a few people here and they don't, they can't
1:05:56
read traditional Chinese. Really.
1:05:58
OK, I could. So for example, I'm trying to
1:06:01
look around to see these, for example, traditional characters.
1:06:05
So so Zhang, the character for Xinjiang right here, Let me.
1:06:10
Turn the camera, hold it and see if we can zoom in there right.
1:06:12
Xinjiang so that the Jung is written in traditional.
1:06:16
Character. OK, that's not a simplified.
1:06:18
Character. Yeah, they just did that for
1:06:21
decoration. Yeah.
1:06:22
For so for people, yeah, I mean like, yeah, I mean, I have no
1:06:31
problem. Reading, I mean it takes a
1:06:34
little use to. But the point is that the
1:06:36
simplified Chinese potentially accelerates.
1:06:40
It I don't know about that because Taiwan right now is also
1:06:44
has pretty high literacy rate but they never made the switch.
1:06:47
Taiwan and Hong Kong both have pretty high literacy rate and
1:06:51
they still keep the traditional form.
1:06:54
But, but, but the intention, yes, the intention was to
1:06:57
promote literacy, to simplify the Chinese characters.
1:06:59
Not to propaganda as population necessarily.
1:07:04
I mean education, right? There's some argument education
1:07:08
is propaganda. So so but you.
1:07:12
Also know that China's not very good at propaganda.
1:07:14
No, I don't think China is very good at propaganda.
1:07:18
But but but what they did do is they improved literacy rate.
1:07:21
So by the time Mao died, China already have very high literary
1:07:27
literacy rate. Another thing is they reduce
1:07:29
infant mortality. So back in 1949, the life
1:07:34
expectancy of a Chinese person at birth is 40 years old.
1:07:38
But now, OK, that doesn't mean that everyone was average 40
1:07:42
years old. You actually mean there's a high
1:07:46
infant mortality rate when you average together, it looks like
1:07:50
that life expense is 40. So what Mao did was he he he, he
1:07:57
promoted the so called barefoot doctors who had basic medical
1:08:01
training, but he will send them to countryside to attend to
1:08:06
provide medical services to the the farmers.
1:08:08
Now, now countryside is where most of the people live and that
1:08:12
the fact alone actually drastically reduce the infant
1:08:16
mortality rate in China that made the life expectancy to go
1:08:21
up. So today China's Chinese life
1:08:24
expectancy today actually surpassed that of the United
1:08:27
States. Yeah.
1:08:28
But so, so, so there are there are some basis that.
1:08:32
Maoj IRA build the basis for the later economic takeoff because
1:08:37
by the time Deng Xiaoping decided to liberalise the
1:08:39
economy. China already have a large
1:08:43
literate population who are well educated, well trained.
1:08:49
They're just and they're very cheap, cheap labour.
1:08:54
And this is this is one reason a lot of multinational decision
1:08:58
moves their operation from Southeast Asia to China, because
1:09:02
here in China, they can't have high quality educated labour at
1:09:08
a very affordable price. And and and so you know, so, so
1:09:12
so you can't say then just snap her his finger and everything
1:09:16
come kind of come into place. He built that from somewhere.
1:09:19
And the base was the industrial base that was already built up
1:09:23
during Mao China. So so industrialization did
1:09:26
happen in Mao era. So now that did train generation
1:09:31
of workers in in kind of technical know hows to to work
1:09:35
in the factories to work with machine tools.
1:09:38
So by the time then throw the doors open for the foreign
1:09:42
investors come in, you already have a literate labour force and
1:09:49
who are well trained, Yeah. All right, dude, we've got to
1:09:52
go. OK.
1:10:15
Yeah.