JEFF J. BROWN—it’s not just commie cabbies. Seeing communist symbols in taxis, tuktuks and places of business gives everybody in China a sense of trust and comradeship. This is a photo I took in a Beijing tuktuk, presented in The China Trilogy (see below). A Buddhist-like Mao medallion is hanging on the driver’s left. Below Mao’s image is a fresco of Tiananmen Gate, where his iconic portrait hangs in perpetuity.
Chinese companies are engaged in many countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe to develop infrastructure projects. The money and experience gained by China are useful for many developing nations. In fact, the Chinese model is one of the most successful models of developments in the current prevailing systems of governance in the world. It has produced much more than the Western “Democratic” model.
VLADIMIR TEREKHOV—The conceptual basis for the US policy on Taiwan, which began with the formation of the PRC in 1949, was made up of the words of General D. MacArthur who led the U.S. troops in South Korea and said in 1951 that “the loss of Taiwan will push our borders back to California.” The exceptional role of Taiwan in the military confrontation with China had to be sacrificed (partly, let us emphasize) in 1979, when the confrontation with the Soviet Union was aggravated and there was an urgent need to establish comprehensive relations with Beijing.
GODFREE ROBERTS—China’s landlords, the world’s oldest social class, maintained their grip on the country’s land for three thousand years until, in 1949, Mao placed it in public trust, divided[1] it, and began a series of experiments that continue to this day. In 1960 he combined individual plots into communal farms for the Great Leap Forward. In 1978, Deng redivided them into family plots that proved inefficient, but attempts to recombine them into larger, more efficient farms failed until 2012. Then a Trial Spot in Sihong County created land management rights that farmers could rent or pledge as collateral, so long as their land remained agricultural.
DAN COHEN—The Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hong Kong submitted a formal complaint with the US consulate general, calling on the US “to immediately make a clean break from anti-China forces who stir up trouble in Hong Kong, stop sending out wrong signals to violent offenders, refrain from meddling with Hong Kong affairs and avoid going further down the wrong path.”