Prof Tay Kheng Soon posted the following on Facebook:
“There is so much misinformation. Communism is the highest stage of human development where the State is no longer necessary because people know how to live happily and productively with each other without enforced policing. How to get there is the problem. Is China evolving a new model with centralised power and decentralised local govts? Are State owned enterprises to form the backbone for private enterprises to thrive? Is that why crackdowns must happen now and then?“
I have a lot to say about this delusional statement from Prof Tay praising Communism, but I don’t have much time. Strictly speaking, China was only truly communist between 1949 and 1969. In 20 years, China experienced the worst famine in its history. Tens of millions had literally starved to death (as in the USSR). Liu Shaoqi who spoke the truth about 三分天灾七分人祸 was eliminated in the Cultural Revolution whose power of destruction took even Mao by surprise. China was in shambles in the aftermath of the ruinous Cultural Revolution and a war with the USSR started by Mao in 1967. From the brink of collapse, China was only saved in 1969 by a call from Zhou Enlai to Henry Kissinger. From the moment Nixon touched down in Beijing in 1971, China ceased to be a purely communist country. In 1979, Deng Xiaoping paid a personal visit to ex-president Nixon in America. Deng, Hu Yaobang and Nixon saved China.
I remember friends in my parents’ generation making plans to visit China in the late 1970s onwards. They brought with them tape recorders and colour TV sets which were novelties in China back then. Many came back teary eyed. In some villagers, the richest guy was the one with two pairs of trousers. Guilt-ridden to be living so well while their relatives in China suffered so much, these overseas Chinese people started cleaning out their bank accounts to donate money to 家乡. Some bridges were built. Some small village schools were built but the bulk of it ended up in the pockets of hungry relatives.
Not so obvious to the common folks were the billions in both aid and investments poured in by Japan and the US. China was a most favoured nation back then. After China’s entry into the WTO in 2001 (thanks to the US), the economy went on rocket fuel. Is it still communism? If you were to ask me between the 1990s and 2000s when I was having so much fun in China, my answer would have been an emphatic no. The communist ideology had taken a back seat. It was capitalism on rocket fuel. Had communism prevailed as Prof Tay might have liked, China would have never been lifted from poverty.
But an abrupt change came about in 2013. The concept of 国进民退 sounded many alarm bells. Thinking Chinese people called their leader 总加速师 (chief accelerator) 加速倒退 (accelerating backwards). Communist ideology reared its ugly head and the brainwashing began all over again. By then, most of the folks who had contributed their life savings to their 家乡 were already sitting in the columbarium. When a Singaporean author friend of mine delivered a speech in which he paid tribute to these folks and their contribution to the rise of China, all the Chinese people in the audience walked out of the auditorium. To them, many of whom were born after the 1980s, China’s rise was solely due to the great leadership of the CCP. They completely deny the contributions from democratic and capitalist countries and blame the “evil West” for all their problems. And this brainwashing can be so powerful that it can travel abroad and cause amnesia. Like this old man I met in Thailand. He escaped from China during the Cultural Revolution because he was targeted and feared for his life. Thailand gave him a home and a chance to earn a living. When I met him in the early 2000s, he told me that he regretted leaving China as many of his relatives were richer than he was. What kind of a warped mind would think that one can change the past to suit his circumstances before going back to it? He seemed to have forgotten that he could have been killed if he hadn’t left.
Coming back to the system in China, I see it as more like Fascism than Communism. I once said that communism doesn’t allow religious beliefs. Retired banker Chris Kuan said that communism itself is a religion. It’s not wrong. In fact, communism is not very different from radical Islam. Lin Biao’s daughter Lin Dou Dou betrayed her own family because of her “religion”. Many people betrayed their parents and teachers during the Cultural Revolution.
If you think about it, it’s not surprising at all that youngsters are now brainwashed to think that the CCP is solely to thank for the new China and America, Japan and the West are enemies. The fact is, China could never have risen without WTO membership and the billions that these democratic and capitalist countries had pumped into the “most favoured nation”.
Oh, and our 老华侨 are all conveniently forgotten. Being forgotten is still not so bad. Japan and the West, without whom China would never be where it is today, are now literally treated as enemies. The brainwashing works so well whether it’s on the youngsters who had never experienced poverty or the older fogies who had personally received benefits from their overseas relatives. They have the temerity to say 留岛不留人 when Taiwan had helped them so much in the early days of 改革开放. This is communism. In Chinese, forgetting the diaspora’s contribution is called 忘恩负义 and turning friendly countries that had helped the country rise is into enemies is called 恩将仇报.
What is not communism? Well, men who have no cars and no matrimonial apartments will have no chance of finding a wife 没车+没房=光棍. In the past (communist times) all companies were state-owned and any comrade getting married would be supplied with a matrimonial home. That is obviously not sustainable, but yes, it’s communism. China realised its mistake but ended up making another mistake – embracing a speculative real market and allowing property prices to skyrocket.