A Sketch of History – in a different view by Korin Nakayama
Notes updated since 2019
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1. In the beginning
In a tribe anywhere, the strongest would usually be regarded as their leader.
All the people in a tribe or country worshipped a god or gods for protection or spiritual support on which their civilization is based when developed.
Before 1945 throughout history the world was like a jungle – the weak are meat and the strong do eat.
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2 Invasion from the East
The Great Migrations in Europe lasted for about four hundred years. It was triggered by the Huns’ attacks in 375 AD from where it is now North Romania, who used Chinese stirrups. The effect was a domino fall right up to the Atlantic and led to the fall of the Western Roman Empire with the revolt of slaves in the 5th Century – the so-called ‘the Yellow Peril’. That is also why the Anglo-Saxon moved to the British Isles from the Continent and founded 7 small kingdoms through chaos like the dozens on the Continent. They were all short lived. Only Frank the largest one survived and later split into France, Germany and Italy.
That pair of Chinese stirrups was a simple device made of cloth or lather but made a huge difference militarily compared with those who did not have one – the iron made ones were not until the 6th or 7th century.
Attila the Hun was not a European as depicted in some of the paintings. According to the records at the time, he was a typical Mongoloid. He had small eyes, a flat nose, broad chest, short in statue, etc. But some of the Huns may have been mixed with Turks, Iranians, Slavs, Arabs, etc along the 300 years journey to Europe. Attila himself married a Germanic girl although he died on the wedding night. Today Attila is still a common name in Hungary.
The Huns were from the north of the Great Wall because they used the stirrups invented by the Chinese before 200 BC, and it was the Huns who passed the knowledge of stirrups to the Europeans. There were times when the Huns and the Germanics were allies against the Romans.
The Hunnic Empire was short-lived. After the Huns faded away, others: the Avars, the Magyars, the Mongols, the Turks, etc from Central and North Asia invaded the Central and Eastern Europe one after another throughout the Medieval times. They were all nomads. Their Cavalry was mobile, faster, stronger than foot soldiers and could shock you especially when stirrups were used. Then the Ottoman Turks dominated the Balkans Peninsular from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the end of the first world war in 1918. Their ancestors originated in the Northeast Asia later called Manchuria. In the Southwest, Iberian Peninsula was invaded and ruled by the Moors (the Arabs) from 711 to 1492.
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3 Medieval Times
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europe entered the Medieval period lasting for a thousand years with all the Greek and Roman civilizations forgotten due to the devastation of the upheaval.
In Medieval times, Barbarians’ rule, serfdom, famines, deceases especially bubonic plague was rampant. If you were ill, there was no medicine, and water was thought to be bad for skin. The average life span was 35 years, not to mention infant mortality. That is why no great man was born or emerged apart from a few strong rulers.
So, the only hope was in Jesus Christ, who was propagated by the Church as the Saviour sent by God despite the fact it was a con, and Europeans were anti-Semitic.
In the circumstances, for protection or spiritual support you just live by believing without logic and without questioning because something was better than nothing, especially when many others are doing the same and it was organized.
So, you can say it was a mistake out of desperation due to the circumstances at the medieval times, perhaps even earlier and was passed down. But because Christianity is so deep-rooted in the European culture, no one can correct that mistake.
The Church’s dominance and the Dark Ages. For example, if you said the Earth was round, you would be burned to death as a heretic because according to the Holy Scripture the Earth was the centre of the universe and was not allowed to be described as flat or round.
During the Medieval times, Greek and Roman arts and learning were forgotten for a thousand years until the Renaissance in the 15th Century. In this period, China was more advanced. Papermaking, compass, gun powder, guns, cannons, printing, silk making, paper money, glasses, and many other things, including bubonic plaque all came to Europe through the Silk Roads.
The Islamic world was also more advanced as the crusaders saw when stepping out of Europe for the first time – bazaars, hotels, Universities, medicine, mathematics, etc. Consequently, the failure of the crusades to the Holy Land (1096-1272) questioned the Roman Catholic Church’s teachings and authority.
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4 Renascence
After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 – the end of Byzantine (formerly the Eastern Roman Empire), many Greek intellectuals fled to Italy with the knowledge of the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. The comparison between the beautiful Greek sculptures of human figures well over a thousand years earlier and the ugly paintings of God and Jesus Christ of the Medieval times inspired humanism and human values resulting in a shift of focus from God to humanity and the human society, etc.
Renaissance started in Florence and supported by the then Pope Leo the 10th and the Medici family, a Banker. Then it spread to all the other parts of Europe.
Since the Renaissance European arts and learning have been flourishing for 500 years until now, you can tell just by looking at the architecture, sculpture, and music alone.
So, the beginning of the Great Migrations Period in the 4th Century and the beginning of the Rennaissance Period in the 15th Century coincided with the Age of Exploration and overseas colonization were the two biggest turning points in the European history.
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5 Overseas Explorations – Invasion from the West
In the 15th century, the ancient lucrative trade routes between Europe and China – the Silk Road was blocked by the Ottoman Turks. Inspired by Marco Polo’s book about China, Japan, India, etc and new knowledge that Earth was round and the availability of the compass, an Italian navigator Christoph Columbus tried to find a sea route westward to reach the East with the support of Queen Isabella of Spain.
Christoph Columbus, the Queen Isabella, Portuguese navigators, and many others at the time were all inspired by Marco Polo’s book, the ‘Travel of the World’ which described the wealth of the East.
According to the book, in China and Japan gold was everywhere, roofs were made of gold two fingers thick, streets were paved with gold, everything was in terms of millions and so on. It was almost fictionalized. Some people even doubted whether he had been to China or Japan, or they were just based on hearsay. Nevertheless, the book had a huge impact and changed the course of the world history.
According to the only ‘world map’ available at the time, Japan on the Eastern edge of Asia was due west 3000 nautical miles away from the Canary Islands. However, after 36 days’ sailing on the 12th of October 1492 Columbus landed in what is now the Bahamas, but not Japan or China as indicated on the map and thought he must have reached India because of its tropical climate and believed so until his death in 1506. So, in the end he was unable to deliver the two letters of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Spain – one for the Emperor of China and one for the Emperor of India.
However, a few years later after Columbus landed in ‘India’, another Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci found it was a new continent unknown to the Europeans. So, it was later called America after his name, while the Caribbean region was later called the West Indies, and the natives were called Red Indians because of their red-tinted skin – now they are called native Americans. They originally came from North Asia by crossing Beiring Strait when it was frozen during the winter.
However, Red Indians were unfriendly, and the early European settlers had difficulty in finding food and had to practice cannibalism.
On the other hand, the Portuguese explorer Jorge Alvares was the first European who reached China landing on an island in what is now Hong Kong in 1513 via the sea route along the coastline – Cape of Good Hope, India, the Molucca Strait, etc. Later the Portuguese rented Macao as a trading post. According to their view the Chinese were physically small and weak and could be easily defeated and China was not like what Marco Polo had described. But soon Portugal declined along with Spain followed by the Dutch, the British and French.
Portuguese voyages in the 15th century were not just for India’s spices because of the price hike in Europe, but also because of the wealth of the Far East described by Marco Polo. In fact, after a new sea route to the Far East via the southern tip of Africa and Indian Ocean was discovered, all the countries in Europe, Middle East, Indian sub-continent, etc, sailed to China to import silk, porcelain, tea, etc. As a result, during the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1644-1911), China became the richest country in the world for 2 or 3 hundred years in terms of GDP and export revenues. But considering the living standards in the past, perhaps you can say during the Ming and Qing dynasties all the other countries were poorer than China – forget what you see in the beautified films.
Ming Dynasty had mountains of silver but was weak militarily.
In the 15th century during the Ming dynasty, before Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic in 1492, the Chinese navigator Zheng He made 7 voyages in 1405-1433 with a huge fleet of over 200 vessels and a crew of over 27000 sailors to Southeast Asia, India, West Asia, East Africa, but made little impact on the future and built no trading posts.
From the 15th Century the rise and expansion of Russia from Moscow to the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Pacific, and China started about the same time as overseas colonization by the West European countries.
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6 the Industrial Revolution
During the Industrial Revolution in Britain, millions of peasants were kicked out of the land to work in the dirty factories for 15 or 16 hours a day and lived in slums or on the streets and became baggers, thieves and robbers.
Look at that cruel Vagrancy law brought in by the new rising class, the bourgeoisie or Capitalists, who needed a workforce to pursue their profits – the so-called ‘surplus value’ – through exploitation. During the agriculture era, peasants were tied to the land and worked for landowners: federal lords, aristocrats, churches, etc. When peasants were kicked out of the land because of sheep business, they all ended up in the cities as the homeless. Facing this mess, the government solution: sail out and plunder around the world with guns and steal – the so-called ‘imperialism’.
Because of the Industrial Revolution, at the time the best weapons made in the world were British. Their guns were more accurate and more powerful with longer ranges. That means in Asia, Africa, America, etc they could shoot you, but you could not reach them as seen in the films. So, with the best weapons in their hand they came out to rob you as much as possible and steal, which were pursued as their national policy in the national interest, especially by the Benjamin Disraeli’s government – a Jew who wanted to curry favour with the British by doing some bad things for them in the name of ‘Imperialism’. It was just like an armed robbery but on a huge scale. It was planned, organized and systematic and they called it ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’.
You can tell just by looking at the number of firearms manufactured at the time, and the solution was a massive success. But even during the hight of the British Empire London was full of slums and Thames River stunk, etc.
To make money grow you would need an initial capital – kicking peasants out of land was one way to get it and selling black slaves was another.
………capitalists’ exploitation …… Hence, Karl Marx, Das Kapital, class struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and Communism…….
Then the workers’ movement split over the issue of change through Parliament or revolution. There were Communists, Socialists, National Socialists, Democrats, Social Democrats, Liberal Democrats, Labour etc, etc like Christan denominations.
However, later Capitalism in the West survived through legislation, taxation, redistribution of wealth, the welfare state, etc, because the bourgeoisie made concessions – after they had had over a hundred years of comfortable lives, their behaviour had started to improve. At the same time, Capitalism proved to be far more productive than the planned economy in Communist countries. So, nowadays, the market economy is almost global except a few countries like Cuba and North Korea, and Karl Marx’s prediction has failed.
Nowadays, Capitalism means high productivity and prosperity rather than exploitation; because private-owned businesses will have to compete in variety, quantity, quality, efficiency, etc to survive, while worker’s rights are protected by legislation, although it varies depending on the country. On the other hand, a planned economy in the Socialist countries means lack of incentive and austerity. No matter how hard you work, you get the same amount of income, and it can also lead to rigid bureaucracy. So, not enough is produced and shared by all and expansion or doing something new has to be based on saving year after year. However, a planned economy can be good, but only for 10 or 20 years, as in the former Soviet Union and China. Because switching from a planned economy to a market economy is not easy, it needs to be prepared years in advance or a gradual transition. You cannot use a ‘shock treatment’ like Boris Yeltsin did.
That is why Capitalism won the Cold War.
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There have been 4 Industrial Revolutions that have increased human wealth dramatically.
1 1760 – 1840, using steam as energy instead of people and animals starting with textile industry in Britain.
2 1870 – 1914, using oil and electricity as energy particularly in the USA which led to mass production in millions with millions of varieties.
3 1990s, use of computer – a change from mechanical to digital with labour-saving software.
4 2015, trends towards automation in production – the use of Robots. In the future you can even use robots to build cities.
There will be more revolutions to come.
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7 The First World War
Overseas colonization led by Spain and Portugal, then the Netherlands, then Britain and France. However, Germany was left behind because of late unification because they had over three hundred small states like Liechtenstein to be unified. So was Italy, which was separated in eight states, while Japan was a follower in industrialization.
The Netherlands used to be part of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany), then became part of Spain through royal marriages. They were skilled at building ocean going ships. After independence, they monopolized world spice trade during the 17th century with the largest fleet of some 20,000 ships – more than the rest of the world combined.
For nearly a thousand years (962-1806) Germany was officially called the Holy Roman Empire – a title given by the Pope in exchange for protection. But it had no substance; because it was ‘neither Holy, nor Roman and nor an Empire’. It consisted of three or four hundreds of German-speaking states – most of them were in the size of Lichstein with an elected Emperor. It was just a loosely put together political federation. The largest were Prusia and Austria. Prussia was a highly industrialized and militarized country. After defeating Austria, Prusia under Otto Von Bismarck unified the rest of Germany in 1871 and became a late comer in overseas colonization when little was left.
On the other hand, the three German-speaking countries: Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein remained independent, while Hungary joined Austria to form the Austria-Hungary Empire at the turn of the 18th century which collapsed after WWI in 1918.
Italy used to be part of the Holy Roman Empire then ruled by Austria-Hungary Empire. By the 19th century it was separated in 10 states or territories, then they became independent and unified as the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 through negotiations. So, they were late too, while Japan after Meiji Restoration in 1868 was just a follower looking for natural resources and colonies in East Asia. That is why these three formed an alliance during WWII.)
The dividing or re-dividing of the world by European powers led to the First World War (1014-1918) involving more than 30 nations. It was triggered off by the assassination of the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungry by a Bosnia Serb and ended up in a Communist revolution in Russia and laid groundwork for the Second World War twenty years later (1939-1945).
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…… in 1917 the Russian revolution ……. the civil war …… foreign interventions …… the first politically Communist and economically Socialist state with the agenda to spread the revolution around the world …. ……
…… influenced by the Russian Revolution in 1917 the German Revolution took place between 1918 and 1919 … ……. a stab in the back by Jews because most German communists were Jews …. ……Germany’s defeat …. the Weimar Republic ……. the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles and the discontent of 5 million unemployed due to the World Depression from 1929 to 1934 led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and revenge …. ……. the second world war ….……… the Holocaust…
There was not much substance in Adolf Hitler’s speeches. It was the way how he spoke and the variations in pitch, volume, tone, pace, pause, phrasing, hand gesture, facial expression, poses, body movement, eye contact, etc that you will know he was the right man in the right place at the right time. He was a body language master. That is why he never needed a script or a speech writer. However, if he spoke like this during an election campaign in the present days, he might frighten people away. On the other hand, it is still possible to speak like this depending on the issue and to what extent in the use of your body language.
….. emotional discharge by verbalizing thoughts, …… He always seemed to have clear thoughts or an insight after speech. He was clear about what he wanted. So, speaking like this is a good exercise for those depressed or frustrated to clarify their cluttered thoughts. …… For a good performance you would need some good emotional issues like Hitler had preferably without a script for up to 10 minutes.
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8 The Second World War
Guns and canons were invented by the Chinese around the 10th century. But they did not improve them. After the idea came to Europe through the Silk Road or Arabs, the Europeans improved them and took more than three quarters of the entire world. But they did not want to take over China, because it was in such a mess especially after Taiping Rebellion (1859-1864) in which 50-70 million people died. The European powers just wanted to make money through trade and let a woman like the Empress Dowager Cixi mess up China further for some 40 years until 1908, to their benefits. But when Japan wanted to take over China for its natural resources. First, they took Manchuria in 1931, then the cities and provinces south of the great wall from 1937 onwards. The European powers wanted to stop it; hence the Pacific War or the Second World War in the East in conflict with the new rising superpower, the USA.
First, US oil embargo in January 1940 led to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour and other Pacific islands in December 1941, which forced the USA to enter the war and saved Britain which was isolated on the European Front. Then, Japan went to the Southeast Asia to look for oil. Germany also went to Stalingrad to look for oil which turned out to be the beginning of the end.
Germany’s sudden attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 was a huge success, because Stalin was not prepared after signing a non-aggression pact with Hitler and because of the loss of some 20,000 generals and officers during the Great Purge in 1935-1938 and the replacements were incompetent or inexperienced.
Germany, Italy and Japan – all the late-comers in dividing the world – formed alliance, but it was ineffective due to distance with Italy surrendered first. Germany and Italy were late because of their late unification while Japan was a follower in industrialization. But both Germany and Japan were doomed from the start due to their limited resources. In the end size mattered.
The world map was redrawn by the Big Three – Roosvelt, Stalin and Churchill. But in terms of influence Churchill was a half. So, it was Two and a Half. Britain won but was halved.
During the WW2, the Japanese rules were different from the West. As a result of the militarist education, the Japanese believed if you were a soldier, you were expected to fight to the end honourably. If you surrendered or ran away, you would be despised and treated badly. They were not bound by the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of POW. But after the war they joined the Convention.
After surrender, Germany and Japan still have been sovereign states and their GDPs are still near the top in the world – all the same or even better. So, the WWII seemed to be a waste of time.
After the War, the world was divided into two camps led by two superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, with some countries in between and the European colonies became independent.
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The Partitions
Poland was once a powerful nation allied with Lithuania beating Prussia and Russia then 3 times partitioned between Russia, Prussia and Austria (1772, 1793, 1795). Taking the opportunity of Russian and German revolutions in 1918, they regained their independence after 123 years of partitions. Then the Soviet and Polish War (1919-1921) took place until both sides were exhausted, and Poland was partitioned again between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union in 1939, which was followed by the Second World War. The poles regained independence again after the War in 1947 until now.
The partition of India in 1947 was the worst and most violent one, not to mention the tens of millions of the displaced. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims used to live next to each other and shared many things: public facilities, hospitals, schools, train stations, police stations, government offices, etc. But when tens of millions of Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan and tens of millions of Muslims moved to Pakistan from India, everything had to be divided. For example, library books had to be divided according to alphabetical etc. It was sheer madness. Further complications: Pakistan had two parts: one was in the west and one in the east (now Bangladesh). The British tactic of divide and rule and support for the formation of All-India Muslim League in 1906 saw the seeds of trouble.
The Partition of Palestine in 1947 was the result of double dealing. To win the First World War and for other calculations, Britain promised Arabs independence and Jews a Homeland because they needed Arabs to fight on the allied side and Jewish lobbying for America to enter the war. The double dealing has led to conflict between the Arabs and Jews for nearly 80 years until now.
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9 The USA
The USA has a short history but dramatic, started with 13 states in 1774 then gained territories through purchases and war with the Red Indians, Mexico, Spain, France, etc. ……
Bought Louisiana from France; Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona, etc from Mexico; and Alaska from Russia.
Gained Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines from Spain.
…. the slave trade …… because Africans were more cooperative than the Red Indians.
War with the Red Indians over land ……. Massacres on both sides led to the gun laws in many states under which everyone can be armed to the present day.
The American Civil War in 1861-1865 was to set black slaves free and let them work in the factories due to labour shortages caused by mass production by using oil and electricity as energy – the Second Industrial Revolution. But it did not happen as they just stayed on and became farmers. So, they opened the door to immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia. (The early settlers were all from Western Europe.) As a result, America became the richest and most powerful country in the world with the largest industrial output coupled with the arms sales for the two world wars. And American culture has been prevailing the world until now: Movies, records, cars, jazz, pop, rock, jeans, T shirts, supermarkets, soft drinks, fast food, etc.
Calligraphy, Peking opera, Cantonese opera, Tai chi, dragon boat rowing, kiting, etc will never be able to compete with America – noodles can.
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10 China
It is not true that the Chinese history was ‘continuous and unbroken for 5000 years.’ In fact, it was broken twice – by the Mongols in 1271-1368 and by the Manchurians in 1644-1911. For the first 60 years the Manchurians massacred 40 to 80 million Chinese to consolidate their power in China as a minority and impose their pigtails on the Chinese. One of the massacres was described in a book called ‘10 days in Yangzhou’ where estimated 800,000 people died. Hitler killed 6 million Jews, 算起来,小巫见大巫.
When the Qing dynasty was overthrown, Manchurians had to change to Chinese names for fear of reprisal. However, they were forgiven because the Chinese territory had been expanded by the Manchurians three or fourfold to the present size. Previously, the Chinese territory was just in the south of the Great Wall.
In Indonesia President Suharto killed about a half million Chinese, many of whom were Communists, in the later 60s and yet he was described as ‘an old friend of the Chinese people’ by Chinese newspapers.
Chinese people tend to believe Russia had grabbed a lot of land from China through unequal treaties in the 19th century. But Russia thinks it was a matter between Russia and Manchuria, not with China whose territory was south of the Great Wall and that Manchuria does not exist anymore and has been divided between Russia and China. On the other hand, the Chinese tend to think the Manchurians had been synoecized. Therefore, Manchurian territories were Chinese territories.
For over 2000 years, China’s main threat was from the North and Northwest – the Huns, the Turks, the Mongols, the Manchurians and quite a few others, who were called Northern nomadic people (the old friends of the Chinese people). The word Gansu in Gansu Province is Turkish, meaning blood. The Japanese invasions were only in the last hundred years or so apart from pirates during the Ming Dynasty.
The darkest period in the Chinese history was during the North and South Dynasties around the 5th century. The northern nomad’s invasion ….. upheavals … their soldiers were not bothered to carry food. They just ate up. ….. forced migrations from north to south like Hakka Chinese did. There were Parallel migrations and upheavals in Europe as well before and after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century on a much larger scale. The upheavals on both continents were caused by the Mongols. Were they coincidental? The 5th century was the darkest one in the world history.
During the 5th century because of war and suffering, in China more people turned to Buddhism for protection or spiritual support through beliefs, while in Europe more people turned to Christianity for the same reason, and this is how the two religions started to spread to suit the needs of the time, then it was followed by Islam with another set of beliefs based on the Arab culture in the 7th century.
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The Great Wall was specially built to defend China from the raids of the Huns. However, in the first century AD after a crushing defeat, one of the groups, the Northern Huns, moved westwards and appeared in Europe in the 4th Century roughly on the same altitude and had a big stir – the Great Migrations which lasted 3 or 4 hundred years and changed the course of the European history.
In defeating the Huns, the Chinese used stirrups – a simple device made of cloth or lather – which the Huns did not know yet. So, they were more effective than the Great Wall.
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In the 18th Century China was the largest economy in the world, and all the European countries wanted to trade with. However, it started to decline at the beginning of the 19th Century and failed to understand the significance of industrialization until it had been beaten repeatedly. When it tried to reform as Japan did 30 years earlier, it was too late.
……….. One of the problems, for example, China had a long coastline but did not have a navy to defend it as shown in the First Opium War with Britain, because previously all the battles took place on land in the North or the Northwest. This situation applies to many other countries. It was like the Central and Eastern Europe did not have cavalry to match the one from Central and north Asia during the Medieval times and were open to attacks.
Iron-made battleships vs wooden vessels ….. …. Later the Chinese also bought iron-made battleships, but too many soldiers tended to flee, once they heard gun fire.
What a contrast! The Empress Dowager Cixi used the money allocated for the maintenance and expansion of the Chinese Navy to rebuild the Summer Palace for her 60th birthday. To raise funds for building Japanese Navy the Meiji Emperor wanted all the Japanese people and government officials to donate 10% of their salaries, while he himself ate one meal a day instead of three to save money.
The quality of the Chinese soldiers was so poor that in the 1930s Chiang Kai-shek did not want to fight the Japanese to avoid war reparations and ceding of territories as did in the first Sino-Japan war in 1894. Instead, he appealed to the International League. At the time Chinese soldiers were in no way could match the Japanese in terms of training, discipline, morale, equipment, etc. For example, Chinese soldiers wore straw or cloth made shoes ……… Japanese soldiers were all trained to die for their Emperor … ….. Instead, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to fight the Communists first who he regarded as bandits and an internal trouble and chased Mao’s army for over ten thousand miles from the Southeast to the Northwest, which the Communists called ‘the Long March’. During the civil war between the Nationalist and the Communist (1927-1936 and 1945-1949) he even engaged German military advisors and Japanese generals.
However, Chiang Kai-shek lost the civil war due to corruption and incompetence and withdrew to Taiwan, while Mao Zedong took over the whole Mainland and proclaimed the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Amid the Korea War and the cold war, now the West wanted Japan on their side. So, when the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed in 1953, Chiang Kai-Shek who still represented China from Taiwan in the name of the Republic of China waived the war reparations against Japan; as he considered the war was caused by the Japanese War Lords, not the Japanese people who had already suffered from the atom bombs. In 1972 when Mao’s the People’s Republic of China established diplomatic relationship with Japan, they also agreed the matter had been settled. However, Japan still paid reparations to other countries.
The Republic of China started in 1911 after the Qing Dynasty was overthrown. After Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975 who was also a dictator, Taiwan became democratised like Spain did after Francisco Franco died in 1975. So, on the world stage and in the United Nations, there has been an issue of two Chinas or two Chinese governments – who should represent China. In the end size mattered.
The Korea War (1950-1953) miraculously restarted the Japanese economy from ashes as a military equipment supplier leading to economic booms ever since like the Marshal Plan did in the Western Europe. Now Japan is the third largest economy in the world.
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Peasant Emperor 土皇帝
Imagine, in 1959 for industrialization that ‘great wise leader’ Chaiman Mao suddenly wanted peasants to produce steel at backyard with bare hands instead of farming. There was a slogan called ‘先干后想’ – ‘Do First, Think Later’. As a result, some 40 million peasants starved to death coupled with the drought in 1959-1962. So, he became isolated among the Communist Party’s leadership. Then he used Red Guards (teenagers and university students) to topple his opponents.
The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) was in fact a power struggle within the Party over the issue of economic policy. It was not a revolution about culture although there were such phenomena in the beginning. ……. ………. After he regained his power, he just sent tens of millions of Red Guards and university students to the countryside to live, eat and work with peasants and to be re-educated by them for years. It seemed to be in compensation for those 40 million peasants who died of famine in 1959-1962 because of his disastrous ‘the Great Leap Forward’, or he tried to show how much he valued peasants ……… 愚民政策…… bizarre and the insanity of the Chinese Communism.
In the 1950s due to embargo and encirclement, he wanted the USSR to help him make atom bombs to fight USA by relying on the size of China’s population. He did not know most Chinese people had DNA defects, but he would not care a jot, if half of them perished; because they could always breed more. But Nikkita Khrushchev refused, because his policy was peaceful co-existence and did not want to be dragged into a nuclear war with the USA. He wanted all the Chinese to go to the Moon. So, the two biggest Communist countries became enemies for some 30 years – previously for some 10 years (1949-1959) they were comrades plus brothers.
Then, due to the nuclear threats from the USSR, upheaval of the cultural revolution, crumbling economy, poverty, backwardness, isolation, etc, instead of fighting a nuclear war with the USA, he had to change his stance by establishing diplomatic ties with the USA through ‘Ping Pong diplomacy’ in 1972 after 23 years’ open hostilities. So, the saying is correct, ‘There are no eternal friends or enemies. There are only eternal interests.’
Today China is still regarded as a threat by the West because Chairman Mao is still regarded as ‘the great wise leader’ and his values are still upheld in China especially by President Xi Jinping, even though that Peasant Emperor was far worse than the Empress Dowager Cixi.
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The shift of the manufacturing Industry from the West to the Far East in the 60s and 70s led to the economic booms in the region through Capitalism. But the Chinese had to wait until after Mao died in 1976 to be able to buy and sell and make money. Then the miracle, as China is now the second-largest economy in the world and has lifted 1 billion people out of poverty since 1979 when the economic reform started. It may be the largest, if calculated differently; because one dollar can buy more things in China than in America.
…. that ‘Capitalist-Roader’ Deng Xiaoping must have been thinking about that reform for over 20 years since the 1950s …. ……. the so-called ‘a socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics’ – in other words, Capitalism under the control of the Chinese Communist Party ………..
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11 Japan
Traditionally, Japanese houses are made of wood or light materials, because Japan is situated along the world’s most active earthquake belt. Earthquakes do not kill people but falling buildings do. Japanese houses are simple and only designed for sitting, living and sleeping on the floor (tatami) with the minimal furniture and do not suit the modern needs.
While the country was closed, Japan only allowed two foreign countries, China and the Netherlands to trade with through Nagasaki until the Americans came in an iron made battleship and demanded trade in 1853.
After Meiji Reform in 1868 Japan moved from a closed medieval-like feudal state straight into Capitalism and industrialization based on the European model. Previously, Japan’s cultural system was based on the Chinese model for over a thousand years.
After Meiji Reform in only 30 years Japan rose from a closed feudal state as a military power beating China in 1894 and Russia in 1905.
Due to lack of natural resources Japan wanted Manchuria desperately which was rich in natural resources. After 14 years’ construction and management (1931-1945) like building their own country, Manchuria became the 4th largest economy in the world after the USA, the Soviet Union and Britian – even larger than Japan itself. …….. the 4th largest?
After WW2 Japan had to rely on the manufacturing industry to develop its economy by importing materials from abroad. They started with imitation but now are innovative.
Since Meiji Reform in 1868 Japan has learnt or tried to learn everything from the West. After the WW2 they even use English words instead of Japanese words when speaking or writing as led by the media. But they have never tried to learn in Housing and City Planning because the government seem to think it is a matter for people to decide how they want to live with the minimal government intervention which is the philosophy of the Liberal Democrat Party which has been in government since the end of the WWII until now through merging and coalitions. As a result, the Japanese standards in Housing and City Planning are totally incompatible with its status of the third largest economy in the world. Because of the housing standards, Japan has never been regarded as an equal by other rich countries, at least privately.
If you make Housing a political issue, you will win elections using the model of the city of Sapporo viewed from the TV Tower.
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There are 20 or 30 thousand uninhibited islands in the Pacific Ocean. If oil or natural gas has been discovered in one of them such as Diaoyu Islands or Senkaku Islands, there are bound to be countries to claim they were there first. Otherwise, who would care?
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12 Russia
Mikhail Gorbachev’s ill thought out and hasty economic and political reforms in the late 1980s led to the breakup of the Soviet Union and disasters.
The switch from a planned economy to a market economy is a difficult one and may take two or three decades to realize. To deal with this problem and partly influenced by the theory at the time that Western Democracy would lead to economic prosperity, his approach was by giving away East European satellite states, 15 Soviet Republics and the Russian Communist Party in exchange for economic aid from the West. Looking back, it was a miscalculation.
He should have done this: capitalism under the control of the Russian Communist Party within the Soviet Union, change the name of the Communist Party and its constitution but keep the same organization and take it from there to negotiate with the West about economic aid.
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13. Climate Change and Human Adaptability
More people, more cars, more factories and more emissions – this is just one product, and there are millions of others. In other words, human activities increase temperature. Therefore, at present, there are too many people on this planet.
However, the size of the world population will shrink because of the advanced birth control which is on the horizon. So much so that under-population may become a problem with significantly more LGBT in the future. So, funnily enough, LGBT can also contribute to solving this problem of over-population!
Therefore, more research to bring forward the advanced birth control along with other measures are equally important in the long term to tackle the environmental problems caused by climate change. On the other hand, it would be out of proportion and unwise to fight a natural phenomenon by throwing trillions of trillions of pounds at it, especially at a time when most countries in the world are still poor or are developing, and there is a potential end of the world through a nuclear war or World War III.
As a measure, eating tofu or praying may also contribute. If eating less meat can help hold global warming, then you would need something nutritious, and tofu when cooked with other ingredients is a good substitute. If billions of people spend one minute a day praying, God might do something – you never know.
When worse comes to the worst, for survival humanity will try to adapt to the changing environment by instinct and through more advanced technologies. So, it is not the end of the world like a nuclear explosion. It is a slow process, and humanity will have plenty of time to adapt to it. You can always create more land for receding coastlines or create more islands. While old species are dying, new ones are still forming. The mysterious evolution on earth continues as before.
Living at a higher temperature is like moving from a cold country to a hot one. You can adapt to it or get used to it. It is certainly not the end of the world. Ironically, the amount of the reparations that rich nations agree to pay for the loss and damage to the developing nations caused by global warming suggests the problem is not that ‘serious’.
The good thing you can see is that within a hundred years the world population, hence human activities and emissions will start to decrease steadily due to advanced birth control. During this evolution after hundreds or thousands of years, one of the gradual physical changes could be the skin of all the peoples on earth becoming dark.
Human beings evolved from aps or monkeys. Eventually one way or another, we will evolve into another more advanced species. As a species, 30,000 years’ human existence on Earth has been brief in universal terms – perhaps only ‘10 seconds.’ What we are now in the 21st century is certainly not the last stage of the evolution that has been taking place in the past 4 billion years since the earth was formed, which according to scientists should last for another 4 or 5 billion years until the Sun is burnt out and all the planets in the solar system are disintegrated.
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Nowadays you do not hear much about climate change or net zero targets anymore because the issue has been resolved as of 2023 by this article.
Now, the irony is that as a naturalist and champion of tackling climate change Sir David Attenborough did not know the possibility that like animals and plants humanity can adapt to the climate change in their own capacity. Over-population causing climate change is a problem that everyone knows and an easy one since there is plenty of information available on the Internet. But he does not know how to solve this problem just like an ordinary person.
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14. Human Fallibility
Therefore, the danger of miscalculation in conflict in today’s world is far more imminent and threatening than climate change due to human fallibility – you can make mistakes; I also can make mistakes. Only the nuclear bomb does not make mistakes which ensures the end of the world. I am talking about the nuclear bomb collectively, not individually because some of them may not explode. But don’t forget the number of nuclear bombs in our possession is enough to destroy the world several times. How can you rely on all the government officials’ judgements in all the countries all the time? At a critical moment one miscalculation somewhere along the line would be enough for the end of the world.
So, what to do to save the world for our children and children’s children?
1. In the long term, prepare for world integration for convenience and mutual benefits based on standardization, consensus and shared values within 300 years, because standardization, consensus and shared values defuse conflict.
2. In the short term, reduce military spending and start nuclear disarmament and ban research permanently.
3. A peace formula: 大事化小事，小事化无事. (De-escalate and sort out details through talks.)
4. War needs a referendum under the constitution. It may take 100 years for all the countries to do so.
5. Maintain the status quo over any territory issues while world integration is going on.
6. Disputes between countries to be resolved by an international court which also deals with complaints of provocation. Membership will be mandatory, and decisions will be legally binding. It may take 100 years for all the countries to agree.
7. The United Nations to be re-organized to promote peace and lead world integration and eventually becomes the world government.
8. Of these 300 years, the first 50 years will be most complicated, difficult and dangerous due to disagreement, conflict, a possible nuclear war and a possible World War III.
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15. The Scenario
The West regard the rise of China as a threat. That means China will take over the West. But this will not be the case. The most likely scenario will be a lot of Chinese will move to the West for business, work, study, tourism, visiting, exchanges, etc, and vice versa and this will happen to all the other countries. That is why within 300 years the entire world will be integrated for convenience and mutual benefits based on standardization, consensus and shared values, as peoples are getting know each other better and poverty in all the countries is over.
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16 A Forecast
As capital chases low-cost labor around the world, in one or two hundred years all the poor countries will be something like today’s Indonesia or Jakarta in 2023 as shown on my YouTube channel phoenix2351 and one’s perceptions about other countries and peoples will be totally different, compared with today’s.
Therefore, within three hundred years from now the entire world will be intergraded – politically, economically, socially and culturally starting with region by region; because we are all under the same roof and must depend on each other and there will be a need to be unified based on standardization, consensus and shared values for convenience and mutual benefits. This is the direction that humanity is heading unless there is a nuclear war, and this is what all the countries and all the international organizations should be prepared for strategically. Every country will have to give and take or adjust, which could involve monumental decisions such as giving up your language.
On the other hand, as human wealth increases and will be distributed more widely, marriage and reproduction will gradually become unnecessary, and the human society will be restructured while life will become simpler.
There will be more Robots than human beings living side by side on this planet. Imagine everyone will have 1 or 2 assistants or servants. Regulations are indeed needed in advance to ensure they will be used peacefully and legally.
After a series of further industrial revolutions, space travel will become common like today’s air travel. When you are up there, you will know there is God or something mysterious. Therefor modern religions will emerge to suit modern needs and for space exploration.
The world could split again over some issues or different values but not into one or two hundred countries. Currently a nuclear war may be a slow one with a gradual process. However, because of examining basics and fundamentals to find a way forward humanity will discover weapons capable of instant global destruction – you cannot play slow. But improvement in human behavior will still be falling behind the leaps and bounds in science and technology.
If there is no nuclear war and we avoid anything self-destructive, in another thousand years there will be only one civilization with one mixed-race and one common language on earth like how the USA and Brazil have been evolving.
With one mixed race, people will not think about their heritage anymore but just look forward. What is the point of preserving 3,000 languages and 30,000 dialects by using them every day? when you do not even know who your ancestor was. On the other hand, good parts of any heritage will be artistically preserved or used inter-nationally and creatively while undesirable ones be eliminated. So, despite integration the world will still be diverse or even more so.
From another perspective – if looking back, you see war, suffering, poverty, famines, diseases, etc; if looking forward, you see wealth increases due to advanced science and technology while population decreases due to advanced birth control; then you will realize the entire human history was like a journey from ‘Hell’ to ‘Heaven’.
When in ‘Hell’ – in the beginning when human beings emerged – the environment was primitive, and life meant suffering for all with all human needs being denied, and everyone behaved badly in every respect which caused fighting all the time – individual against individual, tribe against tribe, country against country, etc.
When in ‘Heaven’ – in the future – the environment will be perfect, and life means happiness for all with all human needs being met and everyone behaves well in every respect all the time – and this is the direction where human beings are heading.
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