Reddit reviews Red China Blues: My Long March From Mao to Now

The truth about Tiananmen Square is far different than what you commonly read in the press. The following excerpt is from the book Red China Blues by Jan Wong. She was a western journalist who was liberal, pro-democracy, and against the Chinese government. She was on the ground in Tiananmen the entire time, and interacted directly with all the protesters. This is her account:



>I was becoming more than a bit cranky. The outside world thought the demonstrators were disciplined, and marveled. But having lived through the Cultural Revolution myself, talents like slogan shouting and mass marching didn't impress me. Maybe it was sleep deprivation - I was working nineteen hours a day - but to my jaundiced eye it seemed that the students were merely aping their oppressors. They established a Lilliputian kingdom in Tiananmen Square, complete with a mini-bureaucracy with committees for sanitation, finance, and "propaganda". They even adopted grandiose titles. Chai Ling was elected Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Tiananmen Square Unified Action Headquarters.

>Like the government, the students' broadcast station sometimes deliberately disseminated misinformation, such as the resignation of key government officials, which wasn't true. They even, indignity of indignities, issued us press passes. Using transparent fishing line held in place by volunteers who simply stood there all day, they carved the huge square into gigantic concentric circles of ascending importance. Depending on how our press passes were stamped determined how deeply we could penetrate those silly circles. We reporters had to show our passes to half a dozen officious monitors before we could interview the student leaders, who, naturally, hung out at the very center, at the Monument to the People's Heroes.

>One night, a rumor swept through the square that the students had captured some assault rifles. If true, it meant they possessed weapons for the first time. I tracked down the tent where the guns were supposedly stored and asked the wild-eyed student guard if I could take a peek. He refused, but assured me the guns were inside. For an allegation that serious, I had to see the guns for myself. But he wouldn't budge, and I finally stomped off in frustration, never reporting it. Later, I found out it was true, and perhaps a reason the government decided to shoot to kill on the fateful night.

You can read it yourself via Amazon's search inside the book

The West needs to stop falling in love with every movement that calls themselves "pro-democracy" and start looking at the actual actions of that group. Remember, the tyrant Mao came to power with the aid of the American State department, under the banner of "New Democracy" ( and the same for Mugabe in Zimbabwe).

The current leadership of China leaves much to be desired, but it is indisputably the best government China has had in centuries. The leaders of the Tiananmen movement were armed revolutionaries who showed every intention of destroying a competent, if autocratic, regime, and replacing it with a tyranny of their own.

if you are interested in a first-person perspective on the cultural revolution you would probably like the book "red china blues: my long march from mao to now" by jan wong. it's told by a canadian journalist who went to beijing after university in 1970 to explore her chinese roots. her follow-up books are also good (she wound up a foreign correspondent) but red china blues is the most fascinating.

edit http://www.amazon.com/Red-China-Blues-Long-March/dp/0385482329

Gooooooo Communism! (for those who want more information on the culutral revolution from a first hand perspective, read Red China Blues: My long march from Mao to now)