"A few vices are sufficient to blacken many virtues."
— Plutarch
Upon the death of Margaret Thatcher, David Kan Ting of Taiwan's China Post compares the accomplishments of Thatcher, Reagan and Deng Xiaoping, and finds the former two wanting:
In the long haul, however, I think Deng Xiaoping would stand head and shoulder (sic) above the rest of the few in spite of his physical stature. In five years, that's 2018 to be exact, China could overtake America as the world's largest economy, according to the Economist. The world is bound to undergo some profound changes because of the new pecking order brought about by Deng's epoch-making reforms 35 years ago. (emphasis added)
This observer is inclined to agree. Surely neither Thatcher nor Reagan can boast of the magnificent achievement of imprisoning and murdering 700,000 of their own citizens!
On the other hand, Deng the malignant dwarf✯ can - he imprisoned and murdered 700,000 Chinese intellectuals and landlords while serving as Mao Tse-tung's hatchet man during the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957-1958.
Odd that Tingles forgot to recount that. Must've slipped his mind...
But given the recent blood-curdling threats issuing forth from a certain North Korean nuclear madman, it's more than a little surprising David Kan Ting couldn't recall that it was Deng Xiaoping himself who was the North Koreans' primary enabler in their drive for nuclear weapons.
It was Deng Xiaoping who looked the other way. Deng Xiaoping who ran interference. Deng Xiaoping who propped them up economically.
It must therefore be Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Communist party that accepts a good part of the "credit" for the spectre of nuclear armageddon currently stalking Northeast Asia.
To this list, I shall not add the Tiananmen Massacre, of which Deng was the chief architect. Nor shall I mention the 3,000 souls mercilessly exterminated by Deng "we must prepare to spill some blood" Xiaoping.
I do not mention this matter - not because it's unimportant, but because by now it's painfully clear that David Kan Ting couldn't give two shits about Chinese murdered by their own government.
Postscript: David Kan Ting's latest column is not completely devoid of value - I, for one, did not know that Margaret Thatcher stumbled near a Chinese Communist legislative building back in '82. Nor would I have attached any deep metaphorical symbolism to her mistep.
I stand corrected:
The [refusal by Deng Xiaoping to allow Britain to keep Hong Kong] made Mrs. Thatcher apoplectic, and she fell on the steps of the Great Hall of the People — a lasting and telling image in the final episode of a 160-year historical drama of China's decline that began with the ignominious Opium War in 1860.
Ohhh, I get it: The fall of the mighty British Empire, and all that. Although I would suggest that the relatively unremarkable occurrance of a middle-aged woman in heels stumbling on stairs is far less "lasting and telling" than the revealing spectacle of Chinese ultranationalists like David Kan Ting crowing about it.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but schadenfreude, by definition, is something one should be ashamed of.
(Image from Lawsonry.com)
No matter. Regardless, I AM grateful that Ting educated me about this incident. So much so in fact, that I think it fitting to relate another obscure Margaret-Thatcher-in-China story:
This anecdote's for you, Tingles:
On a bitterly cold day, the Chinese had put on a magnificent parade to welcome Mrs Thatcher. It included hundreds of shivering children in the flimsiest of clothes. She took one look, called for the commander of the parade and ordered him: Take these children off the street or give them warm coats to wear.
(To this, The Telegraph adds that Thatcher threatened to leave the country immediately if her demand was not met.)
ThisIsCornwall.co.uk continues:
The officer quickly realised that arguing was not an option. And since they did not have several hundred coats to hand [out], the children were taken out of the parade and transferred to a building.
Mrs Thatcher personally checked that the building was warm inside before she would let this, by now browbeaten, officer off the hook.
Kinda metaphorical, no?
✯ We now have photographic proof positive that Deng more closely resembled a twisted hobbit than a malignant dwarf...
Always ready to admit error, The Foreigner sincerely apologizes for the mischaracterization - and for hurting the feelings of the entire Dwarven people.
(Deng Xiaoping image from TopFoto.co.uk. Gollum image from OverYourHead.co.uk)