There’s an old comedy skit of a haughty art expert giving a museum tour and explaining the meaning of an abstract painting. When he finishes, a woman in front says, “I don’t like it” to which the expert responds “well you’re wrong.” The skit is funny, of course, because art is in the eye of the beholder . . . unless you are in China apparently. This week, former journalist (and businessman) Luo Changping was arrested. Unfortunately, that is not uncommon in the authoritarian state. However, his crime was saying that he did not like “The Battle at Lake Changjin,” a $200 million film about the Battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War. In China, it is a crime to defame “political martyrs.”
This story combines two of my favorite subjects: free speech and military history. Unfortunately, neither survives unscathed.
The film has been criticized as a propaganda film with the United States as the villains as thousands of “volunteer” Chinese soldiers confront and defeat the world’s largest superpower. In fairness, the United States produced its own one-sided films during the war that often portrayed Chinese soldiers as blood-thirsty inhuman fanatics. However, we did not arrest those who criticized the films.
The Chinese call the operation “The Battle at Lake Changjin.” In truth it was a Chinese victory in forcing the United States out of Northern Korea. The Chinese succeeded in quietly inserting its 9th Army into the area and then hitting the X Corps under Major General Edward Almond in the Chosin Reservoir. That led to one of the most brutal battles that the United States ever fought, including pitched battles against overwhelming numbers of Chinese in freezing conditions for 17 days.
The battle occurred in late November 1950, when the United Nations forces were moving to wipe out the last remnants of the North Korean People’s Army (NKPA) units. The final victory appeared at hand as some U.S. units actually reached the Yalu River, separating Korea from China. That is when hundreds of thousands of Communist Chinese soldiers suddenly poured into Korea. One unit in the 7th Infantry Division, the 31st Regimental Combat Team (known as Task Force MacLean) was virtually wiped out. In reality, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir was not such a clear victory. The Chinese did succeed strategically in forcing U.N. troops out of Northern Korea and creating the current division of the Korean Peninsula. However, they did not (as intended) overrun and destroy the U.N. forces. While caught unprepared for the Chinese attack, the United Nations, and specifically the Eighth Army, fought a well-organized retreat that preserved its force and maximized losses for the Chinese.
In the end, the losses for the Chinese were staggering. Chinese casualties were estimated as between 50,000 and 60,000. The U.N. suffered about 17,000 casualties. The battle is often cited as an example of the use of human wave tactics — an approach that invites a virtual massacre of your own forces while seeking to overwhelm or exhaust a line of defense.The movie is dramatically shot and (as shown below) has some incredible scenes. However, the test of any movie is its ability to withstand its critics from both cinematic and historical perspectives. It is bizarre to think of Luo Changping sitting in a barren cell when another prisoner asks “what are you in for?” The response “I didn’t like a film” may come as a surprise even in China but it might be best not to ask him for his specific review.
My uncle fought in the Korean War. It was so icy cold that when he drank hot coffee, his tooth shattered. He must have had a cavity or crack that fractured from thermal shock. The pain was excruciating, but there was nothing to be done but press on and keep fighting. Later, a medic pulled the tooth for him.
When I asked him what he thought about North Korea, he was very frustrated. He said they were right there. The military had fought, and our people had died or been wounded to get them right there, only to be pulled back. And for what? He said they should have kept fighting and finished what they started. Then there’d only be one Korea, which I think they used to call Chosun. There wouldn’t be any socialist dictatorship occasionally threatening to nuke us. There wouldn’t be North Koreans starving to death, where having a business is an offense that can get you thrown into a reeducation camp that will mean your death. In North Korea, as defectors say, the government decides who lives well, and who starves to death. A bad songbun can put you in the untouchable starvation caste. If someone runs afoul of the government, their entire family’s songbun craters.
This seems to be the trend. Our military fights and bleeds in wars, only for politicians to prevent them from doing their job. Korea. Vietnam. Now Afghanistan is the latest ignominious surrender. Technically, we are still at war with North Korea, because a treaty was never signed, only an armistice. Except now, North Korea has nuclear weapons. Sure, its soldiers are tiny and infested with parasites due to generational malnutrition, but we wouldn’t have to consider a nuclear enemy if we’d thrown everything we had at it. A war to hold back communism and socialism just didn’t have the popular support that the fairly recent WWII had, so we folded when China got involved. Russia was also supporting the North Koreans, so perhaps this would have turned into another world war. There were compelling reasons at the time to throw in the towel, but it didn’t solve our problems with North Korea.
North Korea is such a terrible country that the POWs we captured did not want to be repatriated in an exchange. They wanted to stay. Some were literally dragged back until the UN negotiated with China and North Korea to allow some to defect. North Korea, on the other hand, refused to return about 80,000 South Korean POWs. Their fate was probably grim.
We had the opportunity to shove China back, and finish a war we’d started. South Korea is free and prosperous because of us, but the hermit country to the north, dark as pitch from space, was allowed to persist. This gave the CCP a foothold in the region. Freeing Korea would have helped keep China contained.
Right now, our government, and indeed many governments, are frightened of China. All it took for Canada not to extradite the daughter of Huawei founder to the US for charges of breaking sanctions on the terrorist Iranian regime, was for China to round up Canadian nationals and throw them into prison. Meng Wanzhou was free to move about China and live in her luxury home with only an ankle bracelet, while a couple of Canadians rotted in a Chinese prison on fabricated charges of spying. That’s all they had to did to circumvent our laws, bring Canada to its knees crying uncle, and get Meng Wanzhou back.
Meanwhile, MI6 is apparently comatose, because Huawei made Europe’s 5 G networks by underbidding all other suppliers. Trump warned about the obvious security vulnerabilities. Eventually, the UK came to its senses, and decreed that Huawei must remove all its 5G equipment by 2027, and that no new 5G equipment will be sold. That still gives the CCP 6 more years of intel bounty. The CCP requires companies to cooperate by sharing data with their intelligence organization. All Chinese corporations need permission and cooperation with the CCP in order to operate. And China is cracking down. (https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/beijing-unleashes-sweeping-bid-to-remold-society_4008852.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=mb-2021-09-22&mktids=1f25b1c5e93f239fa0d91132cb5fbce9&est=ZbsQxWjVX%2FByKw03hvBx3G%2FK%2FBCAV6suLcOSf%2BekWbK%2FcKx5OpjqDigLLb%2Fqht7yzw%3D%3D)
Turley says:
“In fairness, the United States produced its own one-sided films during the war that often portrayed Chinese soldiers as blood-thirsty inhuman fanatics.”
Why does Turley feel the need to state “in fairness”? Apparently, he wants to acknowledge the hypocrisy of condemning China for doing exactly what America did, that is, the US is no better than China when it comes to war propaganda. This is textbook “whataboutism.”
Trumpists would never make a moral equivalence between China’s lying and ours on ANY matter. The whole idea of making such an argument is repugnant to Trumpists. Thankfully, Turley is a Liberal and a Never Trumper at heart. He won’t come out and say it in so many words, but the indications are all there if one reads between the lines.
Turley’s point is that the Chinese government jailed journalist and businessman Luo Changping for criticizing a movie. Not so long ago, such an action would be considered an anathema to core American values. Aligning themselves with the Chinese model, American Progressives are now dedicated to supressing ideas that threaten their hegemony. Why? Because, like the Chinese, Progressives are terrified that new ideas will loosen their death grip on power. They will do anything to stop these ideas. Anything.
Even worse, we are locked in a geopolitical struggle with a determined opponent, and you immediately pivot to criticizing Trump. Progressive wet dreams of being ‘on the right side of history’ notwithstanding, our adversaries aren’t the least bit interested in Progressive posturing. The Biden regime’s debacle in Afghanistan is the sentinel node of woke weakness and the cancer threatening our national security. Our adversaries sense that weakness, and will take full advantage.
Who DID kill Epstein? This I gotta hear!
That you will never hear.
Reading between the lines is an imaginary art. Exaggerating what an opponent has stated is an art, live and well. I find no evidence that any American has been jailed for being critical of a movie, a book or lies told by any politician.
I find no evidence that any American has been jailed for being critical of a movie, a book or lies told by any politician.
Lt. Col. Sheller was unavailable for comment. Same goes for the Jan. 6 political prisoners.
How soon you progressives forget what the Obama administration did to the filmmaker THEY blamed for Benghazi, and how they ruined HIS life with their LIES……..https://www.foxnews.com/us/blamed-for-benghazi-filmmaker-jailed-after-attack-now-lives-in-poverty-fear
American has a fleet of bombers and submarines that can deliver nuclear bombs that could destroy China. When finished China couldn’t even spell Taiwan.
Did the release by China of the biological weapon, “China Flu, 2019,” facilitate the impending imposition of global authoritarian dominion?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
October 10, 2021
“Twenty-one months ago, January 20, 2020 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the Communist People’s Republic of China.”
“The United States was at peace with that nation and, wittingly or unwittingly, through criminal dereliction and negligence and attempting to obtain the cloak of plausible deniability, the People’s Republic of China released on the world the “China Flu, 2019” biological weapon.
“China has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the World. The Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy has directed his entire Cabinet that all measures be taken for the defense of the United States.
“With confidence in the United States Center For Disease Control and with the unbounding determination of the American people the Untied States will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God.
“Congress must declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by China on January 20, 2020, a state of war has existed between the United States and China.”
– President Donald J. Trump
Where’s Gordon when you need him?
______________________________
“The Coming Collapse of China”
Gordon G Chang
“China is hot. The world sees a glorious future for this sleeping giant, three times larger than the United States, predicting it will blossom into the world’s biggest economy by 2010. According to Chang, however, a Chinese-American lawyer and China specialist, the People’s Republic is a paper dragon. Peer beneath the veneer of modernization since Mao’s death, and the symptoms of decay are everywhere: Deflation grips the economy, state-owned enterprises are failing, banks are hopelessly insolvent, foreign investment continues to decline, and Communist party corruption eats away at the fabric of society.”
“Beijing’s cautious reforms have left the country stuck midway between communism and capitalism, Chang writes. With its impending World Trade Organization membership, for the first time China will be forced to open itself to foreign competition, which will shake the country to its foundations. Economic failure will be followed by government collapse. Covering subjects from party politics to the Falun Gong to the government’s insupportable position on Taiwan, Chang presents a thorough and very chilling overview of China’s present and not-so-distant future.”
Not quite as brutal as China, we have what follows below, but I cannot forget the killing of Ashli Babbitt that is hidden from the public. The head of the Jan 6 Commission has a history of supporting a violent insurrectionist group. Maybe the police officer that killed Babbitt was a violent BLM member. Based on the commissioner, that view gains credence, especially with all the secrets surrounding the killing.
Somewhat less violent is what follows. The authoritarians are targeting practicing physicians in the Biden administration. Isn’t this what China did and is doing? Didn’t we constantly criticize the Chinese for such actions?
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COVID commissars financially squeezing, blackballing dissenting doctors
Medical professionals are facing threats to careers and livelihoods for challenging public health orthodoxy on issues including natural immunity, vaccine safety and personal medical autonomy.
Medical professionals are facing threats to their careers and livelihoods for challenging COVID-19 orthodoxy, while an oft-censored Harvard Medical School professor is facing his latest Big Tech kerfuffle.
The University of California put psychiatrist and bioethics professor Aaron Kheriaty on “investigatory leave” after he sued the university system for refusing to recognize natural immunity such as his among exemptions to its COVID vaccine mandate.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/coronavirus/governments-put-financial-squeeze-doctors-who-stray-covid-19-orthodoxy?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%20October%207%202021%2070000%20615e6ec1547f5&utm_content=Daily%20Newsletter%20October%207%202021%2070000%20615e6ec1547f5+CID_b97291f3b468a4ad8e75e61ccc2b9b76&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=COVID%20commissars%20financially%20squeezing%20blackballing%20dissenting%20doctors
A bit more from the left that is absolutely disgusting.
—
A hospital in Colorado removed a woman from a kidney transplant waiting list because she was not vaccinated against COVID-19, according to reports.
According to Fox News, kidney patient Leilani Lutali and her donor, Jaimee Fougner, are unvaccinated. Lutali is in stage five renal failure, and did not get the vaccine, citing too many unknowns. Fougner did not get it for religious reasons. Both were removed from the transplant list
“Here I am, willing to be a direct donor to her. It does not affect any other patient on the transplant list,” Fougner told CBS4, a local news station. “How can I sit here and allow them to murder my friend when I’ve got a perfectly good kidney and can save her life?”
Cont @ JTN
Anonymous – they should have just claimed to be illegal aliens.
If you understand what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doing right now, politically and militarily, then the film critic’s arrest will make sense. They recently did a sweeping crackdown, similar to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s (https://reporterwings.com/economy/could-chinas-crackdown-be-a-second-cultural-revolution/).
A few years ago, the CCP’s end was predicted by some observers as the Chinese people westernized and started to abandon the party, as had happened in the USSR. The CCP despots were in an existential crisis, so they planned something audacious, roughly ten years ago – though the core idea for it goes back decades. They ramped up their ‘asymmetric warfare’ against the U.S. It’s a sort of one-sided Cold War. The fact that it’s happening, and has been for years, is well-documented by China experts (e.g., https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/post-covid-china-core-strategic-drivers-and-multi-dimensional-asymmetric-warfare-in-asia/).
This type of warfare involves the use, among other tactics, clever propaganda meant to divide the target country. In the case of the U.S., race divisions were exploited. It can also help explain the corruption of the increasing partisanship of the mainstream media and social media, contributing to their slow descent into propagandists and censors, e.g., projects.iq.harvard.edu/futureofmedia/index-us-mainstream-media-ownership ). It also involves the import of the use of fentanyl into the U.S. and intellectual property theft at universities.
The CCP’s United Work Front Department is tasked with spreading the CCP’s influence to the world. “Liberation Road”, a CCP funded operation, works on influencing local elections, to turn swing states such as TX and NC to Democrat control. Durham NC is now Communist-controlled ( sheeplywolves.com/how-pro-beijing-communists-almost-stole-the-election-for-joe-biden-the-old-fashioned-way-epoch-times/ ).
Dems have a working alliance with the CCP and do their bidding, as evidenced by the recent withdrawal from Afghanistan, leaving it in CCP control (by design) and Biden’s use of cultural relativism to excuse the genocide in East Turkestan while at the same time subscribing to CRT, which is being used to deliberately demoralize the U.S. using KGB-style ideological subversion tactics described by Yuri Bezmenov in the 1980s.
The ‘pandemic’ is also a creation of the CCP; it’s not accidental, as many incorrectly believe. Documents from the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) from 2015 state their intention to use the coronavirus against the U.S. The use of psychological tactics to undermine an enemy is something the KGB came up with but which the CCP & PLA have continued and perfected. The George Floyd / BLM movement of last year has the CCP’s imprint on it. The CCP funded BLM, an openly Marxist group.
PLA commanders predicted that WWIII would be fought with biological weapons, as per a 2015 document obtained by the US State Department, titled “The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons.” SARS would be weaponized, the document states. The CCP’s openly stated ambition is to achieve world domination by 2049, their centennial and have been using the Belt & Road Initiative in about 20 countries in order to do so.
The recent police state tactics being used in Australia stem from CCP control of Australian politicians and media, using them to punish their own people through what has become the world’s longest lockdown. It’s meant to cripple that country, to better ensure its eventual takeover.
An artillery barrage is an age-old tactic in war, to soften up the enemy prior to the main assault; lockdowns and restrictions are the new versions of a rolling barrage, prior to the main invasion. Outright use of force is avoided by these tactics, though that has not stopped the CCP from building up its arms, to catch up with the U.S.
Recently, the CCP re-asserted its dominance in China by cracking down on celebrities and some billionaires, to send a message that they still have absolute control. The anti-U.S. propaganda is ramping up.
There are PLA forces in Canada (in British Columbia, in Sydney Park, Vancouver, and Salt Spring Island. Isolation camps are being built by the Trudeau government, located in wilderness areas. Could they be used for political dissidents in the future, for what’s to come? Trudeau is trying to pass Bill C-36 which would give the state sweeping censorship and arrest powers for any alleged ‘hate speech infraction on social media. This is the CCP’s influence as well.
The lockdowns were modeled on their response in Wuhan province and their propaganda, creating the false impression that SARS-CoV2 was a deadly pandemic (e.g. people dying in the streets, hazmat suits) and not a disease with a 94 to 99% recovery rate (per age group) and relatively low transmission rate compared to other communicable diseases. The model of censorship now being used was perfected in China.
The vaccine passports are modeled after the CCP’s social credit system and designed to condition us to accept such a system. The vaccine mandates are not about public health; they are designed to assert state power over the individual by force, as is done in Communist nations.
Everything that has happened since late 2019 can be explained through reference to the CCP’s influence and ambition, in combination with the willing cooperation of pharmaceutical corporations that are using this opportunity for profit. And the treasonous cooperation and collusion of Leftists/globalists — and not a few RINOs — who want unlimited political power by any means necessary. Without their willingness to destroy a free society for the sake of acquiring power, none of this would be possible.
This unholy alliance — a new Axis of Evil — is now building a global authoritarian regime under the pretext of public health – and many millions have fallen for it, due to relentless propaganda.
The arrest of this film critic is explainable in this context: he was critical of a propaganda film meant to condition the Chinese people to want and accept war with the U.S. Recall that the producers of Red Dawn’s remake were persuaded through political pressure to change the costumes from PLA to North Korean. Even Hollywood is CCP-influenced.
The CCP believes they own the whole world and it’s their right to take it – which they have been doing through the Belt & Road Initiative and through the United Work Dept. and hidden funding of the Democrats and media through various means. Defeating their long-time rival, the U.S. is the cornerstone of that plan.
Ungekrzte,
You likely were not aware, but this website only permits two hyperlinks per comment. If you wish the readership to review more than two links, this may be accomplished by using multiple comments of two or fewer hyperlinks.
I edited your comment so that it would post.
Even the Chinese Army had the humanity not to murder Tank Man.
Remember Ashli Babbitt
-January 6, 2021
https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/1500403/tank-man-30-year-anniversary.webp?w=790&f=438654683b99b7ef580c51897b8bc00f
https://ktla.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/01/ab-ftd.jpg?w=913&h=514&crop=1
America has committed a grand corporate “deal with the devil.”
The devil has subsumed America.
America can’t get out of its deal with the devil and it can’t get the devil out of America…
without things getting messy.
“The Clock Is Ticking on the Decline & Fall of America”
“In the year 410, Alaric, the leader of the Visigoths, attacked Rome and succeeded in sacking it. Rome had been battling with enemies for years along its far-flung borders, and in some cases had admitted some of these people into the empire. But Alaric and his army did what many Romans thought was unthinkable: entered the city itself. The invasion was blamed by some on the rise of Christianity and a shift away from the ancient traditions and gods. This moved Augustine to write “The City of God,” in which he argued that Rome was suffering retribution for its past sins and unrighteousness, not because of the rising religion. The city would be hit again by the Vandals in 455, before finally falling in 476 to Germanic tribes.”
“Whether or not you are a Christian, Augustine had a point. By the time Alaric and his band of merry men were at the gates, Rome’s boundaries had become so large that they were unmanageable, the military was diluted, and the empire manufactured very few goods of its own. It relied instead on imports and slave labor. Taxes and unemployment were high, the government was corrupt, and the empire had a history of civil war.
“Also noteworthy, Rome saw a decline in its citizens’ behavior over the years (during its years of peace and prosperity, the city itself may have been home to 32,000 prostitutes.) And of course, there was the philosophy of “bread and circuses,” which held that if you kept the population fed and entertained, they might not notice that things were going to hell. Some have also posited that the lead pipes used to bring water to homes may have contributed to collective cognitive decline.
…
“Oh and by the way, America? There is a Mr. Alaric here to see you.”
– PJ Media
Did the Chinese act differently than the left and Democrats in our country are trying to do. Mothers protesting CRT are now being called domestic terrorists.
That’s the evil of communists
Here in America we have the Constitution. The Bill of Rights, are the first 10 amendments, specifically baring the Feds from stepping on the citizens inalienable rights.
The 1st amendment starts with “congress shall make no law,” it references free speech. So when congress passed a law limiting free speech, SCOTUS ruled the law unconstitutional. Leftist to this day, want that precedent (citizens united) overruled. Leftists somehow don’t see a law limiting speech, has anything to do with “Congress shall make no law”
China just cuts to the chase and declare there exists no “inalienable” rights.
What the chicoms and north Koreans did to anyone they captured was every bit as bad as the Japanese did in WW2. There were numerous instances where in the ebb and flow of battle in 1950-51 where our forces found executed American POW’s replete with hands bound behind their backs. Not to mention the mental and physical torture of those that survived the marches to the starvation camps.
The manpower sacrificed by the communists was vast…yet of no concern to them , as they were easily replaced with more peasants for the slaughter.
Anyhow why should anyone be surprised at the communist state squashing ANY AND ALL dissent …it is what they do best , besides stealing and copycatting industrial and military secrets. The Chinese communists are a virus to freedom of any kind, and to humanity totally.
“This week, former journalist (and businessman) Luo Changping was arrested. Unfortunately, that is not uncommon in the authoritarian state.”
+++
Julian Assange
He should have Chosin his words more carefully.
First, what China does is China’s business. Second, it was the 1st Marine Division that was forced to retreat out of Chosen (or Chosin) Reservoir with the help of the Far East Air Forces. The whole Korea fiasco was the result of Harry Truman’s ineptness. He had no plan to defend South Korea and was scared of China and wouldn’t let FEAF conduct air operations over the Yalu that would have disrupted Chinese plans.
“This week, former journalist (and businessman) Luo Changping was arrested. Unfortunately, that is not uncommon in the authoritarian state.”
But by all means, American corporations (Apple, Google, et al.), keep your heads buried in the sand. Keep pretending that it’s “safe” to do business with a dictatorship. Keep evading the fact that your reputation and wealth are sanctioning this evil. And above all, never form in your brain the following thought: “My company is complicit in the destruction of an innocent individual’s rights and life.”
“In fairness, the United States produced its own one-sided films during the war that often portrayed Chinese soldiers as blood-thirsty inhuman fanatics.”
In fairness I’ll leave what happened there to those Americans who were there.
It is very difficult to detect your intent with this comment, but my father was there, and the film in question is pure fiction. If the Chinese government is talking, it is assured that they are also lying. They make the Soviets seem tame, and the Soviets were *not* tame.
Go to a school board meeting and object to the teaching of your children to be racist, or object to graphic pornography in the school library and you’ll be on the government’s radar. Raise your voice and/or pound the podium and you are subject to getting on the domestic terrorist watchlist.
It can’t happen here
I wonder if Lt. Col. Stu Scheller likes abstract art. Eerily familiar wouldn’t you say??