The Coming War on China Page #5

Synopsis: The Coming War on China is John Pilger's 60th film for ITV. Pilger reveals what the news doesn't - that the United States and the world's second economic power, China (both nuclear armed) are on the road to war. Pilger's film is a warning and an inspiring story of resistance.
 
IMDB:
7.2
Rotten Tomatoes:
88%
Year:
2016
113 min
272 Views


in huge battles involving

millions of combatants.

Mao was a winner in this contest from

the early 1930's on, but we

knew very little about it

and people don't

understand that even today.

- [Announcer] Shanghai

hears the message clearly

as foreign businessmen

board up their shops.

Go now, go quickly, for communism marches.

Take what you can, but flee.

In pell-mell haste, the Western powers

evacuate the city they have built,

for good and bad alike must leave.

The businessmen come for profit

as well as missionaries come to heal

must say goodbye as out the Yancy

steams the last of Western influence

and farewell to a century.

(shouting)

- [John Narrating] Even today,

it's difficult to understand

the paranoia ignited by Mao's revolution.

- As we look at China on the map,

we can see that China is the basic cause

of all of our troubles in Asia.

- I believe that for

the sake of our safety,

it is necessary to be

prepared for the possibility

of a Chinese missile attack

on the United States.

- [John Narrating] One

of the myths about Mao

is that he was an implacable

enemy of the capitalist West.

(chorus singing)

Shanghai today is a

prosperous international city

still run by the communists,

at least in name.

- When I was last in China

more than a generation ago,

the loudest noise was the

tinkling of bicycle bells.

Mao had just died, the streets were dark,

the universities were closed.

The chaos of the cultural revolution

had given way to a great silence.

"We're exhausted," was the

freest comment I heard.

Coming back, the change

is barely comprehensible.

Here in Shanghai, the

freedom bears no comparison.

Yes, there are issues with human rights,

especially the right to

speak against the state

and challenge its power.

Since I was last here, millions of people

have been lifted out of poverty,

many of them into an

entirely new middle class.

This epic is still barely

understood in the West,

or should that be willfully misunderstood?

The truth is that China

has matched America

at its own great game of capitalism

and that is unforgivable.

- [John Narrating] One measure

of China's new capitalism

is the Hurun Rich List.

This league table of China's mega-rich

is published by Rupert Hoogewerf,

an old Etonian whose

Chinese name is Hu Run.

He's received many awards,

including China's Man of the Year.

- This year, 2015, has probably been

the most extraordinary

year of wealth creation

in the history of China again.

I've been doing this

list for 15, 16 years.

I've never seen a year like 2015.

Normally for 200 million

pounds or 300 million dollars,

we find say about 800,000 people.

This year, 2015, it's doubled.

There'll be more dollar

billionaires known about in China

than in the US.

So the US, up until now,

has been the leader in terms of

the most successful business

tycoons in the world.

China 2015, will have overtaken the US.

So, amazing.

- [John Narrating] Modern China

is full of telling ironies,

not least this museum

that was once the house

where Mao and his

comrades secretly founded

the communist party of China in 1921.

Today it stands in the

heart of an exclusive,

very capitalist shopping district.

- When you leave this shrine

to China's great revolution,

you're confronted by a surreal spectacle.

For right outside where the

Chinese communist party was born,

are the very symbols of capitalism.

Starbucks, Apple, Cartier,

Dolce and Gabbana,

and down there perhaps the

free market's greatest triumph:

bottled water that insures you live young,

costing six pounds for a

small bottle in my hotel.

Would Mao spin in his tomb if he was here?

I'm not so sure.

Hidden history is always

the key to the truth.

Five years before his great

communist revolution in 1949,

Mao sent this secret

message to Washington.

"China must industrialize," wrote Mao,

"this can only be done by free enterprise.

"Chinese and American

interests fit together

"economically and politically.

"America need not fear that

we will not be cooperative.

"We cannot risk crossing America.

"We cannot risk any conflict."

Mao received no reply.

Nothing has changed.

- Mao Zedong was looking to be a friend

with the United States from the beginning.

Mao says, I will go meet

Franklin Roosevelt in the White House.

Mao reaches out in 1950 to Harry Truman.

He reaches out to Dwight Eisenhower.

His hand was tossed away.

- [John Narrating] This opportunity that

might have changed history,

prevented wars, saved countless lives,

was lost because the

truth of Mao's overtures

was denied in the

Washington of the 1950's.

State Department officials

who had carried Mao's messages

were condemned unjustly

as communist traitors.

- Everybody who knew Mao,

who spoke Chinese, was gone.

In the 1950's, the State Department

had no employees who spoke Chinese.

It's resulted in us not having relations

with the number one, most

populous country in the world.

- [John Narrating] In 1979, this man,

Deng Xaoping, became

China's paramount leader.

He said, "Socialism does

not mean shared poverty."

This was code for the most radical reform

since Mao's revolution, the

return of capitalism to China,

but this time controlled

by the communist party.

"To be rich is glorious,"

Deng was reported as saying.

America was now threatened

by the emergence

of a vast image of itself.

This is one of the many very exclusive

gated communities in Shanghai

where an apartment is one of the prizes

of the new communism.

I'd arranged to see

Professor Zhang Weiwei,

a close aide to the late Deng Xiaoping,

the man who changed China.

- Deng is really, extremely

long-term visionary leader

with an exceedingly

long-term at strategic vision

for his country and for his people.

China is still following that path.

Actually, this is really a tradition

from China's long history.

You look at even like Mao.

He said we should surpass UK,

by which we should

surpass the United States,

so these tradition continues to this day.

Even Xi Jinping to this day

is also doing this idea.

Actually, what many Chinese have problem

with the Western media is

the stereotypes about China.

If you contend with stereotypes,

you miss so many things.

If BBC broadcast something,

they are happy to always mention

the communist dictatorship,

this autocracy.

Actually, with this kind of label

you cannot understand this China as it is.

But if you watch BBC or

CNN or read Economist

and try to understand

China, it will be a failure.

It's impossible.

- Multiple parties fight

for political power

and everyone holding on to them

as the only path to salvation

to the long-suffering, developing world.

- [John Narrating] This is Eric Li,

a Shanghai entrepreneur

educated in America

and typical of a new, confident,

outspoken political class.

- In China, there are a lot of problems.

But at the moment, the

Chinese, the party state,

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John Pilger

John Richard Pilger (; born 9 October 1939) is an Australian journalist and BAFTA award-winning documentary film maker. He has been mainly based in the United Kingdom since 1962.Pilger is a strong critic of American, Australian and British foreign policy, which he considers to be driven by an imperialist agenda. Pilger has also criticised his native country's treatment of Indigenous Australians. He first drew international acclaim for his groundbreaking reports on the Cambodian genocide.His career as a documentary film maker began with The Quiet Mutiny (1970), made during one of his visits to Vietnam, and has continued with over fifty documentaries since then. Other works in this form include Year Zero (1979), about the aftermath of the communist regime in Cambodia, and Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy (1993). Pilger's many documentary films on indigenous Australians include The Secret Country (1985) and Utopia (2013). In the British print media, Pilger worked at the Daily Mirror from 1963 to 1986, and wrote a regular column for the New Statesman magazine from 1991 to 2014. Pilger has won Britain's Journalist of the Year Award in 1967 and 1979. His documentaries have gained awards in Britain and worldwide, including multiple BAFTA honors. The practices of the mainstream media are a regular subject in Pilger's writing. more…

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