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China, a powerhouse nation valued at one hundred thousand dollars
Bangladesh is a country with a population of 147 million in South Asia. After the “civil war” with Pakistan for the numerous reasons including culture, religion, and geography, Bangladesh was formally established in 1971. Economically, Bangladesh is ranked 151 in the world, and therefore is considered a very poor nation. Millions of Bangladesh children are still malnourished. Not only that, the surrounding countries are also poor; thus their trade and economic relations in the region still are not well developed.
But when Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans, Louisiana in the August of 2005, Bangladesh was one of the first countries to respond with care in term of manpower and financial assistance. Bangladesh government has donated $1 million to Katrina victims and was willing to offer their experts to build dikes in New Orleans in which they have experience.
Some said that Bangladesh donating one million dollars to the US is like "a grain of salt in the sea." Others said that it was an investment on humanity. A poor and flood-prone country like Bangladesh, that donated money, perhaps will be given back by the US. It is just a matter of time; perhaps it will be with both capital and interest.
However, the vast majority of commentators agreed, politically and economically, that the Bangladesh government gesture has revealed the compassion of its people who have suffered in similar situations. In 1974, the newly formed Bangladesh has suffered one of the biggest floods in the history of mankind, with nearly 30 thousands people dead. The monsoon/rainy season lasts throughout the country for months as we often see on the devastated TV reports about these catastrophic events. No one understands the heart of suffering people, who bear the damage of floods yearly, as the people of Bangladesh.
On November 4th, the super typhoon Haiyan, or Yolanda called by the Filipinos, was warned. On the 7th of November, the Philippines President, Benigno Aquino III urged the people in affected regions to evacuate. However, so many people didn’t receive orders, nor had anywhere to take refuge. After just a few hours, at 6AM, the super typhoon with wind speed of 275 kilometers hit the inland.
According to the estimates of different international volunteer agencies, tens of thousands of people in the central Philippine islands were dead. Leyte Island alone had 10 thousand people who had died. According to the estimates of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) of Philippine government, about 9.5 million people were affected, and there were 630 thousand people who were homeless. According to CNN reporters on the scene, “many villages have become mass graves and survivors drink coconut to survive.” With a wind speed of 275 km/hr, the loss of life and property will eventually be much higher than estimated numbers.
In the crumbling ruins caused by super-typhoon Haiyan, the seeds of compassion were being sown. Hundreds of countries, thousands of charities around the world, flocked to the Philippines with not only medicine, clothes, and food, but also human power to contribute to the wound healing process. Hours after the storm, the U.S. government announced the emergency aid of $20 million; England donated $16 million, and Japan donated $10 million. For the US, that is just the cash money, in addition, the aircraft carriers HMS Illustrious of the British, and the American USS George Washington aircraft carried medications and essential items to the Philippines. And China, which has the second largest economy in the world, donated just one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000).
Companies such as IKEA, committed $2.7 million, Coco - Cola pledged $2.5 million, the amount of aid from China, the second largest economy in the world, may be lower than the amount of Vietnamese boat people and Vietnamese overseas’ contributions. The Times magazine commented that 100 thousand dollars is an insult to the Philippines. Before the reactions of world’s opinion, China has recently increased aid to $1.64 million, but that is not in cash money, but the value of the blanket and mats. The items were labeled "Made in China”; this term only has a fear factor in it.
Many commentators criticized that the Chinese Communist Government supported only about 6% of New Zealand’s promised pledge, but no one understands why the Chinese leaders could do such a thing. Perhaps they do not know what shame is. Even the Global Times, a leaning extreme nationalism, also commented on writing in the November 12, 2013, "China, as a responsible powerful nation, should be involved in the relief operations to help victims of its neighboring country. If China humiliated the Philippines this time, China will be in a great loss."
Chinese leaders are not aware of it, but today China is not the Communist China in which Zhou Enlai had vowed to side with the poor and oppressed neighbors in the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955. China today is not the China that Deng Xiaoping had promised to share and help with Southeast Asian nations with his sweet words during the 1978’s visits. The hard times are past and the prosperous future is approaching. Chinese leaders today maybe are a bunch of arrogant individuals, who were unfurled by the flag of the Chinese nationalists and whose neo policies will be the oil pan for World War III that might originate in Asia.
More than anyone else, Chinese leaders should know that 3 out of the 20 largest floods in humanity happened in China, with about three million people who died in the flood of 1931, two million people died in the flood of 1887, and about seven hundred thousand people died in the 1938 flood, but essentially, the despicable and arrogant communist leaders killed the compassionate characteristics of its innocent people. They also applied a layer of black ash on thousands of years in Chinese culture and people. The current Chinese leaders can also ruin the image of a whole country with the second largest economy in the world.
China is one of the countries with the largest gold reserves in the world; it is the world's largest creditor and their GDP will likely surpass the U.S. in 2020 with an estimated $24 trillion. China has many “firsts”, but that does not make the value of a country, it does not deserve the respect of the humanity because the value of a country is not determined by its wealth, but by its ethical standards, democracy, civilization and culture.
When discussing the qualities to become a great and respected nation, writer Thomas Fann, in a brilliant essay, outlined 10 major standards including: freedom, justice, honor, ethics, compassion, honesty, life values, creativity, excellence, and the protection of the environment for future generations. Fann Thomas insisted on thinking of future generations when he told the Disney Land story. Walt Disney died five years before the Disney World’s grand opening in Florida. During the opening ceremony, some wished that he had lived to see this magical children's splendor world today. In fact, with foresight and ahead-of-our-time thinking, Walt Disney already saw the radiant smiles, the playful eyes of children long before the opening of Disney Land.
China does not meet any of these ten mentioned qualities. But if the ranking must taking place, the Communist Chinese would probably be ranked with contemporaries of the primitive tribal groups/cannibals living scattered in the wild forests in the Congo, the West Indies and the Amazon.
Why?
Not long ago, China was one of the few countries where parents have to survive on their own offspring. Not long ago, there were more than thirty million Chinese people dead because of hunger; they survived relying on each other’s own flesh during “Great Leap Forward” and the “Cultural Revolution” or the period in which people had to bring pots and pans to "cast steel" as advocated by Mao Zedong’s policies. And not just in the last 40 years, even today, while the vast majority of humanity has survived and passed a brutal period of thousands of years, in China the practice of consuming offspring is existed and considered a luxury food. The Next Magazine, which is based in Hong Kong, said that in China, the fetus-consumption is a popular food.
In May, 2012, the Washington Times, a writer and researcher Youngbee Dale said South Korea authority have seized 17 thousand of pills manufactured from fetuses produced in China. One-child policy has forced couples to choose abortion at a very late stage when knowing the unborn child is a girl. South Korean TV station showed a horror documentary, in which Chinese doctors performed abortions and dined fetal right on the spot. Another Chinese doctor preserved the fetus in the fridge like a piece of meat or fish. The cannibalism occurs in many parts of the primitive tribes in Africa, South America, but cannibalism is allowed and is happening in the homeland of Xi Jinping.
China, as an economic powerhouse and adapting the international political practices, must behave as a powerhouse nation, whatever it might be to a friend or foe. But no, Chinese leaders have no heart, humanity nor show interested in the country's image. For them, money is a weapon, a walking stick. Philippines is a nation--disputed with China over sovereignty of the South China Sea-- suffering more with her dying boys in Tacloban.
Chinese leaders like Ba Duong once said this remark about his country: "Westerners can fight and broken their heads, they can still shake hands, but when the Chinese fight each others, they still see each other as the enemy for a lifetime, sometimes even for generations."
Why so the Japanese not hate the U.S. even though the U.S. has dropped two atomic bombs that killed 240 thousand people in two Japanese islands Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Because they knew it is history. People and nations can’t take back the past and can only overcome their pain; by learning from the past, people and nations can build a better future for generations to come. China is a different story. The hundred-years-old disgraces were recorded boldly at the beginning of their constitution with the message of hatred that the communist party had been exploited.
Since Hurricane Katrina, every time we need to find an example of compassion and caring to praise "human solidarity ", Bangladesh was hailed in most articles and speeches, from the U.S. president to a high school student, they used Bangladesh as a model. From super typhoon Haiyan, China will also be prompted, but with the total opposite of Bangladesh. Chinese will be remembered as despicable, cruel, arrogant and vindictive animals. Its true nature of "harmony and clever" is in the blood, long-term expansion goals and characteristics of the Communist dictatorship.
According to UN statistics, China is a country with a total gross domestic product in 2012 of more than $7 trillion, but today in the eyes of the majority in our humanity, the value of this powerful nation is only worth $100 thousand.
Tran Trung Dao
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