Eric, war-stress usually increases the birth rate, often more than it reduces survival rates and drops the median age. The 60's chaos amplified the boom from the Japanese-revolution-famine eras. Social stability, education and care of the young, even the depressing Soviet sort, stabilizes population growth, raises the median age, after 40 years or so.

A factoid about China today is the 10% imbalance of young men produced by state family planning and ultrasound prenatal sexing. Coupling too many guys with the state's strategic emphasis on regaining sovereignty of territory snatched by Russian and India, as well as Taiwan and Mongolia; should we fear that their security state would roll the dice in a game of Risk? Or is fearing that just a Navy budget thing?

My recollection is that the Cultural Revolution got plenty of press attention, following on the heels of Mao's H-bomb tests. But Sino-Soviet conflation was dogma in the US, China was huge and isolated, data was in short supply as to the scale and breadth of internal conflict. As a fraction of the population, other civil wars of the era and since were also devastating.

Friedman impresses me less, as his global Asian generalizations wander away from his old ME core competence.

I hope some of your comment was meant in a sarcastic manner and that you read the post below with the numbers that go as high as 72 million for killed in the PRC. The Story is hardly rehashed much in the news.
As for "now", they are a long term looking people and government, they might be looking to build super carriers and what not but it will be a decade or so before they have the blue water navy to match ours and that is what they intend to do with it, they want to be the power in the Pacific Rim and with numbers like those that I listed below in the other post I am not sure that people should think this is such a good thing.
On Friedman, he has lost it, his admiration for the way they can get things done skips over little things like mass executions, terrible justice system and the fact that they are hardly a free society or goverment. Like many who love the idea of a strong central goverment, he cannot avoid showing his love for it and he is what all people are who love strong central gov't-they are in their heart of hearts, dictators.

and worth asking questions about. One question you raised is why Chinese population was surging during its century of partition, famine and violence, and is now levelling after decades of stability?

Re 30-67M civil war mortality, "interesting, if true" would be worse than sarcastic, but accuracy and context is important. There is a difference between the usual horsemen of conflict mortality, vs starvation marches, concentration camps, and firing squads. A Red Guard-PLA civil war in 1965 China could kill more with beans than bullets.

3 million Viet Namese killed during our 10 years of bombing Indochina, or 3 million Cambodians killed under China's man Pol Pot, would be equally devastating, as a percentage of population.

It's certainly possible to make a case that Mao-Chou and Lenin-Stalin's super-crimes are under-served in the lit., and draw conclusions from that. TPM Barnett (who's he?) proposes that extermination and mass persecutions occur 'in the gap' where there is no witness, no interconnectivity to act as a brake on state homicide or sectarian madness. What Barnett doesn't say is that a Hitler or Milosovich staff works and plans to create the disconnect, marches it's victims far from the camera's eye to do the dirty.

Be well, ES-1.

They killed almost of their victims via starvation, slave labor or execution, comparisons of percentage are a bit off, even if the low end number is the right one it is still an incredible amount of people. It was not covered by the press, is rarely mentioned now and we even have hardly a mention of this when we talk of the other great mass murderers like Stalin or Hitler.
As for why the population has leveled off, that is great that is has but what exactly does that have to do with the price of eggs again? We are talking about the PRC and what it's gov't has done to it's people, not how they implemented population control via the one child policy or why it still grew or even comparing populations slaughtered in relation to the overall populations.

China pop. during Cultural Revolution rose from .7 to .9 billions in 1964-1975, so 5-10% is a ballpark mortality percentage if a bit high, accepting your range. Google tells me Viet Nam's composit population was 38M in 1965, and 2-3 millions war mortality in the US combat era is a common assertion. However that's arrived at, still in the 5-10% range. Cambodia is estimated at less than 8M when Pol Pot's regime became allied with China against Hanoi, and seems to have taken an ultra-Maoist 'final solution' approach.

I like to point out the effects of simple economic stability and decent child care vs war on population control. I find that some proposing conflict solutions still think war reduces enemy populations. It doesn't, unless it's backed by ethnic cleansing and extermination, of the sort you accuse PRC of waging.

I suspect that the mis-named 'Cultural Revolution', while murderously excessive, was more complicated than just mass-extermination of counter-revolutionary enemies. And maybe more simple, in the sense of Mao being a megalo-manic sociopath. Real mass murder takes staffwork, preparation, and seems to associate with cult of personality.

What is it you think then Walking Wounded? You do not think that Mao had a cult like personality? You think I "accuse" them of something they did not do? Please, share with me your views on the PRC, how they govern, how what they did was or was not wrong, how it was or was not mass murder? I am curious as to your views, your tone and posts frame you as an apologist who I take it thinks Marx and a strong central goverment are a good thing?

And both adopted mass state homicide quite intentionally, as a tool of empire, putting huge staff effort into it. I reserve part of my ire for the likes of Chou En Lai, who (unlike Mao) was healthy in mind and body, not nearly as isolated and spoon-fed as his deadly god-king. Evil becomes genius when it delegates to effective killers.

How does providing comparison of your numbers to other mass murder and wartime killing dilute the need to prevent them? Passionately hating dead communists seems a distraction in dealing with the present, mitigating the murderous wars of central Asia and Africa, understanding the link between conflict and overpopulation.

"Never again" exceptionalism, a focus on Hitler or Mao or Stalin, distracts us from seeing that state security cults embarking on mass homicide policies are distressingly common in both halves of the 20th century. I recall a poll of 3rd world leaders in the 1980's that revealed Hitler to be a common executive icon. It seemed weird, but then along comes Milosevich, dusting off and implementing a WW2 era staff plan for ethnic cleansing of Balkan moslems. The Rwanda massacre was planned, efficient, no accident. Hutu extermination troops had trained to use their guns to induce Hutu villagers to do the killing with bludgeons, machetes, fire. Their bullets were saved for the few Hutus who resisted, not the Tutsis. The Germans had trains; Hutus used the river to remove bodies.

That's what I'm talking about, because it could happen anywhere, and a horrid few here are dreaming on it. Building up a righteous head of hatred against History for not grinding your axe on the second Chinese civil war/holocast seems like a distraction to me.

We have our own pressures, race demons and national security cult to worry about. The real mass-casualty radiological attack on the US was a direct result of our own ignorance and militarism. Hundreds of fission explosions, here at home, just to show we could. That's where Ike, Kennedy, Cronkite and his cohort let us down! In the words of Sen. John Glenn, 'it was like we were waging war on ourselves.'

You previous posts did not indicate that you were against any of that, they almost seemed apologetic and when you use a word like "accuse" when talking about what is commonly known about what the Chinese did it hardly supports the idea that you were not being apologetic or understanding of the PRC. Now that you say that you are and are being clear, I agree with your view that we should fight against those in the future but would you advocate to go into the Sudan? or would you have advocated to go into Rawanda? Also, getting a "hatred" on as you posted is not at the past, that Party is still very much in control of the Country in the PRC, it is not that long ago that these things happened and it is hardly mentioned in the press, so forgive me if I think it needs to be pointed out especially when we deal with them as just another "trading partner".
I also think your last paragraph was umm..."different", I do not know where you get those ideas from and for the life of me cannot understand how you or anyone can think that we here in the US are anywhere close to the problems of any third world country or China for that matter as far as danger, race relations, loss of freedom or control, really on anything. On scale we have very minor problems in the US, very minor and you do not do your argument much good when you make our problems out to be on the same level as say anyone you mentioned in your post.

The numbers and the lives they represent are indeed a clear example of how government power can be turned to slaughter when it is unchecked and concentrated in one or a few hands. This is the lesson of totalitarian states. However what is the casualty count for western civilization in its path from kings;commoners-feudalism;to constitutional democracy,rule of law and private property rights for all citizens not just the elite?
Granted it is a long period of time by comparison to China's post 1945 period and is not an excuse for any state of any form to engage in murder and not be held to account but did we not pay a high price in lives to get where we are? Perhaps the more central question is can all of us learn how to build better,freer lives at as a less tragic price.

Really? Did you just attempt to qualify that disgusting rate of death by the PRC with past western deaths from centuries ago? Hmm...well, then lets go back and get angry at the Egyptians for the slavery of the Jews over 1000 years ago, or maybe the Mongols for what they did, or maybe lets go back and back and back so people like yourself can continue to bring up moral relativism like BK below and then qualify it with "not an excuse" comment. Stalin and Hitler had nothing on the PRC if the numbers are right about 72 million. If you want to learn something, go with your opening statment about gov't and power, don't slide down the path of PC Moral Relativism, it comes off as being silly and working to hard to sound objective and somehow enlightened when it is anything but. The PRC killed these people pretty recently and continue to have an incredible rate of injustice, don't qualify it or use the moral relativism card, call it what it is-evil.

You are going to compare a few people waterboarded to killing up to 72 million via executions, starvation, etc...? How is that moral relativism working for you? Joke.

one voice in the cries of 72 million is no less important.

So, you are saying they are the same thing then? AMAZING! You just compared a few people being waterboarded to being the same morally as killing between 30-72 million people via execution, starvation, labor, etc...So, a push is the same as a slap, a slap the same as a punch, a punch the same as a kick, etc...in your world, ALL violence is the same? I am curious as to what color the sky is in your world? Do Unicorns exist there? lol People like yourself always crack me up Bill, you seem to think that war is waged in some mythical field of battle where only combatants get hurt and all courtesy is given. Our troops and our gov't have reacted with amazing restraint and professionalism, something the other side does not do, but you just keep ignoring those things that do not fit your premise or your world view or reality.

starts the sequence from one to a billion...it is the force multiplier that spreads it. A cabal of some pretty pulpy people meet in a suburb of Berlin and the ovens heat, two hands turn a y-stop key and 100 million disappear in 30 minutes, a casual "batteries release" and cries unheard will rise down range.

But what I am speaking about is the person who needs a kidney and can cause execution, or a political oppportunist who needs to use torture to get the next four years in office and an annuity from FOX and surfaces it again to gain the next unbroken chain of employment.

Once the victim's only value is in its suffering or death then all else is access to the force multiplier.

You link the Tea Party in a moral comparison to Waterboarding and the PRC's millions of victims in your first post, then go on to say that one life is the same as the next by implication in your next post and that all violence is the same and then in your final post you toss in a FOX news rant? Hmm....something tells me that
A.) You are more about making a rant against any group you do not like than the topic
B.) You are so far out left that it can be the only reason you make the sophmoric and silly moral relativism statements that you make in your posts
C.) You are not very well informed or morally formed at all if you really try to compare what the Chinese did to what has happened in OEF and OIF. Your thought process is vile to me.
Lastly, your attempt to say that you have seen war and that is why you think one life is important, then wouldn't millions be more so? Your logic and moral compass is off and I think driven by some odd pathological hatred for the past administration and anyone who does not share your views. Bush is gone, get a grip and your links to the Tea Party and FOX on this topic border on the silly and might be one of the most stupendously far fetched reaches I have seen posted in a while and people post some whoppers.

Three sticks,
Let's keep it civil. As much as possible, let's refrains from calling each other naive or foolish, or bullshitters, and instead just make your argument.

I think you could say the same thing just as powerfully this way:

"I am surprised you think that waterboarding and mass killings are morally equivalent. I think that our military and gov't have performed in a very restrained and professional manner the last ten years. You say you were in the military--was it during this period? At any rate, I suspect the abuses that have occurred are hardly on the level of what the Chinese government would have done in our place."

Thanks,
Tom

Certain things get me a little fired up and moral realtivism is one of them. I just do not understand how people can compare the two things or not see that our military and our gov't has acted with a lot of restraint as a whole. Would you really not want someone to call someone out if they were using moral realtavism in comparing something we did to something akin to the holocaust?

Think of commenting on this blog as being like having a beer in your backyard with a neighbor after mowing the lawn and cleaning the basement on a Saturday afternoon. If he said something that irked you, you probably wouldn't call him a Nazi. You'd say, 'Oh, give me a break, Bill. I don't think you've really thought that through." Or something. That's the tone I'd like to have on this blog.
Thanks,
Tom

I dont' think I have ever called anyone that Tom, sure, I have talked down, called people foolish, naive, etc...but never even implied someone was a Nazi :) But fair enough overall, I will keep the tone civil , I think I have pretty much and unless someone just starts making stuff up or repeats lies I will be cordial as best I can be. It is however a bit hard for me not be combative when I see silliness but I will try none the less.

waterboarding was compared against cruel and murderous activities of a politician against an individual ie the woman who has the voice removed then kidney's removed for an officials benefit. Waterboarding which up until the opportunists found it to be personally beneficial to declare it otherwise was considered torture. It may have caused death in those that died of heart attacks during interrogation. That is the equal comparison.

But I will go on to say that a culture that views cruelty as a weapon and dehumanizes others could be stampeded to do mass murder as many were in the 20th century and a few in the past decade.

China for all the shock of the 20th century now sits upon 2 trillion in IOUs from US. If you are receiving a pay check through appropriation, the Chinese are receiving interest. They may now have as many billionaires as the US and many are probably heirs of the Cultural Revolution perpetrators.

Your argument still does not hold. To compare waterboarding to what the Chinese did is not just a reach it is a bit insulting and then to go on and imply again that somehow those waterboardings could lead us down the same path as the Chinese is even more insulting. All of the prison scandals, all of the war crimes, etc...were broken by other soldiers/marines/sailors/ete...the waterboardings did not lead us too massacres entire towns, destroy at the hilt of a bayonet entire cities nor did it inspire people in the gov't to do any such thing either. Did the government become a dictatorship? Did our freedom of speech or press evaporate? No and hence why when you make posts like that it hardly lends anything to the conversation and strikes a nerve with me. Do you know why conspiracies or real power grabs do not happen here? It is because you need people to go along with it and that would not happen in the US. For our Gov't to do anything like that it would take the military to be complicit in the process, that is something that would not happen and if anything they would turn on the gov't itself.
Also, when you link the posts to people at FOX or the Tea Party it also says that this is more about an axe to grind with those people who have a different view than you do, again, nothing to do with the topic and again very insulting to anyone since the link is too the slaughter of millions of people.