Gregory Clark's China Apology now in Asia Times

Gregory Clark's revolting apology for China has gotten even bigger play, now also appearing in the Asia Times.

Beijing's moves to prevent Taiwan independence have also been condemned as aggressive, despite the fact that every Western nation, including the US, has formally recognized or accepted that Taiwan is part of a nation called China in which Beijing's is the sole legitimate government.

China's efforts to assert control over Tibet were also branded as aggression, even though Tibet has never been recognized as an independent entity. True, many have the right to be upset over the crude way in which Beijing asserted control over Tibet. But many also forget that some of that crudity was the result of an abortive attempt by the US Central Intelligence Agency and New Delhi to stir up a revolt in the area.

No need to comment; this kind of stuff is self-refuting. One is reminded of Orwell's brilliant essay, Politics and the English Language:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this....

...something like Clark's apology above. I understand why people might want to be authoritarians, what with the wealth, sex, and power that comes with the job. But I will never understand the people who support them; they are a sickness that I cannot wrap my head around.

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