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June 7th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
The culture of fear is “very, very strong – it’s very much a Maoist culture,
although not as extreme as in Mao’s time,” she said.
Government crackdowns against freedom of speech led to the recent exile of
Chen Guangcheng, the blind dissident, who sought sanctuary in the US. Liu
Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, is serving an 11-year prison term for
“subversion”.
But Chang said there would be no mass protests as the Chinese middle classes
are happy with their material comforts.
“If you don’t stick your neck out life is rather easy, particularly for the
middle class. Living standards are rising, many people have cars and foreign
holidays – why jeopardise all that? Only a small percentage of people can’t
live without freedom of expression.
“One of my friends said to her daughter, ‘Don’t question, it will make your
life much easier’. I think most people just want life to be much easier, and
who can blame them? They had very hard lives before.
“If you compare it with Mao’s time, the lives of even the poorest people have
improved. I don’t know of any deaths from starvation, for example. Of
course, while some become increasingly rich, the majority have been left
behind. But there’s a general raising of living standards.
“The current regime, while keeping a lid on any fundamental change, is careful
to improve lives bit by bit, which is why most people can accept their
situation now.”
Jung Chang holds a tiny shoe as worn by her grandmother who had her feet
bound / JAY WILLIAMS
The only circumstances in which she can foresee mass political activism would
be “if something drastic happens, like a war, but China would not start a
war because the first casualty would be the regime itself; or if the economy
is doing badly, which is why they are trying very hard to keep the economy
going”.
The Chinese have suppressed memories of the Cultural Revolution and that may
be a good thing, Chang said. “On the one hand I want China to have a
dramatic change but on the other hand I also fear what it would release from
people’s subconscious and what traumas it would release.”
Chang said she was pleased at the downfall of Bo Xilai, a former Communist
Party chief who is being investigated, along with his wife, over the death
of British businessman Neil Heywood.
She said: “I’m very pleased that he fell because he was the biggest Mao
promoter in China. He was promoting Mao’s myth – not blatantly claiming ‘I’m
a Maoist’ but he paid for tens of thousands of people to sing Mao era songs.
“He built it up as this perfect society, which was disgusting as he didn’t
believe that.
“On the other hand, I don’t think his downfall means anything because it’s not
the regime that exposed him. It was his number two who spilled the beans,
who fell out with him, feared for his life and fled to the American
consulate.
“The whole thing was not exposed by Beijing – if anything, they were trying to
cover it up.”
Jung Chang photographed at the Hay Festival 2012 / JAY WILLIAMS
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