Mao had called U. S. a ‘paper tiger’.

However it took Nixon-Kissinger’s embrace of Mao’s China in 1972 to counter Soviet Union that has propelled China to such heights that it is now ready to successfully challenge this ’paper tiger’ in today’s real world.

Nixon’s 1972 China embrace was supposed to benefit U. S. businesses with the opening up of a billion-strong Chinese consumer market. Instead China’s billion workers have flooded U. S. and the world markets with cheap Chinese goods.

Afterall China was a pariah country in the world just like today’s North Korea until Nixon’s 1972 visit. All the West European and East Asian countries stayed away from China following the US lead until 1972 and embraced China after Nixon’s visit. While US would not give MFN status to Soviet Union (remember Jackson-Vanik amendment?) unless Russia shed Communism, it had no problem giving it to China’s Communist dictators with a capitalist mask. Trade with China expanded by leaps and bounds during 12 years of Republican rule beginning in 1981. After campaigning against butchers of Beijing in 1992 elections, even Bill Clinton became enthusiastic supporter of trade with China once he took lessons in foreign policy from Nixon in early 1993 during a special Whitehouse-arranged meeting. US also promoted China to a super power status by accepting it as a permanent UNSC member.

Had it not been for that Nixon embrace in 1972, China’s rise to super power status would have been far more slower with all the US, West European and East Asian markets closed to cheap Chinese products. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s technological progress would have been far slower in the absence of West’s technology transfers. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s military progress would have been far slower in the absence of huge forex reserves that China accumulated from the massive exports of cheap Chinese products and China used those forex reserves to acquire latest military technology.

Now China has US by the tail - US businesses are hooked to huge profits that cheap Chinese products generate for them as a walk through any Walmart, Home Depot, Sears and Macy’s filled with Chinese goods prove and US government is hooked to huge investments that China makes in US governmental securities from the sales of cheap Chinese products to US businesses.

Little could Mao or Deng have imagined that by wearing a capitalist mask, their followers will beat capitalists at their own game. Lenin used to say that ’capitalists will sell us the ropes with which we will hang them’. With West selling such proverbial ropes in the form of technology transfers, Chinese Communists have proven that Lenin saying quite prophetic.

It behooves China to erect the statue of anti-Communist Nixon right next to die-hard Communist Mao in Beijing for speeding up China’s rise to super power status.

Given the constraints the artists were under, they produced some lovely, sophisticated art, far better than the bombastic Soviet propaganda art. Some of this art approaches the beauty of Catholic propaganda art of the Renaissance or the revolutionary/imperial propaganda art of David in France. I really like the Brigade Ducks. Lovely, could easily be interpreted as poking some low key ironic fun at CPC militarism. Definitely the work a sophisticated artist.

Weirdly, if you were to visit a pre-school or early primary school in today's China you would see children happily at play or busy at work, making an impression on the visitor similar to that of some of these posters.

"Tempering Red Hearts in Stormy Waves," on the surface is naive and straightforward BUT there's a lovely, subtle genius in the composition. The upper part slopes downward from left to right (people and farther background), suggesting a distant high mountain range. The Red Brigade boy stands in water that could be a lake, a lake surrounded by mountains (the waves of the sea). Those sly artists knew how to sneak in the suggestion of a classical art scene, the mountain lake, with its spiritual meaning of tranquility, repose, wisdom and endurance through time, a spiritual meaning in contrast to the naive surface of the poster, a surface of action, energy and a thrusting forward into the future.

I'm off to rase a glass in honor of those artists! Vita breva, ars longa. Cheers!

Hi,

The title of this one is NOT "Peasants and Workers Greeting the New Yorker" but "Peasants and Workers Greeting the New Year". Do you see any new yorker in this poster? :)

Is there some place to buy prints?

Artistically, most of these leave me pretty cold. Number 8 is ok.

The Red Brigade boy stands in water that could be a lake, a lake surrounded by mountains (the waves of the sea). Those sly artists knew how to sneak in the suggestion of a classical art scene, the mountain lake, Tavares with its spiritual meaning of tranquility, repose, wisdom and endurance through time, a spiritual meaning in contrast to the naive surface of the poster, a surface of action, energy and a thrusting forward into the future.

A short history of China's propaganda art. The Red Brigade boy stands in water that could be a lake, a lake surrounded by mountains (the waves of the sea). Those sly artists knew how to sneak in the suggestion of a classical art scene, the mountain lake, Tavares with its spiritual meaning of tranquility, repose, wisdom and endurance through time, a spiritual meaning in contrast to the naive surface of the poster, a surface of action, energ do you agree "Tempering Red Hearts in Stormy Waves," on the surface is naive and straightforward BUT there's a lovely, subtle genius in the composition. The upper part slopes downward from left to right (people and farther background), suggesting a distant high mountain range. The Red Brigade boy stands in water that could be a lake, a lake surrounded by mountains (the waves of the sea). Those sly artists knew