The link was posted at tony's request - other verbiage and profanities aside. I understand Tony was upset at the original article (?), so will assume I was just collateral damage from that initial inspiration to post, or not.

It's better I start a separate thread - as what I was looking for isn't really relevant to Tony's title.

tonyaod
www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/26/its-time-for-china-to-pay-its-debts-to-united-states.html

Tony
Inaccuracy is a matter of perspective. The debt I vaguely referenced was US publicly financed debt, raised by the KMT to support its efforts during WW2 and plunged into chaos when the KMT retreated to Taiwan. It's a source of "hot" contention for those interested in such things. Hopefully that will sate your incitement to the fantastic. On a less savory note - now I'm also wondering if China repaid its war debt to the USA as it seems more complicated than a single lump-sum war debt. Too complicated for me.

On the issue of segmenting and compartmentalizing as Napoleon suggested - that's absolutely imperative. If Obamacare crashed on launch for a few million Americans, I shudder to think what would happen in densely populated provinces such as Yunnan and Sichuan, much less trying to aggregate all this information into a monolithic Beijing database, but those are also technical issues.

Segmentation into bite-sized pieces is an operational solution. It doesn't address the core issues of financial and economic feasibility and sustainability, which I believe ultimately doomed Obamacare.

@geezer - thanks for clarifying that point. I didn't know about the UK war debt to the USA - I was under the impression it was forgiven also.

War debts are typically forgiven at the sovereign level, in exchange for other barter - such as economic privileges (example - building railroads using the "forgiving" nation's firms as prime contractors, etc). The government of Taiwan (KMT) incurred significant private debts from WW2 approaching roughly USD 1 trillion in today's value, that are now expected to be repaid by China, to include back interest and potentially penalties. Given the history of settlements on other debts, China might opt to settle for literally pennies against the face value of the debt. Most of the owners of that original debt are dead, so I'd venture to guess the inheritors would settle, given the opportunity.

If China were able to create a sustainable and affordable national healthcare plan - would that essentially become the potential model for the rest of the world?

Given the scale and complexity of the project, I'm interested in observing China's solution to this critical social issue.

USA = United States of Amnesia.

While it's true that the Chinese government and people at the time experienced one of the worst famines in Chinese history, ostensibly due to the failed Great Leap program, China was under US (aka UN) trade embargoes AND was still paying off its war debts to the former USSR using badly needed grain.

It's also worth noting that China is the ONLY country in the world that paid off its entire war debt to the USA, unassisted by Taiwan. EVERY other country including German and Japan, were "forgiven" vast portions of their remaining war debts to the USA, EXCEPT China. So the politics involved complicate and bias the image western media and history would have us believe.

A couple of excellent examples of historical bias are the UK and French perspectives on Joan d'Arc and the UK and US perspectives on Benedict Arnold (hero spy or treasonous spy). History is always a matter of perspective.

So, yes - China suffered a major famine - but NOBODY is completely innocent and NOBODY is completely guilty.

Historically, in China, when the people are in such dire straits, revolution is sure and quick to follow, so the fact that the government managed to keep the country unified during those turbulent times was also a testament to its leadership. And we all know the USA and its allies were working overtime to destabilize the PRC using whatever Machiavellian means possible, to advance it's alleged platform of global "democracy".

Some will of course pick and choose the brutality - but this is no more brutal than the US Civil War, the Korean War, or the millennial conflicts currently waging across the middle east and Africa, or China's own incredibly long and bloody and brutal history during the Warring States period.

It's incredibly easy to criticize and tear down, but much more difficult to provide constructive criticism.

On that note, China generally provides basic healthcare for roughly 1.4 billion people. Obamacare failed and Americans also had to PAY for the privilege of "affordable" health care, which became "unaffordable" to both the participating health insurers and arguably, to the participants.

This point is NOT to gloat over the demise of Obamacare - it was a valiant effort, poorly planned, poorly executed, and probably and eventually, poorly shutdown.

Affordable, quality health care is a major pressing social issue for both China, the USA, and many other countries in the world. Current models of socialized health care in Canada and Scandinavia may or may not be realistic for a country of this size.

So how to finance and implement such a complicated and expensive national infrastructure, in a sustainable manner is the core issue. The potential solutions are in front of our eyes, but it will require a major shift in culture and behavior.

On that note - I understand China's 13th Five Year Plan is also focused on the ELIMINATION of poverty by 2020 - a very worthy goal, that should be interesting to see.

Both China, Japan, and the USA's social security (retirement) programs face similar challenges.

So now we know the issues, how should the government fix these critical social problems, in an economically and socially feasible, sustainable and scalable manner?