What do we know about China? The oldest history and the largest population. But can this be believed? Is there any evidence for this? Why not?
Kirill Kotkov, a writer, orientalist, translator, head of the Center for the Study of the Far East, told the editor-in-chief of Pravda. Ru Inna Novikova about this.
Cyril, you think that in fact Chinese culture is not as ancient as they say about it. But it is believed that the Chinese civilization is already five thousand years old
- Did the Chinese tell you that? Yes, the Chinese told everyone so. The Chinese also told us that they are either one billion or one and a half billion.
Yes, already one and a half billion
- Yes, but let's just say I told you that I speak several Western and Eastern languages, but you have every right not to believe me. You can find other people who speak these languages, they will, roughly speaking, examine me, then it will already be clear whether I told you correctly or not. And how do we examine the Chinese about their supposedly huge population? …
The population census was carried out. There is data
- In the interests of the government, absolutely any numbers can be issued.
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That is, you think that there are not one and a half billion or even a billion, but much less?
- I do not categorically state that there are, let's say, less of them than us. It is not true. There are, of course, more of them than us.
But there are only 140 million of us
- Right. I also say that, naturally, there are more of them. But where is the proof that there are one and a half billion or even a billion? China itself does not give the impression of a country full of people. And if we look at the geographical map of China, we will see that half of the country is practically uninhabited at all.
I mean East Turkestan, Inner Mongolia, huge Tibet. There are also completely deserted places. Yes, and in internal China, that is, in fact, in historical China, which is south of the Great Wall, there are also many provinces, where the population, probably, as in the Moscow, Kaluga, Ryazan regions, at least is not much larger.
Cyril, what is it then? Such a big hoax, is it?
- I can even explain where it came from. Let's start with where is the original data? Now, if we take the population censuses that were allegedly carried out in China since the third century, that is, from the third century BC to the beginning of the twentieth century, we see tremendous volatility in relation to these data.
We are told that, for example, at the beginning of the 7th century AD, there were supposedly 60 million Chinese. But literally a hundred years have not passed there, and this figure drops to 16.5. The question is, what catastrophe destroyed such a large number of the population? Moreover, some time passes, again the figure jumps out to 60 and even 70 million.
What period are you talking about?
- I'm talking about the events that allegedly took place in China in the 7th-8th centuries AD. The question is, where, in fact, are some administrative and economic documents that could confirm that these censuses were. There is none of them. In general, the entire Chinese history is known to us exclusively from printed publications not earlier than the 17th century. And if they tell me that there are earlier data, then I will ask for evidence of the existence in China of museums and libraries with a long history.
Aren't there museums and libraries in China?
- Now there is. Only they arose quite recently - in the twentieth century. They arose after all, well, God forbid … The first Chinese museum, for example, the Museum of the Imperial Palace, was founded in 1925, but even then it was actually opened in Beijing in 1950, and in Taiwan - in 1965.
By the way, more about the population. In the early 1960s, the former President of the Republic of China, then-President of the Republic of China in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek, directly accused Mao Zedong of doubling the population of China in order to intimidate the whole world.
This is a very serious accusation, because if it were some conditionally independent journalist, it could be skipped. But this accusation came from a man who ruled mainland China from 1927 to 1949, so he undoubtedly had access to the most accurate data on population.
But he could have said this out of a desire for revenge, since their relationship was clearly not friendly
- Yes, they were and are now formally in a state of war. But the point is this. When the communists in China came to power, what did they do in the 50s? They started to raise the birth rate! On the model of the Soviet Union, the title “Mother Heroine” was introduced. Mao urged: give birth. Then he generally said that they were not afraid of a nuclear war.
Why was there a policy of increasing the birth rate in an allegedly so populous country? Everything is very simple. From 1912 to 1949, China was in a state of sluggish civil war, and in 1937-1945 it was also multiplied by the Japanese occupation. Naturally, there was a population decline that had to be replenished.
But are there any reliable figures for this period?
- No, there were numbers. But we are not told how many died during the Japanese occupation, that is, in 1937-1945, during military operations and natural disasters … And in 1937, the Chinese even opened dams on the Yellow River in order to prevent the Japanese army from advancing. Instead, the flood drowned over 300,000 Chinese citizens.
And the Japanese occupation was very cruel
- Right.
Many millions of Chinese died then
- Yes. But no one even knows what the real losses were during the Japanese occupation, because people died not only from hostilities, but also from hunger, epidemics and simply unsanitary conditions in which the Chinese peasantry lived. But the Chinese are now telling us: no, the population has increased by as much as 60 million. I emphasize that these are all Chinese data that we cannot verify.
Well, maybe this applies to all other countries, or the majority, too. Who was there and how counted 200-300 years ago?
- Quite right. Statistics is a subject of speculation and manipulation to promote certain ideas of those in power. Often these ideas are of a momentary nature. Then they forget about it, but the numbers remain.
Interviewed by Inna Novikova
Prepared for publication by Yuri Kondratyev