LOOKING BACK AT CHINA LEAPING FORWARD Anyone who pays attention to world news will have observed the rising tensions between China and Taiwan lately. With the slow progression from economic restrictions such as limiting tourism, to incursion of their waters by huge fleets of sand dredgers, and now the frequent flights of Chinese military aircraft above those waters. At the same time the Chinese authorities and state media are willfully affirming that taking Taiwan is still firmly on their to-do list, even though it's been there since 1949. It's an interesting time to look back on communist China's much earlier years, when Taiwan was even more firmly in thier sights, and this CIA film, "China Leaps Forward", from the beginnings of the Great Leap Forward in 1958, presents a facinating window into those times: https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.643188 The film begins showing city life and a large agricultural expo where the machinery demonstrated indeed looks up to the western standards of the time*. Once the bold American reporter (narrating in classic 1950s style) makes his way out to the industrial and rural areas though, such modern equipment is frequently seen substituted by classic Chinese bulk manpower. Later on it also introduces the "backyard" steel furnaces that Mao ordered all workers to build for the sake of increasing steel production (in practice requiring the melting down of any spare steel that could be classed as "scrap", only to produce low grade iron), which have become a symbol of the logical failings of the Great Leap Forward that tragically lead to the starvation of tens of millions of Chinese peasants in rural areas. You notice them popping up with increasing frequency, at increasingly unlikely locations, towards the end of the film. But besides documenting the emergence of an economic disaster, as an American the journalist captures the seemingly universal determination in both propoganda and the Chinese people themselves that Taiwan would be taken back. This, and a hatred of the USA for defending Taiwan, is closely intertwined with the activities of the Great Leap Forward. It's amazing how so much effort was put towards implementing Mao's misguided economic policies, and yet the situation with Taiwan actually remained relatively unchanged right up until today. It also begs the question whether the hostilities expressed towards Taiwan by the Chinese government today are really serious? Or are they again intended as a distraction for the Chinese people themselves, who after two decades of extremely rapid economic growth are now seeing the forward leaps of modern China begin to stumble? - The Free Thinker. * Also at one point it's interesting to see Chinese copies of both Russian and American 50s car designs parked side-by-side. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they're still playing at that game as well: https://electrek.co/2021/10/09/awesomely-weird-alibaba-ev-of-the-week-a-fake-electric-ferramborghini-from-china/ "When you have to include brakes as a feature, you're really scraping the bottom of the automotive barrel."