Some politically-incorrect truths about East Asia

This started as a Facebook post, but I was on a roll, so here I go:

1. One cannot understand modern ‘Communist’ China by reading Mao Zedong or even Deng Xiaoping; you have to read John Dewey.
2. North Korean state ideology of Juche is the brainchild (via Shin Chaeho and Choe Namseon) of Liang Qichao, and thus in turn, Herbert Spencer. Not Stalin.
3. Mou Zongsan was actually more pro-establishment and authoritarian than Jiang Qing is. Mou (and all the new Ruists, actually) supported Chiang Kai-shek’s government and his work was officially sponsored; Jiang opposes the CCP and his books are officially banned.
4. Mishima Yukio detested modern Japanese conservatives, seeing them as American flunkies.
5. The Japanese LDP started off as a money-laundering racket and official ratline. They haven’t really outgrown their roots.
6. Observant Daoists in Taiwan are actually pro-life and pro-family; Alan Watts has nothing to do with them.
7. Ai Weiwei is very much a part of all the problems he condemns. So are all such modern ‘artists’.
8. Liu Xiaobo is a racist neocon. Don’t listen to Salman Rushdie. Ever.
9. Mo Yan’s books actually aren’t all that bad. See 8.
10. The Dalai Lama is a supporter of Hindutva in India, which rather undermines his reputation as an Asian peace-builder.
11. Most estimates of GLF famine deaths are drastically overstated, with the highest tallies including projected deaths of the unborn. But if you are counting the deaths of the unborn, Deng Xiaoping is a far greater mass-murderer, many times over, than Mao Zedong was.