Fair and Balanced? (Another long post)

This past semester we were told to teach sophomore English Majors using a textbook entitled: A General Survey of UK and USA: A Contrastive Approach (ISBN978-7-04-012132). The following excerpts are taken directly from the book without changing anything, not even the spelling and grammar mistakes. You will soon see why we avoided using the book whenever possible. I could quote more but you get the idea.

Chapter 4 – Section 2: The Post War US: “Conflict between the USA and the USSR had begun to rise even before the end of the war, due to the American ambition of world domination.” (64)

“In East and Southeast Asia, the United States tried hard to control as many regions as possible through military and economic aggression. The US fully supported […] Chiang Kai-shek, who started the civil war against the Chinese Communist forces. By the end of 1949, the whole of mainland China had been liberated and Chiang Kai-shek with his left elements, fled to the island of Taiwan. This marked the end of the Chinese civil war and an end to the US control of China. […] The American reactionary policy against China ended in a complete failure and it was also the first major setback that the US suffered in Asia after the Second World War.” (64)

“The American aggression of Korea took place in June 1950, and the Korean War broke out. The Chinese Volunteers, asked by the Korean people entered the war in October 1950 and in the following month an enormous counter-attack was started against the American offensive. The US finally had to sign a ceasefire agreement in the summer of 1953, which marked the failure of the US aggression and the end of the war. This was another setback by the US and it was the starting point of the US decline after World War II.” (64-65)

“US-led NATO mounted an air strike on Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999. […] the USA tried to make NATO as a tool of its global expansion. […] If US-led NATO was able to occupy Kosovo and to separate Yugoslavia, the USA would keep Russia under control and would be able to control the Middle East easily, which will further help the USA realize the dream of global expansion and its dominance of the world. It is doubtless an aggressive and unjust war, with is a violent trample on the sovereignty of an independent country.” (66)

Chapter 6: British and American Political Systems: “The capitalist countries, the separation of powers and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie are symbols of the political systems, but the forms in each country differ.” (82)

Chapter 11: British and American Religions-Section 3: The American Worship: “Christian Science is quite popular among the bourgeoisie class.” (153)

“Problems still exist in American religion. The USA is a religious world in which people have fervent religious beliefs. Some of the small sects are extremely intolerant. Some are rather emotional; some are odd and brutal; and some others are hysterical. There is another small religious group called the People’s Temple” The text continues to describe People’s Temple cult and the ensuing Jonestown mass suicide. “All these religious problems are also social problems. In such a highly developed capitalist world, the economic decline, constant unemployment, the disintegration of families make people all the more crazy for religion.” (154-155)

Chapter 15: British and American Sports – Section 2: American Sports: “The student spectators are led in cheering for their teams by trained, uniformed student cheerleaders, many of whom are pretty girls.” (198)

“America takes advantage of the abundance of swimming pools to produce the world-best swimmers. Teenage American girls, many from California, have dominated international competition. (199)

Chapter 17: British and American Foreign Relations – Section 2: The Relationship Between the USA and China: “In the Far East, China was the main objective of the USA overseas expansion. In 1844 US imperialism invaded China and compelled the Qing Dynasty to sign the unequal ‘Treaty of Wangxia.’ […] All this shows that the US imperialism tried to have the whole of China under its control. But in 1949, the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek met final defeat on the mainland despite more than a decade of US assistance. Incredulous Americans seeking an explanation for the disaster blamed the Truman administration, attacking communist sympathizers in the US State Department for the loss of China, rather than the mismanagement and weakness of Chiang’s forces.” (219)

“The US long-term policy of isolating China and separating her from the rest of the world had been historically proved to be a serious mistake and a failure.” (220)

Chapter 18: British and American Social life – Section 2: American Social Life: “This section gives an account of the social life in the USA from five aspects […] The gap between the poor and the rich is the third. In American society, a vociferous equality is greatly advocated. However, social equality has never been realized […] The difference between the rich and the poor is great because of the social system.” (227-229)

“The fourth is the decaying morality. The American society is developing very fast scientifically, while the spirit of the society is becoming more and more hollow. The premarital sexual relationships, homosexuality and others are only a few instances of this spirit.” (230)

“In the 1960s and the early 1970s, ‘new morality’ appeared among young people, most of whom were educated at college. They have premarital sexual relationships and live together before marriage […] Some Americans say this is only casual behavior; others may find such an excuse that premarital relations are the natural result of romantic love. This sounds even more ridiculous. There are more and more illegitimate babies born today in the USA. […] The ‘new morality’ is nothing but ‘immorality.’” (230)

“Homosexuality is another immorality and a rather strange social phenomenon that most people can hardly understand. It widely spreads. One reason for this may be the despair in marriage or love affairs. Some people fail in marriage and become disappointed with it. So they decide no longer to love the opposite sex, but instead begin to love a person of the same sex as a return of hatred to the opposite. Another reason may be that some people just want to find and do something ‘new’ and ‘curious’. As Americans are known as adventurous, they practised homosexuality as a kind of new excitement. Through this, we can see clearly the spiritual hollowness of these people and the distortion of the social order.” (230)

“The fifth is violence. […] It is said that, in the University of South Carolina, gangs of rascals have been taking girl students, women teachers and wives of teachers working in this university as their targets of rape, which has caused a great fear. Crime has decreased since 1990.” (230-231)

China reports, you decide.