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Comment by boomboomsubban | Hacker News Reader

Always ignored in similar discussions, in 1950 the US convinced the UN to establish an embargo against China lasting for twenty years. Mao's economic policies were undoubtedly terrible, but the Western destruction of the Chinese economy did not stop in 1949.

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That was a direct consequence of the PRC's decision to attack the UN coalition army in Korea, and is the result of another failed policy of the PRC.

I feel you are misrepresenting what happened. As I understand it the PRC did not want this conflict and tried to prevent it, but failed. They were basically forced into the conflict by the Soviets and the Americans and suffered immense losses.

You will have to clarify how the Soviets "forced" the PRC to engage in a foreign war.

The UN coalition army that refused to acknowledge China's existence, invaded China's neighbor and marched to China's border. That does not justify twenty years of an embargo.

That is factually untrue. The war began when North Korea invaded South Korea.

As I said, the PRC's policies are what drove its people into poverty. It was a choice the PRC made to attack the UN armies, it chose to do so fully aware of the consequences of supporting North Korea and Kim Il-sung.

The 'UN' at that pinpoint in time had no representation from China or Russia, so it was basically NATO.

>That is factually untrue. The war began when North Korea invaded South Korea.

Which led to almost everything that happened in my post, the UN had already refused to acknowledge China. Nothing factually untrue in it at all.

>it chose to do so fully aware of the consequences of supporting North Korea and Kim Il-sung.

Mao called the decision blackmail at the time, and it's a fairly apt description. Imagine the hell that would be raised if China helped a Mexican despot and marched an army to the US border.

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