Jung Chang: belief

Transcript context

…So say more about that. I know we did touch on that earlier when we were discussing why are people still defending Mao, but what motivated at the time and even still now, people were so disillusioned with Western capitalism that they thought they would rather have Mao. I think there were a lot of people like that with a young generation. I mean, they grew up after the collapse of the Soviet Empire. A lot of facts have come out. So people are no longer probably so starry-eyed and so wishful thinking about the communist regimes. But there was a time in those years when communism seemed to be going strong in so many countries. There were a lot of wishful thinking. Westerners, as I said, they may be pursuing for alternative to a society they have a lot of discontent with. So they so wanted for such miracle to happen, and they believed in what in there otherwise might have rejected as fantasy. Yeah. Speaking of which, tomorrow I'm interviewing Neil Ferguson, who has written volume one of his biography of Kissinger, and volume two, which will cover this period, will come out later. He's writing it right now. What should Kissinger have done differently? Should they not have tried to open up China under Mao? What should have been the policy of the United States at the time?…

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