{"id":3884,"date":"2005-07-24T08:44:44","date_gmt":"2005-07-24T15:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/24\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/"},"modified":"2005-07-24T08:44:44","modified_gmt":"2005-07-24T15:44:44","slug":"letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter from Asia: Sometimes being crazy is just part of the plan – Howard French"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nFrom the International Herald Tribune<\/a>:\n<\/p>\n

\nA revealing book has just been published about a closed and secretive East Asian country that devotes a huge portion of its budget to developing nuclear weapons, even as millions of its people starve to death…<\/p>\n

Readers should be forgiven for guessing that the book in question concerns North Korea, the hereditary Marxist dictatorship that is frequently described as the world’s most bizarre state. But readers who reached that conclusion, however logically, would have been wrong. The thick and heavily researched book in question is “Mao: The Unknown Story<\/a>,” by Jung Chang.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the International Herald Tribune: A revealing book has just been published about a closed and secretive East Asian country that devotes a huge portion of its budget to developing nuclear weapons, even as millions of its people starve to death… Readers should be forgiven for guessing that the book in question concerns North Korea, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[1891,5907,5917],"class_list":["post-3884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-jung-chang","tag-mao-zedong","tag-north-korea","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\nLetter from Asia: Sometimes being crazy is just part of the plan - Howard French<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Letter from Asia: Sometimes being crazy is just part of the plan - Howard French\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From the International Herald Tribune: A revealing book has just been published about a closed and secretive East Asian country that devotes a huge portion of its budget to developing nuclear weapons, even as millions of its people starve to death… Readers should be forgiven for guessing that the book in question concerns North Korea, […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2005-07-24T15:44:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sophie Beach\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sophie Beach\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/7f19e31b674d57a7dc20aab8e908c663\"},\"headline\":\"Letter from Asia: Sometimes being crazy is just part of the plan – Howard French\",\"datePublished\":\"2005-07-24T15:44:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2005-07-24T15:44:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/\"},\"wordCount\":112,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"jung chang\",\"Mao Zedong\",\"North Korea\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2005\/07\/letter-from-asia-sometimes-being-crazy-is-just-part-of-the-plan-howard-french\/\",\"name\":\"Letter from Asia: Sometimes being crazy is just part of the plan - 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