This CPI has merits, and its application to normal countries, such as OECD, is reasonable.  However, it mixes normal countries with animal farms, so it generates some absurd rankings.  There is zero chance for the PRC to be less corrupt than India and Ukraine by any means. The perception used by transparency.org is that of "experts".  This is another example of experts being out of touch.  Let's use the PRC as an example. Even if we use the regime's own propaganda data and ignore the common belief that every PRC gov official is corrupt, there is enough information to show that the PRC is much more corrupt than Ukraine and India, contrary to the CPI ranking. We know that the middle school dropout has purged more than 200 generals. It is true that purge is political, but charges are usually corruption, and no one, including Chinese dissidents, doubts that the alleged massive corruption is all true, as expected. Every general is corrupt, so the middle school dropou...

  The China Theater, where over 20 million lives (including more than 2 million troops) were lost and over 10 million troops fought, is significantly under-reported in most literature on World War II due to the following reasons: The literature produced outside China usually favors the authors' own countries.  For example,  World War II Day By Day,  published in the UK, covers almost every war-related incident in the UK while touching slightly on some major events in China or the Soviet Union. The Chinese Communist Party, the victor of the Chinese civil war that took place immediately after WWII, writes its own version of history in its favor.  Since it played a minor role in the Sino-Japanese war compared with the Chinese Nationalist Party, and the wartime leader of China,  Chiang Kai-shek , was its #1 enemy,  the CCP deliberately omits or barely touches the major battles in its version of history.  Here are some author's notes in his effort to...

I am referring to diversity in a broad sense and mainly related to culture, worldview, or ideology.  It is a fact that the world has vastly diverse worldviews. Some (not all) religious and political groups try to unify worldviews by force. For example, the ultimate goal of communism is that everyone will have so-called communist conscientiousness. Communists try to achieve this through revolutions and the so-called proletarian dictatorship.  There is no sign to show that this is viable. The knowledge of this fact should be reinforced in the early education of kids. Kids should know that no matter how perfect they think they are, there are always some people who do not like what they are or how they behave, though most free people have kindness. The people who have the most beautiful voices (e.g., Pavarotti, Houston), the kindest hearts (e.g., Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa), the brightest minds (e.g., Einstein, Newton), the bravest people (e.g., foreign volunteers fightin...