Iron and bamboo curtain?

by hoser 2 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  hoser

  does anyone remember the terms iron curtain and bamboo curtain and what these mean? who thought up these ridiculous terms?
• 

  leavingwt

  Iron Curtain

  The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. On either side of the Iron Curtain, states developed their own international economic and military alliances:

  • The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the military Warsaw Pact on the east side, with the Soviet Union as most important member of each
  • The European Community and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the west and south, with the United States of America as the area's military powerhouse

  Physically, the Iron Curtain took the shape of border defenses between the countries of Western and EasternEurope, most notably the Berlin Wall, which served as a longtime symbol of the Curtain as a whole. [1]

  The events that demolished the Iron Curtain started in Poland, [2] [3] and continued in Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and Romania. Romania was the only Eastern-bloc country to overthrow its communist regime violently. [4] .

  Bamboo Curtain

  The Bamboo Curtain was a euphemism for the east Asian version of the Iron Curtain. As a physical boundary, it was marked by the borders around the Communist states of East Asia, in particular those of the People's Republic of China that were shared with non-Communist nations, during the Cold War. As such, this term did not include the Chinese border with the eastern Soviet Union, North Korea, or Mongolia.

  The term was less often applied to the border dividing North and South Korea (which is also known as the DMZ or Demilitarized Zone) and the flexible border between Communism and the West (here referring to the forces aligned against Communism during the Cold War) in Southeast Asia.

  During the Cultural Revolution in China, the Chinese authorities put its sections of the Curtain under a lock-down of sorts, forbidding entry into or passage out of the country without explicit permission from the Chinese government. Many would-be refugees attempting to flee to capitalist countries were prevented from escaping in this manner.

  The term "Bamboo Curtain" was used less often than the term "Iron Curtain" in part because while the latter remained relatively static for over 40 years, the former shifted constantly and was somewhat more porous. It was also a less accurate description of the political situation in Asia because of the lack of cohesion within the East Asian Communist Bloc, which ultimately resulted in the Sino-Soviet split; The Communist governments of Mongolia, Vietnam and later Laos were allies of the Soviet Union, while Cambodia's regime of Pol Pot was loyal to China. Shortly after the Korean War, North Korea swore allegiance to neither the USSR or China (this refusal to take sides by North Korea continues today, though now in the opposite direction: North Korea proclaims solidarity with both Russia and China).

  Improved relations between China and the United States during the later years of the Cold War rendered the term more or less obsolete, except when it referred to the Korean Peninsula and the divide between allies of the US and allies of the USSR in Southeast Asia. Today, the term is more often used to refer to the tightly-guarded borders of Burma, [1] whereas DMZ, when used in a political sense, is generally used for the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea.
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  sir82

  who thought up these ridiculous terms?

  Just some ridiculous nincompoop, went by the name of Winston Churchill.

  He didn't even have a Twitter account, so you probably never heard of him.