By Richard Bernstein
Library book
In 1945, America and China were allies. The USA was helping China in it's war With the Japanese (the enemy of.my enemy). There were two faction at the time in China. To the north, was Mao and his Communsists. And in the south Chianh ki Shek and thr Nationalists. Together they formed an uneady alliance in the immediate need to put aside differences and fight for the homeland.
And then with the defeat of the Japanese, the uneasy truce split apart. America back Chiang and "lost China" along with him.
Who lost China would be the subject of many pundits at the time with the two political parties using the issue to bludgeon each other. This book tells the story of that pivotal year of 1945 were the seeds were being sown.
23 FDR himself, on the subject of the feud between Stillwell and Chiang (who they called Cash My Check), said "in that Olympian manner of his: 'Big Boy, if you can't get along with Chiang...get rid of him." Several schemes were worked up for Chiangs' "disappearance including dropping him out of airplane with a faulty parachute. Mighty inauspicious beginning to what was supposed to be a good partnership.
25 Also a 4plot.to poison Chiang was being cooked up by Stillwell and "senior American intelligence officer for.China Carl F Eiler. Like other of our Asian allies think Ngi Dinh Diem, relations remained mercurial.
31 Chiang was supported fervently by Henry Luce and appeared on the cover of Time magazine some ten times.
This one above was August 1945. It was none other than Theodore White on the ground in China at that time reporting for Time magazine.
43 Barbara Tuchman wrote a Biography of Stillwell? Are her other writings about China in this period?
48 So the Patrick J Hurley, a fervent Republican (who has the honor of being in the picture on the cover of this book, seated center in bow tie) sent by Roosevelt to "straighten things out between Stillwell and Chiang later reveals the whole truth. He says Chiang was purposely sandbagged by the curent "communist favoring" American regime in place ie. the White House, to deliberately cause a communist takeover of China. So you tell me who lost China.
70 The vast numbers of Chinese population make sacrificing them an acceptable loss. Mao always said Nuclear bombs canr hurt us as much as you. we alot more people. Some 40 million were sacrificed in the famine of 1959-62. The author says,"There was always enough people left for a fresh start...The population was fungible."
94 This John Paton Davies Jr "an old China hand" had it right in 1944 when he warned the US to not follow in the footsteps of the European colonialist stategies in Asia at the expense of population there. He said this flawed policy would serve us no purpose and only drive the Asians into the open arms.of Stalin and the communists. The author sums it up this was,"don't allow Stalin to champion a new m order in Asia while the United States remains attachef to the decaying remnants of the past. Had we only heeded this advice, the Viet Nam quagmire would never have happened.
96 Service and Davies andnthe other China hands on the scene predicted correctly that following the war, there would be an civil war in China and the Communists would win. Who lost China? Not these men who entreated their bosses to make an accommodation with the fledgling communist government.
124 Chinese communists rescued downed American pilots and treated them like heroes. Just five short years later in Korea, they greeted them with imprisonment and torture.
128 And here in a closer look at this idealistic "classless" society set up by the fledgling Chinese comminists at Yenann we see that some pigs are more equal than others. Will tjere ever be a truly classless society on this planet? Yeah, good luck with that.
132 The first flourishing of behavior that would become de-rrigeur in Moa,s China can be seen here. Every petty tyrant needs a chief sniveling groveling sycophant, tthis part was played by Kang Sheng, who oddly enough is never mentioned.in dispatches of the fawning Ameicans of the Dixie mission. Mao learns to "kill the chicken to frieghten the monkey" with his very public denunciations of anyone with the audacity to pointnout obvoius contradictions.to him. Ahh gotta love a petty tyrants amd their "distortion fields" (yep, that was a shot at Steve).
The author says this is 20th Century Orwellian Totalitarianism at its' finest. (take.me.to church!)
134 One recipient of the emotional torture program wrote,"Once you confessed,you had a better life." (I'll tell you my sins so you can sharpened your knife). Everyone had to have a sin.If ya didn't ya better make one up. Wow. Mao'ss utopia!
137 When the "witch hunt" began by our own "petty tyrants" ie Senators and Congressman, to asses who was responsible for the "loss" of China, two camps develpoed. On the one side were the Foriegn Service experts, like Stillwell Davies and Jack Service, and were called the China hands. On the other side of the argument you had people like Henry Luce, Patrick Hurley and General Wedemeyer who would come to be known as the China lobby. The Washington "CW" said the China hands fawning over Mao, "coupled with their denigration of Chiang led to an erosion of support for the KMT." This situation weakend the support for Chiang allowing a later Communist takeover. Later Hurley would swear it was all done that way on purpose.
290 Wow this is getting really good. So the end of the war with Japan by atonic bomb surprises everyone. And now the scramble.began in ernest for the future of China. Russia would support Mao of.course and we as per our usual would support the oppressive side that the people mostly hated ie Chiang. Didn't matter to us a hill o' beans. As Roosevelt said once of Anastamosa, when told he was a bastard Ol' Rosy said,"Yes but he's our bastard." This is realpolitik at it's finest.
So the war iis over but we are sending in the Marines to help prop up our "bastard" against the wishes of our countrymen who, with the war over wanted their boys home and pdq. So one of the first Marines killed in this Chinese sideshow was Cpt John Birch, yes that John Birch whose name would forever after be associated with those "right wing nut jobs" of the eponymously named John Birch Society. Wow!
This from Wikipedia on the subject:
Origins
The society was established in Indianapolis, Indiana, on December 9, 1958, by a group of 12 led by Robert W. Welch, Jr., a retired candy manufacturer from Belmont, Massachusetts. Welch named the new organization after John Birch, an American Baptist missionary and military intelligence officer who was shot and killed by communist forces in Chinain August 1945, shortly after the conclusion of World War II. Welch claimed that Birch was an unknown but dedicated anti-communist, and the first American casualty of the Cold War.[8]Jimmy Doolittle, who met Birch after bailing out over China following the Tokyo Raid, said in his autobiography that he was certain that Birch "would not have approved" of that particular use of his name.
Indeed im sure he would not be happy may he rwt in peace.
Pg 312 gives the details.
332 So what we ar witnessing here is the birth of the Cold War and the tactics that would not serve us well in the immediate future.
Books:
Graham Peck
Two Kinds of Time: Life in Provencial China During the Crucial Years 1940-1941
There are several books by John W Dower that look good on Amazon.
Read Babara Tuchmans books to get a flavor of China at this time.
Theodore White Thunder Out of China
The Chinese People at War: Human Suffering and Social Transformation, 1937-1945 (New Approaches to Asian History)
Red Star over China: The Classic Account of the Birth of Chinese Communism
Movies:
Empire of the Sun. Movie about a young british boy in a Japanese interment camp in WWII.
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