211: Tea, Drugs, and Jesus - Another Day, Another Country, Another Misunderstanding

WEBVTT 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:02.549 So we've been talking about US -China relations 00:00:02.549 --> 00:00:05.669 for many episodes now, dating back to the beginning 00:00:05.669 --> 00:00:08.269 of that relationship in the late 18th century. 00:00:08.750 --> 00:00:11.009 And we have talked a great deal about what the 00:00:11.009 --> 00:00:15.029 US got wrong about China over those years, and 00:00:15.029 --> 00:00:18.390 why. And now we will draw it all to a conclusion. 00:00:20.429 --> 00:00:23.910 Welcome to the United States of Amnesia. We are 00:00:23.910 --> 00:00:27.170 the podcast that reminds us of what we have forgotten. 00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:30.690 It is often said that history repeats itself. 00:00:31.010 --> 00:00:34.189 Mark Twain allegedly said that history doesn't 00:00:34.189 --> 00:00:37.130 repeat itself, but it rhymes. But over time, 00:00:37.189 --> 00:00:40.490 many topics have become clouded by biases and 00:00:40.490 --> 00:00:44.090 oversimplifications, or have become mythologized 00:00:44.090 --> 00:00:47.509 and now are misunderstood. Misunderstanding means 00:00:47.509 --> 00:00:50.070 learning the wrong lessons from history, perhaps, 00:00:50.289 --> 00:00:53.189 or even learning nothing at all. And that can 00:00:53.189 --> 00:00:56.030 leave us poorly prepared for history's next rhyme. 00:01:06.760 --> 00:01:09.620 In this episode, we wrap up the Tea, Drugs, and 00:01:09.620 --> 00:01:12.519 Jesus series with a review of how the United 00:01:12.519 --> 00:01:15.640 States misunderstood China in various ways during 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:18.500 the history of relations between the two countries 00:01:18.500 --> 00:01:22.120 dating from the late 18th century up until 1972. 00:01:22.819 --> 00:01:25.739 We then discuss how the United States continues 00:01:25.739 --> 00:01:29.719 to misunderstand China today and how it similarly 00:01:29.719 --> 00:01:33.879 misjudges the motivations, behaviors, and actions 00:01:33.879 --> 00:01:36.819 of many other countries. leading to mistakes 00:01:36.819 --> 00:01:41.260 and failures. All because of America's lack of 00:01:41.260 --> 00:01:45.000 cultural literacy and its propensity to ignore 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:48.480 or fire experts who tell American leaders things 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:50.780 that they do not want to hear about the world 00:01:50.780 --> 00:01:58.079 around them. Initially, the newly created United 00:01:58.079 --> 00:02:01.319 States, imagine China. was this enlightened area 00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:04.939 where virtue was always rewarded, if not actually 00:02:04.939 --> 00:02:09.520 ennobled by the emperor, a place of wise and 00:02:09.520 --> 00:02:13.819 well -positioned people. But as time progressed— 00:02:13.819 --> 00:02:16.180 And this was higher morality. This was higher 00:02:16.180 --> 00:02:20.979 morality. It was a moral fiction of China. Yes. 00:02:20.979 --> 00:02:23.099 That was based on that. That's the Ben Franklin 00:02:23.099 --> 00:02:24.800 quote that we had. That's the Ben Franklin quote. 00:02:24.860 --> 00:02:29.490 And this was useful in a sense because— It allowed 00:02:29.490 --> 00:02:32.849 people to advocate for that kind of moral government. 00:02:33.590 --> 00:02:36.229 If China can do it, we can do it. The West can 00:02:36.229 --> 00:02:39.129 do it. It was not based on an economic basis. 00:02:39.129 --> 00:02:42.069 Or even a real understanding. That's going to 00:02:42.069 --> 00:02:45.229 be the through line here. But it wasn't an economic 00:02:45.229 --> 00:02:47.930 observation that they were advanced technologically. 00:02:48.009 --> 00:02:51.689 But it was a more moral, educated, virtuous society. 00:02:51.729 --> 00:02:54.009 Society in which those sorts of people were placed 00:02:54.009 --> 00:02:57.090 in positions of authority. They do not understand. 00:02:58.039 --> 00:03:00.500 What the Americans do not understand, and the 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:03.800 English and the French, who are using China as 00:03:03.800 --> 00:03:08.240 a kind of literary device, what they do not understand 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:10.379 is— An imaginary China, as you put it. An imaginary 00:03:10.379 --> 00:03:14.180 China, if it has any basis, the basis is the 00:03:14.180 --> 00:03:18.020 porcelain plates and other ceramic things that 00:03:18.020 --> 00:03:19.740 they're receiving. Which aren't good historical 00:03:19.740 --> 00:03:21.659 documents. Which aren't good historical documents. 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:24.340 Travel gazetteers or anything else. Yeah, and— 00:03:25.670 --> 00:03:28.469 Some of this stuff is based on, has a factual 00:03:28.469 --> 00:03:31.370 basis, but it loses its accuracy in the telling 00:03:31.370 --> 00:03:34.750 of it. I mean, if you look at enlightenment accounts 00:03:34.750 --> 00:03:40.449 of places, the Islamic world and also China as 00:03:40.449 --> 00:03:44.550 well, as one of them, it is not factually based 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:48.629 at all. It's totally idealistic. There are the 00:03:48.629 --> 00:03:51.310 common concerns of a society such as equality, 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:53.610 poverty, things like that. They don't even factor 00:03:53.610 --> 00:03:57.009 into this. Well, I mean, also from what you've 00:03:57.009 --> 00:03:59.449 researched here and told us about, we do need 00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:01.569 to acknowledge that there was a tradition, as 00:04:01.569 --> 00:04:03.150 we talked about, a tradition of scholarship in 00:04:03.150 --> 00:04:06.110 China. It's not like it was completely fictitious. 00:04:07.680 --> 00:04:10.080 That wasn't the general population. The general 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:12.719 population was mostly subsistence farmers, peasants, 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:14.659 very poor people scrambling to get by. That was 00:04:14.659 --> 00:04:16.980 the majority of the population. Yes. And that 00:04:16.980 --> 00:04:20.420 is not covered. Yes. And so it's not to say that 00:04:20.420 --> 00:04:22.180 there wasn't educational attainment in China. 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:24.240 Clearly there was. There was a tradition of scholarship 00:04:24.240 --> 00:04:26.139 dating back hundreds and thousands of years in 00:04:26.139 --> 00:04:29.660 China. However, that wasn't the real... The real 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:33.439 China in its broadest sense. Yes. The real China 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:35.220 was something very different from that. And it 00:04:35.220 --> 00:04:36.800 had nothing to do with greater morality. The 00:04:36.800 --> 00:04:40.139 Chinese weren't necessarily more or less moral 00:04:40.139 --> 00:04:43.000 than anybody else. Well, the writings of Confucius 00:04:43.000 --> 00:04:45.699 and the Confucian schools of philosophy were 00:04:45.699 --> 00:04:51.250 what drove you into the civil service. It was 00:04:51.250 --> 00:04:54.750 kind of, it wasn't like there was an actual belief 00:04:54.750 --> 00:04:57.009 system that's motivating you. It's about memorizing 00:04:57.009 --> 00:05:00.569 Chinese classics, and it's about actually getting 00:05:00.569 --> 00:05:04.110 schooled as to how you pass these tests in some 00:05:04.110 --> 00:05:06.970 cases. There are cram camps where they'll sit 00:05:06.970 --> 00:05:10.290 you down and try to get you so that you can pass 00:05:10.290 --> 00:05:13.209 the examinations because this is a key to... 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:17.019 Not just having your virtue recognized, but prosperity. 00:05:17.339 --> 00:05:20.139 Prosperity status. Status, yes. You know, these 00:05:20.139 --> 00:05:22.540 are things, this is actually what's motivating 00:05:22.540 --> 00:05:24.560 them. It's not virtue, and this is not understood. 00:05:24.639 --> 00:05:26.519 So phase one, and this would be like certainly 00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:28.779 in the U .S. case, late 18th century, you know, 00:05:28.779 --> 00:05:31.779 Ben Franklin, early Republic times. So our first 00:05:31.779 --> 00:05:35.879 phase is an overly optimistic and elevated concept 00:05:35.879 --> 00:05:40.259 of how educated and moral broadly, broadly China 00:05:40.259 --> 00:05:41.939 is. That would be the first phase, wouldn't it? 00:05:42.139 --> 00:05:47.339 Yes. Well, then we have a better understanding 00:05:47.339 --> 00:05:50.560 that we get, and that's from merchant ships calling 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:55.199 in Canton, but just Canton. Your access is limited 00:05:55.199 --> 00:05:59.720 to China just based on Canton to keep China kind 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:04.939 of free from pollution. By which you mean foreign 00:06:04.939 --> 00:06:07.259 influence. Foreign pollution. Foreign influence. 00:06:07.339 --> 00:06:12.160 Yeah, right. So you're looking at China, this 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:15.459 broad, huge place. What's the right word? You're 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:17.779 looking at it through a telescope. You're looking 00:06:17.779 --> 00:06:19.540 at it through a straw, I guess is what you would 00:06:19.540 --> 00:06:20.779 say. A straw, yes. You're looking at it through 00:06:20.779 --> 00:06:22.540 a straw when it's actually much bigger than that. 00:06:22.800 --> 00:06:24.459 And because you're only looking at it through 00:06:24.459 --> 00:06:27.519 a straw, you're only getting a very narrow impression 00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:31.779 of a broader reality. And a reality that the 00:06:31.779 --> 00:06:35.110 kind of... main life, you're not really getting 00:06:35.110 --> 00:06:38.069 an appreciation for the poor peasants who's living 00:06:38.069 --> 00:06:40.730 on subsistence farming because you're dealing 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:43.430 just with merchants. You're not really getting 00:06:43.430 --> 00:06:47.490 the full scope of what China actually is at the 00:06:47.490 --> 00:06:49.509 time. Who probably are going to be more prosperous. 00:06:49.769 --> 00:06:51.689 They're not going to be subsistence farmers by 00:06:51.689 --> 00:06:52.870 any stretch of the imagination. Well, they're 00:06:52.870 --> 00:06:54.250 going to have different priorities in life. Different 00:06:54.250 --> 00:06:56.189 priorities in life. Yeah. All of that. Yeah. 00:06:56.250 --> 00:06:57.889 So you're only really seeing that segment of 00:06:57.889 --> 00:07:00.230 Chinese society. And let's frame the timeframe. 00:07:00.970 --> 00:07:02.529 That you're talking about, right? Well, we're 00:07:02.529 --> 00:07:04.790 talking roughly from when the Empress of China 00:07:04.790 --> 00:07:10.050 goes there in the 1790s. 1784. 1784, yes, 1784. 00:07:10.529 --> 00:07:13.889 84, 85, I think was the age. Yeah, because it 00:07:13.889 --> 00:07:17.189 was over two years, you know, it crossed two 00:07:17.189 --> 00:07:18.410 counties. 15 months, I think we said it was. 00:07:18.610 --> 00:07:22.850 So you've got that, and then essentially that's 00:07:22.850 --> 00:07:24.829 the perspective that people have on China up 00:07:24.829 --> 00:07:28.240 until the first opium war. which access gets 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:30.579 expanded. So we're talking kind of like the middle 00:07:30.579 --> 00:07:33.839 of the 19th century. So that would be 1780s to 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:37.459 1840. Yeah, about. That's what you're talking 00:07:37.459 --> 00:07:40.300 about. Now remind us, was this sea cucumber time? 00:07:40.540 --> 00:07:42.360 That happened in that time. Okay, that's right. 00:07:42.459 --> 00:07:45.560 So we got sea cucumbers. Sandalwood. Sandalwood. 00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:49.600 Always opium. Ginseng. Ginseng. Ginseng and also 00:07:49.600 --> 00:07:52.220 furs from seals. Furs. Okay, gotcha. Seal furs. 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:55.040 And, of course, always opium. Well, and we're 00:07:55.040 --> 00:07:57.579 not doing the bulk of the opium just to keep— 00:07:57.579 --> 00:07:59.379 We did some opium. We did some opium. The British 00:07:59.379 --> 00:08:02.480 did most of the opium. And opium was, just to 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:05.500 remind everybody again, legal in the United States. 00:08:05.620 --> 00:08:09.040 It was not— And Britain. And Britain, yeah. It 00:08:09.040 --> 00:08:11.920 was a legitimate—it was like—it would be like 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:15.120 selling aspirin. So at this time, we have a mercantile 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:18.529 view of China is what you would say. An overly 00:08:18.529 --> 00:08:21.329 optimistic mercantile view of China? It was not 00:08:21.329 --> 00:08:23.569 a realistic one. It was not realistic in the 00:08:23.569 --> 00:08:26.209 sense that we did not really have a good understanding 00:08:26.209 --> 00:08:28.709 as to the full extent of what the commercial 00:08:28.709 --> 00:08:31.569 prospects for China were. We thought it was a 00:08:31.569 --> 00:08:34.429 vast market. With people with lots of money to 00:08:34.429 --> 00:08:37.850 spend. When actually it was a large, mostly poor 00:08:37.850 --> 00:08:43.509 market. Yes, with a limited array of elites who 00:08:43.509 --> 00:08:47.820 could be enticed. to become interested in certain 00:08:47.820 --> 00:08:51.120 aspects of what we would have, but a very limited 00:08:51.120 --> 00:08:54.200 market in reality to what people imagined it 00:08:54.200 --> 00:08:57.120 would be. Virtually no middle class. Unless you're 00:08:57.120 --> 00:09:00.000 dealing with the merchants. Who is who you're 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:02.000 dealing with? Yeah. So your impression of China 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:05.500 is that's who they are at this time. But that's 00:09:05.500 --> 00:09:07.440 not who most of them are. No, that's not. And 00:09:07.440 --> 00:09:10.259 actually the merchants were kind of held in contempt 00:09:10.259 --> 00:09:16.730 by the upper strata of Chinese society. And just 00:09:16.730 --> 00:09:20.110 because of their focus on money and not the higher 00:09:20.110 --> 00:09:22.730 things, higher appreciation. So that takes us 00:09:22.730 --> 00:09:26.830 up through 1840 or so. And then we get greater 00:09:26.830 --> 00:09:30.070 access because of the missionaries. The missionaries 00:09:30.070 --> 00:09:35.049 are able to get in to China and actually... gain 00:09:35.049 --> 00:09:37.389 greater access to the interior. The Treaty of 00:09:37.389 --> 00:09:40.129 Nanking gives everybody greater access to China 00:09:40.129 --> 00:09:42.090 as a result of that. And we make arrangements 00:09:42.090 --> 00:09:45.490 of our own. And because of our own arrangements, 00:09:45.590 --> 00:09:47.269 we get more of our missionaries over there. Yes. 00:09:47.570 --> 00:09:51.070 And we actually have some advantages over the 00:09:51.070 --> 00:09:54.129 British in that we can actually gain access to 00:09:54.129 --> 00:09:58.350 property, to land, for things like hospitals, 00:09:58.590 --> 00:10:03.000 schools. missions, churches, housing, things 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:06.820 like that, which is not necessarily something 00:10:06.820 --> 00:10:11.399 that the—we got that initially, and this was 00:10:11.399 --> 00:10:14.159 what allowed the missionaries to come in and 00:10:14.159 --> 00:10:20.000 kind of gain access to the interior and potentially 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:24.059 gain greater knowledge of China, which they did 00:10:24.059 --> 00:10:27.779 not. They basically gradually became greater, 00:10:28.100 --> 00:10:32.350 more insular. in their approach to things. Right, 00:10:32.470 --> 00:10:34.850 so let's get to that a little bit. So there was 00:10:34.850 --> 00:10:37.889 a bifurcation at this point, I think, if I've 00:10:37.889 --> 00:10:40.470 got this correct. So on the one hand, the merchants 00:10:40.470 --> 00:10:42.419 always... the merchant people that were going 00:10:42.419 --> 00:10:44.519 over there, the businessmen, foreign businessmen 00:10:44.519 --> 00:10:47.419 in China, always were separated from the general 00:10:47.419 --> 00:10:49.500 Chinese population. They always were in these... 00:10:49.500 --> 00:10:51.440 They're always on the coastal areas. Commercial 00:10:51.440 --> 00:10:53.379 quarters. But they also don't live among the 00:10:53.379 --> 00:10:55.080 Chinese, really. They live in the foreign quarter 00:10:55.080 --> 00:10:57.480 of these treaty ports, these coastal cities, 00:10:57.639 --> 00:10:59.879 right? So they're, yeah, they're doing business 00:10:59.879 --> 00:11:01.440 with the Chinese, but that doesn't really... 00:11:01.549 --> 00:11:03.789 make you understand China very well. Yes, in 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:06.629 China, in Shanghai, which gets founded during 00:11:06.629 --> 00:11:09.649 this process as a merchant city, as a commercial 00:11:09.649 --> 00:11:14.789 hub, China, the merchants end up setting up in 00:11:14.789 --> 00:11:17.750 what's called a foreign concession, in which, 00:11:17.870 --> 00:11:20.309 to this day, you still have all these, all of 00:11:20.309 --> 00:11:24.200 a sudden, these Western -style... mid -19th century 00:11:24.200 --> 00:11:27.200 buildings in Shanghai that still exist that were 00:11:27.200 --> 00:11:30.340 designed to serve and promote this sort of insular 00:11:30.340 --> 00:11:32.200 culture. And you had that in other treaty ports 00:11:32.200 --> 00:11:34.379 as well. Yes. I remember we talked about Tianjin 00:11:34.379 --> 00:11:39.639 now. Yeah. Had a foreign quarter that was outside 00:11:39.639 --> 00:11:41.320 the walled city where the Chinese people lived. 00:11:41.360 --> 00:11:46.000 Yes. So that was the merchants, the business 00:11:46.000 --> 00:11:48.820 people. The missionaries were out in the countryside 00:11:48.820 --> 00:11:52.039 more, at least. Yes. But that greater access 00:11:52.039 --> 00:11:54.360 to the Chinese people didn't really result in 00:11:54.360 --> 00:11:57.000 any greater understanding of China. They're not 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:59.480 socializing with them. Because they're not there 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.649 to understand China. They're there to... Promote 00:12:02.649 --> 00:12:05.870 the gospel. Well, yes, promote the gospel, and 00:12:05.870 --> 00:12:07.450 also in a way, as I think we also discussed, 00:12:07.509 --> 00:12:09.210 at least in the case of the American missionaries, 00:12:09.330 --> 00:12:11.169 they were there to, whether they realized it 00:12:11.169 --> 00:12:14.730 or not, export America into China. Yes. Which 00:12:14.730 --> 00:12:16.730 became inextricably linked with Christianity 00:12:16.730 --> 00:12:19.470 in their minds and in some Chinese minds, but 00:12:19.470 --> 00:12:22.549 we'll come back to that. Yes. So they were there, 00:12:22.669 --> 00:12:24.870 they were out amongst the people, but they weren't 00:12:24.870 --> 00:12:26.690 there to learn about the people or learn about 00:12:26.690 --> 00:12:28.419 China. They were there to talk, not listen. And 00:12:28.419 --> 00:12:30.139 they're there to try to make the people stop 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:32.460 being like Chinese people and be more like American 00:12:32.460 --> 00:12:34.580 people, as far as I can understand from what 00:12:34.580 --> 00:12:36.860 you told us. That's very oversimplistic, I suppose. 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:40.980 Well, and this has consequences, which we addressed, 00:12:41.179 --> 00:12:49.600 in the sense that their biggest conversion resulted 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:53.600 in one of the bloodiest civil wars in history, 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:57.279 in which you have people rejecting Confucianism. 00:12:57.690 --> 00:13:00.289 during the Taipei Rebellion. The rebels did. 00:13:00.350 --> 00:13:04.950 The rebels did. And this kind of pulled... I 00:13:04.950 --> 00:13:06.789 mean, I don't know whether this was conveyed 00:13:06.789 --> 00:13:09.149 adequately when we talked about this, but you're 00:13:09.149 --> 00:13:12.250 essentially pulling up the society by the roots 00:13:12.250 --> 00:13:16.629 and you're taking away elements of that society, 00:13:16.830 --> 00:13:20.210 that social order, that social contract, and 00:13:20.210 --> 00:13:22.629 you're basically saying these do not count anymore. 00:13:22.990 --> 00:13:26.470 And what the... you don't really have a means 00:13:26.470 --> 00:13:29.330 to replace it even with Christianity. You kind 00:13:29.330 --> 00:13:33.129 of end up developing a kind of cult that exists 00:13:33.129 --> 00:13:37.169 that's around this leader who claims to be Jesus' 00:13:37.429 --> 00:13:40.710 younger brother. You're not really coming up 00:13:40.710 --> 00:13:45.590 with, in society, this creates so much tension 00:13:45.590 --> 00:13:47.370 in society that you end up with armed conflict. 00:13:47.769 --> 00:13:49.669 Yeah, I mean, what kind of comes to mind is here 00:13:49.669 --> 00:13:51.710 in the United States, we have an immense amount 00:13:51.710 --> 00:13:54.590 of trouble adopting, say, The metric system. 00:13:54.750 --> 00:13:57.129 Yes. That appears to uproot our culture. Yes. 00:13:57.169 --> 00:13:58.830 Now, can you imagine if you tried to do something 00:13:58.830 --> 00:14:01.870 far deeper in American society than that and 00:14:01.870 --> 00:14:04.409 just impose this from outside, what kind of reaction 00:14:04.409 --> 00:14:06.330 you would get? And that's what's happening in 00:14:06.330 --> 00:14:09.129 China in this case. Because it's not just like 00:14:09.129 --> 00:14:12.750 an ideology. Confucianism is not an ideology. 00:14:13.009 --> 00:14:16.850 It is a path for social harmony. It is the means 00:14:16.850 --> 00:14:19.990 by which society is organized. Yes. You have... 00:14:20.509 --> 00:14:23.149 You know, the social order, the social patriarchy 00:14:23.149 --> 00:14:41.110 is all organized along Confucian lines. So you're 00:14:41.110 --> 00:14:42.610 uprooting that. You're uprooting the basic order. 00:14:42.809 --> 00:14:45.789 You're bringing in what, for most Chinese people, 00:14:45.889 --> 00:14:50.470 is an alien religion from an alien culture. And 00:14:50.470 --> 00:14:52.350 a lot of people don't like when you do that. 00:14:52.669 --> 00:14:54.649 Yeah. And you wind up with horrible conflict, 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:56.889 one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Yes. 00:14:56.950 --> 00:14:58.570 All sorts of horrible atrocities and things that 00:14:58.570 --> 00:15:02.710 happened during that war. So the lack of understanding 00:15:02.710 --> 00:15:05.529 of China or what you were doing, and I remember 00:15:05.529 --> 00:15:06.870 when you talked about it, you mentioned like 00:15:06.870 --> 00:15:09.309 the Star Trek prime directive. Prime directive, 00:15:09.549 --> 00:15:13.519 yes. Like, you know. Not to, you know. damage 00:15:13.519 --> 00:15:15.820 or destroy the cultures you encounter on other 00:15:15.820 --> 00:15:17.919 planets. And in this era, China might as well 00:15:17.919 --> 00:15:20.000 be another planet as far as Americans are concerned. 00:15:20.159 --> 00:15:22.940 They're violating that prime directive and resulting 00:15:22.940 --> 00:15:25.639 in terrible results. There were consequences 00:15:25.639 --> 00:15:30.240 to the missionaries coming in that kind of undermined 00:15:30.240 --> 00:15:34.100 the fabric of society. And we did not actually 00:15:34.100 --> 00:15:37.639 benefit from this process, except in the extent 00:15:37.639 --> 00:15:41.460 that we became further insular as a result of 00:15:41.460 --> 00:15:45.490 this. What occurs to me too is, and maybe you 00:15:45.490 --> 00:15:48.289 can tell us more about this from your research, 00:15:48.370 --> 00:15:54.029 but did we have any idea that we had so badly 00:15:54.029 --> 00:15:56.529 disrupted an ancient civilization and caused 00:15:56.529 --> 00:15:59.370 these tens of millions of deaths? Did we have 00:15:59.370 --> 00:16:02.809 any sense of that? No, right? No. The idea just 00:16:02.809 --> 00:16:06.029 was, oh, Chinese people are barbarians who do 00:16:06.029 --> 00:16:08.720 things like that. They need more Christianization 00:16:08.720 --> 00:16:12.039 to get past that. Unfortunately, that was the 00:16:12.039 --> 00:16:14.960 attitude of most missionaries in the world. Yeah, 00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:18.059 we need to double down. This reinforces the need 00:16:18.059 --> 00:16:19.519 for us to do this. We're spreading the gospel. 00:16:19.779 --> 00:16:23.080 Yes. We're converting people to the promised 00:16:23.080 --> 00:16:25.940 land, to heaven. Well, and also there's this 00:16:25.940 --> 00:16:30.659 impulse, because back then... Before we had the 00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:33.919 whole myth about Israel bringing about the end 00:16:33.919 --> 00:16:36.659 times, we had the myth about China bringing about 00:16:36.659 --> 00:16:40.000 the end times, in which if we preach the gospel 00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:43.019 in all the countries of the world, this would 00:16:43.019 --> 00:16:46.039 bring about the second coming of Jesus. So they're 00:16:46.039 --> 00:16:48.879 thinking about this. And the other thing, you 00:16:48.879 --> 00:16:51.460 have our old friend Mr. Eugenics coming in there, 00:16:51.580 --> 00:16:53.820 and the reason why the Chinese are having this 00:16:53.820 --> 00:16:57.779 negative aspect about the gospel is because they're 00:16:57.779 --> 00:17:00.529 an inferior people. They are kind of a decadent, 00:17:00.529 --> 00:17:03.750 depraved people. The attitude towards the Chinese 00:17:03.750 --> 00:17:06.470 was not the one that we would have of this period. 00:17:06.490 --> 00:17:08.829 And this is among the missionaries. It's among 00:17:08.829 --> 00:17:11.490 not just the missionaries, but it's also among 00:17:11.490 --> 00:17:13.529 the West as a whole. Sure, the businessmen as 00:17:13.529 --> 00:17:16.089 well. But I'm just saying, but the missionaries, 00:17:16.130 --> 00:17:18.869 people of God supposedly, have this attitude 00:17:18.869 --> 00:17:20.690 toward the Chinese, don't they? Yes, this sort 00:17:20.690 --> 00:17:23.269 of patronizing attitude. And the only route, 00:17:23.410 --> 00:17:26.450 as far as missionaries are concerned, to... changing 00:17:26.450 --> 00:17:28.890 this is to save these people yes to christianize 00:17:28.890 --> 00:17:32.049 them that will fix them not they're still not 00:17:32.049 --> 00:17:33.730 going to be as good as white people though well 00:17:33.730 --> 00:17:36.029 that's how people thought at the time yeah yes 00:17:36.029 --> 00:17:38.009 it'll make them better though it will make that 00:17:38.009 --> 00:17:40.289 was the idea improve their lot in life here and 00:17:40.289 --> 00:17:42.450 it will also bring about the second coming of 00:17:42.450 --> 00:17:45.910 jesus and and all these other apocalyptic events 00:17:45.910 --> 00:17:47.809 that people were looking forward to for some 00:17:47.809 --> 00:17:50.109 reason which paul thought was going to happen 00:17:50.109 --> 00:17:52.710 in his lifetime yes let's just remind everyone 00:17:52.710 --> 00:17:56.240 paul thought he was going to be you know, that 00:17:56.240 --> 00:17:58.680 Jesus was coming in his lifetime. And he'd get 00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:00.259 to actually meet him. And this would be, what, 00:18:00.339 --> 00:18:05.779 years? Oh, this is, he died in 94? Like within 00:18:05.779 --> 00:18:08.059 the first century. So the first century. Yeah. 00:18:08.480 --> 00:18:10.420 We've been talking about this happening for a 00:18:10.420 --> 00:18:13.000 long time. That's my point. Yeah. That's my point. 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:16.640 So the Taiping Rebellion dragged on for a decade 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:20.019 and a half. Really until the 1870s. The 1870s, 00:18:20.019 --> 00:18:23.220 where they finally put that fire out. Tens of 00:18:23.220 --> 00:18:26.849 millions of deaths. Did the missionaries really 00:18:26.849 --> 00:18:29.150 learn nothing from that? They learned nothing 00:18:29.150 --> 00:18:31.230 other than to become more insular, as far as 00:18:31.230 --> 00:18:33.710 I'm concerned. And Seth's going to ask it. So 00:18:33.710 --> 00:18:37.210 the Taiping Rebellion drove them to be more insular. 00:18:37.410 --> 00:18:39.769 In the sense that they wanted to stay away from 00:18:39.769 --> 00:18:44.630 some of these disturbances that are going on 00:18:44.630 --> 00:18:48.170 in China. Now, they were not targeted during 00:18:48.170 --> 00:18:49.930 the Taiping Rebellion. No, they weren't. They 00:18:49.930 --> 00:18:52.670 weren't a target of that. What happened later? 00:18:52.789 --> 00:18:56.349 Later, because... In 1900. Yes, with the boxers. 00:18:56.369 --> 00:18:58.769 They were directly targeted and slaughtered in 00:18:58.769 --> 00:19:01.289 numbers. And we don't need to go through the 00:19:01.289 --> 00:19:04.950 whole box rebellion again, but we do know that 00:19:04.950 --> 00:19:07.789 they learned nothing from that either. It simply 00:19:07.789 --> 00:19:11.210 reinforced neither the missionaries nor the businessmen 00:19:11.210 --> 00:19:13.250 or the other Westerners. It just reinforced all 00:19:13.250 --> 00:19:15.269 their already biased beliefs against the Chinese. 00:19:15.309 --> 00:19:19.940 Yes. savagery and barbarity and - Lack of civilization. 00:19:20.559 --> 00:19:23.619 Imbecility and such. So we've gone, so that drove 00:19:23.619 --> 00:19:25.960 them even further into fortified compounds. So 00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:27.480 they were even less involved with the general 00:19:27.480 --> 00:19:29.759 Chinese population, the missionaries. But just 00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:33.500 to reiterate, just kind of look at this through 00:19:33.500 --> 00:19:38.059 the looking glass here. Chinese people in this 00:19:38.059 --> 00:19:42.680 country, if we want to understand how one might 00:19:42.680 --> 00:19:47.019 look at a large number of foreigners, settling 00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:50.619 amongst you, we put huge restrictions. In fact, 00:19:50.619 --> 00:19:54.240 the Chinese were the first people of any people 00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:57.380 on the planet that we actually put a restriction 00:19:57.380 --> 00:19:59.519 on their ability to come to the United States. 00:19:59.539 --> 00:20:05.029 The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. Yes. For some 00:20:05.029 --> 00:20:07.190 reason, we're having a sort of lack of awareness 00:20:07.190 --> 00:20:09.930 here that we're having all these problems with 00:20:09.930 --> 00:20:12.990 Chinese people coming into our country, but for 00:20:12.990 --> 00:20:15.950 some reason, they're not seeing why they might 00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:19.369 have a problem with all these other people coming 00:20:19.369 --> 00:20:23.930 into their country, into China. So it's a colonial 00:20:23.930 --> 00:20:26.329 kind of an attitude. Yes. Right? It's not okay 00:20:26.329 --> 00:20:27.829 for them to come here, but it's fine for us to 00:20:27.829 --> 00:20:30.640 go there. Yes. It's not okay for them to come 00:20:30.640 --> 00:20:32.900 here and make money off of us, but it's fine 00:20:32.900 --> 00:20:34.339 for us to go there and make money off of them. 00:20:34.539 --> 00:20:37.039 And we shouldn't adopt their religion, but they 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:39.039 should adopt our religion, and so on and so forth. 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:41.839 It's the mentality of that time. And I mean, 00:20:41.859 --> 00:20:44.019 I'll just say this. We got more out of the Chinese 00:20:44.019 --> 00:20:46.460 than the Chinese got out of us in some respects. 00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:49.259 We got the Transcontinental Railroad because 00:20:49.259 --> 00:20:53.160 that was made largely with Chinese labor, 80%. 00:20:53.160 --> 00:20:56.279 Well, Westerners did build railroads. Yes. They 00:20:56.279 --> 00:20:59.369 built a lot of things in China. Yes. But we got 00:20:59.369 --> 00:21:01.710 that. But I guess what we built in China didn't 00:21:01.710 --> 00:21:04.170 benefit the Chinese themselves that much, what 00:21:04.170 --> 00:21:05.950 the Westerners built. Not to the same extent. 00:21:06.150 --> 00:21:07.529 That the Transcontinental Railroad benefited. 00:21:07.529 --> 00:21:11.230 I would say when you're talking about something 00:21:11.230 --> 00:21:16.029 like the Transcontinental Railroad, you're talking 00:21:16.029 --> 00:21:17.750 about something like landing on the moon here 00:21:17.750 --> 00:21:20.609 in terms of consequence. It's that significant. 00:21:21.089 --> 00:21:24.309 Yes, absolutely. It is that significant. And 00:21:24.309 --> 00:21:27.339 we've come a long way. Also from Ben Franklin 00:21:27.339 --> 00:21:30.039 in – I think his quote was 1784. It was the same 00:21:30.039 --> 00:21:32.480 year that the Empress of China left on her voyage 00:21:32.480 --> 00:21:34.759 to China. We've come a long way from viewing 00:21:34.759 --> 00:21:39.880 China as this place of moral superiority and 00:21:39.880 --> 00:21:42.599 general societal moral superiority and educational 00:21:42.599 --> 00:21:46.819 attainment to a land of savagery and barbarism 00:21:46.819 --> 00:21:51.160 and inferior race of people. Yes. Inferior. And 00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:53.539 that's in 1900. Well, it had already developed 00:21:53.539 --> 00:21:56.420 by the mid -19th century, hadn't it? I think. 00:21:56.440 --> 00:21:58.240 But certainly in the second half of the 19th 00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:00.799 century up to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, that 00:22:00.799 --> 00:22:04.059 became the common view of the Chinese, if I understand. 00:22:04.279 --> 00:22:05.700 Particularly after... And they were barred from 00:22:05.700 --> 00:22:07.839 coming to our country. We've said that. Yeah, 00:22:07.859 --> 00:22:10.180 yeah, yeah. We said that, yeah. They're barred 00:22:10.180 --> 00:22:13.500 from coming to our country. So I'm just saying, 00:22:13.579 --> 00:22:17.950 again, it's a big change, right? And... There 00:22:17.950 --> 00:22:20.089 are exceptions, though, to that. They can come 00:22:20.089 --> 00:22:22.470 here for educational purposes. That's why Charlie 00:22:22.470 --> 00:22:24.349 Sung went to Vanderbilt and that type of thing. 00:22:24.589 --> 00:22:27.650 Duke and Vanderbilt. Duke and Vanderbilt. I think 00:22:27.650 --> 00:22:29.309 Duke was called Trinity College back in those 00:22:29.309 --> 00:22:31.869 days, and they became Duke later. But I'm just 00:22:31.869 --> 00:22:35.190 saying, it's very interesting how greater engagement 00:22:35.190 --> 00:22:38.990 with China, on the one hand, it—what's the right 00:22:38.990 --> 00:22:41.630 word? It took us away from the misunderstanding 00:22:41.630 --> 00:22:44.789 of China as this— Great society. Great society. 00:22:47.339 --> 00:22:49.099 what's the right word there, overcompensated, 00:22:49.099 --> 00:22:50.700 went way overboard the other direction, that 00:22:50.700 --> 00:22:53.339 it was this barbaric, uncivilized society. In 00:22:53.339 --> 00:22:56.059 need of fixing. In need of fixing, because we 00:22:56.059 --> 00:22:58.420 didn't understand how it worked and also didn't 00:22:58.420 --> 00:23:01.839 care. Eventually, yes. I mean, this is the colonial 00:23:01.839 --> 00:23:03.500 attitude. Well, by the second half of the 19th 00:23:03.500 --> 00:23:05.680 century, certainly that's the case, right? It's 00:23:05.680 --> 00:23:08.299 a nice place to buy things from, cute novelty 00:23:08.299 --> 00:23:11.980 things that, you know. like the Museum of Fine 00:23:11.980 --> 00:23:16.579 Arts in Boston and other places here in Washington, 00:23:16.720 --> 00:23:23.819 D .C. We have a large number of Chinese and Asian 00:23:23.819 --> 00:23:26.420 artifacts that we picked up there. We thought 00:23:26.420 --> 00:23:31.119 these were wonderful, but they're not a serious 00:23:31.119 --> 00:23:36.059 people. producer of knickknacks and tchotchkes 00:23:36.059 --> 00:23:39.240 and things like that that add a certain exoticism 00:23:39.240 --> 00:23:42.700 to your home or your museum. And you had mentioned 00:23:42.700 --> 00:23:46.400 also that the appreciation that the three of 00:23:46.400 --> 00:23:50.140 us grew up with in the 70s of Chinese technological 00:23:50.140 --> 00:23:53.819 and scientific achievement back in what in Europe 00:23:53.819 --> 00:23:57.299 was medieval times did not exist at that point. 00:23:57.299 --> 00:23:58.740 No, it didn't. That didn't come along until the 00:23:58.740 --> 00:24:01.519 40s with Joseph Needham. So at the time, we even 00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:04.630 mentioned a fire. Gunpowder. Yeah. Being only 00:24:04.630 --> 00:24:07.029 used for, you know, the stereotype was, well, 00:24:07.069 --> 00:24:09.289 just use it for fireworks in China because they're 00:24:09.289 --> 00:24:11.529 silly people who just, you know, don't do anything 00:24:11.529 --> 00:24:13.950 serious. It was the Westerners, the Europeans 00:24:13.950 --> 00:24:15.930 who then took gunpowder and did something useful 00:24:15.930 --> 00:24:19.069 with it. Cannons. Cannons. Guns. Guns and cannons. 00:24:19.470 --> 00:24:21.450 And that was the kind of mentality that prevailed 00:24:21.450 --> 00:24:23.990 at this time. And so this continues because all 00:24:23.990 --> 00:24:25.829 they do is make knickknacks. Yeah. You've taken 00:24:25.829 --> 00:24:29.319 this, you know, ancient culture. And you've just 00:24:29.319 --> 00:24:30.900 reduced it to being a knick -knack producer for 00:24:30.900 --> 00:24:34.059 you. And Needham actually looked at science and 00:24:34.059 --> 00:24:37.259 looked at science like in 14th century China 00:24:37.259 --> 00:24:42.059 and how science was developed at a much faster 00:24:42.059 --> 00:24:47.640 rate in China than it was in the Western world. 00:24:48.920 --> 00:24:52.960 Science and mathematics is actually moving ahead 00:24:52.960 --> 00:24:56.359 in the Arab world a lot faster too, and we don't 00:24:56.359 --> 00:24:58.799 start catching up until we actually get some 00:24:58.799 --> 00:25:03.039 of that stuff. So the understanding, I think 00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:04.799 what I see here is that the understanding, even 00:25:04.799 --> 00:25:08.980 though the nature of the misunderstanding of 00:25:08.980 --> 00:25:11.990 China changed. Yes. It's still a misunderstanding. 00:25:12.130 --> 00:25:14.289 It's still a misunderstanding. And the understanding 00:25:14.289 --> 00:25:17.890 of China was shallow at best. Yes. And deeply 00:25:17.890 --> 00:25:20.789 trivial. Among the majority of people. You do 00:25:20.789 --> 00:25:23.069 get people like Needham. You do get people. Well, 00:25:23.089 --> 00:25:25.230 he's in the 1940s. Yes, he's in the 1940s. So 00:25:25.230 --> 00:25:26.329 eventually you get people like Needham. But not 00:25:26.329 --> 00:25:28.329 yet. Not in the 19th century. There are scholars 00:25:28.329 --> 00:25:30.309 that are going over there. Sure. Sinologists. 00:25:30.430 --> 00:25:35.890 Yes. And these people, though, are limited in 00:25:35.890 --> 00:25:40.490 their scope. and appeal to the general population. 00:25:40.910 --> 00:25:42.769 Yes, there's academic papers there, right, or 00:25:42.769 --> 00:25:44.589 something, yeah. But that's as far as it goes. 00:25:44.789 --> 00:25:46.650 You know, I mean, people working at the Fogg 00:25:46.650 --> 00:25:48.690 Museum in Harvard have a limited distribution. 00:25:49.190 --> 00:25:52.529 Yeah, yeah. So that takes us up into the beginning 00:25:52.529 --> 00:25:55.970 of the 20th century. Yes. The empire falls. The 00:25:55.970 --> 00:25:59.289 empire falls, and we have yet a new misunderstanding 00:25:59.289 --> 00:26:03.150 about China, and this involves this concept of 00:26:03.150 --> 00:26:07.299 democracy. At the time, just to sort of bring 00:26:07.299 --> 00:26:09.259 this back to what's happening in the United States, 00:26:09.539 --> 00:26:12.460 we have Woodrow Wilson going in there and talking 00:26:12.460 --> 00:26:14.960 about a war to make the world safe for democracy. 00:26:15.460 --> 00:26:19.579 There is a very poor understanding of how you 00:26:19.579 --> 00:26:22.099 get to democracy. It's sort of like something 00:26:22.099 --> 00:26:24.720 that just happens spontaneously, something that 00:26:24.720 --> 00:26:30.400 we haven't quite gotten rid of. But with this 00:26:30.400 --> 00:26:35.160 period, the idea is that China can become a democracy 00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:39.119 with just a little bit of help. And that's because 00:26:39.119 --> 00:26:42.759 of what we're getting from the Song family and 00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:45.359 Chiang Kai -shek, who are basically providing 00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:48.779 a lot of VIPs when they come over. And this is 00:26:48.779 --> 00:26:53.299 both before and during World War II with a sort 00:26:53.299 --> 00:26:57.519 of like understanding of this is what we're doing 00:26:57.519 --> 00:27:00.220 and this is how we're fostering democracy. But 00:27:00.220 --> 00:27:04.119 you have a country that is still... 80 % illiterate. 00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:08.059 And I would just argue literacy is one of these 00:27:08.059 --> 00:27:11.019 preconditions to democracy to be able to kind 00:27:11.019 --> 00:27:14.900 of understand the intricacies of the political 00:27:14.900 --> 00:27:17.940 system. And without it, you can't really get 00:27:17.940 --> 00:27:22.359 there. And so what developed at this time, the 00:27:22.359 --> 00:27:26.849 Christianization issue is still there. And it 00:27:26.849 --> 00:27:29.789 is believed that because the Songz and Chiang 00:27:29.789 --> 00:27:32.430 Kai -shek are Christians, that they will Christianize 00:27:32.430 --> 00:27:39.910 China. This is the quick route, the sort of illusion 00:27:39.910 --> 00:27:42.170 that people had that leadership could actually 00:27:42.170 --> 00:27:46.230 influence the general population. There is that. 00:27:46.569 --> 00:27:51.390 And then there's also the idea that China can 00:27:51.390 --> 00:27:54.519 become a functioning democracy. Virtually overnight. 00:27:54.599 --> 00:27:56.880 And these two are tied together, though. Yes, 00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:00.000 they are. In the minds of at least some Americans, 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:05.140 activist Americans. Yes. The, well, now adults, 00:28:05.160 --> 00:28:08.180 but children of missionaries. Yes. Who had grown 00:28:08.180 --> 00:28:10.400 up in China. Like Henry Luce. Henry Luce and 00:28:10.400 --> 00:28:12.220 Pearl Buck. And Pearl Buck. And they came and 00:28:12.220 --> 00:28:15.579 they, you know, offered their vision of China. 00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:21.150 But certainly in Luce's case. Luce's case. I 00:28:21.150 --> 00:28:23.930 will say Pearl Buck had an idealistic view of 00:28:23.930 --> 00:28:26.789 Chinese peasants, but she actually had probably 00:28:26.789 --> 00:28:29.589 more of a realistic view and understanding of 00:28:29.589 --> 00:28:31.829 China than Luce did. Yeah, Luce was a different 00:28:31.829 --> 00:28:35.670 animal. He was involved in the Christianization 00:28:35.670 --> 00:28:40.150 of China. He remained committed to that. And 00:28:40.150 --> 00:28:43.289 from your research, I think, what we've discovered 00:28:43.289 --> 00:28:47.910 in the course of this series is that those two 00:28:47.910 --> 00:28:51.509 things, becoming a democracy, In order to be 00:28:51.509 --> 00:28:53.210 a republic. Maybe I should say three things. 00:28:53.309 --> 00:28:56.349 Becoming a democracy, becoming a republic, and 00:28:56.349 --> 00:28:59.430 Christianity, Christianization, were all intrinsically 00:28:59.430 --> 00:29:02.029 tied to each other. At this point, yes. At this 00:29:02.029 --> 00:29:05.430 point. And from the Chinese perspective, from 00:29:05.430 --> 00:29:07.609 the Chinese who actually did want to try to have 00:29:07.609 --> 00:29:09.589 a republican democracy to the extent that was 00:29:09.589 --> 00:29:14.309 the case, they saw adoption of Christianity. 00:29:15.339 --> 00:29:18.559 as a prerequisite because to be more like america 00:29:18.559 --> 00:29:21.799 you had to be also be christian because america 00:29:21.799 --> 00:29:24.720 was predominantly christian and that's true right 00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:27.319 yes from the chinese perspective well from the 00:29:27.319 --> 00:29:31.519 from the perspective of those people who which 00:29:31.519 --> 00:29:33.440 isn't most chinese no it isn't we're talking 00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:37.119 a tiny minority here but People could come. The 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:39.859 one exception to the Chinese Exclusion Act was 00:29:39.859 --> 00:29:43.279 that people could come over and become educated 00:29:43.279 --> 00:29:47.880 at U .S. institutions like Charlie Song and his 00:29:47.880 --> 00:29:51.279 daughters. They all went to women's seminaries. 00:29:51.279 --> 00:29:57.259 They went to Wellesley. And these were designed 00:29:57.259 --> 00:30:02.089 to support this sort of Christian view. These 00:30:02.089 --> 00:30:04.309 were not secular schools that they're going to. 00:30:04.369 --> 00:30:07.289 They had a definite religious aspect to them 00:30:07.289 --> 00:30:10.970 as well. And so they would associate Christianity 00:30:10.970 --> 00:30:13.990 with America, with democracy, with being a republic. 00:30:14.589 --> 00:30:17.369 It didn't do a damn thing, though, despite any 00:30:17.369 --> 00:30:19.890 of this stuff, to cut down on the corruption 00:30:19.890 --> 00:30:23.930 that proliferated during the period in which 00:30:23.930 --> 00:30:26.009 Chiang Kai -shek is running the country. That 00:30:26.009 --> 00:30:29.109 has not changed. That is still there. That is 00:30:29.109 --> 00:30:32.339 the sort of... undercurrent in Chinese society. 00:30:32.819 --> 00:30:36.700 It existed even during the moralistic times of 00:30:36.700 --> 00:30:39.660 Ben Franklin. There's this huge network of corruption, 00:30:39.740 --> 00:30:42.759 which is something that Americans are kind of 00:30:42.759 --> 00:30:47.259 offended by because of just the extent and level 00:30:47.259 --> 00:30:51.500 of it surpasses anything that we have in this 00:30:51.500 --> 00:30:53.759 country. But this is the way the society functions. 00:30:53.900 --> 00:30:56.240 Yeah, for the boxers in 1900, as we discussed, 00:30:56.380 --> 00:30:59.049 they viewed... imperial officials as intrinsically, 00:30:59.109 --> 00:31:02.910 inherently, constantly corrupt. They were. Because 00:31:02.910 --> 00:31:05.910 they were. Yeah. And so they blamed the missionaries 00:31:05.910 --> 00:31:09.089 for being part of that. Yeah. You know, for interceding 00:31:09.089 --> 00:31:11.609 on the behalf for, you know, with Chinese officials 00:31:11.609 --> 00:31:13.750 on behalf of people and things like that. So 00:31:13.750 --> 00:31:16.869 they associated the missionaries with the corruption. 00:31:17.009 --> 00:31:19.369 Yeah. It was already there in 1900. Yeah. And 00:31:19.369 --> 00:31:23.339 having a republic. Didn't cure anything. Plus, 00:31:23.460 --> 00:31:24.859 the Republic didn't really ever control very 00:31:24.859 --> 00:31:27.799 much of China. No, it never was able to consolidate 00:31:27.799 --> 00:31:29.859 control over all of China. Because there were 00:31:29.859 --> 00:31:32.000 still warlords. And there were communists. And 00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:33.519 there were communists. The warlords were a bigger 00:31:33.519 --> 00:31:35.880 issue for a long time. The communists were an 00:31:35.880 --> 00:31:38.539 important but much smaller part. But then, of 00:31:38.539 --> 00:31:40.059 course, the communists grew. The communists were 00:31:40.059 --> 00:31:44.779 even part of this effort initially until 1927. 00:31:45.220 --> 00:31:48.740 In the 20s, they certainly were until the 1927 00:31:48.740 --> 00:32:06.390 break. So we still have this issue of China becoming 00:32:06.390 --> 00:32:09.789 Christianized, and it's not very clear how much 00:32:09.789 --> 00:32:12.369 China actually wants to become Christianized. 00:32:12.910 --> 00:32:14.710 Because, again, you're looking through a straw 00:32:14.710 --> 00:32:16.190 in a way, aren't you? Yes, you're still looking 00:32:16.190 --> 00:32:16.869 through a straw. Because all you're doing is 00:32:16.869 --> 00:32:21.430 you're looking at Chung. The Suns, they're telling 00:32:21.430 --> 00:32:24.250 you things that you want to hear about Christianization. 00:32:24.750 --> 00:32:27.849 You're believing them. And you're assuming that 00:32:27.849 --> 00:32:29.589 what you're seeing through them, that's the real 00:32:29.589 --> 00:32:33.109 China. When in fact, the Republic is a fairly, 00:32:33.190 --> 00:32:34.869 well, I don't want to say a fairly small part, 00:32:34.990 --> 00:32:37.250 but it's not the majority of China by any stretch 00:32:37.250 --> 00:32:39.750 of the imagination. The majority of Chinese probably 00:32:39.750 --> 00:32:41.490 could care less whether they become, couldn't 00:32:41.490 --> 00:32:44.509 care less whether they become Christian. And 00:32:44.509 --> 00:32:48.700 it's also an urban phenomenon. Yes. It is not 00:32:48.700 --> 00:32:51.779 necessarily, they don't seem to have a good grasp 00:32:51.779 --> 00:32:54.779 on how to deal with the peasants in a positive 00:32:54.779 --> 00:32:59.339 fashion. There is a certain urban contempt that 00:32:59.339 --> 00:33:03.160 I detect on the part of leadership in the republic. 00:33:05.099 --> 00:33:06.819 And the Americans supporting them were urban 00:33:06.819 --> 00:33:09.819 in their orientation. Yeah, I mean— Those were 00:33:09.819 --> 00:33:12.140 their counterparts in China, as far as they could 00:33:12.140 --> 00:33:14.119 see. You're not bringing over, like, farmers 00:33:14.119 --> 00:33:18.299 from Kansas to come over and tour China. You 00:33:18.299 --> 00:33:20.440 might get some of that with the missionaries, 00:33:20.460 --> 00:33:21.859 but the missionaries are still going to have 00:33:21.859 --> 00:33:26.079 their own views about people worshiping devils 00:33:26.079 --> 00:33:31.910 and false idols and things that— not going to 00:33:31.910 --> 00:33:34.269 necessarily make them capable of understanding 00:33:34.269 --> 00:33:37.710 the real dynamics of society. Yeah, so you still 00:33:37.710 --> 00:33:40.029 have a very, what is really a very shallow view, 00:33:40.109 --> 00:33:42.369 and you're making an assumption that China is 00:33:42.369 --> 00:33:45.569 headed in a certain historical direction. Yes. 00:33:46.309 --> 00:33:49.529 Christianity and democracy, a republic, which 00:33:49.529 --> 00:33:52.529 you want it to become if you're these Americans, 00:33:52.690 --> 00:33:54.150 you want it to become, but that's really got 00:33:54.150 --> 00:33:56.970 very little to do with the reality of... Most 00:33:56.970 --> 00:33:58.930 of China, if not all of China. I'm going to make 00:33:58.930 --> 00:34:03.089 a provocative statement here and we'll see if 00:34:03.089 --> 00:34:05.809 this provokes anything from our listeners. But 00:34:05.809 --> 00:34:10.010 I honestly think America had a better idea about 00:34:10.010 --> 00:34:13.570 China just within the narrow focus of Canton 00:34:13.570 --> 00:34:18.110 when they were actually legally forbidden to 00:34:18.110 --> 00:34:21.829 learn the Chinese language back in that period 00:34:21.829 --> 00:34:25.119 before we actually had the opium war. Before 00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:30.460 1840. Yeah. That we end up with subsequently. 00:34:30.460 --> 00:34:34.119 And I feel like what happens is expectations 00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:38.179 and imagination and wishful thinking take over. 00:34:38.440 --> 00:34:42.940 There's less of a sort of... what I'd say, realistic 00:34:42.940 --> 00:34:47.099 mercantile approach to this sort of like situation 00:34:47.099 --> 00:34:51.000 in China in Canton before 1840 than there is 00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:53.340 subsequently. We sort of get people creating 00:34:53.340 --> 00:34:58.059 castles out of air. Now, we have another interesting 00:34:58.059 --> 00:35:00.219 inversion that goes on in this period. So what 00:35:00.219 --> 00:35:02.659 I mean by that is the first inversion was when 00:35:02.659 --> 00:35:04.940 we went from them being, in Ben Franklin's time, 00:35:05.119 --> 00:35:07.639 a supposedly moral and highly educated society 00:35:07.639 --> 00:35:13.239 to then being This barbaric, vicious society. 00:35:13.519 --> 00:35:15.940 That needs help. That needs help over that 100, 00:35:16.059 --> 00:35:19.659 120 -year period. We have another inversion that 00:35:19.659 --> 00:35:22.059 goes on in the first half of the 20th century, 00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:24.519 which is that the Japanese burst on the scene 00:35:24.519 --> 00:35:27.099 as a great power and in the course of the Boxer 00:35:27.099 --> 00:35:28.860 Rebellion earned great respect from the United 00:35:28.860 --> 00:35:32.260 States and Western countries for their military 00:35:32.260 --> 00:35:35.960 achievements, their discipline, their chivalry 00:35:35.960 --> 00:35:38.809 even in combat, that type of thing. And there's 00:35:38.809 --> 00:35:41.429 great admiration for the Japanese, you know, 00:35:41.429 --> 00:35:45.269 circa 1900. Yeah. And contempt for the Chinese, 00:35:45.429 --> 00:35:48.710 largely. That changes during the first early 00:35:48.710 --> 00:35:51.110 part of the 20th century. Japan goes down a different 00:35:51.110 --> 00:35:53.510 path of turning into the, you know, the brutality 00:35:53.510 --> 00:35:55.570 that they're going to show in World War II and 00:35:55.570 --> 00:35:59.309 that type of thing. Whereas for China, we start 00:35:59.309 --> 00:36:02.670 to see hope in China because of this idea of 00:36:02.670 --> 00:36:05.389 the republic rising and we're hoping the republic 00:36:05.389 --> 00:36:08.010 will take over. And so we become much more favorable 00:36:08.010 --> 00:36:11.289 to China again, don't we? As we turn against 00:36:11.289 --> 00:36:13.369 Japan, we actually turn more towards China during 00:36:13.369 --> 00:36:14.949 the early 20th century. Well, just to sort of 00:36:14.949 --> 00:36:18.949 frame this historically, I would say that for 00:36:18.949 --> 00:36:25.210 Japan, we had a very positive outlook towards 00:36:25.210 --> 00:36:30.809 Japan, I would say, up until 1920. Yes. And at 00:36:30.809 --> 00:36:36.260 that point, China... there's rising optimism 00:36:36.260 --> 00:36:40.940 about China as it becomes a republic and so forth. 00:36:41.000 --> 00:36:44.420 I don't really think we start to get into a negative 00:36:44.420 --> 00:36:49.300 understanding of Japan until they start actually 00:36:49.300 --> 00:36:53.619 doing military movements onto China. I think 00:36:53.619 --> 00:36:57.190 in the 20s, we're kind of like... positive in 00:36:57.190 --> 00:36:59.250 some respects towards both of them. Well, the 00:36:59.250 --> 00:37:01.989 U .S. Navy was looking at them as a potential 00:37:01.989 --> 00:37:05.210 future enemy as early as the first decade of 00:37:05.210 --> 00:37:07.829 the 20th century. Well, yes. But the popular 00:37:07.829 --> 00:37:10.190 view of Japan. Popular view, yes. That's what 00:37:10.190 --> 00:37:11.429 I'm kind of talking about. Went in a steep decline 00:37:11.429 --> 00:37:14.449 over what they did in China. Yes. That's true. 00:37:15.389 --> 00:37:20.210 And one of our— This would be in the 1930s. Yes. 00:37:20.250 --> 00:37:22.909 And this was something that Luce actually did 00:37:22.909 --> 00:37:26.530 promote because he was taking more of a positive 00:37:26.530 --> 00:37:31.329 view of China at the time. And again, his magazine 00:37:31.329 --> 00:37:34.010 Life and Time, his magazine's Life and Time, 00:37:34.070 --> 00:37:37.710 they were fairly ubiquitous. And, you know, we 00:37:37.710 --> 00:37:40.469 talk about, say, maybe television or maybe something 00:37:40.469 --> 00:37:44.119 on the Internet. This would have been akin to 00:37:44.119 --> 00:37:47.019 that. And Japan picked on China for decades and 00:37:47.019 --> 00:37:49.039 was nibbling away at it and fighting with it 00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:53.280 and getting more aggressive toward it. That part 00:37:53.280 --> 00:37:56.440 of the understanding or misunderstanding the 00:37:56.440 --> 00:37:57.619 situation or however you want to put it, that 00:37:57.619 --> 00:37:59.880 part was actually valid. Yes. Japan was doing 00:37:59.880 --> 00:38:02.380 this. But so were we and so were most of the 00:38:02.380 --> 00:38:05.699 European countries. When Japan goes beyond that. 00:38:06.829 --> 00:38:09.650 beyond just ordinary imperialism and seeking 00:38:09.650 --> 00:38:12.590 preferential treatment to actual territorial 00:38:12.590 --> 00:38:15.670 conquest, that is when the attitude goes down. 00:38:15.710 --> 00:38:18.170 That's the break point. Yes. The red line, or 00:38:18.170 --> 00:38:20.809 whatever you want to call it. The red line would 00:38:20.809 --> 00:38:23.590 be a good place to, a good metaphor for what's 00:38:23.590 --> 00:38:29.570 coming next. Yeah. So that puts us, so the communists, 00:38:29.610 --> 00:38:32.010 so Chiang Kai -shek slaughters the communists 00:38:32.010 --> 00:38:39.750 in 1927. That begins the Chinese Civil War. We 00:38:39.750 --> 00:38:41.550 don't really develop any greater understanding 00:38:41.550 --> 00:38:43.489 of anything during that period either because 00:38:43.489 --> 00:38:46.269 we have some Americans who have a glowing view 00:38:46.269 --> 00:38:48.929 of the communists and some Americans who have 00:38:48.929 --> 00:38:51.849 a hopeful glowing view about the nationalists, 00:38:51.869 --> 00:38:55.570 the republic government, neither of which is 00:38:55.570 --> 00:39:01.570 accurate at all. No. I mean, in terms of – I 00:39:01.570 --> 00:39:04.260 mean, this is what's – And there I'm talking 00:39:04.260 --> 00:39:06.679 about 1927 up to the beginning of World War II 00:39:06.679 --> 00:39:08.539 is what I'm talking about, that period. Yeah, 00:39:08.539 --> 00:39:10.380 but just going back, since we're kind of getting 00:39:10.380 --> 00:39:14.159 into Stilwell territory here, what's frustrating 00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:16.880 to me when reading about Stilwell is here is 00:39:16.880 --> 00:39:20.760 Stilwell. Stilwell should have a better understanding 00:39:20.760 --> 00:39:25.260 of China than he actually does have. He basically 00:39:25.260 --> 00:39:29.079 is saying, okay, we've got to fight the Japanese 00:39:29.079 --> 00:39:34.369 like we do. you know, like the Americans would 00:39:34.369 --> 00:39:40.309 do, because the military, all military should 00:39:40.309 --> 00:39:41.909 sort of function the way the American military 00:39:41.909 --> 00:39:47.369 functions. And China's military most definitely 00:39:47.369 --> 00:39:51.730 does not function like that. There is more like 00:39:51.730 --> 00:39:55.369 a patronage system afoot here, which would be 00:39:55.369 --> 00:40:00.500 totally alien to how our military would be run. 00:40:01.579 --> 00:40:04.719 Which is top -down. Yeah, it's top -down, but 00:40:04.719 --> 00:40:07.960 it's also like— Follow orders. Yeah, but you're 00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:09.840 not necessarily trying to appease commanders. 00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:12.420 I mean, like, you know, like even with Trump, 00:40:12.599 --> 00:40:15.500 you wouldn't have Trump saying, hey, I'm going 00:40:15.500 --> 00:40:18.179 to make sure that your guys get these new tanks 00:40:18.179 --> 00:40:22.309 or new ships. because I'm looking out for your 00:40:22.309 --> 00:40:25.769 formation here, and you've got my back here. 00:40:25.869 --> 00:40:29.429 That doesn't work that way. You get an order, 00:40:29.570 --> 00:40:32.090 like you said, and you have to follow it, and 00:40:32.090 --> 00:40:35.070 this is how a professional military works. In 00:40:35.070 --> 00:40:36.769 the United States military, you're a more important 00:40:36.769 --> 00:40:40.489 general or admiral because of your rank and of 00:40:40.489 --> 00:40:43.489 the assignment that you have, and your motivation 00:40:43.489 --> 00:40:46.570 is loyalty to the country. And the Constitution. 00:40:47.150 --> 00:40:49.150 And the Constitution. And the orders of the commander 00:40:49.150 --> 00:40:53.550 -in -chief and all of that. In China, you're 00:40:53.550 --> 00:40:55.570 part of a coalition where the stuff assigned 00:40:55.570 --> 00:40:58.769 to you is your personal property. And you come 00:40:58.769 --> 00:41:02.449 first in terms of your relative power and status 00:41:02.449 --> 00:41:06.300 compared to the other generals around you. And 00:41:06.300 --> 00:41:08.739 your loyalty may not be to the Republic government. 00:41:08.860 --> 00:41:11.239 It may be to a warlord. It may be to a provincial 00:41:11.239 --> 00:41:13.599 governor. You're just allied with the Republic 00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:15.119 government because that's one of the factions 00:41:15.119 --> 00:41:20.000 in China. It's more like a feudal, and we talked 00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:21.559 about this a great deal in the Generalissimo 00:41:21.559 --> 00:41:23.780 and Vinegar Joe in the Generalissimo episode, 00:41:23.880 --> 00:41:29.400 but it's more like a feudal European army. in 00:41:29.400 --> 00:41:32.539 medieval times. Or the Holy Roman Empire. Than 00:41:32.539 --> 00:41:35.980 it is like a modern force as understood by the 00:41:35.980 --> 00:41:38.800 United States. So you've brought up Stilwell. 00:41:38.940 --> 00:41:41.880 So Joseph Stilwell and his nemesis Claire Chenault, 00:41:41.980 --> 00:41:46.320 who was the Army Air Forces commander, both were 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:49.300 making a mistake. Both were, and this is a different 00:41:49.300 --> 00:41:51.000 misunderstanding of China. You've already brought 00:41:51.000 --> 00:41:53.480 up part of the misunderstanding. But another 00:41:53.480 --> 00:41:55.800 misunderstanding of it was that the idea that 00:41:55.800 --> 00:41:59.690 China, certainly the Republic of China, the Chiang 00:41:59.690 --> 00:42:02.150 Kai -shek government, was a government like the 00:42:02.150 --> 00:42:04.150 United States government, like the British government, 00:42:04.289 --> 00:42:06.010 like the French government, like the German government, 00:42:06.070 --> 00:42:07.590 like the Russian, Soviet government, whatever. 00:42:07.849 --> 00:42:10.429 They wanted to throw the enemy off of their territory 00:42:10.429 --> 00:42:13.670 as their top priority, as a national issue. And 00:42:13.670 --> 00:42:17.230 the enemy was the Japanese. And so we and the 00:42:17.230 --> 00:42:19.550 Republic of China had a common goal of driving 00:42:19.550 --> 00:42:22.550 the Japanese out of China. And no, we did not. 00:42:22.650 --> 00:42:24.809 No, we did not. Because that was not what... 00:42:24.989 --> 00:42:27.230 the Republic of China's goals were. It's another 00:42:27.230 --> 00:42:29.230 deep misunderstanding. The Republic of China's 00:42:29.230 --> 00:42:31.909 goals were to get as much equipment and aid from 00:42:31.909 --> 00:42:35.849 the United States as possible. And get them to 00:42:35.849 --> 00:42:38.969 do as much work for us as possible. And save 00:42:38.969 --> 00:42:40.630 it up for the future civil war that they plan 00:42:40.630 --> 00:42:42.889 on fighting while the United States and the other 00:42:42.889 --> 00:42:45.349 allies defeated Japan outside of China. That 00:42:45.349 --> 00:42:48.329 would make Japan leave. That fundamental misunderstanding 00:42:48.329 --> 00:42:52.170 is what drove... the problems that we had in 00:42:52.170 --> 00:42:54.389 the China -Burma -India theater, which like I 00:42:54.389 --> 00:42:56.170 said, we discussed that at some length. But you 00:42:56.170 --> 00:42:58.969 can see again that the fact that we had a common 00:42:58.969 --> 00:43:01.769 enemy in our minds still didn't drive us to greater 00:43:01.769 --> 00:43:04.750 understanding because we had a common enemy, 00:43:04.909 --> 00:43:07.809 but we had different priorities in terms of what 00:43:07.809 --> 00:43:09.869 our enemies were. And in fact, in Stilwell's 00:43:09.869 --> 00:43:12.949 case, he was not against the communists. He thought 00:43:12.949 --> 00:43:14.469 the communists were the better choice. He thought 00:43:14.469 --> 00:43:15.789 the Chiang Kai -shek government was just one 00:43:15.789 --> 00:43:18.429 faction among many and not the best one. The 00:43:18.429 --> 00:43:20.170 one that was sort of pro -Nazi as far as he was 00:43:20.170 --> 00:43:23.849 concerned. The corrupt one. Which is correct 00:43:23.849 --> 00:43:27.329 in the sense that they did admire the Germans 00:43:27.329 --> 00:43:31.630 in the 30s more than probably was good for them 00:43:31.630 --> 00:43:35.389 in retrospect. Yeah. Also, he was being told 00:43:35.389 --> 00:43:37.190 by the China hands, as they were later called, 00:43:37.309 --> 00:43:40.769 the U .S. Embassy personnel that were up visiting 00:43:40.769 --> 00:43:44.550 the communists and talking to Stilwell. He was 00:43:44.550 --> 00:43:47.429 told by them that the communists, and he himself 00:43:47.429 --> 00:43:49.769 believed this, were, like we said, democratically 00:43:49.769 --> 00:43:53.969 aligned agrarian reformers, who were, as Stiller 00:43:53.969 --> 00:44:10.889 said, communist in name only. So in World War 00:44:10.889 --> 00:44:13.730 II, and I see it in the historiography of World 00:44:13.730 --> 00:44:15.869 War II, of the China, Burma, India theater. We 00:44:15.869 --> 00:44:17.570 spend so much time talking about who is right, 00:44:17.690 --> 00:44:19.989 Stilwell or Chenault. A lot of the discussion 00:44:19.989 --> 00:44:22.349 of it is that. We spend so much time talking 00:44:22.349 --> 00:44:25.670 about poor Stilwell, he tried to do so much, 00:44:25.690 --> 00:44:27.869 which is true. He had to put up with so much, 00:44:27.889 --> 00:44:29.829 which is true. He couldn't get Chiang Kai -shek 00:44:29.829 --> 00:44:32.530 to cooperate with him, which is true. But on 00:44:32.530 --> 00:44:34.829 the other hand, you don't see that much discussion 00:44:34.829 --> 00:44:36.940 of... Well, Chiang Kai -shek was never going 00:44:36.940 --> 00:44:39.199 to cooperate with anybody. Yeah. That both Stilwell 00:44:39.199 --> 00:44:43.000 and Chennault were wrong. FDR wanted the Republic 00:44:43.000 --> 00:44:45.000 of China to be one of the four policemen. That 00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:48.900 was fantasy. Yes. This was all based on an idea 00:44:48.900 --> 00:44:51.739 that we were dealing with an allied country that 00:44:51.739 --> 00:44:54.639 operated the way other allied countries did and 00:44:54.639 --> 00:44:57.500 had a common war aim with us. None of that was 00:44:57.500 --> 00:45:00.960 true. And also we should add to this that the 00:45:00.960 --> 00:45:05.530 leadership of that allied country knew how to 00:45:05.530 --> 00:45:09.469 play us and how to push our buttons because they 00:45:09.469 --> 00:45:14.949 were far more understanding of the society than 00:45:14.949 --> 00:45:19.329 we were of them. They'd come to the States. They'd 00:45:19.329 --> 00:45:22.090 been educated in the States. Yes. At good universities. 00:45:22.590 --> 00:45:24.889 And they knew Americans very well. Yes, they 00:45:24.889 --> 00:45:29.309 did. And so they knew how to say the right things 00:45:29.309 --> 00:45:32.230 to the right people. And they knew how to present 00:45:32.230 --> 00:45:34.989 what a positive impression they could create 00:45:34.989 --> 00:45:39.090 when people came calling or when they went overseas. 00:45:39.650 --> 00:45:42.969 And the other aspect of it is, too, on the one 00:45:42.969 --> 00:45:45.010 hand, and again, we also discussed this, on the 00:45:45.010 --> 00:45:48.909 one hand, it's easy to be against corruption 00:45:48.909 --> 00:45:51.070 in China and say, well, Chiang Kai -shek was 00:45:51.070 --> 00:45:55.110 corrupt. But it's harder to explain what you 00:45:55.110 --> 00:45:56.690 would do exactly to get rid of the corruption 00:45:56.690 --> 00:45:59.949 because the system required it. Yeah. To get 00:45:59.949 --> 00:46:02.329 paid, you needed to steal, get paid enough to 00:46:02.329 --> 00:46:05.730 live, to make a living. You needed to steal in 00:46:05.730 --> 00:46:08.510 the Chinese nationalist system. Or into the imperial 00:46:08.510 --> 00:46:10.429 system before it. And the imperial system before 00:46:10.429 --> 00:46:14.190 it. So it was embedded in Chinese society that 00:46:14.190 --> 00:46:17.090 this was part of what you did. So yeah, let's 00:46:17.090 --> 00:46:18.409 get rid of something that's been around for, 00:46:18.469 --> 00:46:21.190 I don't know, hundreds of years. How do you uproot 00:46:21.190 --> 00:46:22.750 it? And suddenly be different so that you can 00:46:22.750 --> 00:46:24.809 fight the Japanese in the next couple of years 00:46:24.809 --> 00:46:28.019 here. That's not going to happen. And I mean, 00:46:28.059 --> 00:46:32.000 this whole idea about, you know, I would like 00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:34.619 it if people, when approaching a country, would 00:46:34.619 --> 00:46:39.519 understand this. I mean, I remember in a former 00:46:39.519 --> 00:46:41.980 life when people in the U .S. government discovered 00:46:41.980 --> 00:46:44.579 that there was corruption in the Soviet Union 00:46:44.579 --> 00:46:47.219 slash Russia, as though they were... totally 00:46:47.219 --> 00:46:49.599 unaware of this. And I remember saying, have 00:46:49.599 --> 00:46:51.659 you not seen the Inspector General? This is a 00:46:51.659 --> 00:46:54.199 play written in the 19th century. It talks about 00:46:54.199 --> 00:46:56.340 corruption. There's no reason to expect that 00:46:56.340 --> 00:46:59.500 this corruption has gone away. And there are 00:46:59.500 --> 00:47:03.159 stories about corrupt officials getting back 00:47:03.159 --> 00:47:05.659 to the imperial period in China. They're part 00:47:05.659 --> 00:47:09.739 of Chinese classics. And there's no appreciation 00:47:09.739 --> 00:47:13.599 of this, that this sort of quaint behavior might 00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:16.769 be continuing on into the present day. You know, 00:47:16.809 --> 00:47:20.769 these are fundamental classics for a reason, 00:47:20.809 --> 00:47:23.570 because they capture the zeitgeist of the country. 00:47:23.690 --> 00:47:27.210 And unless you see some sort of major change, 00:47:27.349 --> 00:47:29.289 these habits of thought are not going to change. 00:47:30.389 --> 00:47:34.489 And then we also, you know, mentioned the FDR's 00:47:34.489 --> 00:47:36.570 four policemen idea that China was going to be 00:47:36.570 --> 00:47:38.010 one of, or the Republic of China specifically, 00:47:38.070 --> 00:47:39.949 would be one of the post -war four policemen. 00:47:40.639 --> 00:47:42.599 There's no way that was going to happen. The 00:47:42.599 --> 00:47:44.679 Republic did not have that kind of control of 00:47:44.679 --> 00:47:48.099 China that kind of power in the world It was 00:47:48.099 --> 00:47:49.880 it was a fanciful notion that that could ever 00:47:49.880 --> 00:47:52.119 happen to be to be honest and this would be like 00:47:52.119 --> 00:47:54.960 total heresy and totally something that would 00:47:54.960 --> 00:47:59.000 not happen if you were looking for a Non -european 00:47:59.000 --> 00:48:02.119 country that has its shit together that could 00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:05.719 function as the fourth policeman, that's Japan, 00:48:06.000 --> 00:48:09.039 and that's who our enemy is. Which was an enemy, 00:48:09.260 --> 00:48:11.840 right. If you were going to find a country that 00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:14.239 fit all the criteria to be a fourth policeman, 00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:17.739 it would be Japan. But being that Japan has attacked 00:48:17.739 --> 00:48:20.199 Pearl Harbor, done the Bataan Death March, there's 00:48:20.199 --> 00:48:21.699 no way that they're going to be included in that. 00:48:21.760 --> 00:48:23.320 We're not going to look to them to be the fourth 00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:26.239 policeman. And then this curious thing happens 00:48:26.239 --> 00:48:29.000 after World War II. So our hopes for World War 00:48:29.000 --> 00:48:32.440 II completely... It's all a failure in terms 00:48:32.440 --> 00:48:33.960 of what we wanted. Other than defeating Japan. 00:48:34.480 --> 00:48:36.820 Which we did outside of China, not in China. 00:48:36.980 --> 00:48:39.360 So in terms of in China, what we were trying 00:48:39.360 --> 00:48:41.360 to do there was pretty much a failure. No matter 00:48:41.360 --> 00:48:43.699 whose side you take in the argument between Stilwell 00:48:43.699 --> 00:48:45.739 and Chenault. It doesn't. It doesn't matter. 00:48:45.900 --> 00:48:49.960 Yeah. Neither one was successful. Both were horribly 00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:52.500 mistaken. Both were horribly mistaken. And things 00:48:52.500 --> 00:48:53.739 were never probably going to be different from 00:48:53.739 --> 00:48:56.000 the way they worked out. But then that leads 00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:59.539 us to the post -war resumption of the Civil War. 00:49:00.659 --> 00:49:02.280 And I don't know what you say about misunderstanding 00:49:02.280 --> 00:49:05.360 of China. I think there was just kind of a lot 00:49:05.360 --> 00:49:07.500 of people that sort of threw their hands up over 00:49:07.500 --> 00:49:11.500 it. I mean, you had the China hands who were 00:49:11.500 --> 00:49:16.159 the experts who kind of took the position that, 00:49:16.239 --> 00:49:18.699 look, Mao is the thing that's coming. The communists 00:49:18.699 --> 00:49:20.980 are the thing that's coming. You might as well 00:49:20.980 --> 00:49:23.059 get on board with that and recognize them. You 00:49:23.059 --> 00:49:24.699 might as well start working with them because 00:49:24.699 --> 00:49:26.619 they're the ones that are going to take over 00:49:26.619 --> 00:49:29.639 China. You had the China lobby, which were the 00:49:29.639 --> 00:49:31.800 nationalist Trump guys. Not yet, not yet. Well, 00:49:31.820 --> 00:49:33.360 you're going. You're going to get that. I'm talking 00:49:33.360 --> 00:49:35.739 broad brush here, right? You wind up having the 00:49:35.739 --> 00:49:40.780 China lobby, which are the pro -nationalist dead 00:49:40.780 --> 00:49:43.079 -enders. I mean, and they were already. I mean, 00:49:43.099 --> 00:49:44.820 they weren't called the China lobby yet, but 00:49:44.820 --> 00:49:46.380 they were already there. They were there. There 00:49:46.380 --> 00:49:49.400 were people who had... But just to be clear with 00:49:49.400 --> 00:49:52.880 our listeners, the China lobby as it exists does 00:49:52.880 --> 00:49:56.300 not come into existence until Maotek's over. 00:49:56.539 --> 00:49:59.619 Right, until... As an organization that's funded 00:49:59.619 --> 00:50:01.440 by the Song family. Until the Chung government 00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:05.300 retreats to Taiwan in 1949. Yes. But those people... 00:50:05.300 --> 00:50:06.880 But those people are there. Those people are 00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:09.360 there. Those people that are supporters are there. 00:50:10.389 --> 00:50:13.210 And they're still backing Chiang Kai -shek. And 00:50:13.210 --> 00:50:14.570 then you have the, like, I guess you'd say the 00:50:14.570 --> 00:50:16.269 quote -unquote, you know, realists who are the 00:50:16.269 --> 00:50:18.550 ones just saying China's a mess. It's not worth 00:50:18.550 --> 00:50:22.369 our effort. Which is kind of like the Dean Acheson. 00:50:22.369 --> 00:50:24.710 The Dean Acheson, George Marshall kind of school 00:50:24.710 --> 00:50:28.170 of thought, where they just said, let's focus 00:50:28.170 --> 00:50:31.409 on Japan and Korea. Yeah. There's more to be 00:50:31.409 --> 00:50:33.769 gained there. And China will, whatever happens 00:50:33.769 --> 00:50:35.710 in China, we'll just deal with it as it comes. 00:50:36.250 --> 00:50:39.269 And for so many people, because China had been 00:50:39.269 --> 00:50:43.389 sort of integrated, you know, concern about China 00:50:43.389 --> 00:50:46.610 had been integrated into society, this was not 00:50:46.610 --> 00:50:48.590 the answer that they wanted to hear. This is 00:50:48.590 --> 00:50:52.210 probably the right answer in terms of we cannot 00:50:52.210 --> 00:50:55.230 affect the outcome of things. And, you know, 00:50:55.349 --> 00:50:58.829 what the China hands were advocating, yeah, you 00:50:58.829 --> 00:51:01.449 better get on with Mao because Mao's the coming 00:51:01.449 --> 00:51:04.380 thing. This was probably the right answer, but 00:51:04.380 --> 00:51:06.940 it was not the answer people wanted to hear because 00:51:06.940 --> 00:51:10.820 they had been told, you know, China can become 00:51:10.820 --> 00:51:13.760 Christian. China can become a democratic country. 00:51:13.960 --> 00:51:16.360 And the only way this can happen is with Chiang 00:51:16.360 --> 00:51:20.099 Kai -shek and his wife and their family who are 00:51:20.099 --> 00:51:23.369 robbing the place blind. That's not what happened 00:51:23.369 --> 00:51:25.309 because they wanted to be a communist country. 00:51:25.469 --> 00:51:28.070 Yes, and that was kind of a shock to the system 00:51:28.070 --> 00:51:30.570 because how does this country that is on the 00:51:30.570 --> 00:51:33.170 verge of becoming a democracy suddenly become 00:51:33.170 --> 00:51:34.909 a communist country? Because it was never on 00:51:34.909 --> 00:51:37.070 the verge of becoming a democracy. Exactly. And 00:51:37.070 --> 00:51:39.070 because that government you were supporting was 00:51:39.070 --> 00:51:41.329 only a small part of Chinese society. It never 00:51:41.329 --> 00:51:43.230 controlled that much of Chinese territory and 00:51:43.230 --> 00:51:45.269 on and on and on. Yes. You were living in a fantasy 00:51:45.269 --> 00:51:47.710 world about all of that. But you couldn't tell 00:51:47.710 --> 00:51:52.349 people that. There was a vast... conspiracy that 00:51:52.349 --> 00:51:56.570 took hold, a vast international conspiracy, and 00:51:56.570 --> 00:51:59.789 this was monolithic communism. And monolithic 00:51:59.789 --> 00:52:03.170 communism comes in. And here's the kind of irony. 00:52:03.329 --> 00:52:06.369 We are trying to affect China. We're trying to 00:52:06.369 --> 00:52:09.809 make a bigger, better China in some respects 00:52:09.809 --> 00:52:14.519 with democracy and with Christianity. In the 00:52:14.519 --> 00:52:18.400 end, China ends up impacting our society and 00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:22.179 not in a positive way because you do have the 00:52:22.179 --> 00:52:24.739 emergence of the China lobby. And the China lobby 00:52:24.739 --> 00:52:29.139 comes in and kind of restricts the options that 00:52:29.139 --> 00:52:31.480 are available to U .S. foreign policy people 00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:35.159 by insisting that we cannot have any sort of 00:52:35.159 --> 00:52:38.059 diplomatic ties with mainland China, with red 00:52:38.059 --> 00:52:40.400 China. And so everybody's clear on that. So that 00:52:40.400 --> 00:52:45.190 persists. Up until the 70s. Yeah, so the Chong 00:52:45.190 --> 00:52:47.449 government, the Republic of China, retreated 00:52:47.449 --> 00:52:49.889 to Taiwan in December of 49. It's still there 00:52:49.889 --> 00:52:51.570 today. It's not a check anymore, but the Republic 00:52:51.570 --> 00:52:53.570 of China is still there on Taiwan to this day. 00:52:53.690 --> 00:52:56.670 It retreated there in December of 1949. Because 00:52:56.670 --> 00:53:00.650 the Chinese quote -unquote volunteers intervened 00:53:00.650 --> 00:53:04.030 in the Korean War in November of 1950, that so 00:53:04.030 --> 00:53:07.090 angered us with the People's Republic of China, 00:53:07.170 --> 00:53:10.960 the communists, that so alienated from us. from 00:53:10.960 --> 00:53:13.619 them, however you want to put it, that we did 00:53:13.619 --> 00:53:17.840 not speak to them. Did not speak to them for 00:53:17.840 --> 00:53:20.320 something like 20 years after that. Two of the 00:53:20.320 --> 00:53:22.460 largest countries on earth did not speak to each 00:53:22.460 --> 00:53:25.079 other for like 20 years. And we maintained the 00:53:25.079 --> 00:53:28.840 fiction. That the real government of China was 00:53:28.840 --> 00:53:32.340 the Republic of China government, which controlled 00:53:32.340 --> 00:53:35.079 only Taiwan, and to this day still controls only 00:53:35.079 --> 00:53:40.340 Taiwan. There is an episode that takes place 00:53:40.340 --> 00:53:46.619 in the 50s in which there is a meeting in Switzerland 00:53:46.619 --> 00:53:50.440 involving Indochina and what's to be done about 00:53:50.440 --> 00:53:52.639 Indochina, and you can't really have that without 00:53:52.639 --> 00:53:56.769 having representatives from... Red China. And 00:53:56.769 --> 00:53:58.570 let's make sure everybody understands, Indochina. 00:53:58.829 --> 00:54:01.750 It was Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. It was the 00:54:01.750 --> 00:54:03.949 colony of French Indochina from the late 19th 00:54:03.949 --> 00:54:06.369 century until 1954 when the French were kicked 00:54:06.369 --> 00:54:08.829 out. But that's what Indochina is. This is 1955 00:54:08.829 --> 00:54:12.250 when we're having this meeting. And Secretary 00:54:12.250 --> 00:54:15.860 of State Dulles, who was... who was a huge anti 00:54:15.860 --> 00:54:18.699 -communist, didn't quite understand it, but he 00:54:18.699 --> 00:54:22.440 knew enough not to like it. His brother was head 00:54:22.440 --> 00:54:25.840 of CIA, Alan Dulles. They were huge anti -communists. 00:54:25.940 --> 00:54:28.119 And he was John Foster Dulles. John Foster Dulles. 00:54:28.400 --> 00:54:33.219 He encounters Zhou Enlai, who is the foreign 00:54:33.219 --> 00:54:35.440 minister of China. And the number two man in 00:54:35.440 --> 00:54:37.559 the government. Government of People's Republic 00:54:37.559 --> 00:54:41.219 of China. Yes. Communist China. And he refuses 00:54:41.219 --> 00:54:42.980 to shake hands with them or have anything to 00:54:42.980 --> 00:54:44.920 do with them. It's a calculated act of diplomatic 00:54:44.920 --> 00:54:49.440 rudeness. Then that is what people feel. That's 00:54:49.440 --> 00:54:51.719 what people feel. We were very angry with them. 00:54:51.800 --> 00:54:54.420 Yes. For what happened in the Korean War. And 00:54:54.420 --> 00:54:57.619 we took a long time to get over that. Yes. But 00:54:57.619 --> 00:55:00.219 also, just to lay out the timeline for people, 00:55:00.260 --> 00:55:02.019 just to make sure everybody realizes this. So 00:55:02.019 --> 00:55:03.880 the Chiang Kai -shek government retreats to Taiwan 00:55:03.880 --> 00:55:06.590 in December of 49. Less than a year later, November 00:55:06.590 --> 00:55:08.989 1950, the People's Republic of China, the communist 00:55:08.989 --> 00:55:11.610 government intervened, volunteers. Volunteers. 00:55:11.670 --> 00:55:13.510 But really the communist government intervenes 00:55:13.510 --> 00:55:18.170 in Korea. The Republic of China, the Chungkai 00:55:18.170 --> 00:55:20.349 Shuk government on that one island that has, 00:55:20.469 --> 00:55:22.769 even today it has like 20 million people. I'm 00:55:22.769 --> 00:55:23.909 not sure what the population was back then, a 00:55:23.909 --> 00:55:25.550 tiny fraction of the Chinese population. Yeah. 00:55:25.630 --> 00:55:27.690 They were on the United Nations Security Council 00:55:27.690 --> 00:55:31.329 as China. Yes. That did not change until 1971. 00:55:31.949 --> 00:55:34.130 Yes. Because we wouldn't let it change, because 00:55:34.130 --> 00:55:36.010 we have a veto in the Security Council. Finally, 00:55:36.230 --> 00:55:38.949 and I think it was October of 71, if I'm correct, 00:55:39.150 --> 00:55:42.030 we finally let the People's Republic of China 00:55:42.030 --> 00:55:45.969 replace the Republic of China, which people call 00:55:45.969 --> 00:55:50.889 it Taiwan, on the Security Council. Nixon then 00:55:50.889 --> 00:55:55.289 went to China in February of 72, and that was 00:55:55.289 --> 00:55:59.179 a huge... Shift. Shift. See change in international 00:55:59.179 --> 00:56:01.239 relations when an American president went to 00:56:01.239 --> 00:56:03.639 China and shook hands with Mao. But we still 00:56:03.639 --> 00:56:05.420 did not recognize the People's Republic of China. 00:56:05.539 --> 00:56:07.760 Until Jimmy Carter. Until I think it was 1979 00:56:07.760 --> 00:56:09.780 under Jimmy Carter, we finally recognized the 00:56:09.780 --> 00:56:12.000 PRC as being the legitimate government of China. 00:56:12.619 --> 00:56:14.800 Now, we maintain relations with the Republic 00:56:14.800 --> 00:56:16.900 of China, but we're not allowed to call it that 00:56:16.900 --> 00:56:19.280 anymore. They can't have an embassy because they're 00:56:19.280 --> 00:56:21.159 not a quote -unquote government. They have an 00:56:21.159 --> 00:56:23.440 interest section or something we call it. Various 00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:28.559 other powers. Various other powers have like 00:56:28.559 --> 00:56:32.000 something that functions as an embassy but is 00:56:32.000 --> 00:56:36.519 not an embassy in China to include us. I mean, 00:56:36.539 --> 00:56:40.460 the Russians have it. The Japanese have it. People 00:56:40.460 --> 00:56:43.039 do need to have some sort of presence there. 00:56:43.119 --> 00:56:45.000 They just can't call it an embassy because that 00:56:45.000 --> 00:56:48.800 would imply recognition. Yeah. So, I mean, you 00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:52.460 have that extensive period in which we are pretending. 00:56:53.369 --> 00:56:55.889 That the Republic of China on Taiwan is the government 00:56:55.889 --> 00:57:10.630 of China. Yes. I mean, the other misunderstanding 00:57:10.630 --> 00:57:14.969 that I see in that period is just that China 00:57:14.969 --> 00:57:19.190 was part of monolithic communism. Yes. It was 00:57:19.190 --> 00:57:22.510 a unified international communist movement. that 00:57:22.510 --> 00:57:25.110 was trying to take over the world. It took over 00:57:25.110 --> 00:57:27.429 Russia and made it into the Soviet Union. It 00:57:27.429 --> 00:57:29.769 had taken over North Korea. It had taken over 00:57:29.769 --> 00:57:32.789 China, communist China, as we called it in those 00:57:32.789 --> 00:57:35.349 days, or red China, as we called it then. It 00:57:35.349 --> 00:57:37.030 had taken over Mongolia, although nobody paid 00:57:37.030 --> 00:57:39.630 much attention to that. One should never ignore 00:57:39.630 --> 00:57:45.489 Mongolia. Now it was moving into Indochina, that 00:57:45.489 --> 00:57:47.489 area, right? So you had communist movements in 00:57:47.489 --> 00:57:50.670 Laos, you had them in North Vietnam, and so on 00:57:50.670 --> 00:57:53.639 and so forth. Well, it wasn't North Vietnam then. 00:57:53.800 --> 00:57:56.000 Well, there was a northern zone that was divided 00:57:56.000 --> 00:57:57.920 up in, what, 1955? Is that when you split the 00:57:57.920 --> 00:58:01.559 two? That was the meeting that Dulles and Zhou 00:58:01.559 --> 00:58:04.340 Enlai. So, I mean, I'm just talking broadly through 00:58:04.340 --> 00:58:06.639 the 50s. I'm not talking about the specific dates. 00:58:06.739 --> 00:58:09.599 But, I mean, you saw this happening. Therefore, 00:58:09.900 --> 00:58:12.219 there must be a—the domino theory comes up. There 00:58:12.219 --> 00:58:15.670 must be a concerted, combined— international, 00:58:15.670 --> 00:58:17.909 unified communist effort to take over the world 00:58:17.909 --> 00:58:20.530 one by one by one by one as the dominoes fall. 00:58:20.690 --> 00:58:22.969 When you see this emerge, this domino theory 00:58:22.969 --> 00:58:25.849 emerge, it's just kind of like interesting to 00:58:25.849 --> 00:58:29.170 just apply, let's just say, community standards 00:58:29.170 --> 00:58:32.869 of logical reasoning on this. People just asserted 00:58:32.869 --> 00:58:36.139 this. There is no evidence that, you know, like 00:58:36.139 --> 00:58:39.699 your basis for saying that there was, you know, 00:58:39.699 --> 00:58:41.519 that this would be how things would turn out 00:58:41.519 --> 00:58:44.059 was not necessary. There was no real evidence 00:58:44.059 --> 00:58:45.480 for this other than they're saying, oh, this 00:58:45.480 --> 00:58:47.500 is like World War II and this is like Hitler 00:58:47.500 --> 00:58:52.179 taking over, you know. Europe. This is how things 00:58:52.179 --> 00:58:55.519 have to happen in this case. Domino theory is 00:58:55.519 --> 00:58:58.139 interesting, and some parts of it did happen. 00:58:58.199 --> 00:59:00.619 Some parts of it did happen because we helped 00:59:00.619 --> 00:59:02.820 them, helped it happen. So in the case of Cambodia, 00:59:02.940 --> 00:59:06.579 during Vietnam, when we went in and destabilized 00:59:06.579 --> 00:59:09.119 that whole place looking for Viet Cong, and then 00:59:09.119 --> 00:59:12.159 it goes communist. But it's like there's no evidence, 00:59:12.300 --> 00:59:16.300 there's no, like you would think that for something 00:59:16.300 --> 00:59:20.369 that dominates our policy. for so many years 00:59:20.369 --> 00:59:23.150 that there'd be something other than this is 00:59:23.150 --> 00:59:25.650 how things have to happen because this is how 00:59:25.650 --> 00:59:29.210 things do happen. There's no intellectual vigor 00:59:29.210 --> 00:59:34.949 to that. Well, so, and I remember when we did 00:59:34.949 --> 00:59:37.210 the America First series, Blake, remember? Marshall 00:59:37.210 --> 00:59:39.849 brought up the Russian Revolution. And you said 00:59:39.849 --> 00:59:41.650 it frightened the whole world. I think I'm quoting 00:59:41.650 --> 00:59:43.269 you, right? That frightened the whole world back 00:59:43.269 --> 00:59:48.079 in 1917, 18. 19, 20, 21, Russian Civil War, that 00:59:48.079 --> 00:59:52.059 period, that created the great boogeyman of communism. 00:59:52.199 --> 00:59:55.380 Yes. And the great boogeyman of communism has 00:59:55.380 --> 00:59:58.360 scared right -wing Europeans, moderate people 00:59:58.360 --> 01:00:01.059 as well, not just right -wing, Americans, most 01:00:01.059 --> 01:00:04.539 Americans, ever since that time. To this day, 01:00:04.539 --> 01:00:06.079 if you go out and tell people you're a communist, 01:00:06.159 --> 01:00:07.619 you're going to get shunned by most Americans. 01:00:07.820 --> 01:00:12.130 Communism is a evil, terrible, awful thing. Maybe 01:00:12.130 --> 01:00:15.050 it is. I don't know. But I mean, the point is 01:00:15.050 --> 01:00:17.250 on how it's done and how it's done. And usually, 01:00:17.309 --> 01:00:19.969 usually it's done the wrong way. But it's one 01:00:19.969 --> 01:00:22.510 thing to recognize what the dangers and evils 01:00:22.510 --> 01:00:24.750 of communism are. And Lord knows there's plenty 01:00:24.750 --> 01:00:26.969 of dangers and evils to it. It's another thing 01:00:26.969 --> 01:00:29.849 to be so afraid of it all the time that you make 01:00:29.849 --> 01:00:32.050 bad decisions about international affairs and 01:00:32.050 --> 01:00:35.889 politics based upon that fear. Is it just is 01:00:35.889 --> 01:00:40.760 it an adversarial movement? Or a group of adversarial 01:00:40.760 --> 01:00:42.920 movements that you have to deal with? Or is it 01:00:42.920 --> 01:00:46.900 this horrible, unified, dangerous monster that 01:00:46.900 --> 01:00:49.840 you should be constantly afraid of? Should you 01:00:49.840 --> 01:00:51.860 have a phobic reaction to it? Or should you have 01:00:51.860 --> 01:00:54.400 a more measured reason reaction to it? And we 01:00:54.400 --> 01:00:58.019 chose phobic. Yeah. And this had a negative impact 01:00:58.019 --> 01:01:00.960 on our society at large. Which is what I was 01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:03.719 going to say too is the other misunderstanding 01:01:03.719 --> 01:01:05.900 then that feeds out of that in terms of our domestic 01:01:05.900 --> 01:01:10.000 affairs. is this idea that because communism 01:01:10.000 --> 01:01:12.860 is this unified thing, international conspiracy 01:01:12.860 --> 01:01:15.219 against the rest of the world, the good civilized 01:01:15.219 --> 01:01:17.519 world against these horrible communist barbarians, 01:01:17.579 --> 01:01:21.159 because it is that, then it must be the case 01:01:21.159 --> 01:01:24.360 that there's a cabal of communists in the Western 01:01:24.360 --> 01:01:27.440 world, and specifically in our own country, who 01:01:27.440 --> 01:01:31.519 are making sure that bad things happen. They're 01:01:31.519 --> 01:01:33.260 undermining us. They're making sure that China 01:01:33.260 --> 01:01:37.269 falls to the communists, which it did. And then 01:01:37.269 --> 01:01:38.989 the domino theory, they're going to make sure 01:01:38.989 --> 01:01:40.769 that other countries fall to the communists as 01:01:40.769 --> 01:01:43.230 well, because they're working against us to destroy 01:01:43.230 --> 01:01:46.150 our country and help international communism. 01:01:46.429 --> 01:01:49.250 Yes. It's not true. Maybe there's a few people 01:01:49.250 --> 01:01:50.590 running around like that, but they're a tiny 01:01:50.590 --> 01:01:55.530 minority. The thing about it is, I took a course 01:01:55.530 --> 01:02:00.610 in the American Communist Party when I was in 01:02:00.610 --> 01:02:03.170 college with a guy named Harvey Clare, who's 01:02:03.170 --> 01:02:07.260 kind of the leading historian of this. And one 01:02:07.260 --> 01:02:09.639 observation that Dr. Clear made was that there 01:02:09.639 --> 01:02:11.900 was a large percentage of the Communist Party 01:02:11.900 --> 01:02:15.039 that were actually FBI agents, and that the dues 01:02:15.039 --> 01:02:17.340 from these FBI agents were actually funding the 01:02:17.340 --> 01:02:19.420 American Communist Party. So the American Communist 01:02:19.420 --> 01:02:21.699 Party was actually one of the few political parties 01:02:21.699 --> 01:02:23.920 that was actually funded by the United States 01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:26.679 government in an odd sort of way. And this was 01:02:26.679 --> 01:02:29.860 a political party that we thought was... hostile 01:02:29.860 --> 01:02:33.079 and we're supporting it through these dues -paying 01:02:33.079 --> 01:02:36.420 FBI agents who make up something like a third 01:02:36.420 --> 01:02:41.280 or just a significant portion of the actual membership 01:02:41.280 --> 01:02:44.519 in the U .S. Communist Party. See, one of our 01:02:44.519 --> 01:02:47.340 listeners made a comment that said communism 01:02:47.340 --> 01:02:50.079 was an American project. Without any further 01:02:50.079 --> 01:02:52.539 explanation. I saw that comment. Maybe that's 01:02:52.539 --> 01:02:55.179 what they're referring to, that the FBI was funding 01:02:55.179 --> 01:02:58.280 communism or something. I don't know. I mean, 01:02:58.300 --> 01:03:01.980 it's kind of funny because we probably did more 01:03:01.980 --> 01:03:06.659 to support communism with our attempts to surveil 01:03:06.659 --> 01:03:11.239 it in the United States than anything else. Well, 01:03:11.400 --> 01:03:15.550 yes. And you said a short while ago that... we 01:03:15.550 --> 01:03:17.210 were trying to influence china but china wound 01:03:17.210 --> 01:03:19.989 up influencing us more yes because the the red 01:03:19.989 --> 01:03:23.469 scare yes against supposed communism in the united 01:03:23.469 --> 01:03:27.630 states and the separate but very much overlapping 01:03:27.630 --> 01:03:30.750 lavender scare yes trying to go after homosexuals 01:03:30.750 --> 01:03:33.409 in the united states who by nature and this was 01:03:33.409 --> 01:03:36.130 this this came out of like burgess and mclean 01:03:36.130 --> 01:03:40.570 it was felt that homosexuals were uniquely likely, 01:03:40.769 --> 01:03:44.170 if not to be blackmailed, then to be positive, 01:03:44.329 --> 01:03:48.130 have positive feelings towards communists. Yeah, 01:03:48.150 --> 01:03:49.929 for some reason. I know. I mean, it doesn't make 01:03:49.929 --> 01:03:52.650 sense to me. I mean, like of all the things that 01:03:52.650 --> 01:03:55.429 you're going to say, that homosexuals are inclined 01:03:55.429 --> 01:03:58.349 towards communism, that just seems ridiculous. 01:03:58.550 --> 01:04:00.409 But this is J. Edgar Hoover. I looked into it 01:04:00.409 --> 01:04:02.690 a little bit. In fact, I put it in the images. 01:04:03.909 --> 01:04:07.050 gallery blog on our website for this series, 01:04:07.170 --> 01:04:11.489 I did find a picture of Joe McCarthy and Roy 01:04:11.489 --> 01:04:17.150 Cohn together. I wrote a caption for it. And 01:04:17.150 --> 01:04:20.110 I drew this out of sources I'd looked at very 01:04:20.110 --> 01:04:21.670 quickly about the topic. And I just said, you 01:04:21.670 --> 01:04:23.690 have to understand that in the 1950s, there was 01:04:23.690 --> 01:04:27.289 a stigma against homosexuality. And the idea 01:04:27.289 --> 01:04:30.730 was that homosexuals were morally weak people. 01:04:31.159 --> 01:04:33.239 That's why they indulged in homosexuality. They 01:04:33.239 --> 01:04:38.139 were morally weak and, you know, being aberrant 01:04:38.139 --> 01:04:41.460 made you more likely to fall for aberrant political 01:04:41.460 --> 01:04:44.539 beliefs. Yes. Like, say, communism. Yeah. And 01:04:44.539 --> 01:04:47.739 that was the way people thought in the 50s. And 01:04:47.739 --> 01:04:49.739 you did have Burgess and McLean to kind of like, 01:04:49.820 --> 01:04:52.019 you know. So it was widely thought at that time 01:04:52.019 --> 01:04:54.920 is the point. And people like McCarthy and Cohen 01:04:54.920 --> 01:04:56.260 were able to tap into that thinking and demonize 01:04:56.260 --> 01:04:58.360 them. And just so we know who Burgess and McLean 01:04:58.360 --> 01:05:04.019 are, we're talking about Guy Burgess and Anthony 01:05:04.019 --> 01:05:09.920 McLean. These were two British spies who, along 01:05:09.920 --> 01:05:12.460 with others, spied on the British. They were 01:05:12.460 --> 01:05:13.980 part of the British establishment, so they were 01:05:13.980 --> 01:05:17.719 kind of given a pass. And they ended up defecting 01:05:17.719 --> 01:05:21.460 to the Soviet Union and living out their lives 01:05:21.460 --> 01:05:25.099 there. Guy Burgess was definitely homosexual. 01:05:26.139 --> 01:05:29.199 McLean went both ways here. There was all sorts 01:05:29.199 --> 01:05:33.880 of, he was bisexual. And so he was subject to 01:05:33.880 --> 01:05:35.420 blackmail. There's no way you could blackmail 01:05:35.420 --> 01:05:37.800 Guy Burgess because he was so overt about everything. 01:05:38.059 --> 01:05:42.539 But the idea was these guys represented typical. 01:05:43.440 --> 01:05:47.880 people who were homosexual or bisexual. Supposedly, 01:05:47.880 --> 01:05:50.440 that's what... And that's what kind of drove 01:05:50.440 --> 01:05:52.760 some of this. And when I mention McCarthy, I'm 01:05:52.760 --> 01:05:54.400 talking about Joseph McCarthy, Senator McCarthy, 01:05:54.840 --> 01:05:57.960 Republican of Wisconsin, who led the Red Scare 01:05:57.960 --> 01:06:01.179 famously, right, back in the 50s. And Roy Cohn 01:06:01.179 --> 01:06:03.980 was a lawyer who worked with McCarthy, and he 01:06:03.980 --> 01:06:07.179 was... The most vicious, evil human being that 01:06:07.179 --> 01:06:09.960 ever existed on the planet, in some respects. 01:06:10.260 --> 01:06:13.300 So Marshall is not a fan of Roy Cohn. He was 01:06:13.300 --> 01:06:16.099 one of Trump's mentors, Donald Trump's mentors. 01:06:16.380 --> 01:06:20.420 He was definitely Trump's mentor. And Cohen was 01:06:20.420 --> 01:06:23.900 actually also, I mean, Cohen is kind of got like 01:06:23.900 --> 01:06:29.360 the triple threat he's got. He was out for doing 01:06:29.360 --> 01:06:31.760 the Red Scare. He was actually on the team that 01:06:31.760 --> 01:06:35.260 prosecuted the Rosenbergs. And that's what brought 01:06:35.260 --> 01:06:40.260 him to. McCarthy's attention. And he was... Julius 01:06:40.260 --> 01:06:42.440 and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of stealing 01:06:42.440 --> 01:06:44.360 the plans for the atomic bomb and giving it to 01:06:44.360 --> 01:06:46.699 the Soviets. Yes. And they went to the electric 01:06:46.699 --> 01:06:50.099 chair for it in 1950. And supposedly Ethel... 01:06:50.349 --> 01:06:52.710 was not involved at all, but they were going 01:06:52.710 --> 01:06:56.130 to execute Ethel as a means of gaining leverage 01:06:56.130 --> 01:06:58.449 to get more information out of them in terms 01:06:58.449 --> 01:07:00.590 of the actual organization. Hoping Julius would 01:07:00.590 --> 01:07:02.550 roll over and save Ethel. Yeah. And he didn't. 01:07:02.550 --> 01:07:04.050 He didn't. And so they both went to the electric 01:07:04.050 --> 01:07:07.650 chair. And Cone knew this. And then Cone went 01:07:07.650 --> 01:07:11.260 on from there to become a mob. I mean, just keeping 01:07:11.260 --> 01:07:13.820 with the same level of integrity. And then he 01:07:13.820 --> 01:07:16.679 went on to mentor Donald Trump in his attempts 01:07:16.679 --> 01:07:18.780 to keep black people and Hispanic people out 01:07:18.780 --> 01:07:24.159 of his rental units. Getting back to the issue 01:07:24.159 --> 01:07:26.960 here, though, so misunderstanding. So, I mean, 01:07:26.960 --> 01:07:30.300 the fundamental misunderstanding here is that, 01:07:30.300 --> 01:07:32.360 that we're talking about here, is that China 01:07:32.360 --> 01:07:36.219 represents a manifestation of the fall of China, 01:07:36.300 --> 01:07:37.960 quote unquote, the fall of China to communism. 01:07:38.940 --> 01:07:41.039 represents a manifestation of this international 01:07:41.039 --> 01:07:45.320 communist movement, which is unified and monolithic, 01:07:45.400 --> 01:07:48.480 that we have to fight back against. Yes. That's 01:07:48.480 --> 01:07:50.300 the fundamental misunderstanding there. Yes, 01:07:50.380 --> 01:07:53.699 and we do have the Red Scare, where we get people 01:07:53.699 --> 01:07:58.039 who can be punished for being communist, but 01:07:58.039 --> 01:08:01.099 also for supporting left -wing causes, because 01:08:01.099 --> 01:08:05.900 if you're sponsoring an ambulance for the Spanish 01:08:05.900 --> 01:08:10.650 Republic, In the 1930s, the left wing during 01:08:10.650 --> 01:08:12.309 the Spanish Civil War. You must be a communist. 01:08:12.429 --> 01:08:15.570 You must be a communist. Or if you oppose Hitler 01:08:15.570 --> 01:08:19.270 too soon, say in the 30s as opposed to the 40s, 01:08:19.270 --> 01:08:22.210 you must be a communist. So we see the misunderstanding 01:08:22.210 --> 01:08:24.270 here. And that misunderstanding is so profound 01:08:24.270 --> 01:08:27.750 that even after this idea that there is no international 01:08:27.750 --> 01:08:30.010 communist movement that's monolithic starts to 01:08:30.010 --> 01:08:32.930 collapse. Which would be, Marshall, in the 60s. 01:08:32.930 --> 01:08:36.510 It's withering by the 60s. Yes, but not before. 01:08:36.829 --> 01:08:39.829 Not before we get involved in Vietnam. This is 01:08:39.829 --> 01:08:41.569 part of the thing that drives us to the whole 01:08:41.569 --> 01:08:44.229 domino theory, to get back to that. The domino 01:08:44.229 --> 01:08:47.750 theory, which comes from China, that there's 01:08:47.750 --> 01:08:49.609 this whole series of dominoes that's going to 01:08:49.609 --> 01:08:53.210 fall in Asia. So we get involved in Vietnam in 01:08:53.210 --> 01:08:55.989 the late 50s. Yes. I think the official beginning 01:08:55.989 --> 01:08:58.890 of our involvement is in the late 50s somewhere. 01:08:58.909 --> 01:09:01.600 I have to look up exactly where. our major ground 01:09:01.600 --> 01:09:04.699 involvement begins in 1965. The Marines land 01:09:04.699 --> 01:09:06.739 at Da Nang, I think, or something. And that begins 01:09:06.739 --> 01:09:09.199 the major ground portion, which then lasts until 01:09:09.199 --> 01:09:12.520 1971. Yeah. And we don't pull out of that war 01:09:12.520 --> 01:09:15.560 until 1973. Yes. And then South Vietnam falls 01:09:15.560 --> 01:09:17.760 in April of 75. But that's the timeline there. 01:09:17.939 --> 01:09:19.720 That's the timeline there. But we had already, 01:09:19.899 --> 01:09:21.760 by the time we left Vietnam, we'd already kind 01:09:21.760 --> 01:09:23.899 of given up on this domino theory idea, or at 01:09:23.899 --> 01:09:26.199 least it was very much in decline by then. It 01:09:26.199 --> 01:09:29.000 was a matter of extracting ourselves from it. 01:09:29.000 --> 01:09:31.300 From the quagmire is the word you always use 01:09:31.300 --> 01:09:37.319 nowadays. By the time we started, it is remarkable 01:09:37.319 --> 01:09:41.899 just how short the period is where we're talking 01:09:41.899 --> 01:09:46.819 about dominoes here like in 65. And then gradually 01:09:46.819 --> 01:09:50.100 we're realizing maybe two or three years later 01:09:50.100 --> 01:09:53.500 that we need to get the f*** out of there. And 01:09:53.500 --> 01:09:57.329 it's like... I mean, seriously, we totally went 01:09:57.329 --> 01:10:00.409 in with the false premise for going in there. 01:10:00.489 --> 01:10:02.470 And this is not doing us any good. It's just 01:10:02.470 --> 01:10:07.029 it's tearing the domestic politics apart. It 01:10:07.029 --> 01:10:09.310 totally destroys the Democratic Party, brings 01:10:09.310 --> 01:10:12.090 about the rise of Richard Nixon coming in there 01:10:12.090 --> 01:10:15.250 and offering up a secret plan to get us out of 01:10:15.250 --> 01:10:20.520 Vietnam. And Nixon is kind of like evolved. over 01:10:20.520 --> 01:10:23.260 this period from being like this harsh anti -communist. 01:10:23.260 --> 01:10:25.460 He was a cold warrior. Yeah. Vinyl cold warrior. 01:10:25.619 --> 01:10:28.239 And there's nothing wrong with being a cold warrior, 01:10:28.399 --> 01:10:31.020 but it's also good if you understand the realities 01:10:31.020 --> 01:10:33.300 of what it is that you're fighting. And Nixon 01:10:33.300 --> 01:10:36.460 kind of came to that. Nixon had a kind of come 01:10:36.460 --> 01:10:41.720 -to -Jesus aspect of this. In 67, Nixon publishes 01:10:41.720 --> 01:10:44.859 Asia After Vietnam and Foreign Affairs. And this 01:10:44.859 --> 01:10:47.840 is kind of, if you want to look at the new Nixon, 01:10:47.960 --> 01:10:50.319 because Nixon was always, when he was campaigning, 01:10:50.319 --> 01:10:54.140 talking about there being a new Nixon to indicate 01:10:54.140 --> 01:10:58.159 that he was capable of evolving. Nixon had kind 01:10:58.159 --> 01:11:00.420 of like evolved to the point where when he's 01:11:00.420 --> 01:11:02.420 talking about Asia After Vietnam, he's talking 01:11:02.420 --> 01:11:04.180 about all sorts of opportunities for the United 01:11:04.180 --> 01:11:08.869 States with China in that. And so that's kind 01:11:08.869 --> 01:11:12.430 of one of the aspects of this. And those opportunities 01:11:12.430 --> 01:11:17.210 are a vast market for our goods. Yes. There are 01:11:17.210 --> 01:11:20.189 always a vast market for our goods. And here 01:11:20.189 --> 01:11:25.949 we are again. Yeah. And this was before, you 01:11:25.949 --> 01:11:28.310 know, obviously now China is a huge economic 01:11:28.310 --> 01:11:31.210 power in the world. That really came on strong 01:11:31.210 --> 01:11:34.989 in about the last 30 years or so. Yes. You know. 01:11:35.550 --> 01:11:39.569 They were not an economically, they were a huge 01:11:39.569 --> 01:11:41.829 country, but not an economically very important 01:11:41.829 --> 01:11:43.949 one. They didn't really get rolling economically 01:11:43.949 --> 01:11:46.090 until the 90s. I'm sure there were precursors 01:11:46.090 --> 01:11:48.069 before that. Well, yes. That really got rolling 01:11:48.069 --> 01:11:50.369 in the 90s and has continued to this day. It's 01:11:50.369 --> 01:11:52.729 a great achievement on China's part to be able 01:11:52.729 --> 01:11:55.069 to move from what they were to what they are 01:11:55.069 --> 01:11:57.750 now and really in such a short period of time. 01:11:57.869 --> 01:12:01.130 But the idea of the vast market being there in 01:12:01.130 --> 01:12:07.239 1972. Kind of premature by about 25 years or 01:12:07.239 --> 01:12:11.319 so. I love John Denver's music. When he went 01:12:11.319 --> 01:12:14.939 over there, he got a hero's welcome. Well, Blake, 01:12:15.020 --> 01:12:20.359 Blake. Blake, who doesn't? I saw that in the 01:12:20.359 --> 01:12:23.279 John Denver documentary. But the thing to keep 01:12:23.279 --> 01:12:29.760 in mind in 72, the architect of this. economically 01:12:29.760 --> 01:12:34.079 powerful China, Deng Xiaoping is being exiled 01:12:34.079 --> 01:12:37.460 to collective farms because he is suffering from 01:12:37.460 --> 01:12:40.819 revisionism. I mean, he was constantly being 01:12:40.819 --> 01:12:47.199 targeted by Mao for those types of inappropriate 01:12:47.199 --> 01:12:51.979 action. Mao, as an economist, was a disaster 01:12:51.979 --> 01:12:54.180 because usually when Mao would come up with some 01:12:54.180 --> 01:12:57.000 economic initiative, it would lead to famine. 01:12:57.600 --> 01:13:02.720 Famine and deaths. Persecution. Yes. That was 01:13:02.720 --> 01:13:06.359 kind of like Mao just couldn't get things to 01:13:06.359 --> 01:13:08.840 work. And so usually when things don't work under 01:13:08.840 --> 01:13:11.140 communist governments, it's generally because 01:13:11.140 --> 01:13:13.199 there's a fifth column in there that's undermining 01:13:13.199 --> 01:13:15.539 everything. And so that's what Mao thought. That's 01:13:15.539 --> 01:13:17.060 what they claim. Yes, that's what they claim. 01:13:18.119 --> 01:13:19.680 It's not that what they're doing isn't working. 01:13:19.840 --> 01:13:22.220 Yes. It's someone else's fault. Yes, because 01:13:22.220 --> 01:13:25.319 it can't not work. That's always very convenient. 01:13:50.820 --> 01:13:53.359 So we're back to the vast market again. Yes. 01:13:53.579 --> 01:13:55.380 And I mean, I guess that we brought ourselves 01:13:55.380 --> 01:13:58.159 up to more or less the present times. But before 01:13:58.159 --> 01:14:00.260 we get into the present times, though, very quickly, 01:14:00.380 --> 01:14:02.920 what I'd like to do, though, is say, what are 01:14:02.920 --> 01:14:07.579 the through lines then we see from this whole 01:14:07.579 --> 01:14:10.880 swath of Chinese -U .S. history that we've covered? 01:14:11.039 --> 01:14:13.180 And I'll get us started since I asked the question. 01:14:13.319 --> 01:14:16.239 Please. There's always been one way or the other. 01:14:17.200 --> 01:14:20.000 an uninformed and fantastical view of what China 01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:23.899 was. Yes. Always. There's never really been much 01:14:23.899 --> 01:14:25.800 of an understanding of China. I know that we 01:14:25.800 --> 01:14:27.960 had sinologists, we had China experts, we had 01:14:27.960 --> 01:14:31.880 people who did understand China. But the basis 01:14:31.880 --> 01:14:33.659 of the decisions we made or the outlook we had 01:14:33.659 --> 01:14:35.779 wasn't based on what they knew or thought. No, 01:14:35.779 --> 01:14:39.359 and they're looking at niche issues and things 01:14:39.359 --> 01:14:43.720 that are not necessarily part of that world of 01:14:43.720 --> 01:14:48.460 the policymaker, the decision maker. The influencer. 01:14:48.880 --> 01:14:51.060 It always kept changing. At first, you had it 01:14:51.060 --> 01:14:54.039 being a moral and educated society. Then we went 01:14:54.039 --> 01:14:56.819 the other direction, and it was a barbaric, uncivilized, 01:14:56.840 --> 01:15:00.619 vicious society. But also very hungry for Western 01:15:00.619 --> 01:15:04.020 goods, Western gospel, Western ideas. You always 01:15:04.020 --> 01:15:06.399 had the market issue. China was always going 01:15:06.399 --> 01:15:08.960 to be this big market. We talked about we wanted 01:15:08.960 --> 01:15:11.000 the open door in China. We were against all this 01:15:11.000 --> 01:15:12.460 imperialist stuff. We wanted the open door. What 01:15:12.460 --> 01:15:13.760 was the open door? Well, we wanted to do business 01:15:13.760 --> 01:15:15.680 in China because there was so much money to be 01:15:15.680 --> 01:15:18.319 made there. So it's always been a vast market, 01:15:18.439 --> 01:15:20.260 at least since the early 1800s. It's been this 01:15:20.260 --> 01:15:23.100 vast, well, late 1700s when the Empress of China 01:15:23.100 --> 01:15:26.000 went. Vast, untapped market that we need to get 01:15:26.000 --> 01:15:31.720 involved in. It is now, but it certainly wasn't 01:15:31.720 --> 01:15:35.279 through most of its history. So there's always 01:15:35.279 --> 01:15:37.640 that. Then there's this issue of the hunger for 01:15:37.640 --> 01:15:40.119 Christianity that it apparently had. And democracy. 01:15:40.520 --> 01:15:42.819 Well, I'm taking one at a time. But yeah, Christianity. 01:15:43.260 --> 01:15:45.180 Then the hunger for a democracy that it had. 01:15:45.359 --> 01:15:47.819 Neither one of those was true. So both of those 01:15:47.819 --> 01:15:51.720 were fantastical ideas. A tiny portion of society. 01:15:51.960 --> 01:15:53.560 A tiny portion. But I mean, China as a whole. 01:15:53.779 --> 01:15:55.500 China as a whole. A great big country like China. 01:15:55.539 --> 01:15:58.699 Let me ask this. I mean, to what degree did Christianity... 01:15:59.159 --> 01:16:01.359 Spread through the peasantry. You would have 01:16:01.359 --> 01:16:04.140 missionaries who would go out there. And they 01:16:04.140 --> 01:16:08.359 would have. When? Basically from 1840 on up to 01:16:08.359 --> 01:16:11.960 probably 1940. So 100 years, really. Until the 01:16:11.960 --> 01:16:14.819 Japanese came. Well, they were still there when 01:16:14.819 --> 01:16:18.800 the Japanese came. So when the communists took 01:16:18.800 --> 01:16:20.979 over is when they were kicked out. Yeah. They 01:16:20.979 --> 01:16:24.560 kind of, yes. They self -deported. They got kicked 01:16:24.560 --> 01:16:29.439 out. et cetera. But were they successful at converting 01:16:29.439 --> 01:16:34.140 the adherence of Confucianism to Christianity 01:16:34.140 --> 01:16:38.199 in the countryside? Not in any positive way. 01:16:38.359 --> 01:16:40.720 What percentage? Do we have any figures? I'm 01:16:40.720 --> 01:16:42.880 wondering to what degree, yeah. How many people, 01:16:43.000 --> 01:16:46.319 what percentage of people in China became Christian? 01:16:46.659 --> 01:16:49.930 So in terms of percentages, the best... numbers 01:16:49.930 --> 01:16:54.170 that I've seen is less than 1%. So 3 to 4 million 01:16:54.170 --> 01:16:58.989 out of 500 million total population through 1949. 01:17:01.050 --> 01:17:05.409 So, Mike, it would appear that we've covered 01:17:05.409 --> 01:17:10.329 the kind of historical mistakes that we've been 01:17:10.329 --> 01:17:13.909 having with our relationship with China. Do you 01:17:13.909 --> 01:17:16.149 think this is continuing on into the present 01:17:16.149 --> 01:17:21.060 day? Yeah, I think so, because when you think 01:17:21.060 --> 01:17:24.000 of Roosevelt with his four policemen, when you 01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:26.279 think about the hopes that we had for the United 01:17:26.279 --> 01:17:28.420 Nations and the UN Security Council, of which 01:17:28.420 --> 01:17:30.539 China is a member, you know, we keep hoping that 01:17:30.539 --> 01:17:32.520 we can get the great powers of the world, us 01:17:32.520 --> 01:17:35.699 and others, to manage the world in a way that 01:17:35.699 --> 01:17:38.880 we approve of, and critics will say, and in our 01:17:38.880 --> 01:17:41.600 interest, our own interest, which is okay, fine. 01:17:41.899 --> 01:17:43.520 Although we tend to view our interest as being 01:17:43.520 --> 01:17:46.319 in the interest of the world. in many ways, we 01:17:46.319 --> 01:17:49.180 keep hoping that the other great powers will 01:17:49.180 --> 01:17:53.180 do that. And so as China became integrated more 01:17:53.180 --> 01:17:56.500 into the international system, we had things 01:17:56.500 --> 01:17:58.699 happen like China was admitted to the World Trade 01:17:58.699 --> 01:18:01.960 Organization in December of 2001. And the hope 01:18:01.960 --> 01:18:04.680 was that they would then take the same view that 01:18:04.680 --> 01:18:07.079 we in other countries did, that trade is mutually 01:18:07.079 --> 01:18:10.739 beneficial, a rising tide lifts all boats, these 01:18:10.739 --> 01:18:15.329 kinds of issues. I'm not a economics expert on 01:18:15.329 --> 01:18:17.149 this, but I understand that there's been a lot 01:18:17.149 --> 01:18:19.069 of criticism of China because they've actually 01:18:19.069 --> 01:18:22.069 exploited their membership in the WTO to be more 01:18:22.069 --> 01:18:26.409 predatory, if anything else. And I think one 01:18:26.409 --> 01:18:28.170 of the misunderstandings we have of China, as 01:18:28.170 --> 01:18:30.029 well as other countries, is that we keep hoping 01:18:30.029 --> 01:18:33.289 that they will want to be part of this, what's 01:18:33.289 --> 01:18:35.250 been called the Pax Americana and the post -war 01:18:35.250 --> 01:18:37.449 world. They want to be like us again. Well, they 01:18:37.449 --> 01:18:39.189 want to be like us, but they also want to be 01:18:39.189 --> 01:18:43.510 part of an America -inspired world. that runs 01:18:43.510 --> 01:18:45.729 according to America's vision for the world, 01:18:45.789 --> 01:18:47.750 America's rules, because they see that they will 01:18:47.750 --> 01:18:50.250 benefit from playing along with America, and 01:18:50.250 --> 01:18:52.989 they'll want to join in and help out with that 01:18:52.989 --> 01:18:57.029 American... So we're confronting this whole idea 01:18:57.029 --> 01:19:01.350 that we thought we had walked away from, that 01:19:01.350 --> 01:19:03.770 China wants to be like us, which was kind of 01:19:03.770 --> 01:19:06.399 the mentality that we had during... immediately 01:19:06.399 --> 01:19:09.760 prior to World War II and during World War II. 01:19:10.119 --> 01:19:11.960 We're kind of seeing that play out again then. 01:19:12.239 --> 01:19:14.279 Yeah, China wants to be like us, but not internally. 01:19:14.619 --> 01:19:17.020 Yeah. Not in terms of Christianization, not in 01:19:17.020 --> 01:19:19.279 terms of being a democracy. I don't think we 01:19:19.279 --> 01:19:21.819 entertain thoughts of that. But in terms of being 01:19:21.819 --> 01:19:24.520 an international player, which is trying to maintain 01:19:24.520 --> 01:19:27.560 a world order that benefits everyone. That's 01:19:27.560 --> 01:19:30.060 what we keep saying we want. On our terms. Well, 01:19:30.100 --> 01:19:32.079 yeah, yeah. And our critics will say, well, when 01:19:32.079 --> 01:19:33.899 you mean benefits everyone, you mean... benefits 01:19:33.899 --> 01:19:36.720 you. And there are some criticisms of the United 01:19:36.720 --> 01:19:38.539 States. You can levy that way. We do want to 01:19:38.539 --> 01:19:42.180 dominate the system. But I think a lot of people 01:19:42.180 --> 01:19:43.760 in the United States honestly do think that benefits 01:19:43.760 --> 01:19:45.819 the whole world to do things our way. Exactly. 01:19:46.079 --> 01:19:49.060 And we assume or we hope that other countries, 01:19:49.180 --> 01:19:50.880 especially the large ones, will join in. And 01:19:50.880 --> 01:19:54.000 China never has bought into that. Like I said, 01:19:54.020 --> 01:19:55.720 with economics, they behaved in a predatory manner. 01:19:56.779 --> 01:19:59.180 They behaved in a bullying manner toward other 01:19:59.180 --> 01:20:02.390 countries, certainly in East Asia. They made 01:20:02.390 --> 01:20:06.130 no friends in East Asia during their rise to 01:20:06.130 --> 01:20:09.609 military prominence, which started in about the 01:20:09.609 --> 01:20:12.010 mid -1990s. They've been very successful at that. 01:20:12.470 --> 01:20:15.390 It turns out China is looking out for China and 01:20:15.390 --> 01:20:17.130 doesn't see what's wrong with that. They're looking 01:20:17.130 --> 01:20:18.590 out for themselves economically. They're looking 01:20:18.590 --> 01:20:22.050 at themselves militarily. And I guess in a way 01:20:22.050 --> 01:20:23.510 you could say they want to go back to being the 01:20:23.510 --> 01:20:25.649 Middle Kingdom. They want to go back to dominating 01:20:25.649 --> 01:20:27.470 their part of the world, just like they used 01:20:27.470 --> 01:20:30.680 to do. Well, and being the leading power in the 01:20:30.680 --> 01:20:33.100 world, which is what they were for most of the 01:20:33.100 --> 01:20:36.880 history of human civilization here. Yes and no. 01:20:37.060 --> 01:20:39.340 I mean, they weren't affecting the Romans very 01:20:39.340 --> 01:20:41.960 much or anything. In their part of the world, 01:20:42.079 --> 01:20:43.520 they were the leading power of the world. But 01:20:43.520 --> 01:20:45.359 now by extension, they want to extend that on, 01:20:45.439 --> 01:20:47.539 since it's a global, the world is truly global 01:20:47.539 --> 01:20:49.260 now. It wasn't back then. Everybody had different 01:20:49.260 --> 01:20:51.279 worlds they lived in. Now it's truly global. 01:20:51.380 --> 01:20:55.670 So they want to be the global. Hegemon, the middle 01:20:55.670 --> 01:20:57.810 kingdom of the whole world, I suppose. But at 01:20:57.810 --> 01:20:59.810 a minimum, they do want to be the dominant power 01:20:59.810 --> 01:21:03.970 in East Asia and the Pacific or a large portion 01:21:03.970 --> 01:21:07.250 of the Pacific. They do want that as a minimum. 01:21:07.409 --> 01:21:11.229 I would say that they were the most sophisticated 01:21:11.229 --> 01:21:15.109 civilization in the world for most of the world's 01:21:15.109 --> 01:21:16.630 history. Sure, but that's different from dominating 01:21:16.630 --> 01:21:18.430 the world. Yeah, okay. Right, which is what I'm 01:21:18.430 --> 01:21:20.420 talking about. Or what we were talking about 01:21:20.420 --> 01:21:22.880 is dominating the world. They dominated their 01:21:22.880 --> 01:21:24.319 part of the world, which as far as they were 01:21:24.319 --> 01:21:27.359 concerned at that time was the world. Nowadays, 01:21:27.859 --> 01:21:30.060 the world truly is the world. You can go everywhere. 01:21:30.140 --> 01:21:32.359 You can dominate all of it. And they want to 01:21:32.359 --> 01:21:34.720 do that. That's their long -term goal. And their 01:21:34.720 --> 01:21:36.500 more immediate goal is they want to dominate 01:21:36.500 --> 01:21:38.260 their part of the world. Well, that doesn't require 01:21:38.260 --> 01:21:40.439 cooperation with everybody around you. That requires 01:21:40.439 --> 01:21:42.819 dominance over everybody around you. Yeah. And 01:21:42.819 --> 01:21:45.439 it doesn't necessarily mean playing into somebody 01:21:45.439 --> 01:21:48.199 else's interest. I guess we understand that now. 01:21:48.649 --> 01:21:50.869 But we made mistakes along the way that set them 01:21:50.869 --> 01:21:53.270 up to be able to do this and to become what they 01:21:53.270 --> 01:21:56.170 are today. And it's not just them. It's other 01:21:56.170 --> 01:21:58.090 countries, too. Russia wants to dominate its 01:21:58.090 --> 01:22:00.670 part of the world and be a great power. Iran 01:22:00.670 --> 01:22:02.710 wants to dominate its part of the world. Saudi 01:22:02.710 --> 01:22:05.670 Arabia wants to. Israel wants to. You name it. 01:22:07.579 --> 01:22:10.000 A lot of major powers want to dominate their 01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:11.840 part of the world. They do not want to be part 01:22:11.840 --> 01:22:15.020 of an American -led coalition that runs the world 01:22:15.020 --> 01:22:18.140 according to, in their view, America's goals 01:22:18.140 --> 01:22:20.840 and values and everything. So why don't we transition? 01:22:20.960 --> 01:22:25.000 And one of the reasons I wanted to do this examination 01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:28.460 of China, which has grown much larger than I 01:22:28.460 --> 01:22:31.600 originally envisioned, I must confess, is because... 01:22:32.220 --> 01:22:34.619 I felt that there were certain key lessons that 01:22:34.619 --> 01:22:37.640 we could extract from the experience of the US 01:22:37.640 --> 01:22:40.380 and China that we could apply elsewhere. And 01:22:40.380 --> 01:22:43.000 that by looking at China, we could probably get 01:22:43.000 --> 01:22:45.239 away with being a little bit more critical of 01:22:45.239 --> 01:22:47.640 the Chinese than we could with other countries 01:22:47.640 --> 01:22:50.840 in the world and other regions of the world that 01:22:50.840 --> 01:22:53.760 we make these same mistakes with over and over 01:22:53.760 --> 01:22:58.579 again. I would argue that, say, we have... had 01:22:58.579 --> 01:23:04.640 this almost Wilsonian disorder of trying to impose 01:23:04.640 --> 01:23:07.000 our values, impose our vision of the world on 01:23:07.000 --> 01:23:10.279 other countries since World War I to promote 01:23:10.279 --> 01:23:14.220 democracy and U .S. interest as being the only 01:23:14.220 --> 01:23:16.380 way, the best way to do things, that this has 01:23:16.380 --> 01:23:18.039 been something that we've done consistently. 01:23:18.420 --> 01:23:21.199 And not just in China, but we've tried to do 01:23:21.199 --> 01:23:24.350 this. in the Middle East most recently, where 01:23:24.350 --> 01:23:29.189 we had this notion that we could create a democratic 01:23:29.189 --> 01:23:34.949 Iraq that would kind of like proliferate democracy 01:23:34.949 --> 01:23:37.770 all over the Middle East and kind of fix it. 01:23:37.970 --> 01:23:40.569 And in Afghanistan. And in Afghanistan. And we 01:23:40.569 --> 01:23:42.829 hope the Arab Spring would result in democracy 01:23:42.829 --> 01:23:44.850 all over the Middle East. Instead of chaos. In 01:23:44.850 --> 01:23:48.310 2011, yeah. And because that's what we got, and 01:23:48.310 --> 01:23:50.289 we're still dealing with chaos, you know, the 01:23:50.289 --> 01:23:53.989 sort of inability to understand. And this is 01:23:53.989 --> 01:23:57.569 not like a political partisan issue. Both parties 01:23:57.569 --> 01:24:00.510 buy into this. It's an American issue. It's an 01:24:00.510 --> 01:24:02.649 American issue. It's an American problem, if 01:24:02.649 --> 01:24:04.949 you ask me. We want the world to be like us. 01:24:05.069 --> 01:24:07.510 We honestly think our way is better. We don't 01:24:07.510 --> 01:24:09.829 see why other people don't agree with us. And 01:24:09.829 --> 01:24:11.010 when they don't agree with us, we think that 01:24:11.010 --> 01:24:12.779 there must be something wrong with them. And 01:24:12.779 --> 01:24:16.880 their society needs fixing. We never get into 01:24:16.880 --> 01:24:20.180 the details of understanding the societal fabric 01:24:20.180 --> 01:24:23.560 in these foreign lands. Exactly. What we do is 01:24:23.560 --> 01:24:26.380 we go in, we step in something very often, we 01:24:26.380 --> 01:24:29.039 screw things up. Then we get mad at them for 01:24:29.039 --> 01:24:30.619 not cooperating with us and turning into what 01:24:30.619 --> 01:24:33.600 we wanted them to turn into. Then we leave. And 01:24:33.600 --> 01:24:35.659 there's chaos. And there's chaos. They're mad 01:24:35.659 --> 01:24:37.840 at us. There's chaos. We achieved nothing we 01:24:37.840 --> 01:24:39.659 wanted to. People died. We spent lots of money 01:24:39.659 --> 01:24:41.460 and on and on and on, and we didn't get anywhere. 01:24:41.579 --> 01:24:43.619 And this keeps happening over and over and over 01:24:43.619 --> 01:24:46.880 again. And it goes to the concept that Marshall 01:24:46.880 --> 01:24:49.260 is bringing up with us of cultural literacy. 01:24:49.420 --> 01:24:51.380 Yes. Do you understand the country that you're 01:24:51.380 --> 01:24:54.739 dealing with? Yeah. And therefore, do you understand 01:24:54.739 --> 01:24:56.819 how to get your way there or cooperate with it 01:24:56.819 --> 01:24:58.909 to create something there? If you don't have 01:24:58.909 --> 01:25:01.529 cultural literacy. In the 16th and 17th century. 01:25:01.609 --> 01:25:04.529 So this is not a new concept, cultural literacy, 01:25:04.529 --> 01:25:08.630 that we're trying to impose on the United States. 01:25:08.649 --> 01:25:11.710 I think it's a sensible concept and one that 01:25:11.710 --> 01:25:15.510 we have failed to grasp here. In some respects, 01:25:15.689 --> 01:25:19.590 it is a failure of education. Initially, when 01:25:19.590 --> 01:25:22.609 we go into China, no one's allowed to learn Chinese. 01:25:22.710 --> 01:25:24.810 And this is something that the Chinese have imposed 01:25:24.810 --> 01:25:28.800 upon us. and other foreigners who are doing business 01:25:28.800 --> 01:25:33.199 there. But beyond that, I think it's just laziness. 01:25:33.220 --> 01:25:37.699 I'm going to be very not willing to be understanding 01:25:37.699 --> 01:25:40.319 of this position of not trying to understand 01:25:40.319 --> 01:25:44.340 a place almost deliberately and seeking to kind 01:25:44.340 --> 01:25:47.979 of take a kind of cultural bias on our own institutions 01:25:47.979 --> 01:25:53.689 as opposed to what works overseas. laziness, 01:25:53.770 --> 01:25:56.810 but I would put it more as ethnocentrism, which, 01:25:56.850 --> 01:26:00.390 look, almost all countries are guilty of ethnocentrism. 01:26:00.470 --> 01:26:02.369 You tend to look at yourself as the center of 01:26:02.369 --> 01:26:04.050 everything and your way of doing everything as 01:26:04.050 --> 01:26:06.630 the center, as the best way or the center or 01:26:06.630 --> 01:26:10.329 the way you want things to happen. We're as guilty 01:26:10.329 --> 01:26:12.649 of that as anybody else. But when you get to 01:26:12.649 --> 01:26:15.350 be a big power like we are, moving around the 01:26:15.350 --> 01:26:16.970 world, doing things in other countries, then 01:26:16.970 --> 01:26:19.090 your ethnocentrism can backfire on you big time. 01:26:19.399 --> 01:26:21.359 That's what we see going on over and over again. 01:26:21.420 --> 01:26:24.720 There are other countries that have gone into 01:26:24.720 --> 01:26:27.739 other places historically, going back to ancient 01:26:27.739 --> 01:26:31.680 times, in which local conditions were allowed 01:26:31.680 --> 01:26:34.300 to prevail and people would... go in, say like 01:26:34.300 --> 01:26:36.100 the Persians when they went to Babylon, they 01:26:36.100 --> 01:26:38.699 just said, okay, you can continue to operate 01:26:38.699 --> 01:26:40.399 like Babylonians. You're just going to be paying 01:26:40.399 --> 01:26:42.359 taxes to us and you're going to get better roads. 01:26:42.500 --> 01:26:44.460 The Ottoman Empire was quite permissive. Yes. 01:26:44.920 --> 01:26:48.159 The Romans were. The Romans were. You pay your 01:26:48.159 --> 01:26:50.859 tribute or your taxes or whatever and contribute 01:26:50.859 --> 01:26:53.119 military forces when you need them and you can 01:26:53.119 --> 01:26:56.659 go on and live your life. What we developed in 01:26:56.659 --> 01:26:59.399 the West in the modern age was ethnocentrism, 01:26:59.479 --> 01:27:03.079 racism, eugenics, to justify colonial practices, 01:27:03.159 --> 01:27:05.079 not just in China, but throughout the world. 01:27:05.420 --> 01:27:10.380 But in my view, ethnocentrism and racism are 01:27:10.380 --> 01:27:13.479 not really purposeful. I think that for many 01:27:13.479 --> 01:27:16.260 people, it's kind of the default of the human 01:27:16.260 --> 01:27:20.779 mind to look at the world that way, that I'm 01:27:20.779 --> 01:27:22.619 the best and I'm better than those around me 01:27:22.619 --> 01:27:26.630 who are different. But you don't have to think 01:27:26.630 --> 01:27:29.609 that way. If you are curious about the world, 01:27:29.729 --> 01:27:32.729 and if you're willing to try, you can learn not 01:27:32.729 --> 01:27:34.750 to look at the rest of the world that way. And 01:27:34.750 --> 01:27:37.649 you can learn to take an interest in other societies, 01:27:37.909 --> 01:27:40.890 other cultures, and other countries. And if you 01:27:40.890 --> 01:27:44.069 do that, it allows you to overcome the tendency 01:27:44.069 --> 01:27:48.029 toward cultural illiteracy and overcome the misunderstandings 01:27:48.029 --> 01:27:52.329 that we have made over and over and over again. 01:27:52.970 --> 01:27:55.289 towards China and toward the rest of the world. 01:27:58.609 --> 01:28:01.170 That's it for this episode of the United States 01:28:01.170 --> 01:28:04.329 of Amnesia. Thank you for listening. We hope 01:28:04.329 --> 01:28:06.409 you learned something and we hope you discovered 01:28:06.409 --> 01:28:08.670 new ways of looking at things you had already 01:28:08.670 --> 01:28:11.850 heard or thought about or perhaps hadn't heard 01:28:11.850 --> 01:28:14.770 about. If you enjoyed it, that's great. If we 01:28:14.770 --> 01:28:18.239 made you mad, that's okay too. Either way, email 01:28:18.239 --> 01:28:22.680 us at usa .amnesia at gmail .com and let us know 01:28:22.680 --> 01:28:25.199 what you think. Also, let us know about anything 01:28:25.199 --> 01:28:27.579 you think we missed or got wrong. We'd like to 01:28:27.579 --> 01:28:30.819 know about that too. And of course, please like 01:28:30.819 --> 01:28:32.920 and subscribe and let your friends and neighbors 01:28:32.920 --> 01:28:36.420 know about us. We also have a website. It's www 01:28:36.420 --> 01:28:43.220 .usofamnesia .com. For Marshall, Mike, and myself, 01:28:43.460 --> 01:28:45.380 Blake Henke. Till next time.