Image Gallery for Tea, Drugs, and Jesus

This gallery of photos, maps, and other images add to our Tea, Drugs, and Jesus audio series about how the United States has always misunderstood China. We expand the gallery as the series continues – and sometimes after it has concluded – and add links to episodes as they drop. So check back here from time to time, follow along in the gallery as you listen to the series, and enjoy a more immersive experience as you get better acquainted with the people, events, and locales we discuss. 

NOTE: All images are in the public domain unless otherwise indicated.

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In 1784, Benjamin Franklin wrote in praise of what he supposed was Imperial China's system of educational attainment and its salutary effect on Chinese society. Enlightenment figures like Franklin actually had little accurate information on China, but conjured an imaginary version of it to extol societal virtues they wished to champion in America and Europe. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade)

1785 advertisement for the sale of Chinese goods the merchant ship Empress of China brought to the United States. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade)

The East India Company flag in 1842. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade and Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

A Chinese tea plantation during the first half of the 19th century. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade)

An 1824 painting of opium ships arriving in China. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade and Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

A 19th-century illustration of Chinese opium smokers. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade and Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

A busy opium storehouse in India during the 19th century. (Episode 201: The Flag Follows Trade and Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

The United States tried to establish a ginseng (above) trade with China. (Attribution: 국립국어원; used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Korea license. It may be reused under that license.) (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

Marine mammal pelts were another commodity exploited in U.S. trade with China. Above: Northern fur seals, one source of pelts. (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

Seal lions were another source of fur. . . (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

. . .as were sea otters. (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

The United States attempted to trade in sandalwood (left) and in sea cucumbers (right) in China. (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

An 1850 portrait of Lin Zexu, who tried to clean up China's problem with opium. His efforts triggered the First Opium War. (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

A British Royal Navy warship (right background) destroys Chinese junks during the First Opium War (1839–1842). (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

Chinese and British troops in combat during the First Opium War (1839–1842). (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

A 1916 portrait of Qishan, whose peace agreement with the British infuriated the Chinese emperor. (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

The signing of the Treaty of Nanking (now Nanjing) in 1842, which opened China to foreign influence, including trade and missionaries. (Episode 202: Conflict Follows Trade)

Clipper ships were very fast for their time and gave the United States a maritime trade advantage for about a decade in the mid-19th century.  (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith)

A leader of the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), possibly Hong Xiuquan himself. (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith)

Ground and naval combat during the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864). (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith)

An 1857 Harper's Weekly illustration of Chinese miners in California. (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith)

Chinese laborers constructing a railroad in the western United States in the 19th century. (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith)

LEFT: Charlie Soong at Vanderbilt University, which he attended from 1882 to 1886. RIGHT: Sun Yat-Sen in 1922. (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith)

Henry Luce on the cover of Time. (Episode 203: Rebellion Follows Faith and Episode 205: The Soong Dynasty)

An 1898 French political cartoon depicts foreign powers carving up China into spheres of influence. (Episode 204: The Harmonious Fists)

Boxer soldiers, ca. 1900. (Episode 204: The Harmonious Fists)

United States Marines in combat with the Boxers at the Legation Quarter in Peking (now Beijing) in the summer of 1900. (Episode 204: The Harmonious Fists)

U.S. soldiers in China during the Boxer Rebellion, ca. 1900. (Episode 204: The Harmonious Fists)

The Soong sisters. (Episode 205: The Soong Dynasty)

Pearl S. Buck in 1960. Her best-selling 1931 novel The Good Earth won the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (Episode 205: The Soong Dynasty)

Chinese soldiers advancing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (July 1937–August 1945). Some historians regard it as a separate war throughout its eight-year duration, while others view at as becoming a part of World War II when World War II spread to East Asia and the Pacific in December 1941. (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo)

The Burma Road, built in 1937-1938, was Chiang Kai-shek's supply lifeline from 1938 until the Japanese conquest of Burma (now Myanmar) cut it in early 1942. Supplies arrived by sea at Rangoon (at lower left, now Yangon), went by train to Lashio (at center left), and then by truck along the Burma Road to Chiang's wartime capital at Chungking (at top center, now Chongqing). (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo)

The U.S. insignia of the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II incorporated the sun-and-ray marking of the military forces of the Republic of China (upper left), the white star marking of U.S. military forces (upper right), and imagery connoting the United States flag. (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Uncle Sam shakes hands with a Chinese Nationalist soldier beneath a portrait of Sun Yat-sen in an October 1942 U.S. Government poster encouraging American support for the Republic of China — Chiang Kai-shek's government — which Franklin Roosevelt hoped would emerge from World War II as one of the "Four Policemen" enforcing collective security in the postwar world. (Episode 205: The Soong Dynasty, Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo, and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

General Joseph Stilwell (right) walks out of Burma in May 1942. (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo)

Chiang Kai-shek, Madame Chiang (Soong Mei-ling), and General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell in 1942. Chiang used the title "Generalissimo" as the commander-in-chief of Allied forces in China. (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson (left) and U.S. Army Chief of Staff General George C, Marshall (right), supported Stilwell's view that Chiang Kai-shek's government and army had to be reformed and that a quid pro quo approach to Chiang, denying him Lend-Lease aid if he did not cooperate, was necessary for American success in China in World War II. (Marshall photo: Attribution Marshall Foundation Archives; used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. It may be reused under that license.) (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Lauchlin Currie, FDR's chief economic advisor, recommended a softer approach to Chiang Kai-shek than the one Stimson, Marshall, and Stilwell advocated. Currie believed that Chiang needed time in which to enact reforms, and that too much pressure on him would backfire on the United States – and perhaps even drive Chiang to make a separate peace with Japan. (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo)

General Joseph "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, left, and Major General Claire Chennault ("Old Leatherface"), right, were bitter rivals in China. (Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

LEFT: A Chinese soldier guards U.S. Army Air Forces P-40 Warhawk fighters with "Flying Tigers" markings, ca. 1942. RIGHT: P-40s of the Flying Tigers fly in a tight formation on May 28, 1942. (Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Journalist Joseph Alsop (left) and presidential advisor Harry Hopkins (right) championed Chennault's ideas for victory in China, while Stimson and Marshall continued to support Stilwell's views. (Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Madame Chiang at the Cairo Conference in November 1943. The Roosevelt administration touted Chiang Kai-shek as one of the great statesmen and military leaders of the world. (Episode 205: The Soong Dynasty, Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo, and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

After Japan conquered Burma between December 1941 and May 1942 and cut the Burma Road, the United States Army Air Forces operated the "Over the Hump" airlift (red and orange dotted lines) between India and China from 1942 to 1945. In December 1942, the Allies began the construction of the Ledo Road (the double solid line running across the upper part of the map) which ran from Ledo in India (at top center) to Chungking (at upper right, now Chongqing) in China. In order to complete it, the Allies had to push the Japanese out of northern Burma, which they did during 1944. When it opened in January 1945, the Ledo Road – renamed the Stilwell Road in early 1945 – linked India and China by land, crossing northern Burma to connect in the vicinity of Bhamo (near the southernmost loop of the road, near the center of the map) to part of the original Burma Road that had remained under Allied control (the eastern part of the road). Chennault believed that the airlift alone was sufficient to meet Allied supply needs in China, while Stilwell insisted that an overland route via the Ledo Road was essential. (Attribution: Modified version of an image created by SY; used and modified under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. It may be reused under that license.) (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Two views of United States Army Air Forces C-46 Commando transport planes flying over the Himalayas on the "Over the Hump" airlift route between India and China during World War II. The airlift operated from 1942 to 1945. (Episode 206: Vinegar Joe and the Generalissimo and Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

LEFT: The United States Army's 5307th Composite Unit (Provisional), known as "Merrill's Marauders," in Burma (now Myanmar) in 1944 during the successful Allied campaign to drive the Japanese out of northern Burma and clear the way for the construction of the Ledo Road. RIGHT: "Merrill's Marauders" commander Colonel (later Brigadier General) Frank Merrill (left) and General Joseph Stilwell (right) meet near Naubaum, Burma. (Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Trucks on the Ledo Road in 1945. It opened in January 1945 and was renamed the Stilwell Road in early 1945. (Episode 207: Flying Tigers and Burmese Roads)

Historian Barbara W. Tuchman in June 1971. Her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–1945, was published in 1971 and won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

LEFT: President Franklin Roosevelt hoped that China would emerge from World War II under Chiang Kai-shek as one of the "Four Policemen" of the postwar world. (Attribution: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum; used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. It may be reused under that license.) RIGHT: President Harry Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt upon Roosevelt's death in office in April 1945, lacked FDR's enthusiasm for Chiang and his government. Truman hoped that if a Communist government took control of China it would break with the Soviet Union as Tito had in Yugoslavia. In the longer run, he also assumed that a Communist government in China inevitably would collapse someday, and he believed that a democratic government controlled by neither the Communists or Chiang's corrupt Nationalists would one day emerge. 

LEFT: Soviet troops move into Manchuria in August 1945 after the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Japan on August 8. The Soviets defeated Japanese forces in Manchuria in about three weeks, and Soviet forces remained in Manchuria until May 1946. (Attribution: Mil.ru; used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. It may be reused under that license.) RIGHT: Chinese Communist troops march north to Soviet-occupied Manchuria in 1945. Soviet occupation forces in Manchuria protected the Chinese Communists and turned over captured Japanese equipment and supplies to them.

Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tse-tung (now Mao Zedong) meet in Chungking (now Chongqing) in 1945. Post-World War II clashes between the Nationalists and Communists took place even during their negotiations. When the talks broke down, full-scale civil war resumed in June 1946.

Chinese Communist troops on the offensive in 1948 (left) and 1949 (right). Their successes during those years prompted the Communists to proclaim the People's Republic of China in October 1949 and forced the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek to retreat to Taiwan in December 1949.

George C. Marshall (left), who served as U.S. Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, and his successor Dean Acheson (right), who served from 1949 to 1953, both faced the problem of dealing with Communist successes in the final stages of the Chinese Civil War.

Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, left, and Congressman Walter Judd (R-Minnesota), right, were prominent figures in the "China lobby," which urged maximum support to Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist government after World War II.

British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Ernest Bevin offered the United Kingdom's official recognition of the People's Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China in 1950. Although strongly anti-communist, he viewed recognition of the PRC as pragmatic, given the PRC's control of the vast majority of China's population and territory after 1949, as well as a necessary step to preserve British economic interests in China and the security of Hong Kong, which was a British possession from 1841 to 1997.

The "domino theory" held that a monolithic "international communism" would spread by conquering one country at a time, moving on to adjacent countries after each success. Thus, the "fall" of China to "international communism" would lead to the fall of Vietnam, and communism in this manner would spread to Cambodia, Laos, and beyond, with each country falling as if in a line of dominoes. This theory required the United States to use force to stop "international communism" by opposing communist forces wherever they arose – notably in Vietnam, to defend not only South Vietnam but the rest of Southeast Asia – and even South Asia – as well. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia did eventually become communist, but the domino theory failed to take into account that communism was not monolithic or that communist movements in Southeast Asia were anti-colonial nationalist movements rather than part of an "international" communism. (Attribution: Wikimedia image used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license and the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.)

President John F. Kennedy during a press briefing on March 23, 1961. His map depicting communist rebel areas in Laos as of the previous day reflects the influence of the domino theory during the era, which made no distinction between communist movements in Laos and those in Vietnam, both of which in American strategic thinking of the time were simply part of a monolithic "international communism" threatening the entire world.

Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin), left, and his attorney Roy Cohn in 1954. Spurred by communism's success in China, they were among the architects of the "Second Red Scare" of the 1950s, during which McCarthy and his allies sought to rid the United States government of what they alleged was a cabal of communists who were undermining the country during the Cold War. They also played a prominent role in the simultaneous "Lavender Scare," which demanded the expulsion of homosexuals from U.S. government employment. Homosexuality was stigmatized in 1950s America, and many Americans of the era saw an intersection between communism and homosexuality, viewing both as morally weak, psychologically disturbed, godless, and destructive of traditional families. Cohn later became an influential mentor of future president Donald Trump.

Mao Tse-tung (now Mao Zedong) and President Richard Nixon shake hands in Beijing on February 21, 1972.