Standard tropes of publishing a book is it has to answer the question why did you write about this topic in the question in the first place . You are supposed to have a thoughtful answer about how you had a lifelong interest in this topic and you always dreamed about exploring it more deeply. This topic was proposed to me by my publisher. I had a lifelong interest in china or almost a lifelong interest, having studied it, studied chinese going back many years and how they lived there a few years, and travels even today i go almost every year but my publisher actually finished my previous book and asked me to pick a year and write a book about it in china. Started looking through years and ive thought about 1938, interesting year in china. 1944, the year kicked out of china by shanghai check but Barbara Tuchman that topic, forever. So i started looking at 1945 until the end of world war ii until the an end of world war ii. It was a good topic. Really truly upset seminole watershed in American History. Like to think of this book, mordant chinese history. Buck prevailing conventional wisdom. And when we started working on the book i was going to write a book that would substantiate that conventional wisdom but i was going to write it in a not very readable way bringing this incredible cast of characters to life but wasnt going to have much new interpretive lead to say. When i got into it, the more not to put too fine a point on it everyone who had written about this topic before me was wrong including the aforementioned Barbara Tuchman. I know that is an outrageous and pretentious statement and i may get only half seriously but half seriously is half seriously. Is not entirely in ingest. They are more deeply into the topic and if you look at the materials and puzzled out the context i did feel a number of the things that i believed certainly up to that point really did need substantial revision. So i have three i could list a bunch of what i think is a common misconception not only about that year but about American Relations with china and the situation in United States found itself in during that time in world war ii. To set the scene those who were not familiar with that, we were our major goal in the Pacific Theater of the war was to kick the japanese out of china insofar as people thought carefully about it, and people thinking about it, it was always a secondary theater during the war. The goal was for there to be democratic proamerican friendly china. The problem was the Chinese Government had become autocratic and was losing popularity, and newly expanded communist party in the northwest, everybody in china as though not everybody in the United States news that these two parties were inevitably going to come to a final showdown once the war was over and the winner was going to take control of all of china. Does this sound familiar . Think about afghanistan. Dont we face the same situation in afghanistan . We wanted to bring about a democratic proamerican afghanistan and backing a corrupt and unpopular government against a force that is in the nickel to our values and deeply in liberal, much more illiberal in fact that we believe Chinese Communists were at the time and the other guys seemed to be winning. You can go through the decades from 1945 on and come to the realization that this situation the United States faced in china 1945 reincarnated itself numerous times throughout history and this is the beginning of this terrible agonizing pain wishing and in some respects unsolvable american dilemma as the great power in asia. What do you do when you have a government in power that you think for all its flaws is better to remain in power. For some reason more effective, in the show down the other guys i going to win. There are a number of misconceptions that have gained currency and credibility, one of the reasons the communists were probably more popular than the nationalists, had a kind of glow, in deep disillusionment with the nationalists especially among intellectuals, educated people and i talk about these people in the book and have gained credibility because he was the one who had led this brave Guerrilla Campaign against the japanese. Shanghai check had done nothing by keeping his best troops facing the communists in the northwest while waiting for the United States to win the war for him. And in the months and years preceding 1945, the opposite of the truth. Actually shanghai check held out against the japanese for eight years. Think about this. Transfer six long weeks, every country in europe fell, the british in hong kong literally hundreds of thousands, millions of troops held on for eight years, you have to read the book for the evidence. Held on for eight years. They kept his best forces in reserve for the battle that was to come. Can you really blame him . The roosevelt, had a certain sympathy, another lonely figure off the top was furious with him, complained to his son, why doesnt this guy fight . Why is he not fighting . Why we on the same side to defeat the japanese, what they didnt realize were the true chinese parties were not republicans and come to an agreement and the loser of the election would wait four years and try again. It had never had a coalition in all that time. Contesting parties had never come to an agreement to work out a coalition, not to fight, not to prepare for a war with the communists, on the grounds, somehow it would work out. They would come to terms, a grand total of one major battle against the japanese. 100 regiments offensive, undertaken by the commander of communist forces, and the opposition of mouth and try to preserve communist forces. And what they accused him of was true at the communist, both parties in china were waiting for the war to come to an end and they were going to fight against each other. That is misconception number one. Now fought the japanese. That is why he was more popular. And before 1940 also. The second misconception this is going to relate a little bit, a separate misconception, the three i was going to talk about. Nationalists first and communists second. It was almost an article of faith among the diplomatic corps and the journalists in china who often tend to see things in the same way. And John Patten Davies could be captured from the soviets if only we would build a bridges and relations with the communists. An interesting part of the series ended delegation, we had very close relations, american journalists and diplomats used to dance with john change in what was called the peak garden on saturday night parties, they used to sit in their caves was more often to drink tea late into the night, talking about things and talk about how he was opposed to one Party Dictatorships like the one the was exercised in china and the one that stalin had in the soviet union. He was not going to have that kind of 1party dictatorship when he came to power in china. Is a longrange goal but this is almost a direct quote, we would be happy to have an american smile democracy in china. He said that. We believed it. We thought he really wasnt an ideological and was a practical sort of guy and if we will rebuild bridges to him he wouldnt side with the soviet union in the postwar. This is a topic i found absolutely fascinating and i want to read a couple short packages on this topic. A chapter called hiding the knife takes place in the context of extremely good relations between the communists and the americans, diplomats and journalists. The relationship between the russians and the Chinese Communists involves something broader and deeper than money and moral support. It was an entire cultural and political transmission. It was of vocabulary. A manner of analysis known as dialectical reasoning, a set of practices, in a political vision. And Progressive Forces of history of exportation and reaction. Departing from that vision from the time he became a charter member of the party in 1921 until his death 55 years later when he leaned to one side in june of 1949, one of his favorite comments announcing he would side with the soviets in the cold war, mao attributed his success to what he regarded as superior tools of marxism, leninism, brilliance and promises with the bolshevik revolution of 1917. Communists the world over were wiser, 28 anniversary of the sea cps founding. Laws governing the existence on the development of things. They understand dialectic and conceive farther. Some of the things that tied these parties together, when reading Chinese Communists or their family members became seriously ill they went to moscow for medical treatments were two of maos why then 1939 after he broke a bone in his elbow falling from of course. Membership in this society was like membership in occult. Was all encompassing exclusive, all consuming, dozens of Chinese Communists in russia were swept up in 1938 and dispatched to the gulag. In many instances these people were informed on by other Chinese Communists. Was foreshadowing of the savage in fighting, and was actually in the chinese diaper baby was brought to moscow by her parents. Only went to china couldnt speak word of chinese, only spoke russian. Theyve been that a school, learned to love comrade stalin. There was a child that grew up in the same lynn sim whose father spent 17 years in a siberian war camp believes the secret police chief of mao and his henchmen in the purges that were to follow. Fellow communists in moscow in 1930s was aimed at covering up his earlier role in chinese revolutionaries in the soviet union. The very language of chinese communism, symbols and modes of discourse. Notions of socialist realism, at the central committees, politburos newspapers and the radical journals, specialized vocabulary, internal debate and struggle, an entire ideological labels, and left adventures or right opportunists, deviation revisionism as well as the, quote, correctness of the party line and later the boilerplate of adulation that victorious revolutionaries such as mao, the romanian and vietnamese ho chi minh use in their own calls of godlike genius leader. All of this was nurtured and supported by an encyclopedia of terms, concepts believes and techniques translated by the original russian. The success of the bolshevik revolution having made the soviet union in the eyes of countless oppressed and colonized people a pass toward a radiant future the shores of socialism was the expression, promised land. Those are the cultural aspects of it. There is much else that i dont have time to go into right now. Ideological or contingent that meant that the outcome, was absolutely inevitable. I dont believe for a minute even though i used to believe it that we had any opportunity to turn mao, certainly of friend, but not even the opportunity to defer or of lloyd the antagonism that followed the end of the war so that the Chinese Communists could have been not very hostile. At least you have a semi normal relationship with them so that we would not for example have fought the korean war or the vietnam war if we had not had that kind of in a correlation should with the Chinese Communists. Is a very important issue. And it bears what american policy should be in the situations as they continue to come up but my belief after doing the reading and i make a good case in the book, you will have to judge whether i do or not, is that mao is going to side with stalin no matter what we do. And the third that is the third misconception, the second one is he was more of a nationalist than an ideologue and the third misconception which is related is if we had only been nicer things would have turned out very differently. One of the most interesting and painful parts of this history coming into the picture, that is the role of the china hands. There is a group of men, they were all men among the journalists were some women, very important but the diplomats were all women more men. The conventional this is one of the great debate that took place in the United States, the china hands who new mao, studied china, many had been born in china, several had been born there with missionary parents, spoke chinese, they believed probably we could have a better outcome and this is a tricky issue because as you know later after china was, quote, lost to the communists and the mccarthy writes, the far right wing in america look for somebody to blame they blamed these men. But even before mccarthy their careers were destroyed when they came into conflict with another central character in the book named patrick j. Hurley, the american ambassador, roosevelt that special emissary to china and the american ambassador, called the wrong man. I am not a fan of patrick j. Early. I am a fan of John Patten Davies and these other very brave forthright, honest men. One of those things one of the few personal notes i put in the book is i dont believe for a minute that if i had been there i would have done any better than they did in their analyses of china. They are an extraordinary group. They got something wrong and what they got wrong was the nature of the Chinese Communist party and the nature of mao. An illustration during the time they werent there, writing glowing reports about how these people were prone to democracy, they were just great, we have to build a relationship with them, they are going to win, we have to have a relationship with them they are more americans and russians. Mao was at the tail end of something called the Rectification Campaign 194244 which was the first time and, when he systematically purged any kind of dissent rather cruelly, purge any kind of dissent within the Chinese Communist movement and emerge with a stalinist living god kind of aura. This kind of thing was totally absent from any of the reporting that the china hands did and the journal the journal is even worse by the way. Even though again, if i had been there i know how hard it is to get things right when you are a foreign correspondent. They got it wrong. They got a lot right they certainly got a lot right about shanghai check and nationalists but they fundamentally got the communists wrong. Finally, there are other things to talk about but i want to stop and have a conversation rather than go on at greater length but i was talking to somebody the person who told me the wesley clark i will never forgive him, talking to me about pakistan today and how mysterious pakistan is for the United States. Is it a friend . It is an enemy . We think about china in the same way in a way. China is less mysterious than pakistan, but is china and anthony . Is it a future rival . Is it a country we can cooperate with . We have a lot in common. We entered into these situations, there is an innocence abroad quality to the United States, we dont really fool the fully understand what is going on. There is something hidden in motivations. Maybe i can be guilty of a kind of cliche about the inscrutability of the east and i dont want to be guilty of that. I think easterners can be understood in the same way it that westerners can be, but because maybe they are a little farther from our culture and they dont share our liberal democratic heritage they are a little bit harder for us to understand. I think in the end what this book does is portray again for the first time americans in this conundrum, this mysterious situation that as the great power they have to do something. Exactly what to do was never going to be easy just as it is not easy even today and in china and other countries. Let me stop there. See if anybody would like to be brave and ask the first question. [applause] if you can. I fink why dont you wait, do you want to be second . Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I certainly give way. Learn to move fast herep heart of your thesis here or was he being totally misleading in his sort of friendliness to the u. S. In 1945, and knew right from the earliest times . Part of the reason i ask that question is it seems to me he would have had good reason to fear the soviet union after the end of award given what you say, communist dictators dont like to share power and tend to think in terms of ultimate conflict between them. It wouldnt seem unreasonable to me stuffing for a period of time his position would have been stronger, having a border, sharing of border if he was to side with the wests to some extent. Did he purposely mislead us right from the earliest or did he change his mind over the pier the 19451950 . Excellent question. Let me say two things about it. He didnt think one of the reasons we misunderstood him is because our classic diplomatic balance of power, as the operating principle in International Affairs and it made sense that now mao would want to balance the power of the nearer neighbor by having good relations with another superpower. It made a lot of sense. In fact, one of the this superpower, we have been since the day that japan, the germans and the japanese surrendered. We tend to think what we do was decisive in the world and it is funny, i was looking through the materials through this book nobody seems to talk about the options that were available to mao. It is as follows the argument has been we took a hostile position to him because we gave help to his enemy, especially after the war. We could not give help to it will tangle up my argument or confuse myself. He could have if he had been the Nelson Mandela kind of character he could have adopted a kind of lets have reconciliation within china but he didnt do that. Was the opposite of someone like Nelson Mandela or gondi. He could have taken a kind of night room like position, a contemporary of mao, emerging as a leader of newly independent india and other big world third world country. They decided on a kind of neutrality, wanted to balance the great powers against each other. He didnt do that but had those choices. One reason he couldnt take those leases is stalin would never have allowed him to do it. It would have involved we know what was written out of the communist movement the International Communist movement because of heterodoxy. Mao could have been tivo and many people thought not at the time because 1945 tito wasnt tito yet but later looking back people say if we had a different policy in china mao could have been tito like. He broke with the soviets in 1960 anyway. They would have done it much earlier. He broke with the soviets long after stalin was dead. I dont think the evidence is clear or strong that while stalin was a live there would be no breaking with the soviets. He was going to be to the and talking at the seventh party congress. And two. And that leaders comrade stalin. And in his own mind. May be in his own mind he wasnt deceitful. The tactical goal was to be friendly for the United States, he wanted arms for the United States, and he would take the land for the japanese were evaluating. Nationalist tip, we take sovereignty over that very land he didnt like it. But somehow he could have implemented with the United States, but kept in mind the long term strategic goal which was to be an International Revolutionary following the example of comrade stalin. To square that circle. I would like to introduce the next consulate general in shanghai before and was my roommate in graduate school. I think it is a terrific presentation and i look forward to reading the book and you will be interesting. I have two things. You say the japanese and now, what is your conclusion. It uses in more detail, the strength of the communists was their guerrilla activities in china and didnt they degrade the japanese effort maybe not as much. That is an important correction. That is action against the japanese and in fact 1945 when the japanese were repatriated, we sent 50,000 marines to china to occupy the northchina to occupy the northeastern port cities to facilitate the evacuation of the japanese. American marines found themselves patrolling railroad lines, shipment lines and things like that to keep china going until the government could retake possession of its own territory and the japanese would say watch out for these communists. They are dangerous. They will appear out of nowhere and take shots at you and they did. 12 americans were killed in 1945 in action against the United States. My point is not that they did nothing. My point is they filed the same strategy as the nationalists. If you look at the casualty figures, i dont have them in my head but the number of casualties the communists took, a minuscule fraction of the casualties there forces were much smaller. But towards the end of the war they had 1 million men and the difference is during the war the fight against japan degraded the nationalist forces because they were decimated and that chinese were able to strengthen themselves and recover. That doesnt mean they never fought. They were equally patriotic and they were equally anxious to kick the japanese out. They hated the japanese as much as others did, and in some respects they still do. And the idea at that they are the ones that is the main brunt of the fighting against the japanese is on this. Second question. I take your point. It is a good one. George marshall. I cant recall, he went in 46 i think rather than 45. December of 45. And the third thing he said, no matter what he did we couldnt have changed the situation. Was one of our best people that he said, the roman efforts to try to bring this together. His failure to me, marshall in 1945 and tis thman sent him to china to be the ambassador and to handle the negotiations to work out a coalition arrangement between two sides in shy. And the most prestigious figure in the worlers chu forhill voted out of office. And february or march of 45, and there was a victory in a europe and asia and had a kind of personality that meant itself to tremendous authority and trustworthiness and made heroic efforts to bridge the gap between the two sides and they thought he would win. I do deal with marshall and two chapters towards the end. Another concession. The idea came from my publisher. Concession number 2, the book starts in august of 1944 and enward in april you are forgiven. If somebody can come out with a title, that would be bemater than china 1945 maos revolution and americas fateful chep ce, that would accomplish that. I would be grateful. One of the attackers is called marshal comes close. Marshal comes close. It is an account by april ofr t5 because of what happens, even though marshall state on in china for a year. And that civil war was gep ng to happen no matter what we did. If he couldnt do it, who could . Why was the korean war useful to mao . Actually it wasnt useful to mao. Was extremely disis thptive to mao. Because of the atmosphere, the poisonous atmosphere between the countries when mccarthy began to advance towards the yellow river and the chinese border the chinese decided they had to get into the war to stop that from happening and they inflicted probably the worst single amount, one of you knows better than i do, certainly one of the worst if not the worst military defeat in all of American History was inflicted by the Chinese Communists but if we had an embassy in beijing, if we were talking to the Chinese Communists, if we werent standing between them and the liberation of taiwan, then this atmosphere of animosity and distrust that led to maos intervention in the korean war would have prevailed, there would have been no need to invade. Dont forget the rvrean war to some extent, the vietnam war was the proxy war against china. And we had good relations with china we would have no need to fight a proxy war against china. Band let5 face it, that is why this is an important subject. Theres no greater disaster American History than the vietnam war. First of all i am delighted you got rid of all, miinuonceptions. I was born and raised in the shanghai. Coming now, and of the things i wish to pep nt out, when they talked about a glowing report which is john davis and all these peoples, the peopl rs Liberation Army walked in shanghai on may 25th, 1949 the few farmers that revers, and the chinese because of all this propagandas they heard overs the years that they very kind nice to the peasants never stealing anything. This is carried on. They found out in six months it was a different story when they took over the estam mishment. Thank you very much. I wish i had known you when i was still doing the resea form mi i am a lith without exception these people were savaged after the communists. It was published in liberation daily. Criticized the communist movement for its levels of privilege, the leaders had better food better clothes, better clothes for their kids, everything was better and why should this be . Why are we replicating the bills of the old society. This was something to single out one person. That person becomes the target, everyone else has to line up and denounce that person to show that you are okay ideologically. The editor of liberation daily published the essay when he became the target of attack, she lined up and wrote an essay about what we can learn from the reactionary case, and there was a target of that kind of National Campaign of it lasted for years until mao was dead and came to power and they began to reverse these verdicts. What was the calculations that led to the soviets giving china nuclearweapons. Did it have to do with their role in the korean war . This is later and i dont feel that. I am not knowledgeable about the specifics of that but your question does lead me to make one observation a didnt make before which is february of 1945, stalin and churchill meet. One of roosevelts main purposes was to get stalin to agree to invade manchuria once the war in europe was over. He agreed as the price for this fat the soviets would get colonial privileges in manchuria including the port and naval base in the south manchurian railroad. The soviets also stripped the japanese factories from manchuria which was their industrial heartland and brought it back to the soviet union. They never heard any protest about that. To me there is irony in that because roosevelt was pleading with stalin to do what stalin was anxious to do any way which was once the war in europe was over to occupy manchuria and give himself a voice in the postwar settlement and put himself into a position of the size of importance and i think the critical event i should have mentioned before was exactly, was the soviet occupation of manchuria. Once they occupied manchuria, shanghai check was finished. One other question. Do you find mao is totally and savory they come across to me as despicable guy in many respects. Defined anything redeeming about the man . Official chinese verdict is he was 70 good and 30 bad, 70 right and 30 wrong. I think he was 85 wrong or bad. And wont use the word bad, he did do things that he had the advantage of starting all over again with a country devastated by the japanese invasion. Shanghai check took power at a much more difficult time. Mao came along the soil was newly plowed and he was able to plant what he wanted much more so than shanghai check. He reunified china in 1927 with the northern expedition and he had all kinds of things to contend with, various warlords, military factions. A country the communists of course and the japanese four years later occupied manchuria and turned it into a puppet state. He was the very difficult situation and i dont think it was quite appreciated at the time. Mao was not in that situation. He had much more power. Everybody else was very weak after eight years of war with the japanese. He did some good things, he unified their country spread literacy he spread basic health care. He gave the Chinese People pride. They finally stood up after many years of humiliation at the hands of the imperialists powers not only japan but most of japan. If mao had died before the 100 Flowers Movement of 1956, and the anti writers campaign of 1957 we would be talking about what a great leader he was. Even though the seeds of his madness were planted in the campaign of 4244, i think he would be deemed to be a great man. The chinese would be right, 70 right, 30 wrong. But he didnt die in 1955 or 1956. One more question. Sorry. I arrived and late. The chinese who were against mao were all so they were for mao and later they criticized him secretly. There were some westerners who were advisers, michael lindsay, he went to yemen to help mao. Michael lindsay in case you dont know, at American University teaching history. And his granddaughter is working to offer the congressional research. Lock her up. Has a wealth of stories. Her name is susan lawrence. Susan lawrence, susan lawrence. Question is these westerners who were advising the communist party, not to go to extremes, they should do this or that or what happens to them. That is a very interesting story. Westerners that i talked about were not advising mao. In some areas they were reporting very favorably on mao. Goes back to edgar snow. The beginning point of the myths and heroic romantic mess of mao, the great revolutionary great fighter against the japanese, even though this happened in 193738 or thereabouts, talk about edgar snow because most people, another misconception people think edgar snow chose to visit the communist but it was the communist to shows edgar snow, it was stalins advice to mao that he needed to improve his image in the west and find somebody to talk to him and give him interviews and get the word out about him and a parallel, the chinese preface is controlled the official publications are essentials the organs of the ministry of propaganda, in the days that i lived there in the early 80s, chinas government officials use to turn to reports on them from the western reporters to find out things that couldnt be reported. This continues to some extent. This is one of the reasons the current leadership doesnt want google or facebook or all of that stuff, they feel they were poisoned in the minds of the chinese. Edgar snow came back, went back to beijing where he was living and had some adventure eight mm movies and showed them to Chinese Students that he knew including character in the book, half of the diplomatic and journalistic core was incredibly beautiful. She had gone there because she went because news about the communists was banned in nationalist china and she found out about them at a friends apartment and other Young Chinese full of idealism and wanting to join this radiant new movement, learned about it through edgar snow. This particular person, very interesting. I think he spoke some chinese. He had been in china not according to his interpretation. Okay. Anyway. Thank you very much. Keep it brief. Right. This will be the second i think he was a communist who went to do medical work during the war and made use by mao by mao tse tung when mao published a book for the great heroes of the people, forget what the title of it is and two others i dont know but this is required reading of all the chinese, the three people mao placed enormous there is a whole history outside the scope of my book although i glanced at this, americans for non americans who are gripped by the vision of revolution, lived through the depression and who saw in the communists in general the hope for a better future. As we all know i grew up with uncles and and its that way. And another example and snows wife, there were a lot of them and some of them stayed on. Israel epstein, a polish jewish refugee who went to china early in the war to escape the nazis became a member of the Chinese Communist party stayed in china until his death. He was still there. I met him in 1980 or 1981 at the American Embassy of all places. [applause] bring them back here. Tomorrow on in depth Walter Isaacson bestselling author of several books including biographies of albert einstein, benjamin franklin, steve jobs and Henry Kissinger will answer your questions live for three hours. Walter isaacson is former chairman and ceo 0 of cnn, chair of the broadcasting board of governors and former editor of time magazine. He currently serves as president and ceo of the aspen institute. You can call into the program live for email, four post your questions on facebook. Heres a look at some books being published this week. Over the week that them