And general Staff College in fort leavenworth. For the better part of the past century, it seems, we have been trying to figure out our relationship with china. Right now we see china as a linchpin in what might happen with north korea. Two countries with the most biggest economies, a fifth of our exports come from them, a fifth of their exports come from we do not know really we are allies are adversaries. We are fortunate to have with us one of the foremost authorities on u. S. China relations, jeff have. Babb. F he will examine a key 50 years been in the relationship of the two countries, in this case from 1900 and 1950 that really set the stage for a lot of what was to come, including south korea, the korean war and the vietnam war. Its a period hes looking at that started with american involvement in conjunction with the boxer rebellion of 1900. This, of course was before xi , jinping is even a twinkle in Donald Trumps eye, or maybe its vice versa, im not sure. As i said before the event , continues. I think our favorite and most successful Programming Partnership with the command and general Staff College, they are specialist, and i am sure many of you have been to their presentations before. They do not fail. They are engaging, they are enlightening, and they are entertaining. They are terrific to have here. I think this is geoffs first time here. Hes overdue. Hes taught there since 1991. Hes a retired u. S. Armys special forces officer. He was a lieutenant colonel. He was trained by the army as a china for an area foreign area officer, which is one of the Military Branch experts of the region. He served on the joint staff. He was in the Defense Intelligence agency, so he has an intelligence background. He was a senior china analyst and Deputy Director of current intelligence with the u. S. Civic Pacific Command he served , with the army Pacific Command. He is steeped in asian and china relations. And a doctorate in history from k. U. There is nobody better to walk us through one of the worlds geopolitical relationships. Please welcome geoff babb. [applause] dr. Babb hi, great to be here tonight. I have done work on china since 1979. It has been an adventure. Ill start off by saying anyone who says they are an expert on china is a fool. Im going to run you through the history and then you can make up your own mind whether my take on it is the one that you believe in or not. I started off with john cato don k fairbank who was the , foremost american historian on china. He and his wife both served in china during world war ii ii. World war ii. And he was a professor at harvard. When he basically outlined in this one slide is how he got we get started. Believe it or not, there was a pivot to asia before november of 2011, when the soon not to be president clinton announced it during the obama administration. But as you can see, we are a pacific power. Manifest destiny did not stop in San Francisco, it kept going. With alaska, the opening up of japan, and 10 years before the opening up of japan, the United States made their first treaty with china. Iang xi,the treaty of where we got mostfavorednation and extraterritoriality for american businessman that were in china. And you can see this next slide, the United States navy was in china for a long time. We were patrolling the internal rivers of china in 1854. Now i wanted to do this prelude , but i did not want to start with the boxer rebellion like we just arrived that day. For all intents and purposes, we actually start trading with china with this ship, the empress of china in 1784. And with those ships, the trade with china begins, and it is still out there. As a matter of fact, it were usually the number one or number two trading partner with china. People tend not to forget that. The end of the day, we did that on the young zero for Yangtze River all the way up until 1949. Very interestingly, young men was the First Chinese graduate, graduated from yale and got american citizenship. It was later taken away from him. But in 1872, there were 120 students who went to connecticut and started to study in the United States. It was part of something called the self strengthening movement. Here, li han over is essentially the foreignpolicy advisor for the ching dynasty. You will see his name in a lot of different places doing a lot of different things, because he was basically their key diplomats. He also helped form one of their armies during the taiping rebellion. The chinese actually should have done better than the japanese in building a modern military. But somewhere down the road, somebody needs to come in and talk to you about the restoration and what the japanese did so you can compare , and contrast the japanese to the chinese. Because the chinese leadership in beijing under the emperor empress dowager didnt exactly want to follow the westernization model. So there was a lot of trouble in china in terms of holding a modern military. Building a modern military. The foreign militaries were certainly there and were capable of doing it, and some of them wanted to do it. Factoriestures are of that were building weapons that were european factories that the chinese bought. But they also made the problem of dying different guns from the front people at different times, different calibers, and that essentially does not go well. And it didnt and it doesnt. The samerds would do thing. The warlords will buy airplanes, guns from different people at different times, and china has a hard time getting together an arsenal and system of arsenals that will work. Now we are ready to start, we have a bit of a background. In 1900, the empress dowager, based on the success of an indigenous religious movement called the boxers decided , that she would declare war on the west and japan and the , United States. And in doing that, began the seeds of the legations in beijing. Because of that siege, the western powers plus japan plus the United States mounted an expedition which today we would call a noncombative evacuation, to send a force in to relieve an embassy and to get the americans out that is what we were going to do. So, there are about 500 or 600 foreigners that are besieged in beijing. A small group of about 3000 leave and try to go up, and are stopped, and are unable to move further on. Its about 110 miles from the coast of china to beijing. Tengion is probably 60, 70 miles. This is where it gets started. A force of 17,000 to 18,000 will forts, moved to tengion, and basically relieve the 3000 that are trapped. They will form this larger group that will make it to beijing. If you like, the movie 55 days might just go watch that, you will be more fun. At the end of the day, the chinese dont call it the boxer rebellion. This is a picture i took at the pla museum in beijing and this is what they call it, the war against the invasion of the power eight power allied force. It wasnt a very happy affair. Within 11 years, the ching dynasty, the last of the chinese dynasties, the manchu dynasty, will fall. One could argue that the major blow was the sinojapanese war of 1894, 1895. In the boxer rebellion, the two largest groups of allies will be the russians and the japanese. The United States will have a little over 2000 people that will be part of this under one of their generals. So here are the different nations. And the allied chinese troops were essentially troops trained by the british. These are the americans, and general order number one would be the order that you take in to the general so you could get credit on your record for having served in the boxer rebellion. These are the crafts of five of crests of five of the regiments that took part. Artillery regiment, defend the fifth artillery sixth , cavalry, and the ninth, 14th, and 15th infantry regiment. We will not leave china, militarily, for the next 49 years. So, i got it. We have been in iraq for a long time. My son is serving there now. We have been in afghanistan for a long time. We have been in germany for a long time. We have been in japan for a long time. One can argue the United States military when it goes someplace, stays. [laughter] dr. Babb and this is a good example as any. We wouldnt have left when we did if it hadnt been for mao and the winning of the chinese civil war. So, if you are over there, you can get your china ribbon. These regiments still exist. Since i mentioned those places and everybody doesnt have a map of china in their head like i came to have right now, these are the forts down here. These are terrible mud flaps. You can see this meandering river, you can see the road, and railroad. We tried them all. This is the 55 days to peking, and we will eventually get to peking and relieve the delegation. The new york times, in terms of fake news, had reported the chinese had overrun the legation. They had massacred them all. And the relief formation under a british general went, well, is there still a reason to go . The answer was, its not verified. We need to go. So, they still mounted it even though there was news it was too late. It was not a popular thing to do back home. Anybody here from connecticut . Hartford . Been to mark twains house . Mark twain isnt from missouri. Hes a yankee. Well, if you go to his house, you can see some of the different writings that he had is essentially writing against full u. S. Imperialism. So, as far as the boxers were concerned, from mark twains perspective, they were the patriots and we had no right to be there. One can argue the United States and the people of the United States were split right down the middle on whether or not to do the imperialist thing globally, or whether to stay home. So one can argue that we have come by our courage desire to look at neoisolationism rightly. Theres another thing that happened though, at the end of that war, the eight powers basically presented a bill to the Chinese Government for the cost of the war. So no President Trump did not , dream up the idea of making iraq pay for it. It is something that happens before. We actually cut in half the indemnity that was going to come to the United States, and then used the indemnity to provide scholarships to chinese students. I dont know whether their immigrant visas were playing played with or not but it , wasnt on the seven country list at the time. So at the end of the day, theres a social legacy out there of the United States being different than the european powers and different in japan then japan. And there is, and some would say, a myth out there that china and the United States have a special relationship. If that myth is true, a good place to start is here with they are using the indemnity for educational purposes. Soldiers and especially marines in china from 1900 on. We guard that corridor or from so that wethe forts can always evacuate our citizens. Put the912, we will 15th infantry regiment in permanently. Permanently means until 1938. And we probably wouldnt have left in 1938 but for the Second World War beginning in china in 1937. So, this is the regiment to be in. Today if you are in the United States army and a fired up young captain or fired up young new recruit, you want to go to the 82nd airborne. Jump onto an airplane, beat people up, go everywhere. Well, in 1912 to 1938, this was the regiment to go to. And you can tell here on road marches just like the guys are, at a point in time, one of the onelsernel showed up col showed up and decided that we were getting soft and we needed to do more pt, physical training. Off we go on these 20 mile road marches. Whats interesting is in this regiment, in this time frame, will serve the some of the most famous officers from world were world war ii. Stillwell, marshall, what a mire emyer, and others. This regiment will have many officers. Theres an argument that i tried to make that the United States army understood china, he lived they lived in china. When we began to be advisors to the chinese, which will begin in 1941, we have a cadre of officers and ncos that have been to china and still will personally put the culture Language Program into this regiment. So, like today, when we want our soldiers that are going to iraq or afghanistan to speak sorry or air arabic is a longstanding , tradition of having soldiers understanding the culture of a nation they are going into, will be stationed in. And then there are the airplanes. In 1934, the colonel took airplanes into china. Now Everybody Knows the flying , tigers. Everybody knows claris hall. But before that the united , states was in there working with the chinese on building an air force before the war with japan. Now, the problem was that we sold them these weapons, taught them how to fly them then , changed how to use them against one of his own warlords. One of the warlords of a that was supposedly on his side he kind of went off track. We apparently went up to Chang Kaishek. We chastised him for using these planes for fighting his own folks, at which point he told us to pound sand and leave, which we left. We will be replaced by the italians. Name a good italian plane. So, the curtis planes we were selling them eventually died for lack of parts and lack of maintenance, and the italians came in, the planes were not very good, the training of the pilots was worse, and what you see is a disaster in 1937 in terms of the Chinese Air Force. The chinese in the early 1920s, 1924, established the military academy. At that military academy, Chang Kaishek will begin to build the professional army that should have been built in 1854. His partner in this now, for zhou enlai, which were those of you who studied china at all, is mao zedongs until they both second die in 1976. He is the deputy to Chang Kaishek. Because at that time, the nationalist party that had grown basically the same party. It was the left wing and the right wing of the party. Chang being right, zhou being the left. But they were training young officers to build the new chinese army, the chinese republican army. This is how it starts. Chang kaishek has gone to military high school in japan, has visited the soviet union. Enlai has gone to france, studied in france, and picked up his communist probabilities. Here the first two advisors at whampoa are the russians, the soviets. One of Chang Kaisheks sons, he will basically replace him when he dies as the head of taiwan, and is sent to live in the soviet union. You will marry a russian lady he will marry a russian lady wi\l marry a russian lady and stay there more than a decade. He will eventually come back, not particularly friendly with his father until later. So, Chang Kaishek will eventually kick the soviet advisers out because he does not appreciate the way they want to do the political training among the troops. And so, he will kick them out. And then he will bring in the germans. The germans will promise to build 60 divisions. They get about 20 of them built when the japanese attack. As you know, the japanese and germans will be allies during world war ii. The japanese will basically call up the germans and say, would you mind stop training the chinese . They are Getting Better and they are starting to beat us, and thats not a good thing. So most of the german advisors will leave. There are several german advisers who dont like hitler who will stay. So, you will see these stories of these strange colonels and Lieutenant Colonels from the german army who are in china. They are working with the training but the germans built , and equipped 20 divisions before 1937, and they were Chang Kaisheks best divisions. One of Chang Kaisheks sons goes to germany. Now, im going to make the case down the road. Chang kaishek was no great democrat. He was our friend, sort of. If you are a stilwell fan, he on a raft. If you are a taiwan fan and think Chang Kaishek is the best thing since sliced bread for what he did on taiwan, you can float another story. The story at the beginning is, he is a far right national socialist, and he is accompanying and working with , until the communist left wing. 1927, there happens to be a guy named roberts who is related to , senator roberts, who in 1937 happens to be on a uss ship catching a ride up the river , with the navy, when the japanese attack. And major roberts, who will become colonel roberts and will become Chang Kaisheks Intelligence Officer in the chinaburmaindia theater, is awarded a distinguished Service Cross for his actions as the senior officer on this ship when this tragedy happens. The japanese will apologize, pay reparations, but they sent the message that we were no longer wanted certainly. , and later that year in beijing, the Second World War will begin in asia. This is a picture of what is known as the marco polo bridge, and it doesnt take long for the japanese to take that. Now, i dont have the slides on manchuria. But the chinese were fighting the japanese that were encroaching from the puppet state they had set up in manchuria. The head of that puppet state was the last emperor. At the end of this time, the japanese will move to shanghai and will begin to move inland. And so in 1937, the war for shanghai. They will move upriver to nanjing, and the nanjing massacre everyone has told heard about. In that process, Chang Kaishek will lose most of his 20 divisions. Now Chang Kaisheks diaries , were released several years ago and were translated. Several people have written new biographies of Chang Kaishek. They try to paint him in a better light, as typical historians, like to revise things once they get a new piece of information. My thought is, he wasnt a good general, he will never be a good general. He was a pretty good politician to hold the mess that was china together, but what he did to his best divisions in shanghai was wrong. Because in shanghai, where he fought, he did not have either air cover or enough artillery to deal with the japanese artillery, and in parts of shanghai, the chinese troops are actually being hit from japanese warships offshore. Why didnt you just back up 30 miles . Chang kaishek doesnt know how to retreat, or nicely, conducts that conduct retrograde conduct retrograde operations to save his troops and fight in better places. He does another stupid thing. He orders his units to hold in place and not surrender. Absolutely giving away great troops that could have been used later. So yes, Chang Kaisheks successful moving against the japanese, causing a lot of casualties, but eventually he will end up in chongqing and most of his army will have been killed and defeated and we will , start all over again. So guess who is going to help him start . While the battle is going on over shanghai, in a cool dust mrs. Chang to him by it is captain claire chennault. The one circled on this is United States Army Air Corps retired, is wearing the creature accoutrements of a Chinese Air Force officer. I get it. The flying tigers were a chinese unit. Until we get into the war, and he becomes a Major General in the american air force. But, he does a hell of a job. He is a great air force tactician. As this picture kind of depicts, he makes friends with and gets in tight with Chang Kaishek and madam Chang Kaishek. And that is a good thing. Kaishek, as you probably know went to wellesley, spoke better english than i do, and was very charismatic. And she made a difference when she came to the United States and met with american politicians. But we will build over the next several years a Chinese Air Force that is pretty damn good because of him. But it gets absolutely hammered china southwest to set up a new school. There is another guy you mightve heard of by the name of evans carlson, United States marine corps. According to some in the United States marine corps, he was a con artist. As a captain, he is in charge of fdrs security testament down in georgia. When he gets done his time there , he gets the opportunity to ask the president for the next assignment. He says i would like to go to china and i would like to go up and see what the communists are goes to captain carlson china and meets with the ambassador and says i would like to go and meet with the communists and what is the ambassador going to say . No . Booknt up and he wrote a and then there is a wonderful gle. Called once an ea anton meyer is a marine and he writes this book. There is a chapter in this book by a guy named matt damon. He goes up and spends time with the communist. You can cross out his name and name. In carlsons its essentially carlsons story told in a novel. The interesting thing is the gle isuy in once an ea another guy who looks a lot like a general that we will meet later. Carlson gets out of the air force, writes a book, thin twin over china when stars over china. He is later wounded badly and will return to United States and that is Eleanor Roosevelt seeing him and he later retires as a twostart general in the marine corps. What talk about the press. Everybody wants to talk about the press, the lying press. Here is the lying press. These are all the press that wrote harshly about Chiang Kai Shek. China seemed to suck in the best of the journalists. On the other side, there is time life and the lewis family. It is a totally different story because they are in love with Chiang Kai Shek and vice versa and he will make sure that chiangs picture on Time Magazine four times. Stillwll somehow get his picture on there because they try to work with Chiang Kai Shek but it finally fell off. This is in burma and there meeting with Chiang Kai Shek. From this side of the house, you get a totally different story about Chiang Kai Shek. Chinaories coming out of are very different. Depending on who is out in the field. Chiang kai sheks wife had converted to christianity and the missionaries in the United States that has lived and worked in china and there were literally hundreds of thousands of them over the period from the 1800s and 1900, saw china as 400 400 million possible christians and that was not going to happen under the communists. There is a story underneath this that is similar to some that you see today. In 1941, the United States and decided along with Franklin Delano roosevelt that china will be part of the land lease and we willrogram send in guys to advise and assist. The mission of the u. S. Soldiers in iraq today is called advise and assist. Again, there is not much new under the sun. The mission we are doing in iraq and afghanistan are Security Forces assistant mission. They are essentially what we are doing here in 1941. This is before we are at war with the japanese and everything is having to go in through burma. It wont be long before the japanese cant go on. This begins and then it ends. Once the japanese see we are getting supplies through to china through burma, they cut it off. So the japanese, who are in will move up four divisions into burma and cut off the burma road. This is where stillwell, the walkout happens. The lendlease supplies in the docks in burma, we gave to the brits to fight the war and that caused one of the first major cheng kai shek. Chiang kai shek offered two armies to the brits. Two chinese armies, which would six divisions to fight in burma. The First Response was no and for a long time i thought that it could that was just the brits. Back in burma for 10 days in august of this year and some of the research i did, the british story is they knew they andd not supply two corps six divisions. There could barely suffice supply the two divisions that they have. Chiang kai shek offers these decisions, divisions, but they do not come with the base they need to do the fightings. First said no and then they talk a bit and then they said yes. There were two chinese armies, six chinese divisions. The british army and two divisions fighting in burma in march and april of 1942. One american and his staff, we will not supply any combat troops, Ground Combat troops, the burma until merrills marauders in 1944. Anys not commanding americans other than his immediate staff and four state department guys. What did stillwell think of Chiang Kai Shek . This is my narrative. The question and answer anywhere, i will go through this narrative. And stillwellk really begin not to get along those 6re because of divisions that were set down were supposed to follow stillwells orders and all the core commanders and Division Commanders and regimental commanders would not follow his orders unless they call back and to agree. Kai shek that is not how you fight a war. Four stateas Given Department advisors. Today our commanders are given foreignpolicy advisers. We have a close relationship with the state department in a lot of ways. General petraeus had his state department guy and they testified before congress together. At the end of the day, these two this name is going through my head right now. This is john service and is over here is John Patton Davis. Both of these guys are going to get during the mccarthy era as being soft on communism. They were absolutely vital to stillwell and most of the work they did a lot of the work they did was in india because the indians really did not want much more to do with the brits and that whole political situation in india it is not much talked about, but the british regiments that are going to fight in burma over the next three years are indian regiments. There ate many there aint many brits. One small u. S. Detachment called merrills marauders. The state department guys are critical to the prosecution. Is one of the journalists here, he and John Patton Davis are in a plane flying to burma. It will go down for mechanical reasons. They will jump out and be picked up by some local native burmese who have been working with our operations of the office of Strategic Services and that is kind of an interesting story as well. These state department guys were in the thick of it with stillwell. This is what the japanese do, they come from thailand in across the river, go north and y drive the chinese back and the british back. There are two chinese divisions the 22nd and the 38th that will make it to india. They will make it to a place called ramgarh. That is where stillwell sets up. We will train the Division Army in india, the brits will supply the uniforms and the money. The first group of americans, about 65 american soldiers who will lead savanna georgia 65 to pakistan and move through india up to rein ramgarh and build this training school. We will be helped by what is now , which then was the office of Strategic Services. It had two kind of parts. One of it was this office of war information. This is john king fairbanks, who, with his wife, was in china collecting information and writing studies. The intel piece of the Central Intelligence agency of today was born here. The operational part of the cia is also born here. The american Cooperation Organization, milton miles is the front for the office of Strategic Services in china and they will work for Chiang Kai Sheks chief of gestapo. Daili, who will later die in an airplane crash, essentially is out there making sure there is no opposition to Chiang Kai Shek. It does not matter who that opposition is. It is communist, nationalist, democratic, it doesnt matter. If you are against Chiang Kai Shek, dai li is against you. We are working for him. Our state department guy will write a wonderful memo that i have a copy of that will say are you sure you want us working for dail li . Do you know what he really does . General donovan is the head of the cia. So John Paton Davies will write in his letter saying are you sure this is who we want to play with . You can go to china today and very near this spot, when i was there in the 1980s, it was called the american war crimes museum. It now has a nicer title. In there, the communist avernment of today has set up museum and in that museum, they pay tribute to the sinoamerican Cooperation Organization because we were fighting the japanese. Yes, you can go to Mainland China today and see pictures of Chiang Kai Shek in various places because he fought the japanese. One of the things we needed once we started flying in china and we we tried to set up the 20th air force to hit mainland japan from china. Force. Show you the air we knew we would have downed pilots because we started with downed pilots in china with the doolittle mission. It is very seldom that you see a picture of gettingcan army colonel an award from mao. We had a 2530 man group with mao from 4447. We knew exactly what he was doing. We knew exactly how he was going and we knew exactly how the communist operated. The problem was if you were up up there and watching him operate and you are watching Chiang Kai Shek operate, guess who you thought was a better choice . That is what got written. The report that are coming back from the soldiers and the press that got left is left. When a soldier goes in and see sees season soldiers, they know who is capable and not capable and maos forces were capable or appeared to be. This is the cairo conference, roosevelt and churchill will later go on to meet stalin after this conference. We will promise at this conference to promise 90 chinese divisions. Basicallybe equipped everything. Machine guns,ks, we will nevers, get there. If the war had gone on until 1939, we would have got in there gotten there. They are planning or at cairo the planning for retaking burma gets underway. It is a mess because the brits are barely hanging on and all of the shipping that we need to do what we need to do to get back into burma, at least to have a two front come over from the area of northern india and also come from the south by see by sea. All of the amphibious shipping is in europe and the middle east. Brits say no, sort of, the americans say no, sort of so Chiang Kai Shek said no, sort of. Everybody keeps working it. Armywell i am an officer, if i dont see you show you you are not getting a real briefing. I dont have anything on this block chart except stillwell is holding 6 jobs simultaneously. He should be in savon, sri lanka, burma, india, and china every day all the time doing his job. He cannot do all of this. Whose fault is this . Arguably his. Its not very easy for him to call up George Marshall in washington, d. C. , who is his friend, and say i need four or five more generals and he thinks he has to run this. Deserves some criticism because he cannot do the job and he is certainly not devoting all of his time to managing Chiang Kai Shek in the Chiang Kai Shek account. That is why they call him the squad leader. He really wanted to be on the Ground Fighting down in burma and that is not where he is supposed to be. He is the senior Chinese Military officer in the chinaburmaindia theater. He should be spending most of his time working with Chiang Kai Shek. That is not what he does. So he gets relieved. There is a guy named Major General patrick c hurley, Oklahoma National guard and he may be crazier than the birds. Silver star in world war i. The somebody here related to him, pardon me, he is crazy. He was a politician in an army uniform, had served in some very powerful positions. There is a story of him getting off the plane to meet with mao and doing an oklahoma war whoop. Turns aroundmao to one of the army guys next to him and goes, what was that . He will recommend to roosevelt that stillwell should be relievedand he will be. This guy, when a meyer whittimeyer will become the new guy. He is a strategist. He is not a field soldier. He is going to go do arguably what stillwell should have done, sit down with Chiang Kai Shek, smooth ruffled feathers and get the job done. Cgsg atve at leavenworth a chair named for wedemeyer as the strategist he is. Some people would talk bad about him, but at that end, he is the guy who replaced stillwell. This is the problem when wed emeyer takes over, the japanese are hurting and they will launch a problem called you to go ichigo because they cannot do of theg at sea because japanese navy. If they are going to get anything from southeast asia, it will have to come by rail or road from vietnam up across china to the northeast, down the Korean Peninsula and across the street strait to japan. They mount this offensive. The problem with this offensive is there is a couple of places they might go that would be a real problem and that is if they swing this way, they can go after Chiang Kai Sheks headquarters. If they swing down this way, this is the terminus of where we are bringing everything in over the hump. We are pretty sure this is what they are doing. Chiang kai shek does not want to take any chances. He will not let the divisions that we have trained down here go down into burma because he is scared of this offensive and this, strategically, is certainly arguable. What happens in northern burma ,s the british 36th division the task force. In august of 1944, stillwells forces, merrills marauders, take the town at an awful cost. They are totally destroyed as a fighting unit. They will put them back together again and form another regiment and join it with the 124th regiment cavalry regiment of the texas National Guard and it will form into a force that will actually move to china because what stilwell wanted to do was to have on the ground like in the air composite divisions and this was going to be the model for the composite division. Two chinese regiments and an american regiment. Never really happens because the war ends. Is an oereman here yer that says i have known about 500 generals in my life and i would rank this guy about 499. He was stillwells 3 and then chief of staff. He was not happy with wedemeyer and wedemeyer was not happy with him. But he was a standing soldier and he stated there. That is a tough word. We do not command the chinese units, we advise the chinese units and the leverage we have are airpower and logistics. With little airpower and logistics you can move people without commanding them and we have to. Another line of block chart . Look at the numbers. We will build 36 divisions of chinese soldiers. Member back, the germans were going to build 60 at cairo, roosevelt says we will build 90, we were on our way to 60 with z force and this is what we get to by august 1945. This down here were the guys training in india. They will have punched into burma from india. Several of these armies will have been punched down into yunnan, but we not only build the armies, we build the corps over them. An iraqi are building army. It did not do very well one day. We build an afghan army, it may days. Doing well on some if you keep the advisors with the unit, keep the logistics flowing, keep the airpower working, it will work. You have to stay there to be there. Wedemeyer asked macarthur for a force to occupy china because all the Chinese Military is out towards burma. When the japanese surrender unexpectedly in august of 1945 after the two atomic bombs, the theese armies army is in wrong place and the japanese are all over the eastern part of china and somehow weve got to fix it. For 6 divisions asks for 6 divisions and two corps. Corpsmarine amphibious and two divisions go into china september of 1945 and they do the job that was meant for two army cores and 6 army divisions. Great book the china marine and for those of you that watch he pbs series on the pacific that is the author from alabama smoking a pipe and this is a wonderful book. What did the United States army do . The United States army has 60,000 soldiers in china. Remember all the advisors come all those divisions and all those guys . We tried to keep as many of them as we could in india because andy american wants eggs bacon for breakfast every morning. The chinese might get one egg month for the family. It was eating china alive to try to feed the americans. Keeping them in india along the lines of communication so we did not have to fly so much over the hump. The First American convoy will not come into china until february of 1945. That is a bad road. Feeding 60,000 at the same time weve got to feed 60,000, we have 4 million japanese that need to be taken home and the same ships that are going to take johnny back to San Francisco have got to take ito back to tokyo and moms and dads back home want their son home now and they dont care what happens to these 4 million japanese. Wedemeyer will write a nice little article on this will mountn and we an operation the marines do an awful lot of the work. We will move 4 million japanese back to japan. 1. 5 million of these are civilians that have been working in manchuria. They all have to be brought together, put into camps, housed, and taken care of. Then we have to move 600,000 soldiers back to the east. That by will do some of ship. Move him out of hong kong and put him on a ship, but we flew a lot of them as well. Then something that not many people know about is Brigadier General Philip E Gallagher will accompany with 40 plus american advisers two chinese corps to take the japanese surrendered in surrender in vietnam. The stories about the americans might have avoided the vietnam war. They had just gotten with ho chi minh starts here. Chiang kai shek sent two of his workforce down there with two generals that were pretty good that he did not want back in china. It was all working really well. Chiang got rid of the general. This is another problem in the war. It happened in iraq. There were a lot of good suni generals that were not allowed to continue who were replaced by bad shia generals. These are political and military affairs. In the political and military affairs, Chiang Kai Shek chose people that were loyal to him politically, not particularly people that were good on the ground. That soldier i showed you that got the bad oer, his name was dorn and he kept a book on the chinese generals. Some this is hurley with mao and he is attempting to bring the communists and the nationalists together. Up there is Chiang Kai Shek and mao. This is the plane that went to get them. If the mission fails, and basically hurley said i have had enough of this stuff. Im going back to oklahoma, i am out of here. Goes what am i going to do now, marshall goes. General marshall is known as the finest diplomat who ever served in uniform. There is a question out there of why did he go to china and try , to do this Impossible Task of bringing the nationalists and the communists together to form what might be called the the 1st united front. Someone should have asked him. Before he died. It is not in the archives. When truman said, marshall, i need you to go, he went. He did the best he could. He stayed there from november of 1945 to january of 1947. He is attempting to find a way to get the communists and the nationalists together. Marshall was asked to train divisions. Marshall said yes. He will send back and there are 9 u. S. Officers sent to nine two nanking to build the division. That Mission Falls apart. It never happens. The other thing that marshall was trying to do was to get a ceasefire between the communists and the nationalists. We are taking 4 million japanese home, we are trying to give the nationalists from fighting the communists. We are trying to set these things up. A Little Organization called the executive headquarters, they had one nationalist officer, one communist officer and one american officer. They would drive around and check on violations of the ceasefires that had been agreed to by the communists and the nationalists. One of those people was john birch. Everyone has heard of the John Birch Society . He was the son of a missionary in china and when do little dolittles plane goes down, they get to meet john birch. The missionaries are helping set up with the chinese locals saving the american pilots that crash landed. Birch will accompany the american pilots back and they will ask him will be joining the army. You speak any, you know chinese. He said yes. In this mission which is very dangerous he will be killed by the communists. Welcome to the john birch story. There we have wedemeyer and marshall and wedemeyer reports. I will let you read that. Hopefully everyone can read it. [no audio] for my students, i take out all of the references into china and i take out the pictures and i say, where is this . They say, iraq and afghanistan. This is the last u. S. Officer that will serve as part of the Advisory Mission. The United States forces will pull out of there in 1979. February. Major general barr will command the Seventh Division in korea. He is an expert on china. You know about macarthur. So i wont go through this. General sun lee commanded the divisions that came up from burma into ramgarh. He went to purdue and bmi. He was a Division Major in the chinese army and he will be a four star general and the in the chinese army and not. Heted by Chiang Kai Shek is our guide. He is eventually put under house arrest. He is macarthurs guy with Chiang Kai Shek promises of forces to fight in korea. Truman says no. Warned by zhou eniai, remember him from the talks with marshall they send a message through him not to go through the 38th parallel. Historians are still fighting about that. Would the chinese come anyway across the 38th parallel. The answer is probably. We knew zhou eniai and he knew us. We will restart the Advisory Mission to Chiang Kai Sheks army in may of 1951 in the middle of the korean war and it will continue through 1979. I think i have been too long but it is a long story. Three or four questions and then the mind meeting with people one on one . No problem. Sir . [inaudible] it was in 1818 when the marines sorted out a dispute between the chinese and some chinese merchants. 1900 is the best day. I didnt put too many slides for that. There was a crazy american from massachusetts who built the ever victorias army and they will fight the tai pings in 1859 and he will be killed and replaced by a british engineer captain by the name of gordon. Charles gordon. The first time a chinese soldier and an american soldier were fighting each other was korea. You, we had all or at least ahip passable relationship with the chinese from 1900 to 1950. It goes off the rails in 1949 and with the war in korea, he it goes off the rails until 1979 and it gets back on the rails when nixon visits in 1972. [inaudible] can you talk a little bit about who lost china thing, some of the people are the culprits about china. Not that we ever had china but. Chiang kai shek lost china. That is it. He lost china. Mccarthy and his followers blame certain people. For having lost china. Absolutely. The blame game will begin. Eisenhower had to save marshall. Marshall is tainted by his mission over there to try to build a united china. We wanted a united china in 1945. Remember what was supposed to happen in japan was it was supposed to be moved back 1000 years and be an Agricultural Society and china was going to be the new japan and offset stalin in russia. And asia. You have to have, not a sick china but a china that was getting well. Marshall goes over and tries and it falls apart and maos demands could not be met by Chiang Kai Shek. He did military things on the ground operationally and strategically from 1946 to 1949 that were just stupid. That is the easiest way to say it. They did not make military sense. They lost. Chiang kai shek lost china. Didnt the split personality of this front start during the opium wars back in the british sponsored opium wars that undermined the social structure. A lot ofounterpoint, missionaries went in to do good for the Little People which might not have been so good. Im going to have a hard time answering that in less than five minutes. I made an earlier comment. Mazy meijit the dynasty and how japan began as a modern nation. You look at what happened in china, you go wait a minute, what happened in china. The argument used to the china did not make it used to be china did not make it because of all the foreign intrusion. A used to be a mantra to dynasty. It was undermined by the han chinese within that society. Theres plenty of blame to go around. The external forces and the internal forces both collided to make china nearly impossible to put back together. This is on the other side for china. I do not know anybody like Chiang Kai Shek who did the most to keep it together. He lost it but i dont think there was anyone could have ever won it. He was given an impossible mission. After ve day in europe, the United States was involved in refugee resettlement. Did we have any similar programs in china . I didnt study it. There is a relief effort, official relief effort and the Truman Library has archives on that. They were not part of my study but yes, we were trying to help them rebuild their industry. They had moved a lot of their industry out to chongqing in 1939, and all of that stuff had to be moved back. Arguably this was one of Chiang Kai Sheks failures. Get your army together and build up logistics. He had had the communists on the run in 1936. The long march, it is at the end of the long march when he has the communists cornered that he one ofa meeting his generals kidnapped him. And says we have to stop other, we have to fight the japanese, they are trying to take over. That is called the second united front. The second united front is in 1936 and marshall is trying to build the third united front. To get this back together again. In some ways it is reasonable to believe that if the chinese nationalists and communists had worked together they could Work Together again. After the massacre in 1942, the nationalists thought the communists. Chiang kai shek sent 60 divisions up north so the divisions couldnt come south. There are a lot of not very good ones that are all over the place. All of the things that we would want him to do to nation build dont really happen but there are sources that would inform you a lot more about what we tried to do to get them going. One more question. I was astounded to discover that mao wrote letters of friendship to fdr in the early 1940s, begging for wall street financing and to join with chinese labor, begging for to create an economic powerhouse. What a lost opportunity. Would you comment on that . Lost opportunity or wonderful propaganda. As an aside, when i was doing my dissertation research, i went out to chongqing with a friend and we met some chinese professors and one of them was doing a study. One of the first things he asked me was, do you know how much money the United States said they would pay the chinese to build airfields. The chinese still think that we of the money to build the airfields to save their country. Propaganda is propaganda. Missed opportunities are four historians toher write about and make a lot of money on their books. I enjoyed it. I will stay after and answer any questions. [applause] [indistinct conversation] interested in American History tv. Cspan. Org. Bsite you can preview upcoming programs and watch archival films and more. Atrican history tv cspan. Org history. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. 1979, cspan was created as a Public Service by americas public Cable Television companies. It is brought to you today by your satellite or cable provider. Tonight on the civil war, Purdue University professor caroline at the disbanding of the army of virginia following general robert e. Lees surrender at appomattox courthouse. Here is a preview. Arms, theing of dispersal of small bands into the countryside this is what grant and to a greater extent, sherman, had most feared. , as the surrenders were taking place. They were afraid that even as theheader it Army Confederate army was formally grinding down at the dispersal of these men and hiding of weapons would mean that there would be a continued guerrilla war. Of lincolns assassination, many Union Officials remained especially concerned about guerrilla warfare. And especially concerned that these men that lees men continue to come in. They began surrender negotiations, sherman had warned grant of such an outcome. Ais is sherman, there is great danger that the Confederate Army will dissolve and fill the land with robbers and assassins. The assassination of mr. Lincoln shows one of the elements in the rebel army which will be almost as difficult to deal with as the main army. This notion of individuals, guerrillas, is driving a great deal of this. The prospect of continued guerrilla style war, the kind that have been waged effectively hejohn s mosby, which is why initially had not been included, motivated grant, sherman, motivated their subordinates, to extend such generous terms to confederates in the wake of appomattox. Watch the entire program on disbanding lees armie tonight at 6 p. M. Eastern on the civil war. This is American History tv. Only on cspan3. Presidency joe haldeman offers an insiders view of Richard Nixons white house and the watergate scandal that ended with his resignation. Her husband, hr bob haldeman served as 37th president s chief of staff. She shares excerpts from her book. In the shadow of the white house. The Richard Nixon Foundation Hosted this hourlong program at the nixon president ial library and museum. Good morning, welcome. This is the new Richard Nixon library and museum. I am the president of the Richard Nixon foundation. Im glad you are here on a very important day for the foundation and library. Joining me in this welcome is michael elzie, National Archives director of the president ial library, and all of those present today. In our redcoats and blue coats. [applause] before i introduce larry higby,
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.