china, korea, and indochina: part 1-china turns red

59
Listening to the Better Angels of Our Nature: Ethnicity, Self-Determination, And the American Empire Chapter Twenty-Seven China, Korea, and Indochina Part 1-China Turns Red David Steven Cohen Beijing (known as Peking in the West) is the capital of the People’s Republic of China. The name literally means “the Northern Capital” as distinct from Nanjing (or Nanking, the “Southern Capital”). Beijing’s urban core is divided into two districts, Dongchen, formerly known as neicheng (the Inner City) and Xicheng, formerly waicheng (the Outer City). In the southeastern section of the Outer City is the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture. Built between 1406 and 1420, the Temple of Heaven is a complex consisting of three sections: the circular Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest; the smaller, circular Imperial Vault of Heaven (which is surrounded by the Echo Wall that can transmit sounds over long distance); and the Mound Altar, a circular platform decorated with carved dragons built in 1530. In the center of the altar is a round slate named the Heart of Heaven (or the Supreme Yang) where the emperor would pray for favorable weather. The so-called Heaven Worship in China is thought to predate Taoism. The Temple of Agriculture was built in 1420 and dedicated to Xiannong (the Goddess of the Hills and Rivers). Here the Ming and Qing emperors would dress in farm clothes and perform ritual plowing to ensure a good harvest. The Forbidden City is a rectangle within a larger, walled area named the Imperial City, which itself is enclosed by the so-called Inner City.

Upload: independent

Post on 30-Mar-2023

0 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Listening to the BetterAngels of Our Nature:Ethnicity, Self-Determination,And the American Empire

Chapter Twenty-SevenChina, Korea, and Indochina

Part 1-China Turns Red

David Steven Cohen

Beijing (known as Peking in the West) is the capital ofthe People’s Republic of China. The name literally means “the Northern Capital” as distinct from Nanjing (or Nanking,the “Southern Capital”). Beijing’s urban core is divided into two districts, Dongchen, formerly known as neicheng (theInner City) and Xicheng, formerly waicheng (the Outer City). In the southeastern section of the Outer City is the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Agriculture. Built between 1406 and 1420, the Temple of Heaven is a complex consisting of three sections: the circular Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest; the smaller, circular Imperial Vault of Heaven (which is surrounded by the Echo Wall that can transmit sounds over long distance); and the Mound Altar, a circular platform decorated with carved dragons built in 1530. In thecenter of the altar is a round slate named the Heart of Heaven (or the Supreme Yang) where the emperor would pray for favorable weather. The so-called Heaven Worship in China is thought to predate Taoism. The Temple of Agriculture was built in 1420 and dedicated to Xiannong (theGoddess of the Hills and Rivers). Here the Ming and Qing emperors would dress in farm clothes and perform ritual plowing to ensure a good harvest. The Forbidden City is a rectangle within a larger, walled area named the Imperial City, which itself is enclosed by the so-called Inner City.

http://www.chinaspree.com/china-travel-guide/images/forbidden-city/forbiddenCity2.jpg

The Forbidden City consists of a walled inner court surrounded by an outer court, which in turn is surrounded bya wall and a moat. The front entrance to the inner court is the Meridian Gate with its two protruding wings, which face on Tian’anmen Square (infamous for the suppression of protestors in 1989). Beyond the Meridian Gate is a large square with the meandering Inner Golden Water River over which there are five bridges. At the far end of this square is the Gate of Supreme Harmony, which leads into the Hall ofSupreme Harmony Square. At the far of this square is three-tiered marble terrace on which stand three halls. The largest is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, a large wooden structure nine bays wide and five bays deep (the numbers 9 and 5 being symbolically associated with the Chinese emperor). In the ceiling coffer of the center bay is a carved coiled dragon with a set of metal balls protruding from its mouth. During the Ming dynasty the Emperor held court here, but during the Qing dynasty it was used only forcoronations, investitures, and imperial weddings.

Beyond Hall of Harmony is the smallest Hall of Middle Harmony, used by the Emperor to prepare before and rest during ceremonies. It also was used for rehearsing ceremonies and the final state of Imperial examination. Beyond that is the Hall of Preserving Harmony. All three halls house imperial thrones. The Hall of Heavenly Purity was the official residence of the Emperor, who represented the concept of Yin (male, the Heaven) in traditional Chinese philosophy, and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility was the residence of the Empress, who presented the Yang (female, the Earth). Between them the Hall of Union is where Yin and Yang mix to produce harmony. At the far end of the inner court is the Gate of Heavenly Purity.

http://peakwatch.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83452403c69e201bb07e7894e970d-pi

The main halls in the inner and outer courts are arranged in groups of three, in the shape of the Quian triagram, representing Heaven in Taoist cosmology. The residence of the inner court are arranged in groups of six, which is the shape of the Kun triagram, representing the Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua#/media/File:Bagua-name-earlier.svg

Almost all the roofs in the Forbidden City are colored with yellow glazed tiles, yellow being the color of the Emperor. The ridges of the imperial building roofs are decorated with statuettes, including a man riding a phoenix followed by a procession of animal figures and ending with adragon. The dragon and the phoenix are the most sacred animals in Chinese culture, the dragon symbolizing the Emperor and the phoenix the Empress. The number of the statuettes represents the status of the building, the Hall of Supreme Harmony having ten and minor buildings only threeor five.

https://ohtheplaceswesee.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/img_0789.jpg

Today, the Forbidden City is administered by the PalaceMuseum, which has an extensive collection of ceramics, porcelain, paintings, bronzeware, jade, mechanical timepieces, and artifacts from the imperial court. Perhaps the most famous to Westerners are the blue porcelain from the Qing dynasty

h ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Forbidden_City#/media/File:China_qing_two_blue_ceramics.JPG

and the blue and white porcelain from the Ming dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_City#/media/File:China_ming_blue_dragons.JPG

Outside the Outer City are several other religious structures. In the northern section is the Temple of Earth, in the eastern section is the Temple of the Sun, and in the western part the Temple of the Moon. In addition, there are several Buddhist pagodas reflecting the Buddhist tradition in

China, including the Pagoda of the Tianning Temple built between 1100 and 1200 A.D. by the Liao Dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianning_Temple_(Beijing)#/media/File:Tianning_Temple_Pagoda.jpg

The Niujie Mosque, built in 996 by the Liao Dynasty, islocated today in the Muslim neighborhood in the Xicheng District of Beijing. It reflects both the Islamic and the Han Chinese architecture and culture. The exterior reflects traditional Chinese architecture, but the interior is decorated with Arabic calligraphy. The mosque was destroyed in 1215 by Genghis Khan, but rebuilt in 1443 by the Ming Dynasty and expanded in 1696 under the Qing dynasty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niujie_Mosque#/media/File:Niujie_Mosques02.jpg

There is also the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, the oldest Roman Catholic congregation in Beijing founded in 1605 in the Xuanwumen District of Beijing. The current cathedral was built in 1904 in the European Baroque architectural style demonstrating the Westernizing effect of European missionaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_the_Immaculate_Conception,_Beijing#/media/File:Beijinglifepic3.jpg

Beijing is located in northeast China at the northern tip of the North China Plain, which stretches to the YangtzeRiver in the south. This puts the city on the border of the agricultural region to the south and the pastoral region to the north. To the northeast is Yanshan mountain range and tothe southwest is the Xishan and ranges. To the north of the city is the Great Wall of China, which is actually a series of walls meandering 13,000 miles through the mountains. The oldest section was built by Qin Shi Huang (the first Emperorof China) between 220 and 206 B.C. to guard Beijing from invasions by nomads from Mongolia on the northwest side of the mountains. There are several rivers that flow through Beijing, including the Chaobai, the Yongding, and the Juma, all of which are tributaries of the Hai River (formerly known as the Yellow River) which empties into the Yellow Seaat the Bohai Gulf. The Yongding River is crossed is crossed southwest of the city center by the stone Marco Polo bridge constructed by 1189 and 1192, so named because after the

Venetian merchant who described it in his account of his travels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo_Bridge#/media/File:Lugouqiao2.jpg

Today, China is the largest nation in the world with a population of 1.4 billion people. The Han Chinese constituteninety-two percent of the population. Their language is Mandarin Chinese, which has been the official language of China since the Qin Dynasty, circa. 221 B.C. While the Han Chinese live in every part of China, they mainly live in themiddle and lower Yellow River Valley, the Yangtze and Pearl river valleys, and the Northeast Plain (the Songliao Plain).The remaining population of China consists of fifty-five ethnic minorities. Nearly half of the land mass of China is inhabited by non-Chinese people.1 Many of these live in fiveso-called autonomous regions: Inner Mongolia, Xinjina, Guangxi, Ningzia, and Tibet. The largest ethnic minority (about eighteen million) is the Zhuang people, most of whom live in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Their language belongs to the Zhuang-Dai branch of the Sino-Tibetan linguistic family.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/China_linguistic_map.jpg

The Uighur minority number about eleven million people,who live in the Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region. They speaka language in the Altaic-Turkic linguistic family. Though originally believing in Shamanism, Manicheanians, Jing, Zoroastrianism, and Buddhism, since the eleventh century, they have become Muslims. Other ethnic minorities living in the Xinjian Uighur Autonomous Region are the Uzbek people, who also Muslims and speak a language in the Turkic-Altaic linguistic family and write using Uighur characters; the Tatars whose language is also Turkic-Altaic; and the Rus, who descend from Russian immigrants to Chine during the eighteenth century and speak Russian and Chinese. The Mongols live in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. They originated in northern China during the Tang Dynasty (from 681 to 907 A.D.). The Mongolian language belongs to the Mongolian group of the Altaic branch. The Kazak ethnic grouplives primarily in the Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture as

well as in Xinjiang. Their language is also belongs to the Turkic group of the Altaic branch written with Arabian letters. Originally believers in Shamanism, they too converted to Islam in the eleventh century. The Li ethnic minority lives primarily in the Li and Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Hainan Province. Their language belongs to theZhuang-Dong group of the Sino-Tibetan family.

Xinjiang Province occupies one-sixth of the People’s Republic of China. It is rich in natural resources, including oil, tin, mercury, copper, iron, uranium, and lead. After the fall of the Mongol (Yuan) Dynasty in the fourteenth century, Islam penetrated this region. By the seventeenth century it was predominantly Muslim. The Uighur constitute most of the Turkic people of Xinjiang. They number today about 9 million people. In the nineteenth century both Russia and Britain made attempts to extend their influence to Xinjiang. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Turkey also tried to expand its pan-Turkish movement to the province.

Tibet is more populous than Xinjiang, Mongolia, or Manchuria. In the seventh century the Tibetan king in Lhasa married one wife from China and another from Nepal. In the eighth century Tibet expanded into western China, and signedbilateral treaties with China. During the thirteenth century, however, the Mongol in the Yuan Dynasty subjugated Tibet to the status of a vassal state. From the 14th century into the 20th century, Tibet enjoyed a degree of independence. After 1949, as India and Britain demurred, China exerted its claim to Tibet as the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The earliest records come from the Shang Dynasty in sixteenth century B.C. During this period China developed bronze-age technology, horse-drawn chariots, and the Chinesewriting system. During the Shang Dynasty China was invaded by horse-riding nomads from the north and west. The Chinese considered them barbarians. One group, the Kalmyks, were a

Mongol people who believed in Tibetan Buddhism. Another group of nomads are the Xiongnu, who speak an Altaic language, who are credited with inventing trousers and horse-mounted cavalry. The Confucian tradition dates back tothe Zhou Dynasty (from 1045 to 256 B. C.)

http://www.crystalinks.com/terracottiwarriors4.jpg

China did not extend its influence by establishing formal colonies. One aspect of the Chinese empire is the spread of the Chinese system of writing. The same Chinese characters are pronounced differently in Cantonese and Mandarin. Although pronounced differently in different languages, the Chinese characters have spread to Japan, Ryukyu, Korea, and Vietnam. The Qin Dynasty (from 221 to 206B.C.) was characterized by a military dictatorship and the creation of terra-cotta horses and soldiers. Manchuria was “Sinicized” during this period, an occupation that lasted from 221 to 206 B.C. During the Tang dynasty from 618 to 907A.D. the Koreans were put in the same category of barbarians. In 658 Tibet asked for a matrimonial union with China. After four years the Empress Wu agreed in principle. In 706 the Chinese picked a bride said to be descended from the Emperor Gao Zong, although her pedigree was not true. This marriage solidified a relationship between Tibet and China. In the eighth century, Tibet controlled much of Xinjiang, Gansu, and Qinghai provinces.

After various competing states created China, the Emperor Qin Shihuang in 221 B. C. sent 500,000 troops to conquer Vietnam. China occupied Vietnam for a thousand yearsfrom the Han Dynasty to 939 A.D. The Vietnamese sought independence from China beginning in 939 A.D. In 1405 China sent troops into Vietnam. China considered Vietnam to be part of China until the French came there in the nineteenth century. The Chinese made the people of Annam (northern Vietnam) pay a tribute to China as early as 1405. The RyukyuIslands (part of Okinawa today) had tributary relationship with China for about 500 years from 1372-1879. When a new ruler came to the throne, he was invested by the emperor of China. In 1873 control of the Ryukyu Island became an issue between Japan and China. The Ryukyu officials stated that they regarded China as their father and Japan as their mother.

http://www.chinatourguide.net/topography%20map%20of%20china.jpg

Historian John Fairbank refers to two Chinas. China north of the thirty-fourth parallel is a vast, dry plain where wheat and millet were traditionally grown beyond whichis the arid steppes of Outer Mongolia and the forests of Manchuria, and South China is a moist, hilly terrain consisting of rice paddies that were often flooded by the

Yangtze River. “During the last thousand years,” writes Fairbank, “North China has been ruled more than half the time by alien invaders.”2 The first of the nomadic people to conquer China were the Hsiung-nu or Huns. They were followed by an Iranian people known as the Yüeh-chih who later formed an empire in northern India and Russian Turkestan. Then came other groups, such as the Uighur Turks.Several of these foreign rulers formed dynasties.

The Khitan Mongols were a nomadic people from the grasslands east of Mongolia. They formed themselves into theLiao Dynasty (from 907 to 1127 A.D.) and asked for tribute from the Chinese court. The Liao Dynasty established a greatempire was established that included China, Manchuria, and Mongolia. During the Yuan Dynasty of the Mongols (from 1279 to 1368), China became part of a larger Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. The Mongol Empire under Khan and his sons included the Tibetan people in northwest China, the Uighur Turks in Chinese Turkestan, and the Turkish sultanates of Bokhara and Samarkand, the Abbassid caliphate in Baghdad. The Mongol leader Kublai Khan established his capital in Peking that the Venetian explorer Marco Polo visited from 1275 to 1292.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FcX-_d1xpVo/SHeXy_tyiQI/AAAAAAAAAA8/zFTBcr0Kk_A/s320/image.gif

In 801 A.D. the Arab leader Harun ar-Rashid, the caliphof Baghdad, joined forces with China against Tibet. In 838

members of the Bon nobility assassinated the Tibetan king Lang Darma, which led to the division of the Tibetan empire into small principalities. In 1209 the Mongol Genghis Khan conquered the much of Amdo prior to embarking upon his worldconquest. In 1240 one Genghis’s grandsons invaded central Tibet. In 1260 Khubilai Khan conquered all of China and established a hereditary relationship between the Mongols and the Tibetans. Feigon writes that, “The Manchu tie to theTibetans was based on the Manchu connection to the Mongols. No matter what their putative racial heritage, the Manchus saw themselves as the heirs of the Mongols, from whom many of them descended.”3 Kublai sent a boy emperor to be trainedas a Buddhist monk. The Mongols considered Tibet an autonomous region which was not integrated into the Chinese empire.

Tibet is more populous than Xinjiang, Mongolia, or Manchuria. More than 4 million of the 6 million Tibetans in the People’s Republic of China do not live in Tibet Autonomous Region as drawn by the Chinese Communists.4 Lee,Feigon, chairman of the East Asian Studies Department at Colby College, says that Tibet has “one of the most eclecticpopulations on earth.”5 In eastern Tibet there are the Khampas people, in what is now the Chinese administered Qinghai province are the Golok people, and in southeastern Tibet there are Sherpas, Mongols, and Muslims. The Tibetan language is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family and is closely related to Burmese. However, the written script is adapted from Indian writing. The country is united by its religion, which combines the animism and shamanism of the Tibetan Bon religion with iconography from India Hinayana Buddhism and doctrines of Chinese Mahayan Buddhism. The religious and political leader of Tibetans is the Dalai Lama. All Tibetans make pilgrimages to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital to show their devolution to him. Tibetan Buddhists believe in reincarnation and that dogs are part of the cycleof rebirth. Therefore, no one can harm dogs, which roam freely.

During the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. Tibet ruledover parts of China, India, Nepal, central Asia and the Middle East. At about the same time Turkish-speaking tribes took control over Samarkand on the Silk Road which led to a thriving commerce in central Asia. Around 570 A.D. Namri Songtsen united the people along the Yarlong Valley into a military dominion. His son Songtsen Gampo in 635 with the help of the Chinese Tang dynasty attacked the Mongols occupying Amdo on the northern part of the Tibetan plain near where the Mongolia, Turkestan, China, and Tibet come together and the Silk Road begins. Today Amdo is part of China’s Qinghai province, but the Amdowas think of themselves as neither part of Tibet nor China. Songtsen Gampo married a Chinese bride and the Tibetans sent a tributary mission to China. “The Chinese have long claimed that Songtsen Gampo’s acceptance of this bride proves that Tibet became a Chinese tributary state. What most Chinese accounts fail to mention is that Songtsen Gampo took a number of different wives in his efforts to reinforce his position and create new political alliances.”6

In 670 A.D. Tibet defeated the Tang dynasty in what is now Xingjiang Province or Chinese Turkestan, thereby extending Tibet control over the Silk Road. The Tibetan kingTrisong Detsen Tibet conquered most of Sichuan province in 760 A.D. and forced the Chinese to send Tibet a tribute. He extended Tibetan control over large parts of central Asia, China, and Burma as well as all of Nepal Bhutan, and Sikkim,and most of Bangladesh, Pakistan, and northern India. By 800A.D. the Tibetan empire expanded across the Pamir Mountains into Tadzhikistan and the border of Persia.

In 1358 several rival monasteries in Tibet rebelled against Mongol rule, and Tibet was restored to being an independent country. Tibetan power expanded again into Kham,Amdo, Nepal, Burma, and Bangladesh. The position of Dalai Lama was created by the Mongol leader Altan Kahn in the sixteenth century. The Fourth Dalai Lama created the position of Panchen Lama to the abbot of a monastery in

Xigaze. The Dalai Lama was considered the incarnation of Buddha’s body, and the Panchen the incarnation of Buddha’s mind. The Dalai Lama was traditional viewed as more important. But at the time these positions were created neither was held in the awe they are held today. In 1642 theDalai Lama made Lhasa the capital of Tibet.

http://www.internationalfolkart.org/eventsedu/education/hah_tibet/hist/HistBound.jpg

The Mongols were finally expelled by rebels who established the Chinese Ming dynasty in 1368. Under the Mingrulers, China recovered Manchuria and arranged for the allegiance of a new dynasty in Korea.In 1644 the Manchus captured Peking. They were not Chinese, but from Manchuria and they ruled China until 1911. The Manchus, who spoke a language in the Altaic family related to Turkish and Mongol, were originally from Manchuria. One of the early Manchu emperors subjugated Korea and declared the formation of the Ch’ing dynasty that was to rule China until 1911. The Manchus sought to maintain their racial purity by banning intermarriage with the Chinese.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) the Muslim leader Tamerlane who was based in the city of Samarkand in what is today Uzbekistan agreed to pay a tribute of 200 horses to the Chinese court. But Tamerlane never paid the tribute. When the new emperor Yong Lee sent an envoy to Samarkand in 1402 to find out why Tamerlane wouldn’t pay theannual tribute, Tamerlane seized the envoy and prepared to attack China. However, he died in 1405 while on his way to Beijing.

The Mongols were finally expelled from China by rebels who established the Ming Dynasty in 1368. Under the Ming rulers, China recovered Manchuria and arranged for the allegiance of a new dynasty in Korea. The Ming were not Chinese, but from Manchuria. The Manchus, who spoke a language in the Altaic family related to Turkish and Mongol,were originally from Manchuria. The Manchus sought to maintain their racial purity by banning intermarriage with the Chinese. Under the Manchus the Chinese instituted the so-called tribute system to foreign affairs. Based on Confucian doctrines, the benevolence of the emperor was to be reciprocated by the humble submission of the foreigner. The ruler of a tributary state was to submit by kowtowing orlying prostrate in the presence of the emperor. The tributary status allowed states like Korea to trade with China at designated ports.

http://archive.artsmia.org/art-of-asia/history/images/maps/china-ming-large.gif

China also sent its military to conquer non-Chinese people. One of the early Manchu emperors subjugated Korea and declared the formation of the Qing dynasty that was to rule China until 1911. Eight years later the Dalai Lama was invited to visit Beijing. Chinese nationalist maintain that this visit established Chinese suzerainty over Tibet. According to legend, in seventeenth-century a Chinese Princess Wencheng was sent to Lhasa, Tibet, to become the bride for the Tibetan emperor. It is said that she introduced advanced farming, weaving, Buddhism, and the Tibetan alphabet, but some historians doubt that she ever lived.

Another legend speaks of the Qing emperor Qianlong capturing a Uighur princess named Iparthan, who became knownas Xiangfei (the “Fragrant Concubine”). Qianlong her brought to Beijing and won her over by building a miniature Kashgarivillage outside her window and giving her sweet melons and oleaster from Xingjiang. Today Han Chinese tourists travel to historical Islamic shrine of Afaq Khoja in the city of Kashgar in Xinjiang province in northwest China to the tomb of Iparhan, However, local ethnic Uighurs say that Iparhan rejected the emperor’s advances, was murdered by his mother,and wasn’t even buried there.

During the Qing Dynasty the Chinese empire reached its greatest extent, only to be surpassed by the People’s Republic of China. The Qing annexed all territory east of the Yangtzi River into Sichuan province. In 1724 they also annexed much of Amdo. According to Andrew Jacobs of The New York Times, “When it comes to China’s ethnic minorities, the party-run history machine is especially single-minded in itseffort to promote story lines that portray Uighurs, Mongolians, Tibetans and other groups as contended members of an extended family whose traditional homelands have long been part of the Chinese nation.”7

There were several attempts by the Han Chinese to rebel

against Manchu rule. The one of them was the so-called WhiteLotus rebellion of 1796-1804. The White Lotus Society was a secret society who peasant members believed the Buddha woulddescend to the world and restore the Ming dynasty. The immediate cause of the rebellion was a protest against taxescollected by the Manchu officials. However, the rebellion was suppressed.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-EPRGQHAail0/TYxKMWfUN-I/AAAAAAAACMk/ZlbruRb6_-E/s1600/WRLH064-H.gif

In 1774 George Bogle, a representative of the British East India Company arrived in Tibet seeking to establish a trading station there. He even married a Tibetan woman. However, he failed to open a lasting trade relationship withTibet. “Thereafter the Himalayas marked the boundary betweenthe Asia Britain could conquer and the Asia whose ancient empire eluded it.”8 In 1788 Gurkha troops from Nepal invadedTibet. The Qing sent an army to Tibet to expel the Nepalese.In 1792 the Qing soldiers pushed the Nepalese all the way back to Katmandu. After this, the Qing took over Tibet’s foreign relations in order to keep Tibet from having contacts with the British. In 1829 Tibet took control again

of Kham and Amdo, but the Chinese governor of Sichuan Province continued to claim political jurisdiction over the Han settlers in the region. In 1842 the Tibetan army repelled an invasion by Sikhs. In 1854 Nepal again attacked Tibet, but this time the Tibetans were forced to pay an indemnity to the Nepalese and grant the Nepalese extraterritoriality. Tibet negotiated this treaty as an independent country, but Tibet felt obligated to mention theQing in the treaty.

In 1835 British India took control of Darjeeling from the Raja of Sikkim. In 1846 the British acquired Kashmir, in1861 Sikkim became a British protectorate, Bhutan became thesame in 1865, and Assam was annexed in 1886. These provinceshad formerly been dependencies of Tibet and they had large Tibetan populations. In 1876 Britain and China signed the Cheefoo Convention in which the Qing allowed the British to acquire Burma in exchange for Britain to acknowledge the Qing control over Tibet. Britain allowed Nepal, Bhutan, and Sikkim to remain independent states, although Britain annexed part of their territories. Sikkim voted to become part of India in 1975. Today, India controls Bhutan’s foreign relations, but it remains an independent state.

In 1842 the Tibetan army repelled an invasion by Sikhs.In 1854 Nepal again attacked Tibet, but this time the Tibetans were forced to pay an indemnity to the Nepalese andgrant the Nepalese extraterritoriality. Tibet negotiated this treaty as an independent country, but Tibet felt obligated to mention the Qing in the treaty. In the 1890s the Dalai Lama established relations with Czarist Russia. Concerned about this development, Lord Curzon, the British viceroy in India, in 1903 sent an army into Tibet. As the British entered Lhasa, the Dalai Lama fled to Ulan Bator, the capital of Outer Mongolia. Tibet became a “semicolony” of British India.9 However, the American, Russian, Germans, French, and Italians argued that this action violated the Open Door Notes that these nations had signed with China pledging noninterference in China and equal access for

trade. The British argued that Chinese suzerainty over Tibet was “a constitutional fiction,” and so the Open Door Policy didn’t apply. Nevertheless, in 1906 the British signed a convention with China in which Britain ceded the concessions it had previously obtained, except for establishing trade missions with Tibet. Meanwhile, China sent an army of 6,000 troops into Tibet in an attempt to integrate Tibet into China. By 1910 it had taken the Tibet capital of Lhasa. However, after the 1911 rebellion which overthrew the Qing dynasty, the Chinese occupation of Tibet ended, and Tibet recovered much of eastern Tibet.

In the 1890s the Dalai Lama established relations with Czarist Russia. Concerned about this development, Lord Curzon, the British viceroy in India, in 1903 sent an army into Tibet. As the British entered Lhasa, the Dalai Lama fled to Ulan Bator, the capital of Outer Mongolia. Tibet became a “semicolony” of British India.10 However, the American, Russian, Germans, French, and Italians argued thatthis action violated the Open Door Notes that these nations had signed with China pledging noninterference in China and equal access for trade. The British argued that Chinese suzerainty over Tibet was “a constitutional fiction,” and sothe Open Door Policy didn’t apply. Nevertheless, in 1906 theBritish signed a convention with China in which Britain ceded the concessions it had previously obtained, except forestablishing trade missions with Tibet. Meanwhile, China sent an army of 6,000 troops into Tibet in an attempt to integrate Tibet into China. By 1910 it had taken the Tibet capital of Lhasa. However, after the 1911 rebellion which overthrew the Qing dynasty, the Chinese occupation of Tibet ended, and Tibet recovered much of eastern Tibet.

In 1912 Yuan Shikai, the new present of China, declaredthe Tibet was an integral part of China. Yuan Shikai issued the Manchu-Mongol-Uighur-Tibetan Articles of Favorable Treatment, in which China guaranteed equality for these fourmajor non-Han ethnic groups in China. “The idea that the Chinese nation consisted of five races—Chinese, Manchu,

Mongol, Muslim, and Tibetan—eventually became an official part of the nationalist Sun Yatsen’s political program.” Feigon, Demystifying Tibet, p. 115. During World War One the Tibetan defeated the Chinese army in Kham and regained much of its territory. However, in 1936 the Chinese Communists ontheir Long March occupied much of Kham. The Tibetans attacked the Communists forcing them to flee. During World War Two the Chinese Nationalist government was forced to relocate in Sichuan Province.

During World War One the Tibetan defeated the Chinese army in Kham and regained much of its territory. However, in1936 the Chinese Communists on their Long March occupied much of Kham. The Tibetans attacked the Communists forcing them to flee. During World War Two the Chinese Nationalist government was forced to relocate in Sichuan Province. In 1947, when India became an independent country, Tibet asked India to return the territories that Britain had seized fromTibet, including Sikkim and Darjeeling. India ignored the request. Then in 1949 India sent troops into Sikkim and madeit an Indian dependency, despite its large Tibetan population.

The British East India Company designed opening trade with China for silk, porcelain, lacquerware, and tea. The Qing Dynasty licensed some firms to trade with the British in Canton. In 1793 the British sent a 700 person mission tonegotiate diplomatic relations with the Emperor Qian Long inBeijing. However, the Emperor rejected establishing a diplomatic relationship with Britain as did the prior Ming and Qing Dynasties with the Portuguese, Dutch, and Russians.When the first European countries began to trade with China,they did so under the tribute system. The British East IndiaCompany based in India established a lucrative trade in tea from Canton. Britain maintained its monopoly on the China tea trade until 1833. After this private British, American, and Indian traders began to export opium.

“In China,” writes Fairbank, “the opium trade remains aclassic symbol of Western commercial imperialism—foreign greed and violence demoralizing and exploiting an inoffensive people.”11 When the Chinese attempted to suppress the opium trade, the British sent a military force to Canton in what was called the Opium War (from 1840 to 1842). The result was for Britain to force the Chinese to grant general commercial privileges to Britain which was embodied in the treaty of Nanking in 1842. In 1858 Britain and France joined in a second Opium War against China in which these countries obtained commercial treaties at Tientsin. These two wars represent, according to Fairbanks “the transition from tribute relations to treaty relations. . . . Although the new treaties were signed as between equal sovereign powers, they were actually quite unequal in that China was placed against her will in a helpless position, wide open to the inroads of Western commerce and its attendant culture.” 12

In response to the first Opium War a rebellion against the Manchus was fomented in the Canton region. The leader ofthe rebellion was Hung Hsiu-ch’ün, who had a vision in whicha sage commanded him to save humanity. He returned to Cantonas a country school teacher with a Christian missionary tract in Chinese. He founded what has become known as Taiping Christianity which combined the Old Testament God ofcreation with the New Testament Jesus, the son of god. His followers believed in equality for women and opposed foot binding, arranged marriages, and the use of opium. In 1851 Hung launched the rebellion in the Yangtze valley, and by March 1853 he had captured Nanking. But he failed to conquerPeking, and in 1864 the Manchus retook Nanking and Hung committed suicide. Fairbanks argues that the Taiping Rebellion failed because they didn’t appeal to the Confucianintellectuals nor the anti-Manchu secret societies known as the Triads.13

http://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/spheresofinfluence.jpg

In 1894 Japanese forces invaded Korea, which had been atribute state of China. Under the Treaty of Shimonoseki in April 1895 China essentially turned over Korea and Taiwan toJapan. Russia was stopped from making Manchuria a protectorate by China’s defeat in the Japanese-Chinese war (from 1894 to 1895) and Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War (from 1904 to 1905). When the Sino-Japanese Warerupted in 1894, America had business interests in China, especially in the China Development Company and various banks. The China market for rough textiles from the AmericanSouth underwent a decline in 1878 through 1880, when California launched an attempt to stop the immigration of Chinese workers. In February 1879 Congress passed a bill establishing a quota of 15 Chinese immigrants on each ship bound for the United States. A struggle ensued between Japan, Russia, France, England, and Germany for control of trade with China. China was willing in the fall of 1896 to align itself with the United States by offering a railroad concession to Americans. When the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1894, America had business interests in China, especiallyin the China Development Company and various banks. William Appleman Williams argues that the Sino-Japanese War between 1894 and 1895 also had an effect on American foreign policy,

because it caused concern about the future of the Chinese market.

A struggle ensued between Japan, Russia, France, England, and Germany for control of trade with China. China was willing in the fall of 1896 to align itself with the United States by offering a railroad concession to Americans. In November 1897, Germany seized Kiaochow, which intensified fears of Americans that Japan and European countries were about to divide China among themselves. In January 1898 a coalition of Southern and Northern cotton textile manufacturers along with urban exporters, manufacturers, and bankers formed the Committee on American Interests in China, which later became the American Asiatic Association. Their main interest was to make sure that China’s ports remained open to all nations. One of their main supporters was Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Lodge.

Between 1899 and 1900, John Hay, the Secretary of Statein McKinley’s administration, issued a series of dispatches,known as the Open Door Notes, to the economic powers between1899 and 1900. His note of September 6, 1899, asserted that American businesses should have equal commercial access to markets in China, despite spheres of influence of foreign powers. His second note dated July 3, 1900, warned foreign powers from establishing colonies in China. His third note asserted that loans were to be considered part of commerce. The Open Door policy first applied to China was later extended to other regions of the world. It resolved the debate between the imperialists, led by Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, and the anti-imperialists, led by William Jennings Bryan and Carl Schurz. The policy was promoted by a coalition of businessmen, intellectuals, and politicians who advocated “a policy of an open door through which America’s preponderant economic strength would enter and dominate all under-developed areas of the world.” This Open Door Policy, says historian William Appleman Williams “became the strategy of American foreign policy for the nexthalf-century.”14

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Boxer_Rebellion.jpg

Between 1899 and 1900 an anti-Western movement, known as the Boxers in English, spread through northern China. TheBoxers were against foreign concessions, the conversion of Chinese by Christian missionaries, and the legal concept of extraterritoriality, by which foreigners in China were exempt from Chinese law. Adherents to this violent movement attacked Western missionaries and diplomats. More than 240 missionaries and other foreigners in North China and Manchuria were killed. The Chinese officials in the south considered the Boxer Rebellion a domestic revolt as opposed to an anti-foreigner war, and they suppressed it. In response eight foreign nations attacked Beijing. The Boxers believed that they were invulnerable to bullets. The war lasted for only two-months and in the end China was forced to pay indemnity to the foreign powers. As a result of the Boxer Rebellion, Russia decided to occupy Manchuria. Fairbanks argues that the American Open Door Policy was originally intended to preserve foreign trade in China, but after the Russian occupation of Manchuria, it became a matter of preserving the integrity of the Chinese state.15 After an unsuccessful revolutionary attempt in Hunan province in 1906, the Chinese government insisted that Japanstop sheltering revolutionaries.

The intensity of agricultural involvement in foreign policy declined sharply after 1900,” writes Williams, “as the Boxer Rebellion was suppressed, as American forces gradually isolated and defeated the Filipino insurgents, andas the home market absorbed a greater proportion of a stabilized production. The combination of domestic demand and reliable foreign purchases in cotton and tobacco underwrote a period of prosperity for most farm businessmen.The farmers turned back to the foreign market, however, as World War I orders first eased a serious domestic recession and then created a wild export boom.”16

http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/98/91198-004-50309F8B.jpg

In 1911 a revolution against the Qing Dynasty broke outin Hubei province in central China. One of the complaints was that the Qing Dynasty had hindered China’s progress by rejecting trade with the West. The revolution spread to seventeen provinces, which declared their independence from the emperor and joined together in a federation. One of the revolutionary leaders was Sun Yat-sen. Sun was born in 1866 to a peasant family living near Macao. Like many other Chinese from Canton, he went to Honolulu to join his older brother and obtain an education in an Anglican boarding school. Upon returning to China, he was sent to college in Hong Kong, where he was baptized in the Congregational Church. He went on to obtain a medical degree. The defeat ofChina in an undeclared war with France in 1885 prompted him to become in nationalist politics. In 1894 he organized a

secret society known as the Hsing Chung Hui (“Revive China Society”) and engaged in revolutionary actions.

A Shanghai merchant named Charles Jones Soong provided support to Sun’s effort. Sun married one of Soong’s daughters, and Sun’s successor Chiang Kai-shek married another. Soong was born on the island of Hainan off the southern coast of China. His family was of Hakka ancestry. Deng Xiaoping was also of Hakka ancestry. The Hakka spoke a language of their own and were not associated with any particular region of China. Another Hakka was Hong Xiuquan, who as a convert to Christianity, declared himself the younger brother of Jesus and with an army of a million troops launched what has become known as the Taiping Rebellion in 1851. Soong was educated in the United States at Vanderbilt University. He returned to China in 1886 as a Methodist missionary. In 1892 Soong met Sun Yat-sen. Both men had some Hakka ancestry and both spoke Cantonese, because Hainan was then part of Canton province.

In 1895 Sun and his society attempted an unsuccessful coup in the Canton provincial capital. Sun escaped to Japan and later to London, where he continued his revolutionary activities. One of the groups he cultivated was the Triad Society in China. Sun Yat-sen based his revolution on three principles: Nationalism, Democracy, and the People’s Livelihood. Sun’s Three Principles of the People was inspired in part by Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The principles of people’s nationalism (i.e., freedom from foreign domination, people’s power (i.e., democracy), and people’s livelihood (socialism according to some interpretations) was derived from Lincoln’s government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The latter concept was a vague adaptation of Henry George’s idea of expropriating future increases in land values as a way to equalize property. Sun Yat-sen declared that China consistedof five races: Han, Tibetan, Manchu, Mongol, and Hui (Muslim). However, Terrill argues that the Han were not a

single people, because it consists of people who spoke eight, different languages.17

Sun moved his operation to Hanoi in Indochina, but he was then expelled by the French. Finally, in October 1911, after ten unsuccessful attempts, Sun Yat-sen while travelingin the United States to raise funds read in a newspaper thatthe Chinese revolution had begun and he was to be the first President of the Chinese Republic. After the 1911 revolution, Sun was appointed provisional president of China, but he reluctantly yielded power to Yuan Shikai, a former prime minister in the Manchu government. Yuan established a military dictatorship, and their ensued a period of political chaos between competing warlords.Sun returned to China was inaugurated as the provisional President in January 1912 in Nanking. The next month the young Manchu Emperor abdicated. The last emperor on the Dragon Throne was a Manchu boy named Puyi who was only six years old.

http://img2.blogabond.com/UserPhotos/3937/580/puyi.jpg

With the fall of the Qing Dynasty China had lost its control over Tibet and Outer Mongolia. Shortly after the start of World War One, the Japanese government issued its Twenty-One Demands whose provision, in the opinion of Andelman, “would effectively have turned over control of China to Japan.”18 In August 1914, Japan declared war on

Germany only three weeks after Germany declared war on France. Japanese forces landed on the north coast of Shantung Province with the purpose of seizing the Germany concessions at Kiao-chau. The following year Japan presentedChina was it Twenty-one Demands, which would have established a Japanese protectorate over China. “Curiously,”writes David A. Adelman, “the Twenty-One Demands constitutedthe kind of document a victor would normally offer to a defeated foe. Yet China at that point was more a victim thanan ally of Japan’s enemy, Germany.”19 In May 1915 China signed the Twenty-One Demands. While Wilson was unwilling tointervene directly in the affair, he did issue a declarationthat the United States would not recognize any agreement between Japan and China that might impair the treaty rights of the United States in China, the territorial integrity of China, or the Open Door Policy.

President Woodrow Wilson tended to be sympathetic to

China and committed to the Open Door Policy of free trade. In November 1913 the Japanese ambassador to the United States met with Wilson to protest legislation in California restricting land ownership and settlement by Asian. During the 1912 Presidential election Wilson and the Democratic Party were in favor of restricting Asian immigration. He wrote a letter to San Francisco Mayor James Phelan in which he said: “in the matter of Chinese and Japanese coolie immigration, I stand for the national policy of exclusion. The whole question is one of assimilation of diverse races. We cannot make a homogeneous population out of a people who do not blend with the Caucasian race.”20

By March 1917 the Kuomintang occupied Shanghai and Nanking. However, clashes broke in Shanghai, Canton, and other cities between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Whenthe peacemakers at Versailles decided to allow Japan to assume the German concessions in Shantung, students in Peking in May 1919 began a mass demonstration and strikes. This led to the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. The Third Communist International, or Comintern, was

established in 1919 to expand the Communist Revolution worldwide. It decided to focus on China as the first place for international action. Their initial action was to send representatives both to Sun Yat-sen’s Kuomintang Party organized in January 1924 and to the Chinese Communist Partywith the aim of creation a Kuomintang-Communist Alliance.

There were other secret agreements. In July 1916 Russiaand Japan entered an alliance to block any third power from obtaining political influence in China. While this allegedlywas directed at Germany, in fact, it excluded the United States as well. In February 1917 Britain, Russian and Japan signed a secret pact formalizing the previous “understanding” granting Britain the German island south of the equator and Japan all the German islands north of the equator. Also, Britain agreed to support Japanese rights toShantung. France and Italy later agreed to grant Japanese claims in Shantung.

http://etc.usf.edu/maps/pages/4200/4268/4268.gif

In September 1917 Viscount Kikujiro Ishii, the former Japanese foreign minister, headed a mission to the United States at which time he proclaimed a Japanese Monroe Doctrine for the Eastern Hemisphere, which became known as the Amau Doctrine, named after the Japanese Foreign

spokesman Eliji Amau. In November American secretary of state Robert Lansing exchanged notes with Japan recognizing that because of it close proximity Japan has “special interests in China,” but also reaffirming the “territorial sovereignty” of China. In a secret protocol to the agreement, Japan reaffirmed America’s Open Door Policy. According to Andelman, “The United States itself had now entered into a secret pact that would go a long way toward tying the hands of its negotiator in Paris.”21

At the 1919 Peace Conference in Paris the Chinese delegation, which had been a noncombatant ally during the war, asked for the end of all foreign concessions, the return of sovereignty throughout all its territories, the evacuation of all foreign troops, and economic and fiscal independence. Japan became a member of the Council of Ten, but China was only allowed to attend the proceedings dealingwith its own future. Robert Lansing believed that this compromise was a mistake, and it would have been preferable to not have Japan as a member of the League of Nations. The Conference granted the German concessions in China to Japan.In the end, China refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles. There were protests Tiananmen Square, and Chinese students launched the so-called May Fourth Movement. On May 4, 1919,thousands of students demonstrated in Beijing against this decision. Among the protesters were future Chinese Communistleaders Teng Hsiao-ping, Chou En-lai, and Mao Tse-tung. In the aftermath of the May Fourth Movement the Chinese Communist Party was founded in 1921 in Shanghai. Japan finally did return the territory of Kaio-chau to China and Japanese troops were withdrawn. But Japan kept economic rights over railroads, mines, and communications.

Young Mao Tse-tung,http://madamepickwickartblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Tse-tung1.jpg

Mao Tse-tung was born in 1893 in the village of Shaoshan in Hunan province. His family was of peasant origins that had become rich by trading pigs and rice and lending money. Sharma argues that Mao’s early education exposed him to Chinese novels and histories, such as Romanceof the Three Kingdoms, Rebellion Against the Tang Dynasty, and Water Margin. He also was familiar with the lives of George Washington, Napoleon, Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, Willington, Gladstone, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Lincoln. In 1911 he left his family to go to school in the provincialcapital of Zhanxa. One of his teachers are the Provincial Normal School was Yang Quangji, who was promoting reform, but not abandoning China’s national culture through Westernization. Mao came to believe that physical and military training was more important than the traditional Confucian values of peace and devotion to one’s parents. Maograduated from the Normal School in 1918 and married Yang’s daughter Yan Kaithui in 1921.

After graduating from the normal school, Mao moved to Beijing to attend Beijing University, where he was influenced by the ideas of Li Dazhao, who was according to Ram Naresh Shama, “the intellectual founder of the communistmovement in China.”22 Li Dazhao believed that Chinese nationalism was a necessary adjunct to traditional Marxist

theory. Mao worked as an assistant librarian at Beijing University. In 1919 he returned to Hunan province to become a teacher in a Zhanxa primary school. It was here that he began his political activities, starting with involvement inthe May Fourth Movement, protesting the decision of the Paris Peace Conference to turn over the former German concessions in China to Japan.

Mao departed from the traditional Marxist interpretation of a proletarian revolution, by seeing in China a potential for revolution by the peasants. He writes this as early as March 1926 in an essay titled “The Chinese Peasant.” According to Maurice Meiser,“The first, and the most striking, of Mao’s revisions is the substitution of thepeasantry for the proletariat as the agent of revolution.”23

Mao also departed from traditional Marxism by stressing the tactic of guerrilla warfare, that is to concentrate on the countryside rather than attacking cities. By 1930 Mao had espoused the doctrine that revolutionary violence within theCommunist Party was not only permissible, but desirable. InDecember of that year Mao began to purge of the party officials in the small town of Futian on the suspicious thatthey were Social Democrats. From there the purge expanded tothe entire province of Jiangxi. Suspects were tortured untiltheir confessed. About 600 officers of the Red Army and about 6,000 party members and officials in the province wereexecuted. Another 10,000 were killed on the border of Hunan and Jiangxi.24

Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Yat-sen,http://www.mh.sinica.edu.tw/MHUserFile/PhotoOfTheDay/images/20121029094900421.jpg

In March 1925 Sun Yat-sen died, and his successor was Chiang Kai-shek who was the head of the Whampoa Military Academy in Canton. Chiang Kai-shek was born in Zhejiang province, the son of a salt merchant. He attended a military academy in Japan, where he became an adherent to Sun Yat-sen’s Revolutionary Alliance. Chiang returned to Shanghai to command a brigade of 3,000 men during the Chinese Revolution of 1911. Chiang joined the unsuccessful effort to overthrow Yuan Shikai. When the Whampoa Military Academy was established in May 1924, Chiang became its commandant. Chiang also replaced Sun as commander of the Kuomintang armed forces. The following year Chiang declared martial law and arrested many Chinese Communists and their Soviet advisers. In July 1926, Chiang who had now taken on the title Generalissimo embarked upon a military attempt to unify the country under the Kuomintang.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_May-ling#/media/File:1927_Chiang_Soong_wedding_photo1.jpg

Chiang had visited Russia in 1923, which made him suspicious of Bolshevism. In March 1923 Chiang arrested suspected Communists in Canton in response to a plot to kidnap him. By March 1927 the Kuomintang occupied Shanghai and Nanking. However, clashes broke in Shanghai, Canton, andother cities between the Kuomintang and the Communists. Chiang began a bloody purge of the Communists in April.He then crushed the Communist-led labor movement in Shanghaiand established his capital in Nanking in April 1927. In December 1927 Chiang married Mayling Soong, Charlie Soong’s youngest daughter. According to Li, the marriage consolidated Chiang’s claim the Sun Yat-sen’s “revolutionarylegacy.”25 In June 1928 Chiang occupied Peking and renamed it Peiping (“Northern Peace”). During the same month the Kuomintang under Chiang’s leadership defeated the Manchurianwarlord Shang Zuolin, which completed what was known as the Northern Expedition. Nevertheless, the Nationalists still controlled less than one-tenth of China’s land and a little more than one fifth of its people.26 They faced continued resistance from the Communists and the warlords. In 1930 Chiang defeated two more northern warlords.

In September 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria after part of the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway was blown up.Manchuria, which consisted of three provinces containing rich agricultural and mineral resources as well as heavy industry. The Nationalists referred the matter to the Leagueof Nations. The League protested, but it was ignored by Japan. Chiang Kai-shek attempted to resist the Japanese withone hand, while he fought the Chinese Communists with the other. “Chiang persisted in focusing Nationalist army efforts on quelling the Communists instead of repelling the Japanese, famously declaring that the Japanese were a disease of the skin, but the Communists were a disease of the heart,” writes Li.27 In November 1931 the Chinese Communists had established a Chinese Soviet Republic in Kiangsi. Chiang established a blockade around Kiangsi in 1934, and Mao received permission from Moscow to break out of the encirclement and with 100,000 troops began the so-called Long March. The Communists traveled a circuitous route of about 6,000 miles, before establishing their new headquarters in Yenan at the end of 1936.

Chiang enlisted the help of foreign missionaries to revitalize Chinese society under the New Life Movement originated by Sun Yat-sen. Among these missionaries were members of the so-called Oxford Group in Britain, founded bya YMCA activist named Frank Buchman. The group became a worldwide movement renamed Moral Re-Armament, but its influence declined when Buchman decided to praise Adolph Hitler. A spin-off of the Oxford Group was the organization known as Alcoholics Anonymous founded in Akron, Ohio. Among the reforms championed by the New Life Movement were to ban gambling (including the Chinese game of mah-jongg), opium smoking, cigarette smoking, drinking, and dancing. These rules were enforced by a paramilitary organization known as the Blue Shirts, modeled after Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Mussolini’s Black Shirts.

In August 1935 the Chinese Communist Party and the

Comintern (the Communist International formed in 1919)

called for the formation of a united front with the Kuomintang against the Japanese. However, Chiang Kai-shek resisted this proposal, until he was kidnapped by Manchuriantroops who wanted to fight the Japanese, not the Chinese Communists. The leader in Manchuria was Zhang Xueliang (known as ‘Young Marshal”), who had a reputation as the wealthy playboy and opium addict. His adviser was an Australian named William Henry Donald. In April 1936 Zhang met with Chou En-lai, Mao Tse-tung’s chief lieutenant, who convinced Zhang that all the Chinese should band together tofight Japan. However, Chiang was adamant uniting China firstand fighting Japan second.

In December Zhang engineered a kidnapping of Chiang. The kidnapping actually increased Chiang’s popularity among the Chinese. Zhang then sent to Chou En-lai, who had been Chiang’s subordinate at the Whampoa Military Academy. The Communist line at this time was that it was necessary to unite with the Nationalists to fight Japan, before a Communist revolution could take place. Zhang also sent for Mayling, who was an old friend of his, and by Christmas Day Chiang was freed. This event resulted in the Nationalist andCommunists temporarily stopped their civil war against each other in order to concentrate on fighting the Japanese. However, Zhang was arrested, but then pardoned by Chiang on the urging of Mayling. When Japan attacked Peiping in July 1937, a temporary alliance between the Nationalists and the Communists was formed, but didn’t last long.Sharma writes that, “The Chinese Communists utilized the Japanese attack as an opportunity for propagating a nationalresistance against Japanese imperialism and thereby mobilizing and capitalizing peasant support and nationalist sentiments of the masses at large in favour of themselves.”28

At first the Chinese communists formed a united front with Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomindang, both sharing a nationalist agenda. However, Chiang chose to forego the united front to gain the support of the warlords and

merchants, and he established his base in rule in Nanking over mainland China until the Communist revolution in 1949. Mao moved his base to Shanghai, where he adopted the cause of the peasants in Hunan province. However, Sharma notes that Chiang Kai-shek “was more anti-communist than anti-imperialist and was not ready to stop the civil war even in the face of Japanese attack. . . . Mao Tse-tung, too, while propagating for an anti-Japanese popular national front, continued the campaign against Chiang’s forces. . .”29

https://www2.bc.edu/~heineman/maps/china1938.jpg

In June 1937 Claire Lee Chennault from Louisiana, who was a major in the U.S. Army Air Corps, came to China to work for the Nationalists. After signing a pact with Nazi Germany in 1936, the Japanese in July 1937 attacked the Marco Polo Bridge on the outskirts of Beijing. Japanese troops entered Chiang Kai-shek’s capital of Nanking in December under orders to “kill all captives.” The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimated that more than 260,000 non–combatants were killed in what has become known as the Rape of Nanking. An estimated 8,000 to 20,000 Chinese women were literally raped.30 By November1937 the Japanese had captured Shanghai, began to advance up

the Yangtze River Valley towards the Nationalist capital of Nanking. The Nationalists moved their headquarters further inland to Wuhan.

Throughout 1938 the Japan armies advanced into the Chinese provinces of Canton, Wuhan, and Xuzhou. In June 1938Chiang Kai-shek broke the dikes of the Huayuankou River in order to slow the Japanese advance. About 900,000 Chinese were killed in the resulting flood and 12 million people were made homeless.31 In October Japan occupied Wuhan, and the Nationalists moved again to Chungking, the capital of Sichuan province, further up the Yangtze.

By 1940 Japan and its puppet regimes controlled almost the entire Chinese coast and a large part of the eastern provinces. Now cut off from receiving supplies from the Chinese coast, a road was constructed over 700 miles to Burma. By 1940, when Germany, Italy, and Japan formed the axis alliance, Japan had taken control of the entire coast of China. The war weakened the Chiang government, and the Soviet Union allowed the Chinese Communists to gain control of Manchuria after Japan was run out, which enabled them eventually to defeat Chiang and the Nationalists.

After the United States entered the war against Japan in December 1941, the Nationalists resented that China was not consided an Ally with equal status to Britain and the United States. Chiang was convinced that it was because of racism. To complicate matters Chiang decided to champion India’s independence from Great Britain. After the fall of Hong Kong, Chiang was concerned that India had to help in the fight against Japan. However, Indian Congress leader Mohandas Gandhi was unwilling to fight Japan unless Britain granted India its independence. In February 1942 Japan captured Singapore, and Chiang appealed to Roosevelt that ifIndia fell to Japan, China would have no supply route. In May 1942 Japan captured Burma, and the Burma Road was closed. Now supplies had to be flown over the Himalayan Mountains from India to Chungking. Chiang complained that

Lend-Lease supplies promised to China were diverted to GreatBritain.

In June 1942 some B-24 bombers intended for China was diverted to Khartoum for use by the British. Chiang complained to Lieutenant General Joseph Stilwell, who had been sent to China as the supreme allied commander of the China theater of war, to no avail.Chiang asked Franklin Roosevelt in July to be a mediator between Great Britain and the Congress Party, but Roosevelt was unwilling to undermine the wartime alliance between Britain and the United States. In August Gandhi and Nehru were arrested, and Chiang appealed to Roosevelt to free them. Roosevelt forwarded Chiang’s message to Churchill, whoresponded that Chiang’s talk was “eye wash.” Churchill believed that China wanted to take over Indochina, Burma, and northern India after the war.

Madame Chiang had allies within the United States, including Henry R. Luce, the publisher of Life and Time magazines, and his wife Clare Boothe Luce, who wrote glowingprofiles of her. Madame Chiang went around Roosevelt to appeal to Congress to change the Europe first strategy in fighting World War Two. This led to a backlash against the Chiangs by writers such as Theodore H. White and Peal S. Buck. Madame Chiang was criticized for her elaborate wardrobe, and the Nationalist government for curtailments offree speech and corruption. In May 1943 the Allied command met in Washington for the Trident Conference. At the conference Stilwell spoke against Chiang as being “tricky” and “undependable,” but Chennault spoke in favor of Chiang. Roosevelt decided that supplies flown over the Hump to Chinashould be increased. Churchill was concerned that China troops would use the aid to regain control over Tibet. Chiang wanted Britain to commit more troops to recapture Burma, whereas Churchill wanted only a limited British action against the Japanese in northern Burma.

From left to right: Chiang Kai-shek, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Mayling Soong at Cairo, 1943,http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/soongchurchillfdrchiang.jpg

In November 1943 Chiang was invited to Cairo to meet with Roosevelt and Churchill prior to their meeting in Teheran with Stalin. At this point Russia had not yet joinedthe war against Japan. Churchill was opposed to inviting Chiang to Cairo. Roosevelt met with Chiang prior to Churchill’s arrival. While they were meeting in Cairo, the United States Congress repealed the Chinese exclusion laws, and Roosevelt signed it in Cairo. Chiang asked for a billiondollar loan, but Roosevelt refused. By the end of the conference, the Allies agreed that the island of Formosa (Taiwan, today) would be given to the Nationalist governmentafter the war. While they were meeting in Cairo, the United States Congress repealed the Chinese exclusion laws, and Roosevelt signed it in Cairo. Chiang asked for a billion dollar loan, but Roosevelt refused. By the end of the conference, the Allies agreed that the island of Formosa (Taiwan, today) would be given to the Nationalist governmentafter the war. “Churchill’s refusal to dismantle the BritishEmpire strengthened Roosevelt’s conviction that China must play an important role in the postwar world,” writes Laura Tyson Li.32

Churchill and Roosevelt continued to Teheran to meet with Stalin, who opposed elevating China to the status of a great power. At Teheran Stalin agreed secretly that once Germany was defeated, the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan, providing Russia regained the privileges in Manchuria that it had under the Czar. Stalin also agreed to deal only with the Chiang as the sole legitimate government of China. FDR wanted to bring China under Chiang Kai-shek into the Big Four, already including USSR, Britain, and the US, by restoring to China the Chinese territories of Manchuria, Formosa and the Pescadores, which had been conquered by Japan. He also wanted to restore Hong Kong to China, for the United States to become a trustee of islands in the Pacific, and to mutually police Indochina with the Allies. Thus, China would become a counterweight to Russia and Britain in the Far East.

In June 1944 Roosevelt sent a delegation headed by VicePresident Henry Wallace to Russia and China. The delegation also included Owen Lattimore, who formerly had been an adviser to Chiang. They visited both the Nationalist capitalin Chungking and the Communist capital in Yenan. When Wallace returned, he suggested that Roosevelt replace Stilwell with someone who would win Chiang’s trust. Instead Roosevelt promoted Stilwell to four-star general and put in command of both Communist and Nationalist forces, but reporting directly to Chiang. This was a slap in the face toChiang who wanted Stilwell out of China. Finally, Roosevelt recalled Stilwell in October 1944.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Chinese_Eastern_Railway-en.svg/300px-Chinese_Eastern_Railway-en.svg.png

In February 1945 at the Russian resort town of Yalta inthe Crimean, President Franklin Roosevelt attempted to obtain Stalin’s support of the Kuomintang government in exchange for a Russian sphere of influence in northeast Asia. Roosevelt and Churchill promised Stalin that in exchange for entering the war against Japan and not supporting the Chinese Communist Party, Russia would regain joint control with China of the Chinese Eastern Railroad, Manchurian port of Port Arthur (or Darien, Dalian) would be internationalized with the restoration of the Soviet lease of a naval base there and the concessions in Manchuria lost by Tsarist Russia to Japan in 1905. This became part of a Sino-Russian treaty in August, after Russia had occupied Manchuria. In addition, Stalin recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia, and Indochina was to be re-occupied by the French, not the Chinese.

The Soviets had already approved the principle of trusteeships by the time of the Yalta conference, and they wanted it included in the Charter of the United Nations. Roosevelt met privately with Stalin and obtained his supportfor trusteeships.He also promised Russia access to Darien asa warm-water port, but providing that the city be under

international control. He wanted to see Hong Kong became an international free port as well. When Secretary of State Edward Stettinius raised the issue of trusteeship with Churchill the next day, Churchill was adamant. Stettinius told Churchill that the trusteeship plan applied only to colonies taken from the enemy and those that voluntarily wanted to become trusteeships. With this understanding Churchill initialed the memo that placed the trusteeship protocol into the UN Charter.

Roosevelt had cultivated a friendship with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, despite evidence of corruption within the Kuomintang regime, hoping that China would support the idea of place Indochina in a trusteeship after the war. However, Chiang was willing to endorse the idea of trusteeships for islands in the Pacific, but not on the Asian mainland. The Yalta agreement was not formally announced, and Chiang did not learn about it until mid-Marchfrom China’s ambassador to the United States. The Nationalist considered the Yalta agreement a betrayal. Shortly after returning from Yalta, President Roosevelt in April collapse and died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia.

On August 9, 1945, Russia declared war on Japan, and Soviet troops occupied Manchuria. Five days later the SovietUnion signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with the Kuomindang government in accordance with the agreement reached two years earlier at Tehran. But aftertaking control of Manchuria, the Soviet Union turned over captured Japanese arms and munitions to the Communist Chinese. After the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945,Chiang sent troops to take control of Taiwan in accordance with the Cairo Declaration. The native Taiwanese had come tothink of themselves as a separate ethnic group from the mainland Chinese. However, they welcomed being liberated from the Japanese. When the Nationalist Chinese took over the island, they considered themselves superior to the Taiwanese.

The new President Harry Truman sent General George Marshall to China in December to mediate a reconciliation between the Nationalists and the Communists. Marshall arranged for the two sides to sign a truce in January 1946. But the Russians refused to withdraw from Manchuria. In the spring of 1946 the Soviet Union withdrew from Manchuria, butretained parts of Manchuria and the ports of Dairen and PortArthur. As the Russians withdrew Chiang Kai-shek sent troopsto occupy Manchuria. The ceasefire quickly broke down as both the Chinese Communists and the Nationalists fought for control of Manchuria. Mao engaged the Nationalists there with his own troops under the command of Lin Biao. Between September and November 1948 three major Manchuria cities of Jinzhou, Changchun, and Shenyang fell to the Communists. Thevictory in Manchuria paved the way for the conquest of northand central China.

President Harry Truman and Madame Chiang Kai-shek, 1945http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/2346038f-a0c5-4f91-bb58-d3105ee161ec.img

Truman didn’t particularly like Chiang Kai-shek nor hiswife. Finally, in December 1946 Marshall met with Chiang and pointedly told him that his corruption was threatening to result in the Communists winning over the Chinese people. In January 1947 Truman ordered Marshall to return to Washington to become Secretary of State. Marshallissued a report in which he blamed both the Nationalists and

the Communists for refusing to compromise. After the Japanese surrender, Chiang sent troops to take control of Taiwan in accordance with the Cairo Declaration. The native Taiwanese had come to think of themselves as a separate ethnic group from the mainland Chinese. However, they welcomed being liberated from the Japanese. When the Nationalist Chinese took over the island, they considered themselves superior to the Taiwanese. In February a riot broke out in protest against the government Monopoly Bureau that controlled the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, alcohol, opium and other products. About 30,000 Formosans were killed in the resulting rioting. This led to calls for the Taiwanese to demand that they have an independent state.

Secretary of State Marshall in a speech at Harvard in June 1947 announced the so-called Marshall Plan of sending billions of dollars in aid to European countries threatened by Communism. But China was not included in the plan. That summer Truman sent General Albert C. Wedemeyer to China on afact finding mission. In his report Wedemeyer said that the United States should aid China only if Manchuria was placed under a UN trusteeship, China reform its government, and China accept American military and economic advisers. Marshall immediately classified the report. Neither Marshallnor Truman wanted to support the Nationalists either militarily or economically.

By October 1948 the Communists had taken control Manchuria from the Nationalists. In November Chiang sent an appeal to Truman that all of China was on the verge of beingconquered by the Communists. Truman acknowledged the message, but took no action. Then in December Madam Chiang Kai-shek came to the United States to appeal personally to Truman and Marshall. Still there was no promise by the Administration of additional support. Madame Chiang stayed in the United States to lobby for additional aid with the support of the China Lobby. It included among others the publisher Henry Luce, Minnesota Congressman Walter H. Judd,

New Hampshire Senator Styles Bridges, and California Congressman Richard Nixon.

In January 1949 Dean Acheson replaced Marshall as Secretary of State. He ordered a review of the China policy.The resulting White Paper blamed Chiang Kai-shek’s corrupt and incompetent regime for the loss of China to the Communists. The paper suggested that the Chinese Communists were just agrarian reformers who were not necessarily receiving direction from Moscow Paper wasn’t released until August. Meanwhile, in May Shanghai fell to the Communists, and hundreds of thousands Chinese fled to Taiwan, while thousands of others were stranded on the mainland. In October 1949 from Beijing, the new capital of China, Mao established the People’s Republic of China. As Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao was the head of state underwhat he described as a “People’s Democratic Dictatorship.”

http://img.alibaba.com/img/news/10/01/13/85/1280217239019_us-backyard1_755.jpg

In December Chiang fled the mainland for the island of Taiwan, where he established the Republic of China with its capital in Taipei. The Republic of China also lay claim to

the islands of Penghu (also known as the Pescadores), Kinmen(or Quemoy), Matsu, and several other minor island. Taiwan was formerly known as Formosa, a name given it by Portuguesesailors in the sixteenth century. The original settlers of the island were known as the Taiwanese aborigines, who spokea language in the Austronesian linguistic family (which alsoincludes the Malayo-Polynesian languages spoken in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Java, Madagascar, and Easter Island). Beginning in the thirteenth century Han Chinese from the mainland began to settle on the island despite the opposition of the Taiwanese. From 1626 until 1642 Spanish traders occupied the northern part of the island, when they were displaced by Dutch merchants. The Dutch were pushed out in 1662 by the Zheng Chenggong, a military leader loyal to the Ming dynasty. His son, Zheng Jing, established an independent Kingdom of Tungning, which lasted until 1683, when the Qing dynasty conquered the island and annexed it to China. After the First Sino-Japanese War from 1894 to 1895, the Chinese ceded Taiwan to Japan. At the outset of World War II there were more than 300,000 Japanese living on the island, who were repatriated to Japan after the war.

In February 1950 Communist China and the Soviet Union signed the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance, which was to remain in effect until 1980.Russia began to gradually withdraw from Manchuria. In 1950 it returned Port Arthur to China, in 1952 it ended the jointcontrol of the Manchurian railroads, and in 1955 it withdrewfrom the naval base at Port Arthur. Stalin promised militaryassistance if China were to be attacked, but Mao had to acquiesce to de facto Soviet control over Mongolia and occupation of Dairen and Port Arthur. Historian John Lewis Gaddis argues that the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty was analogousto the April 1949 North Atlantic Treaty. Both were examples of weaker nations asking for an alliance with a stronger nation to guarantee their security from external attack. Thetreaties specified that in the event of an attack by a thirdparty on one of them, the signatories would could to each

other’s aid. In this case, it was China that was concerned about an attack by the United States.33

Britain recognized the Communist regime in China, but the United States did not. The Republic of China (now on Taiwan) had been a charter member of the United Nations since October 1945 and one of five permanent members of the Security Council. In January 1950 claiming it was the sole legitimate representative of China, the People’s Republic ofChina (that is, Communist China) tried to unseat the Tawainese government in the United Nations. The United States opposed this move, not wanting to add another Communist government to the Security Council. In protest, the government of the Soviet Union began a boycott of the United Nations sessions.

Mao had wanted to invade Taiwan, but instead China was drawn into the Korean War, which was started by the pro-Russian Communist regime in North Korea that had approved the war with Stalin, but not with Mao. Kim Il Sung, the Communist leader of North Korea, went to Moscow to get Stalin’s approval. Stalin told Kim that he approved on the condition that Kim also get Mao’s approval, because the Soviet Union would not intervene if the invasion went wrong.Kim did not tell Mao about Stalin’s reservation. Mao had to postpone his plan invade Taiwan, because 100,000 Koreans fought with the Chinese in Manchuria against Japan, and China would be forced to intervene in order to protect Manchuria. In June 1950 Kim Il Sung launched his invasion ofSouth Korea. Previously, the Truman administration had indicated that it would not fight to defend either Taiwan orKorea. But now with the Soviet Union boycotting the UN sessions, the Truman administration was able to get the United Nations to endorse a resolution stating that the North Korean armed attack on South Korea constituted a “breach of the peace” and authorizing the member nations to provide an armed forced on the unified command of the UnitedStates to defend the Republic of South Korea. Initially, theNorth Koreans pushed the South Koreans back to the

southeastern corner of the Korean peninsula, but when the UNforces under the American general Douglass MacArthur launched a counter invasion of North Korea resulting in American troops approaching the Yalu River, the boundary with Manchuria, Mao intervened with the “Chinese People’s Volunteers.”

President Truman called the Korean War a “police action,” thus not going to Congress to obtain a Declaration of War, which only Congress can do under the Constitution. Instead, it became part of what was euphemistically called the Cold War to stop the spread of international Communism. By seeing foreign affairs during this time solely through the lens of anti-Communism, the United States departed from its traditional policy of championing self-determination, leaving the field open to be taken by Communist Russia and China. However, both Russia and China used this cause selectively to apply to anti-colonialism, but not to their own expansionist empires.

Ram Naresh Sharma argues that Mao’s so-called “China Path” was that the Soviet Union, China, and the colonies of the Western Powers after World War II should form a united front on the principle of national liberation. In his essay “Revolutionary Forces of the World Unite,” Mao wrote: “[S]since the victory of the World War II, U.S. imperialism and its running dogs in various countries have taken the place of fascist Germany, Italy and Japan. . . This enemy still has strength; therefore, all the revolutionary forces of all countries must likewise unite, must form an anti-imperialist united front headed by the Soviet Union and follow correct policies; otherwise, victory will be impossible.” Sharma writes that “China’s foreign policy behavior indicated that he [Mao] was more interested in containing Russia’s spheres of influence, for he felt her increasing strength as dangerous for the Chinese nation, andthe success of the former’s ideology as a challenge to his ideological stand.” However, Sharma notes that Mao did follow “aggressive nationalist behaviours” in his attacks on

India and Vietnam and his annexing bordering states such as Tibet. “One may observe the cleavage between profession and practice of Mao Tse-tung as a weak point of China because heprofessed internationalism but practiced national aggrandizement, however, it was nationalism through which helooked for internationalism and not at all without that.”34

In the 1940s Stalin encouraged the Muslims in the Ili region of northwestern Xinjiang province to declare their independence from China.35 Xinjiang has racial and religiousconnects with the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. According to Ross Terrill, Stalin “pulled the rug out from underneath the struggling regime,” because he “manipulated the Turkish leaders in Xinjiang in order to get the Chiang Kai-shek government to accept the terms of Yalta.” 36 The Uighur province of Xinjiang had become closer to Russia than to China in the late 1930s. The Chinese provinces of Gansu, Qinghai, and Ningxia were ruled by the Muslim Ma clan. Yunnan province was ruled by the Yi people, and Tibet was virtually independent. In the 1940s Stalin took control of northern Xinjiang under what was known as the East TurkistanRepublic. In 1944 northern Xinjiang had established itself as a separate state named East Turkistan. Stalin promised Chiang that Russia would not annex Xinjiang or assist Mao inhis civil war against Chiang providing Chiang accepted Soviet privileges in Manchuria and the independence of OuterMongolia.

In July 1942 Chiang asked Franklin Roosevelt to be a mediator between Great Britain and the Congress Party in India, but Roosevelt was unwilling to undermine the wartime alliance between Britain and the United States. In August Gandhi and Nehru were arrested, and Chiang appealed to Roosevelt to free them. Roosevelt forwarded Chiang’s messageto Churchill, who responded that Chiang’s talk was “eye wash.” Churchill believed that China wanted to take over Indochina, Burma, and northern India after the war. When India became an independent country in 1947, Tibet asked

India to return the territories that Britain had seized fromTibet, including Sikkim and Darjeeling. India ignored the request. Then in 1949 India sent troops into Sikkim and madeit an Indian dependency, despite its large Tibetan population. In early 1950 the Chinese Communists sent a hugearmy to the Tibetan border. The Communists promised to lowertaxes and guarantee religious freedom in Tibet. The Panchen Lama in Amdo announced that he would support the new Communist government as the renamed Qinghai province of China.

In early 1950 the Chinese Communists sent a huge army to the Tibetan border. The Communists promised to lower taxes and guarantee religious freedom in Tibet. The Panchen Lama in Amdo announced that he would support the new ChineseCommunist government. China then officially annexed Amdo andrenamed it Qinghai province. In October the Communist Chinese army marched into Kham, where they met little resistance. Then they advanced into central Tibet. An attempt to place the Chinese invasion of Tibet on the agendaof the United Nations was blocked by Britain, India, and theUnited States. In 1951 a Tibetan delegation signed the so-called Seventeen-Point Agreement, in which China promised toallow the Dalai Lama to remain in office, the Tibetan religion would be preserved, and the Tibetan army would be integrated into the Chinese army. In September 1951 the Tibetan National Assembly ratified the agreement. The Chinese government calls Tibet the Tibet Autonomous Region, but it is hardly autonomous. After 1955 China doubled the size of Sichuan province and placed almost all of Kham underChinese control. In 1956 there was a revolt by Tibetans in Ham that was instigated with the help of the American CIA. The revolt was led by a woman warrior named Dorjee Yudon. InMarch 1959 the Dalai Lama went into exile in India, and the Chinese snt a large number of troops into Tibet. Then China announced that the Seventeen-Point Agreement was abrogated and Tibet would be governed as an “autonomous” region withinChina.

In conclusion, China today is the largest nation in theworld with a population of 1.4 billion people, constituting over 19 percent of the world population of 7.2 billion. While the Han Chinese make up 92 percent of the population with 1.2 billion people, but there are also 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities in China. The largest of these is the 16.9 million Zhuang people, followed by the 10.9 million Hui, the 10.3 million Manchu, and the 10 million Uighur peoples. In addition. there are the Miao, the Yi, theTujia, the Tibetan, the Mongol, the Dong, the Buyei, the Yao, the Bai, the Korean, the Hani, the Li, the Kazakh, and the Dai peoples. This diversity results from the fact that over the centuries, China both conquered by foreign peoples (the Mongols and the Manchus) as conquered foreign peoples (the Uighurs, the Tibetans, Mongols, the Manchus, the Koreans).

Just as the War of Terrorism today masks the ethnic conflicts that are the root of the appeal of radical jihadists in the Middle East and Central Asia, so too did ideology of anti-Communism masks the underlying issues of anti-colonialism and self-determination in the post-World War Two period. Both the Communist Mao Tse-tung and the Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek fought against foreign colonization of China, first French, British, and German so-called concessions and then by Russian and then Japanese occupation in Manchuria. At the same time, they fought each other with one hand as they fought the Japanese with the other.

The American involvement was with the concept of free trade under the so-called Open Door Policy first announced by Secretary of State John Hay during the McKinley administration. This was part of what historian William Appleman Williams calls “anti-colonial imperialism,” that is, opposing colonialism and the same time creating an empire based on free trade. Yet American missionaries in China from the late nineteenth century and their children created a so-called China Lobby based supporting Chiang Kai-

shek despite his corruption and opposing Mao Tse-tung because of Communist its atheism and totalitarianism. After World War Two the Truman administration attempted to mediatea reconciliation between the Communists and the Nationalists, but the fighting between the two parties resumed resulting in the Communist victory on the mainland and the Nationalists taking refuge on the island of Formosa (Taiwan, today).

Today, there are independence movements among the Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang Province and the Buddhists in Tibet. These two self-determination movements use very different tactics. The Tibetan Buddhists are pacifists, and the Uighurs have allied themselves with other jihadist movements using the asymmetrical warfare tactic of terrorism. But we have let the paradigm of the War on Terrorism to obscure the underlying issues of self-determination in both cases. Again and again, we have allowed the ideology (either Communism or jihadism) to put ourselves in opposition to one of our founding principles ofself-determination.

1 Ross Terrill, The New Chinese Empire--and What It Means for the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2003), p. 3.

2 John King Fairbank, The United States and China (New York: Viking Press, 1958), p. 68.

3 Lee Feigon, Demystifying Tibet: Unlocking the Secrets of the Land of the Snows (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1996), p. 90.

4 Ibid., p. 230.

5 Ibid., p. 10.

6 Ibid., pp. 32-33.

7 Andrew Jacobs, “In China, Myth of Social Cohesion: To Some, StoriesAbout Princesses Are Redolent of Propaganda,” The New York Times (August19, 2014), p. A4.

8 Fairbank, op, cit., p. 95.

9 Feigon, op. cit., p. 110.

10 Ibid., p. 110.

11 Fairbank, op. cit., p. 119.

12 Ibid., p. 120.

13 Ibid., p. 136.

14 William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. Rev. and enlarged ed. (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1962), pp. 37-38.

15 Fairbank, op. cit., p. 256.

16 William Appleman Williams, The Roots of the Modern American Empire: A Study of the Growth and Shaping of Social Consciousness in a Marketplace Society (New York: Random House, 1969), p. 444.

17 Terrill, op. cit., p. 107.

18 David A. Andelman, A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2008), p. 255.

19 Ibid., p. 255.

20 Ibid., p. 257.

21 Ibid., p. 261.

22 Ram Naresh Sharma, Mao: The Man and His Thought (Patna, India: Janaki Prakashan, 1991), p. 7.

23 Maurice Meisner, Mao Tse-tung: A Political and Intellectual Portrait (Cambridge, England: Polity Press, 2007), p. 85.

24 Philip Short, Mao: A Life (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2000), pp. 278-279, 280.

25 Laura Tyson Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China’s Eternal First Lady (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2006), p. 85.

26 Ibid., p. 86.

27 Ibid., p. 119.

28 Sharma, op. cit., p. 21.

29 Ibid., p. 21.

30 Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (New York: Penguin Press,2006), pp. 477, 478.

31 James Kynge, China Shakes the World: A Titan’s Rise and Troubled Future—and the Challenge for America (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006),, p. 145.

32 Li, Madame Chiang Kai-shek, p. 245.

33 John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 69-70.

34 Sharma, op. cit., pp. 226, 23, 233-234.

35 Terrill, op. cit., p. 233.

36 Ibid., p. 239.