China: The Roots of Madness – Part 6/8

June 11, 2010

In Part 6, Theodore H. White tells of an incident with Chiang Kai-shek’s troops when an officer tells peasants they were Mao’s men.  When White asks why lie, he’s told the peasants wouldn’t help if they knew the truth. In fact, regardless of the suffering from Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, this loyalty never wavers.

Joseph Stilwell, the commanding US general in China, is not happy with Chiang since he is not fighting Japan. Chiang says he needs his troops to fight the Communists. In 1945, America invites representatives from Chiang’s government  to take part in Japan’s surrender on the battleship Missouri and ignores the Communists.

USS Missouri

An American ambassador urges Mao to join Chiang in a unified government. To bring this about, America offers Mao protection and there are face-to-face negotiations between Mao and Chiang.  Meanwhile, in secret, Chiang moves his troops to launch an assault in Manchuria.

America urges Chiang to win the people by implementing Sun Yat-sen’s promised reforms.  Instead, Chiang’s war causes run-away inflation. Essential good become too expensive. The people want peace, and Mao offers the peasants what they want—land.

Continued in Part 7 & 8, The Roots of Madness or return to Part 5, The Roots of Madness

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China: The Roots of Madness – Part 5/8

June 11, 2010

In Part 5, Mao’s troops in the hills of Yunnan grows food. His army, dressed in shabby clothing wearing straw sandals, doesn’t look like a fighting force. Mao says the people are the sea and guerrillas are like fish that swim in the sea. Within a year, Mao’s army grows to 200,000.

Meanwhile Chiang Kai-shek’s army loses battles and cities to the Japanese. To continue fighting, his government and army moves to the deep mountain city of Chongqing in Sichuan province. In 1939, the Japanese start bombing Chongqing 24/7. When asked about the Japanese threat, Chiang says that the Japanese are a disease of the skin, but the communists are a disease of the heart.

Then on December 7, 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor and America enters the war. War supplies start to trickle to China through India and across the Himalayas to Chiang Kai-shek’s four-million-man army. However, his government is corrupt, his troops are poorly fed and moral is low.

Chiang Kai-shek is accepted as an equal among the West’s leaders while Mao works to keep up the moral of his Communist troops through political training—something Western leaders don’t understand and criticize.

Continued in Part 6, The Roots of Madness or return to Part 4, The Roots of Madness

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China: The Roots of Madness – Part 4/8

June 10, 2010

In Part 4, Chiang Kai-shek’s army is not ready when Japan invades Manchuria. He doesn’t have tanks, the artillery is old and the Chinese are learning about airplanes.

Meanwhile, the Communists that Chiang thought he had destroyed are back. Mao knew the peasants lived in horrible poverty. He promised land reforms and by 1932 has millions of supporters.

The language describing Mao is not flattering. Yes, when Mao ruled China, he was a brutal dictator. However, Chiang Kai-shek was also a brutal dictator. But Chiang converted to Christian in 1929, and the West still refers to him as the president of China—not a dictator.

Instead of fighting Japan, Chiang’s army bombs villages that Mao controls killing tens of thousands of noncombatants. Mao takes his ninety thousand troops on the famous thousand-mile Long March. A year later, only a few thousand remain. Mao calls for unity to fight Japan.

One of Chiang’s generals, Zhang Xueliang, forces him to sit down with the Communists where Chiang Kai-shek agrees to fight Japan. As soon as Chiang returns to his capital, he breaks the agreement and throws Zhang in prison.

Continued in The Roots of Madness- Part 5 or return to Part 3

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

To subscribe to iLook China, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

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China: The Roots of Madness – Part 3/8

June 9, 2010

In Part 3, death claims Sun Yat-sen (1866 – 1925) after he has accepted support from Soviet Russia. Soon, General Chiang Kai-shek (1887 – 1975), with help from the Communists, consolidates power in southern China.

Chiang is known to Westerners as a fiery nationalist and revolutionary.  He mobilizes an army under Sun Yat-sen’s flag and marches north with a few divisions. Meanwhile, the warlords have gathered a half-a-million troops to stop him. Outnumbered, Chiang sends an advance group of nationalists and communists to call the peasants and workers to join his army.

Among those peasants and workers is Mao Tse-tung (1893 – 1976).  While moving north, Chiang’s army raids foreign concessions, burns foreign buildings and tears down foreign flags.  Leftist leaders of the Kuomintang start to distrust Chiang Kai-shek and some want to assassinate him but others disagree.

In Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek, now a dictator, strikes first on April 12, 1927. His troops kill anyone suspected of being a Communist. In December, there is a Communist uprising in Canton. A battle rages for two days between the Communists and Kuomintang ending in the executions of most of the Communists, but Mao escapes and goes into hiding.

Continued in Part 4, The Roots of Madness or return to Part 2, The Roots of Madness.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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China: The Roots of Madness – Part 2/8

June 9, 2010

In part 2, British and American power controlled the wheels of industry in Shanghai, Nanking, Hankow and Chunking.  In the steaming south, peasants, working like beasts, plant rice and speak languages most Chinese do not understand.

At the turn of the century, a three-year-old child was the emperor and the throne sat empty. On October 10, 1911, a riot took place that couldn’t be controlled. Five weeks later, the Imperial government collapsed. The Qing Dynasty vanished over night and two-thousand years of Imperial tradition was gone. The Chinese called this time “Double Death”.

The British and Americans could not control what replaced the Qing Dynasty. Students without weapons rioted in the streets. Warlords, who controlled armies, divided China and the chaos grew worse. Life became so cheap, that death was like a bloody circus. However, while the Chinese people suffered and starved, the foreigners live in luxury and controlled China’s industry while being protected by the Western military.

Sun Yat-sen

Chinese students demanded a revolt and Sun Yat-sen called on China to slay the dragon of Imperialism. He said China must start with nationalism, then democracy and finally socialism. The only country that offered help was Soviet Russia. This post was more accurate than Part 1.

Continued in Part 3, The Roots of Madness or return to Part 1, The Roots of Madness.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

His latest novel is the multiple-award winning Running with the Enemy.

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