China Protecting its Teeth in 1950 Korea– Part 1/9

February 22, 2011

While searching Google for a Monroe Doctrine link, I stumbled on PCMS Social Studies and a post that appeared January 20, 2011.

Quote: “The Monroe Doctrine was put in place on December 2, 1823 by (President) James Monroe….   He did not want European Countries coming back and taking over the United States….  I know that I would definitely not want someone telling me I have to change the way I believe.”

China’s reaction was the same in 1950 when the People’s Liberation Army entered the Korean War.

Because Korea sat precariously between China, Russia and Japan, Korea had always been at the mercy of its bigger neighbors. For centuries, those nations had fought each other in Korea.

As World War II was ending, in July 1945, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin used his troops in coordination with the US to force the Japanese out of Korea. The Soviet and US armies met at the 38th parallel and agreed to divide Korea along that line.

The Soviets would control the northern half of Korea and the US the south.

While Soviet Russia and America were dividing the spoils of war in Europe and Asia, China was involved in a bloody civil war between the Communist and Nationalist Parties that would last until 1949

Prior to Japan occupying Korea in 1900, Korea had been a tributary state of China for centuries. However, China was in no shape to protest what Russia and the US was doing in Korea.

Two years later, the super powers left Korea leaving behind a Communist state in the north and a capitalist republic in the south ruled by a Korean authoritarian dictator educated at America’s Princeton University.

On June 5, 1950 at 4:00 AM, the Korean War started when North Korea declared war and invaded South Korea by land and sea.

Since the US had deprived South Korea of weapons and ammunition in fear that the south might invade the north and start a war, the North Korean army met little resistance.

The US strategy of restraint had backfired. South Korea had no weapons to defend itself. In two days, Seoul, the capital of South Korea fell to the invading army.

North Korea counted on America doing nothing. However, the majority of Americans in the US was outraged and demanded action, which caused President Truman to send in the United States air force while the US Navy bombarded Korea from the sea.

On July 19, 1950, President Truman called on the United Nations to act quickly and stop the aggression of Communist North Korea.

In the beginning, the US army was weak and far from Korea mostly in Europe. The huge American army that won World War II in 1945 had been disbanded resulting in a much smaller force.

In early July, 1950, an American brigade entered Korea and fought North Korean troops thirty miles south of South Korea’s captured capital of Seoul. The first battle didn’t go well for the US.

Learn about The Lips Protecting China’s Teeth

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

“Nixon in China” at the Met – Feb. 12

February 21, 2011

The headline of the Global edition of Xinhua on February 11, 2011 said, “Met celebrates Nixon in China.”

Xinhua said, “John Adams’ musical masterpiece has made its long-awaited debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, and a prominent feature of it is the revolutionary ballet The Red Detachment of Women.”

 


A scene from Red Detachment of Women where the lead character has been rescued by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from an evil landlord that raped her and ordered that she be killed. In fact, the PLA was support by China’s peasants due to harsh treatment from the ruling class. After the Communists won the Civil War, almost a million landowners were executed for crimes against the people.

 

Nixon arrived in Beijing on February 21, 1972.

On February 27, he left China with a pledge from both nations to normalize relations and that neither should seek hegemony in the Asia Pacific region while opposing the efforts of any other country that attempted such an action.

Thirty-nine years later, on February 12, I sat in an audience in California and watched the opera televised in a local, stuffy theater. The house was not packed but it was crowded.

During a break between acts, director Peter Sellars said the play had been restaged and rewritten since more is now known of what happened in China before and after the historic meeting between Nixon, Kissinger, Mao and Zhou Enlai.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Adams, said, “The meeting of Nixon and Mao is a mythological moment in world history, particularly American history.”

Nixon’s visit to China lasted less than a week but the opera covers years.

The demon in the opera is Mao’s wife. Soon after she appears on stage, it is clear she is responsible for the horrors of the Cultural Revolution. Several times, the Nixon character casts suspicious glances at her as if she is crazy.

At the time of Nixon’s visit, Mao’s wife was grooming herself to become China’s leader after Mao died and to continue the horrors of the Cultural Revolution.

Mao believed that to save China he had to erase China’s ancient culture and reinvent the country.

To reinforce this fact, there is a scene where Mao denounces Confucius.

Mao blamed Confucianism for making China weak and the victim of Western Imperialism and Japan between 1839 when the British and French started the Opium Wars until the end of World War II after Japan was defeated. During that time, almost a hundred million Chinese would die due to famines, rebellions, wars, and civil war.

Little did Mao’s wife know at the time of Nixon’s visit that a few years later fate had something else in store for her when Deng Xiaoping appears from the shadows and has her arrested for crimes against the people.

In fact, at her trial after Mao’s death, which wasn’t covered in the opera, she shouted, “I was Mao’s dog. When Mao told me to bite, I bit.”

Sellars or Adams should have mentioned the revelations that run through the play covering years of Chinese history revealing the role of each major Chinese character.

Near the end while Zhou Enlai is in pain and slowly dying from pancreatic cancer, it is obvious that the people loved him. There is a moment where it appears he has died and his bed is surrounded with flowers and a communist flag is carefully draped over him.

In fact, near the end of the Cultural Revolution, Zhou Enlai protested the horrors that were happening in China and protected many Chinese from Mao’s teenage Red Guard responsible for much of the crimes that took place during the last decade of Mao’s life.

For this risky act, the people of China honored and loved Zhou Enlai. Almost every other Chinese leader that spoke out against Mao died or went to prison. Few escaped Mao’s wrath. Even Deng Xiaoping had his son tossed off a three-story building to survive but be paralyzed from the neck down.

Meanwhile, in another bed, Mao is having a tryst with his wife soon after having his crotch fondled by one of the women that cares for him.

When Mao rests on a bed at the end, the Communist flag is dropped over him without much ceremony and there were no flowers.

Zhou Enlai would die eight months before Mao in 1976.

Discover more of Nixon’s Trip to China

The world premiere of Nixon in China took place at the Houston Grand Opera in 1987. I have embedded a seventeen-part series discovered on You Tube of the original. If interested, scroll down and enjoy.

 

Nixon in China -– Part 1/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 2/17
  

Nixon in China – Part 3/17

 

Nixon in China – Part 4/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 5/17

Nixon in China – Part 6/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 7/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 8/17

Nixon in China – Part 9/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 10/17

Nixon in China – Part 11/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 12/17

 

Nixon in China – Part 13/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 14/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 15/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 16/17
 

Nixon in China – Part 17/17

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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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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Lips Protecting China’s Teeth – Part 3/3

February 21, 2011

After reading parts one and two, I want you to wear China’s shoes for a moment.

If you were one of China’s leaders, ask yourself what you would think and do when one or more of the nations that challenged the sphere of influence China once dominated for two thousand years was hanging about as if it were a threat.

This foreign nation, the United States, which is more than six thousand miles from China, has troops based in South Korea, Japan, Okinawa and protects an enemy of yours in Taiwan, the Nationalist Chinese (KMT).

In 1949, under Mao, the KMT was defeated ending the Chinese Civil war of 1925 – 1949.

Before 1925, the founder of your republic, Sun Yat-sen, asked the United States for help to end the anarchy and chaos that was sweeping across China after the Qing Dynasty collapsed, but America refused as did the other major democracies. Then Sun Yat-sen turned to the Soviet Union, who said yes.

The Communist Party you belong to didn’t start the 1925 Civil War. It was started by the KMT’s leader Chiang Kai-shek, who then retreated to Taiwan taking China’s treasury and treasures with him leaving China broke.

Chiang Kai-shek was a brutal dictator that ruled Taiwan under martial law. He was protected by a country that took part in the Second Opium War against China and again in the 1900 invasion that brought an end to what the West calls the Boxer Rebellion.

Would you be suspicious? Would you want to have a strong, modern military to deter other nations from attacking China as China was attacked in the 16th, 19th and 20th centuries?

You may take China’s shoes off now.

The Chinese do not lack courage. Any “fool” that thinks the Chinese are unwilling to fight to preserve their culture and/or protect their country from foreign invaders need only study China’s history to see otherwise.

Wise men learn from history and do not repeat the same mistakes.

Return to The Lips Protecting China’s Teeth – Part 2

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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.

2 Comments | China, Chinese history, history | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Lips Protecting China’s Teeth – Part 2/3

February 20, 2011

With military bases in the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and Okinawa, it was easy for America to replace France in Vietnam, which led to the Second War in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1955 to 1975.

That was when Mao’s China said that Vietnam and China were “as close as the lips and the teeth”.  Mao asked, “What happens to the teeth when the lips are gone?”

What the French and Americans did in Vietnam was not the only reason China wants to keep a buffer between itself and countries such as England, France, Japan and the United States.

Great Britain conquered Burma after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in 1824 to 1886. Singapore was added in 1819. Then the British acquired Melaka in 1824 then expanded into the Malay Peninsula between 1874 and 1914.

Thailand was the only Southeast Asian state to remain independent during the colonial period yet Thailand, which was known as Siam paid tribute to China 48 times mostly after 1780.

The next war between China and Japan took place in 1894 to 1895. China lost and ceded Taiwan, the adjoining Pescadores, and the Liaotung Peninsula in Manchuria to Japan.

China’s defeat encouraged the Western powers to make further demands of the Chinese government, which triggered a reform movement and the beginning of revolutionary activity against the Manchu rulers of China.

While China was helpless, Japan occupied Korea and held it as a colony from 1900 – 1945.

In 1903, a British military expedition invaded Tibet interfering in Tibetan affairs to gain a base in one of the buffer states surrounding India. The British were unsuccessful and left in 1904.

However, in 1913, soon after the Qing Dynasty collapsed, the British convinced Tibet to declare freedom from being one of China’s tributaries after being occupied and loosely governed by China since the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th century.

In 1900, the Boxer Rebellion led to another foreign invasion by the eight-nation alliance of Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungry and Italy.

During that invasion, China’s Imperial army lost 20,000 troops and about 19,000 civilians while the foreign invaders lost 2,500 soldiers.

Return to The Lips Protecting China’s Teeth – Part 1

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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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, history | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Lips Protecting China’s Teeth – Part 1/3

February 19, 2011

China sees nations that share its border as its lips and questions what happens to the teeth when the lips are gone.

However, which countries are considered China’s lips?

That question may be answered by the list of countries in Asia that were part of China’s tributary system during the Qing Dynasty: Tibet, Khalkha (a subgroup of the Mongolians), Korea, Ryukyu (Okinawa), Annam (Vietnam), Siam (Thailand), Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Nepal, the Dzungar people of Mongolia, and Turpan which is now located in China’s Xinjiang Province.

Although other nations such as the United Kingdom, Russia, Portugal, the Netherlands and even the Holy See (Catholics) paid tribute to China in the 17th and 18th centuries, they are not considered part of China’s lips.

The first foreign threat in China’s sphere of influence was when Spain conquered the Philippines in 1565 – 1571. Although China did not feel threatened by Spain, the conquest did not go unnoticed.

Spain would maintain a colony in the Philippines until the United States defeated Spain in 1898. Then the Philippines became a colony of the US until 1946 and then the US would keep military bases there until 1992. The US occupation of the Philippines was brutal.

The first serious threat to China’s lips was Japan’s invasion of Korea in 1592 with the professed goal of conquering Korea, the Ming Dynasty and then India.

However, a combined Korean and Chinese army defeated the Japanese.

Japan’s second invasion of Korea in 1597 also failed when another joint Chinese and Korean army defeated the Japanese again.

The next threat to China happened when Britain fought China during the First Opium war 1839 – 1842.  Then in 1856 – 1860, Britain was joined by France and the United States to fight and win the Second Opium War.

At about the same time in 1858, France’s navy attacked Da Nang in what is today known as Vietnam in. By 1867, a sizable chunk of Southeast Asia became a French Colony. After World War II, the Vietnamese rebelled and fought the French from 1945 to 1954.

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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.

Leave a Comment » | China, Chinese history, history | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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