Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” – 6/10

August 22, 2010

Sun Tzu says, “It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to spy against you and bribe them to serve you.” In The Art of War, double agents are the most important spies.

That is what the Allies did in World War II before the Normandy Invasion of France. No one used double agents better than the British did.

Britain turned almost every spy Germany sent during the war.  These double agents made the Germans believed the invasion would take place at Pas de Calais and not Normandy.

Sun Tzu says, “The way a wise general can achieve greatness beyond ordinary men is through foreknowledge.” The allies had foreknowledge because they broke the German code and knew what the Germans were thinking and planning.

Sun Tzu would have praised the allied preparation for the invasion and the use of deception but he would have condemned the actual assault.

Sun Tzu says, “When a falcon’s strike breaks the body of its prey, it is because of timing. When torrential water tosses boulders, it is because of momentum.”

Sun Tzu believes that the best attack can be ruined if momentum is lost, and he would have predicted the cost of lives during the Normandy invasion more than two-thousand years before it took place.

Go to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War” – Part 7 or return to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War – Part 5

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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 unique love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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The Danger of Arrogance (5/5)

August 18, 2010

In the 18th century, China had no competition, and the Qianlong Emperor was not alone in his belief that China was too civilized and powerful to worry.

However, in less than a century, China would face defeat during the Opium Wars caused by England and France. The century that followed would devastate China until Deng Xiaoping’s rise to power after Mao died.

Other factors that weakened China during the 19th century, were the rebellions caused by converted Chinese Christians and Muslims that would cause more than 30 million deaths.  

Now that China has recovered its power, it would be interesting to see if the Chinese have learned from the Qing Dynasty’s mistakes.  America could also learn something from the British Empire’s arrogance and why the sun stopped shinning twenty-four hours a day on that empire.

I’m not going to hold my breath.

Return to the Danger of Arrogance – Part 4

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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. 

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China Securing Its Future (1/3)

August 14, 2010

This three part series is about the reasons behind a new weapon China is developing. This weapon is known as the DF21D, which will be described in part 3.

Suppose that the United States had just ended a century of conflict that started when several foreign nations sent naval/military power halfway around the world to force America to accept cocaine as a product to be sold to all Americans without restrictions.

The United States loses the struggle against this drug being sold to American citizens, and during the next century, more than fifty-million Americans die from more wars indirectly caused by the nations behind the drugs while a third of Americans becomes addicted to the drugs.

As this century of drug and wars end, the same nations invade Mexico and Canada. By the time the wars in Mexico and Canada end, 10 million Canadians and Mexicans have been killed by the invading armies.

For China, what I’m describing is not a “what if”.

Starting in 1839, China fought two Opium Wars and lost about 50,000 troops while the invading nations lost 3,000. The invaders were from the UK, France and, for a limited time, the US. 

These nations forced China’s emperor to allow them to sell opium to his people ruining millions of lives and wrecking families due to drug addiction. 

These invading nations also built enclaves and cities in China—Shanghai, Hong Kong, Macau and others.

Imagine China controlling San Francisco, Seattle and New York. How would most American’s feel?

In fact, Western nations are indirectly responsible for an 1850 rebellion started by a Chinese Christian convert who claimed to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ. When the Taiping Rebellion ended, 20 million civilians and combatants were dead.

See more about The Opium Wars

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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. 

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The Opium Wars in the 19th Century (1800s)

June 28, 2010

China began the 19th century confident of its superiority over the rest of the world.  China’s population numbered 400 million. The Qing (Manchu) Empire controlled the world’s biggest economy.  China enjoyed a favorable balance of trade with the West—receiving a huge amount of money for its silk, porcelain, and tea.

By 1800, the British consumed 10,000 tons of tea annually.  So much money poured into China, that one Chinese merchant became the richest man in the world, and all foreign business with was restricted to one city, Canton.

However, Britain had a product to reverse that balance of trade—opium. The British shipped opium into China and up its rivers to almost every part of China.  So many became addicted to the drug, the stability China was threatened.

Then in 1839, the Emperor acted to stop the opium trade. Lin, the man in charge, wrote to Queen Victoria asking for her help. Ignored by Great Britain, Lin resorted to confiscating the opium and destroying it, which led to the Opium Wars started by Britain and France, who respected nothing but force. China lost the war and was forced to pay for a war they did not want and did not start.

In the British parliament, William Gladstone criticized his government calling the Opium war a disgrace.

See Mao’s War Against Illegal Drugs

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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.

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Mao’s War Against Illegal Drugs

June 25, 2010

From The Opium Monopoly by Ellen N. La Motte, we learn how opium addiction became an epidemic in China. Although The Chinese knew about opium for more than a thousand years, it wasn’t until the Portuguese arrived in the 18th century that  the Chinese used it as a drug by smoking it. Merchants from Britain, France, Portugal, America and other nations became the drug cartels that plagued China into the 20th century.

In 1729, the emperor issued the first anti-opium edict, but the supply of opium flooding China went from 220 chests in 1729 to 70,000 in 1858.

It is estimated that before 1950, as many as 20 million Chinese were addicts. Then Mao had the Red Army execut the drug dealers and forced millions of addicts into compulsory treatment.

Opium growers, who did not want to comply, fled into the Golden Triangle Region of Southeast Asia where many of Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist troops had gone to escape defeat. Those generals also did business with the CIA, and American soldiers in Vietnam became the new customers. It is estimated that at least 20% of the almost nine million American troops that served in Vietnam became addicted.

China remained free of drugs until Deng Xiaoping declared, “Getting Rich is Glorious” and opened China to world trade. In 2003, it was estimated that China had four million regular drug users even with China’s strict laws concerning illegal drug use.

Sources: Opium and Illegal Drugs in China and How Maoist Revolution Wiped Out Drugs in China

To learn more about Mao’s China, see China’s Great Leap Forward

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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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