Billy

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This is what annihilation looks like: China’s semiconductor manufacturing industry was reduced to zero overnight. Complete collapse. No chance of survival.

Arsenal’s first choice front 6 last season: Partey, Rice, Odegaard Saka, Havertz, Martinelli 0 on the pitch right now. 4th game of the season.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII, China's grand commemorations impressed many. Over the past few days, discussions on Twitter have continued. Among them, Bethany Allen's thread struck me as equally memorable as President Trump's remarks that day. She acknowledged that "3 million Chinese soldiers died keeping the Japanese army distracted, leaving far fewer Japanese resources to fight the American armed forces as they fought their way across the Pacific to Japan." This point deserves some praise, especially considering that such objectivity has been rarely evident in her past comments. However, she also stated: "The CCP claims it led the fight against the Japanese during WWII. It didn't, the KMT did." In fact, what President Xi actually said on that day was: "Under the banner of the national united front against Japanese aggression, initiated by the Communist Party of China (CPC), the Chinese people fought the powerful enemy with unyielding will and flesh-and-blood walls, achieving the first complete victory in modern history against a foreign invasion." His remarks emphasize the CPC's role in advocating and organizing, but do not deny the contribution of the KMT. Bethany's interpretation is clearly a misreading. As a serious historian, I felt compelled to respond. I had already left a comment under her tweet, but she did not reply. Given that many people still share similar misunderstandings, or may be misled by her view, I have decided to clarify-drawing on archival materials from the Roosevelt administration and contemporaneous recollections, that China's victory in WWII was the result of the united front and the combined efforts of both the Nationalists and the Communists. A brief prelude to this historical background: the Kuomintang, founded in 1894, played a crucial role in the overthrow of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). However, lacking sufficient military strength and effective leadership strategy, the KMT's predecessor lost control within only a few months after establishing Asia's first republic in 1912. Power quickly fell into the hands of warlord leaders, and China, having just cast off the old imperial order, descended once again into the dark years of warlord strife. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the KMT, attempted to launch military campaigns against the warlords, but all ended in failure. Western powers also dismissed him with disdain. I once saw at Hoover a well written letter Sun Yat-sen wrote to the US president. He extolled America's greatness, emphasized his personal ties to the country in his earlier life, and finally made a humble plea: that US customs duties from Guangzhou should be remitted to him rather than to the warlord regime in Beijing. The letter's fate was humiliating: on the very day it reached the State Department, it was bluntly returned; not only the president, but even the secretary of state refused to read it. You can well imagine Sun's sense of disappointment and desolation. In the end, he found a new path (maybe like India today!!). In 1924, the newly established Soviet Union offered to sponsor the KMT, providing weapons and training for a stronger army, on the condition that the KMT cooperate with the Chinese Communist Party, which had only just been founded in 1921. Sun Yat-sen accepted this proposal, reorganized the KMT the same year, and put forward the program of "allying with Russia, cooperating with the Communists, and helping workers and peasants." Thus began the honeymoon of KMT–CPC cooperation. After Sun's death, in 1926, the two parties jointly launched the Northern Expedition from Guangdong in southern China. Unlike the KMT's repeated failures in earlier campaigns, this military operation advanced rapidly with great momentum. Yet midway through the expedition, Chiang Kai-shek, who was ideologically opposed to communism, launched a surprise attack on the Communists, leading to the rupture of the alliance. Subsequently, in 1928, the KMT entered Beijing, achieving the nominal unification of China. The CPC, meanwhile, retreated to the rural and mountainous areas of the southeast, where it endured repeated encirclement campaigns launched by Chiang Kai-shek between 1930 and 1934. After 1931, Japan repeatedly launched military operations against China. As early as 1933, the CPC had already called for the formation of a united front to defend the nation, to which Chiang Kai-shek turned a deaf ear. Finally, in 1936, a coup within Chiang's own forces led to his temporary kidnapping, forcing him to accept cooperation with the CPC in resisting Japan. However, during WWII, Chiang maintained strong suspicion and vigilance toward the CPC, which weakened China's effectiveness in fighting Japan and drew the concern of FDR. In the upper left is a message dated February 8, 1941, conveyed by FDR's special envoy, Lauchlin Currie, during his visit to China to meet Chiang Kai-shek. Roosevelt's communication read: "From my observation thousands of miles away, the Chinese Communists appear little different from what we would call socialists. Their policies toward farmers, women, and Japan are worthy of our respect. It seems that the similarities between the them and the National Government are in fact greater than their differences. I hope both sides can put aside disagreements and work together more closely, in order to advance the shared objective of defeating Japan." I have come across many archival documents related to Currie in the FDR archives. While working at Hoover, an American colleague once told me that in her youth she had even received a phone call from Currie who had moved to Latin America. It struck me that, even in his later years, he remained so deeply engaged with the study of WWII. This particular archive is especially fascinating, and I will continue the discussion in the comments section. By 1943, the United States was already giving serious thought to a landing on China's coast, where many of the local forces were CPC guerrilla units (Mao had repeatedly expressed willingness to cooperate with the Americans in resisting Japan). During the Cairo Conference, Roosevelt confided to his son, Elliott Roosevelt: "Chiang would have us believe that the Chinese Communists are doing nothing against the Japanese. Again, we know differently." The picture on the upper right is taken from Elliott's published recollections of this moment. On the lower left is another striking passage from Elliott's memoir. During the Cairo Conference, Chiang Kai-shek attended a dinner in Roosevelt's suite that lasted until 11 p.m. The next day, Roosevelt told his son that he could not understand why Chiang devoted his best divisions not to fighting Japan, but to containing the CPC in the northwest. As Elliott recalled: Roosevelt was "registering a complaint about the character of Chiang’s government. I'd told him it was hardly the modern democracy that ideally it should be. I'd told him he would have to form a unity government, while the war was still being fought, with the Communists in Yenan. And he agreed." Roosevelt had a hard time not to understand why Chiang Kai-shek was unable to cooperate with the CPC in the same way that Democrats and Republicans did in the United States. He once remarked that he was willing to find a friend to mediate between the two sides, or even to serve as that friend himself. In 1943, during a meeting with Chiang's brother-in-law, Chinese Foreign Minister T. V. Soong (宋子文), Roosevelt made his views explicit: he sincerely hoped that force would not be used against CPC, because, as he put it, within them lie the seeds of rational socialism and democracy and these valuable ideas should not be destroyed. This record is now preserved in the T. V. Soong Papers at Hoover. In 1944, at Roosevelt's order, the United States sent a Military Observer Group led by Colonel David Dean Barrett to Yan'an (延安) to establish direct contact with the CPC. Chiang Kai-shek resisted this initiative, delaying the mission for nearly half a year. Nicknamed the Dixie Mission, the group operated from July 22, 1944, until March 11, 1947. In Yan'an, the members of the mission were received with respect and warm hospitality by Mao and other CPC leaders, and they worked side by side with the Communists for securing victory in WWII. During one visit to a village, an American captain was brutally killed by ambushing Japanese soldiers, an event that left CPC leaders deeply guilt-ridden. Barrett later recalled that he could speak with the Communist leaders about virtually anything. On one occasion he asked Zhou Enlai (周恩来) which country, the United States or the Soviet Union, could be considered more democratic. Zhou replied that he regarded the Soviet Union as the most democratic state, but that China might need a hundred years before it could experience that level of democracy. If, Zhou added, China could instead enjoy democracy in the form it existed in the United States, the Chinese people would be very pleased too. Zhou's response, for me, was characteristic of a consummate diplomat. Barrett also remembered that the Communist leaders delighted in repeatedly playing Mickey Mouse cartoons. He also encountered former soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army who had surrendered and joined the ranks of the CPC forces. These men, bitterly disillusioned with Japan, impressed Barrett as individuals who had been deeply "brainwashed." Although Barrett remained cautious toward the CPC, he concluded that they were making every conceivable effort to fight the Japanese; given their extreme deficiency in weapons and equipment, their contribution seemed to be as great as the entire war effort of the Nationalist government's armies at the time. At the lower right is the correspondence between Roosevelt and Mao. In November 1944, Roosevelt's envoy Patrick Hurley (former Secretary of War, as who Hegseth is now) traveled to Yan'an to mediate between the Nationalists and the Communists. On November 10, after concluding his talks with Hurley and reaching an agreement, Mao wrote a lengthy letter to Roosevelt, saying "the spirit of this agreement is what we of the CPC and the Chinese people have been striving for in the anti-Japanese united front during the past eight years." Mao also noted at the end "The people of China and the people of the United States have a traditional and very deep-rooted friendship. I hope that through your efforts and your great accomplishments the two great nations will continue to march together for the defeat of the Japanese invaders and the establishment of a lasting world peace and the reconstruction of a democratic China." FDR's response was delayed due to Chiang, again. In March 1945, Roosevelt finally wrote back to Mao: "I have noted with special interest the emphasis which you place on the unity of all Chinese people and military forces for the defeat of Japan and the reconstruction of China." He added "through unity the Chinese people can add to their already magnificent contribution to the prosecution of the war against Japan." In March 1945, with only a month left to live, Roosevelt met with Edgar Snow, author of Red Star Over China and a close friend of Mao. Roosevelt mentioned that he had long been dealing with "the two governments" in China and intended to continue doing so until he could bring them together. Yet on April 12, he passed away suddenly in Georgia. Chiang Kai-shek was deeply grieved; in his diary he praised Roosevelt in the highest terms, though he also added that the President had been "too conciliatory" toward the CPC. Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, took a far harsher anti-Communist stance, and the prospect of US–CPC cooperation/friendships collapsed, not until the Henry Kissinger's visit decades later. Looking back, it is clear that the CPC played a crucial role in the United Front that it had itself proposed. For this cause of WWII, it made noble sacrifices and contributions. This fact is not only recorded in China's own historical accounts but was also acknowledged and affirmed by the US government of the time, by Roosevelt, along with his generals and observers who had seen events firsthand. As for Bethany's version of "history," it seems cobbled together from Cold War propaganda reels and Thanksgiving-table lectures by her cousin. Before posting her next thread, she might do well to make a trip to the FDR Library, in addition to asking me for help, or at the very least check whether the "Dixie Mission" was really the name of a country band.

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