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NOTE: Twenty-seven years ago, I wrote this sad commemoration of the Fall of China to Mao Zedong’s Communists. Predictably enough, what ensued was the greatest bloodletting in human history.
What was perhaps not as predictable was, since I first wrote, America’s aiding and abetting the CCP in its creation of the modern Communist superpower, nor the success of Donald Trump’s decoupling from it. What was entirely predictable — though only a few of us predicted it — was the demographic collapse China now faces as a result of its evil One Child Policy. That is likely to cost China 75% of its population before the end of the century, and its great power status with it.
In the interim, China will grab everything we allow, knowing it won’t be able to for long. It knows its days are numbered, and we know what weakness caused in Ukraine. That’s the danger, a war only strength and steadiness can prevent.
But all of this is needless. Seventy-six years ago, American perfidy and the Democrats’ unending soft spot for Communist monsters brought about this horror story. Here’s how. — RDM
Red China Plus Fifty
by Rod D. Martin
October 1, 1999
Whatever good points Pat Buchanan may have made about American adventurism in his latest tome, they certainly did not apply to the creation of Communist China, or to our role in that catastrophe, fifty years ago today.
The struggle against Communism, sometimes a Cold War, just as often hot, was a nearly-fifty year battle to the death. In it, America had thrust upon it the necessity of being everywhere at once, taking direct responsibility for every square inch of the globe. Failure to fill any vacuum assured that the vacuum would be filled by the enemy, and used to launch the next move. Only one side could win. Only one side could survive.
Soviet propaganda — and innumerable Western apologists and “wise men” — denied this truth right up to the moment Ronald Reagan won the Cold War. They repeatedly mischaracterized the most evil political and economic system ever to exist. They told us that figures like “Uncle Joe” Stalin — who murdered at least twenty million of his countrymen — were benevolent. They told us Ho Chi Minh was another George Washington. They told us Pol Pot would liberate his people.
They said the same of Mao.
Mao Zedong came to power in China because the United States sold out his democratic, Christian opposite, Chiang Kai-shek (a trend repeated when JFK ordered the coup that killed the Catholic South Vietnamese leader, Ngo Dinh Diem). Part of this was just bumbling, such as when America allowed the Soviets to give Mao the arms of virtually the entire surrendered Japanese army, and then placed Chiang in an impossible military position in Manchuria.
Part of this was short-sightedness: faced with local corruption and economic turmoil, George Marshall and others in the Truman administration hoped that anything would be better than the status quo.
And, of course, part of this was treason by Communists in the State Department. We can say this with confidence now: the testimony of Whittaker Chambers and Richard Nixon is now established conclusively by the archives of the late USSR.
But regardless of the specific roots, China needlessly fell because America failed to stand fast. And oh what a price has been paid.
Almost immediately, Mao attacked America, resulting in the devastation of Korea and a stalemate which continues to this day. Every North Korean famine victim, every Korean War widow, can thank Red China and the Americans who made it possible. Similar can be said of Vietnam.
At least sixty million Chinese owe their deaths to the Communist victory as well. From the post-Revolutionary purges to the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square, the sea of blood rises year after year. Even today, the number of Christian and other martyrs continues to mount.
America's flirtation with this gargantuan enemy produced much fruit in the Seventies and Eighties, no doubt, as China helped counterbalance the Soviet Union. But this marriage was clearly "of convenience": at its first opportunity, China's hostile, totalitarian leadership sought to buy an American election in exchange for a greater national security breach than that of the Rosenbergs. One way or another, it got the breach; and far too much evidence exists that it got that breach on the terms it sought.
American leftists and appeasers have long argued that Chiang's government was itself corrupt and authoritarian, and that our betrayal was therefore justified. That Chiang was trying to build a democratic state from scratch in the midst of fourteen years of foreign occupation and forty years of civil war is conveniently overlooked.
But more to the point, just as history bore out conservatives in Cambodia, South Vietnam, and every other "workers' paradise", time justified the Republic of China as well. Exiled to Taiwan, vulnerable to annihilation at a moment's notice, Chiang's government operated for many years under martial law. But even then, it provided an economic liberty which transformed the tiny, rural island into a global powerhouse in just a generation. Taiwan today, though more threatened and isolated than ever, is one of the freest, most democratic nations on Earth. Its contrast with the rest of China is stark.
Red China is not now, nor is it likely to become, the sort of global expansionist force that Russia became. But the fact that 1.3 billion people live and die to this day under a brutal, totalitarian regime is a catastrophe all by itself; and the fact that it's our fault makes it all the worse.
Fifty years of Communist China later, we have an incalculable obligation to the rump republic on Taiwan. Moreover, we owe an immense debt to all the oppressed people of China. As with Cuba, until the last red flag comes down, the blood of a people which should have been free remains indelibly on our hands.
The Official Rod Martin Report Book Club 📚📖📘📙📗📕📓
* The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition by Donald R. Hickey
* Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence by A.J. Langguth
* The Training Ground: Grant, Lee, Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War 1846-1848 by Martin Dugard
* Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone by Martin Dugard
* The Explorers: A Story of Fearless Outcasts, Blundering Geniuses, and Impossible Success by Martin Dugard
* The Explorers: A New History of America in Ten Expeditions by Amanda Bellows
* George Washington and the Irish: Incredible Stories of the Irish Spies, Soldiers, and Workers Who Helped Free America by Niall O’Dowd
* Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln Save the Union by Niall O’Dowd
* Raising the Hunley: The Remarkable History and Recovery of the Lost Confederate Submarine by Brian Hicks & Schuyler Kropf
* The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan
* The New Silk Roads: The New Asia and the Remaking of the World Order by Peter Frankopan
* Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall
* A Flag Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of National Symbols by Tim Marshall
* The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914 by David McCullough
* The Crowded Hour: Theodore Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, and the Dawn of the American Century by Clay Risen
* 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs -The Election that Changed the Country by James Chace
* Dewey Defeats Truman: The 1948 Election and the Battle for America's Soul by A.J. Baime
* FDR, Dewey, and the Election of 1944 by David M. Jordan
* A Blueprint for War: FDR and the Hundred Days that Mobilized America by Susan Dunn
* 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election amid the Storm by Susan Dunn
* Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern America, 1877-1920 by Jackson Lears
👏👏👏 A fitting reminder of how we came to this moment in history, Dr. Martin! This article was written thirty-years ago but it is still as relevant as ever! Soviet propaganda and western apologists told us Communist dictators were nothing to worry about and that they were good people. Joe Stalin was a saint they said. Mao Zedong was just a humble man of the people they said. Ho Chi Minh was another George Washington they said. Pol Pot just wants to liberate his people they said. All this was absolute nonsense! Josef Stalin killed 20 million people. Mao Zedong killed 40-80 million people, Ho Chi Minh killed 50,000 people, and Pol Pot killed 1.5 to 3 million people. They were ALL monsters! Nor did they free their respective countries quite the opposite. Communist dictators never liberate the masses, they only do what they do to enrich themselves. The United States sold out his opposite General Chiang Kai-shek a Christian who was trying to build a democracy in China. Just as JFK sold out Ngo Dinh Diem and ordered his overthrow. The Truman administration lost China to the Communists for three main reasons. Number one because of just straight-up bumbling. They allow they the Soviets to give the Chinese Communists all the weapons that the Japanese had handed over to them when they surrendered at the end of World War II. This place Chiang in an impossible military position in Manchuria. Number two was just plain old shortsightedness. The Truman administration and Secretary of State George Marshall hoped that in the face of local corruption and economic turmoil, that anything would be better than the status quo. President Truman and General Marshall were wrong. Number three, treason on the part of the Communists in the State Department. Whittaker Chambers, Richard Nixon and the archives of the late USSR all have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. China needlessly fell because America was not steadfast in standing by one of our staunchest allies during World War II. Chiang’s Nationalists actively fought the Japanese occupiers while Mao and the Communists selfishly stood back and watched. Millions of Chinese soldiers and civilians lost their lives in World War II and no one was more loyal or invaluable to America and the Western Allies to fighting the Japanese in the Pacific Theater than China was! But we abandoned them when they needed us most!
The results were absolutely horrific! The Great Leap Forward, Mao’s Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the One Child Policy, the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocent people, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the brutal dictatorships of Mao Zedong, Hua Guofeng, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. The 36,000+ Americans soldiers, 137,0000+ South Korean soldiers, 3,000+ UN soldiers, and 1.5-3 million Korean civilians who died in the Korean War have Communist China to thank for their deaths! The same can be said for the 58,000+ American soldiers, 313,000 South Vietnamese soldiers, 65,000+ Allied soldiers, and 195,000-430,000 South Vietnamese civilians who were killed in the Vietnam War! That was all because of Red China! If you want to know what kind of people the CCP are, just ask the people of Tibet, India and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam about that as they invaded their respective countries in 1950, 1961 and 1979. Tibet they conquered and annexed in 1951. They’ve since occupied it for fifty-years and suppressed the Tibetan people’s culture and language. Just ask the Uyghur Muslims who the Chinese Communists are locking up in concentration camps. Just ask the people who have had their organs removed from their bodies while they were still alive by CCP doctors. Just ask the 300 million women forced to have abortions under the genocidal One Child Policy. Just ask the Chinese dissidents who live abroad who are still being spied on to this very day. Just ask the Tiananmen Square protesters who were gunned down and died choking on a pool of their own blood. Just ask the people of Taiwan who face daily threats of annihilation, invasion and subjugation by the Chinese. Just ask Chinese Christians who are hunted day and night like animals.
Chiang Kai-shek may have ruled Taiwan as an absolute dictator with marital law. But the economic liberalism he put into practice made Taiwan into an economic powerhouse and staunch ally for the United States, the West and Israel. Did we prosper because of our relationship with China in the 1970s and 1980s? Absolutely. Were they a useful counterweight to the Soviet Union? Yes. But that came at a very high cost indeed. The Presidents who followed Nixon were not cautious or calculated in their engagement with China. Neither was the international community as a whole. Both America and the world more broadly threw open our doors to the CCP and the results were disastrous, this allowed them to build back up and return to superpower status by the 2000s. They were admitted into the WTO, and then proceeded to break all of its rules and rip everyone off on trade. Fast forward to today, Donald Trump is rectifying these mistakes by laying down the law with China and speeding up their eventual collapse!