Sarah Paine: belief

Transcript context

…ral Asia and the Pacific coastline. The Qing Dynasty was vague on geography. They’re beset by these other things. They don’t understand that Europeans think these pieces of paper are permanent things. They figure that once they put their house back in order, they’re going to come back and get the territory later. Okay, the second example of ruinous Russian mediation that is going to keep China in turmoil. So in the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan trounces China, boots them from their tributary in Korea. Then the Japanese also want some territory on the Liaodong Peninsula. The Chinese go to the Russians to help them counterbalance Japan so that Japan doesn’t take this Chinese territory in the Asian mainland. Russia gets its buddies, France and Germany, the so-called Triple Intervention, to gang up on Japan. Japan looks at three great powers and says, “I don’t think so.” So they bail. From the Chinese point of view, so far so good. Except what the Russians promptly do is take for themselves the very territory that had just been denied to Japan. The story gets worse. All the European powers, or many of them plus Japan, come in and they carve out big concession areas throughout China. So China’s not going to have full sovereignty over its territory for several generations. So instead of one relatively small Japanese concession area, they get foreigners everywhere. Think about the second rule of continental empire, no great power neighbors. That’s not happening while this is going on. The Bolsheviks come to power and then they’re going to apply these rules as well. When they do come to power, they’re very weak because Russia’s been devastated by World War I. The Bolsheviks don’t win their own bitter Civil War until 1922. So then as now, they relied on a really cheap but incredibly effective strategy of strategic communication. The Russians really understand other people’s emotional life and what sets them at odds with each other. They know just how to serve out the propaganda that sets people at each other’s throats. Their propaganda is going to help the Chinese really despise the Japanese and the Europeans, while Russia’s even greater predations, the ones you’ve already seen, go unnoticed. Here’s Lev Karakhan. He was a deputy foreign minister. In 1919, he sends a missive, his Karakhan Manifesto, to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. He says, “Hey, we’re not imperialists, we’re Bolsheviks. We’re gonna return all the lands from those unequal treaties and be your friend forevermore, unlike all the other evil imperialist powers. We’re not like that anymore.” The Chinese are looking at this and thinking, “Wow, here are the Bolsheviks who’ve gotten rid of their imperialistic government. They’re putting together their shattered land.” So this offers hope to the Chinese that they can do likewise. It’s a model potentially to follow and a mentor who might help them. Except here’s the detail. When the Bolsheviks started doing better in their civil war, they really dialed back what their offer was. t’s a model potentially to follow and a mentor who might help them. Except here’s the detail. When the Bolsheviks started doing better in their civil war, they really dialed back what their offer was. The original offer was, “tear up treaties, China gets all territory back, no payments necessary.” Under the new version of the Karakhan Manifesto, which the Russian Foreign Ministry goes and telegraphs to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. I’ve seen the document, or at least a copy of it in the archives in Taiwan. They send it back and say, “We’re willing to talk about these things. We’re going to hold some negotiations.” The facts are they didn’t return these concessionaries until the mid-20th century, 1950s, after the Westerners had returned almost all of their concession areas. This is not trivial. When we think of concession areas in the age of imperialism in China, you think of British ones: Hong Kong. Well, Hong Kong isn’t actually very big. The reason you know about Hong Kong is it makes lots of money, or at least it used to. The Russian concessionaries were huge. They didn’t make money but what else is new? But the Russians had by far the largest concession area of any other country. But from the Karakhan Manifesto is the origin of the myth of Sino-Soviet friendship, that the Russians somehow treated the Chinese nicely. And the Chinese Foreign Ministry officials, who would’ve known better, their government is overthrown within the decade. And presumably these documents just gather dust in the archives. My fourth example of derailing China’s rise concerns the First United Front between the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communist Party. Here’s the leader of the Nationalist Party and also leader of its armies, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. He led the Northern Expedition, reunifying China at least nominally by either defeating or co-opting all those warlords. There you can see different colors of where the major warlords were. Previous South China attempts to do this or to secede from China, one or the other, had failed for lack of a proficient military. But Russia changes that. It provides aid, arms, and expertise and structures and things to fund the Whampoa Military Academy, which is in Canton/Guangzhou. That institution is going to educate the officers, both Communist and Nationalists, who would lead not only this, but some of their civil war-era officers that make this reunification of China possible. But the Russians had a price. Give the Nationalists the aid, but the Nationalists then have to let the Communists into the Nationalist Party. That’s what the United Front is. This all coincides with a bitter succession struggle in Russia. This is the problem with dictatorships. They really don’t do succession well. It’s why elections are so convenient. Instead you have Stalin and Trotsky going at it over which one was going to be the big cheese. Stalin is all about socialism in one country. He thinks that Russia ought to focus on its own internal development. u have Stalin and Trotsky going at it over which one was going to be the big cheese. Stalin is all about socialism in one country. He thinks that Russia ought to focus on its own internal development. Whereas Trotsky says, “Nonsense, we need to focus on world revolution because only if there are sister revolutions abroad can ours survive.” While this is all going on, the Chinese Communists really want to get out of that United Front. Why? Because it puts them in close proximity to the army, which is controlled by the Nationalists. They’re getting worried whether they’re about to get killed. The Russians say “No, no, no, no, it’s good. You stay in that United Front.” So they do. Chiang Kai-shek goes roaring up China. I’ve shown you the map. He reaches his home base in Shanghai, pauses, and he turns his guns on the Communists and just massacres them in droves. This is when Mao has to think of a rural strategy to power because the urban strategy is no longer feasible. Once this happens, Stalin can use it to just trounce Trotsky in the internal power struggle because he can say, “Look, see, revolution in one country. It doesn’t work abroad.” A lot of Chinese died proving Stalin’s point. Another example where Russia literally derails the rise of China. There’s a railway system in Manchuria. We’re going to talk rails. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904 and 1905, Japan wins it and gets from Russia, which built all these things in Chinese territory, the southern half of that railway net in lieu of an indemnity. Japan invests massively in railways, infrastructure, and apparently local politicians. But the ruling warlord apparently wasn’t sufficiently attentive to Japanese needs, so they assassinated him in 1928. His son, Zhang Xueliang, the following year in 1929 decides he wants his railways back from Russia. What does Russia do? It’s not either version of the Karakhan Manifesto. The Russians deploy over 100,000 troops, tanks, airplanes, the works, and just pound this man. The Russians keep their railways. So if you want to delay the rise of China, that sort of thing delays the rise of China. But now for the first rule of continental empire: no two-front wars. You move fast-forward to the 1930s and Stalin thinks he may very well face a two-front war with Germans in the west and Japanese in the east. Why would he think such thoughts? The Anti-Comintern Pact. Comintern is short for Communist International. It is the Soviet outreach program. It’s signed in 1936 between the Japanese and the Germans. Stalin goes, “Uh-oh, they’re after me.” He plays every one of his China cards and he holds lots of them. If you want to disintegrate the neighbors in order to delay their rise, well then you fund all sides of their civil wars and any side in between because you just want them to go at it. So he plays every card he’s got. What he wants are the Nationalists to stop fighting the Communists, vice versa, and unite to fight the Japanese. They’re willing to do this provided Stalin provides conventional aid, which he does, but they think he’s also going to provide soldiers. They don’t get it. Once they’re in, Russia is out of this thing.…

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