Sarah Paine: prediction

Transcript context

…hey’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. Stalin’s plan, his script for the Chinese and Japanese, works beautifully. Because when the Nationalists unite in the Second United Front with the Communists, going back to the dark side, the Japanese are apoplectic. This is when they do the massive escalation in 1937 and they are off to overextension into parts due south of Russia. So this two-front Japanese-German war never materialized. Stalin was very successful, the Chinese less so because the Chinese are fighting the Japanese so the Russians don’t have to. That comes at the price of millions of deaths, millions of refugees, that does indeed derail China’s rise yet again. Next example. Per the Yalta agreement, Russia finally gets into the war in Asia. About time. In the very final weeks, in this August Storm the Russians deploy 1.5 million soldiers. It’s one of the largest military operations of World War II. They rapidly take Manchuria. That would be the normal thing, but here’s the abnormal thing. They also take away Manchuria’s industrial base. That would not normally be what you do to someone. They take 83% of the electrical power equipment, take it home to Russia, not turning lights on in Manchuria. 86% of mining, 82% of cement making, 80% of metalworking equipment. Plus they take 640,000 Japanese POWs to be slave labor for decades, if they ever get home at all. And they also take the northern islands, which are still under dispute today. But if you think about it, if you’re going to do indemnities or reparations or whatever this is, China had been fighting Japan in one form or another for 15 long years. Russia comes in for the cameo performance at the very end. So if there are indemnities to be paid for whatever Japan did in this war, surely China, not Russia, should have been the recipient for all this stuff. In addition, there’s another example. Not only does Stalin walk away with the industrial base, but he walks away with Mongolia as well. How does that work? The Yalta agreement also stipulates that the status quo shall be maintained in Mongolia. So then you have to look at, well, what was the status quo? It was the Russian sphere of influence in the north, Chinese continuing control in the south. Mongolia, which had always been both those places, had been part of the Qing Empire, never been part of the Russian Empire. Moreover, Stalin had already taken Tannu Tuva in 1944. It looks small on this map, but it’s bigger than England. It had lots of gold, which the Soviets had monetized long ago. So if you add up all the territory that the Russians took from the Chinese sphere of influence from the 1858 Treaty of Aigun and 1860 Treaty of Peking, fast-forward to detaching Outer Mongolia from the Chinese sphere of influence. Here’s what it really is. It’s greater than all US territory east of the Mississippi. This is not your normal land grab. So talk about derailing somebody, that would do it. hinese sphere of influence. Here’s what it really is. It’s greater than all US territory east of the Mississippi. This is not your normal land grab. So talk about derailing somebody, that would do it. To be fair to the Russians, they did, albeit slowly, turn over all this Japanese-stockpiled military equipment in Manchuria to the Communists. They also, albeit belatedly, trained them on how to use the equipment and also how to run the Manchurian railway system. The Chinese Communists, as a rural peasant movement, how would they know how to do these things? They wouldn’t. It allows this conventional aid and logistics of being able to move people around. It transforms the Communists from a lightly armed guerrilla movement to a very heavily armed conventional force capable for the showdown phase of the Chinese Civil War. So like the Whampoa Military Academy, this is essential aid for the Communist victory. So neither the Communists or the Nationalists complain about the deindustrialization of Manchuria. The Communists probably traded that industry for all the conventional aid that they got. The Nationalists traded it and also Outer Mongolian independence for a promise from Stalin not to aid the Communists, a promise that he promptly breaks. So Mao starts to figure out that something is up here. So when he’s on a roll in his offensives in the civil war, there’s really bitter fighting. The real movement in the last phase, the post-1940 phase of the Chinese Civil War, is in 1948. That year Mao just moves and he is roaring down south. He’s about to get to the Yangtze River and Stalin’s like, “Hey buddy, take a break at the Yangtze, don’t exhaust yourself.” Mao ignores it. Whereas Stalin might have wanted to keep a Nationalist rump state south of the Yangtze River, yielding a divided China in keeping with weakening your neighbor, Mao is not remotely interested in that. Here’s my 10th example, which is the Korean War. If you look at the Korean War, the first year is a war of movement. It’s up and down, up and down the peninsula. It’s unbelievable how much movement there is. But then it stalemates for the last two years and you think, “Well, what’s going on? Why don’t they settle the war sooner?” Both sides are taking incredible losses. Well, here’s how it goes. Once China intervenes in the Korean War and once they halt various offensives to start peace talks, the Chinese do incredible tunnel work, probably the North Koreans as well, and build an incredible tunnel system. It means the South Koreans and the UN forces are never going to get anywhere near the Soviet border ever again. From that moment on, Stalin thinks he’s got a low-risk, high-reward strategy where he’s going to weaken the United States and delay the rise of China. So what’s not to love about fighting to the last Chinese in Korea? Stalin thinks this is great and it’s going to retard Chinese development. Also because China is so isolated by this war, it has no international friends but Russia, it’s going to tie China to Russia ever more firmly and give Russia breathing space to rebuild after World War II while its Western enemies are wasting time in Korea. international friends but Russia, it’s going to tie China to Russia ever more firmly and give Russia breathing space to rebuild after World War II while its Western enemies are wasting time in Korea. If you put it all together—Chinese Civil War, Korean War, Russia’s on-and-off again aid to different sides in the civil war, his double-dealing with both of them and what happened with Outer Mongolia and the Manchurian industrial base, Stalin’s advice to Mao to halt at the Yangtze, and then he’s fighting to the last Chinese in Korea—this is all consistent with the second rule of continental empire: no great power neighbors.…

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