to aspire to represent black chicago, it is necessary to have a black spouse. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> next, military historian discusses the u.s. military's relationship with china, beginning in the late 18th century and of to the korean and vietnam wars. the kansas city public library hosted this event rate it's about an hour and 15 minutes. really appreciate you all being here tonight, it's great to have you. us --urns out to be not not necessarily by design, but happenstance, our second look in as many nights into international politics and relations straight who was here last night for condoleezza rice? thank you guys for coming back. jeff, you have a hard act to

follow. believe me, this is the guy to follow it. because, but we have done is now we are following it up with a be our favorite programmg partners, the u.s. army command and general staff colle in fort leavenworth. for the better part of the past century, it seems, we have been trying to figure out our relationship with china. right now we see china as a linchpin in what might happen with north korea. we are fortunate to have with us one of the foremost authorities on u.s.-china relations. he will examine a key 50 years

been in the relationship of the two countries, in this case from 1900 and 1950 that really set the stage for a lot of what was to come, including south korea, the korean war and the vietnam war. ats a period he's looking the started with american involvement in conjunction with the boxer rebellion of 1900. this of course was before xi jinping is even a twinkle in or maybeump's eye, it's vice versa, i'm not sure. the event continues. i think our favorite and most successful programming partnership with the command and general staff college, they are specialists in a sure many of you have been to their presentations before. they do not fail. are engaging, they are enlightening, and they are entertaining. they are terrific to have here.

firstk this is geoff's time here. he's overdue. he's taught there since 1991. he's a retired u.s. army's daschle versus officer. he was lieutenant colonel. as as trained by the army china for an area officer, which is one of the military branch he served the region on the joint staff. he was in the defense intelligence agency, so he has an intelligence background. he was a senior china analyst and deputy director of current intelligence with the u.s. civic command, he served with the army pacific command. asian and china relations. and a doctorate in history from k.u. there's nobody better to walk us through one of the world costs

thorniest gop political relationships. please welcome geoff babb. [applause] geoff: hi, great to be here tonight. i have then work on china since since- done work on china 19. anyone who says they are an expert on china is a fool. i'm going to run you through the history and then you can make up your mind whether my take on it is the one that you believe in or not. i started off with john cato fairbank, who was the foremost american historian on china. ian his wife both served in china during world war ii ii. he was a professor at harvard. when he basically outlined in how he gotide is

started. believe it or not, there was a pivot to asia before november of 2011, when the soon not to be president clinton announced it during the obama administration. a pacific see, we are power great manifest destiny did not stop in san francisco, it kept going. with alaska, the opening up of japan, and 10 years before the opening up of japan, the united states made their first treaty with china. most-favored-nation extraterritoriality for american .usinessman that were in china and you can see this next slide, the united states navy was in china for a long time.

we were patrolling the internal 1854. of china in now i wanted to do this prelude but i did not want to start with the boxer rebellion without but we just arrived that day. we all intents and purposes, actually start trading with china with this shift, the empress of china in 1784. ships, the trade with china begins, and it is still out there. it wereter of fact, usually the number one or number two trading partner with china. the end of the day, we did that all the way up until 1949. , young menstingly

was the first chinese graduate, graduated from jail. it was later taken away from him. but in 1872, there were 120 students who want to connecticut and started to study in the united states. it was part of the self strengthening movement. is gentleman over year essentially the foreign-policy advisor for the ching dynas you will see his name in a lot of different places doing a lot because het things, was basically their key diplomats. he also helped form one of their armies during the taiping rebellion. actually should have done better than the japanese, in building a modern military.

somewhere down the road, somebody needs to come in and talk to you about the restoration and what the japanese did so you can compare and contrast the japanese to the chinese. chinese leadership in beijing under the emperor didn't exactly want to follow the westernization model. so there was a lot of trouble in china in terms of holding a modern military. -on military were certainly there and capable of doing it, and some of them wanted to do it. so the pictures are of factories that were building weapons that were european factories of the chinese thought. but they also made the problem of finding different guns from different people at different times, different calibers, and that essentially doesn't go well. doesn't.dn't and it

the warlords will do the same thing. ,he warlords will buy airplanes guns from different people at different times, and so china has a hard time getting it stuck, getting together and arsenal and a system of arsenals that will work. now we are ready to start treat we have a little bit of a background. , based onhe emperor the success of an indigenous religious movement called the , decided that she would declare war on the west and japan and the united states. and in doing that, began the seeds of the legations in beijing. because of that siege, the western powers plus japan plus the united states mounted an expedition which today we would evacuation,ombative

to send a force in to relieve an embassy and to get the americans out is what we were going to do. so, there are about 500 or 600 foreigners that are besieged in beijing. a small group of about 3000 , and are try to go up unable to move further on. it's about 110 miles from the coast of china to beijing. so, a force of 17,000 to and00 will weigh in, eventually relieve the 3000 that are trapped. they will form this larger group that will make it to beijing. if you like, the movie "55 days"

youight just go watch that, will be more fun. at the end of the day, the chinese don't call it the boxer rebellion. this is a picture i took at the pla museum in beijing and this is what they call it, the war against the invasion of the eighth power allied force. affair.t a very happy within 11 years, the ching dynasty, the last of the chinese dynasties, will fall. that the major blow was the sino-japanese war of 1894, 1895. in the boxer rebellion, the two will begroups of allies the russians in the japanese. -- and the japanese.

here are the different nations. and, the allied chinese troops were essentially troops trained by the british. these are the americans, and general order number would -- one would be the order that you take in to the general so you could get credit on your record for having served in the boxer rebellion. these are the crafts of five of the regiments that took part. artillery regiment, defend andllery, sixth cavalry, the ninth, 14th, and 15th infantry regiment. china, not leave militarily, for the next 49 years. so, i got it. we have been in iraq for a long

time to read my son is serving there now. we have been in afghanistan for a long time. we have been in germany for a long time. we have been in japan for a long time. one can argue the united states military when it goes someplace, stays. this is a good example as any. we wouldn't have left when we if it hadn't been for mao and the winning of the chinese civil war. so, if you are over there, you can get your china ribbon. these regiments still exist. since i mentioned those places and everybody doesn't have a map of china in their head like i came to have right now, these are the forts down here. flaps.re terrible mud

you can see this meandering the road, and see railroad. we tried them all. days to peking, and we will eventually get to peking and relieve the delegation. termsew york times," in of fake news, had reported the chinese had overrun the legation. underhe relief formation a british general went, well, is there still a reason to go? the answer was, it's not verified. we need to go. so, they still mounted it even though they were new -- it was news it was too late. it was not a popular thing to do back home. anybody here from connecticut? hartford? been to mark twain's house? mark twain isn't from

missouri. he's a yankee. house,f you go to his you can see some of the different writings that he had as essentially running against full u.s. imperialism. so, as far as the boxers were concerned, from mark twain's perspective, they were the patriots and we had no right to be there. one can argue the people of the united states were split right on whether ore not to do the imperialist thing globally or whether to stay home. so, one can argue that we have come by our current desire to look at neo-isolationism r ightly.

there's another thing that happened though, at the end of hours basically presented a bill to the chinese government for the cost of the war. trump didpresident not dream of the idea of making iraq pay for it. it is something that happens before. we actually cut in half the indemnity that was going to come to the united states, and then use the indemnity to provide scholarships to chinese students. whether their immigrant visas were playing with or not but it wasn't on the seven country list at the time. at the end of the day, there's a social leg he out there of the united states being different than the european powers and different in japan -- then japan. there is, and some would say, a myth out there that china and

the united states have a special relationship. if that myth is true, a good place to start is here. they are using the indemnity for educational purposes. you will have soldiers and especially marines in china from 1900 on. regard that corridor from beijing to the fort so we can always evacuate our citizens. but in 1912, we will put the 15th infantry regiment in permanently. permanently means until 1938. and we probably wouldn't have left in 1938 for the second world war beginning in china in 1937. so, this is the regiment to be in. today if you are in the united states army and europe, iron up young captain or fired up young

new recruit, you want to go to the 82nd airborne. in 1912 to 1938, this was the regiment to go to. and you can tell here on road marches just like the guys are, at any point in time, one of the new kernels showed up and decided that we were getting ptt and we needed to do more , physical training. of we go on these road marches. what's interesting is in this ,egiment, in this time frame will serve the some of the most famous officers from world were to. so this regiment will have many officers.

there's an argument that i tried to make that the united states army understood china, he lived in china. be advisors too the chinese which will begin in 19 when he we have a cadre of office errors and ncos that have been to china and still will personally put the culture language program into this regiment. so, like today, when we want our soldiers that are going to iraq ,r afghanistan to speak arabic is a long-standing tradition of having soldiers understanding the culture of a nation they are going into, will be stationed in. then there is the airplanes. colonel took airplanes into china. everybody knows the flying tigers. all, thearis and

united states was in there working with the chinese on building an air force before the war with japan. now, the problem was we sold in these weapons, taught them how and then changed how to use them against one of .is own warlords one of the warlords of a supposedly on his side. kind of went off track. we apparently went up to chang .ai-shek we will be replaced by the italians. name the good italian plane. so, the curtis planes we were selling them eventually died for lack of parts and lack of maintenance, and the italians came in, the planes were not very good, the training of the pilots was worse, and what you

see is a disaster in 1937 in terms of the chinese air force. the chinese in the early 1920's, 1924, established the military academy. at the military academy, chang kai-shek will begin told the professional army that should have been built in 185 this -- now, for those of you that study china at all,, you know he is mouse it until they both die in 1976. is the deputy to chang kai-shek. because at that time, the nationalist party that had grown basically the same party. it was the left wing and the right wing of the party. beingbeing the right, joe

the left. but they were training young officers to build the new chinese army, the chinese republican army. this is how it starts straight shank i scheck has gone to military high school in japan, visited the soviet union. -- starts. kai-shek is going to military high school in japan, visited the soviet union. one of chang kai-shek's sons, will basically replace him when he dies as the head of taiwan, is sent to live in the soviet union. marry a russian lady and

stay there more than a decade. he will eventually come back, not particularly friendly with his father until later. so, chang kai-shek will eventually kick the soviet advisers out because he does not appreciate the way they want to do the political training among the troops. and so, he will kick them out. and then he will bring in the germans. will promise to build 60 divisions. they get about 20 of them built when the japanese attack. as you know, the japanese and germans will be allies during world war ii. the japanese will basically call of the germans and say, would you might stop training the chinese? they are getting better and they are starting to beat us, and that's not a good thing. most of the german advisors will

leave. there are several german advisers who don't like hitler who will stay. so, you will see these stories of these strange colonels and lieutenant colonels from the german army you are in china -- who are in china. but the germans built and equipped 20 divisions before 1937, and they were chang kai-shek's bt sions. one of chang kai-shek's sons go es to germany. now, i'm going to make the case down the road. chang kai-shek was no great democrat. he was our friend, sort of. fan, here a stilwell painted on a raft. fan and usingiwan shank -- chang kai-shek is the best thing since sliced bread for what he did on taiwan, you can float another story. the story at the beginning is,

is a far right national socialist, and he is accompanying and working with until 1927 the communist left wing. there happens to be a guy named roberts who is related to 1937or roberts, who in happens to be on the uss tonight, catching a ride up the river with the navy, when the japanese attack. roberts, who will become colonel robertson will be chang kai-shek's intelligence officer in the china-burma-india hister, distinguished for actions as the senior officer on this ship when this tragedy happens. the japanese will apologize, pay reparations, but they sent the message that we were no longer

wanted certainly. beijing, that year in the second world war will begin in asia. the depicter of what is known as the marco polo bridge, and it doesn't take long for the japanese to take that. now, i don't have the slides on the manchuria. were fightinge the japanese that were encroaching from the puppet state they had set up in manchuria. the head of that puppet state .as the last emperor at the end of this time, the japanese will moved to shanghai in and will begin to move inland. 1937, the war for shanghai -- they will move

upriver to nanjing, and the nanjing massacre everyone has told about. chang kai-shek will live most of his 20 divisions. chang kai-shek's diaries were released several years ago and were translated. several people have written new biographies of chang kai-shek. they try to paint him in a better light, as typical historians, like to revise things once they get a new piece of information. is, he wasn't a good general, you will never be a good general. he was a pretty good politician to hold the mess that was china together, but what he did to his wrong.ivisions in shanghai was because in shanghai, where he fought, he did not have either air cover or enough artillery to deal with the japanese artillery, and it parts of the chinese troops are

actually being hit from japanese warships offshore. why didn't you just backup 30 miles? chang kai-shek doesn't know how conductst, or nicely, retrograde operations to save his troops and fighting better places. he does another stupid thing. he orders his units to hold in place and not surrender. absolutely giving away great troops that could have been used later. so yes, chang kai-shek's successful moving against the japanese, causing a lot of casualties, but eventually he will you -- will end up in chongqing and most of his army will have been defeated, and we will start all over again. this is going to help him start. while the battle is going on over shanghai, and a claim was kai-shekhim by chang

clears it all. the one circled on this is united states army air corps retired, is wearing the creature meants -- accoutrements of a chinese air force officer. i get it. the flying tigers were a chinese unit. war, andget into the he becomes a major general in the american air force. ob., he does a hell of a j he is a great air force tactician. is this picture kind of depicts, he makes friends with and gets in tight with chang kai-shek and madam chang kai-shek. and that is a good thing great madam chang kai-shek went to wellesley, spoke better english than i do, and was very charismatic. and she made a difference when

she came to the united states and met with american politicians. but we will build over the next several years a chinese air force that is pretty damn good because of him. i guess absolutely hammered in 1937. he will moved to southwest of to setupng --chongqing the new school. there's another guy you might've heard of by the name of evans carlson, united states or in court. according to some in the united states marine corps, he was just a communist. as a captain, he is in charge of detachment down in georgia. when he gets done with his time there, he gets the opportunity to add for president for the next assignment. he says, i would love to go to

china and i would like to see what the communist are doing. and so, captain carlson goes to china, meets with the ambassador and says, i wld like to meet with the communist. what is the ambassador going to say, no? the president said he could go, he could go. he went up and wrote a book. and then there's a wonderful model called "once an eagle." anton meyer is a marine. he writes this book. there's a chapter in this book i a guy named matt damon. matt damon goes out and spends time with the communists. namean scratch out damon's and write in carlton's name. it's essentially carlton's story told in a novel. the interesting thing is, the "ther guy in "once an eagle looks a lot like general

wedemeyer. but carlson gets out of the air force, writes a book, "when stars over china, when world war ii begins, he will rejoin the marine corps, form a unit called carlson's raidors, be wounded badly, will be returned to the united states, and that is eleanor roosevelt seeing him there. >> talk about the press. the lying press. these are all the press that about chiang kai shek. if president trump wants to know what it is like to be written about badly by the press, he should just read theodore white.

with andall in love married a chinese martial -- then the movie was made about --china just seemed into second the best of the journalists. on the other side, there is time life and the lewis family. it is a totally different story because they are in love with chiang kai shek and vice versa and he will make sure that chian magazineured on time four times. still will somehow get his picture on there because they try to work with chiang kai shek but it finally fell off. burma and there meeting with chiang kai shek.

house, youde of the get a totally different story from and about chiang kai shek. the stories coming out of china are very different. that's depending on who is out in the field and what they are doing. hadng kai shek's wife converted to christianity and the missionaries in the united states that has lived and worked in china a there were literally hundreds of thousands of them through the 1800s and 1900, saw china as 400 million possible christians and that was not going to happen under the communists. there is a story underneath this that is similar to some easy today. in 1941, the united states and

with franklin delano roosevelt that china will .e part of a program the mission of the u.s. soldiers in iraq today is called advise and assist. there is not much new under the sun. the missions we are doing in your rock in afghanistan are security forces assistant mission. it is what we were doing here in 1941. this was before we were at war with the japanese and everything is having to go into burma. it will not be long before the japanese conquest can't go on. it begins and then it in. -- then it ends. one of the japanese see we are getting supplies to china through burma, they cut it off. the japanese, who are in

thailand will move up for divisions into burma and will cut off a burma road. this is where the walkout happens. the men leave supplies that were in the docs in burma -- on the docks in burma. we gave it to the brits to fight the war. if they were chiang kai shek supplies, we did not really asked. really ask. chiang kai shek offered two armies to the brits. to fight inarmies burma. the british's first response was no. and i was inrch

burma for 10 days back in august of this year and some of the research i did, the british story is they knew they could not supply two wars and six divisions. chiang kai shek offers these divisions that they do not come with the supply base to do the fighting. and then they no talk and said yes. there were two chinese armies, six chinese divisions. the british army and to divisions fighting in burma in march and april of 1942. one americans sa we will not supply any combat troops, ground combat troops to burma until merrill's marauders in 1944.

he is not committing any americans other than his immediate staff. what did stillwell think of chiang kai shek? narrative. chiang kai shek and stillwell really begin not to get along right here. six divisions that were sent down were supposed to follow stillwell's orders and the regiment commanders would not follow his orders and less they called back and got chiang kai shek to agree.

that is not how you fight a war. stateell was given four department advisors. today our commanders are given for policy advisors. we have a relationship with the state department in a lot of ways. general betray us had his state petrausnt -- general had his state department guys testify. this is john service and this is john pat davies. these guys are going to get pilloried during the mccarthy era as being soft on congress -- soft on communism. they were absolutely vital to stillwell. a lot of the work they did was in india.

india just wants much more to do and that whole political situation in india, it is not much talked about but the british regiments of better going to fight in burma from the next three years are indian regiments. they are of mostly -- there are it is thetsmen but istish indian army that going to take burma back and a small detachment called merrill's marauders. one of the journalists here, he davies were flying over burma and the plane had mechanical issues.

they would be picked up by a who had beene working with our officers of strategic services. the state department guys were in the thick of it with stillwell. the japanese to do, they go from thailand in and they go and drive the chinese backand the british . divisionstwo chinese that will make it to india. they will make it to a place called ramgarh. trllwell says we will india, division army in the brits will supply the uniforms and the money. the first group of americans --

there are about 65 american soldiers that will leave savannah georgia --savannah, georgia and 65 days later go to pakistan and then moved to india and build this training school. we will eventually build a lot of chinese division. --divisions. we will be helped now by what is -- we will also be helped by what is now the cia. fairbanks,n king withis wife, was in china collecting information and writing studies. the intel piece of the federal intelligence agents of today was born here. the operational part of the cia is also born here.

the final american cooperation is the front for the office of strategic services in china. they will work for chiang kai gestapo.ief of die in an will later airplane crash will make sure there is no opposition to chiang kai shek. it is not matter who that opposition is. it is communist, nationalist, democratic, it doesn't matter. if you are against chiang kai shek dai li is against you. our state department is working for him. i have a memo that says are you sure he wants is working for dai li, you know what he really does. general donovan is the head of

the cia. will write ins his letter saying is this the want to play with. andcan go to china today very near this spot -- when i was there in the 80's it was called the american war crimes museum. now it has a nicer title. and there, the communist government of today has set up a museum and in that museum they pay should be to the china-american cooperation organization because we were fighting the japanese. you can go to china today and see pictures of chiang kai shek in various places. neededthe things that we once we started flying in china and we tried to find desk we try to fly a lot of missions in china. we try to hit mainland japan

from china. haveew that we would downed pilots. we started with the downed pilots in china with the doolittle mission. they are counting on chiang kai let us put us -- to a detachment there. it is not often they see an american army general getting an award from mao. we had a 25-30 man group with mao from 44-47. we did exactly what he was doing. we knew exactly how the communist operated. if you were up there and he wanted to operate and you are watching chiang kai shek

operate, guess who you thought was a better choice? the report that are coming back from the soldiers and the press that looks less is less. when a soldier goes in and see soldiers, they know who is capable and not capable. mao's forces were capable or appeared to be. conference --the cairo conference. roosevelt and churchill will go later on to meet stalin after this conference. we will promise at this conference to build 90 chinese divisions. equipped with basically everything, artillery, weapons,chine guns,

490 divisions. 90 divisions. if the war had gone on to 1949, we would have gotten there. this is the southeast asian command. at cairo thening plan for retaking burma. it is a mess. on brits are barely hanging and all of the shipping that we need to do what we need to do to at back into burma --we need plane come over from northern india and the south by see. sea.uth by all of the amphibious shipping is an europe in the middle east -- in europe and the middle east.

no, sorti shek said of. everyone keeps working. everything is on this chart except stillwell is holding six jobs simultaneously. savon, srie in lanka, burma, india and china all day, all the time doing his job. he cannot do all this. whose fault is the? -- is this? arguably his. it is not easy to call up george washington -- george marshall in washington dc and say i need four or five more general. generals.

stillwell deserves some criticism. he cannot do the job and he is not dedicating all his time to the chiang kai shek account. that is why they call him the squad leader. he wants to be on the ground fighting down in burma as that is not where he is supposed to be. he is the senior chinese military officer in the china-burma-india theater. he should be spending most of his time working with chiang kai shek. -- what he what w does. by a man fromed the obama national guard, silver star in world war i. politician in an army uniform, had served in very

powerful positions. the story of him getting off the plane to meet with mao and doing oklahomaul war -- an war whoop. rooseveltcommend to that stillwell should be relieved and he will be relieved. whittimyer,th a -- he will become the guy. he is a strategist. stillwellg to do what should have don sit down with chiang kai shek and get the job done. a cheer namedc as the strategist

that he is. this is the problem, when wedemeyer take paper, the japanese will launch a program. --the unitedhad states had blocked the japanese home islands. if they're are going to get anything it must come by rail or road across china up to the northeast, down the tree and hezbollah and then across the -- penusula andan then to japan. a couple places they might go might be a real problem.

way, they maythis go after chiang kai shek's headquarters. if they sling this way, this is the terminus to where they are bringing everything in at home. we are pretty sure this is what they are doing. chiang kai shek does not want to take any chances. he will not let the divisions that we have trained down here burma because he is scared of this offensive. what happened in northern burma is the british 35th division, the task force, in august of 1944, stillwell's forces, merrill's marauders take the

town at a cost. they are totally destroyed as a fighting unit. they will pull one regiment out, join with the with 24th calvary regiment call the texas national thed and it will form into force that will move to china. havestillwell wants to do, composite divisions. two chinese regiments and an american regiments. never really happens because the war ends. oer gentleman here gets an says, i'veyer and had about 500 generals in my

life and i would rate this guy about 499. stillwell's chief of staff. not happy with him and he was not happy with wedemeyer batiste. commanded -- we do not command the chinese units. we advise of the chinese units. the leverage that we have our air power and logistics -- are and logistics. with logistics we can these people without commanding them withoute can move people commanding them. to 60 but the way

x, y, the force and this is what we get to by august 1945. they would have punched into burma from india. several of these armies would have been punched down into we not onlyyunnan -- build the army's but we built over them. bn iruild ai army,t d not do very ll. army, it mayfghan not be doing so good on sundays. if you keep the advisors with the units, keep the logistics flowing, keep the air power with the unit, it will work. but you have to stay there to be there. for ayer asked macarthur

fourth to occupy china because all the chinese military is out towards burma and chongqing. when the japanese surrender unexpectedly in august of 1945 after the to a common bond -- af bombs, the atomic army is all over china and somehow we have to fix it. he asked for six divisions and macarthur said i will give you some left over marines. andtainly an insidious -- chinaious corps went into in 1945 and 50 job of six army ofisions -- and did the job six army divisions.

this is a wonderful book. what does the united states army do? the united states army has 60,000 soldiers in china. advisors, we try to keep as many of them as we could in because every american wants eighth and bacon for breakfast every morning. the chinese might get one a month for the family. live to tryg china to defeat of the americans so -- it wasem in india eating china alive to try to feed the americans. feeding -- at the same time we have to feed 60,000, we have 4

million japanese to be taken home. that areame ships going to take johnny back to san francisco are going to take kido back to tokyo. moms and dads want their son home now and they don't care what happens to the 4 million japanese. will write a nice article on this repatriation and the marines to a awful lot of the work. millionmove 400 japanese that. million are civilians who had been working in the interior. -- working in manchuria. and ting to be fed care of and we have to move 600,000 soldiers back to the east. the navy will be some of that by ship.

but we flew a lot of them as well. then, something that not many people know about, brigadier general philip e gallagher will accompany with 40 plus american toisers two chinese corps take the japanese surrendered in vietnam. the rumors, the americans may have avoided the the knot more r if they hadm wa catchment -- with him. of the general. this is another problem in the war. there were a lot of good generals who were not allowed to continue and were replaced by shiite generals.

these are political and military affairs. in the political and military affairs, chiang kai shek chose people who were loyal to him politically and not people who were good on the ground. dorne kept a book on the chinese saidals and some of them only fit to play. hurley with mao and he is attempting to bring the communists and the nationalists together. this is the plane that went to get them. fails, andion basically hurley said i have had

enough of this stuff. trimming goes, what am i going to do now, it's with marshall. known asarshall is the finest diplomat who ever served in uniform. china and tryto to do this impossible task of bringing the nationalists and the communists together to form the 1st united front. should have asked him. when truman said, marshall, i need you to go, he went. he did the best he could. you stay there from november of 1945 to january of 1947. he is attempting to find a way to get the congress -- the

ommunists and nationalists together. he will send back and there are 9 u.s. officers sent to nine nanking to build the division. that mission falls apart. it never happens. that marshallg was trying to do was to get a cease-fire between the communists and the nationalists. home, 4 million japanese we are trying to give the nationalists from fighting the communist. a little organization called the

they had headquarters, one nationalists officer, when communist officer and one american officer. they would drive around and check on violations of the cease-fire's that had been agreed to by the communists and the nationalists. one of those people was john birch. he was the son of a missionary in china and when do little -- down,le's plane goes they get to meet john birch. accompany the american pilots bk and they will ask himill be joining the army. you speak any, you know chinese. he said yes. in this mission which is very dangerous he will be killed by communists.

welcome to the john birch story. wedemeyer and marshall and wedemeyer reports. for my students, i take out all of the references into china and i take out the pictures and i say, where is this? they say, iraq and afghanistan. officerthe last u.s. that will serve as part of the advisory mission. the united states forces will pull out of there in 1979.

barr will command the division in korea. general sun liren commanded the divisions that came up from burma into ramgarh. he went to purdue and bmi. he was a division major in the chinese army and he will be a four star general and the chinese army. he is eventually put under house arrest. uy withacarthur's g macarthur meet up with him. chiang kai shek promises of

forces to fight in korea. he says no, you will probably need them. zhou eniai, remember message through him not to go through the 38th parallel. the chinese come anyway across the 38th parallel. have?they and he knew eniai us. we will restart the advisory mission to chiang kai shek's army in may of 1951 in the middle of the korean war and it will continue through 1979.

andhree or four questions then the mind meeting with people one on one? inaudible] in 1818- >> it was when the marines sorted out a dispute between the chinese merchants. date -- is best to the best date. there was an american from massachusetts who built the ever willria's army and they in 1859e tai pings

andhe will be killed replaced by a british engineer captain by the name of gordon. the first time and chinese soldier and an americans older were fighting each other, korea. --the first time a chinese soldier and an americans soldier were fighting each other, korea. n 1949s off the rails and with the war in korea, he goes off the rails in 79 and will get back on the rails with nixon visits in 1972. >> can you talk a little bit

, somewho lost china thing of the people are the culprits about china. china.ng kai shek lost that is it. >> mccarthy and his followers blame certain people. >> absolutely. the blame game will begin. marshall is tainted by his mission to try to build a united china. inwanted a united china 1945. what was supposed to happen in japan was it was supposed to be moved back 1000 years and be an agricultural society and china was going to be the new japan and offset stalin in russia.

you had to have a china that was getting well. tries andoes over and mao's demands and could not be met by chaig. he did some military things on the ground, operationally and to 1949cally from 1946 that were this -- just stupid. they did not make military sense. they lost. personalitye split of this front start during the britishrs back in the sponsored opium wars that undermined the social structure. a lot of missionaries went in to

people for the little which might not have been so good. >> i'm going to have a hard time answering that in less than five minutes. if you look at the restoration and how japan began as a modern nation. you look at what happened in china, you go wait a minute, what happened in china. the chinant used to did not make it -- used to be china did not make it because of all the foreign intrusion. it was undermined by the han chinese within that society. there's plenty of blame to go around. the external forces anthe internal forces both collided to make china nearly impossible to

put back together. this is on the other side for china. i do not in new -- i do not know anybody like chiang kai shek who did the most to keep it together. he lost it but i don't think there was anyone could have ever won it. ve day in europe, the united states was involved in refugee resettlement. did we have any similar programs in china? effort, is relief official relief effort and the truman library has archives on that. they were not part of my study theme were try to help rebuild their industry.

>> we have to stop fighting each other, that is called the second united front. the first united front is there.

the second united front is in 1936 and marshall is trying to build the third united front. in some ways it is reasonable to believe that if the economy is, nationalists -- if the communists and nationalists who work together, they could again. --er the massacre in 1942, the nationalists thought the communists. chiang kai shek has 500 are a lot ofthere not very good ones that are all over the place. all of the things that we would want him to do to nation build don't really happen but there are sources of that would inform you a lot more about what we try

to do to get them going. >> one more question. >> i was astounded to discover that mao wrote letters of friendship to fdr in the early 40's dating for wall street financing and to join with -- begging for wall street financing and to join with chinese labor to create an economic powerhouse. what a lost opportunity. >> lost opportunity or wonderful propaganda. when i was doing my dissertation

research, i went out to and oneg with a friend of them was doing a study. one of the first things he asked me was, you know how much money theynited states said would pay time to build the air filled in china. he said, no. the chinese think we owe them money for the labor for the airfield built to save their country. propaganda is propaganda. are fourportunities other historians to write about and make a lot of money on their books. i enjoyed it. i will stay after and answer any questions. [applause]

[indistinct conversation] watching: you're american history tv, all we can, every weekend on six and three. to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. announcer: we are just out of hyde park, new york. of next, we take you inside mill's mansion for a look at the gilded age in because in valley. the term came from a novel by mark twain and it did notes -- it denotes that things are gilded and opulent but underneath is perhaps something not quite here. -- not quite