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FTR#1197 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 4

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FTR #1197 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: This pro­gram con­tin­ues with dis­cus­sion of the foun­da­tion of Chi­ang Kai-shek’s “narco-fascism,”–the opi­um and nar­cotics trade in Chi­na.

One can­not under­stand con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the polit­i­cal his­to­ry of that coun­try over the last cou­ple of cen­turies with­out a com­pre­hen­sive grasp of the effect of the Opi­um Wars on that nation and its peo­ple.

Indeed, one can­not grasp Chi­nese his­to­ry and pol­i­tics with­out an under­stand­ing of the nar­cotics trade’s cen­tral posi­tion in that country’s pol­i­tics.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion of the Opi­um Wars include:

  1. The eco­nom­ic imper­a­tive for the con­flicts were the trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th cen­tu­ry the demand for Chi­nese lux­u­ry goods (par­tic­u­lar­ly silk, porce­lain, and tea) cre­at­ed a trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain. Euro­pean sil­ver flowed into Chi­nathrough the Can­ton Sys­tem, which con­fined incom­ing for­eign trade to the south­ern port city of Can­ton. . . .”
  2. To alter that dynam­ic, the British East India Com­pa­ny turned to the opi­um trade: “ . . . . To counter this imbal­ance, the British East India Com­pa­ny began to grow opi­um in Ben­gal and allowed pri­vate British mer­chants to sell opi­um to Chi­nese smug­glers for ille­gal sale in Chi­na. The influx of nar­cotics reversed the Chi­nese trade sur­plus, drained the econ­o­my of sil­ver, and increased the num­bers of opi­um addicts inside the coun­try, out­comes that seri­ous­ly wor­ried Chi­nese offi­cials. . . .
  3. The Chi­nese attempt at inter­dict­ing the opi­um trade was coun­tered with force of arms: “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emper­or, reject­ing pro­pos­als to legal­ize and tax opi­um, appoint­ed ViceroyLin Zexu to go to Can­ton to halt the opi­um trade com­plete­ly.[8] Lin wrote an open let­ter to Queen Vic­to­ria, which she nev­er saw, appeal­ing to her moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to stop the opi­um trade.[9] Lin then resort­ed to using force in the west­ern mer­chants’ enclave. He con­fis­cat­ed all sup­plies and ordered a block­ade of for­eign ships on the Pearl Riv­er. Lin also con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed a sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ty of Euro­pean opi­um.[10] The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed by dis­patch­ing a mil­i­tary force to Chi­na and in the ensu­ing con­flict, the Roy­al Navy used its naval and gun­nery pow­er to inflict a series of deci­sive defeats on the Chi­nese Empire,[11] a tac­tic lat­er referred to as gun­boat diplo­ma­cy.  . . .”
  4. Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, Chi­na expe­ri­enced: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chi­nese lat­er called the unequal treaties—which grant­ed an indem­ni­ty  and extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty to British sub­jects in Chi­na . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for fur­ther opi­um trade, but ced­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Hong Kong . . . .
  5. The trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain wors­ened, and the expense of main­tain new colo­nial territories—including Hong Kong (appro­pri­at­ed through the first Opi­um War)—led to the sec­ond Opi­um War. Note that the “extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty” grant­ed to British sub­jects exempt­ed them from Chi­nese law, includ­ing the offi­cial pro­hi­bi­tion against opi­um traf­fick­ing: “ . . . . Despite the new ports avail­able for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from Chi­na had reached nine times their exports to the coun­try. At the same time British impe­r­i­al finances came under fur­ther pres­sure from the expense of admin­is­ter­ing the bur­geon­ing colonies of Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore in addi­tion to India. Only the lat­ter’s opi­um could bal­ance the deficit. [30]Along with var­i­ous com­plaints about the treat­ment of British mer­chants in Chi­nese ports and the Qing gov­ern­men­t’s refusal to accept fur­ther for­eign ambas­sadors, the rel­a­tive­ly minor ‘Arrow Inci­dent’ pro­vid­ed the pre­text the British need­ed to once more resort to mil­i­tary force to ensure the opi­um kept flow­ing. . . . Mat­ters quick­ly esca­lat­ed and led to the Sec­ond Opi­um War . . . .”
  6. As a result of the Sec­ond Opi­um War, Chi­na was oblig­ed to Cede No.1 Dis­trict of Kowloon (south of present-day Bound­ary Street) to Britain; grant “free­dom of reli­gion,” which led to an influx of West­ern Mis­sion­ar­ies, U.S. in par­tic­u­lar; British ships were allowed to car­ry inden­tured Chi­nese to the Amer­i­c­as; legal­iza­tion of the opi­um trade.”
  7. Fierce, elo­quent con­dem­na­tion of the Opi­um Wars was voiced by British Prime Min­is­ter Glad­stone: “ . . . . The opi­um trade incurred intense enmi­ty from the lat­er British Prime Min­is­ter William Ewart Glad­stone.[34] As a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Glad­stone called it ‘most infa­mous and atro­cious’, refer­ring to the opi­um trade between Chi­na and British India in par­tic­u­lar.[35] Glad­stone was fierce­ly against both of the Opi­um Wars, was ardent­ly opposed to the British trade in opi­um to Chi­na, and denounced British vio­lence against Chi­nese.[36] Glad­stone lam­bast­ed it as ‘Palmer­ston’s Opi­um War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judg­ments of God upon Eng­land for our nation­al iniq­ui­ty towards Chi­na’ in May 1840.[37] A famous speech was made by Glad­stone in Par­lia­ment against the First Opi­um War.[38][39] Glad­stone crit­i­cized it as ‘a war more unjust in its ori­gin, a war more cal­cu­lat­ed in its progress to cov­er this coun­try with per­ma­nent dis­grace’. . . .”

Among the out­growths of the Opi­um Wars was an end to the Qing dynasty’s ban on Chi­nese emi­gra­tion and the resul­tant “coolie trade.” 

The Chi­nese have a long-stand­ing and deserved rep­u­ta­tion as good work­ers. The U.S. and British embrace of the “coolie trade” per­mit­ted large num­bers of Chi­nese labor­ers to be import­ed into the U.S., where they were wide­ly employed in the sil­ver min­ing indus­try and the rail­roads.

This led to wide­spread, dead­ly retal­i­a­tion by the white estab­lish­ment against Chi­nese work­ers, encour­aged by the media and polit­i­cal estab­lish­ments.

Behead­ings, scalp­ing, cas­tra­tion and can­ni­bal­ism were among the dead­ly out­growths of the White Ter­ror against Chi­nese.

The vio­lence was accom­pa­nied by legal restric­tions on the immi­gra­tion by Chi­nese into the U.S.

With opi­um hav­ing devel­oped into a major scourge of Chi­nese soci­ety and legal­ized through the Sec­ond Opi­um War, the opi­um trade became the foun­da­tion for the ascent of the bril­liant, charis­mat­ic, treach­er­ous and alto­geth­er dead­ly Shang­hai orga­nized crime boss Tu Yueh-Sheng (“Big Eared Tu”).

Con­vinc­ing Pock­marked Huang–leader of Chi­na’s Red Gang–to join with him in orga­niz­ing the opi­um trade into a car­tel, Big-Eared Tu con­sol­i­dat­ed and max­i­mized the enor­mous prof­its of that trade into a pow­er base that made him the most pow­er­ful fig­ure in Chi­na.

He fur­ther aug­ment­ed his influ­ence by ter­ror­iz­ing the man­age­ment of numer­ous com­mer­cial enter­pris­es, while con­sol­i­dat­ing the work­ers of those firms into what became–in effect–Green Gang labor cadres.

Even­tu­al­ly, Tu brought a carous­ing buddy–the young Chi­ang Kai-shek–into his fold and made Chi­ang and his Kuom­intang into a polit­i­cal front for the Green Gang’s vast crim­i­nal empire and its doc­tri­naire anti-Com­mu­nism.

The lat­ter became a key ele­ment of ide­o­log­i­cal affin­i­ty became Chi­ang’s Kuom­intang and the U.S.

The Green Gang/Chiang Kai-shek/Kuom­intang alliance also embraced the pow­er­ful Soong fam­i­ly, which gave that milieu tremen­dous grav­i­tas with the U.S.

T.V. Soong, his broth­ers and–in particular–his sis­ters Ai-ling and Mae-ling Soong played dom­i­nant roles in both Chi­na and the US.

(Ai-ling mar­ried wealthy Chi­nese finance min­is­ter H.H. Kung and arranged for her sis­ter Mae-ling to mar­ry Chi­ang Kai-shek.)

Much more will be said about the mem­bers of this fam­i­ly lat­er in this series of pro­grams.

One of the prin­ci­pal vehi­cles for the Green Gang’s con­trol of Chi­na was its suc­cess­ful infil­tra­tion of the Wham­poa Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my, which gave that crim­i­nal syn­di­cate deci­sive lever­age over the Kuom­intang Army.

That army’s lead­er­ship were simul­ta­ne­ous­ly offi­cers and lead­ers of the army and gang­sters of the first order.

Much more will be said about the syn­the­sis of the Green Gang and the Kuom­intang army lat­er in this series.

We con­clude with review of research by the bril­liant Dou­glas Valen­tine, pre­sent­ed in FTR#1095. Valen­tine’s analy­sis is a  good syn­op­tic view of Chi­ang’s regime.

In addi­tion to the Euro­pean col­o­niza­tion of Chi­na and Britain’s vio­lent impo­si­tion of the opi­um drug trade through the Opi­um Wars, Chi­na’s polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry is vivid­ly ani­mat­ed by the drug-financed fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship of Nation­al­ist Chi­nese Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-shek. Dubbed “the Peanut” by Gen­er­al Joseph Stil­well dur­ing World War II, Chi­ang was com­pared by Stil­well (the chief Amer­i­can mil­i­tary advis­er and liai­son to the Kuom­intang forces dur­ing World War II) to Mus­soli­ni.

Chi­ang’s entire gov­ern­ment and bru­tal nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus rest­ed on the foun­da­tion of the nar­cotics traf­fic, as was well known by the US Com­mis­sion­er Bureau of Nar­cotics, Har­ry Anslinger.

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis of this rela­tion­ship include: The deci­sive role of the Green Gang of Shang­hai crime lord Du (some­times ‘Tu”) Yue-sheng in both financ­ing Chi­ang’s forces and sup­ply­ing mus­cle and intel­li­gence to Tai Li, Chi­ang’s intel­li­gence chief and inte­ri­or min­is­ter, nick­named “The Himm­ler of Chi­na;” the impor­tant role of Chi­ang’s drug traf­fic in sup­ply­ing Amer­i­can t’ongs who, in turned, sup­plied the Mafia with their nar­cotics; the role of Chi­ang’s finance min­is­ter as Du Yue-sheng’s pro­tec­tor; the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Du and Chaing Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang appa­ra­tus with the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion gov­ern­ment of Manchuria in the nar­cotics traf­fic; the role of Chaing’s head of Nar­cotics Con­trol in sup­ply­ing Chi­nese offi­cials with drugs; the role of the Super­in­ten­dent of Mar­itime Cus­toms in Shang­hai in super­vis­ing the traf­fick­ing of drugs to the U.S.; Du Yueh-sheng’s flight to Hong Kong after the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of Shang­hai; Du’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Hong Kong-based British financiers in sell­ing drugs to the Chi­nese pop­u­la­tion; the delib­er­ate decep­tion on the part of Anslinger and king­pins in the US Chi­na Lob­by, who know­ing­ly mis­led the Amer­i­can pub­lic by blam­ing the U.S. drug traf­fic on the Com­mu­nist Chi­nese; the nar­cotics kick­backs to U.S. Chi­na Lob­by fig­ures by Chi­ang’s dope traf­fick­ing infra­struc­ture; the over­lap of the Kuom­intang dope trade with arms sales by Chi­na Lob­by lumi­nar­ies; the sup­port of the CIA for Chi­ang’s nar­cotics traf­fic; the destruc­tion of the career of For­eign Ser­vice offi­cer John Ser­vice, who not­ed that “the Nation­al­ists were total­ly depen­dent on opi­um and ‘inca­pable of solv­ing Chi­na’s prob­lems;’ ” the cen­tral role of Tai Li’s agents in the U.S. in fram­ing John Ser­vice.

Sup­ple­men­tal infor­ma­tion about these top­ics is con­tained in AFA #11 and AFA #24.

1.  One can­not under­stand con­tem­po­rary Chi­na and the polit­i­cal his­to­ry of that coun­try over the last cou­ple of cen­turies with­out a com­pre­hen­sive grasp of the effect of the Opi­um Wars on that nation and its peo­ple.

Indeed, one can­not grasp Chi­nese his­to­ry and pol­i­tics with­out an under­stand­ing of the nar­cotics trade’s cen­tral posi­tion in that country’s pol­i­tics.

A viable under­stand­ing of Chi­na’s past yields under­stand­ing of its present. 

Aware­ness of key dynam­ics of Chi­nese his­to­ry includes:

  1. The deci­sive role of Euro­pean and Amer­i­can mil­i­tary dom­i­na­tion and eco­nom­ic exploita­tion of Chi­na.
  2. The role of the nar­cotics traf­fic in the ero­sion of Chi­nese soci­ety in the 19th cen­tu­ry.
  3. The British-led “Opi­um Wars,” which were the foun­da­tion of the destruc­tion wrought by dope addic­tion in Chi­na.
  4. The Opi­um Wars and their imple­men­ta­tion by “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” of British and Euro­pean ter­ri­to­r­i­al expan­sion in Chi­na.
  5. The piv­otal role of that “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” in the British acqui­si­tion of Hong Kong.
  6. Con­tem­po­rary Chi­nese con­cern with the mil­i­tary safe­ty of their ports, ter­ri­to­r­i­al waters, adja­cent seas and oceans, ship­ping lanes, mer­chant marine traf­fic. This stems in large mea­sure from China’s expe­ri­ence with “Gun­boat Diplo­ma­cy” and the rav­aging of Chi­na by Impe­r­i­al Japan dur­ing the 1930’s and 1940’s.
  7. The intro­duc­tion of West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies into China–American mis­sion­ar­ies, in par­tic­u­lar.
  8. The fos­ter­ing of the “Mis­sion­ary posi­tion” toward Chi­na on the part of the U.S.
  9. Amer­i­can mis­sion­ar­ies’ use of mor­phine to cure Chi­nese opi­um addicts, a prac­tice so preva­lent that the Chi­nese referred to mor­phine as “Jesus opi­um.”
  10. The enor­mous opi­um trade in Chi­na as the foun­da­tion for the coa­les­cence and ascent of Shang­hai’s Green Gang and Tu Yueh-Shen: “Big Eared Tu.”
  11. The dom­i­nance of the Kuom­intang of Chi­ang Kai-Shek by the Green Gang and Big-Eared Tu.
  12. The fun­da­men­tal reliance of Chi­ang’s gov­ern­ment on the nar­cotics trade.
  13. The dom­i­nant role of Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s regime in the U.S. nar­cotics trade.
  14. The doc­tri­naire fas­cism of Chi­ang Kai-Shek and his oper­a­tional rela­tion­ships with Nazi Ger­many, Mus­solin­i’s Italy and Impe­r­i­al Japan.
  15. The cen­tral role of the Soong fam­i­ly in Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s Kuom­intang; T.V. Soong, his sis­ters Mae-ling (mar­ried to Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-Shek), Ai-ling (mar­ried to H.H. Kung, a key finance min­is­ter of the Kuo­moin­tang), and sev­er­al of T. V.‘s broth­ers, who also shared in the slic­ing of the pie under Chi­ang.
  16. The piv­otal role of Amer­i­can pub­lish­ing giant Hen­ry Luce, whose mis­sion­ary back­ground in Chi­na informed and ani­mat­ed his ado­ra­tion of Chi­ang Kai-Shek and Mme. Chi­ang.
  17. The role of the Luce pub­lish­ing empire and the enor­mous finan­cial influ­ence of the con­sum­mate­ly cor­rupt Soong fam­i­ly in spawn­ing “The Chi­na Lob­by.”
  18. The deci­sive role of the Chi­ang Kai-Shek’s refusal to fight the Japan­ese invaders, com­bined with the bru­tal repres­sion and civic inep­ti­tude in dri­ving the Chi­nese peo­ple into the arms of Mao Tse-Tung and the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion of the Opi­um Wars include:

  1. The eco­nom­ic imper­a­tive for the con­flicts were the trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain: “ . . . . In the 18th cen­tu­ry the demand for Chi­nese lux­u­ry goods (par­tic­u­lar­ly silk, porce­lain, and tea) cre­at­ed a trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain. Euro­pean sil­ver flowed into Chi­nathrough the Can­ton Sys­tem, which con­fined incom­ing for­eign trade to the south­ern port city of Can­ton. . . .”
  2. To alter that dynam­ic, the British East India Com­pa­ny turned to the opi­um trade: “ . . . . To counter this imbal­ance, the British East India Com­pa­ny began to grow opi­um in Ben­gal and allowed pri­vate British mer­chants to sell opi­um to Chi­nese smug­glers for ille­gal sale in Chi­na. The influx of nar­cotics reversed the Chi­nese trade sur­plus, drained the econ­o­my of sil­ver, and increased the num­bers of opi­um addicts inside the coun­try, out­comes that seri­ous­ly wor­ried Chi­nese offi­cials. . . .
  3. The Chi­nese attempt at inter­dict­ing the opi­um trade was coun­tered with force of arms: “ . . . . In 1839, the Daoguang Emper­or, reject­ing pro­pos­als to legal­ize and tax opi­um, appoint­ed ViceroyLin Zexu to go to Can­ton to halt the opi­um trade com­plete­ly.[8] Lin wrote an open let­ter to Queen Vic­to­ria, which she nev­er saw, appeal­ing to her moral respon­si­bil­i­ty to stop the opi­um trade.[9] Lin then resort­ed to using force in the west­ern mer­chants’ enclave. He con­fis­cat­ed all sup­plies and ordered a block­ade of for­eign ships on the Pearl Riv­er. Lin also con­fis­cat­ed and destroyed a sig­nif­i­cant quan­ti­ty of Euro­pean opi­um.[10] The British gov­ern­ment respond­ed by dis­patch­ing a mil­i­tary force to Chi­na and in the ensu­ing con­flict, the Roy­al Navy used its naval and gun­nery pow­er to inflict a series of deci­sive defeats on the Chi­nese Empire,[11] a tac­tic lat­er referred to as gun­boat diplo­ma­cy.  . . .”
  4. Forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking, Chi­na expe­ri­enced: “ . . . . In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chi­nese lat­er called the unequal treaties—which grant­ed an indem­ni­ty  and extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty to British sub­jects in Chi­na . . . . The 1842 Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for fur­ther opi­um trade, but ced­ed the ter­ri­to­ry of Hong Kong . . . .
  5. The trade imbal­ance between Chi­na and Britain wors­ened, and the expense of main­tain new colo­nial territories—including Hong Kong (appro­pri­at­ed through the first Opi­um War)—led to the sec­ond Opi­um War. Note that the “extrater­ri­to­ri­al­i­ty” grant­ed to British sub­jects exempt­ed them from Chi­nese law, includ­ing the offi­cial pro­hi­bi­tion against opi­um traf­fick­ing: “ . . . . Despite the new ports avail­able for trade under the Treaty of Nanking, by 1854 Britain’s imports from Chi­na had reached nine times their exports to the coun­try. At the same time British impe­r­i­al finances came under fur­ther pres­sure from the expense of admin­is­ter­ing the bur­geon­ing colonies of Hong Kong and Sin­ga­pore in addi­tion to India. Only the lat­ter’s opi­um could bal­ance the deficit. [30]Along with var­i­ous com­plaints about the treat­ment of British mer­chants in Chi­nese ports and the Qing gov­ern­men­t’s refusal to accept fur­ther for­eign ambas­sadors, the rel­a­tive­ly minor ‘Arrow Inci­dent’ pro­vid­ed the pre­text the British need­ed to once more resort to mil­i­tary force to ensure the opi­um kept flow­ing. . . . Mat­ters quick­ly esca­lat­ed and led to the Sec­ond Opi­um War . . . .”
  6. As a result of the Sec­ond Opi­um War, Chi­na was oblig­ed to Cede No.1 Dis­trict of Kowloon (south of present-day Bound­ary Street) to Britain; grant “free­dom of reli­gion,” which led to an influx of West­ern Mis­sion­ar­ies, U.S. in par­tic­u­lar; British ships were allowed to car­ry inden­tured Chi­nese to the Amer­i­c­as; legal­iza­tion of the opi­um trade.”
  7. Fierce, elo­quent con­dem­na­tion of the Opi­um Wars was voiced by British Prime Min­is­ter Glad­stone: “ . . . . The opi­um trade incurred intense enmi­ty from the lat­er British Prime Min­is­ter William Ewart Glad­stone.[34] As a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, Glad­stone called it ‘most infa­mous and atro­cious’, refer­ring to the opi­um trade between Chi­na and British India in par­tic­u­lar.[35] Glad­stone was fierce­ly against both of the Opi­um Wars, was ardent­ly opposed to the British trade in opi­um to Chi­na, and denounced British vio­lence against Chi­nese.[36] Glad­stone lam­bast­ed it as ‘Palmer­ston’s Opi­um War’ and said that he felt ‘in dread of the judg­ments of God upon Eng­land for our nation­al iniq­ui­ty towards Chi­na’ in May 1840.[37] A famous speech was made by Glad­stone in Par­lia­ment against the First Opi­um War.[38][39] Glad­stone crit­i­cized it as ‘a war more unjust in its ori­gin, a war more cal­cu­lat­ed in its progress to cov­er this coun­try with per­ma­nent dis­grace’. . . .”

2.  Among the out­growths of the Opi­um Wars was an end to the Qing dynasty’s ban on Chi­nese emi­gra­tion and the resul­tant “coolie trade.” 

The Chi­nese have a long-stand­ing and deserved rep­u­ta­tion as good work­ers. The U.S. and British embrace of the “coolie trade” per­mit­ted large num­bers of Chi­nese labor­ers to be import­ed into the U.S., where they were wide­ly employed in the sil­ver min­ing indus­try and the rail­roads.

This led to wide­spread, dead­ly retal­i­a­tion by the white estab­lish­ment against Chi­nese work­ers, encour­aged by the media and polit­i­cal estab­lish­ments.

Behead­ings, scalp­ing, cas­tra­tion and can­ni­bal­ism were among the dead­ly out­growths of the White Ter­ror against Chi­nese.

The vio­lence was accom­pa­nied by legal restric­tions on the immi­gra­tion by Chi­nese into the U.S.

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp.43–44.

3. With opi­um hav­ing devel­oped into a major scourge of Chi­nese soci­ety and legal­ized through the Sec­ond Opi­um War, the opi­um trade became the foun­da­tion for the ascent of the bril­liant, charis­mat­ic, treach­er­ous and alto­geth­er dead­ly Shang­hai orga­nized crime boss Tu Yueh-Sheng (“Big Eared Tu”).

Con­vinc­ing Pock­marked Huang–leader of Chi­na’s Red Gang–to join with him in orga­niz­ing the opi­um trade into a car­tel, Big-Eared Tu con­sol­i­dat­ed and max­i­mized the enor­mous prof­its of that trade into a pow­er base that made him the most pow­er­ful fig­ure in Chi­na.

He fur­ther aug­ment­ed his influ­ence by ter­ror­iz­ing the man­age­ment of numer­ous com­mer­cial enter­pris­es, while con­sol­i­dat­ing the work­ers of those firms into what became–in effect–Green Gang labor cadres.

Even­tu­al­ly, Tu brought a carous­ing buddy–the young Chi­ang Kai-shek–into his fold and made Chi­ang and his Kuom­intang into a polit­i­cal front for the Green Gang’s vast crim­i­nal empire and its doc­tri­naire anti-Com­mu­nism.

The lat­ter became a key ele­ment of ide­o­log­i­cal affin­i­ty became Chi­ang’s Kuom­intang and the U.S.

The Green Gang/Chiang Kai-shek/Kuom­intang alliance also embraced the pow­er­ful Soong fam­i­ly, which gave that milieu tremen­dous grav­i­tas with the U.S.

T.V. Soong, his broth­ers and–in particular–his sis­ters Ai-ling and Mae-ling Soong played dom­i­nant roles in both Chi­na and the US.

(Ai-ling mar­ried wealthy Chi­nese finance min­is­ter H.H. Kung and arranged for her sis­ter Mae-ling to mar­ry Chi­ang Kai-shek.)

Much more will be said about the mem­bers of this fam­i­ly lat­er in this series of pro­grams.

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp.149–153.

4. One of the prin­ci­pal vehi­cles for the Green Gang’s con­trol of Chi­na was its suc­cess­ful infil­tra­tion of the Wham­poa Mil­i­tary Acad­e­my, which gave that crim­i­nal syn­di­cate deci­sive lever­age over the Kuom­intang Army.

That army’s lead­er­ship were simul­ta­ne­ous­ly offi­cers and lead­ers of the army and gang­sters of the first order.

Much more will be said about the syn­the­sis of the Green Gang and the Kuom­intang army lat­er in this series.

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp.186–187.

5.  In addi­tion to the Euro­pean col­o­niza­tion of Chi­na and Britain’s vio­lent impo­si­tion of the opi­um drug trade through the Opi­um Wars, Chi­na’s polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry is vivid­ly ani­mat­ed by the drug-financed fas­cist dic­ta­tor­ship of Nation­al­ist Chi­nese Gen­er­alis­si­mo Chi­ang Kai-shek. Dubbed “the Peanut” by Gen­er­al Joseph Stil­well dur­ing World War II, Chi­ang was com­pared by Stil­well (the chief Amer­i­can mil­i­tary advis­er and liai­son to the Kuom­intang forces dur­ing World War II) to Mus­soli­ni.

Chi­ang’s entire gov­ern­ment and bru­tal nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus rest­ed on the foun­da­tion of the nar­cotics traf­fic, as was well known by the US Com­mis­sion­er Bureau of Nar­cotics, Har­ry Anslinger.

Key points of dis­cus­sion and analy­sis of this rela­tion­ship include: The deci­sive role of the Green Gang of Shang­hai crime lord Du (some­times ‘Tu”) Yue-sheng in both financ­ing Chi­ang’s forces and sup­ply­ing mus­cle and intel­li­gence to Tai Li, Chi­ang’s intel­li­gence chief and inte­ri­or min­is­ter, nick­named “The Himm­ler of Chi­na;” the impor­tant role of Chi­ang’s drug traf­fic in sup­ply­ing Amer­i­can t’ongs who, in turned, sup­plied the Mafia with their nar­cotics; the role of Chi­ang’s finance min­is­ter as Du Yue-sheng’s pro­tec­tor; the col­lab­o­ra­tion of Du and Chaing Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang appa­ra­tus with the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion gov­ern­ment of Manchuria in the nar­cotics traf­fic; the role of Chaing’s head of Nar­cotics Con­trol in sup­ply­ing Chi­nese offi­cials with drugs; the role of the Super­in­ten­dent of Mar­itime Cus­toms in Shang­hai in super­vis­ing the traf­fick­ing of drugs to the U.S.; Du Yueh-sheng’s flight to Hong Kong after the Japan­ese occu­pa­tion of Shang­hai; Du’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with Hong Kong-based British financiers in sell­ing drugs to the Chi­nese pop­u­la­tion; the delib­er­ate decep­tion on the part of Anslinger and king­pins in the US Chi­na Lob­by, who know­ing­ly mis­led the Amer­i­can pub­lic by blam­ing the U.S. drug traf­fic on the Com­mu­nist Chi­nese; the nar­cotics kick­backs to U.S. Chi­na Lob­by fig­ures by Chi­ang’s dope traf­fick­ing infra­struc­ture; the over­lap of the Kuom­intang dope trade with arms sales by Chi­na Lob­by lumi­nar­ies; the sup­port of the CIA for Chi­ang’s nar­cotics traf­fic; the destruc­tion of the career of For­eign Ser­vice offi­cer John Ser­vice, who not­ed that “the Nation­al­ists were total­ly depen­dent on opi­um and ‘inca­pable of solv­ing Chi­na’s prob­lems;’ ” the cen­tral role of Tai Li’s agents in the U.S. in fram­ing John Ser­vice.

Sup­ple­men­tal infor­ma­tion about these top­ics is con­tained in AFA #11 and AFA #24.

The CIA as Orga­nized Crime by Dou­glas Valen­tine; Clar­i­ty Press [SC]; Copy­right 2017 by Dou­glas Valen­tine; ISBN 978–0‑9972870–2‑8; pp. 222–224.

In the 1920s, the US threw its weight behind Chi­ang Kai-shek, whose Kuom­intang Par­ty was fight­ing the Com­mu­nists and sev­er­al oth­er war­lords for con­trol of Chi­na. The US was com­pet­ing with the oth­er colo­nial nations for con­trol of Chi­na, which had a cheap labor force and rep­re­sent­ed bil­lions in prof­its for US cor­po­ra­tions and investors. The prob­lem was that the Kuom­intang  sup­port­ed itself through the opi­um trade. It’s well doc­u­ment­ed in the  diplo­mat­ic cables between the US gov­ern­ment and its rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Chi­na. His­to­ri­ans Kinder and Walk­er said the Com­mis­sion­er of the Bureau of Nar­cotics, Har­ry Anslinger, “clear­ly knew about the ties between Chi­ang and  opi­um deal­ers.”

Anslinger knew that Shang­hai was “the prime pro­duc­er and exporter to the illic­it world drug mar­kets,” through a syn­di­cate con­trolled by Du Yue-sheng, a crime lord who facil­i­tat­ed Chi­ang’s bloody ascent to pow­er in 1927. As ear­ly as 1932, Anslinger knew that Chi­ang’s finance min­is­ter was Du’s pro­tec­tor. He’d had evi­dence since 1929 that Amer­i­can t’ongs were receiv­ing Kuom­intang nar­cotics and dis­trib­ut­ing it to the Mafia. Mid­dle­men worked with opi­um mer­chants, gang­sters like Du, Japan­ese occu­pa­tion forces in Manchuria, and Dr. Lans­ing Ling, “who sup­plied nar­cotics to Chi­nese offi­cials trav­el­ing abroad.” In 1938, Chi­ang Kai-shek appoint­ed Dr. Ling head of his Nar­cot­ic Con­trol Depart­ment.

In Octo­ber 1934, the Trea­sury attache in Shang­hai “sub­mit­ted reports impli­cat­ing Chi­ang Kai-shek in the hero­in trade to North Amer­i­ca.” In 1935, the attache report­ed that the Super­in­ten­dent of Mar­itime Cus­toms in Shang­hai was “act­ing as agent for Chi­ang Kai-shek in arrang­ing for the prepa­ra­tion and ship­ment of the stuff to the Unit­ed States.”

These reports reached Anslinger’s desk, so he knew which KMT offi­cials and trade mis­sions were deliv­er­ing dope to Amer­i­can t’ongs and which Amer­i­can mafia drug rings were buy­ing it. He knew the t’ongs were kick­ing back a per­cent­age of the prof­its to finance Chi­ang’s regime.

After Japan­ese forces Shang­hai in August 1937, Anslinger was even less will­ing to deal hon­est­ly with the sit­u­a­tion. By then, Du was sit­ting on Shang­hai’s Munic­i­pal Board with William J. Keswick. Du found sanc­tu­ary in Hong Kong, where he was wel­comed by a cabal of free-trad­ing British colo­nial­ists whose ship­ping and bank­ing com­pa­nies earned huge rev­enues by allow­ing Du to push his drugs on the hap­less Chi­nese. The rev­enues were tru­ly immense: accord­ing to Colonel Joseph Stil­well, the US mil­i­tary attache in Chi­na, in 1935 there were “eight mil­lion Chi­nese hero­in and mor­phine addicts and anoth­er 72 mil­lion Chi­nese opi­um addicts.”

Anslinger tried to min­i­mize the prob­lem by lying and say­ing that Amer­i­cans were not affect­ed.  But the final deci­sions were made by his boss­es in Wash­ing­ton, and from their nation­al secu­ri­ty per­spec­tive, the prof­its enabled the Kuom­intang to pur­chase $31 mil­lion worth of fight­er planes from arms deal­er William Paw­ley to fight the Com­mu­nists, and that trumped any moral dilem­mas about trad­ing with the Japan­ese or get­ting Amer­i­cans addict­ed.

It’s all doc­u­ment­ed. Check the sources I cite in my books. Plus, US Con­gress­men and Sen­a­tors in the Chi­na Lob­by were prof­it­ing from the guns for drugs busi­ness too. They got kick­backs in the form of cam­paign funds and in exchange, they looked away as long as Anslinger told them the dope stayed over­seas. After 1949, the Chi­na Lob­by manip­u­lat­ed pub­lic hear­ings and Anslinger cooked the books to make sure that the Peo­ples Repub­lic was blamed for all nar­cotics com­ing out of the Far East. Every­one made mon­ey and after 1947 the oper­a­tion was run out of Tai­wan, with CIA assis­tance.

The US gov­ern­men­t’s involve­ment in the illic­it drug busi­ness was insti­tu­tion­al­ized dur­ing World War Two. While serv­ing on Gen­er­al Joseph Stil­well’s staff in 1944, For­eign Ser­vice offi­cer John Ser­vice report­ed from Kun­ming, the city where the Fly­ing Tigers and OSS were head­quar­tered, that the Nation­al­ists were total­ly depen­dent on opi­um and “inca­pable of solv­ing Chi­na’s prob­lems.”

Ser­vice’s reports con­tributed to the Tru­man Admin­is­tra­tion’s deci­sion not to come to Chi­ang’s res­cue at the end of the war. In retal­i­a­tion, Chi­ang’s intel­li­gence chief, Tai Li, had his agents in Amer­i­ca accuse Ser­vice of leak­ing the Kuom­intang’s bat­tle plans to a left­ist newslet­ter. Ser­vice was arrest­ed. After Ser­vice was cleared of any wrong­do­ing, the Chi­na Lob­by per­sist­ed in attack­ing his char­ac­ter for the next six years. He was sub­ject­ed to eight loy­al­ty hear­ings, and dis­missed from the State Depart­ment in 1951.

Ser­vice’s per­se­cu­tion was fair warn­ing that any­one link­ing the Nation­al­ist Chi­nese to drug smug­gling would, at a min­i­mum, be brand­ed a Com­mu­nist sym­pa­thiz­er and his rep­u­ta­tion ruined. That is how the US drug oper­a­tion is still pro­tect­ed today, although secu­ri­ty for the oper­a­tion has improved and whistle­blow­ers are smeared in oth­er ways.

After World War Two, the busi­ness of man­ag­ing the gov­ern­men­t’s involve­ment in the illic­it nar­cotics trade was giv­en to the CIA, because it could covert­ly con­duct sup­port oper­a­tions for, among oth­ers, the Nation­al­ist Chi­nese in Tai­wan. The CIA also relo­cat­ed and sup­plied one of Chi­ang’s armies to Bur­ma. This KMT army sup­port­ed itself through the opi­um trade and the CIA flew the opi­um to places where it was con­vert­ed to hero­in and sold to the Mafia. The oth­er bureaucracies—the mil­i­tary and the Depart­ments of State, Jus­tice and Treasury—provided pro­tec­tion along with the Chi­na Lob­by con­gress­men and sen­a­tors who con­trolled the lit­tle infor­ma­tion that was made pub­lic. . . .

 

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