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FTR#1198 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 5

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FTR #1198 This pro­gram was record­ed in one, 60-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: Review­ing a sum­ma­ry analy­sis of Chi­ang Kai-shek’s nar­co-fas­cist regime by the bril­liant Dou­glas Valen­tine, we cite key aspects of the Kuomintang’s oper­a­tions.

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.

Anoth­er vol­ume which will fig­ure promi­nent­ly in this series is Gold War­riors by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave.

We present a review of the book by the afore­men­tioned Dou­glas Valen­tine.

An inci­sive, elo­quent review and encap­su­la­tion of the book is pro­vid­ed by Doug Valen­tine, pro­vid­ing fur­ther insight into the polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment and result­ing stance toward any pres­sure to be mount­ed against that nation by the U.S. and the West.

Of par­tic­u­lar note is the detailed analy­sis of the Japan­ese devel­op­ment of occu­pied Manchuria as an epi­cen­ter of the opi­um traf­fic with which to enrich their oper­a­tions and to help sub­ju­gate the Chi­nese. Chi­nese sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the Japan­ese, Kuom­intang, Amer­i­can and British roles in using drugs to enslave the Chi­nese peo­ple is very much in the fore­front of Japan­ese polit­i­cal con­scious­ness.

” . . . . .They [the Japan­ese] build roads and cre­ate indus­tries and, more impor­tant­ly, they work with cor­rupt war­lords and Chi­nese gang­sters asso­ci­at­ed with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang Par­ty to trans­form Manchuria into a vast pop­py field. By 1937 the Japan­ese and their gang­ster and Kuom­intang asso­ciates are respon­si­ble for 90% of the world’s illic­it nar­cotics. They turn Manchu emper­or Pu Yi into an addict, and open thou­sands of opi­um dens as a way of sup­press­ing the Chi­nese. . . .”

Far from being a periph­er­al polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tion; the Gold­en Lily plun­der is fun­da­men­tal to post­war West­ern real­i­ty.

” . . . . The Sea­graves con­clude their excit­ing and excel­lent book by tak­ing us down the Mon­ey Trail, and explain­ing, in layman’s terms, how the Gold War­riors have been able to cov­er their tracks. Emper­or Hiro­hi­to, for exam­ple, worked direct­ly with Pope Pius XII to laun­der mon­ey through the Vat­i­can bank. In anoth­er instance, Japan’s Min­istry of Finance pro­duced gold cer­tifi­cates that were slight­ly dif­fer­ent than ordi­nary Japan­ese bonds. The Sea­graves inter­view per­sons defraud­ed in this scam, and oth­er scams involv­ing the Union Bank of Switzer­land and Citibank. . . . ”

” . . . . the banks that main­tain the US government’s stolen gold are above the law, and if they stonewall long enough, any­one try­ing to sue them will even­tu­al­ly fade away. The Sea­graves asked the Trea­sury Depart­ment, Defense Depart­ment, and the CIA for records on Yamashita’s gold in 1987, but were told the records were exempt from release. Dur­ing the 1990s, the records mys­te­ri­ous­ly went miss­ing. Oth­er records were destroyed in what the Sea­graves caus­ti­cal­ly call ‘his­to­ry laun­der­ing.’ . . . . .”

Key Points of Analy­sis and Dis­cus­sion Include: Dis­cus­sion of the war crimes com­mit­ted by the Japan­ese against the Chi­nese; the roles of the Japan­ese army, the Japan­ese roy­al fam­i­ly and yakuza gang­ster Kodama Yoshio (lat­er the CIA’s top con­tact in Japan and a key offi­cial with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church) in extract­ing the liq­uid wealth of Chi­na; the restora­tion of the Japan­ese fas­cists in the “new,” post­war Japan­ese gov­ern­ment by Dou­glas MacArthur’s occu­pa­tion forces; the fusion of the Gold­en Lily loot with Nazi World War II plun­der to form the Black Eagle Trust; the use of the Gold­en Lily plun­der to finance funds to rein­force the renascent fas­cists in Japan, to finance U.S. covert oper­a­tions in the post­war peri­od and to sup­press polit­i­cal dis­si­dence in Japan; the use of the M‑Fund to finance the Japan­ese Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and Richard Nixon’s trans­fer of con­trol of that fund to the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment in exchange for clan­des­tine finan­cial help in his 1960 elec­tion cam­paign; the use of Gold­en Lily loot by the U.S. to pur­chase the sup­port of Pacif­ic ally nations for the Viet­nam War; the use of Gold­en Lily trea­sure by Philip­pine dic­ta­tor Fer­di­nand Mar­cos; the sup­pres­sion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als attempt­ing to pen­e­trate the elite, selec­tive use of Gold­en Lily gold by the world’s large banks.

Encap­su­lat­ing the nature of Chi­ang Kai-shek’s regime and the pub­lic rela­tions per­son­ae con­struct­ed for it by the Soong fam­i­ly, Ster­ling Sea­grave appro­pri­ate­ly describes it as a “Tro­jan horse.” “. . . . The Nanking gov­ern­ment was quite sim­ply a Tro­jan horse, paint­ed in bright col­ors by the Soong clan [and Hen­ry Luce—D.E.]. In its bel­ly were hid­den the gen­er­als, secret police­men, and Green Gang who actu­al­ly wield­ed pow­er in Chi­na.  It was skill­ful­ly done, and one of T.V.’s major accom­plish­ments. Amer­i­cans, more so than oth­er West­ern­ers, were tak­en in. . . .”

Next, we fur­ther chron­i­cle the pow­er polit­i­cal eco­nom­ics of the Chi­nese nar­cotics traf­fick­ing land­scap­ing.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion include:

  1. Japan’s con­quest of North Chi­na in the ear­ly 1930’s and the “nar­co-realpoli­tik” that Chi­ang Kai-shek real­ized. Chi­ang out­lawed the impor­ta­tion of mor­phine and hero­in and then con­clud­ed a treaty with the Japan­ese to pur­chase opi­um from them, pre­serv­ing his government’s rev­enue from the opi­um trade.
  2. The super­sed­ing of the opi­um trade by the use of mor­phine and hero­in by the Chi­nese.
  3. West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies’ use of mor­phine to wean Chi­nese opi­um addicts off of opi­um: “ . . . . Mor­phine had been wide­ly used by West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies . . . . to cure Chi­nese opi­um addicts, so in Chi­na the drug became known as ‘Jesus Opi­um.’ . . . .”
  4. China’s impor­ta­tion of hero­in from Japan: “ . . . . By 1924, Chi­na was import­ing enough hero­in from Japan each year to pro­vide four strong dos­es of the drug to evert one of the nation’s 400 mil­lion inhab­i­tants. . . .”
  5. Big-eared Tu (Tu Yueh-sheng) and the huge cel­e­bra­tion he held to com­mem­o­rate the inau­gu­ra­tion of an ances­tral tem­ple in his native vil­lage. That tem­ple became Tu’s largest hero­in and mor­phine fac­to­ry.
  6. Tu’s dom­i­na­tion of the pro­lif­ic Chi­nese hero­in trade, mar­ket­ing the drug in pills to be tak­en oral­ly and pink tablets that could be smoked in a pipe.
  7. The “cut­ting” of hero­in and how that neces­si­tat­ed intra­venous use: “ . . . . In Amer­i­ca it was nec­es­sary to inject hero­in direct­ly into the veins because the drug, by then, was so ruinous­ly dilut­ed by deal­ers in order to increase their prof­it mar­gin; it was impos­si­ble to get an effect from the drug any oth­er way. . . .”
  8. The spec­tac­u­lar ros­ter of titles and hon­ors bestowed upon Tu Yueh-sheng by com­mer­cial, finan­cial, civic and med­ical insti­tu­tions in Shang­hai.
  9. Chi­ang Kai-shek’s pro­mo­tion of the Green Gang lead­er­ship to the posi­tion of Major Gen­er­al in the Kuom­intang Army: “ . . . . Chi­ang had made Big-eared Tu, Pock­marked Huang, and the third mem­ber of that Green Gang troi­ka, Chang Hsiao-lin, ‘Hon­orary Advi­sors’ with the rank of Major Gen­er­al in the KMT army. . . .”

Next, we exam­ine the role of the Green Gang, the Kuom­intang and the inter­locked Soong clan in the nar­cotics trade into the U.S.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion include:

  1. 7/8ths of the world’s hero­in sup­ply came from Chi­na by the late 1940’s.
  2. Tu Yueh-sheng’s use of “body­guards” and diplo­mat­ic immu­ni­ty to facil­i­tate the import­ing of hero­in into the U.S. Under diplo­mat­ic cov­er, the bag­gage of these oper­a­tives was not inspect­ed by
  3. The Green Gang/Tu Yueh-sheng/Kuomintang’s employ­ment of the “body­guard” of T.V. Soong, Chiang’s finance min­is­ter and the rich­est man in the world at one time. “ . . . . For many years, the per­son who filled this role with T.V. Soong was ‘Tom­my’ Tong (Tong Hai-ong). He became Soong’s ‘body­guard’ and ‘chauf­feur’ and went along on T.V.’s for­eign trav­els. . . . Tong was a major link to the U.S. hero­in trade run by the crime syn­di­cate of Charles “Lucky” Luciano. . . . Tom­my Tong was lat­er appoint­ed China’s Chief of Cus­toms for Shang­hai which gave him the best of all cov­ers for nar­cotics smug­gling. . . .”
  4. Tu Yueh-sheng’s use of the mails to smug­gle drugs.
  5. Tu Yueh-sheng’s con­ver­sion to Chris­tian­i­ty, which, along with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s ear­li­er tak­ing up of the cross, became a major pub­lic rela­tions sell­ing point for the nar­co-fas­cist Green Gang/Kuomintang axis in the U.S. Hen­ry Luce of Time Inc. was par­tic­u­lar­ly moved by the Chris­t­ian per­son­ae of the KMT king­pins.
  6. The piv­otal role of both Ai-ling Soong (mar­ried to KMT Min­is­ter H.H. Kung) and Mae-ling Soong (Mme. Chi­ang Kai-shek) in the con­ver­sions of both Chi­ang and Big-Eared Tu.

The con­ver­sion to Chris­tian­i­ty of Chi­ang Kai-shek is high­light­ed next. As illus­trat­ed below, Chiang’s Chris­t­ian per­sona was a major sell­ing point for pub­lish­ing mag­nate Hen­ry Luce, one of Chiang’s most impor­tant pro­mot­ers.

Next, we set forth Luce’s beat­i­fi­ca­tion of Chi­ang Kai-shek in Life mag­a­zine: “ . . . . Chi­ang Kai-shek has hereto­fore shown him­self a man of remark­able courage and res­o­lu­tion. . . . He is a con­vert­ed Methodist who has now for solace the exam­ples of tribu­la­tion in the Chris­t­ian  bible. . . .”

Lion­ized as a suc­cess­ful tycoon and giant of inter­na­tion­al finance and com­merce, T.V. Soong (who also served as Finance Min­is­ter and oth­er cab­i­net posts for Chi­ang Kai-shek) was deeply involved with the Green Gang/Kuomintang nar­co-fas­cist oper­a­tion: “. . . . Shang­hai police reports indi­cate that in 1930, T.V. Soong per­son­al­ly arranged with Tu to deliv­er 700 cas­es of Per­sian opi­um to Shang­hai under KMT mil­i­tary pro­tec­tion to sup­ple­ment deplet­ed Chi­nese stocks. All par­ties involved in set­ting up the ship­ment and pro­tect­ing it dur­ing transit—including T.V.—received fees. . . .”

1.  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. . . .

2. It is impos­si­ble to under­stand World War II and the glob­al and eco­nom­ic polit­i­cal land­scape that emerged from it with­out digest­ing the vital­ly impor­tant book Gold War­riors by Ster­ling and Peg­gy Sea­grave.

Cov­er­ing the Japan­ese equiv­a­lent of the Bor­mann flight cap­i­tal net­work, the vol­ume is a hero­ic, mas­ter­ful analy­sis and pen­e­tra­tion of the Asian wing of the car­tel sys­tem that spawned fas­cism, as well as the real­i­ties of the post-World War II eco­nom­ic land­scape. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 688689, 1106, 1107, 1108 deal with the sub­ject of the Gold­en Lily pro­gram suc­cess­ful­ly imple­ment­ed by the Japan­ese to loot Asia.)

An inci­sive, elo­quent review and encap­su­la­tion of the book is pro­vid­ed by Doug Valen­tine, pro­vid­ing fur­ther insight into the polit­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mem­o­ry of the Chi­nese gov­ern­ment and result­ing stance toward any pres­sure to be mount­ed against that nation by the U.S. and the West.

Of par­tic­u­lar note is the detailed analy­sis of the Japan­ese devel­op­ment of occu­pied Manchuria as an epi­cen­ter of the opi­um traf­fic with which to enrich their oper­a­tions and to help sub­ju­gate the Chi­nese. Chi­nese sen­si­tiv­i­ty to the Japan­ese, Kuom­intang, Amer­i­can and British roles in using drugs to enslave the Chi­nese peo­ple is very much in the fore­front of Japan­ese polit­i­cal con­scious­ness.

” . . . . .They [the Japan­ese] build roads and cre­ate indus­tries and, more impor­tant­ly, they work with cor­rupt war­lords and Chi­nese gang­sters asso­ci­at­ed with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang Par­ty to trans­form Manchuria into a vast pop­py field. By 1937 the Japan­ese and their gang­ster and Kuom­intang asso­ciates are respon­si­ble for 90% of the world’s illic­it nar­cotics. They turn Manchu emper­or Pu Yi into an addict, and open thou­sands of opi­um dens as a way of sup­press­ing the Chi­nese. . . .”

Far from being a periph­er­al polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic con­sid­er­a­tion; the Gold­en Lily plun­der is fun­da­men­tal to post­war West­ern real­i­ty.

” . . . . The Sea­graves con­clude their excit­ing and excel­lent book by tak­ing us down the Mon­ey Trail, and explain­ing, in layman’s terms, how the Gold War­riors have been able to cov­er their tracks. Emper­or Hiro­hi­to, for exam­ple, worked direct­ly with Pope Pius XII to laun­der mon­ey through the Vat­i­can bank. In anoth­er instance, Japan’s Min­istry of Finance pro­duced gold cer­tifi­cates that were slight­ly dif­fer­ent than ordi­nary Japan­ese bonds. The Sea­graves inter­view per­sons defraud­ed in this scam, and oth­er scams involv­ing the Union Bank of Switzer­land and Citibank. . . . ”

” . . . . the banks that main­tain the US government’s stolen gold are above the law, and if they stonewall long enough, any­one try­ing to sue them will even­tu­al­ly fade away. The Sea­graves asked the Trea­sury Depart­ment, Defense Depart­ment, and the CIA for records on Yamashita’s gold in 1987, but were told the records were exempt from release. Dur­ing the 1990s, the records mys­te­ri­ous­ly went miss­ing. Oth­er records were destroyed in what the Sea­graves caus­ti­cal­ly call ‘his­to­ry laun­der­ing.’ . . . . .”

Key Points of Analy­sis and Dis­cus­sion Include: Dis­cus­sion of the war crimes com­mit­ted by the Japan­ese against the Chi­nese; the roles of the Japan­ese army, the Japan­ese roy­al fam­i­ly and yakuza gang­ster Kodama Yoshio (lat­er the CIA’s top con­tact in Japan and a key offi­cial with the Uni­fi­ca­tion Church) in extract­ing the liq­uid wealth of Chi­na; the restora­tion of the Japan­ese fas­cists in the “new,” post­war Japan­ese gov­ern­ment by Dou­glas MacArthur’s occu­pa­tion forces; the fusion of the Gold­en Lily loot with Nazi World War II plun­der to form the Black Eagle Trust; the use of the Gold­en Lily plun­der to finance funds to rein­force the renascent fas­cists in Japan, to finance U.S. covert oper­a­tions in the post­war peri­od and to sup­press polit­i­cal dis­si­dence in Japan; the use of the M‑Fund to finance the Japan­ese Lib­er­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty and Richard Nixon’s trans­fer of con­trol of that fund to the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment in exchange for clan­des­tine finan­cial help in his 1960 elec­tion cam­paign; the use of Gold­en Lily loot by the U.S. to pur­chase the sup­port of Pacif­ic ally nations for the Viet­nam War; the use of Gold­en Lily trea­sure by Philip­pine dic­ta­tor Fer­di­nand Mar­cos; the sup­pres­sion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of indi­vid­u­als attempt­ing to pen­e­trate the elite, selec­tive use of Gold­en Lily gold by the world’s large banks.

“Gold War­riors” by Dou­glas Valen­tine; Coun­ter­punch; 9/25/2003.

Gold War­riors is more than a book about Japan’s “seri­ous, sober and delib­er­ate” plun­der­ing of Asia’s trea­sure from 1895 until 1945, and its col­lu­sion after the war with Amer­i­can offi­cials to recov­er and use the loot as a secret polit­i­cal action slush fund to pro­mote right wing regimes: Gold Warriors:America’s Secret Recov­ery of Yamashita’s Gold is a jour­ney into the dark­est recess­es of his­to­ry and the human soul. Authors Peg­gy and Ster­ling Sea­grave not only unrav­el one of the great­est crimes and cov­er-ups ever, they reveal some­thing new and star­tling about the depths of human deprav­i­ty and bar­bar­i­ty, and the human capac­i­ty for deceit.

The book begins in 1895 with a fas­ci­nat­ing account of the gris­ly assas­si­na­tion of Korea’s Queen Min by ter­ror­ists pos­ing as busi­ness agents of Japan­ese com­pa­nies. The clever coup d’etat pro­vides Japan with offi­cial deni­a­bil­i­ty, and the con­fu­sion that fol­lows pro­vides the Japan­ese with a pre­text for its mil­i­tary occu­pa­tion and plun­der­ing of Korea. Japan’s bru­tal con­quest of Korea fore­tells how it will achieve one vic­to­ry after anoth­er in Far East Asia over the ensu­ing 45 years.

The next vic­to­ry occurs in 1904, when tiny Japan defeats Rus­sia and annex­es South­ern Manchuria. Manchuria, unlike Korea, has lit­tle gold worth steal­ing. But it is rich in nat­ur­al resources, so the Japan­ese set­tle in for the long haul, and slow­ly devel­op Manchuria over sev­er­al decades. They build roads and cre­ate indus­tries and, more impor­tant­ly, they work with cor­rupt war­lords and Chi­nese gang­sters asso­ci­at­ed with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s Kuom­intang Par­ty to trans­form Manchuria into a vast pop­py field. By 1937 the Japan­ese and their gang­ster and Kuom­intang asso­ciates are respon­si­ble for 90% of the world’s illic­it nar­cotics. They turn Manchu emper­or Pu Yi into an addict, and open thou­sands of opi­um dens as a way of sup­press­ing the Chi­nese. When sub­ver­sion and pro­pa­gan­da don’t get the job done they com­mit unspeak­able atroc­i­ties. In late 1937 and ear­ly 1938 the Japan­ese slaugh­ter an esti­mat­ed 350,000 Chi­nese civil­ians and pris­on­ers of war in Nanking. Tens of thou­sands of women and girls are raped, and many are muti­lat­ed or mur­dered. Nanking fore­tells what will hap­pen as Japan expands its empire to include Indochi­na, Malaysia, Tai­wan, and the Philip­pines.

It’s also with the Rape of Nanking that the authors intro­duce the main char­ac­ters in the book; the Japan­ese sol­diers, crime lords, and offi­cials who, by the Decem­ber 1941 attack on Pearl Har­bor, real­ize they have bit­ten off more than they chew, and begin their retreat to Japan. A small inner cir­cle becomes respon­si­ble for secur­ing bil­lions of dol­lars worth of gold, plat­inum, cul­tur­al arti­facts and pre­cious gems stolen over the pre­vi­ous 45 years. The Japan­ese call this oper­a­tion Gold­en Lily, and the Sea­graves do not shy away from nam­ing those involved. They fin­ger Gen­er­al Doi­hara, and Japan’s top yakuza gang­ster, Kodama Yoshio, both of whom worked close­ly with Chi­nese drug smug­glers in Manchuria and Shang­hai. Gold­en Lily’s over­all boss is Prince Chichibu, one of Emper­or Hirohito’s three broth­ers. The Kem­peitai were Gold­en Lily’s first agents, mov­ing 6000 met­ric tons of gold from Nanking to Japan in 1938. But most of the Gold­en Lily trea­sure was buried in the Philip­pines by Gen­er­al Yamashita, and it is in the Philip­pines that most of the action in the book takes place. . . .

3. Encap­su­lat­ing the nature of Chi­ang Kai-shek’s regime and the pub­lic rela­tions per­son­ae con­struct­ed for it by the Soong fam­i­ly, Ster­ling Sea­grave appro­pri­ate­ly describes it as a “Tro­jan horse.”

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; p. 301.

. . . . The Nanking gov­ern­ment was quite sim­ply a Tro­jan horse, paint­ed in bright col­ors by the Soong clan [and Hen­ry Luce—D.E.]. In its bel­ly were hid­den the gen­er­als, secret police­men, and Green Gang who actu­al­ly wield­ed pow­er in Chi­na.  It was skill­ful­ly done, and one of T.V.’s major accom­plish­ments. Amer­i­cans, more so than oth­er West­ern­ers, were tak­en in. . . .

4.  Next, we fur­ther chron­i­cle the pow­er polit­i­cal eco­nom­ics of the Chi­nese nar­cotics traf­fick­ing land­scap­ing.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion include:

  1. Japan’s con­quest of North Chi­na in the ear­ly 1930’s and the “nar­co-realpoli­tik” that Chi­ang Kai-shek real­ized. Chi­ang out­lawed the impor­ta­tion of mor­phine and hero­in and then con­clud­ed a treaty with the Japan­ese to pur­chase opi­um from them, pre­serv­ing his government’s rev­enue from the opi­um trade. The super­sed­ing of the opi­um trade by the use of mor­phine and hero­in by the Chi­nese.
  2. West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies’ use of mor­phine to wean Chi­nese opi­um addicts off of opi­um: “ . . . . Mor­phine had been wide­ly used by West­ern mis­sion­ar­ies . . . . to cure Chi­nese opi­um addicts, so in Chi­na the drug became known as ‘Jesus Opi­um.’ . . . .”
  3. China’s impor­ta­tion of hero­in from Japan: “ . . . . By 1924, Chi­na was import­ing enough hero­in from Japan each year to pro­vide four strong does of the drug to evert one of the nation’s 400 mil­lion inhab­i­tants. . . .”
  4. Big-eared Tu (Tu Yueh-sheng) and the huge cel­e­bra­tion he held to com­mem­o­rate the inau­gu­ra­tion of an ances­tral tem­ple in his native vil­lage. That tem­ple became Tu’s largest hero­in and mor­phine fac­to­ry.
  5. Tu’s dom­i­na­tion of the pro­lif­ic Chi­nese hero­in trade, mar­ket­ing the drug in pills to be tak­en oral­ly and pink tablets that could be smoked in a pipe.
  6. The “cut­ting” of hero­in and how that neces­si­tat­ed intra­venous use: “ . . . . In Amer­i­ca it was nec­es­sary to inject hero­in direct­ly into the veins because the drug, by then, was so ruinous­ly dilut­ed by deal­ers in order to increase their prof­it mar­gin; it was impos­si­ble to get an effect from the drug any oth­er way. . . .”
  7. The spec­tac­u­lar ros­ter of titles and hon­ors bestowed upon Tu Yueh-sheng by com­mer­cial, finan­cial, civic and med­ical insti­tu­tions in Shang­hai.
  8. Chi­ang Kai-shek’s pro­mo­tion of the Green Gang lead­er­ship to the posi­tion of Major Gen­er­al in the Kuom­intang Army: “ . . . . Chi­ang had made Big-eared Tu, Pock­marked Huang, and the third mem­ber of that Green Gang troi­ka, Chang Hsiao-lin, ‘Hon­orary Advi­sors’ with the rank of Major Gen­er­al in the KMT army. . . .”

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp. 334–335.

5. Next, we exam­ine the role of the Green Gang, the Kuom­intang and the inter­locked Soong clan in the nar­cotics trade into the U.S.

Key points of analy­sis and dis­cus­sion include:

  1. 7/8ths of the world’s hero­in sup­ply came from Chi­na by the late 1940’s.
  2. Tu Yueh-sheng’s use of “body­guards” and diplo­mat­ic immu­ni­ty to facil­i­tate the import­ing of hero­in into the U.S. Under diplo­mat­ic cov­er, the bag­gage of these oper­a­tives was not inspect­ed by
  3. The Green Gang/Tu Yueh-sheng/Kuomintang’s employ­ment of the “body­guard” of T.V. Soong, Chiang’s finance min­is­ter and the rich­est man in the world at one time. “ . . . . For many years, the per­son who filled this role with T.V. Soong was ‘Tom­my’ Tong (Tong Hai-ong). He became Soong’s ‘body­guard’ and ‘chauf­feur’ and went along on T.V.’s for­eign trav­els. . . . Tong was a major link to the U.S. hero­in trade run by the crime syn­di­cate of Charles “Lucky” Luciano. . . . Tom­my Tong was lat­er appoint­ed China’s Chief of Cus­toms for Shang­hai which gave him the best of all cov­ers for nar­cotics smug­gling. . . .”
  4. Tu Yueh-sheng’s use of the mails to smug­gle drugs.
  5. Tu Yueh-sheng’s con­ver­sion to Chris­tian­i­ty, which, along with Chi­ang Kai-shek’s ear­li­er tak­ing up of the cross, became a major pub­lic rela­tions sell­ing point for the nar­co-fas­cist Green Gang/Kuomintang axis in the U.S. Hen­ry Luce of Time Inc. was par­tic­u­lar­ly moved by the Chris­t­ian per­son­ae of the KMT king­pins.
  6. The piv­otal role of both Ai-ling Soong (mar­ried to KMT Min­is­ter H.H. Kung) and Mae-ling Soong (Mme. Chi­ang Kai-shek) in the con­ver­sions of both Chi­ang and Big-Eared Tu.

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp. 344–345.

6. The con­ver­sion to Chris­tian­i­ty of Chi­ang Kai-shek is high­light­ed next. As illus­trat­ed below, Chiang’s Chris­t­ian per­sona was a major sell­ing point for pub­lish­ing mag­nate Hen­ry Luce, one of Chiang’s most impor­tant pro­mot­ers.

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; p. 285.

 7.  Next, we set forth Luce’s beat­i­fi­ca­tion of Chi­ang Kai-shek in Life mag­a­zine: “ . . . . Chi­ang Kai-shek has hereto­fore shown him­self a man of remark­able courage and res­o­lu­tion. . . . He is a con­vert­ed Methodist who has now for solace the exam­ples of tribu­la­tion in the Chris­t­ian bible. . . .”

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp. 362–363.

8. Lion­ized as a suc­cess­ful tycoon and giant of inter­na­tion­al finance and com­merce, T.V. Soong (who also served as Finance Min­is­ter and oth­er cab­i­net posts for Chi­ang Kai-shek) was deeply involved with the Green Gang/Kuomintang nar­co-fas­cist oper­a­tion: “. . . . Shang­hai police reports indi­cate that in 1930, T.V. Soong per­son­al­ly arranged with Tu to deliv­er 700 cas­es of Per­sian opi­um to Shang­hai under KMT mil­i­tary pro­tec­tion to sup­ple­ment deplet­ed Chi­nese stocks. All par­ties involved in set­ting up the ship­ment and pro­tect­ing it dur­ing transit—including T.V.—received fees. . . .”

The Soong Dynasty by Ster­ling Sea­grave; Harp­er & Row 1985 [HC]; Copy­right 1985 by Ster­ling Sea­grave; ISBN 0–06-015308–3; pp. 332–333.

 

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