Latest Patreon Talks: U.S. Cold War Policy in Asia; NYT Beatifies Ukrainian Nazis; Team Marcos Returns to Power
In the latest series of three, one-hour talks per week, Mr. Emory sets forth a number of points on his Patreon site: The return to power of the Marcos family in the Philippines may have significant effect on U.S. Pacific policy; U.S. Asian policy in Cold War period was in many ways an extension of Japan’s Worldl War II policy; “The New York Times” continues its Monkey Love for Ukrainian Nazis. Ukrainian television anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann verbatim in this video from UKRAINE 24. This video of Ukraine’s top military medical officer discussing an order to castrate Russian males is an eye-opener. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
Latest Patreon Talks: Abe Assassination, Moonies, Japanese Fascism, Pandemics Inc., Who’s “Supporting the Troops?”
In the latest Patreon talks, Mr. Emory connects many dots, including Covid-19 in Asia, the Abe assassination, the Moonies, the LDP, and the return to power of the Marcos clan in the Philippines. In addition we discuss what it really means to “support the troops” and the July 4th shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. Ukrainian television anchor quotes Adolf Eichmann verbatim in this video from UKRAINE 24. This video of Ukraine’s top military medical officer discussing an order to castrate Russian males is an eye-opener. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE. Mr. Emory emphatically recommends that listeners/readers get the 32GB flash drive containing all of Mr. Emory’s 43 years on the air, plus a library of old anti-fascist books on easy-to-download PDF files.
Golden Lily Veterans Involved with 1965 Indonesian Coup
The “Deep Politics” detailed by the brilliant Berkeley professor Peter Dale Scott in his opus “American War Machine” set forth the involvement Japanese war criminals Sasakawa Ryoichi and Kodama Yoshio in the Indonesian coup of 1965. That epic bloodletting saw the engineers of the event kill a million people (some put the toll as high as three million.) In addition to being prime movers behind the Unification Church, Sasakawa Ryoichi and Kodama Yoshio were lynchpins of the perpetuation of the operational foundation of Japanese fascism under the auspices of the LDP in the postwar period. WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
How Did Donald Trump Observe The 20th Anniversary of 9/11?
In numerous programs, we have noted that the Unification Church–founded by Reverend Sun Myung Moon–may very well be an extension of the Japanese Patriotic and Nationalist Societies around the world and down through the decades. It is altogether in character that Donald Trump spent the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks giving a virtual address to this organization. ” . . . . In the past Hyung Jin ‘Sean’ Moon, the son of the Moons, campaigned for Mr Trump and attended the US Capitol insurrection on 6 January. . . .” Earlier in the year, former Vice-President Mike Pence and former CIA director and State Department chief Mike Pompeo gave talks to the same group. ” . . . . the theology pushed by the Moons and their devotees challenges the basic Christianity embraced by so many conservatives. The Moons’ claim to be the messiahs, of course, runs counter to mainstream Christianity. And one Unification tenet promoted by a senior person in the movement is that Christianity is essentially over. . . .” WFMU-FM is podcasting For The Record–You can subscribe to the podcast HERE.
FTR#1201 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 8
Continuing our series on the regime of Chiang Kai-shek–all but beatified during the Cold War–we draw still more on a magnificent book–The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave. Although sadly out of print, the book is still available through used book services, and we emphatically encourage listeners to take advantage of those and obtain it.
(Mr. Emory gets no money from said purchases of the book.)
The broadcast begins with review of the denouement of the Siang incident, detailed in FTR#1200.
Points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–Eventually, Chiang grudgingly agreed to the coalition, apparently after T.V. Soong saw to it that Chiang got a significant amount of money. “ . . . . The Young Marshal gallantly accepted all blame for the Sian Incident, allowing Chiang to wash his hands in public and wipe them on him. (Interestingly he was put up at T.V. Soong’s home in Nanking.) He had done China a historic service by bringing about the long-sought united front, whatever its later failings. . . .”
2.–Chiang’s reluctant agreement was trumpeted by Henry Luce: “ . . . . He put them [Chiang and Mme. Chiang] on the cover of Time’s first issue of 1938 as ‘Man and Wife of the Year.’ May-ling Soong Chiang now became an even bigger international celebrity. . . .”
3.–As was his wont, Chiang broke his promise to the Young Marshal and General Yang. Lauded by Henry Luce and his associates as an Exemplary Christian, Chiang promised an amnesty on Good Friday—a promise he promptly broke. “ . . . . In his Good Friday message to China that spring of 1937, Chiang referred to the Sian Incident and said piously, ‘Remembering that Christ enjoined us to forgive those who sin against us until seventy times seven and upon their repentance, I felt that that they should be allowed to start life anew. . . .”
3.–Similar treatment was afforded General Yang: “ . . . . The Young Marshal’s co-conspirator, General Yang, despite the Good Friday amnesty, was imprisoned when he came back from European exile and languished for eleven years in one of Tai Li’s special detention camps near Chungking. His wife went on a hunger strike in protest and was allowed to starve herself to death. . . .”
On his last trip through China before decamping to Taiwan, Chiang ordered the execution of General Yang and his surviving family: “ . . . . As long as he was in Chunking anyway, the Generalissimo stopped by police headquarters to finish off one remaining bit of ‘personal’ business. In the Chunking prison, there was still a prisoner who was very special. It was Yang Hu-Cheng, the warlord who had joined the Young Marshal to kidnap Chiang in the Sian Incident. . . . For eleven years, Yang, a son, and a daughter (along with a loyal secretary and his wife) languished in Tai-Li’s concentration camp outside Chunking. Now, before leaving China for good, Chiang made this special trip just to sign Yang’s death warrant. The old man, his son, his daughter, his secretary, and the secretary’s wife were all taken out and shot. . . .”
A signature episode in China’s World War II history is what became known as the New Fourth Army Incident.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–When the Chinese Communist Fourth Army, acting under the auspices of the accord wrested from Chiang at Sian, was preparing a campaign that would have disturbed a symbiotic relationship between the Japanese and Tu Yueh-sheng, it was ambushed by Kuomintang general Ku Chu‑t’ung. Ku Chu‑t’ung was the brother of Tu Yueh-sheng’s powerful harbor boss Ku Tsu-chuan. “ . . . . Chiang’s defense of China was being portrayed by T.V. Soong as a valiant defiance against Japanese hordes carried out assiduously by KMT generals. If so, it was proceeding in a curious fashion. Chiang was engaging in as little actual fighting as possible. . . . Chiang was husbanding his resources for a renewal of his war with the Communists. Once holed up in Chungking, he let the people fend for themselves. . . .”
2.–Worth noting in this context is the fact that Chinese troops were capable of defeating the Japanese in battle and enjoyed celebratory support from the country’s populace when they did so. This dynamic became central to the entreaties made (in vain) by General Joseph Stilwell later in the war and his subsequent dismissal and replacement: “ . . . . On only one occasion, a KMT army under General Li Tsung-jen proved that Chinese soldiers could whip the Japanese when they had the will to do so, in the battle of Taierchuang in April 1938. Th Japanese in this instance were badly beaten and the people of China were elated. But Chiang ordered the army not to pursue, and within weeks of Taierchuang the Japanese had recovered the initiative. . . .”
3.–Typical of the lethally incompetent conduct of the war by Chiang’s KMT armies was the Yellow River dikes incident. “ . . . . One of Chiang’s few attempts to slow the Japanese led him to dynamite the dikes on the Yellow River. Without warning of any kind, three provinces, eleven cities, and four thousand villages were flooded, two million people were made homeless, and all their crops were destroyed. The Japanese were only bogged down for three months. . . . Chiang’s government tried to put the blame on the Japanese and the Taiwan government continues to do so today. [1985—D.E.] . . .”
4.–Taking precedence over fighting the Japanese was Chiang’s political/military prioritization of waging civil war against the Communists: “. . . . By 1940–41, Chiang’s sphere of influence had shrunk while the Communists’ area had, expanded at the expense of the Japanese. In the red area, soldiers, guerillas, and peasants were fighting furiously and with results. But, each time the reds enlarged their perimeter, Chiang had his army attack the Communists instead of the Japanese, to keep his rivals from making territorial gains. It was a war within a war. Chiang had half a million soldiers occupied blockading the red area in the Northwest. . . .”
5.–Chiang’s anti-communist strategy reached an extreme with the New Fourth Army Incident. When a communist army moved into an area in which the Green Gang and Japanese had established a cooperative relationship, it was ambushed: “ . . . . Part of the United Front agreement involved putting Mao’s Red Army under joint KMT command. . . . In 1941, the [Communist] New Fourth Army was assigned to operate under joint KMT-CCP command along the south bank of the Yangtze River within the orbit of the Green Gang. . . .”
6.–Green Gang’s dope rackets had continued in the area: “ . . . . The gang’s operations had not seriously diminished because of the war. The gang operated under the Japanese occupation much as it had before, although Big-eared Tu, bearing the rank of general in the KMTR, widely moved to Chunking. In his absence, the Shanghai gang headquarters was left in the hands of Tu’s harbor boss, Ku Tsu-chuan. As a complement Generalissimo Chiang gave all military responsibilities for the lower Yangtze river to Ku’s brother, General Ku Chu‑t’ung. . . .”
7.–The New Fourth Army was going to move against a railway. “ . . . . This was an area in which there was cooperation between the Green Gang and the Japanese. In return for permitting its opium smuggling and underworld operations to go on uninterrupted, the Green Gang guaranteed the security of Japanese garrisons and enterprises in the Yangtze Valley. . . .”
7.–“ . . . . General Ku, in consultation with Chiang Kai-shek, decided that the New Fourth Army was a threat to this fiefdom. . . .”
8.–Taking a safer route—to avoid being sent to an area which would have fed them into a Japanese ambush, the New Fourth Army left key parts of its troops and support personnel behind.
9.–“ . . . . suddenly, early in January, 1941, General Ku fell upon it with a much greater force and massacred all but the headquarters contingent and its women cadres and nurses. All five thousand combat soldiers left behind as a guard were slain. According to survivors, the men of the headquarters staff were then butchered. The KMT general who had been commanding the New Fourth was arrested, while the CCP political commissar of the unit—who had escaped the 1927 Shanghai Massacre—was brutally murdered. Meanwhile the Communist nurses and women political cadres, many of them schoolgirls, were being and raped repeatedly by hundreds of soldiers. They were kept in army brothels near the attack site for a year and a half. The women contracted venereal diseases and some committed suicide, singly and with each other’s help. . . .”
10.–General Ku Chu‑t’ung was rewarded for this by Chiang, who made him commander-in-chief of al KMT armies.
The program then reviews General Ku Chu-t’ung’s collaboration with Kodama Yoshio and the Japanese to–among other things–re-sell them American Lend Lease goods that were flown Over the Hump or traveling via the equally perilous Burma Road.
T.V. Soong’s brother T.L. Soong was in charge of the Lend-Lease program to China during World War II.
The collaboration between the Japanese and the Kuomintang officer corps—who, it must be remembered, were also kingpins of the Green Gang criminal syndicate—was a consistent pattern. The KMT avoided fighting the Japanese whenever possible, and formed commercial relationships with the invaders: “ . . . . bartering American Lend-Lease materials for Japanese consumer goods. Fortunes were made. The only KMT armies that did fight were those under Stilwell’s control in Burma . . . .”
Embodying the corruption that was part and parcel to the Kuomintang military’s officer corps (minted at the Whampoa academy), was General T’ang En-po. In addition to his collaboration with the Japanese invaders, he viewed his military commission as license to steal and betray the men under his command, as well as China and the American and other Allies with which Chiang was officially arrayed.
Key points of discussion and analysis:
1.–General Tang En-po’s close association with the Ku brothers and the Green Gang.
2.–General Tang En-po’s role in blowing up the Yellow River dikes.
3.–His bartering of American Lend-Lease materials to the Japanese.
4.–His plundering of the peasants in areas under his military command.
5.–His theft of pay from the troops under his command.
6.–His army’s total capitulation to the Japanese when the invaders launched their Operation Ichigo offensive of 1944.
7.–General Tang En-po was rewarded by Chiang with the command of 14 KMT divisions comprising the Third Front Army.
8.–His cozy relationship with the Japanese who surrendered to his army at the war’s end.
Although the U.S. political leadership—as a whole—were blind to Chiang’s fascism, anti-democratic behavior and the institutionalized corruption of his regime, the same was not true of many U.S. fighting men.
One of Chiang’s detractors was a celebrated Marine Corps flier and member of Claire Chennault’s Flying Tigers named Gregory “Pappy” Boyington.
Boyington despised Chiang, Mme. Chiang and was loath to die in a P‑40 for someone he recognized as a tyrant.
When the Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang visited the base of the American Volunteer Corps (“The Flying Tigers”), Boyington and several of his fellow “Tigers” got liquored up and buzzed Chiang and wife, forcing both to “hit the deck.”
There was a prime-time TV series crafted on the template of Boyington’s Marine Corps squadron called “Ba, Ba Black Sheep” with the late Robert Conrad playing Pappy Boyington.
Among the vehement critics of Chiang Kai-shek and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek were U.S. flyers who had to make the run “Over the Hump”—the dangerous air supply route that crossed the Himalayas.
(As we have already seen, U.S. Lend Lease material that was flow through that route into China was often sold to the Japanese enemy by corrupt Kuomintang officers, politicians and Green Gang functionaries.)
Flying “Over the Hump” caused high casualties among Army Air Corps flyers, and when they discovered the luxury items that Mme. Chiang included in her personal baggage, they were outraged. That outrage found expression.
FTR#1200 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 7
Continuing our series on the regime of Chiang Kai-shek–all but beatified during the Cold War–we draw still more on a magnificent book–The Soong Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave. Although sadly out of print, the book is still available through used book services, and we emphatically encourage listeners to take advantage of those and obtain it.
(Mr. Emory gets no money from said purchases of the book.)
The program begins with review of the structure of Chiang’s fascist infrastructure, his secret police cadres in particular.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–Chiang translated his admiration of Hitler and Mussolini into the most sincere form of flattery—imitation: “ . . . . Chiang believed that fascism stood on three legs—nationalism, absolute faith in the Maximum Leader, and the spartan militarization of the citizens. The New Life Movement [the chief promoter of which was Madame Chiang Kai-shek] was the popular manifestation of Chiang’s fascism—a toy for his wife and the missionaries—and it was comic enough not to be taken seriously by foreigners in general. The missionaries . . . . were now eagerly climbing aboard the New Life bandwagon. . . .”
2.–There were three overlapping organizational elements to Chiang’s fascist cadres—the Blue Shirts, the CBIS (Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics) which was run by the Ch’en brothers and the MBIS (the Military Bureau of Investigation and Statistics which was run by Tai Li. Both Ch’en brothers and Tai Li were Green Gang associates of Chiang Kai-shek: “ . . . . Chiang’s fascination with Hitler resulted in the creation of a new secret society modeled on Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Chiang called his the Blue Shirts, though he denied their existence repeatedly. They were an offshoot of his two secret services, the party gestapo under the Ch’en brothers, and the military secret police under Tai Li. . . .”
3.–The CBIS was the Kuomintang’s secret political police: “ . . . . Chiang came to depend heavily on the two nephews of his Green Gang mentor . . . . Ch’en Ch’i‑mei. The older nephew, Ch’en Kuo-fu, who had organized and headed the drive that recruited seven thousand Green Gang youths for the Whampoa Military Academy had since then been given the responsibility of setting up a gestapo organization within the KMT. As head of the KMT’s Organization Department, his job was to purify the party and the Nanking government continually. To guarantee the loyalty of each party member, Ch’en Kuo-fu built a spy network that touched every government agency. To run this new apparatus, he selected his younger brother, Ch’en Li-fu [educated at the University of Pittsburgh in the U.S.—D.E.]. Both the Ch-en brothers were “blood brothers” of Chiang Kai-shek, having taken part in a Green Gang ceremony after the death of their uncle. . . . Li-fu . . . . became the director of Chiang’s secret service—the Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (CBIS), the euphemism chosen for the KMT’s political secret police. . . .”
4.–“China’s Himmler”—Tai Li—headed the MBIS: “ . . . . While the CBIS spied, conducted purges and political executions within the party, large-scale public terrorism was the province of its military counterpart the Military Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (MBIS) was run by “China’s Himmler,” Tai Li—for twenty years the most dreaded man in China. . . . Tai Li had spent his youth as a Green Gang aide to Big-eared Tu and was educated at Tu’s persona expense. In 1926, he was one of the Green Gang recruits enrolled at Whampoa Academy. . . . All clandestine operations in China, except those conducted by the Ch’ens, were his responsibility during the 1930’s. . . .”
5.–Supplementing and overlapping both CBIS and MBIS were the Blue Shirts: “ . . . . Both of these secret police organizations were supplemented by the Blue Shirts. Although it was a replica of the European fascist cults, the Blue Shirts also emulated Japan’s dreaded Black Dragon Society, the most militant secret cult of the Imperial Army. [The organization that helped spawn Kodama Yoshio—D.E.] The Blue Shirts job was to reform China the hard way, by knocking heads together, carrying out political assassinations, liquidating corrupt bureaucrats and “enemies of the state.” . . . . They were officered by old Green Gang classmates from Whampoa. . . .”
6.–Exemplifying the homicidal brutality of Chiang’s secret police cadres was the liquidation of six of China’s most important writers: “ . . . . The extreme was soon reached with the horrific end of six of China’s foremost writers, all followers of the leading literary figure of the [1911] revolution [led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen], Lu Hsun. . . . He [Chiang] ordered his secret police to arrest the writers. Lu Hsun eluded arrest but six young leaders of the group—including Feng Kung, China’s best-known woman writer—were taken into custody and forced to dig a large pit. They were tied hand and foot, thrown into the pit, and buried alive. . . .”
A fundamental dynamic of Chiang Kai-shek’s regime was his steadfast refusal to use his military forces to fight the invading Japanese. (Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 and the Sino-Japanese War preceded—and then overlapped—World War II.)
Chiang and his forces frequently collaborated with the Japanese and “the Generalissimo” steadfastly refused to commit Kuomintang armies against them, preferring to husband his combatants for use against the Chinese Communists. (This ideological manifestation of Chiang’s dictatorship won him favor with the Axis powers, as well as dominant elements of the American power elite. As will be seen in future programs, Chiang’s stance led to the replacement of General Joseph Stilwell with Albert C. Wedemeyer as chief military adviser to the KMT.)
Chief among Chiang’s critics was T.V. Soong, who—correctly—forecast that Chiang’s military posture would propel the Chinese populace into alignment with the Chinese Communist Party whose fierce, successful military resistance to the Japanese was recognized as manifest patriotism.)
“ . . . . Shaken by what he had observed of the Japanese assault, T.V. Soong began to draw some dangerous conclusions. ‘If China is placed before the alternative of communism and Japanese militarism with its military domination, then China will choose communism.’ This rather daring statement, given during an interview with Karl H. von Wiegand in March, 1932, placed T.V. in direct opposition to Chiang Kai-shek. It was all the more iconoclastic for being made by a rich financier and Finance Minister. . . .”
T.V. Soong—in that same interview—noted that the Western powers had passively collaborated with the Japanese attacks on Manchuria and Shanghai: “ . . . . ‘The League [of Nations—D.E.] and the big powers looked on. They even permitted the International Settlement to be used as a base of operations. Can you be surprised that China would turn to Communism or Sovietism, if that were to unite the country, rather than submit to foreign military domination?’ . . . .”
We conclude with discussion of a major event in the history of Chiang Kai-shek’s conservation of his military resources to fight the Communists–what has become known as the Sian incident.
The Sian Incident was very important—though little recognized—event in the history of China: the “kidnapping” of Chiang Kai-shek by Kuomintang military officers who were intent on forming an anti-Japanese coalition called for by Madame Sun Yat-Sen (Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s widow and the former Ching-ling Soong.)
This became known as the Sian incident, named after the locale in which Chiang was taken into custody and held.
Inspired by the success of Mao Tse-Tung’s forces in fighting the Japanese, a mass student protest movement precipitated the call by Mme. Sun Yat-sen, which was put into action by “The Young Marshal,” Chang Hsueh-liang. He was supported in this by the forces of General Yang Hu-cheng. “ . . . . Meanwhile, Mao Tse-Tung’s Communist forces reached Yenan at the end of the Long March, and began rallying anti-Japanese nationalism to their side. To many students, the authentic heroism of the Red Army combined with this blunt stand against Tokyo was a siren call. On December 9, 1935, ten thousand Peking students demonstrated against Japan. The protest drew nationwide attention and Madame Sun Yat-sen emerged from seclusion in Shanghai to support the students by launching a National Salvation League. . . .”
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–The Young Marshal’s return to China after kicking narcotics administered to him Tai-li’s secret police (this during a recuperative sojourn in Europe): “ . . . . When the Young Marshal returned to China in 1934„ he was transformed. Gone were the narcotics, and in their place was a tough new nationalism. He decided that China’s salvation lay in persuading Chiang to stand firm against Tokyo. He had long talks with T.V. Soong in Shanghai about how to engineer this, and T. V., who must have realized that a powerful military lever had fallen into his hands, burned the midnight oil with the dapper Manchurian general, exploring all possible maneuvers against Chiang . . . .”
2.–“ . . . . Early in 1936, the Young Marshal quietly instructed his troops on the frontier to stop shooting at red guerrillas. He had reached the conclusion that most of China’s Communists were driven into the arms of the CCP by the degradation of the country at the hands of Chiang and the foreign powers. Chinese, he decided, should no longer fight Chinese while the nation was being ravished by foreign invaders. . . .”
3.–The Young Marshal then met, and reached agreement with Chou En-Lai, later the Foreign Minister of China under Mao Tse-tung. “ . . . . That June, he met privately with Chou En-Lai to see if they could put aside differences and develop a joint strategy. He came away with his conviction reaffirmed that the answer lay in a united front He was good to his word. All military action halted, liaison was set up between their two headquarters, and bureaus of the National Salvation League were organized throughout northwestern China. . . . Word of this ‘treachery’ reached Chiang Kai-shek at Nanking. . . .”
4.–Chiang refused to join the nationalist coalition: “ . . . . When the Generalissimo arrived, the Young Marshal told Chiang that his anti-red campaign that his anti-red campaign should be scrapped and a united front formed with Mao Tse-Tung. The time had come for a patriotic war, not a civil war. Chiang hotly rejected the argument . . . .”
Chiang publicized his determination to continue with his anti-communist annihilation campaign: “ . . . . On December 4, 1936, the Generalissimo returned to Sian to announce that he was going ahead with the annihilation campaign, to begin on December 12. . . .”
5.–In combination with General Yang, the Young Marshal decided to take Chiang hostage and extract his consent to a nationalist coalition: “ . . . . At 5:30 in the morning of December 12—the day the new annihilation campaign was to begin—Chiang Kai-shek was staring out the back window of his bedroom at the mountain beyond the garden wall. In the darkness, four trucks loaded with 120 armed soldiers rumbled to a halt at the gates. The battalion commander in the lead truck demanded that the gates be opened. The sentries refused. The men in the trucks opened fire. . . .”
6.–Despite being taken captive, Chiang refused to form a nationalist coalition: “ . . . . At Sian, Chiang stubbornly resisted the Eight Demands. ‘He refused to turn our guns against the enemy,’ the Young Marshal explained in a public address to a huge crowd in a Sian park on December 16, ‘but reserved the for use against our own people.’ . . .”
7.–Eventually, Chiang grudgingly agreed to the coalition, apparently after T.V. Soong saw to it that Chiang got a significant amount of money. “ . . . . The Young Marshal gallantly accepted all blame for the Sian Incident, allowing Chiang to wash his hands in public and wipe them on him. (Interestingly he was put up at T.V. Soong’s home in Nanking.) He had done China a historic service by bringing about the long-sought united front, whatever its later failings. . . .”
7.–Chiang’s reluctant agreement was trumpeted by Henry Luce: “ . . . . He put them [Chiang and Mme. Chiang] on the cover of Time’s first issue of 1938 as ‘Man and Wife of the Year.’ May-ling Soong Chiang now became an even bigger international celebrity. . . .”
8.–As was his wont, Chiang broke his promise to the Young Marshal and General Yang. Lauded by Henry Luce and his associates as an Exemplary Christian, Chiang promised an amnesty on Good Friday—a promise he promptly broke. “ . . . . In his Good Friday message to China that spring of 1937, Chiang referred to the Sian Incident and said piously, ‘Remembering that Christ enjoined us to forgive those who sin against us until seventy times seven and upon their repentance, I felt that that they should be allowed to start life anew. . . .”
9.–Similar treatment was afforded General Yang: “ . . . . The Young Marshal’s co-conspirator, General Yang, despite the Good Friday amnesty, was imprisoned when he came back from European exile and languished for eleven years in one of Tai Li’s special detention camps near Chungking. His wife went on a hunger strike in protest and was allowed to starve herself to death. . . .”
FTR#1199 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 6
In this program we continue our analysis and historical discussion of Chiang Kai-shek’s narco-fascist government.
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. . . .”
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. . . .”
American publishing giant Henry Luce of Time, Inc. was the son of American missionaries in China, where he spent much of his youth.
His position toward China might be said to embody “the Missionary Position.”
A doctrinaire fascist himself, he saw the business tycoon as an American iteration of the fascist strongman, exemplified by his idol Benito Mussolini.
Luce’s portrayal of Chiang Kai-shek, Mme. Chiang and their regime are utterly fantastic in nature, bearing no relation whatsoever to the reality of the Kuomintang. Luce’s portrayal could be said to have set the template for coverage of Chiang’s regime in the U.S.
As we contemplate the coverage of contemporary China in this country, it is worth recalling the depth of deception in which our journalists have indulged.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–The influence of Henry Luce’s missionary parenting in China on his perspective on Chiang: “ . . . . ‘The trouble with Harry,’ observed the writer Laura Z. Hobson, wife of one of his classmates at Yale, ‘is that he’s torn between wanting to be a Chinese missionary like his parents and a Chinese warlord like Chiang Kai-shek.’ . . . .”
2.–Luce compromised: “ . . . . he could do the next best thing—he could adopt the Soongs and make Chiang over into a missionary-warlord. . . .”
3.–“ . . . . By the spring of 1933, when T.V. was ready to visit America, Luce was rapidly becoming the world’s most powerful publisher. With him [Luce] to take care of their public relations and image building in America, the Soongs, Chiangs and Kungs were in for a sensational ride. . . .”
4.–For Luce, T.V. Soong’s professional business persona manifested in the same manner as the fascist strongmen he idolized. “. . . . The business tycoon, Luce believed, was America’s answer to the need for fascism. . . . He found justice in the survival of the fittest, and saw quite clearly that a society build on greed was more dynamic than one based on charity. . . . ‘The moral force of Fascism,’ Luce pronounced, ‘appearing in totally different forms in different nations, may be the inspiration for the next general march of mankind.’. . .”
5.–For Luce, therefore, T.V. Soong served the same function as Mussolini: “. . . . Luce characterized T.V. as a cartoon super-tycoon. Luce had a soft spot for superheroes that enabled him practically to venerate Chiang Kai-shek. ‘The hero-worshipper in him,’ said his biographer W.A. Swanberg, ‘responded to the Fascist superman who could inspire the allegiance and cooperation of the masses. . . . He pointed to the success of Mussolini in revitalizing the aristocratic principle in Italy, ‘a state reborn by virtue of Fascist symbols, Fascist rank and hence Fascist enterprise.’ . . . . Luce admired strong regimes in which the ‘best people’ ruled for the good of all . . . . In Mussolini, he saw such greatness and in Fascism, such dramatic political innovations that he could not contain his excitement. . . .’”
Next, we examine the sordid, Machiavellian, kleptocratic nature of the Soong family.
Key points of discussion and analysis include:
1.–H.Kung (Chiang’s Finance Minister at the time and the brother-in-law of T.V. Soong) and his financial coup‑d’etat, realizing a takeover of much of China’s financial infrastructure and the banks comprising it. He did so in collaboration with T.V. Soong, his wife (the former Ai-ling Soong) and Green Gang kingpin Tu Yueh-sheng.
2.–The banking coup was representative of the dizzying corruption with which the Chiang/Tu/Soong axis dominated the Chinese economy: “ . . . . The Bank of China’s new board [of directors] was elected on March 30. Among the new directors were T.V. Soong, [his brother] T.L. Soong, and Big Eared Tu [Yueh-sheng]. When the Bank of Communications held its first meeting after the coup, T.L. Soong was on its board. Both T.V. and T. L. acquired seats on the board of the Central Bank. The Bank coup of March [1935] was followed by the methodical subversion of three other important Shanghai commercial banks that June. . . . All three banks were placed under the supervision of H.H. Kung’s Manufacturers’ Bank, on the board of which sat T.L. Soong, T.A. Soong, and T.V. Soong. Big-eared Tu became the new chairman of the board of the Commercial Bank. . . . The list went on and on, as bank after bank, then company after company, came under control of the clan. . . .”
3.–In addition to T.V. Soong’s younger brothers T.L. and T.A., the Green Gang hierarchy comprised another, vital component of the Kuomintang economic axis: “ . . . . L. was also the head of the Whampoo Conservancy Board with jurisdiction over Shanghai harbor, which was dominated by the Green Gang. Everything that happened on the waterfront was the business of Big-eared Tu’s man Ku Tsu-chuan. . . . Although it was not widely known, and certainly not talked about, this waterfront gangster was the older brother of one of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s senior military officers—General Ku Chu‑t’ung, who eventually rose to be chief of the general staff and, because of the New Fourth Army Incident, one of the most hated men in China. (We will say more about this topic later. It was highlighted in FTR#1142.) . . . .”
Having been born in 1949, I grew up with World War II as a critical element of my political, civic and cognitive upbringing. I vividly remember watching the documentary “Victory at Sea” on television as a child. As I have grown older, more knowledgeable and wiser, learning the truth about World War II has been very sad and painful.
In FTR #1095, we noted the historical background to the ongoing conflict with China–the brutal Japanese onslaught and the collaboration of Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang narco-dictatorship with Japan’s attack and occupation.
As a boy, I was awed and moved by the heroism of American and Allied service personnel who braved the dangers of flying over the Hump to bring U.S. supplies to Chiang Kai-shek’s forces. Although officially allied with the U.S., Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were actually working “both sides of the street.”
We have encountered nothing more grotesquely tragic and disillusioning than the awareness that American military supplies flown over the Hump and/or sent along the Burma Road found their way into the hands of the Japanese, courtesy of KMT general Ku Chu-tung and his organized crime brother.
Collaborating with Kodama Yoshio, the Japanese crime boss and Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the brothers swapped U.S. lend lease supplies for drugs.
In the passage below, it is important to note the role of the Black Dragon Society in the ascent of Kodama Yoshio. Black Dragon, along with Black Ocean, are key Japanese ultra-nationalist societies and the apparent forerunners of the Unification Church and, possibly the overlapping Shincheonji cult.
Kodama played a key role in the Unification Church, as discussed in FTR #‘s 291 and 970.
. . . . He [Kodama] was sprung from jail by [General] Doihara in April 1937, on the condition that he devoted his violent energies to looting China’s underworld. This epiphany, the transformation of Kodama from thug to super-patriot, was suggested by Black Dragon’s Toyama [Mitsuru], whose own stature as a patriot was affirmed in 1924 when he was a guest at Emperor Hirohito’s wedding. . . .
. . . . All proceeds were diverted from Chinese racketeers to Golden Lily, minus a handling charge for Kodama himself. Ultimately, Kodama was responsible to Prince Chichibu, and to the throne.
Princes were not equipped to deal with gangsters. Kodama saved them from soiling their hands. He converted narcotics into bullion by the simple method of trading heroin to gangsters for gold ingots. How brokers got the ingots was not his concern. He closed a deal with waterfront boss Ku Tsu-chuan to swap heroin for gold throughout the Yangtze Valley. Thanks to Ku’s brother, KMT senior general Ku Chu-tung, Japan also gained access to U.S. Lend-Lease supplies reaching western China by way of the Burma road, or on aircraft flying over the Hump from India. Once in warehouses in Kunming or Chungking, the Lend-Lease was re-sold to the Japanese Army, with Kodama as purchasing agent. . . .
T.L. Soong—T.V.’s younger brother: “ . . . . who had been in charge of Lend Lease during World II, and whose American roots were in New York City, became something of an enigma. Sources in Washington said T.L. worked as a secret consultant to the Treasury Department in the 1950’s, engaged in what they would not say. Treasury claims it has no record of a T.L. Soong whatever. . . .”
Next, we highlight the central role of German general Hans Von Seeckt in Chiang Kai-shek’s military campaign against the Chinese Communists.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–“ . . . . The military campaign . . . . was engineered for Chiang Kai-shek by one of the best-known strategists of Nazi Germany—General Hans von Seeckt. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Chiang asked for military help. Hitler sent von Seeckt and Lieutenant General Georg Wetzell. The Generalissimo’s determination to fight Communists, rather than Japanese, was to Hitler’s liking. . . .”
2.–Unsurprisingly, the von Seeckt-engineered campaign was a slaughter: “ . . . . [noted journalist] Edgar Snow said the Communists suffered 60,000 casualties, and that in all a million people were killed or starved to death. Of that million dead, therefore, at least 940,000 were not ‘Communist bandits.’ . . . .”
Chiang Kai-shek’s regime networked extensively with the fascist dictatorships of Europe. Commercial networking between Hitler, Mussolini and Chiang involved Kuomintang Finance Minister H.H. Kung and his wife, the former Ai-ling Soong.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–” . . . . The Kungs then sailed to Europe and the most important part of their trip, the booming German arms industry. H.H. arranged to purchase $25 million U.S. in weapons from Germany. Then, since fascism was fashionable, and his brother-in-law [Chiang Kai-shek] was one of its leading exponents, H. H. decided to visit Mussolini . . .”
2.–The Kungs’ mission to Italy was successful: “ . . . . When H.H. arrived, he cut a deal whereby the $2 million U.S. balance of Boxer [Rebellion] indemnities still owed to Italy would be used to buy Fiat war planes. Mussolini left it to his handsome, swarthy son-in-law, count Ciano, his Minister to China, to arrange the details. Italian assistance to the infant Chinese air force was expanded to include a school to train pilots at Loyang and a Fiat aircraft assembly plant in Nanchang. . . .”
3.–Chiang’s tactic of using his military to fight the Chinese Communists instead of the Japanese was viewed favorably by the Axis—Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. Not even T.V. Soong could influence Chiang to change strategy, one which Soong felt—correctly–would drive the Chinese people into the arms of the Communists. (Chiang’s anti-Communism was a major selling point used to cultivate support in the U.S.: “ . . . . While T.V. Soong was trying to persuade Chiang to forget the Chinese Communists and defend China against Japanese aggression, the Japanese, Germans, and Italians were all encouraging Chiang to love Japan and kill reds. . . .”
4.–Chiang’s fascist infatuation with Hitler’s Germany influenced his dispatching of his son to join the Wehrmacht: “ . . . . The Generalissimo daily became more enamored of the Nazi military and police state. Eventually, he sent his younger son, Wei-kuo, to be schooled by the Nazis. . . . (Wei-kuo became a second lieutenant in the 98th Jaeger Regiment and before returning to China took part in the invasion of Austria in 1938. . . .)
The program concludes by setting forth the structure of Chiang’s fascist infrastructure, his secret police cadres in particular.
Key points of analysis and discussion include:
1.–Chiang translated his admiration of Hitler and Mussolini into the most sincere form of flattery—imitation: “ . . . . Chiang believed that fascism stood on three legs—nationalism, absolute faith in the Maximum Leader, and the spartan militarization of the citizens. The New Life Movement [the chief promoter of which was Madame Chiang Kai-shek] was the popular manifestation of Chiang’s fascism—a toy for his wife and the missionaries—and it was comic enough not to be taken seriously by foreigners in general. The missionaries . . . . were now eagerly climbing aboard the New Life bandwagon. . . .”
2.–There were three overlapping organizational elements to Chiang’s fascist cadres—the Blue Shirts, the CBIS (Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics) which was run by the Ch’en brothers and the MBIS (the Military Bureau of Investigation and Statistics which was run by Tai Li. Both Ch’en brothers and Tai Li were Green Gang associates of Chiang Kai-shek: “ . . . . Chiang’s fascination with Hitler resulted in the creation of a new secret society modeled on Hitler’s Brown Shirts and Mussolini’s Black Shirts. Chiang called his the Blue Shirts, though he denied their existence repeatedly. They were an offshoot of his two secret services, the party gestapo under the Ch’en brothers, and the military secret police under Tai Li. . . .”
3.–The CBIS was the Kuomintang’s secret political police: “ . . . . Chiang came to depend heavily on the two nephews of his Green Gang mentor . . . . Ch’en Ch’i‑mei. The older nephew, Ch’en Kuo-fu, who had organized and headed the drive that recruited seven thousand Green Gang youths for the Whampoa Military Academy had since then been given the responsibility of setting up a gestapo organization within the KMT. As head of the KMT’s Organization Department, his job was to purify the party and the Nanking government continually. To guarantee the loyalty of each party member, Ch’en Kuo-fu built a spy network that touched every government agency. To run this new apparatus, he selected his younger brother, Ch’en Li-fu [educated at the University of Pittsburgh in the U.S.—D.E.]. Both the Ch-en brothers were “blood brothers” of Chiang Kai-shek, having taken part in a Green Gang ceremony after the death of their uncle. . . . Li-fu . . . . became the director of Chiang’s secret service—the Central Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (CBIS), the euphemism chosen for the KMT’s political secret police. . . .”
4.–“China’s Himmler”—Tai Li—headed the MBIS: “ . . . . While the CBIS spied, conducted purges and political executions within the party, large-scale public terrorism was the province of its military counterpart the Military Bureau of Investigation and Statistics (MBIS) was run by “China’s Himmler,” Tai Li—for twenty years the most dreaded man in China. . . . Tai Li had spent his youth as a Green Gang aide to Big-eared Tu and was educated at Tu’s persona expense. In 1926, he was one of the Green Gang recruits enrolled at Whampoa Academy. . . . All clandestine operations in China, except those conducted by the Ch’ens, were his responsibility during the 1930’s. . . .”
5.–Supplementing and overlapping both CBIS and MBIS were the Blue Shirts: “ . . . . Both of these secret police organizations were supplemented by the Blue Shirts. Although it was a replica of the European fascist cults, the Blue Shirts also emulated Japan’s dreaded Black Dragon Society, the most militant secret cult of the Imperial Army. [The organization that helped spawn Kodama Yoshio—D.E.] The Blue Shirts job was to reform China the hard way, by knocking heads together, carrying out political assassinations, liquidating corrupt bureaucrats and ‘enemies of the state.’ . . . . They were officered by old Green Gang classmates from Whampoa. . . .”
6.–Exemplifying the homicidal brutality of Chiang’s secret police cadres was the liquidation of six of China’s most important writers: “ . . . . The extreme was soon reached with the horrific end of six of China’s foremost writers, all followers of the leading literary figure of the [1911] revolution [led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen], Lu Hsun. . . . He [Chiang] ordered his secret police to arrest the writers. Lu Hsun eluded arrest but six young leaders of the group—including Feng Kung, China’s best-known woman writer—were taken into custody and forced to dig a large pit. They were tied hand and foot, thrown into the pit, and buried alive. . . .”
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