FTR#1203 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and The Kuomintang, Part 10
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.)
We begin by resuming analysis of the political and professional destruction of U.S. military and State Department elements that correctly gauged Chiang Kai-shek and the [inevitable, downward] trajectory of his regime.
Just as General Stillwell was removed as top military officer in the China/Burma theater because of his appropriate, accurate, vehement criticism of Chiang Kai-shek’s prioritization of fighting the Communists over fighting the Japanese, State Department officers who accurately forecast the decisive ascent of the Chinese Communist Party over the KMT were punished for their stance.
(Stilwell’s replacement by General Wedemeyer was noteworthy—particularly in light of the background and behavior of Wedemeyer.
In addition to being part of a political and military milieu that infused isolationist orientation toward involvement in World War II with pro-fascist sentiment, Wedemeyer appears to have presided over an act of consummate treason—the leak of the Rainbow Five American mobilization plan for World War II to anti-FDR publisher Robert J. McCormick, of the Chicago Tribune.)
The China watchers’ advice was not only ignored, but cast as “subversive” during the anti-Communist witch hunts of the McCarthy period.
“ . . . . The eyes and ears of the U.S. Government in Chunking were a handful of old China hands . . . . The China watchers’ message essentially was that no matter how much Washington wanted Chiang Kai-shek to ‘run’ China, he was about to lose it to the Communists. . . . The observers in Chungking were accused of being in favor of what they predicted—in favor of communism. In fact, they were only warning their government of a course of events that now seemed certain. . . . Washington reacted with deep suspicion and hostility and insisted on nailing the American flag the more tightly to the mast of Chiang’s sinking ship . . . .”
As we shall further explore, the cognitive perception of China in this country was shaped by the Soong family.
The China watchers’ advice was not only ignored, but cast as “subversive” during the anti-Communist witch hunts of the McCarthy period.
“ . . . . American policy was thus based upon the personalities of the Chiangs, the Soongs and the Kungs, rather than upon the events, the nation or the people. This was a tribute to the Soongs’ extraordinary stagecraft. . . .”
Sterling Seagrave filed a Freedom of Information Act request, which obtained an FBI report on the Soongs. Heavily redacted—even in 1985—it revealed the Soongs machinations on both sides of the Pacific.
“ . . . . The Soong family . . . . ‘practically had a death grip.’ The Soongs ‘have always been money mad and every move they made was prompted by their desire to secure funds.’ . . . . ‘there was a gigantic conspiracy to defraud the Chinese from materials they would ordinarily receive through [Lend-Lease] and to divert considerable of this money to the Soong family.’. . .”
After discussing the extreme marital difficulties of Chiang Kai-shek and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek (the former Mae-ling Soong, whose marriage to Chiang had been arranged by H. H. Kung and his Machiavellian wife Ai-ling—the former Ai-ling Soong), the informant identifies Mrs. Kung as the sinister, deadly and manipulative figure that she was.
Exemplifying the scale of the treacherous, corrupt practices of the clan was a diversion of Lend-Lease aid: “ . . . . The informant then told the FBI that one of the ways T.V. diverted Lend-Lease funds into his own pocket was illustrated by reports reaching Chunking that a freighter carrying sixty new American battle tanks and other very expensive war materiel furnished by Lend-Lease had been sunk. As a matter of fact this ‘freighter never left the West Coast with any tanks; the tanks were never made . . . . this is a positive illustration of the manner in which the Soongs have been diverting funds from Lend-Lease inasmuch as the money was allocated for the 60 tanks. . . .”
Again, a key factor in the political clout wielded by the Soongs was their extreme wealth, greatly augmented by institutionalized corruption, including (and especially) T.V. Soong’s appropriation of much of the Lend-Lease material designated for China.
In addition to the outright theft of Lend-Lease material by Chiang Kai-shek’s Green Gang general staff and their sale of much of that to the Japanese enemy they were supposedly fighting, T.V. Soong—using his brother T.L Soong’s administrative control of the Lend-Lease program for China—maneuvered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of U.S. aid into the private coffers of the Soong family.
As the KMT regime decayed and relations between the Soongs and Chiang followed suit, T. V. increasingly turned his energies to the American side of the Pacific, and appointed T.L. to oversee the American side of Lend-Lease! “ . . . . T.V. used his position as Foreign Minister to issue his brother T.L. Soong a special diplomatic passport, and sent him hurriedly to New York. T. L. was actually being whisked out of China to take over as chief purchasing agent and administrator of all U.S. Lend-Lease supplies before they left for China. Since the very beginning, T.L. had been in charge of Lend-Lease at the Chinese end. . . .”
Next, we review the fact that 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 review the fact that 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. . . .”
The concluding segments of the program are drawn on another magnificent work by the Seagraves: Gold Warriors.
Before winding up the broadcast, we “dolly out” to synopsize the relationship between the Japanese invaders of China, the Green Gang gangsters, the Kuomintang regime of Chiang Kai-shek which fronted for the Green Gang and collaborated with the Japanese, Japanese corporations and Japanese colonial interests in Korea and Taiwan.
This overview foreshadows the political consortium that—in the postwar period, became the Asian Peoples’ Anti-Communist League, a key component of what was to become the World Anti-Communist League.
Key Points of Discussion and Analysis Include: Green Gang boss Tu Yueh-sheng’s control of Shanghai’s booming gambling and overlapping brothel businesses; synoptic review of the relationship between Tu Yueh-sheng and the Green Gang and Chiang Kai-shek; Chiang’s sanctioning of Tu to control the KMT’s drug trafficking; the symbiotic, cooperative relationship between the invading Japanese and the Green Gang, cemented by General Doihara and Kodama Yoshio on the side of the invaders and Green Gang/KMT operatives the Ku brothers (one of whom was Tu’s harbor boss in Shanghai and the other of whom was a top KMT general); review of the Japanese development of the narcotics business in Manchuria; the Japanese use of their Manchurian narcotics enterprise to subvert China by increasing the population’s addiction rate; review of Chiang Kai-shek’s collaboration with the Manchurian/Japanese narcotics enterprise; the role of Japanese zaibatsu and other colonized areas in the Japanese narcotics business.
“ . . . . The [opium] was converted into morphine and heroin at factories in Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan, then smuggled directly across the strait on motorized junks, to mainland warehouses owned by Mitsui, Mitsubishi and other conglomerates. An army factory in Seoul that produced over 2,600 kilos of heroin in 1938–1939 was only one of several hundred factories in Manchuria, Korea, Taiwan, and in Japanese concessions in mainland cities like Hankow. . . .”
We conclude the program with analysis of power broker–Kodama Yoshio who helped institutionalize the collaboration between Chinese KMT, Korean and Japanese fascists. Noteworthy, as well is Kodama’s close relationship between with the CIA and the Japanese Imperial family in the postwar/Cold War period.
Kodama Yoshio epitomizes and embodies the operational and ideological structure of the Asian People’s Anti-Communist League, the Asian branch of what was to become the World Anti-Communist League.
Key Points of Discussion and Analysis Include: Kodama’s accumulated fortune of 13 billion dollars in World War II dollars; Kodama’s close relationship with Japanese Emperor Hirohito, who allowed him to stash some of his wealth in the Imperial Palace; Kodama’s dominant position in the narcotics traffic, during and after World War II; Kodama’s donation of 100 million dollars to the CIA (equivalent to 1 billion dollars in today’s currency); Kodama’s continued dominance in the global narcotics traffic, during the time he was on the CIA’s payroll; Kodama’s cozy relationship with Prince Higashikuni, Emperor Hirohito’s uncle, who facilitated Kodama’s operations, including his close relationship with the U.S.
FTR#1198 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 5
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. . . .”
FTR#1197 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 4
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.
FTR#1196 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 3
The program begins with discussion of two articles that frame the analysis of the New Cold War with China.
” . . . . ‘the political-economic system of the People’s Republic is precisely that what no one expects, in the West — where agitational reporting usually only confirms resentful clichés about China. . . .”
Much journalistic bloviating and diplomatic and military posturing in the U.S. has been devoted to China’s occupation of uninhabited atolls in the South China Sea and waters around China.
In addition to failure to understand this in the historical context of China’s experience during the Opium Wars and the conflict with the Japanese during World War II, the coverage in the West has omitted discussion of similar occupation and (in some cases) militarization of such islands in those waters by other countries in the region: ” . . . . Officially, Berlin justifies the frigate Bayern’s deployment to East Asia with its intention to promote the implementation of international law. This pertains particularly to conflicts over numerous islands and atolls in the South China Sea that are contested by the riparians and where China claims 28 of them and uses some militarily, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). According to CSIS, the Philippines control nine, Malaysia, five and Taiwan, one island, whereas Vietnam has established around 50 outposts of various sorts. All four countries also have a military presence on some of the islands and atolls they are occupying. . . .”
As noted in the German Foreign Policy article, the German (and U.S. and U.K.) position is blatantly hypocritical: ” . . . . The frigate Bayern, which set sail for East Asia yesterday, will soon make a port call at Diego Garcia, an island under occupation, in violation of international law, and serving military purposes. It is the main island of the Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the site of a strategically important US military base. The Chagos Archipelago is an old British colonial possession that had once belonged to Mauritius. It was detached, in violation of international law, during the decolonization of Mauritius, to allow the United States to construct a military base. The population was deported to impoverished regions on Mauritius. In the meantime, several international court rulings have been handed down and a UN General Assembly resolution has been passed on this issue — all concluding that Mauritius has sovereignty over Diego Garcia and calling on the United Kingdom to hand back the illegally occupied Chagos Archipelago. To this day, London and Washington refuse to comply. . . .”
Another German Foreign Policy article sets forth many of Mr. Emory’s fears and observations concerning contemporary China and the U.S.
Among those concerns and fears:
1.–” . . . . the major shift in the global balance of power, shaping our present, with China’s rise and the USA seeking to hold the People’s Republic of China down, to preserve its global dominance. The consequences are a dangerous escalation of the conflict, which could lead to a Third World War. . . .”
2.–” . . . . At the beginning of the 19th century, the Middle Kingdom (China) — which had one-third of the world’s population — was still generating a third of the world’s economic output. Therefore, it was the world’s greatest economic power — as it had already been for many centuries. . . .”
3.–” . . . . China’s resurgence, following the devastation brought on particularly by the western colonial powers was possible, Baron explains, not least because ‘the political-economic system of the People’s Republic is precisely that what no one expects, in the West — where agitational reporting usually only confirms resentful clichés about China. It is ‘highly flexible, adventurous, and adaptable.’ Baron quotes Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth Perry, both experts on China, saying politics is explicitly understood as a ‘process of constant transformations and conflict management, with trial runs and ad hoc adaptations.’ The Chinese system is a far cry from being a rigid, inflexible authoritarianism. . . .”
4.–” . . . . Baron depicts the foreign policy the USA — at home increasingly decaying — has been indulging in since the end of the cold war: an extremely aggressive approach toward Russia, grueling wars — such as in Iraq — in addition to ‘regime change operations’ and unscrupulous extra-territorial sanctions. ‘The military-industrial-complex and the intelligence services (...) have seized an enormous amount of power,’ notes the publicist, and warns that only external aggression can hold the country together: ‘The conviction that America must be at the top in the world,’ is, at the moment, ‘almost the only thing that the deeply antagonistic Democrats and Republicans can still agree on.’ Baron speaks of ‘imperial arrogance.’ . . .”
5.–” . . . . ‘To defend its lost hegemonic position’ the United States ‘is not primarily seeking to regain its competitiveness,’ Baron observes, but rather it is striving ‘by any means and on all fronts, to prevent — or at least restrain — China’s progress.’ . . . . Ultimately, ‘the threat of a Third World War’ looms large. . . .”
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.
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 China through 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’. . . .”
FTR#1195 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, Part 2
The program begins by reviewing the death threats and intimidation that the authors of Gold Warriors received over the publication of this and other books.
” . . . .When we published The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA official that a hit team was being assembled in Taiwan to come murder us. He said, ‘I would take this very seriously, if I were you.’ We vanished for a year to an island off the coast of British Columbia. While we were gone, a Taiwan hit team arrived in San Francisco and shot dead the Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu. . . .”
Sterling’s fears about Opus Dei and his and Peggy’s proximity to Spain–the seat of that organization’s power turned out to be prescient. On Christmas Day of 2011, he narrowly escaped assassination while returning home. He felt that the attempt on his life may well have been motivated by the publication of the Spanish language edition of Gold Warriors.
” . . . . A hired thug tried to murder me on the serpentine road leading up to our isolated house on the ridge overlooking Banyuls-sur-Mer, and nearly succeeded. (We’ve had several serious death threats because of our books.) The road was very narrow in places, with tarmac barely the width of my tires. At 10 pm Christmas night, in 2011, after visiting Peggy at a clinic in Perpignan, as I turned the final hairpin, I clearly saw a guy sitting on a cement block path leading up to a shed for the uphill vineyard. He was obviously waiting for me because we were the only people living up there on that mountain shoulder. He jumped up, raised a long pole, and unfurled a black fabric that totally blocked the narrowest turn ahead of me. I tried to swerve to avoid him (not knowing whether he also had a gun), and my right front drive wheel went off the tarmac and lost traction in the rubble.
The car teetered and then plunged down through a steep vineyard on my right side, rolling and bouncing front and rear, 100 meters into a ravine where it finally came to rest against a tree. Thanks to my seatbelt and air bag, I survived. . . .”
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 Kuomintang), 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’. . . .”
The program concludes with two key excerpts from The Soong Dynasty.
After detailing Tu Yueh-Sheng’s ascent to the pinnacle of Chinese power through his reorganization of China’s opium trade into a cartel, the program sets forth Chiang Kai-shek and the Green Gang’s control of the Whampoa Military Academy, which spawned control of the Kuomintang Army by the Green Gang.
FTR#1194 The Narco-Fascism of Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang, Part 1
With virulent anti-Chinese ideology driving American foreign, domestic and nati0nal security policy, we begin a long series of programs setting forth the history of China during the last couple of centuries.
The anti-China pathology gripping the U.S. was concisely expressed in a New York Times article a couple of years ago. The Steve Bannon-led anti-China effort has now become U.S. doctrine: ” . . . . Fear of China has spread across the government, from the White House to Congress to federal agencies, where Beijing’s rise is unquestioningly viewed as an economic and national security threat and the defining challenge of the 21st century. . . .”
A viable understanding of China’s past yields understanding of its present.
Awareness of key dynamics of Chinese history–the Opium Wars in particular–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 importing of Chinese laborers to the U.S., and the resultant, deadly anti-Chinese reaction by White America.
11.–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.”
12.–The dominance of the Kuomintang of Chiang Kai-Shek by the Green Gang and Big-Eared Tu.
13.–The fundamental reliance of Chiang’s government on the narcotics trade.
14.–The dominant role of Chiang Kai-Shek’s regime in the U.S. narcotics trade.
15.–The doctrinaire fascism of Chiang Kai-Shek and his operational relationships with Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy and Imperial Japan.
16.–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.
17.–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.
18.–The role of the Luce publishing empire and the enormous financial influence of the consummately corrupt Soong family in spawning “The China Lobby.”
19.–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.
NB: More detailed discussion of the Opium Wars is presented in the two programs following this one.
The program sets forth anti-Chinese racism past and present.
Peter Thiel–lynchpin of power in the Trump administration, the top dog in Palantir (the alpha predator of the electronic surveillance milieu), a key player in Facebook–has disseminated anti-Chinese vitriol about the “yellow peril” in Silicon Valley.
He has been joined in that effort by Steve Bannon, a coordinator of anti-China activity in Washington D.C.
” . . . . The billionaire investor Peter Thiel has accused Google of “treason” and called for a law enforcement investigation of the search engine’s parent company. He speculated that the Chinese government has invaded its employee ranks. A German immigrant via South Africa, Thiel is not alone; his remarks echo the repeated assertions of the rabble rouser Steve Bannon that there are too many Asian CEOs in Silicon Valley. These claims, combined with similar charges of wrongdoing against students and professors of Chinese origin on campuses across the country, are as ominous as they are lurid. While Thiel presents no evidence, Bannon displays ample prejudice. They are inspiring paranoia about everyone of Chinese heritage. . . .”
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 program concludes with review of the death threats and intimidation that the authors of Gold Warriors received over the publication of this and other books.
” . . . .When we published The Soong Dynasty we were warned by a senior CIA official that a hit team was being assembled in Taiwan to come murder us. He said, ‘I would take this very seriously, if I were you.’ We vanished for a year to an island off the coast of British Columbia. While we were gone, a Taiwan hit team arrived in San Francisco and shot dead the Chinese-American journalist Henry Liu. . . .”
Never Underestimate a Space Alien from Venus
A Japanese fascist mind control cult called Happy Science joins Falun Gong in the list of participants in the Conservative Political Action Conference. ” . . . . On Friday afternoon at the Hyatt Regency Orlando, Hiroaki ‘Jay’ Aeba, a prominent Japanese conservative, will address CPAC about the threat China poses to the U.S., taking a prime spot in the lineup just after Donald Trump Jr. Aeba is no stranger to CPAC. . . . . What isn’t mentioned is the central role Aeba plays in a Japanese cult called Happy Science, whose leader believes he is the Messiah . . . . Happy Science was founded in October 1986 by Ryuho Okawa, a former Wall Street trader who claims to be the reincarnated form of Buddha, who himself was the reincarnated form of El Cantare, a god from Venus who created life on earth millions of years ago. . . . ” ” . . . . . . . . At the same time, the organization’s political wing, the Happiness Realization Party, promotes political views that include support for Japanese military expansion, support for the use of nuclear deterrence,[8] and denial of historical events such as the Nanjing Massacre in China and the comfort women issue in South Korea . . . . ” One of the group’s most outrageous undertakings–crafted by the group’s founder–Ryuho Okawa–is a book in which he claims to have channeled the spirit of Iris Chang, the late author of The Rape of Nanking. In this piece of offal, Okawa claims that Iris Chang’s spirit has confessed to publishing a false book, and wishes that it be withdrawn. In FTR #‘s 1107 and 1108 we looked at the suspicious death of Iris Chang, whose work overlapped the world of Black Gold discussed by the Seagraves in “Gold Warriors”.
Intellectual and Political Prostitution at Harvard (A “Zero” Sum Game) UPDATED ON 2/25 and 2/26/2021
In an example of the kind of intellectual and historical skewing that can accompany political rewards, a Harvard professor has written a paper claiming that the Comfort Women–slave prostitutes conscripted by the Japanese army before and during World War II–volunteered for that service. This follows J. Mark Ramseyer’s receipt of The Order of the Rising Sun awarded by the Japanese government after World War II. In FTR #1140, we documented the enslavement of the Comfort Women at length and in detail. “. . . . Worst of Japan’s slave programs was that of the Comfort Women. Young girls, many not even 13 years old, were shanghaied into sexual slavery. After the war, Tokyo insisted all Comfort Women were merely prostitutes who volunteered, and that the entire operation was run by private enterprise. Both statements are demonstrably false. . . . Bookkeeping was thorough, with forms for each woman listing daily earnings and number of clients. Up to 200,000 young women and adolescent girls were forced into this sexual slavery, to serve more than 3.5‑million Japanese soldiers. Each was expected to have fifteen partners a day. . . .” Ramseyer is the Mitsubishi Professor of Legal Studies at Harvard–manifesting the role of one of Japan’s zaibatsu in the world of academia. One of the most important transnational corporations, Mitsubishi–manufacturer of the Zero fighter in World War II–has benefitted from corporate influence in the U.S. diplomatic corps: ” . . . . U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley was adamant in rejecting compensation for POW’s and other slave laborers, insisting that ‘The peace treaty put aside all claims against Japan.’ . . . . After retiring as ambassador and returning to Washington, Foley openly became a paid lobbyist for Mitsubishi Corporation as a member of its advisory panel on strategy. Mitsubishi was among the biggest employers of American slave labor during the war. . . .” Ramseyer has also revised history in his analysis of the Kanto massacre following the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, in which ethnic Koreans were subjected to a brutal pogrom by the Japanese security forces. ” . . . . Also in 2021, Ramseyer emerged at the center of controversy over a forthcoming chapter in The Cambridge Handbook of Privatization, from Cambridge University Press. Writing on the Kantō Massacre in which thousands of resident Koreans in Japan were murdered, Ramseyer depicted the Koreans as ‘gangs’ that ‘torched buildings, planted bombs, [and] poisoned water supplies.’ . . .”
FTR #1141 Deep Politics and the Death of Park Won-Soon, Part 2.
The late Park Won-soon was a leading political reformer and critic in South Korean politics, as well as being a probable candidate in the 2022 presidential campaign. Of particular significance in assessing the suspicious circumstances of his death are the overlapping areas in which his criticism placed him afoul of political, economic and historical dynamics stemming from the Japanese Golden Lily program and the placement of that consummate wealth at the foundation of the post-World War II American and global system.
In addition, the “Black Gold” accumulated through the Golden Lily program and Nazi loot provided an economic foundation for post-World War II covert operations. (FTR #‘s 427, 428, 446, 451, 501, 688, 689, 1106, 1107 & 1108 deal with the subject of the Golden Lily program successfully implemented by the Japanese to loot Asia.)
An advocate of reconciliation between North and South Korea, Park Won-soon’s stance on the two nations placed him at odds with prevailing American, South Korean and Japanese national security policy.
A lawsuit was filed by a conservative South Korean lawyer against the Kim Yo-jong, the sister of North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un. This is noteworthy in the context of the death of Park Won-soon, who was an advocate of reconciliation between North and South Korea. Korean right-wingers have called him a “commie” for his advocacy of improved relations between the countries.
Relations between the Koreas are very much on the front burner.
Much of the program details the centuries-long Japanese looting of Korea, culminating in Japan’s 1905 colonization of that country. In 1910, Korea was declared to be Japanese national territory, thereby denominating all material and cultural wealth of Korea as Japanese.
The bulk of the program consists of a history of Japan’s colonization of Korea. That colonial occupation was a major target of the late Park Won-soon’s criticism.
Again, when it incorporated the Golden Lily wealth into the postwar “Black Gold” cache and John Foster Dulles engineered the 1951 Peace Treaty, the U.S. “signed off” on Japan’s actions in Korea and elsewhere in Asia.
Japan’s looting of Korea took place over centuries. In Gold Warriors, the Seagraves present the history of Japan’s rape of Korea, beginning with their account of the grisly murder of Korean Queen Min in 1894. ” . . . . the defenseless queen was stabbed and slashed repeatedly, and carried wailing out to the palace garden where she was thrown onto a pile of firewood, drenched with kerosene, and set aflame. An american military advisor, General William Dye, was one of several foreigners who heard and saw the killers milling around in the palace compound with dawn swords while the queen was burned alive. . . .”
A snapshot of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea, a focal point of criticism of Park Won-soon:” . . . . [General] Terauchi was extraordinarily brutal, setting a precedent for Japanese behavior in all the countries, it would occupy over coming decades. Determined to crush all resistance, he told Koreans, ‘I will whip you with scorpions!’ He set up a sadistic police force of Korean yakuza, ordering it to use torture as a matter of course, for ‘no Oriental can be expected to tell the truth except under torture’. These police were closely supervised by Japan’s gestapo, the kempeitai. . . . ‘Japan’s aim,’ said Korean historian Yi Kibeck, ‘was to eradicate consciousness of Korean national identity, roots and all, and thus to obliterate the very existence of the Korean people from the face of the earth.’ . . . the peninsula was stripped of everything from artworks to root vegetables. As Korea now belonged to Japan, the transfer of cultural property—looting—was not theft. How can you steal something that already belongs to you? . . .”
Key elements of analysis of the Japanese political, economic and cultural decimation of Korea: The looting of Korea took place over centuries; the Black Ocean and Black Dragon societies (forerunners of the Unification Church and, possibly, the Shincheonji cult) played a key role in instigating the incremental Japanese conquest of Korea; the economic and cultural looting of Korea had already rendered that country one of the weakest in Asia by the nineteenth century; (Korea had been one of the most advanced civilizations on earth, prior to Japanese conquest); for centuries, China had functioned as a military protector of Korea; as noted above, there was wholesale economic and cultural plunder; millions of Koreans were enslaved to work in Japan and, during World War II, in Golden Lily facilities, where they were worked to death or buried alive; many more Koreans were conscripted as soldiers into Japan’s army; torture was routine in Japan’s occupation of Korea, as was summary execution and imprisonment on trumped-up charges; Koreans were forbidden from speaking their own language; even Japanese school teachers wore uniforms and carried swords; as highlighted in the previous program, many Korean women were forced to become slave prostitutes for the Japanese army–“Comfort Women.”
After a preview of discussion of John Foster Dulles and his negotiation of the 1951 Peace Treaty institutionalizing the looting and brutalization of Asia by the Japanese–a treaty that received diplomatic momentum from the advent of the Korean War–we conclude with an obituary of a South Korean general whose career is an embodiment of the deep politics surrounding the life and death of Park Won-soon.
General Paik Sun-yup was a Korean four-star general, whose service in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II has been a focal point of controversy in South Korea. General Sun-yup embodied the ongoing controversy in Korea over Japan’s occupation and the subsequent unfolding of events leading up to, and including the Korean War. “. . . . In 1941, he joined the army of Manchukuo, a puppet state that imperial Japan had established in Manchuria, and served in a unit known for hunting down Korean guerrillas fighting for independence . . .”
FTR #1139 The Anthrax Attacks, the Invasion of Iraq and Expansion of Biological Warfare Capabilities
As the title indicates, this program presents political and historical foundation for the exponential expansion of American biological warfare infrastructure following the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Important background information comes from the Whitney Webb article about DARPA spending on bat-borne coronaviruses.
The Broadcasting Board of Governors–a CIA “derivative”–and The Washington Times (owned by the Unification Church) helped develop disinformation about SARS CoV‑2 coming from a Chinese Biological Warfare lab. Both were instrumental in hyping the anthrax attacks as authored by Saddam Hussein, as well. The Washington Times also presented information floated by Steven Hatfill that foreshadowed subsequent charges that Saddam Hussein was developing bioweapons and was behind the 2001 anthrax attacks.
In addition, the Project For a New American Century was advancing an agenda in which genetically-engineered biological warfare technology as essential to continued American global dominance.
As will be seen below, a key functionary in the PNAC milieu was former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former chairman of the board of Gilead Sciences.
In FTR #‘s 1135, 1136 and 1137, we relied heavily on the Kris Newby’s Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons. In that book, Ms. Newby networked with a group of experienced, Cold War biological warfare professionals whom she termed “the Brain Trust.” They were convinced that Fort Detrick scientist Bruce Ivins–the “lone nut” who conveniently committed suicide and was fingered as the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks–was framed. ” . . . . Among other subjects, they discussed . . . technical details on why they believed that their colleague Bruce Ivins had been framed as the anthrax mailer . . . .”
Much of the program centers on the 2001 attacks and the suspicion that focused on Steven Hatfill as a possible perpetrator of them. Although exonerated in the attacks, Hatfill was the focal point of considerable suspicion in connection with the event. Our suspicion is that he is an operative of one or another intelligence agency, CIA being the most probable.
We suspect that the anthrax attacks were a provocation aimed at justifying the invasion of Iraq and spurring development of the U.S. biological warfare capability.
Of particular note is the apparent “operational Teflon” worn by Hatfill. Although circumstantial evidence pointed in his direction, he appeared to be altogether “off limits” to investigative elements of Alphabet Soup. Don Foster noted the unusual treatment accorded to Hatfill by the powers that be.
Of significance, as well, are the numerous examples of foreshadowing of the forensic circumstances of the anthrax attacks, as well as other “false alarm” incidents that occurred before and after the fatal attacks. It requires little to see statements and articles by notables such as Bill Patrick and the seemingly ubiquitous Steven Hatfill as laying a foundation of credibility for subsequent events.
Note that the National Institutes of Health have also partnered with CIA and the Pentagon, as underscored by an article about a BSL‑4 lab at Boston University.
1.–As the article notes, as of 2007, the U.S. had “more than a dozen” BSL4 labs–China commissioned its first as of 2017. a tenfold increase in funding for BSL4 labs occurred because of the anthrax attacks of 2001. Those attacks might be seen as something of a provocation, spurring a dramatic increase in “dual use” biowarfare research, under the cover of “legitimate” medical/scientific research. In FTR #1128, we hypothesized about the milieu of Steven Hatfill and apartheid-linked interests as possible authors of a vectoring of New York City with Sars COV2: ” . . . . Before the anthrax mailings of 2001, the United States had just two BSL4 labs—both within the razor-wire confines of government-owned campuses. Now, thanks to a tenfold increase in funding—from $200 million in 2001 to $2 billion in 2006—more than a dozen such facilities can be found at universities and private companies across the country. . . .”
2.–The Boston University lab exemplifies the Pentagon and CIA presence in BSL‑4 facility “dual use”: ” . . . . But some scientists say that argument obscures the true purpose of the current biodefense boom: to study potential biological weapons. ‘The university portrays it as an emerging infectious disease lab,’ says David Ozonoff, a Boston University epidemiologist whose office is right across the street from the new BSL4 facility. ‘But they are talking about studying things like small pox and inhalation anthrax, which pose no public health threat other than as bioweapons.’ . . . The original NIH mandate for the lab indicated that many groups—including the CIA and Department of Defense—would be allowed to use the lab for their own research, the nature of which BU might have little control over. . . .”
As noted in past programs, Gilead Sciences is very well-connected professionally, with former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (among other political luminaries) serving on its board of directors. Rumsfeld was chairman of the board from 1997 until he left in 2001 to become George W. Bush’s Secretary of Defense.
Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense during the period in which the 2001 anthrax attacks occurred.
During the post‑9/11 period of exploding government investments in biodefense programs, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was still holding onto massive amounts of Gilead stock, which was increasing in value dramatically. What kind of relationship did Gilead develop with the US biodefense national security state during this period? That seems like a pretty important question at this point in time.
The U.S. government was among the customers whose purchases drove up the Gilead earnings and stock price: ” . . . . What’s more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world’s biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. . . .”
Several years into his tenure at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld made a killing on the sale of Gilead Sciences’ stock, which rose exponentially in value following its development of Tamiflu as a treatment for H5N1 avian flu.” . . . . The firm made a loss in 2003, the year before concern about bird flu started. Then revenues from Tamiflu almost quadrupled, to $44.6m, helping put the company well into the black. Sales almost quadrupled again, to $161.6m last year. During this time the share price trebled. Mr Rumsfeld sold some of his Gilead shares in 2004 reaping – according to the financial disclosure report he is required to make each year – capital gains of more than $5m. The report showed that he still had up to $25m-worth of shares at the end of 2004, and at least one analyst believes his stake has grown well beyond that figure, as the share price has soared. . . .”
Donald Rumsfeld was a signatory to the 1998 letter to President Clinton by the Project for a New American Century. That letter advocated a harder line against Iraq. ” . . . . Rumsfeld has strong ties to the Intelligence Community, as well as to the Atlantic Institute, and is a member of the Bilderberg group. He is a financial supporter for the Center for Security Policy. Rumsfeld was one of the signers of the January 26, 1998, Project for the New American Century (PNAC) letter sent to President William Jefferson Clinton. . . .”
DARPA and the Pentagon have into the application of genetic engineering in order to create ethno-specific biological warfare weapons, as discussed by the Project for a New American Century.
In past programs and posts, we have noted that DARPA was researching bat-borne coronaviruses. One can but wonder to what extent the PNAC doctrine helped spawn the DARPA research into coronaviruses and, possibly, the Covid-19 pandemic.
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