Mike walks us through the complex situation in China in the aftermath of World War II, with armed Japanese operating in the country, Soviet forces occupying Manchuria, and the Nationalist and Communist Chinese resuming their civil war with one another. The decisive phase of the civil war ensues, culminating in the Communist takeover of mainland China and the Nationalist retreat to Taiwan. Marshall then leads our discussion of the efforts of American leaders, including President Truman and Secretaries of State George C. Marshall and Dean Acheson, to determine a way forward in their China policy while Madame Chiang and General Claire Chennault lobby for continued support to the corrupt Nationalist regime of Chiang Kai-shek, whose constant demands for more American aid earn him the derisive nickname “Cash My Check.”

Mike again leads us in our narrative of how America continued to fall short of its goals for China in World War II during the second half of the war. We meet General Claire Chennault of 'Flying Tigers' fame, whose ideas for how to fight in China contradict those of his bitter rival, General Joseph Stilwell, but gain favor with Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang and, for a while, with Franklin Roosevelt. Ultimately, the war in China ends in frustration for America, and Mike, Marshall, and Blake discuss how the historiography of the China-Burma-India Theater of World War II has changed, but still can obscure a more basic American misunderstanding of Chiang, his government, his military, and his Communist rivals during the war. They also review the obstacles to the Nationalists and Communists making common cause in China, which will lead to a resumption of their civil war after World War II ends.

Mike leads our discussion of the American experience in China during World War II. Chiang Kai-shek, Franklin Roosevelt, and General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell are the central figures in this episode, which explores many aspects of the war's often-overlooked China-Burma-India Theater and introduces us to the Flying Tigers, the Burma Road, Merrill’s Marauders, and the “Over the Hump” cargo flights from India to China. Roosevelt’s postwar goals for China, differing advice FDR gets as to how to handle Chiang, and Stilwell’s fraught relationship with Chiang drive our narrative as issues of military strategy, operations, logistics, and reform lead to disagreement between “Vinegar Joe” and the Generalissimo and, ultimately, to their disdain for one another.

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Marshall, Blake, and Mike discuss America’s view of China from the 1920s through the early 1940s and the strong influence Americans raised by missionaries in China, notably Henry Luce and Pearl Buck, had on that view. Chiang Kai-shek emerges as the leader of the Republic of China, and Americans contribute money to Chiang and his in-laws, the Soongs – who have become China's new "dynasty" – in the belief that they will use it to modernize China. But Chinese corruption, Chiang’s inability to gain control of the entire country from warlords and Mao Tse-tung’s Communists, and war with both the Communists and Japan obstruct that modernization and make it unlikely that China will emerge from World War II as one of Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Policemen” of the postwar world.

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Mike walks us through the events of the Boxer Rebellion, a conflict in which Chinese rebels attempted to slaughter all foreigners and Chinese Christians in China. Marshall then explains how this drove missionaries into isolated compounds, from which they could look out on the Chinese — and judge them — without gaining any real knowledge of the Chinese people or their culture. Marshall also introduces us to Henry Luce, a child of American missionaries who used his innovative approaches to journalism in the 1920s to give America a narrative of China reflective more of his own views than of Chinese reality.

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As the Manchu dynasty weakens during the 19th century, U.S. missionaries arrive. Christian evangelization leads to the outbreak of the long, bloody, brutal, and genocidal Taiping Rebellion, whose leader claims to be the younger brother of Jesus, and (not for the last time) an American official gets fired for assessing accurately what it all means. Americans fear the “Yellow Peril” as Chinese immigration to the United States rises with the California Gold Rush and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, and in China the Boxer Rebellion breaks out with a goal of killing all foreigners. Meanwhile, the U.S. missionary influence on the revolutionaries Charlie Soong and Sun Yat-sen fosters the rise of a new Chinese elite which will impose upon the United States a view of China and East Asia that has a lot more to do with American wishful thinking than with reality.

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Where trade goes, conflict follows! While Britain and the East India Company focus on the opium trade with China, Americans of the first half of the 19th century try to break into the Chinese market with...well...opium, but also with ginseng, sandalwood, furs, and even sea cucumbers. After the British crush the Chinese in the First Opium War, few Americans (other than John Quincy Adams) approve of British aggression. But the war’s results open up China to the West like never before, and Americans respond by increasing trade, and by sending Christian missionaries to China to spread the Gospel. (Listen until the end for a behind-the-scenes segment.)

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Ben Franklin got China wrong, and America still does today! Marshall again will lead our discussion in a new series, “Tea, Drugs, and Jesus,” looking at how the United States keeps misunderstanding China, in no small part because American political leaders often refuse to listen to experts on Chinese affairs. In the first episode, we set the stage for what is to come by exploring the environment in which the United States became involved in the China trade in the 19th century. We discuss China’s isolationism and stagnation, Britain and the East India Company, tea and silver, silk and porcelain – and opium.

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