Transcripts
Follow the money, How China Bought the World, written by Michael William McCarthy, narrated
Speaker:by Russell Newton.
Speaker:No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society.
Speaker:If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs.
Speaker:We should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.
Speaker:Human humorist PJ O'Rourke.
Speaker:The first rule of journalism, according to O'Rourke, is never pay for your own drinks.
Speaker:The second rule of journalism, according to journalists sober enough to have an intelligent
Speaker:opinion, might be start at the beginning.
Speaker:You see, every good story has a beginning, middle, and sometimes even an end.
Speaker:To tell the whole story, you need to back up the horse and wagon to the starting point,
Speaker:if you can find it.
Speaker:If you are a certain age, you may remember the very real threat of nuclear war between
Speaker:the USA and the USSR back in the early 60s, when Nikita Khrushchev thought he could sneak
Speaker:missiles into Cuba without anyone noticing.
Speaker:This came to the attention of US President John F. Kennedy, who sent warships to intervene.
Speaker:As the motion picture 13 days later revealed, the world came very close to nuclear Armageddon.
Speaker:If you are of that certain age, you may also have heard your mother tell you to finish
Speaker:your food at dinner.
Speaker:This warning usually came with the addendum, there are starving people in Africa, or China,
Speaker:India, Pakistan, depending on your mother's grasp of global geography.
Speaker:How and why a young child would have any interest in countries and starvation on the other side
Speaker:of the world is a different story altogether.
Speaker:But food was scarce those days for many people, even in North America.
Speaker:The point is that China was a poverty-stricken nation for centuries up to just one generation
Speaker:ago.
Speaker:Those of a current age may think that China has always been a prosperous society, cranking
Speaker:out vast amounts of consumer goods in special economic zones to send to Western consumers
Speaker:keen to buy made-in-China stuff simply because it is cheap.
Speaker:China was always a poor country during thousands of years of rule by various emperors and dynasties,
Speaker:and even under the rule of foreign countries in the 19th and 20th centuries, see Japan
Speaker:and Great Britain.
Speaker:When the Communist Party gained control in 1949, the country sank lower and lower into
Speaker:poverty.
Speaker:The old joke about communism is, we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us.
Speaker:Communism is a fine idea, in concept, but it doesn't work in reality.
Speaker:In nature being what it is, most people want to own or control what they have worked for.
Speaker:In the case of China and its rise to global power, many journalists will agree that the
Speaker:story starts with the death of that jolly old mass-murder Mao Zedong, when Deng Xiaoping
Speaker:took control of the CCP, Chinese Communist Party, in 1978, and instituted market reforms.
Speaker:This is bureaucratic jargon for allowing business people to do business, sometimes referred
Speaker:to as capitalism, as long as the CCP leaders maintain rigid control of the country and got
Speaker:credit for the resulting prosperity.
Speaker:Should you listen to the wisdom of Wikipedia, never the most detailed source, but it saves
Speaker:time doing deeper research, the reforms carried out by Deng and his allies gradually led China
Speaker:away from a planned economy and Maoist ideologies, opened it up to foreign investment and technology,
Speaker:and introduced its vast labor force to the global market, thus turning China into one
Speaker:of the world's fastest growing economies.
Speaker:In 2010, China overtook Japan as the world's second largest economy by nominal GDP, and
Speaker:in 2014 overtook the United States by becoming the world's largest economy by GDP.
Speaker:Posters of Mao still adorn buildings all over China, but sorry, it's Deng who deserves
Speaker:the credit, if that's what you call it.
Speaker:Journalists whose own credit rating doesn't allow them to belly up to the bar and add
Speaker:to their tab and therefore must pay their own way can accept this prevailing wiki wisdom
Speaker:or else must perform the full gumshoe themselves, which means trudging all the way back along
Speaker:the path of history to where the story of modern Chinese power truly begins, and that
Speaker:trail leads way past Chairman Mao and his band of renown.
Speaker:In fact, should you wish to compare the global economy today, where China acts as chief bartender
Speaker:and maintains control of the till, the real beginning of the story starts over 150 years
Speaker:ago with the opium wars of 1839 through 1860.
Speaker:That conflict paved the way for the destruction of the Chinese economy of the time, a scenario
Speaker:that is being reversed today as the Western world sends much of its money to Chinese factories
Speaker:to buy consumer goods on which the global economy is now precariously balanced.
Speaker:Not familiar with the opium wars?
Speaker:Let's back up the wheel of time even a bit further to provide full context.
Speaker:In the early years of the 1800s, inventor James Watt finally perfected and patented
Speaker:the steam engine, a device on which engineers had been working for many years.
Speaker:By the 1850s, the British Industrial Revolution had transformed Great Britain into the wealthiest
Speaker:country in the world.
Speaker:Fortunes were being made from factories cranking out products, transported by rail to ports
Speaker:and onto ships and around the world.
Speaker:The huge British naval fleet came in handy in several ways.
Speaker:However, massive amounts of pollution dumped into rivers from factories had the unpleasant
Speaker:side effect of poisoning England's waterways.
Speaker:Water was no longer safe to drink.
Speaker:The population at large turned to beer.
Speaker:Children as young as age six were drinking booze in the factories where they worked because
Speaker:only rich children went to school in those days.
Speaker:Great Britain became a nation of alcoholics.
Speaker:The British upper classes became alarmed, production was being affected, they had heard
Speaker:rumors of a strange but healthy beverage known as chai, or tea, found only in far away China.
Speaker:According to esteemed author Simon Winchester in his 1996 book The River at the Center
Speaker:of the World, the British East India Company sent a Scottish spy named Robert Fortune on
Speaker:a trip to China's interior on a mission to steal the secrets of tea horticulture.
Speaker:The Scotsman dawned to disguise and headed into the Wu sea shin hills in a bold act of
Speaker:corporate espionage risking his life.
Speaker:He brought back the word about chai and the British became immediately interested and
Speaker:have been addicted to tea ever since.
Speaker:Demand for tea soon became so high that the British actually ran out of ways to pay for
Speaker:it.
Speaker:The Chinese would accept only silver or gold as payment, sorry, no barter or trade.
Speaker:Any market for Western goods in China was not allowed and trade laws denied foreigners
Speaker:any access to China's markets.
Speaker:This created a severe silver crisis in Europe and a huge global trade imbalance.
Speaker:The problem was only alleviated when the British found a product that Chinese consumers badly
Speaker:wanted, the highly addictive opium grown in the British colony of India.
Speaker:The British harvested the drug, transported it to China, and ran the opium down Chinese
Speaker:throats by the use of gun boats on the Pearl and Yangtze rivers.
Speaker:As a result, the number of drug addicts in China greatly increased, but the global trade
Speaker:imbalance was resolved.
Speaker:The Chinese leaders were very upset.
Speaker:A war started.
Speaker:The subsequent British victory, thanks to its naval power, resulted in the Treaty of
Speaker:Nanking.
Speaker:The Chinese later denounced it as unequal, granted extra-territoriality to England including
Speaker:what soon became the colony of Hong Kong.
Speaker:The Chinese were embarrassed and have remained upset with the West ever since.
Speaker:Getting a little deeper into addictions, an op-ed I published in the Vancouver Sun
Speaker:reveals most addictions require policing or government attention because of the damage
Speaker:done to the health of the addict and subsequently to the economy.
Speaker:The effects of drug addiction can be devastating, as the current opioid crisis in North America
Speaker:attests.
Speaker:However, addiction to some safe drugs such as marijuana, now legal in Canada and some
Speaker:other countries, doesn't include the harsh, damaging physical side effects such as heroin,
Speaker:alcohol, fentanyl, and other hard drugs provide.
Speaker:Marijuana addicts don't even consider their addiction to the drug as an addiction.
Speaker:They think people who are not stoned are weird.
Speaker:In my own youth, I confess to such unbalanced, dope thinking myself in retrospect.
Speaker:My favorite bumper sticker at the time was, I'm not as think as you stoned I am.
Speaker:Right on, brother.
Speaker:Without a doubt, North Americans have become seriously addicted to mindless materialism,
Speaker:advertised continually in all media as a cure for depression.
Speaker:Since many North Americans have no meaning in their lives other than the forlorn hope
Speaker:for some obscure pursuit of happiness, they attempt to find some form of contentment through
Speaker:endless consumerism.
Speaker:Shopping has progressed from a necessity to a recreational activity to a passion to an
Speaker:addiction.
Speaker:For many, consumerism has become a way of life.
Speaker:The North American economy, formerly based on agriculture than manufacturing, is now
Speaker:structured around consumerism.
Speaker:Walmart once was Black Friday, has turned into a black hole, and a shopping season
Speaker:that runs from Thanksgiving to the middle of January, a patriotic activity needed to
Speaker:balance the books at year end.
Speaker:Walmart is the new church to be attended on a regular basis where made in China is worshipped
Speaker:in the form of cheap sneakers and t-shirts made in gulags by political prisoners.
Speaker:The CCP, thinking back to the opium wars, must be laughing their heads off.
Speaker:While Deng took power after the death of Mao in 1978, opening the door to controlled capitalism,
Speaker:one must look a tad further back to 1971, when Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State and
Speaker:National Security Advisor during the administration of the corrupt tricky Dick Nixon, made a secret
Speaker:flight from Pakistan to Beijing to whisper in the ear of communist officials.
Speaker:While America had been fighting communism for decades in Asia, first in Korea and then
Speaker:Vietnam, citing the domino theory that country after country would fall prey to the communists,
Speaker:if not stopped, Kissinger hinted that events might be changing.
Speaker:Although the CCP under Mao was ruthlessly communist, showing no concern for human rights
Speaker:whatsoever and killing tens of millions of its own people through its great leap forward
Speaker:and cultural revolution campaigns in order to maintain power, its economy had been destroyed
Speaker:in the process.
Speaker:Perhaps America might forget about fighting communism, whispered Kissinger.
Speaker:After all, there was money to be made, plus, the American people were tired of seeing their
Speaker:young boys coming home from Vietnam in body bags, and hey, communist USSR was the real
Speaker:enemy anyway.
Speaker:Maybe the United States and China could become buddies?
Speaker:Besides, tricky Dick Nixon badly needed an image improvement.
Speaker:This was all kept secret from the American public, of course.
Speaker:No one knew of Kissinger's flight to Beijing until much later.
Speaker:However, the seed had been planted and would grow.
Speaker:Due to an unending curiosity, I've traveled to nearly 50 countries around the world, either
Speaker:paying my own way or accepting invitations from various tourism bureaus in exchange for
Speaker:publishing travel articles in many Canadian newspapers and magazines, plus writing books
Speaker:and producing videos and documentaries.
Speaker:At first, I thought only my hometown of Vancouver was heavily affected by massive amounts of
Speaker:Chinese money poured into real estate.
Speaker:As you will discover in this book about Chinese wealth, right off the bat during trips to Los
Speaker:Angeles and Europe and even the South Seas, I was astounded to discover that the Chinese
Speaker:were literally buying up the planet.
Speaker:Billions of dollars have been invested in Vancouver alone.
Speaker:But that was chump change compared to what I discovered virtually every place I went.
Speaker:What could the total amount of Chinese wealth possibly be?
Speaker:Where in the world could these massive amounts of money have originated?
Speaker:Who made the investments?
Speaker:Who provided the seed money and designed the plan?
Speaker:I thought it might be a good idea to find out, so I put my nose to the trail.
Speaker:As a journalist, for me the story of modern Chinese power started quite accidentally on
Speaker:a strange little island off the Chinese coast where apparently the Cold War, which has no
Speaker:connection to the Opium War, was launched on a trip sponsored by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau.
Speaker:I had never heard of Kinmen Island, formerly known as Kimoi, nor had I any plans to go
Speaker:there.
Speaker:But I not visited the strange little sword factory of Maestro Wu on Kinmen, I might
Speaker:never have stuck my nose into the mystery.
Speaker:Every good story has a beginning, middle, and an end, although that ending is yet to
Speaker:come.
Speaker:Perhaps it's time to look a little deeper into modern China and how it has become a
Speaker:threat to start World War III.
Speaker:With regards to Mr. O'Rourke, that's certainly no joke at all.
Speaker:When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in a society, they
Speaker:create for themselves, in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral
Speaker:code that glorifies it.
Speaker:Frederick Bastiat
Speaker:Kinmen Island, off the Chinese mainland, is a tourist attraction of a very different
Speaker:kind.
Speaker:Formerly known as Kimoi, there are no museums, beaches, hip restaurants, night clubs, ancient
Speaker:ruins, or that sort of typical tourist attraction.
Speaker:The island is known for its tunnels.
Speaker:And actually, Kinmen is neither famous nor exciting, but it should be.
Speaker:If you read this book and tell all your friends, it may well be.
Speaker:Kinmen has a fascinating past and an important future.
Speaker:It was on the cutting edge of the Cold War, and if or when the CCP attempts to invade
Speaker:Taiwan again, it may be the place where World War III erupts.
Speaker:For reasons best known to itself, Kinmen belongs to Taiwan, but the island is no more than
Speaker:a hop, skip, and jump from mainland China.
Speaker:In 1949, the Chinese Civil War ended with the victory of the Communist People's Republic
Speaker:of China, PRC.
Speaker:The government of the Republic of China, ROC, controlled by Chiang Kai-shek, and his Kumen
Speaker:Tong, KMT followers, along with 1.3 million anti-communist citizens fled from mainland
Speaker:China to Formosa, now known as Taiwan.
Speaker:Given the state of poverty in China after World War II, a lot of people joined the CCP, Chinese
Speaker:Communist Party, which formed the People's Liberation Army, PLA, and won a war against
Speaker:the Nationalists.
Speaker:Following Shek in grim pursuit, in 1954, Chairman Mao started an artillery barrage from the
Speaker:mainland aimed at destroying the General's troops based on Kinmen.
Speaker:Rather than get blown to bits, the Taiwanese dug tunnels.
Speaker:They dug an awful lot of tunnels.
Speaker:They built an entire city underground, complete with streets, barracks, hospitals, schools,
Speaker:and even a marina.
Speaker:The CCP bombardment went on for years, first with artillery, and then with propaganda leaflets.
Speaker:The communists only gave up the battle after the U.S. 7th Fleet showed up and Mao's invasion
Speaker:attempt ended.
Speaker:U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter, 1959 to 1961, later referred to the conflict
Speaker:as the first serious nuclear crisis.
Speaker:The China Quarterly Volume 62, June 1975, Pages 263 to 270, contains mention of two volumes
Speaker:of Cultural Revolution Compilations by Mao Zedong.
Speaker:Although these documents cannot be authenticated as to accuracy of transcription and are obviously
Speaker:selective, they throw light on the 1958 Kimoy Crisis with surprisingly frank admissions
Speaker:of miscalculation on Mao's part, both in terms of his objective in the bombardment
Speaker:and his underestimation of the American response to it.
Speaker:However, the distinguished British historian Margaret McMillan believes that Mao may have
Speaker:concluded it was in the best interest of the PLA to leave Kimoy in the hands of the Nationalists.
Speaker:If the PLA were to seize the islands, or the Nationalists were to abandon them, the distance
Speaker:between the mainland and Taiwan would lengthen from a few miles to over a hundred, and lengthen
Speaker:perhaps in thought as well.
Speaker:Moreover, the acquisition of these offshore islands by the PLA and their separation from
Speaker:Nationalist control in Taipei would tend to validate acceptance of the two China's policy,
Speaker:to which both Mao and Shanghai Shhek were vehemently opposed, both claiming to be the real boss
Speaker:of China.
Speaker:The Taiwanese have maintained troops on Kinmen ever since.
Speaker:In time, they started to rebuild the town above ground.
Speaker:Some of the tunnels were discontinued, but then some genius eventually got the idea that
Speaker:there might be a chance to create a tourism business, someone like the tunnels dug by
Speaker:the Viet Cong in Vietnam that still draw many Western tourists keen to see where Charlie
Speaker:hid during the war, and ate rat meat while the Yankees stuffed themselves fat with fine
Speaker:French food in what was then known as Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City.
Speaker:The Taiwan Tourism Bureau and I had become pleased by this time with our ongoing relationship.
Speaker:They had offered me complimentary trips to Taiwan several times, complete with drivers,
Speaker:guides, and translators, to explore their country and do whatever I wanted, in exchange
Speaker:for my writing and publishing articles in Canadian newspapers about my experiences.
Speaker:In all honesty, I had never heard of Kinmen Island and had not requested to go there.
Speaker:On this particular press trip, a Korean journalist wanted to visit Kinmen for an article he had
Speaker:been assigned to write.
Speaker:I had no idea whatsoever what we would find there.
Speaker:We were guided to the entrance of a tunnel, which was guarded by a teenage boy with a
Speaker:goofy grin who didn't look capable of winning a risk-wrestling contest.
Speaker:Never mind fighting a war.
Speaker:We ducked our heads and entered.
Speaker:After crawling through a series of tunnels and establishing the obvious fact that tall
Speaker:people should take care for their craniums, even when wearing a hard hat, we emerged to
Speaker:the surface somewhat dazed, but right around the corner from Maestro Wu's Sword Shop,
Speaker:a business that the Tourism Bureau also wished to promote.
Speaker:The front area of Maestro Wu's shop looked normal enough.
Speaker:There were shelves on the walls on which boxes were stacked, there was a cash register behind
Speaker:a counter, and several smiling sales ladies, although none spoke English.
Speaker:The lighting was bright and modern.
Speaker:It looked like a simple tea shop, although in this instance, the products on sale were
Speaker:not tea, but an array of glistening metal knives and swords in various sizes.
Speaker:Why anyone in this day and age would want a sword as a souvenir of a visit to Taiwan,
Speaker:I thought puzzling, but like with all good souvenirs, the value was found in the backstory,
Speaker:or the provenance as the word is named in regards to antiques.
Speaker:We were invited past the gift shop through a set of swinging doors into the rear of the
Speaker:building, which suddenly transformed itself into a factory.
Speaker:There was a brick oven burning red from fired coal, along with a row of half a dozen machines
Speaker:used to sand and polish metal.
Speaker:Throughout the room was a giant stack of what looked like old rusted metal milk bottles
Speaker:piled high.
Speaker:There were thousands of them, all loosely scattered one on top of the other in disarray.
Speaker:Some were standing upright, others lying on their sides all over the floor.
Speaker:These were, we were casually informed, bombs left over from the PLA's bombardment of the
Speaker:island during the Cold War.
Speaker:They'd been gathered where they'd fallen all over the island and brought to Maistro
Speaker:Wu's factory.
Speaker:It looked like he had access to enough ancient ammunition to blow up both Kinmen and the
Speaker:South China Sea.
Speaker:Being a captive audience to witness the procedure, Maistro Wu volunteered to take a bomb and
Speaker:shape it into a knife right in front of our eyes.
Speaker:I pointed to my watch to indicate we did not have all day, to stand inside a hot and smoky
Speaker:factory when there was still time to go find more tunnels in which we could smack our heads.
Speaker:But the translator responded that the Maistro could in fact create a fully finished product
Speaker:from scrap metal to knife in just over 18 minutes.
Speaker:The Maistros selected a bomb from the large, untidy pile.
Speaker:He brought it over to the furnace, picked up a pair of tongs, and placed the bomb inside
Speaker:where it immediately started to glow.
Speaker:He stepped over to a foot pump and blew air into the chamber and the coals glowed even
Speaker:redder.
Speaker:After a few minutes he started to give it a go to whacking with a rod.
Speaker:The bomb now looked like a blob.
Speaker:With various instruments and years of practice, within ten minutes the bomb had been reduced
Speaker:to the required width.
Speaker:He removed it from the furnace and took the blob over to a sink where he plunked it in
Speaker:cold water.
Speaker:In less than two minutes the blob was transformed and glistened in the eerie light of the factory
Speaker:like a knife.
Speaker:When it looked just right, the Maistro carried the carved steel over to the bench where he
Speaker:applied glue to a wooden handle and attached the steel to the handle.
Speaker:From start to finish, the entire process took less than twenty minutes.
Speaker:Since they retailed at fifty dollars U.S. a knife, I could see where Mr. Wu had acquired
Speaker:the name of Maistro.
Speaker:He had orchestrated a way to turn useless army refuse into a fortune.
Speaker:All this time I'd been holding my breath and biding my time waiting for the correct
Speaker:moment to ask the question that seemed to be the most appropriate under the conditions.
Speaker:Pointing to the huge stack of dusty bombs stacked on the floor, I asked the translator
Speaker:to inquire of the Maistro as to their condition.
Speaker:How does the Maistro know these bombs are all duds?
Speaker:How does he know they're all safe to use?
Speaker:The translator put the question to Mr. Wu.
Speaker:He replied swiftly, an indication that some smartass journalist had put this question
Speaker:to him before.
Speaker:They say they lay there on the island for many years, and after he picked them up, they
Speaker:stay here in factory many years.
Speaker:They are all duds.
Speaker:They don't go off.
Speaker:In the best spirit of contradiction, for which journalists are known, I had saved my best
Speaker:question for last.
Speaker:What happens if and when one actually explodes?
Speaker:This question was put to the Maistro.
Speaker:Until this time, he had not changed his facial expression or cracked a smile.
Speaker:He was a serious artist with a unique skill and a booming business.
Speaker:He turned to me and burst into a big smile and said a few words to the translator.
Speaker:He said, if that happened, reported the translator, then we will never know.
Speaker:Should the PLA decide to invade Taiwan at the bequest of the CCP's current leader Xi
Speaker:Jinping and nuclear weapons be used?
Speaker:Then none of us may ever know the outcome.
Speaker:For many years, the CCP has been playing a clever game now known as soft power, where
Speaker:it has surreptitiously extended its range of operations worldwide, infiltrating the global
Speaker:economy with made-in-China goods, along with an even quieter infiltration of the political
Speaker:and cultural apparatus of many countries.
Speaker:Following a series of well-designed five-year plans since 1950, first under Chairman Mao,
Speaker:the CCP under Jinping has now taken off its gloves and showed the world its fist, and
Speaker:a mighty instrument it is, the Chinese government has announced its plans to retake its place
Speaker:on the global stage, and that desire is to replace the United States as the world's
Speaker:most powerful country.
Speaker:Jinping has stated that the days of democratic states are over and communism is the future.
Speaker:Whoever coined the phrase domino theory back in the day may yet be proved to be right.
Speaker:According to a recent report in Al Jazeera, preparing for potential military action from
Speaker:China as a prospect that has hung over Taiwan since the KMT first fled to the island at
Speaker:the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Speaker:There were three close encounters between the 1950s and 1990s, and now there may be reason
Speaker:to worry once again, as China's People's Liberation Army completes an ambitious military
Speaker:modernization campaign.
Speaker:Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense said the PLA have developed the ability to blockade
Speaker:Taiwan's major airports and harbors, while the Pentagon said the PLA will have the capacity
Speaker:to compel Taiwan's leadership to the negotiation table as early as 2027.
Speaker:Since taking office in 2016, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has focused on improving the armed
Speaker:forces' capabilities and gone on an extensive weapons buying campaign from the United States
Speaker:as her government's relationship with Beijing has darkened.
Speaker:The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden approved a sale of $750 million in weapons
Speaker:to Taiwan after Donald Trump approved $5.1 billion in sales in 2020.
Speaker:The Taiwanese Defense Ministry is now asking for an extra $9 billion in arms over the next
Speaker:few years.
Speaker:As Taiwan's horizon darkens, it needs to reckon with another big question of whether its army
Speaker:and the general public will be ready. Most male citizens are required to complete national
Speaker:service which should, in theory, prepare them to supplement the professional military,
Speaker:now kept at about $188,000 and rising to $215,000 if civilian contractors and trainees are
Speaker:factored into the equation. However, Taiwan faces serious questions about whether its
Speaker:reserves are capable of actually fighting successfully, like the heroic Ukrainians versus the Russians
Speaker:and if an adequate system is in place to oversee them if they are mobilized in a wartime scenario.
Speaker:Taiwan's defense strategy has long focused on asymmetric defense or that it would resist
Speaker:the enemy on the opposite shore, attack it at sea, destroy it in the literal area, and
Speaker:annihilate it on the beachhead, according to the Defense Ministry.
Speaker:In practice, this means that while badly outnumbered by the PLA, Taiwan aims to make itself an unattractive
Speaker:enough target for attack by being able to carry out a prolonged resistance.
Speaker:The military in Taiwan, however, has long been an unpopular career choice for young
Speaker:men due to low pay, poor benefits, and poor social status, as well as negative associations
Speaker:with Taiwan's previous martial law regime when the military played a vital role in suppressing
Speaker:human rights. Also, Taiwan must now contend with the increasing use of grey-zone psychological
Speaker:warfare and other confrontational tactics that could allow China to seize Taiwan without
Speaker:a fight. These range from cyber warfare and misinformation to ramming Taiwanese Coast Guard
Speaker:vessels, PLA patrols of the Taiwan Strait, and sending hundreds of PLA flights into
Speaker:Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone, a swath of land and sea monitored by the military.
Speaker:These patrols have multiple objectives, including testing Taiwan's responses, training PLA pilots,
Speaker:sending warning signals to Taiwan's government, and stoking nationalism at home. Whether the
Speaker:U.S. would come to its defense is deliberately unclear under America's continuing policy
Speaker:of strategic ambiguity that walks the line between defending Taiwan while not angering
Speaker:China.
Speaker:Under the Terms of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. has pledged to make available
Speaker:to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary
Speaker:to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities. America's guarantees, however,
Speaker:stop short of promising military support.
Speaker:Our further media tour of Kinmen Island reveals several small villages worth having a quick
Speaker:look, lots of old, rusting military equipment, like anti-aircraft guns from the 1950s, and
Speaker:the Kinmen Kowliang Liquor Factory. The company is renowned for producing high-proof distilled
Speaker:liquor made from fermented sorghum, fiery liquor so famous and well-liked by consumers
Speaker:that it has become synonymous with Kinmen. The beverage is apparently 58 percent proof
Speaker:of liquor, similar in strength to brandy and whiskey. We reporters are told the liquor
Speaker:is so potent that it has killed more people than the PLA, and we're offered free tastings,
Speaker:but the time of day and busy schedule prevents any malingering. Should you go, I have taste
Speaker:for me. You might even bring a bottle back, I'll wait here for you.
Speaker:The Korean War
Speaker:The Korean police action began on June 25, 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea.
Speaker:North Korea was supported by China and the Soviet Union, while South Korea was supported
Speaker:by the United Nations, principally the United States. Cold War assumptions governed the
Speaker:immediate reaction of U.S. leaders, who instantly concluded that Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin
Speaker:had ordered the invasion as the first step in his plan for world conquest.
Speaker:Communism, President Harrius Truman argued later in his memoirs, was acting in Korea
Speaker:just as Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese had acted 10, 15, and 20 years earlier.
Speaker:America wanted not just to contain communism, they also wanted to prevent the so-called
Speaker:domino effect. Truman was worried that if Korea fell, the next country to fall would
Speaker:be Japan, a country which was very important for American trade. This was probably the
Speaker:most important reason for America's involvement in the war. Almost 40,000 Americans died
Speaker:in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded. The U.S. still has nearly 30,000
Speaker:troops in South Korea. The domino theory is still in effect.
Speaker:Vietnam War timeline. 1946, the French Indochina War broke out with French forces largely
Speaker:supplied by the United States. 1950s, U.S. military advisors emerged in Vietnam in
Speaker:small numbers. 1954, the battle of Dien Bien Phu was a 57-day battle that was a complete
Speaker:route for the French army. The war ended for the French shortly afterward, and the 1954
Speaker:Geneva Accords were signed. 1955, President Eisenhower deploys an advisory group to train
Speaker:the Army of the Republic of Vietnam. 1961, U.S. troops introduced on a large scale.
Speaker:1965, active combat units were at full stage of war. 1969, more than 500,000 U.S. military
Speaker:personnel were stationed in Vietnam. 1970, Nixon announced the phased withdrawal of 150,000
Speaker:troops over the next year. 1973, U.S. combat units were withdrawn. 1975, South Vietnam
Speaker:fell to a full-scale invasion by the North. 1982, 57,939 members of U.S. armed forces
Speaker:who had died are listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Speaker:This has been Follow the Money, How China Bought the World, written by Michael William
Speaker:McCarthy, narrated by Russell Newton. Copyright 2023, by Trinna Day. Production Copyright
Speaker:by Spoken Tome Media. You need to hear this.
