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    The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia
    Unavailable
    The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia
    Unavailable
    The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia
    Audiobook12 hours

    The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia

    Written by James Bradley

    Narrated by Pete Larkin

    3/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "Bradley is sharp and rueful, and a voice for a more seasoned, constructive vision of our international relations with East Asia." --Christian Science Monitor
    James Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans--including FDR's grandfather, Warren Delano--who in the 1800s made their fortunes in the China opium trade. Meanwhile, American missionaries sought a myth: noble Chinese peasants eager to Westernize.

    The media propagated this mirage, and FDR believed that supporting Chiang Kai-shek would make China America's best friend in Asia. But Chiang was on his way out and when Mao Zedong instead came to power, Americans were shocked, wondering how we had "lost China."

    From the 1850s to the origins of the Vietnam War, Bradley reveals how American misconceptions about China have distorted our policies and led to the avoidable deaths of millions. The China Mirage dynamically explores the troubled history that still defines U.S.-Chinese relations today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 21, 2015
    ISBN9781478982623
    Unavailable
    The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia
    Author

    James Bradley

    James Bradley is a writer and critic. His books include the novels Wrack, The Deep Field, The Resurrectionist, Clade, and Ghost Species; a book of poetry, Paper Nautilus; and The Penguin Book of the Ocean. Alongside his books, James has an established career as an essayist and reviewer, whose work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Monthly, Sydney Review of Books, Times Literary Supplement, Meanjin, and Griffith Review. His fiction has won or been shortlisted for a wide range of Australian and international literary awards, and his nonfiction has been shortlisted twice for the Bragg Prize for Science Writing and nominated for a Walkley Award. In 2012, he won the Pascall Award for Australia’s Critic of the Year. He is currently an Honorary Associate at the Sydney Environment Centre at the University of Sydney.

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    Reviews for The China Mirage

    3/5

    3 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The book gives a great historical narrative of US-China relations from the early 19th Century through the end of World War II. I found the level of detail excellent in regards to the events as they happened. However, the book makes some assumptions based on limited documentation and conversations that in regards to how the US could have averted war with Japan in WW2, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. I found this analysis simplistic and does not take into the numerous other reasons those wars occurred.
    • 3/5
      The China mirage is a mixed bag containing a delightful account of the American commercial discovery of China (mainly for the opium trade that made many Easterners such as FDR's grandfather Warren Delano very, very rich) and a "old man yelling at an empty chair" case against war with Japan in WWII.US relations towards Japan and China shifted. American guns helped open up both countries in the mid-19th century. The US then turned pro Japanese. Teddy Roosevelt graciously even assigned Korea over to be ruled by the Japanese. Increasing Japanese aggression in continental Asia as well as better public relations by China thanks to US-educated spokespeople turned political opinion from supporting Japan to helping China. James Bradley nicely shows that the US image of China was pure imagination and totally different from reality. Given US gullibility and widespread ignorance among the world beyond the 48 states, this has unfortunately not changed.So far so good. Now, however, Bradley turns ideological and biased. Everything has to be subservient to the argument that the China Lobby led the United States into an unnecessary war with Japan. This might be understandable from a personal point of view (Bradley's father being one of the men on the famous Iwo Jima picture). It is not good history, though and would have had grievous consequences for the world.The dirty secret Bradley never discusses is that FDR needed the war with Japan in order to get the United States involved in the war against Hitler. The America First campaign of 1940 and Republican obstruction to war meant that Roosevelt alone did not have the political power to declare war, as the American people did not want to go to war for Europe and many in the South were not opposed to white supremacy ideas. FDR needed the infamy of Pearl Harbour to shock the US into war against Nazi Germany. It was actually Adolf Hitler who declared war on the United States in the end. Japan thus was a casualty on the way to defeat Hitler.Bradley argues that the China Lobby pushed the US into the war against Japan. In actual politics, a foreign lobby can only move domestic politics of a big country if there are important internal forces who want to go in that direction. It was not Ahmed Chalabi who sent the US into the Iraq but Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. Likewise, FDR used China and the China Lobby to keep Japan occupied on the cheap. The United States had learned from the British that the best way to conduct war was to provide others with finance only and let other do the fighting and the bleeding (in the Second World War, this would be the Chinese and the Russians). War with Japan was not an accident caused by a rogue Dean Acheson action. FDR, however, needed plausible deniability as he had promised the US voters to stay out of the war. The Japanese understood that the US was cutting off their oil supply even though nominally the US granted permits for oil (but blocked payments to pay for it).Regarding the war in China itself, Bradley is hopelessly out of date. He still follows the old Stillwell/Tuchman school whereas much recent scholarship has shown that Chiang Kai-shek had his soldiers fight and die against the Japanese (see e.g. Rana Mitters book). While it is based on ignorance, it is still callous and disrespectful to the millions of Chinese casualties some of which were directly caused by US interference e.g. by diverting Chinese elite units to a Burmese jungle sideshow.Overall, a reader not familiar with WWII and Chinese history is at risk to get a wrong impression about China, the Chinese Lobby and the Second World War. A good book about "who lost China?" still remains to be written. This is a feeble attempt that fails in its vital parts.
    • 4/5
      Awesome book, excellent narratorr. Great view of the history of China - US relations ,
    • 2/5
      Coming in, I wanted to really like this book. I was unsuccessful.The China Mirage (get used to that term, Bradley uses it a lot) is pretty close to a screed. Bradley documents U.S. fascination with China, and implies that if not for that, World War II with Japan would not have been fought. Never mind that the Japanese had drawn up plans to fight the U.S., which they found necessary, back in the 30s.This book is about the opening of China, and how it was a ruse and disastrous and that nothing good came of it. The U.S. was deluded, Bradley says, but its intent to "Christianize and Americanize" China (get used to those terms, too, he comes back to them again and again) was misguided. In fact, Bradley paints everybody from Teddy Roosevelt on up as naive and unaware of what China really was - but how could they, since they were restricted to small portions of the nation by the emperors? The West carved out "New Chinas" (another term of his all over this book but nowhere else that I can find) to begin trading, and destroyed China as a consequence.Bradley takes delight in pointing out that many of the monied families in the U.S. got their riches (either directly or tangentially - extremely tangentially) from selling opium to the Chinese. In fact, according to Bradley, there is nary a person or institution or bank in the U.S. that doesn't have drug money on its hands. He reveals this like a bolt out of the blue - but any student of history has been reading the story for years now.A big villain in this story is Christianity. If it weren't for those dang missionaries ... I got tired of this line of argument, the constant use of "foreign devils" to describe Westerners - that's Bradley talking, not the Chinese. Also, "sea barbarians." "New Chinas." "Christianize and Americanize." "China Mirage." If I had a dollar for each time he uses one of those terms, I'd have been a very rich man by the middle of the book.By the way, I received this book from Goodreads as a First Read. Anyway, if you read it, fine. If you don't, fine.
    • 4/5
      A mirage is something that appears real or possible but is not in fact so. This is main premise of this book as in reviews and analyzes our interaction and interventions in China. The western powers primarily Britain, and America, tried to force open China's markets and chose their leaders. Evangelicals saw China as a ripe mission field. They believed with a little effort the Chinese would become card carrying Christians complete with western values. The fact that a few Chinese converted was the mirage. The reality was that outside those few, China was never open to Christianity nor western values

      Buying the mirage over the reality cost American in particular and west in general dearly. Bradley contends that the end of WWII would have been different if me had chosen Mao Zedong to lead the fight against the Japanese. Chiang Kai-shek our chosen leader in WWII fit the mirage. He was ineffective on the battlefield as well as politically, but he fit the mirage. Mao Zedong in contrast was effective on the battlefield as well as politically. He would ultimately lead mainland China. Mao Zedong a buddhist nationalist didn't fit the mirage. The US China lobby convinced the State Department to ignore Mao's out reaches to America. The subsequent fight over who lost China cleared the State Department of diplomats who could have steered American foreign policy in a different direction. America might have realized that the nationalist tendencies of Mao in China and Hồ Chí Minh in Vietnam did not have to end in their becoming Communist. This is book's primary argument. It explores the issue of what could have been.

      The book is useful to anyone interested in going to China. Missionaries interested in China will have their perspectives challenged. I certainly did.

    • 4/5
      The author’s premise in this non-fiction work is that cultural ignorance on the part of American leadership in the early 20th century led to repeated conflicts in southeast Asia (World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War), which were entirely avoidable.Starting with Theodore Roosevelt and extending through his cousin Franklin Roosevelt, the author lays out a historical narrative that reflects very poorly not only on the Presidents, but also on most of his advisors. The author repeatedly brings up the fact that the Roosevelt family fortune (along with many others in eastern American high society) was rooted in the 19th century opium trade with China. This created something of an affinity for the country, without any actual knowledge or experience, leading to a complete misunderstanding of the cultural and political landscape.While I was somewhat familiar with the issues leading up to the Pacific theater of World War II, the more detailed and extensive backstory was unknown to me. The same goes for my knowledge of the Chinese Civil War. These parts of the book were very helpful and educational. I can’t say, however, that I fully support the author’s underlying conclusions. Certainly, the outbreak of the Pacific hostilities could have been delayed for a period, but to suggest that war with Japan could have been entirely avoided is at best naïve. And to promote the idea that the United States should have allied with Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh is pretty blatant historical revisionism and not realistic given the tenor of the times. I think we can all agree that many historical events could and should have been avoided, however doing so in hindsight, especially employing vastly different social, cultural and political mores, is an exercise in futility.