How China Bought The World AudioChapter from Follow The Money AudioBook by Michael William McCarthy
Follow The Money: How China Bought the World by: Michael William McCarthy
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00:05:58 Not familiar with the Opium Wars?
00:15:57 Kinmen Island, Taiwan
00:34:18 The Korean “War"
https://www.amazon.com/Follow-Money-China-Bought-World-ebook/dp/B0C7RBW3S7
While anyone can hop on a plane and fly anywhere in the world for work or a holiday, investigative journalist Michael McCarthy combines the two, using his frequent press trips as research for hundreds of stories of his travels to nearly 50 countries. While ostensibly reporting about places to stay, where to go and what to do on vacation, he also keeps his eye out for hidden clues about ways that the Chinese Communist Party is secretly infiltrating western democracies in order to take over the world. The book is structured as a page turner, one trip leading to the next, told in narrative style about what the author sees and where, and why the reader should know and care about what is actually happening to the world behind the scenes. The Chinese are taking over the world, and using Westerners money to do so, a true Trojan horse disguised as actions good for all concerned, but deadly dangerous for all.
Transcript
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.
