Chiang Kai-shek

Prisoners being rounded up during Chinese civil war, 1920s and 1930s

CHINA

1911: Sun Yat-sen becomes president

1912: Warlord Yuan Shikai becomes president, resigns in 1916, power struggle between warlords

1919: May Fourth movement, founding of Guomindang (Nationalist Party)

1920s: Increasing prominence of left among Chinese nationalists, especially Li Dazhao and his student Mao Zedong. Communist party born in 1921.

1925: Rise of Chiang Kai-shek to power in the Guomindang and in China. Brutal repression of workers’ movements; US and European support

Mao Zedong

The Long March, 1936

1934-35: Long March from Hunan to Shanxi. After walking 9,000 km across China in a year, only 10,000 of the original 87,000 marchers survived, but the Communist Party had built a grassroots network across China.

1930s: Chiang Kai-shek in power; Japan invades Manchuria. Guerrilla resistance against Japanese by Communists.

1949: Chiang flees to Taiwan; China named People’s Republic of China

1950s: Chinese Communists repress secessionist movements in Inner Mongolia and Tibet. Differences with Soviet Union. Intervention in Korean War and defeat of India.

Land redistribution, Mass Line.Persecution of intellectuals and artistsGreat Leap Forward (1958)Population explosion

1965: Cultural Revolution

Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989

The Korean WarUntil the early 20th c.: Korea was part of Qing empire

1910-45: Japanese empire

1945: Japan is defeated; division at 38th parallel, occupation zones by US and USSR. Original intention was to hold elections and reunify Korea, but US-Soviet relations worsened.

1949: Communist revolution in China; ambitions of restoring Qing territories

1950: North Korean troops invade South. US immediately sends troops, UN supports move. China intervenes because of fear of US troops on border. US Gen. Douglas MacArthur makes matters worse by talking about invading China. Truman sends fleet to protect Taiwan. China isolated. In the US: “Red Scare”, McCarthyism.

1953: Inconclusive end to conflict. US recognizes N. Korea

1954: South-East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO).

1959: Central Treaty Organization (CENTO)

The Vietnam War1919: Ho Chi Minh snubbed at Versailles

1954: Vietnamese forces defeat French. Vietnam divided at 17th parallel. North Vietnam ruled by Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Cong party, aided by USSR; South Vietnam ruled by dictatorial Ngo Dinh Diem, aided by US.

1963: US supports coup to overthrow Diem, chaos in south

1964: US sent troops

1965: Aerial bombing of south Vietnam

1968-70: My Lai massacre and investigation. Makes communism very popular in Vietnam, and war very unpopular in US.

1973: Nixon agrees with N. Vietnam to withdraw US forces

1975: Vietnam forcibly reunited by Communist army from north

1976: Southern city of Saigon renamed Ho Chi Minh city

Protest against corrupt and dictatorial regime of Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam

The My Lai Massacre, 1968

March 16: US troops enter My Lai village on “search and destroy” mission; end up killing over 300 villagers despite absence of any retaliatory firing.

Ronald RidenhourDrafted in March 1967, arrived in Vietnam in December 1967

…So the [helicopter] doorman fired first and instead of firing in front of him, he hit him in the hips.  And the man went down in a heap, of course.  And lay there in his own blood …We were totally freaked out, because this was our first mission; we never fired at anybody in anger before or under combat conditions or anything else …

The pilot was especially upset, and he began to get on the radio and to call [the ground company officers]…"Come on!  Come on, hurry, this man needs help!” …The officer gets there, runs up to him, stops, leans down, looks at him, stands up, pulls out his .45, cocks it, BOOM!  Shoots the guy in the head.  Looks up at us, he gets on his radio and says, "This man no longer needs any help."

Well, that was my introduction to the reality of Vietnam as I saw it.  For four months, I did this…most of our missions were what they call hunter-killer missions

An American sniper in Saigon

Photo by Philip Jones Griffiths, 1970

Nick Ut/AP, 1972

More than 300,000 tons of Napalm (1963-1971)

Napalm is a thick gel that sticks to the skin. The igniting agent, white phosphorus, continues burning

for a considerable amount of time.

A reported three quarters of all napalm victims in Vietnam were burned through to the muscle and

bone (fifth degree burns).

The pain caused by the burning is so traumatic that it often causes death.

Lieutenant William Calley

There is little in William Calley's pre-Vietnam life to suggest that he was a “monster” as many had suspected. He has been described as “a bland young man burdened...with as much ordinariness as any single individual could bear; and almost too much of the conventional and commonplace to retain what is necessary for human identity.” One GI recalled, “None of the men had any respect for him as a military leader.”

Numerous psychological exams revealed that Calley did not suffer from any psychological disease that would account for his behavior. Although not revealed under oath, some of his doctors claimed he told them that he thought of killing the Vietnamese people in the same way he thought of killing animals.

In March 1971, Calley was sentenced to life.

In August, his sentence was reduced to 20 years.

In April 1974, it was further reduced to 10 years.

In November 1974, he was pardoned and released on bond. Today he manages a jewelry store in Georgia.

Calley in 1991

My Lai’s aftermath

Human cost of the Vietnam war

US deaths: more than 58,000

Vietnamese casualties: • 4 million civilian deaths (N. & S. Vietnam)• 1.1 million military deaths• 600,000 wounded

Almost 13% of the Vietnamese population died in the Vietnam war. If 13% of the US population had died, the US casualties would have been 28 million, instead of 58,000.

Arendt’s explanation of large-scale violence: “the banality of evil”

Hannah Arendt Adolf Eichmann

Evil occurs not because of the presence of hatred, but because of the absence of those imaginative capacities that can make the human and moral aspects of our activities clear to us. Eichmann failed to exercise his capacity of thinking, which would have permitted self-awareness.

Thinking is different from knowing. Thinking persistently makes us ask questions that cannot be answered from the standpoint of knowledge, questions we cannot refrain from asking. Thinking does not yield positive results that can be considered settled; rather, it constantly returns to question again and again the meaning that we give to experiences, actions and circumstances.

Adapted from Majid Yar (2001), http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/arendt.htm

GLOBAL ALLIANCES IN 1989