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On the latest episode of GoodFellows, Senior Fellows John Cochrane, H.R. McMaster, and Niall Ferguson, as well as moderator and Distinguished Policy Fellow Bill Whalen, are joined by their Hoover Institution colleague Senior Fellow Frank Dikötter to discuss the history, present, and future of China under Communist rule.
Below are some of the key moments and insights from this fascinating dive into the founding myths the Chinese Communist Party has created for itself—and the real history of its violent revolutionary rise to power.
Quote of the Day
Frank Dikötter on the “key mistake” made by outside observers of China:
The people in China know exactly how brutal the Communist Party is. . . You don't have to explain [it] to them. It is US westerners, possibly Japanese as well, who make a fatal mistake. And I think that mistake is quite straightforward when we talk about Chinese communism. A great many of us simply do not believe that it is real communism. In other words, when we talk about communist China and the communists, we think of culture, Chinese culture. We don't think of communist politics. That's the key, key mistake. That mistake was made by the Americans during the Second World War. . . made again by Kissinger and Nixon. . . and again, of course, by [President] Clinton. So all along [there's] this confusion that Chinese communists are not real communists, they're basically democrats waiting to emerge.
The Central Issue: How Did China Become A Communist State?
Frank Dikötter, on the basis of his extensive research of the Communist Party’s history, says Japan’s invasion and brutal occupation of large parts of modern-day China was one key driver. But so was the Party’s unmatched willingness to use violence. As Dikötter explains:
[The Communist Party members] are lost in the 1920s and thirties, but once they are backed by the Soviet Union with weapons arriving by the train load from North Korea, of course, but also from Siberia, with officers being trained in Moscow with military institutions established throughout Manchuria, then the kind of warfare they practice I refer to as unrestricted warfare. And it means that you are just more determined than your enemy. So that includes using villagers as shields, it includes barrier troops—putting soldiers behind the soldiers in front of you so that at least they have a chance of survival if they move forward, if they turn back they get shot. But most of all, the horrendous willingness of starving entire cities into surrender.
So this happens in 1948, Changchun, [a] big city bang in the middle of Manchuria—it is starved, surrounded by PLA, Red Army, communist soldiers [led] by Lin Biao, trenches four meters deep, sentries all around it. Nobody's allowed to leave or enter that city. 160,000 civilians starved to death over a period of eight months, the same number of victims endured in Hiroshima after the dropping of the bomb. So once that city collapses: if you were in charge of Beijing, if you're the man having to defend Beijing, would you be willing to fight? So one by one these cities, they topple like dominoes. You just can't fight this machine. Of course, that's exactly what the Americans find out a couple of years later during the Korean War.
Key Takeaways
Is China’s Military a “Paper Tiger”?
Frank Dikötter says not exactly: “The tactics are great, but the strategies poor. So what are the tactics? The tactics are that you throw vast numbers of people at your enemy. . . The issue is that [in a Taiwan invasion scenario] this country could potentially mobilize so many people, so many boats, and throw so much at [Taiwan and its partner forces] without regard for casualties.”
Has America’s Use of Tariffs Against Allies Undermined a Potential Coordinated Response to a Taiwan Invasion?
John Cochrane voices the concern: “When the great blockade [of Taiwan] comes, the US calls up Canada, Latin America, and Europe and says, ‘Hey, we need you all to help us here on the financial and economic sanctions!’ Do they say, ‘Okay, we’ll give up all the great cheap stuff we’re getting from China,’ or [do they] say, ‘Oh, you, the US! How lovely to hear from you again, we were last talking about tariffs.’”
Frank Dikötter responds: “Well, yes and no, but as [Japanese Prime Minister] Sanae Takaichi has made so clear. . . Any blockade of Taiwan is a direct threat to the national security of Japan. So it will not just be a sort of PRC-Taiwan issue—it will be an issue for every country in that region. . . which is why we care. Indeed, I simply cannot see the PRC as a power that is surrounded by friendly allies.“
Has President Trump “Lost the Country”?
Veteran political observer Bill Whalen suggests: “A word of caution: pay more attention to the President’s approval numbers than the [right track vs.] wrong track number. In 2012, the country was in a 55% wrong track mood, but it still reelected Barack Obama.”
Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster observes: “It seems like President Trump is not missing too many opportunities to surrender the high ground on issues. So he came in, he’s disrupting a lot of what needs to be disrupted. And of course he had some real claims [like], ‘Hey, the Justice Department had been weaponized’ against him and he had been treated unfairly—but then to engage in similar activity to settle scores? I mean, he loses the high ground on the military. . . [He had a] great argument that the Biden administration [was] pushing this radical social agenda on the military, politicizing the military. Great argument that those six congressmen and senators with that BS video (in my view) saying, ‘Hey, don’t follow illegal orders.’ He had the high ground, and then he surrenders it by prosecuting a sitting senator and maybe suggesting that he could be punished by death. I mean, come on.”
And Niall Ferguson adds: “[This is a ] very interesting moment economically because if you just look at the data for US performance, Trump ought to be riding high by the standards of pretty much every presidency in my lifetime. This is going great and it’s going great mainly because of this extraordinary [Capital Expenditure] boom being propelled forward by investment in artificial intelligence. But there’s also all kinds of job creation in sectors that don’t really attract so much attention. Nearly all the jobs seem to be getting created in healthcare, which I guess tells us that we are an aging population and need a lot of healthcare. But the strength of the economy doesn’t translate into popularity for the administration right now in ways that are interesting in that voters complain about affordability, which is a completely different concept from inflation as the Fed defines it. The public wants prices to go down. That’s not part of the Fed’s plan.”
Recommended Reading
Red Dawn over China: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity by Frank Dikötter
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles Mann
Trump, the Midterms, and the Six-Year Itch by Niall Ferguson at The Free Press
Parting Wisdom
The GoodFellows close with a few thoughts on musician Billie Eilish’s recent assertion at the Grammy’s that “No one is illegal on stolen land.”
Niall Ferguson suggests: “Well, I think anybody who engages in this kind of rhetoric should be obliged to surrender any real estate that they own themselves to whoever they think the rightful owners are. . . you can take the decision retrospectively that the land you are living on was stolen from someone, but that’s on you. It’s certainly not based in any understanding of American law.”
H.R. McMaster adds: “I would just say try to find a nation that is not founded in some way by conquest, migration, [and] colonization. So no, it is just a ridiculous argument that you just don’t enforce your borders because of some kind of pre-ownership. It’s ludicrous.”
And John Cochrane concludes: “What happened to the native populations in America was a tragedy. Millions of people died not of war, but largely of disease. Populations cut down to 5% [of their prior totals]. I don’t think saying something performative at a Hollywood event does anything to acknowledge that it was a tragedy. It’s not a morality play. That’s what happened.“
That wraps up this GoodFellows conversation guide. If you like this companion to the show, or have any recommendations for future conversation guides, please let us know in the comments below.
John H. Cochrane is the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. An economist specializing in financial economics and macroeconomics, he is the author of The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level. He also authors a popular Substack called The Grumpy Economist.
Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. He is the author of sixteen books, including The Ascent of Money, Civilization, and Doom; columnist with the Free Press; founder of Greenmantle. Co-founder of the University of Austin.
H. R. McMaster is the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and distinguished visiting fellow at Arizona State University. He is author of the bestselling books Dereliction of Duty, Battlegrounds, and At War With Ourselves.
Frank Dikötter is the Milias Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and chair professor of humanities at the University of Hong Kong. He is the most widely read living historian of modern China, with books translated into more than twenty languages. He is the author of several books including most recently, Red Dawn: How Communism Conquered a Quarter of Humanity.