[henkster]

The main source of this “if we’d only courted Mao during WW2” nonsense is Barbara Tuchman’s “Stillwell and the American Experience in China.” Barb was a lefty, and in her book she makes her opinion fairly clear that:

1. Chaing was not interested in fighting Japan with Chinese resources;

2. Chaing was only interested in having America defeat Japan for him;

3. Chaing wanted to bilk the Americans of everything he could to use later against Mao;

4. Mao would have fought the Japanese had we armed the communists;

5. We would not have had the break with the communists after the war had we done this.

OK, I agree with the first three points. Chaing was corrupt and worthless. But that’s the Chinese way. I totally disagree with points 4 and 5. There is no reason to believe he was any different than Chaing because he was just as Chinese. He also would have armed himself in preparation of the big fight with Chaing after the Japanese left. And even if Mao had fought the Japanese, why would anyone think he would have behaved any differently than Stalin once the war was over? We armed Stalin, and look at the gratitude we got from him.

China was a bottomless pit for the American war effort. Stillwell was given an impossible task. We had our own reasons to fight the Japanese, and there was no sense in doing anything for China.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

I post below Tuchman's account of this episode. It sounds to me like Stilwell made the proposal as part of his endless effort to get Chiang to fight the Japanese somewhere, somehow, and didn't really expect it would happen. I didn't see the date of Sept. 6 named in the text, which suggests there is another source of the post referenced.

Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45