Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "Why China is America's greatest threat - Forgotten History" video.

  1. The Vietnam War came about because of western stupidity, particularly British and American stupidity, and not because of Mao's influence. Vietnam had been ruled by force by the French. Then, in World War 2, by the Japanese. At the end of the War, the idiot Mountbatten, as Supreme Allied Commander SE Asia, arbitrarily divided Vietnam in two, intending the south to be guided/assisted by the West, and the north to be guided/assisted by China - Mountbatten assumed that Chiang would be the post war Chinese leader. Mountbatten, none too bright but with royal connections, never seemed to perceive or understand communism. The hill tribes in the north had always been more keen of fighting the French. After the War, the French returned and attempted to take over South Vietnam again by force. The Vietnamese were simply fed up with foreign domination - they just wanted the French out. And, north and south, they wanted their country united, not split. They appealed to the US and Britain to use diplomacy to induce the French to leave, but this was refused. So they had to go to war, and only the Chinese would help - which help of course came with strings - Vietnam had to adopt communism. This brought the Americans in to fight the communists, as they saw it as communism spreading contrary to what was agreed at the Churchill/Truman/Stalin conference that each would have their sphere of influence in the World. They failed of course - lost the Vietnam War because, north and south both, the Vietnamese now wanted the Americans out, combined with the American commander in Vietnam, Westmoreland, a "rock painter" who's mind was completely divorced from reality and totally incompetent. So, what would have happened if Chiang had prevailed and not Mao? Well, the Vietnamese would have still been fed up and still would have resorted to war to get the French out, with or without Chinese help. And if Chiang thought there was money or graft in it, he would have helped Vietnam too, to curry favour with the USSR as he had done before. So, there would still have been a Vietnam War. Korea was somewhat similar - it too had been arbitrarily divided in two by the idiot Mountbatten. The North was keen to unite the country, by force, and would have been regardless of China's political climate.
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  2. Rocketman, the Marshall Plan did not involve the Soviet Union - they rejected it and actively blocked their allies and satellite states from receiving Marshall Plan benefits. In any case, the Marshall Plan was focused on Europe. It dispensed cash and civilian factory machine tools and production equipment. Weaponry was not supplied. Thus it appears you wrote nonsense. Stalin did indeed give equipment to Mao, but it had nothing to do with the Marshal Plan. Incidentally, McCarthy was right to suspect communist agents in the USA, but neither he nor J E Hoover had any idea where to look for them. Stalin had long ago initiated a special plan and action to spy on the US and his spies and agents were hiding in plain sight as graduate university students on internships.
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  3. Rocketman, the Marshall Plan did not involve the Soviet Union - they rejected it and actively blocked their allies and satellite states from receiving Marshall Plan benefits. In any case, the Marshall Plan was focused on Europe. It dispensed cash and civilian factory machine tools and production equipment. Weaponry was not supplied. Thus it appears you wrote nonsense. Stalin did indeed give equipment to Mao, but it had nothing to do with the Marshal Plan. Incidentally, McCarthy was right to suspect communist agents in the USA, but neither he nor J E Hoover had any idea where to look for them. Stalin had long ago initiated a special plan and action to spy on the US and his spies and agents were hiding in plain sight as graduate university students on internships.
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  4.  @grandcanyon-d4d  The decision to split it was made in 1945. The split was effectively made when the Japanese forces surrendered: to China in the north, and to British forces in the south. The French assumed they could come back and assume control of most of it, but the Vietnamese fought the French and French plans were defeated. Officially, the French later withdrew and under the Geneva Accord of 1954, the former French Indo-China was formally divided, as far as the Western Powers were concerned , into Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. But the division of Vietnam was already a fact.
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  5. Taiwan was and is easy to govern as it was/is small, its population is only about 20 million now. Chiang was way too corrupt and inept to run a country as large as mainland China with its vastly bigger population.
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  6.  @mrtruth1567  The US would never have won, because they put incompetents in charge (the stupid Westmorland in Vietnam, and the aged, past his use-by date MacArthur in Korea, and the US leadership thought it was all about preventing the spread of communism against the wishes of the locals. It wasn't, it was about the locals wanting foreign domination ended, and their countries united.
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  7.  @grandcanyon-d4d  : I've just explained to you that it was divided, per decision by Mountbatten in 1945. He understood it as actioning the decision to carve up the world taken by Truman, Churchill, and Stalin in their meeting to decide what was to happen when Word War 2 ended. Essentially, the Geneva Accord set out to confirm what Mountbatten had done in 1945, although there was supposed to be an election later so that the people could decide what they wanted. This election plan was thwarted by a corrupt leader that arose in the south. I have explained to you that Vietnam as one single territory was a vision of the French, but they never had control of what happened on the ground - the north a stronghold of Ho Chi Minh and the south occupied with difficulty by the French until the Americans came. This is a somewhat simplified view of it, the machinations of various parties was complicated, but that's the essence of it - it all followed from the action of Mountbatten. If he had any brains he would have realised that Mao would prevail in China as a communist, and accepted the surrender of all Japanese troops in Vietnam, not just in the south. Vietnam was not actually united until the Americans lost their war and were driven out - the communists taking control of all of Vietnam.
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  8.  @jason200912  Read Jung Chang's book. Danny thunder is right in this sense: Chiang and his cohorts sold stuff to warlords, who changed sides and handed over to Mao's lot.
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  9.  @jason200912  Possibly correct - it could be more like simple incompetence, trusting warlords. But he did probably know they could not be trusted and if the money went to him and not the Treasury, then it is corruption. However Chiang was indeed corrupt in other actions, so were his generals, and the warlords also. Alot of material was misappropriated by his generals, which Chiang allowed. Chiang manipulated the Chinese currency in such a way as to line the pockets of himself and his cronies, at the expense of ordinary people and China's economic efficiency. It's a bit like Russian leaders eg Brezhnev and Putin, who know and allow their key government subordinates to be corrupt, so they are not a threat to the corrupt leader, and can be thrown under a bus at any time it suits. But without the lack of ability that was part of Chiang. That tolerance of corruption to protect one's position is also in itself a form of corruption.
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  10.  @royale7620  Says who on which point? That Taiwan is a tiny nation compared to China? Even 10-year-old schoolboys know that is true. That Chiang was corrupt? That's has been written in a vast number of books, including Jung Chang's very detailed book on modern Chinese history "Mao" - which is anti-Mao, but shows how Mao outwitted Chiang at every turn.. Extremely corrupt leaders like Chiang can't run large countries or provinces for any length of time because their corruption turns them into dictators as they have to suppress objectors to their corruption, unless they are really cunning like Mao, who was corrupt too, but nowhere near as corrupt as Chiang, or absolutely ruthless like Hitler - and he came unstuck didn't he? Sure Chiang had an entourage. Almost any tin pot rich guy does. Ordinary millionaire businessmen do - their flunkies and yes-men. The reason why Staiin decided to back Mao - and he never liked Mao, as Mao thought for himself and loyal only to himself - was because Stalin's advisors informed Stalin that Chiang was an idiot, and that Mao was cunning enough and strong enough to eventually prevail anyway - might as well have some influence on the side most likely to win.
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