Retired Lieutenant General of the Republic of China Air Force, Tian Zaimai, who served as a military attaché in the United States and has extensively studied the history of the Flying Tigers, recently attended the 24th US-Taiwan Defense Industry Conference held in Maryland, USA. After the conference, he was interviewed by our reporter in New York.
The indomitable spirit of the Flying Tigers – the Shared Years of China and the United States Air Force
Lieutenant General Tian Zaimai reflected on the inseparable connection between the modern destiny of the Republic of China and the United States. During the resistance against the Japanese aggression, the assistance provided by the United States played a crucial role. However, after the war, some American officials were influenced by Chinese Communist propaganda and misinformation, leading to a misjudgment of the Chinese situation that resulted in a reversal of the balance between the Nationalists and the Communists. He emphasized that the real change in China’s destiny was not only due to external forces but also stemmed from the rise of the communist forces through deceitful strategies and infiltration tactics.
In the 1930s, the Chinese Communist Party established the “Chinese Soviet Republic” in Jiangxi, which the Republic of China government could not tolerate. Lieutenant General Tian analogized, “This is akin to if the state of New York were to declare independence as the ‘Republic of New York,’ would Washington agree?” Consequently, the Nationalist government initiated campaigns against the Communists, pushing all the way to Yan’an. At the time, the Communist forces were only about 4,000 strong and on the brink of annihilation. But due to Zhang Xueliang’s launch of the “Xi’an Incident,” pressing Chiang Kai-shek into “collaborating with the Communists to resist the Japanese,” the Chinese Communists managed to escape certain defeat.
Chiang Kai-shek was not reluctant to resist the Japanese aggression but understood the vast power disparity, realizing that rushing into battle would be akin to striking a rock with an egg. If they could buy time, build up strength, and then confront Japan, perhaps their chances of victory would be higher. However, after the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the situation spiraled out of control, setting the stage for an eight-year war of resistance. Post-war statistics showed that China suffered human and material losses equivalent to around 650 billion US dollars, an astronomical figure in contemporary currency terms.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States officially entered the war and provided aid to its allies through the Lend-Lease Act, with a total amount of approximately 50.1 billion US dollars, of which the Republic of China received only about 1.55 billion US dollars, accounting for roughly 3.2%. More significantly, most of this military aid was under the control of General Joseph Stilwell, the American Chief of Staff in China.
Stilwell, a staunch opponent of Chiang Kai-shek and pro-Communist officer, believed that the Nationalists were corrupt, while the Communists “could fight.” His relationship with Chiang Kai-shek was tense, and he even diverted some of the aid to Yan’an without authorization, leading to a severe rebuke from President Roosevelt during the Cairo Conference. The result was that the Communist forces swelled from 4,000 to a million during the eight-year war, with a substantial part of the Communist military buildup credited to this American general’s “sympathy for the Communists and dissemination of misleading information.”
According to the account in “Tex Hill: The Tiger” by American Flying Tigers hero Tex Hill, during the later stages of the war from 1944 to 1945, Communist influence grew significantly while the Nationalists continued to resist the Japanese with all their might. Following Operation Ichi-Go, Stilwell’s relationship with Chiang Kai-shek irreparably fractured, with Stilwell even proposing to replace Chiang as the supreme commander in the Chinese theater of operations. Chiang eventually demanded Stilwell’s replacement, and by the end of 1944, Stilwell was recalled. However, the damage had been done to the Sino-American relations.
The book also suggests that the political advisors in Stilwell’s command were mostly pro-Communist individuals who had access to intelligence and telegraphic correspondence between China and the United States, influencing American public opinion and decision-making processes, thus tarnishing the reputation of the Nationalist government. This information warfare and diplomatic misinformation directly undermined American trust in the Republic of China and laid the groundwork for post-war policy misalignments.
General George Marshall was dispatched by the United States to Chongqing in an attempt to mediate the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists and establish a coalition government to end the conflict. However, his views on Chinese affairs had been heavily influenced by Stilwell’s perspective, and his mediation efforts ultimately proved unsuccessful. Lieutenant General Tian remarked, “If President Roosevelt had lived for two more years, history might have been rewritten.” Roosevelt still held confidence in the Republic of China and recognized the dangers of communism; conversely, Truman and the envoy Marshall, influenced by Stilwell’s pro-Communist views, the misdirected assistance, and misguided diplomacy, drove the Republic of China into isolation.
Lieutenant General Tian concluded that while the Nationalist government certainly bore significant responsibility for losing the mainland, Stilwell’s misguidance and the policy bias of the United States pushed history off course. Mao Zedong later publicly acknowledged “gratitude to the Japanese” – without Japan’s invasion, the survival and rise of the Communist Party would not have been possible. This statement, though harsh, aptly reflects the tragedy and irony of history.