A Review of James Bradley’s The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia

By Armando Simón

I have very strong feelings about this book, but they are contradictory so I will separate what I feel makes this a good and a bad book.

The Good: The book’s strength lies in the detailed revelation of the blatant and very effective manipulation of American foreign policy and the American people by a cabal of Chinese and a group of arrogant, Harvard-educated elite during the 1920s-1940s. There are many lessons to be learned from this miasma.

The first is that religion and religious people have to be kept far away from American politics at all costs. During the 1920s and 1930s, American missionaries were convinced that China was about to be converted to Christianity, and they obsessed with facilitating this fantasy into reality. This was the result of many missionaries deluding themselves into thinking that the Chinese people were yearning to become Christians. The leader of China, Chiang Kai Shek (dubbed Cash My Check) had “converted” to that religion as a means to an end. As such, countless pastors in the USA manipulated their congregation to send money to China (during the Depression!).

Furthermore, the publisher of one of the major magazines was obsessed with promoting that image and did so with delusional stories.

The second lesson serves as a warning as to the dangerous influence of lobbyists when they lobby on behalf of another country, even when it is detrimental to America, as is so evident today. The China Lobby, headed by a Harvard-educated Chinese was incredibly effective in steering the American government into sending the Chinese regime millions of millions of dollars in cash and arms (during the Depression!), which effectively was a bottomless pit for the ruling elite. The lobby worked hand in glove with the religious class in America. A big push in this direction, psychologically speaking, was the maudlin, sentimental novels of that simpleton, Pearl Buck. The few individuals who dissented from the fantasy were blackballed (we see that very same dynamic working today in the United States).

The third lesson concerns the power of bureaucracies, the Deep State. The book reveals that we were manipulated into being sucked into World War II by the Harvard-educated bureaucrats who were determined to set foreign policy regarding Asia. Arrogant, extremely ignorant about Asia (particularly Japan), and cocooned in their good intentions (so typical of Americans), they covertly instituted an oil blockade of Japan contrary to the President’s orders and the Secretary of State, by simply distorting documents and written orders. They were deluded that such a stranglehold would make oil-starved Japan meekly withdraw from its conquered territories since Japan got its oil from the US, and it never occurred to them that Japan would react in any other way. They were sure that “moderates” would take over the country (again, does that reasoning sound familiar?) and do just that; instead, the moderates were kicked out and the psychotic mad dogs took over who sent Japan at war against America.

The last lesson is one that is a chronic problem with the majority of Americans, and that is their bottomless ignorance regarding other countries and their cultures. This is not a secret, and it doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has seen the country flounder in foreign adventures. Time and again, then and now, America’s leaders are totally ignorant, stupidly ignorant, dangerously ignorant, and see other countries in a state of wishful thinking. Those who do not adhere to the particular delusions of the moment are shunted off to the side.

The Bad: The primary problem of the book is that the author is so anti-American. Although he oftentimes makes it plain that many of the policies and policy makers acted due to sheer stupidity, in the next sentence he cynically makes comments indicating that the actions were Machiavellian. You can’t have it both ways, pal! Especially since the stupidity angle is well documented whereas the cynical Machiavellianism is not (in fact, it is his mirage, his fantasy). Leave your hate out of the book. More often than not, his anti-American delusion is expressed by snide, cynical, comments which abound throughout the book and is so typical of intellectuals.

Also, the hypocrisy: Bradley rightfully condemns the artificially set boundary between the two Koreas, shrugs off the invasion of the south by the northern army, but then becomes indignant when, during the war, the UN forces (led by the US) crossed that boundary. Totally hypocritical.

The problem is, again, the author’s mirage. He consistently makes it clear that in his opinion, our negative actions forced Mao Tse Tung (or is it Mousey Tongue?) and Ho Chi Minh into Communism, whereas if we had only been more receptive towards them, they would not have. I heard this excuse before in regard to Fidel Castro, that it was American foreign policy that threw him into the hands of the Soviet Union; Castro himself often acknowledged that he had been a Marxist all of his life. This shunting off of personal responsibility is similar to intellectuals claiming that criminals should not be held accountable for their actions since, ultimately, it is Society’s fault.

Lastly, there are several passages wherein Bradley is ignorant about Marxism and does not consider it to have been a threat to either America, or the people who were subjugated into slavery and death. In this, he exhibits the same type of abysmal ignorance of which he accuses others. He would do well to become less ignorant.