The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia
by James Bradley

https://www.amazon.com/China-Mirage-.../dp/0316196681

The “mirage” he refers to in his book is the perception the U.S. public had of China based on a 1930s American propaganda pamphlet that described China as a great nation that loved America and embraced Christianity. I can’t recall reading another book in recent times that was so well written, yet so very simplistic and dishonest overall. This book certainly is not authoritative history, rather it’s simply a diatribe about how the U.S. “needlessly” got involved in three wars in East Asia.
The mirage argument has some merit, but he gives it far more weight than it deserves. Bradley argues this “mirage” shaped U.S. policy to such an extent it led us needlessly into WW2, the Korea War, and Vietnam. To be fair, the author presents some interesting facts on our early diplomatic history with China, and power of lobbies on U.S. foreign policy in East Asia. However, as a whole the book is almost completely void of the broader historical context that shaped strategic decision making.
He implies we should have supported or acquiesced to Japanese aggression in China and elsewhere in East Asia. He claims our oil embargo against Japan as his justification for his claim our war against Japan was unnecessary. No doubt, the oil embargo accelerated Japan’s time line to aggress beyond Northeast Asia, Japan already had plans to take over the Dutch Indies to secure raw materials to sustain their war effort in China. Bradley does not discuss agreements made between Japan and German in the 1930s, then culminating with the Tripartite Pact in 1940. Bradley only focuses on East Asia, but assuming he believes our intervention in Europe in WWII (yes finally actualized after the attack on Pearl Habor) was just, doing so would have prompted Japan to declare war on the U.S. The underlying argument I’m making is war with Japan was going to happen regardless.
Throughout the book, Bradley expresses his support of Mao, as though he was more legitimate than Chiang. A historian would have pointed out that both leaders were deeply flawed. Oddly enough, the left still embraces Mao in the West, while Maoism is largely rejected in China today. After the Civil War Mao killed 45 million of his own people to establish his “legitimacy.” In contrast, Chiang’s Taiwan, while initially a dictatorship was much more successful, and eventually blossomed into a prosperous democracy. The argument that Mao was a nationalist more than a communist has been refuted by history, even the Soviets found his methods excessive.
Bradley claimed the Flying Tigers were insignificant and only conducted one raid of note, and that the investment in logistics to sustain this outfit was simply based on the influence of the China lobby in Washington, D.C. and not for sound military purposes. I have no expertise on the Flying Tigers, but the historical summaries I looked up recently provide an alternative view. Historical accounts state that the Flying Tigers destroyed 2,355 Japanese planes and compared to the loss of 127 American planes. Supposedly this record was never beaten? Maybe they haven’t have a decisive strategic impact, but it certainly contributed to Japan’s culmination.
Bradley leverages the same tired arguments regarding the U.S. involvement in Vietnam War. In his view Ho Chi Minh wasn’t really a communist and wanted to be friends with the U.S. Our involvement in the Vietnam War was complicated and arguably our strategy was deeply flawed. All U.S. Presidents during that time period admitted we couldn’t win without an effective government in the Republic of Vietnam. While true, that doesn’t mean Ho or his successor were any better. Strategically, they were much better at indoctrinating their people and mobilizing them in pursuit of a dream that rapidly dissipated once the communists won. After winning, Le Duan said he would turn Vietnam a bastion of Stalinism. Contrary to the legitimacy claim based on nationalism, he forced his people into collective communes that went strongly against the grain of Vietnamese culture. Like all communist economic theories, it failed, people starved and revolted. The Vietnam government was forced to make reforms in the mid-80s. Another so-called legitimate leader and his legacy bite the dust.
Today Bradley argues China is not an aggressive country, and that we simply misunderstand them. I suspect we do misunderstand them, and not everything China is bad, but many nations in East Asia think China is increasingly aggressive based on China’s behavior, not a propaganda booklet. In the end, I think Bradley is either naïve or a fraud, what he is not is a historian.