Telling Americans About China (and Intelligence) – with Sara Castro

Summary

Dr. Sara Castro (LinkedIn, Bio) joins Andrew (X; LinkedIn) to discuss the history of US-China diplomacy. Sara is an Associate Professor of History at the United States Air Force Academy. 

What You’ll Learn

Intelligence

• The Dixie Mission 
• The history of US-China relations dating back to the Opium Wars
• China’s involvement with the OSS during WWII
• How Mao Zedong & Chiang Kai-shek built modern China

Reflections

• Understanding and empathy
• Knowledge is power 

And much, much more …

Resources 

SURFACE SKIM

*Spotlight Resource*

• Mission to Mao: US Intelligence in China during World War II, Sara B. Castro, (Georgetown University Press, 2024) 

*SpyCasts*

• Making Sense of China, Taiwan, & America Pacific Intelligence with Bonny Lin (2023)
• China’s Corporate Spy War with CNBC’s Eamon Javers (2023)
• Trafficking Data: The Digital Struggle with China with Aynne Kokas (2022)

*Beginner Resources*

• Beyond the Balloon: The Complicated History Behind US-China Relations, Voice of America, YouTube (2023) [8 min. video]
• China’s Overlooked Role in World War II, C. Klein, The History Channel (2022) [Short article]
• Secret Agents, Secret Armies: The Short Happy Life of the OSS, The National World War II Museum (2020) [Short article]

DEEPER DIVE

Books

• Spies and Lies: How China's Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World, A. Joske (Hardie Grant, 2022) 
• The Hundred-Year Marathon: China's Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower, M. Pillsbury (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2016) 
• Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945, R. Mitter (Mariner Books, 2013)

Primary Sources 

• Dixie Mission Remembered in Beijing (2004)
• U.S.-PRC Political Negotiations, 1967-1984 (1985)
• CIA Intelligence Report: Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” (1967)
• War Report: Office of Strategic Services: Operations in the Field (1949) 
• Madame Chiang Kai-Shek Address to the U.S. House of Representatives (1943)
• Treaty Of Tianjin (1858)
• Treaty Of Wangxia (1844) 

*Wildcard Resource*

• After the signing of the SACO Treaty in 1942, Chinese spymaster Dai Li took command of the US-China intelligence cooperation during World War II. 
• Six decades later in 2005, Nickelodeon premiered the now immensely popular American anime series Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the series, the elite secret police agency of fictional capital city Ba Sing Se are appropriately named, The Dai Li.