07/07/24 - Modern Chinese Diplomacy

So. I found a really awesome youtube channel lately—back in the early days of youtube, a highschool history teacher has uploaded videos of his lectures on youtube. At first, I hesitated whether or not to share this or not. After all, the point of this blog is to take an objective peek into China. I don’t like to make this a platform for any one person’s ideas in particular.

But he’s considered “The Best History Teacher in China” for a reason. He was incredibly well-known for talking about history in a straight-forward, unabashed way that the modern CCP would never allow. So much so that he was arrested in 2010, beaten up, and now he stays away from the topic of modern history and only covers Dynastic Chinese history. Even this video, the latter half of it is heavily edited and several bits have been taken out. I’m not sure I can find an unedited version anywhere on the internet.

Is his presentation of history biased by his views? Well, yeah. I don’t think anyone could retell history in a way that doesn’t contain at least a little personal bias. But I don’t think he’s trying to necessarily shill for a point. And well, if I’m going to cover modern Chinese history at all, I’ve got to use somebody as my reference. And this is at least a much more realistic look into what’s going on in China than the official CCP version of events.

If you like this sort of content, let me know, and I’ll do more in the future (whenever I have time and the mental strength to do it). If you don’t like it, let me know too.

Here is a link to part 1 of the original video, for those of you who might be curious. His name is Yuan Tengfei, a history tutor teaching highschool senior class.

I’ll also make a translator’s note right here that I went ahead and cleaned up his speech in this transcription. I don’t write down all his repetitions—and he repeats himself quite a lot, perhaps to be better heard in a large classroom. And I cut out his student interactions. This is just the lecture, in as readable a form as I can make it. I’ve also cut out the first couple of minutes of this video, because it’s mostly about which version of the textbook his students need to buy and other practical aspects of his classroom.

And finally, although the time uploaded says 2014, this is a reupload. The original video was produced in 2009. And his political opinions are formed on the context of 2009 politics.

---

When it comes to modern Chinese diplomacy, the content is very simple. In your lessons of Modern Chinese History, you may not have a very good grasp of the total concept. The People’s Republic of China has a total of 60 years of history, so far. This 60 years is split into four stages.

From 1949 to 1956, it’s the transitional stage. Its trademark is that the Three Great Reforms were completed. Private property became public property.

From 1957 to 1966, it’s the constructive stage. It’s also called the “Ten Years of Exploration”.

From 1967 to 1977, it’s the internal conflict stage.

And from 1978 to today, it’s the economic reform stage, or the “Building of a New Society”.

If you look at these four stages, you’ll find that in the first 30 years of history, China went through three stages. And from 1978 to today, it’s just one stage. But which is these four should you prioritise in studying?

The transitional stage and the economic reform stage—that’s right, the first and the last. Because our CCP is great and glorious and correct. If there are any mistakes, it’s got nothing to do with the CCP. So are they going to put a question about the Cultural Revolution into the exams? You trying to gross out the CCP? Do you want a job or not?

Now, what are the most important aspects of a country’s policy? Politics, Economy, Culture, Military—but the curriculum doesn’t cover the military. Not a word on it. What else? Diplomacy. So which of these should you prioritise on studying?

Politics isn’t taught. What is there to Chinese politics? I mean, to put it directly, we’re going against the current of the world. Everyone else’s got three branches of government. And then there’s us. What is there to say about that? We’ve got the same government structure as North Korea. There’s not much to say about it. You can’t teach politics.

I mean, people’s representatives, consultative councils, aren’t all of that fake? People representatives are only allowed to vote yes. The advisors are only allowed to applaud. What is there to say about that? They gonna test you on how great we are at clapping? How high we can raise our hand to vote yes? There’s just nothing here of substance. I mean, who are you fooling? Nobody. Nobody can even teach politics.

Culture—culture can be taught, but culture can’t be tested. What’s the exam question gonna be? What movie was filmed after the People’s Republic of China was established? Does that sound right for a history exam? Not like you’re trying to get into film school. Why would you test this? What’s the trademark work of Li Bai? That’s something that should be in your Chinese exam. So culture can be taught, but it’ll never be in the exams.

Even if it makes it into the exams, it’s going to be very shallow material. It’s gonna be trial-exam tier questions. There’s no way they’ll use this type of questions for the actual college entrance exam, “What is the first movie made in the People’s Republic of China?” There’s no way that’ll be a part of your exams.

So what’s left to us? Economics and Diplomacy. That’s where your focus should be when it comes to Chinese history.

And when it comes to economics, the focus of the curriculum used to be how agriculture was ordered, how manufacturing is regulated. But if you take a look at the curriculum now, there’s only a section on how the economy was adjusted after the economic reform, but anything before…well, I mean, there was the communist reform, and the Great Leap Forward. But you can’t test people on the Great Leap Forward. You’re grossing out the CCP again. And the communist reform—I mean, to be honest, the whole point was to change private property to public property. But are there capitalists in China today? Tons. They’re everywhere. So I mean, your reform—what you changed before, you’ve changed back now. So, were your right back then or not? I mean, I can’t say what my opinion on that is. If you were right, why did you change it back? So this is also pretty hard to teach.

So economics is going to be focused on events after the economic reform. Just stuff in the last thirty years. And just in the last couple of years, we’ve have a deluge of essay questions on the economic reform. They reserve economics for the big questions at the end.

So the main filling of an exam is going to be diplomacy. And diplomacy ties in well with World History. It used to tie in with Ancient Chinese History too. But we don’t talk about Ancient Chinese Diplomacy anymore. But at least it still ties in to Modern Chinese History. The Century of Humiliation and all that. It makes for a great contrast with our diplomacy after the establishment of the PRC. We suffer no humiliation at all.

If the Phillipines captures a couple of our fishermen, we’ll protest loudly! We suffer no humiliation! If Japan tries to take our Diaoyu Island, we’ll protest loudly! We’ll chew them out! No humiliation!

So diplomacy is a very filling topic for an exam. So that’s what we’ll talk about today—modern Chinese diplomacy. This is a very important topic. We need to understand the three parts and four stages that compose modern Chinese diplomacy. The three parts are with major countries, with neighbouring countries, and with developing countries.

Why are these three parts ordered this way? It’s by order of importance. What relationship is the most important for China as a developing nation? It’s with major countries—like America, or Russia, or Japan, or the EU. That’s the most important diplomacy.

Then, it’s with your neighbouring countries, maintaining friendly relations with them. We gotta make sure they’re happy with us. If they capture a few fishermen, don’t make a big deal out of it. Maybe they can’t beat you up, but they can call America. So if they capture our fishermen, we’d have to tell the fishermen, “Why would you go all the way over there to fish? If you were fishing in Beihai Park, who would catch you? If you were fishing in Tuanjiehu Park, who would catch you?

Finally, there’s developing countries, so Africa, Latin America, South-East Asia, all the poor countries. All the black people showing up with empty bowls—you gotta give them money. If you don’t give them money, they’ll have diplomacy with Taiwan instead. He’ll flip faster than book pages can flip. Their hearts are much blacker than their faces. If they come, you gotta give them money. But you have to understand, what actually helps China, what’s actually important to China, is that all these people are still one vote in the United Nations. Maybe they can’t actually help China, but they can do a lot of damage if they want to.

But the most important diplomacy is with major countries. We used to not get that. At the beginning of this century, there was an article, “The Seven Grossest Parts of Chinese Politics.” And one of the points was, “retarded allies”. Whenever China does anything, there’s a whole bunch of new reports, “Cuba strongly approves!” “Iran strongly approves!” “North Korea strongly approves!” What, are you proud of being approved of by a bunch of scumbags? There’s only a couple of shitholes in the world, and if they’re all approving of what you’re doing, what kind of person are you? “You know, the guy that just got out of jail really likes what I’m doing.” What kind of person says stuff like that? You’re probably not far from jail yourself.

I mean, maybe we can’t get America or Japan to approve of what we’re doing, but can’t we at least get Canada on our side? What about Australia? Austria? Why do we keep looking for approval from the armpits of the world? “Saddam Hussein approves of the CCP.” Well, now he’s hanging on a wall. What’s his approval matter?

So diplomacy with major countries is the most important. Look, every time Chairman Hu travels abroad, he’s going to a major country. He doesn’t have to actually visit Africa himself. We could send any eighth rank minister and he can deal with Africa. Our city mayors are basically the same as their presidents, right? There’s no need, right?

The four stages are from the fifties to the early sixties, it’s one-sided diplomacy. Whose side are we on? Right, Soviet Union. Soviet Union is our big bro, and we’re totally on his side. From the sixties to the early seventies, it’s punching with both fists. In the seventies and eighties, it’s half the world in one line. And from the 90s onwards, it’s been a no enemies diplomacy. China doesn’t have any enemies. Everyone’s our good buddy.

So following the outline that these four stages presents, I’m gonna go through the major events in Chinese diplomatic history.

So in the one-sided stage, we have to understand the background context in this time period. There are two major points to consider here. The first is the two opposing factions in the world. As to which two opposing factions, this should’ve been covered in our World History class. That’s right—it’s the western faction led by America and the eastern faction led by the Soviet Union. How did these two factions come to be? That’s right, the Yalta Conference. It’s the conflict between capitalism and communism. So in this greater world context of two opposing factions, China has to choose a side. You have to be on the west’s side, or the east’s side. For a major country like China, we don’t have the option of being neutral. And we simply didn’t have the power back then to establish our own faction. It’s not like today. Today, everything is multipolar. We’ve got five major powers between America, Japan, EU, Russia, and China. Back in the day, there was only two extremes.

So what was America’s policy towards the PRC at the time? They had a hostile policy. To understand this, you’ve got to have a good foundation in World History. You might’ve learned in your World History class that the Yalta Conference divided the world into two factions. This is based in the reality of America and the Soviet Union being equally matched in terms of military and economic power. They both drew the boundaries to their own camps. So how did they go about dividing the world? To put it simply, the Berlin Wall to the 38th divide at Korea are the borders between the two factions. And Germany and Korea were countries split in half by this divide.

Back in 1991, the two halves of Germany were reunited, and it’s still a major player in the world today. Korea is still split to this day, ruled by a madman and a narcissist. North Korea is ruled by a madman. South Korea is ruled by a narcissist. They’re still a bunch of cunts to this day.

So according to the Yalta Conference, at the time, whose faction should China be in? In 1945, China was supposed to be in America’s camp. Because China is south of the Berlin Wall and 38th line divide, China is supposed to be in America’s camp. Otherwise, there’s no explanation for why a country as destitute and weak as China would be considered one of the Allied powers in WWII, next to major world powers like England, America, and Russia. Why we would be one of the five countries in the UN’s Security Council, next to England, America, France, and Russia. Who supported us this whole time in our bids? America. That’s why the main street in Taipei is named Roosevelt Street. It’s thanking President Roosevelt for supporting China. America’s always supported us.

America just didn’t expect that just four years after China joined the UN, it would change colour. If America could foresee that, it wouldn’t have ever let China in. Well, I mean, we can’t speculate on history. But if China, today, was stilled ruled by the Nationalist Party, then there’s a big possibility that— No, it’s not even a possibility. China would definitely be the biggest ally to America in all of Asia. And China would be the strongest country in all of Asia.

Because America’s policy at the time was to support China, and hold down Japan. America wanted Japan’s economy to return to what it was in 1920. America wanted Japanese people to never have a standard of living higher than those Asian countries that it once invaded. America really wanted to wipe out Japan at the time. There were plans for the Allied nations to divide Japan up between themselves. Russia was going to take Hokkaido. China was supposed to take Shikoku. America would take Honshu. And Britain would take Kyushu.

But things didn’t quite turn out that way. England was the first to back out, saying they can’t make it. England’s been bombed all to hell. They can barely even handle occupying Germany. Who the hell is going to come across half the world to take a chunk out of Japan? And China was having its own civil conflict, so it couldn’t occupy Japan either. The Soviet Union was all ready to go, but America wouldn’t let them move before everyone else has had their turn. So that’s how America ended up having sole control of Japan.

It’s under this context that China changed colours, and soon afterwards, the Korean War started. And that’s how America ended up supporting Japan instead to hold back China. Japan already had a great industrial foundation. It’s the only Asian country in modern history to manage developing itself independently and never get colonised. As soon as America threw some money their way, their economy came alive again. And that’s how Japan came to be the top in Asia again. That’s continued from the First Sino-Japanese War to today. It’s never changed. There was an opportunity after WWII. There was a real chance then.

But at the time, China was supposed to be in America’s camp. That’s why America had a policy of supporting the Nationalists and opposing the Communists. This is all because America has almost no contact with the Chinese communists. They haven’t sat down and talked. At most, during WWII, they’ve briefly toured the communist camps. They don’t know enough about Chinese communists. They assumed that the Chinese communists are subordinate to Soviet Russia. If the Communist Party came into power, then China would shift into Russia’s camp. That’s why, although they shouldn’t interfere in China’s civil war (after all, it’s just Chinese people fighting Chinese people, what business is it of yours), they still obviously supported the Nationalist Party.

But the Nationalist Party was entirety too incompetent. They’ve lost the heart of the people. It didn’t matter how great their weapons and equipment are. All your soldiers are recruited by force. And the land that the soldiers’ families worked were given to them by the Communists. So their own soldiers kept turning against them. It’s all very understandable. So, they lost the heart of the people and had to flee across the sea to Taiwan. And mainland China was liberated.

So obviously, America took a hostile position against the PRC. They assumed the PRC was on the same side as Soviet Russia. And as soon as they’ve taken that position, even if China didn’t want to ally with Soviet Russia, we have to. It’s not like we didn’t want to ally with America. But America didn’t want us. So we had to ally with Russia.

After the Red Army took Nanjing, the Nationalist Party government moved to Guangdong. The only foreign diplomat that followed the Nationalist Party when they left is the Soviet diplomat. The America diplomat, John Leighton Stuart, remained in Nanjing. The State Department wanted him to try getting in touch with the CCP, and see if there’s a possibility of establishing relations there. But because the Communists had already set out a plan to totally reform China, they refuse to acknowledge any diplomacy America had already established with the Nationalist Party. We even refused to acknowledge John Leighton Stuart as an official diplomat from America. We would only acknowledge him as an ordinary American traveller to China. We don’t acknowledge that the American embassy is protected by international law and the Vienna Treaty. So the Red Army invaded the American embassy, just like the Boxer Rebellion before them. A platoon leader pulled down the American flag.

From the point of view of Americans, we’ve established a diplomatic relationship with China. There’s been a change of government in China? That’s none of our business. We’ve got a relationship with China as a country. And now your new government doesn’t follow international laws, they don’t abide by the Vienna treaty, they don’t want to talk. And that’s why America never really communicated with the CCP.

John Leighton Stuart was also the headmaster of Yanjing University. And he sent his personal secretary to Beiping to meet with the high command of the CCP. Because a lot of the high command of the CCP graduated from Yanjing University. He wanted to build diplomatic bonds between China and America. But it was unsuccessful. So after that, America diplomatically isolated, militarily threatened, and economically sanctioned China. They were trying to kill the PRC in its crib.

Why is it that in 1949, the whole of mainland China was liberated, but we didn’t take back Hong Kong or Macau? It would’ve been effortless to do so at the time. We’ve defeated an eight million strong army on the Nationalist’s side. Hong Kong only had 20,000 British soldiers at its peak. This isn’t the Opium War days anymore. What’s Britain gonna do? China doesn’t even have to officially invade. All we have to do is cut Hong Kong and Macau off of our fresh water pipes, and they’ll all die of thirst. They’ve got no source of fresh water on their island.

The reason we didn’t take back Hong Kong and Macau is because we wanted to use them in the long-term, because Hong Kong and Macau were not included in the economic sanctions against China. So Hong Kong and Macau were a source of western information and technology and a way to communicate with Taiwan. If China took back Hong Kong and Macau, they’d have to talk to Taiwan on a ship in the middle of the ocean. That’s why it took China until the late 90s to take back Hong Kong and Macau.

So China and America were hostile at the time, especially after 1950, when the Korean War started. The Chinese and American military clashed in Korea with neither side really understanding what is going on. China assumed that obviously, after America was done conquering Korea, they were going to invade China next. Especially since North Korea shares a border with Dongbei in China, the only provinces in China which has industrialised at the time. It was built up in the decade of Japanese occupation. Nowhere else in China has factories. Well, there’s Shanghai. But Shanghai only has light industrialisation. If we lose Dongbei, there’s no hope for building China at all. That’s where all of our heavy industry is. And that’s why we agreed to North Korea’s demands that we help against America.

But all of America’s documents during the Korean War have been declassified by now. And we can see that that was never a part of the plans. Americans aren’t stupid. They saw what hell of a time Japan had invading China. America’s advantage lies in its navy and its airforce. They have the most trouble with fighting on land. If Japan had that hard of a time taking over China, when they look exactly like Chinese people, what hope do a bunch of blue-eyed, big-nosed Americans who don’t speak a word of Chinese have? How many ground troops do you have to even commit to invading China? If you sprinkle a million Americans into China, would anyone even notice? So no way was America going to commit their own soldiers to invading China.

But Americans assumed that obviously, once the Communists were done taking over Korea, they would invade Japan next. And then it’ll be South-East Asia. They might even invade Hawaii. America was way, WAY over-estimating us. We couldn’t even land on Hainan, much less Hawaii. But that was America’s Domino Theory. That if China can knock over one domino, all the rest are going to fall.

So China and America clashed in Korea and fought each other for 3 years, and the enmity between them grew deeper and deeper. That removed any choice China had, and we were forced to ally with Soviet Russia.

So what were the major events in Chinese diplomacy during this period? The first major event was that we established diplomatic relations with the 17 countries in the Soviet Union.

The PRC was established on the 1st of October, 1949. On the 2nd of October, Soviet Union acknowledged the newly-established PRC, and sent ambassadors to build an embassy. Originally, Mao Zedong planned to wait until the 1st of January, 1950 to establish the PRC. Why? Because Nationalist China overthrew the Qing government and established itself on the 10th of October. That’s Independence Day in Taiwan. But Sun Zhongshan wasn’t established as President until the 1st of January, 1912. So that’s counted as when Nationalist China really started. So Mao Zedong was going to wait until the 1st of January too.

But Stalin sent an ambassador to talk to Mao at the time, and advised, “You have to establish a government as soon as possible, because the KMT has been overthrown. If you don’t establish a government yourself, China will be considered to be in a state of anarchy. And if there’s no government in China, then we can’t acknowledge you as a country or build relations with China itself. We can only have relations with the Communist Party.” So that’s why the PRC was established on the 1st of October, 1994.

At the time that the PRC was established, mainland China had not been entirely liberated by the Red Army yet. We didn’t take back Guangzhou until the 6th of October. We didn’t take back Chongqing until the end of November. We didn’t take back Kunming or Chengdu until the end of December. Xichang was the last KMT-occupied city on mainland China, and we didn’t take that back until 1950. Hainan had to wait until 1950 too. Tibet wasn’t taken until 1951. That’s even later.

So the PRC was established on the 1st. The Soviet Union established an embassy on the 2nd. If I recall correctly, this is the second acknowledgement in the history of the world. The fastest is America acknowledging Israel. That only took 4 hours.

After all the Soviet countries acknowledged China—you know, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, I don’t remember the rest—then it was followed by some of the…less mainstream countries in Europe. Like Sweden and Switzerland. England was a lot more sneaky about this. They established a temporary consulate in Beijing, and an embassy in Taipei, so they were sort of acknowledging both sides. So that at least meant that China was no longer entirely diplomatically isolated.

So which part of diplomacy is this? Right, with major countries.

But of course, we know that to fall entirely on the Soviet’s side carries with it an extremely high price. Back when the Soviets were in a Cold War with America, America called Soviet Russia an “evil empire”. I feel like this is a grave insult to the word “evil”. Soviet Russia definitely ranks first in the list of the Most Shameless Countries in the World. No country can even compare either now or throughout history. It’s the eternal number 1.

In Soviet Russia’s relations with its allies, it never helps others. It is entirely selfish. They’ve done everything to fuck over their allies to benefit themselves. So there’s nothing to be gained from following Russia.

Mao Zedong went to Soviet Russia in 1950 to show his respects. It was the 70th birthday of Stalin. Mao Zedong had to cry and beg in order to get 300 million USD in loans from Soviet Russia. Meanwhile, America gave the KMT 5.9 billion USD in aid for their conflict with their Communists.

What’s the concept of 300 million USD? When the Soviet Army invaded Dongbei in 1945, the looting and pillaging and killing and raping they did there caused 800 million USD in damages. What Mao Zedong was able to get by begging on his knees is less than half of the damages Soviet Russia did in Dongbei.

But just merely building diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia isn’t enough.

Look at Russia’s history. In October of 1917, the Communist win the revolution and an evil empire is born. In 1991, they fell apart and vanish from the face of the Earth. This whole time, they were never invaded, never suffered major natural disasters. They killed themselves. That’s karma right there. This is the result when you’re a thoroughly evil nation. They were born out of betrayal and died in humiliation.

So it’s not enough to just build diplomatic relations with an international shithead like Soviet Russia.

The most important thing for China to do at the time is to build diplomatic relations with all its neighbours.

So what did China look like in our neighbours’ eyes at the time? If you’re in the subway, and a new passenger comes on—he’s 178kg, over 190cm, bald, with a huge dragon tattoo going down his arm—what do you think when you see him? That’s what we looked like to our neighbours. You know what I mean? If he starts manspreading on the subway, you have to shrink all the way in. You’d never dare to tell him to move a little. Not even if eight other people loaned you their courage. If he wants to sit down, you’re gonna stand up. That’s how our neighbours felt about us. Our slogan at the time was, “Liberate all of humanity, raise the red flag on every continent.” All our neighbours were terrified of us. “What do you mean, you want to liberate me? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what I have now.”

Even when I was going to school as a kid, this is still what our teachers were telling us. That our mission is to bring about communism and liberate all of humanity. That two thirds of the world’s population live under oppression, waiting for us to save them. We all felt super proud. Wow, it’s nice to be born in China. I didn’t know two thirds of the world were living under oppression. Never knew until China opened up to the west, that that two thirds was ourselves. I really never would’ve thought. Never would’ve thought.

Look at America’s standard of living—it’s at least eighty years ahead of us. Japan’s leading us by fifty years. Even the KMT in Taiwan is at least ahead by thirty years. They’ve got taxis all over the place, and we can’t even afford bicycles. They’re all living in houses, and we’re still stuck in shacks.

At the time, we were just fooling our own population with our education. Liberate all of humanity. Raise a red flag on every continent. So everyone was really scared of us, that we were going to come “liberate” them. And it wasn’t just words either. China put it to action. We had the capability to “liberate” our neighbours. That fear from our neighbours reached its peak with the end to the Korean War. “What crazy maniacs! They actually went to war with America! They could invade any day!”

So the Korean War definitely raised the world’s fear of China. Nobody dared to fight China after that. But the problem is, as a person, do you want to be feared by the people around you, or loved by them? Do you want to be fearsome, or loveable? The answer is obvious, and the same goes for countries. Would you rather have people be like, “Oh, China, China’s a scary place, stay away from there.” or have them be like, “Oh, I’d like to visit China! Travel there and spend money! I want to send aid!” Which is better?

So we realised, oh shit, none of our neighbours like us. They’re all on the defensive. We had diplomatic relations with the EU in 1972, but it wasn’t until 1975 that we had diplomatic relations with Malaysia. We didn’t have diplomatic relations with Singapore until 1990. Why is that? It’s because everyone was too afraid.

So what can we do? We were all like, “Calm down, everyone. There’s no need to be afraid. We’ve got the five principles to peaceful coexistence.” How did this come about? This happened when Zhou Enlai visited India. In our embassy, there was ambassadors and diplomats and aides and military advisors. The military advisor we sent to India was Colonel Zhu Kaiyin (开印 - literally, to open a seal, or transliteratively, it can be interpreted as to open India). As soon as Indians saw his name, they started freaking out. They refused to accept him. Why? Well, what does Zhu mean? It means red. So, what, you’re having redness open up India? You’re trying to bring communism to India. China was known as Red China at the time. What, you’re trying to turn us into Red India too?

So they wouldn’t accept Zhu Kaiyin. But China can’t just fire someone because India demanded it. That’d be too humiliating. So China decided to be a little funny, and ask Zhu Kaiyin to explain why he’s called Zhu Kaiyin.

Zhu Kaiyin is all dumbfounded. Like, “…Because that’s what my dad named me??? It’s not like I came up with it???”

So he was forced to go research his own name in etymology. The surname, well, there’s nothing he can do about the surname. But Kaiyin is supposed to mean that he’s destined to become an officer. Because officers open up personal seals to stamp it on documents all the time.

And finally, the Indians understood, oh, okay. So what’s what that means. Alright, alright, you can come then.

But we realised that if a little military advisor can scare people this much by having the wrong name, then the problem goes deeper. So we had to emphasise our determination to peacefully coexist with our neighbours. We’ll respect each other’s borders. We won’t invade or interfere in their internal politics, and have equal trade policies with them.

“Don’t worry, maybe I’m bigger than you and stronger than you, but I totally promise to respect you.”

But in actuality, we might have said this, but that’s not what we actually did, at least during Mao Zedong’s reign. Every single communist faction in our neighbouring countries got support from us. Obviously, there’s Vietnam. We gave explicit support to Vietnam against America, just like with Korea. There’s Cambodia. We were behind one of the three major genocides of the 20th century. Pol Pot killed half of the people of Cambodia. The communist parties in Laos, Myanmar, Thailand…

The Myanmar Communist Party was explicitly composed of veterans of the Red Army. They all came over from China. There’s still military zones in Myanmar today, and if you go look, they’re just Chinese colonies. Everything’s labelled in Chinese. You can’t see any Burmese on anything at all. Their military’s got the same uniform as ours, they’re trained the same way, they hold meetings the same way. When you walk down the street and use a public phone, the first line on the instructions is how to make long-distance domestic calls. And when they talk about a “domestic call”, they’re talking about China. They’re not talking about calling within Myanmar. Myanmar’s covered with Chinese colonies. Everyone in charge is Chinese.

There’s communist parties in Malaysia and the Phillipines—they’re all funded by China. The head of the Malaysian Communist Party is named Chen Ping. When the Malaysian Communist Party fell apart in 1985, Chen Ping spent the rest of his life living in Guangzhou. It’s all led by Chinese people.

No wonder all our neighbours were hostile to us. Because we’re interfering in their politics all the time. You’re trying to cause a revolution in their country too.

This didn’t stop until Li Guangyao persuaded Deng Xiaoping to stop supporting these ventures. Mao Zedong was all for supporting overseas communists. We didn’t cut them off until the Deng Xiaoping era. And as soon as China cut them off, all of these communist parties basically evaporated overnight. Because China was supplying them with sergeants and weapons and training and uniforms. So they had no idea how to do anything once China cut them off.

And it was only after that, that China could establish relations with countries in South-East Asia.

So these “Five Principles to Peaceful Coexistence” is very important long-term. Whether or not we actually followed them during Mao Zedong’s era, they’re definitely the principles we follow today. We’ve not given any support to Nepal’s Communist Party—Mao’s Party. So when a lot of Mao supporters get all nostalgic for Mao’s era, I suggest they go to Nepal. Mao’s Party just came into power in Nepal, right? They also believe in surrounding cities with villages, and that military power is political power. You can go to Nepal and enjoy yourself, and take Mao’s portrait from Tiananmen with you when you go. You know, if they want it in Nepal. Why do we even keep it around anyways—not like it makes any money, they don’t sell tickets.

The third major diplomatic event during this period is the Geneva Conference in 1954. This is the first time the PRC has entered the world stage as one of the five major powers. The purpose of the Geneva Conference is to discuss a ceasefire in Korea and Vietnam. I mean, would there even be a war if it wasn’t for China? So there can’t be a ceasefire without China either. In 1949, as soon as the PRC was established, it was immediately engaged in a two-front war to the north and to the south—one is aiding Korea against America, the other is aiding Vietnam against France. It’s just that for Korea, we actually sent soldiers. Whereas for Vietnam, we just gave weapons and money and advisors. Every single battalion in Vietnam had a PRC military advisor. Vietnam was not allowed to make any military moves without approval from the PRC military advisors.

In 1954, after the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu, France didn’t feel like it could keep going anymore, so they were wanting a ceasefire in Vietnam, using the 17th divide as a boundary, forming North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Same as Korea—the northern half would belong to the communists, and the southern half would belong to the western powers. But they can’t call for a ceasefire without getting China’s agreement.

So despite all of America’s efforts to prevent it, China still attended the Geneva Conference, with a delegation headed by Zhou Enlai. Zhou Enlai was the premier and foreign minister at the time, so he was the one who attended all these conferences.

At the time, America was very annoyed. So American Secretary of State, Dulles, forbid any nation from shaking hands with the Chinese representatives. But the deputy Secretary of State at the time, Smith, was very friendly towards China. Every time he saw Zhou Enlai, he’d nod and smile. So at a dinner event, Zhou Enlai went up to shake his hand. Smith was afraid to directly disobey Dulles’ orders, so he had a cigarette in one hand, and quickly picked up a glass of alcohol with his other hand, and indicated to Zhou Enlai he can’t shake hands, because both hands are occupied. Zhou Enlai was angry and withdrew his hand.

In 1972, when Nixon visited China, you can see videos of his meeting with Zhou Enlai, where he gripped Zhou Enlai’s hand with both hands and shook it for forever—several minutes! That’s him trying to make up for the damage Dulles had done with banning hand shaking. He was all like, “Yeah, don’t mind that Dulles fucker, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We’re good friends now.”

But anyway, the Geneva Conference is how China broke through America’s diplomatic sanctions. And that’s still the “with major countries” part of diplomacy.

Then we have the Bandung Conference in 1955. That’s our diplomacy with developing nations. It’s actually a conference held in Indonesia with all the newly independent countries from Asia and Africa attending. There was 29 of them in total. This is actually a very special occasion, because this is the first international conference in modern history where a western power wasn’t in attendance. At least, it wasn’t one headed by a western power.

When China went, our goal was to promote ourselves a bit, do a bit of marketing. We never thought that right off the bat, the conference would all be about criticising China. Because our whole mentality just wasn’t on the same page as everyone else there. At the time, the loudest voice of criticism against China was Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and the Phillipines. They were talking about how China doesn’t respect human rights, no freedom of religion, etc, etc. The Chinese delegation were all rearing to go, to debate them. But Zhou Enlai held them back. He said that China’s designated time to speak isn’t until 4pm. So he took his time coming up with his speech. After he got on the stand, it only took a couple of sentences to make everyone shut up.

He came up with the principle of “Agree to Disagree”. He said that China had not come looking for a fight, we had came seeking a way to work together. When he said this, everyone fell quiet. Because he’s already made it clear that China isn’t here to fight. If you keep going at this point, then how are you any different from middle-aged rural bitches? This is something we all need to remember as human beings—that taking a step back isn’t a sign of weakness. When you meet someone who has no manners, who immediately starts threatening female members of your family—the best tactic for you is just to stay silent. That’s how you show you’re better than them. He doesn’t deserve a response from you.

Because firstly, you can’t win an argument with him. Secondly, even if you could put him down worse than he puts you down, what kind of person does that make you? He’s going to hell anyways, or he’s reincarnating as a lizard. If you argue with him, aren’t you putting yourself on the same level as him? So there’s no need to even give your attention to someone like that.

When I first started working, I was riding a bus one day. I was at the back of the bus. Around the middle of the bus was one of my students. She accidentally stepped on the foot of some older woman next to her. The woman started swearing up a storm. I recognised the girl as one of my students, so I came up to them and was all like, “Woah, that’s totally unnecessary. Stop talking like that to her.” The woman turned around and started swearing at me too. So I took the kid’s hand and started leading her to the back of the bus, just trying to avoid this woman.

The student was crying at this point, also angry, all like, “She’s calling you names, Mister Yuan! Why don’t you do something about it!?”

And I was like, “I’m a teacher. If I was a bus driver, I’d call her names right back. I’d pull the bus over, take her off the car, and have a proper throw down with her outside. But if I let you hear me call her names right now, how am I supposed to teach you tomorrow? For god’s sake, I graduated from proper university. She probably dropped out in 8th grade. How can I put myself on the same level as her? That’s the lesson of, “taking a step back is not a sign of weakness.” There’s no need to argue with people from the bottom. These types of people are filled with hate for society. They’ve got no job, they’ve got no ties. If you piss them off, all their hatred towards the government and society is gonna get concentrated on you. Why should you be a human shield for society?

So, that’s basically all the major diplomatic events of the 50s. Things started going wrong starting in the 60s. We’re at the “punching with both fists” stage of diplomacy. This is an area of history that our textbook is going to deliberately avoid. I’ll cover it real quick. So, why two fists? Who are we punching? One of it is America—that’s obvious enough. China and America have been hostile since the beginning. But at the same time, our relationship with Soviet Russia fell apart too. So punching with both fists means we were fighting against America and Soviet Russia at the same time. The slogan at the time is to “fight all imperialist anti-revolutionaries”.

The reason we became hostile to Soviet Russia is due to national interests, and also because of political differences. National interest is because Soviet Russia wanted to get total control of China, make China a subordinate state. And as for political differences, we summarised Soviet Russia’s national policy at the time as “Three peaces, One less”, that Khrushchev said at the time that they are going to peacefully coexist with, compete against, and transition with capitalist countries, and that they will lessen their support of communist parties overseas. Isn’t that exactly what we’re doing with western countries today? We also peacefully coexist with western countries, compete against them, transition with them. Do we still support communist parties overseas? Nope. So, that means the policies of Soviet Russia were…well, you can’t say they were correct. It was different times. When China and Russia’s relationship was restored, Deng Xiaoping said, “We weren’t totally right. You weren’t totally wrong.” It means that both sides were equally at fault for China and Russia’s relationship falling apart. They’re both responsible.

In 1959, Khrushchev visits China on its 10th anniversary. Khrushchev brought up to Mao Zedong then that China and Russia should build their military together, and they want to build radio stations in China, and they want to borrow the Qingdao Harbour. Mao Zedong refused, and that pissed Khrushchev off. He was all like, “You’re not a real communist. You’re just a nationalist.” Mao argued right back, “First, I am Chinese. Only then am I a communist. I would never hand you Chinese territory.” And Khrushchev returned to Russia, where the first thing he did was withdraw all Soviet experts out of China. That’s when China’s friendship with Russia officially ended, in 1960.

There were tons of projects that came to a complete stop because the Soviet experts took the plans with them when they left. There were factories already built and laid empty, because Soviet Russia stopped providing machinery. At the time, the Chinese newspapers were filled with articles denouncing Russia, and it was the same on the other side. This sabre rattling continued until 1969, when it turned into violent conflict over a small island in Heilongjiang, in the Ussuri River.

And that’s when China discovered the giant gap between their own strength and Russia’s. Russia’s T-62 tanks came charging across the Heilongjiang ice, and all of China’s anti-tank weaponry could do nothing against it except scratch a bit of paint. It would be like, “POP!” And the Russian soldiers are like, “Huh? Did we just get shot at? I don’t know. Let’s just keep driving. Sounded like we might’ve gotten shot. Doesn’t feel like anything though?”

None of China’s rockets and artillery shells could even break through the tank’s side armour, much less its front armour. So China was like, “Well, the hell are we supposed to do? Guess we’ll have to bury landmines.” These tanks are driving over a frozen river, so Chinese soldiers would wrap landmines in a white towel and just put it in the snow.

One tank actually did get its treads broken by a landmine. The soldiers inside it all got out, and the Soviet command shelled that tank until the ice under it broke and it sank into the Ussuri River. And China’s northern fleet sent divers to drag it back out again, so they could haul it to the Military Museum, where it remains to this day. Today, it’s just labelled as, “Russian T-62 tank”. Back in the day, it was called, “Captured Imperialist Soviet Russian T-62 tank, something something proof of Soviet invasion of China” And people would line up around the block to look at it. It raised people’s morale a lot.

Russia lost a Colonel and a Lieutenant Colonel. And they were furious that their advanced, cutting edge tank was destroyed by a landmine. So the highest commander of the Russian border there submitted a request to the Russian government, to approve a full-scale invasion of China—a million soldiers, 10,000 tanks, 1000 Hiroshima-scale nukes. Lol, we couldn’t figure out how to deal with one tank. What are we gonna do, blow up 10,000 tanks with landmines? Where would you even bury them all? And 1000 nukes is enough to put China back into the Stone Age. If they had went with this plan, China would’ve been done for. What would be left after 1000 nukes?

But the Premier at the time, Kosygin, didn’t want to go to war against China. There are pro-war and anti-war factions in the Soviet government too. Kosygin wasn’t just in the anti-war faction, he was worried that if the Soviet Union committed to a full-scale war with China, it would benefit America. So Kosygin called Mao to try to talk about this.

And so, the phone operator, a 19-year-old little girl at the time, saw the light for the Soviet phone light up to her shock and surprise. They haven’t gotten a call from Soviet Russia in 9 years. She picked up the phone and was like, “Who is this?”

And on the other side, came the reply, “I’m Premier Kosygin of the Soviet Union.”

And she was like, “Oho! You’re the anti-revolutionary Imperialist Kosygin! What do you want?”

“I need to discuss somethings with Mao Zedong.”

“Our Great Leader Mao is very busy. He doesn’t have time to waste with anti-revolutionary scum like you.”

“I can also talk to Zhou Enlai.”

“He’s busy too. Busy kicking the shit out of Tsar Kosygin. We’re gonna fuck you up.“ And then she hung up.

She turned around, with all the pride in the world, and asked her coworkers, “Guess who was on the line just now! It was Tsar Kosygin!”

Her supervisor just about passed out at that. “The Soviet Premier called? What did you say to him?”

“I told him off and hung up on him! I told him we’re gonna fuck him up some day.”

I bet her supervisor wanted to fuck her up right then. A major nation’s leader called to talk to our leader, and you, a little kid, tell him off and hang up on him? If it happened today, she would be executed. I mean, at least, she’d go to jail. But back then, it was just, “Oh shit. You’ve got too much communist spirit to do this job. Maybe you should go paint walls or something.”

Luckily, Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh died, and both the Chinese and Soviet leadership showed up to his funeral. And they took advantage of that opportunity to have a very lukewarm meeting to talk this out. Although there wasn’t continued hot conflict, though, China and Russia’s relationship was still at a freezing point.

At the same time that this was going on in China’s eastern front, there was conflict on the western front too, in Xinjiang, where a Chinese platoon was attacked by Soviet forces, where all 26 members died. We’ve only got assault rifles and grenades. The Soviets had armoured vehicles and tanks. Of course they all died.

So now China had to make a decision—it looks like we’re not actually strong enough to punch with both fists. At the time, the slogan was, “700 million people, 700 million soldiers, 1 billion hectares of land, 1 billion hectares of military bases.” We wanted to fight right now, as much as we can, escalate to nuclear war ASAP. But after punching blindly around for a decade, China realised that we’re too weak to accomplish anything. What can we do now?

China had to decide, which of our enemies is the greater threat to China? Obviously, it’s the Soviet Union. I mean, America is 9000 km away across the Pacific Ocean, and they’re busy with the Vietnam War. They’re not in a position to attack China right now. But Russia’s got China in its sights with its million-strong army and 10,000 strong tanks and 1000 tactical nuclear bombs. So, we need to ally with America.

At the same time, America’s trying to decide, which of their enemies is the greater threat to America? Obviously, it’s the Soviet Union. So it seems like it’s necessary to make contact with China, because they’ve got a common enemy together.

So in the 70s and 80s, China began its “Half the world in one line” policy. So what does this actually mean? At the time, Soviet Russia had surrounded China. To the north, on our border with Russia and Mongolia, there’s a million-strong army waiting. To the east, there’s the Soviet Pacific fleet. To the west, they were occupying Afghanistan. In the south, they are allied with Vietnam and giving support to India. They had completely circled China in.

So how do we break through this circle? If you leave China and head east, where do you get? Japan. If you keep heading past Japan and cross the Pacific Ocean, where do you get? America. If you keep heading past America and cross the Atlantic Ocean, where do you get? Western Europe. Every country on this line is anti-Soviet Russia. That’s what China means by “half the world in one line”. We’re going to join this anti-Soviet coalition. China is going to join the western faction, led by America.

So, the 80s is like a honeymoon period for China and America. Even today, the disaster relief work being done in the Wenchuan earthquake is conducted with Black Hawk helicopters. It’s the only models of aircraft owned by both China and America. America sold us 24 helicopters. It’s the only model of helicopter that can make it up to Tibet. No other helicopters can fly that high. None of the Mig-whatevers that we got from the Soviet Union could help out at Wenchuan.

After 1989, America refused to sell us any more Black Hawks. They wouldn’t even supply parts for it. So we’re having to cannibalise parts off of half our Black Hawks to keep the other half in service long past their intended lifespan. This model of aircraft has been in service for almost 30 years now, and they’re still staying in the air. America is totally blown away by how good China is at maintenance. In America, they would’ve been retired long ago—America’s got money. They don’t care. China’s only got 12 of these. If we retire any, we’d have to go to Tibet on donkey-back.

Anyway, major events in the 70s and 80s. The first of them is in 1971, Kissinger visits China in secret. He couldn’t come openly. He was supposed to be visiting Pakistan, a country that was on good terms with both China and America. Nowadays, China calls Pakistan its ally “in every respect”. We’re the textbook example of a friendship between two countries with entirely different structures and cultures. If you ever find yourself in a bad situation overseas and can’t find the Chinese embassy, if you run to the Pakistan one and show them your Chinese passport, they’ll protect you too. Chinese people are all brothers to the Pakistanis. All of their weapons and equipment come from China.

So Kissinger’s visit was made possible by the Pakistani president. On his visit to Pakistan, he disappeared for 36 hours, on a secret visit to China, claiming to the public that he was hospitalised for illness. So of course, he couldn’t take his official private aircraft, so he rode on a commercial airline. Though, of course, he bought out the first class cabin for himself. But although he put on a disguise when he got on the plane, he still got recognised by a British journalist. Guess he just looked too iconic. So the journalist stopped one of his guides and asked, “Where’s this old gentleman going?” And the guide wasn’t prepared beforehand, so he blurted out, “We’re going to China.” When the journalist heard this, he abandoned his luggage, didn’t even bother cancelling his ticket, he ran back to his hotel to send in his report, “I saw Kissinger board a plane to China with my own eyes.” And he laid back on his bed, dreaming that this kind of big news is certainly going to earn him a big bonus.

And two days later, when Kissinger had already returned from China, the news report still hadn’t been published yet. Turns out, his editor had seen the headline, “Kissinger secretly visit China!” and just figured he had had too much to drink, and threw the draft away. It was just impossible! Who are you trying to fool! It’s more believable to say Kissinger is performing a moon landing. It’s more believable to say you saw Kissinger cannibalise a man. So he lost his luggage for nothing, hahaha.

So, Kissinger visits China, trying to build a relationship there. As soon as he steps off the plane, he’s welcome with a huge banner, printed with characters which are each as big as a man. “DEFEAT AMERICAN IMPERIALISTS”. Of course, he couldn’t read it. If he asked his guides what that banner said, they would’ve told him, “Ah, that’s Welcome to China.”

So Kissinger met with Zhou Enlai, and explained that the President would like to visit China. Our country’s leaders have a bit of humour on them. They wrote an invitation: “In accordance with American President Richard Nixon’s request, we have officially invited him to visit China.” When Kissinger saw this, he was like, “That makes it sound like Nixon is inviting Nixon to visit China, you gotta change this.” So they changed it to be full of a bunch of bullshit about American Chinese friendship, blah blah blah, and in 1972, Nixon visited China, and China and America’s relationship normalised.

But before this, also in 1971, the 26th United Nations General Assembly restored China’s legal seat. The KMT representative officially left the United Nations. It’s only after the People’s Republic of China had its seat officially restored in the United Nations that Mandarin Chinese became a working language in the United Nations. Currently, the only working languages in the United Nations are Chinese, English, French, Russian, Arabic, and Spanish. They only provide real time translations for these six languages. Whether you’re an African chieftain or a German representative, you gotta speak one of these six.

China didn’t used to be one of the languages. The KMT representative—the Taiwan representative—had to speak English in the United Nations. If they tried speaking Chinese, there wouldn’t be a translation provided. When China came back, Chinese was added. This was proof of China’s rising status on the international stage. It proves the saying, “The more reliant your country is on learning a foreign language, the more you have to learn from other countries.” I mean, who was studying English in the Tang Dynasty? Everyone was learning Chinese. Japanese writing was entirely taken from China.

Anyway, China rejoins the United Nations in 1971, and that removes the biggest obstacle between China and America. And now we come to 1972, Nixon visits China. This time, it wasn’t in secret. It was on all the newspapers. After he met with Zhou Enlai, he explained that he’s always held such admiration for China’s Great Wall. He would like to visit it. But unfortunately, there was a huge blizzard. It completely blocked up all the roads. But Zhou Enlai confidently promised Nixon, “Don’t worry, we’ll definitely take you to the Great Wall tomorrow!”

And with one order from the Emperor, 500,000 peasants were put out on the streets to sweep up every trace of snow, so that Nixon’s fleet of cars can successfully get to the Great Wall. Nixon said then, “Being a leader of China is the most wonderful thing in the world, but being a citizen of China…” (note: the second half of this sentence was edited out of the video, but I was able to discover the original line down in the comment section. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to restore the other edited parts :( )

Note, that at this point, China and America do not have any actual diplomatic relations. China was still deep in the throes of the Cultural Revolution at the time. China’s whole slogan is defeating all Imperialist right-wing forces, and now you’re wanting to have diplomatic relations with the biggest imperialist faction in the world? You can’t explain that to the people. But we did establish diplomatic relations with the EU and Japan in 1972.

America’s stance is that they don’t want to abandon their old friend—that is, Chiang Kai-Shek. And in 1975, 5th of April, he passed away in Taiwan, and the last hesitancy between a Chinese American relationship disappeared. And so in 1979, China officially built diplomatic relationships with America. Happened on the New Year too. This year is actually the 30th anniversary. China’s relationship with America made a complete turn around.

Back in the 50s, when we were practicing completely one-sided diplomacy, who was our friend and who was our enemy? Soviet Union was our friend, and America was our enemy. In the punching with both fists period, both of them are bastards. And now, in the one line era, America is our friend. The Soviet Union is our enemy.

And in the 90s, a new change came around. We started doing No Enemies diplomacy. The reason behind this is very simple. Who was our enemy previous? The Soviet Union. In 1989, Gorbachev visited China, and China’s relationship with Russia normalised too. And in 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved. Our enemies have vanished. But at the same time, the only common interest we shared with America has disappeared too. America still isn’t our enemy though.

So we do No Enemies diplomacy. On the political and cultural front, we don’t hold hostility for any country. Because if we held any hostility towards any country, we wouldn’t have any friends on the international stage. There are only five communist countries in the world—China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cuba. All the rest are anti-communist. If you were going to fight everyone who was anti-communist, then you’ve only got four friends, and you have to spend the rest of your time fighting everybody. So we have to say that our attitude towards other countries isn’t based on their politics. It’s fine if they’re anti-communist. We’ll just both mind our own business.

And we’ll still do business with each other. You don’t like communists, but do you like shirts and shorts and Christmas tree ornaments made by communists? Then that’s good enough. If it weren’t for the CCP, Americans would have to walk around naked. Well, maybe not. It’s probably cheaper for them to get their t-shirts from Vietnam. Chinese shirts are maybe 8 for 10 bucks, but Vietnam can sell them at 12 for 10 bucks. So stop boycotting this brand and that brand. You’re just being an idiot. Be careful they’ll boycott you right back. If America starts boycotting China, our entire costal cities are all gonna go belly up. All our clothing factories and toy factories and shoe factories are going to shut down. Your workers are going to eat you alive.

Boycotting McDonalds, don’t make me laugh. Are there any Americans in those McDonalds? It’s all poor uni students working there. If you boycott McDonalds, are you gonna pay them money? Your boycott Carrefour? Are there any actual French people in there? It’s all Chinese people selling their wares in there. Selling things that are made in China. You boycott Carrefour and they don’t sell their bread that day, it’ll all go bad. You gonna eat it all?

So young people need to be rational. Don’t believe in the lies patriots try to sell you. Patriots are a lot more dangerous to a country than Quislings. If it weren’t for the Yihe Tuan, we wouldn’t have seen a G8 Alliance. They’re the archetypical example of too weak to actually hurt the enemy, so they only cause destruction among their own people. This sort of person is terrifying. The Chinese Government is performing No Enemies diplomacy, so stop imagining that everyone is out to get you. We don’t have enemies. Everyone’s our brother.

So how is No Enemies diplomacy actually practiced? Independence, autonomy, and not joining any alliances. Why don’t we join any alliances? Because if we become allies with Country A, then we default become enemies with Country B. So we don’t make any allies, and we don’t take any country to be our imagined enemy.

But of course, there’s special exceptions. Like, we’ve formed a Shanghai Cooperation. I mean, that’s an alliance, isn’t it? China even held military drills in honour of it. But of course, the targets of our military drills are religious extremists, conservative extremists, and terrorists. We don’t target any countries. We’re allowed to target individual extremist factions.

We believe that the threat of a World War is over. The only countries capable of starting a World War are all responsible, major countries. They wouldn’t start a war over trivialities. Because at this point, if a World War broke out, that means the end of humanity. If all the nukes in America and Russia went off, we wouldn’t see the sun on Earth for 6 months. The temperature is going to drop to minutes 60 degrees C. All life is going to go extinct.

Well, we say No Enemies diplomacy…

When I was a little kid, I was forced to participate in a Radio Enthusiasts Camp. I don’t give a shit about radios. But I’m a weird person. I’ve never been interested in natural sciences for a day in my life. I didn’t visit a zoo until I was in my sophomore year of college, and only because they were putting on a free performance of the Journey to the West. As soon as I stepped in and smelled the zoo, I immediately turned around and left. It smelled exactly like a public bathroom.

I’ve never been to an observatory. I’ve never been to a nature museum. I just don’t have any interest in it. But we had to participate in something, and back in the day, there was an even stronger bias in favour of STEM over humanities. We were all about scientific development. But I couldn’t make anything to save my life. I can’t even figure out how to fold paper airplanes. But the Radio Enthusiasts Camp didn’t actually involve any arts and crafts.

The teacher would be up on the podium, drawing on the blackboard. I’d be down there, reading my Romance of the Three Kingdoms comic books. The teacher wrote down three radio channels, and he said, “Turn on your radios. If these three channels try to make a call to you, you can’t answer them. Don’t say a word back. Either switch to a different channel, or turn off your radio.” We were scared and curious, and we bugged the teacher to tell us what these three channels were, why we’re not allowed to talk to them. And in the end, the teacher gave in and answered, that these three channels were from Israel, South Africa, and Korea. These three countries, we’re going to be cold to until the day we die.

Israel, because they’re mean to our Arabian brothers. South Africa is even worse! They’re racist there. They oppress our black brothers. And can we talk to Korea? China and North Korea’s friendship was forged in blood. Tens of thousands of people died for that alliance. (Originally there was a joke here about Peking Duck, referring to Mao Zedong’s son being burned alive in a cave in that war, but it’s also been edited out).

But all you’ve got to know for the exams is just the words Independence, Autonomy, and No Alliances. Just familiarise yourselves with the three forms of diplomacy, and its four stages. Then just string together all the major events in these four stages. When we eventually get around to talking about modern Chinese history, you’ll have to synchronise all these major events in your heads to its corresponding historical period. So, for example, not only do we have to learn about the Great Leap Forward, we need to know what diplomatic moves China is making in that period. That’s probably gonna be the hardest part for you guys.

[And that’s it. The rest of the video, he begins on the next topic, which is The Current Political State of the World. Let me know if you’re interested in this type of content—this guy covers all of modern Chinese history in extraordinary detail, and all of Dynastic Chinese history is much less detail (because there’s just a lot to it, not his fault really). He’s got excellent lectures on the KMT vs Communist civil war and on the Cultural Revolution. I know it’s great, because 20 minutes into the lecture, I had to close it, and spent the rest of the night lying in bed awake until 2am, sighing every 3 minutes.]