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.