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

SpyCast

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.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices