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.

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