Vic Socotra

31 March 2007

Cherry Blossoms

I have lost most of my innocence, and I tend to approach life with the surliness born of experience, expecting to find the cut deal and sweet angle. I am working on the charity-to-others thing, though. I hope at the end of days to arrive again at sweet idiocy.

That marvelous state of mind is shared around the Tidal Basin this weekend. People have come from all over the globe to see the delicate pink blossoms of the 3,000 cherry trees around the Jefferson Memorial, gift of the emperor of Japan to the America people in 1912.

Located conveniently near the old Main Navy and Munitions Buildings, they were an annual symbol of subtle Asian beauty. They are best viewed in Japan, of course, and I prefer the ones near the Buddhist shrine at Kamakura during Golden Week in late April.

They bloom here at the end of March. The Army and Navy buildings on the mall are gone now, destroyed by President Nixon as a matter of public beautification, just as he did the old relationship with the Nationalist Chinese.

It sounds quaint these days, but the old China lobby is still very much around, and thunders periodically. They use the lesser of the two local papers to do it, but they are still influential. They used to go after a friend of mine when he was a public figure every couple of months for being “weak on China.”

I think the whole “who lost China” thing is a specious argument, since it is right where we left it. We did have a lot invested in the prostrate dragon, though. The Open Door to China was a tenet of fundamental American national interest for decades, gaining strength against the European colonial powers when we became one ourselves with the acquisition of the Philippine Islands.

American ties were strong with Dr. Sun Yat Sen, founder of the Kuomintang, the party of Nationalism. We are all wrapped up in that, and the overthrow of the doddering Manchu dynasty.

The good Doctor was no pacifist, any more than George Washington was. He founded several secret societies to use force to overthrow the emperor, and as a result of a failed coup in 1895, he lived in exile in Europe, America and Japan.

He finally returned to the Mainland, and after ten attempts, finally deposed three-year-old Emperor Pu Yi and his Regent in 1912. He had to leave Peking again shortly thereafter, when he did not win the first election for the Presidency. His KMT- short for Kuomintang- had a life of its own, ruling as an opposition government in the southern provinces.

The Doctor died in 1925, and had traveled far enough that he embedded Soviet advisors in his army. After a bitter struggle, Chiang Kai Shek became commander in chief of the new Nationalist Army. Old Chiang is best remembered here as the leader of the embattled Nationalists in the struggle against Japan, which is ironic.

Chiang got his military training from the Japanese themselves, serving in the Imperial Army for three years before the last emperor fell. As a re-made Nationalist, he led the famed Northern Expedition to crush the warlords of North China, and emerged as the leader of a unified China in 1928.

The communists had made their start in the twenties as well, so it is appropriate to remember the two parties as a sort of ying-yang; Chiang's legitimacy was better established overseas than it was at home.

The Generalissimo and his American-educated wife Soong May-ling, held the unswerving support of the US China Lobby, an interesting coalition of commercial and missionary religious interests. Their status as rock-stars of the day was cemented by their intimate relationship with Time magazine publisher Henry Luce.

The victory over the Japan in 1945 left the KMT weak, though, and unable to assert universal authority. The Communists had husbanded their strength while the Nationalists fought the invaders, and the Truman Administration had one of the periodic flirtations with democracy. It pressed for peace talks between the two sides, and withholding direct military aid which would have unleashed Chiang against communist strongholds in the interior.

With nearly a million demobilized Japanese troops still in the field, the situation was as fluid and it was widespread. Holding mostly the urban areas on the coast, the KMT was slowly squeezed by Mao Tse Tung's forces. The last Nationalist stronghold was Cheng-du, and it was from that city in the darkness of December 10th, 1949 that Chiang and his son fled to Taiwan for the last time in the aircraft May-ling.

Despite the defeat, or perhaps because of it, the island rump of the Republic of China was viewed as the legitimate government of all Chinas, and it took the trappings of power with it. That included the magnificent collection of the Imperial Museum of Peking and electoral districts representing the lost land across the Straits.

That is how Taiwan, and the imposed Nationalist government on the island became essential to the national interest of the United States. President Eisenhower was driven to such distraction over the issue that he seriously considered the use of nuclear weapons against the Mainland in 1956 to convince the communists to abandon their attempts to overthrow Chiang.

I did not get to the island until March of 1980. I was interested in pariah states, and at the time there was a curious alliance of the white supremacists of South Africa, the unreconstructed KMT of Taiwan, and the state of Israel. While I was there, I enjoyed a temporary membership in the China Fleet Club, the real successor to the Sand Pebbles of the US Navy on the Yangtse River gunboats.

I also wanted to see the cherry blossoms. They are quite spectacular on the island, planted by the occupying Japanese for their great beauty, just as they were in southern South Korea.

They bloom a month earlier in the central mountains of Taiwan than they do here in Washington, and the most lush display is near the great fortress on the way from Puli to Wushe. It has been a strongpoint for generations, and the Generalissimo enjoyed the view, and the blossoms when they were in season. He closed off the groves for his personal use while he still lived, and it stayed that way for decades after he was in him lofty mausoleum in Taipei.

In Korea, the cherry trees do not reach their peak until mid-April, and some of the best views are near the old Imperial Japanese Navy base at Chinhae.

I have never had the opportunity to sequence visits to Taiwan, Japan and Korea around the Washington Cherry Blossom Festival, though I think it would be elegant to string the pink beauty along for a couple months, rather than the paltry days we have here.

It might be possible to get the best views on Formosa soon. The Taiwanese are asserting themselves, in matters of language and history. They are reassessing their view of Chiang's mythic status, and removing his name and likeness from public places. The best cherry groves are opening to public view again after decades as the property of the Last Warlord and his family.

I agree with the Taiwanese that it is time to take a fresh view. Their island is closer to the Mainland than Havana is to Miami. I am not sure that the defense of Taipei constitutes a vital interest to the United States. Or maybe I should better say that I do not know how we could actually conduct one successfully.

Great Powers are at their best when they are not sentimental, or carried away by the exquisite beauty of an idea as ephemeral as the blossom of the cherry tree.

It is probably time for a reassessment of our own. Thankfully, I am not responsible for that, and as I march on toward sweet idiocy, I take comfort in the brief pink loveliness of spring.

Close Window