Reference News Network July 23 report: The U.S. "Boston Globe" website on July 11 published an article titled "The Era of 'Gong He' in the United States," by Stephen Pratt. Excerpts are as follows:

On a cold night in December 1937, U.S. Marine Corps officer Evans Carlson was warming himself by a coal fire in Shanxi Province, discussing the future of the two countries with General Zhu De, the commander-in-chief of the Eighth Route Army. At that time, Carlson was on an observation mission at the headquarters of the Chinese Communist army, directly reporting to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on the situation of the war against Japan.

Amazed by the Iron Will of the Eighth Route Army

China and Japan had been at war since the summer of that year, although the United States remained neutral in the conflict. Just days earlier, Japan bombed the American naval gunboat "Panay" moored on the Yangtze River, killing three American sailors and injuring more than 40 others. Just as the sinking of the "Lusitania" ship dragged the United States into World War I, Carlson and Zhu De believed that the sinking of the "Panay" could signal the United States' involvement in the Asian war.

While discussing the significance of this attack, Carlson and Zhu De speculated on the possibility of a U.S.-China alliance against Japan. They further envisioned a broad world war in which China, the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union would jointly oppose Japan, Germany, and Italy.

Their speculation came several years ahead of the actual developments. However, they agreed on one thing that night: if the United States and China jointly opposed Japan, the two countries would surely become close allies after the war.

At that time, the United States was not yet at war — the isolationist sentiment among the American public was too strong. But the idea of an alliance lingered in Carlson's mind. In the following months, he traversed over 2,000 miles in the Japanese-occupied northern China with the accompaniment of small groups from the Eighth Route Army, studying guerrilla tactics and envisioning how the armies of the United States and China could achieve complementary advantages.

Carlson saw in the Eighth Route Army soldiers qualities that were difficult for his own countrymen to match. They were willing to endure suffering and fight under conditions of scarcity. Despite lacking rear support, they gritted their teeth and marched with meager rations. Their weapons were temporarily assembled. In the cold, many did not have coats, but their morale was remarkable. They worked together in closely-knit teams, united by a common goal. They were willing to sacrifice their lives for the future of China.

After having that experience, Carlson became a passionate advocate for guerrilla warfare, firmly believing that the Eighth Route Army had invented — as he told Roosevelt — "a military tactic that was completely different from any other army in China, and also new to foreign armies."

Putting the "Eighth Route Army Tactics" into Practice

After the Pearl Harbor incident finally dragged the United States into the Asian war, Carlson got the opportunity to put into practice what he had learned in China. With the support of President Roosevelt, Carlson formed the Second Marine Raiders Battalion, one of the first U.S. special forces in World War II. He trained them to fight like the Eighth Route Army.

In 1942, the raiders completed a grueling month-long patrol behind enemy lines in the jungle, during which they killed 488 Japanese combatants, losing only 16 of their own. In a letter to a friend on Guadalcanal Island, Carlson credited all his combat methods to the Chinese. He wrote, "We almost entirely adopted the tactics of the Eighth Route Army. The philosophy of the teacher was the guiding force of our organization." "The teacher" was Zhu De.

Carlson was not a communist, but he agreed with the Chinese view that if soldiers had a deep political understanding of why they were fighting and for what purpose, their combat effectiveness on the battlefield would be much stronger. Carlson managed his raiders as a democratic organization, where everyone was equal. As he said, if they were to fight to protect democracy, then they better practice democracy within their ranks.

Carlson's raiders were favorites of the wartime American media. The slogan "Gong He," derived from the Chinese language, entered the English dictionary and remains to this day. Carlson's "Gong He" came from the Chinese characters for "work" and "cooperation," meaning military cooperation and harmony, as well as the courage to sacrifice individual interests for the collective. It was the spirit of his unit, and he hoped this spirit would flourish in the United States. A newspaper ad during the war stated, "Although Americans may not understand Chinese, they do understand the meaning of 'Gong He.'"

Opposing Involvement in the Chinese Civil War

Today, Americans are less likely to think about the fact that we allied with China during World War II. Currently, the hostility between our two countries is the deepest since the Cold War.

But Carlson reminds us that Americans once held such a positive view of China itself — especially the Chinese Communists. For wartime media, Carlson was a "first-rate guerrilla." Life magazine praised him as "a student of Chinese guerrilla warfare, who taught his subordinates how to fight and for what purpose." In 1943, Universal Studios made a film about him titled "Gong He!" In the 1940s, Carlson did not need to hide his connection with the Chinese Communists — in fact, they were the most open part of his work, the basis of his mystique.

All of it collapsed so quickly. Japan's defeat in 1945 reignited the potential civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists. President Harry Truman took the side of the Nationalists, but he bet on the wrong horse. Chiang Kai-shek would lose China and retreat to Taiwan under the protection of the United States — leaving an unresolved civil war between the two sides, which is still the most likely source of future U.S.-China military conflicts. Five years after Japan's defeat in World War II, the promising U.S.-China alliance of hope turned into the slaughter of American and Chinese soldiers on the Korean battlefield.

Carlson died of a heart attack in 1947, so he did not live to see the full outcome of these events. But he witnessed its occurrence. In 1944, injured on Saipan Island, his health was severely damaged. In his later years, he strongly opposed Truman's support for Chiang Kai-shek. He called for the U.S. Marines to withdraw from China, insisting that the United States must remain neutral in this civil war and let the Chinese decide their own fate. The real communists in the United States, imitating Moscow, made the same call. They wanted the United States to withdraw from China so that the Soviet Union could influence the outcome there. For Carlson, his position was more principled: he knew that the scale of the Chinese conflict was too large and the historical roots too deep to rely on any external power's short-term intervention, whether it was the United States or the Soviet Union.

At the end of World War II, Carlson was still the only U.S. military observer who had spent a significant amount of time with the Chinese Communist army on the battlefield. He insisted that even with U.S. support, the Nationalists could not win the civil war. But as Roosevelt left, no one in power was willing to listen to his opinion. Carlson predicted during his lifetime that history would prove Truman's support for Chiang Kai-shek was the greatest mistake the United States had made in East Asia. From our current position, he might still be right. (Translated by Ge Xuelei)

Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7530171319120298532/

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