Why did the US let China become communist then go to war with Vietnam/North Korea?

[Howard_Roark]

This is something I fundamentally have never understood, if you read history you will know that Chiang Kai-Chek, the leader of the capitalist Kuomintang was horribly undersupplied throughout the entire conflict. I'm not suggesting we should have gone there and fought but its very strange to me that we didn't even help him at all, then we do a massive war against 2 satellite countries of China, Korea and Vietnam that are tiny in comparison.

I read an article from the John Birch Society's New American called China Betrayed into Communism (http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/history/world/1464) that is really explosive. It claims that leftists working in the State department in DC that were communist sympathizers obstructed very effort of the US to send aid. Even worse, we apparently turned over massive divisions of equipment and weapons to the Russians to fight the Japanese who allegedly then gave it to Mao Zedong.

[Lovecraftian4Paul]

I think a significant portion of the Chinese people were duped into supporting Mao. Strangely, Communism has come to have very popular appeal for peasants--which both Russia and China were overwhelmingly composed of at the time of their revolutions. I think Mao and the People's Liberation Army had built up something of a mystique among common (and often illiterate) Chinese peasants for their vocal denunciation of imperialism and role in fighting off Japan.

I could be wrong, but in the context of the times I think Communism was looking pretty good for a lot of impoverished people. Of course, China already went Red before Stalin's crimes were even widely known, so Communism itself still had some appeal for the bottom rung in both industrialized and rural countries.

[sofia]

The idea was to simultaneously create, yet contain, an international communist adversary. Make the monster strong enough to scare your own people into accepting certain policies....but keep it in check so it doesnt get too strong that you cant manage it.

In the end, merge the communist world with the socialized "free world"....we are in the end game stage now.....Ironically, it is China and Russia which are the final obstacles....which is why the US and EU are encircling those nation now.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Well, mopping up after WWII, the whole colonialism thing. Uncle Ho was actually a friend during WWII and asked for a copy of our Constitution and BoR to base his government on, but alliances with the French were felt to be more important, so we inherited the war from them, and Ho was forced to go red. Also worth noting that lots of oil rigs went in during the conflict and much oil pulled out.

On Korea, Russia didn't want the equivalent of Cuba on their boarder.

As to China, they had / have tons of cannon fodder and at the time a major war wasn't in the cards. Currently China has 4 people for every one we do. Very hard to win a war with those kind of odds. We also destroyed much of our military equipment right after WWII and used the materials for civilian purposes, like cars.

-t

[Marenco]

YouTube - ENDGAME Exerpt 8 of 13 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HKX9RlC10M)