The China Mirage -- a fatal delusion

For many centuries China was the richest nation in the world. Then it was brought  low by the forced importation of opium on the part of Britain and the United States. But American missionaries persisted in the delusion that China's great need was western guidance and Christian religion. The Wise Men of Washington bought into the delusion, and all were shocked when the Communists under Mao Zedong defeated China's westernized elites.

Thursday, June 4 Per Fagereng will talk with James Bradley, author of The China Mirage. Bradley's father was one of the fighting men who raised the American flag on Iwo Jima, in a war that was born in delusion and duplicity.