Lasting peace, build on justice and understanding among nations. This is the objective of the United Nations. Music This is another program in the United Nations series of the Pacific Story. One of the five special series presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated stations to further world unity and world peace through understanding. Music For hundreds of years the Pacific and the lands it touches have been the scene of struggle, conflict for gain and power, people against people, western nations seeking to dominate and exploit the lands and people, and millions caught in the political and economic cross currents. Today with most of the world's population concentrated around and in the Pacific, the events of the Pacific are a vital world concern. The Pacific Story dedicates this series to the objective of the United Nations. Lasting peace, built on justice and understanding among the nations. Music The heartland of Asia. Music Gentlemen of the general staff, I am now discussing the heart of the world. This is the Institute of Geopolitics in Berlin. Here Dr. Karl Haushofer formulated his theory of geopolitics. Pay close attention, for the future of the greater Reich depends upon your clear understanding of this theory. This is 1939. This area I describe upon the map is the world island. He encircles the great land mass of Europe, Asia, India. There are no separate continents of Europe, Asia and India. This is the world island. He points to a smaller circle on the map. China, Asiatic Russia and India. This is the heartland of the island. In this greatest land mass on the globe live 450 million Chinese, nearly 400 million Indians, and more than 100 million people of Soviet Asia. These are the greatest potential market in the world for German goods. The greatest labor supply in the world for German industry. All this will be labored from for the greater Reich. This is the Nazi theory that young aggressive peoples, such as the Germans, must have territorial expansion. But it will be ours only if we follow the science of geopolitics. Dr. Haushofer expands upon the first principle. First, no island empire, no geographically small nation, and no sea power can withstand the utter destruction of modern aerial and mechanized warfare. Colonial empires are a thing of the past. All sea powers are at the mercy of land powers. Therefore, we must first consolidate our victories on the continent. Britain will fall in time. If these theories of yours are correct, Herr Doktor, when does the Reich invade this heartland? Never, in your narrow military sense. A military attack upon these vast areas is absorbed, swallowed up. Has not China completely assimilated her conquerors in the past? Was not Napoleon swallowed and destroyed by Russia? And are not the Japanese today lost on the mainland of Asia? Then what of the conquest of the heartland? That I did not say. We will follow the principle of the English and French and Americans in Asia, up to a point. They infiltrated the heartland. They divided the people, one against the other, and they sold merchandise. So the greater Reich must divide and conquer. But not by attacking from the south. Always from within. Remember, this is the heart of the world empire. To attack it is like trying to push your fist through a feather pillow. But on June 21st, 1941, Hitler attacked Russia. Today, the army of the Reich attacked Russia and all France for the glory of the greater Germany, Heil Hitler. This is Colonel von Schneider. Smolensk and Rizhev have been taken according to schedule. You will proceed according to plan X in a flanking movement. Into the hundreds of miles of Russia fanned the German army. Kiev fell almost on schedule. Kharkov is evacuated almost to the last stick and stone. The Germans occupy the parched earth of Russia. Good, good. The spires of Stalingrad. I can see them in my field glasses. Tomorrow they will be in the sights of our guns. But Stalingrad held. The Russian line held. Russia, like a coiled spring, thrust back across the Russian earth that swallowed and absorbed the Wehrmacht and the stormtroopers and the Gestapo. Haushofer was right. Hitler was wrong. Today Hitler is dead. Haushofer is dead. And a new cry is heard in many languages throughout the Orient. I am from South China, but I must think in terms of one united China. This is a Chinese from the south who would not be understood in the north of China and yet... Once I can think as a Chinese, I can think as an Asiatic. We must have union now. Union now with India. Union now with Soviet Asia. We must have union now. Union now. Union now. I am a Mohammedan from the Delta region of the Ganges. My religion and my political beliefs are different from those of the Sikhs of the Punjab or of the Patan tribesmen in the mountains by the Karapas. This is an Indian toolmaker. There are even greater differences between myself and the Chinese. And yet the toolmaker working in a French factory in Indochina and I, who work for a British corporation in India, have much in common. Only by a united stand can Asiatics free themselves of exploitation. A major in the Eastern Army of the Republics of Soviet Asia bridges the gap between European and Asiatic Russia. The red star of his country is worn upon a fur cap. My ancestors were Tartars. We have blended with the Russians from east to west to give all Russians a sympathy with the ambitions of Asiatics. He recognizes no false barriers of color, creed, race, or social status. The time is coming for Asia to free herself from the slavery imposed upon her by Western capitalism. Not a new concept is this idea of the natural wealth and potential power of the heartland, but a new importance has attached itself to this great landmass for which almost a thousand years has been exploited. And for a thousand years the fortune hunters of the West have maintained an open season on every Asiatic from whom they could profit. I have never seen such a strange land. The tales I could tell would never be believed in all of Florence. This Florentine of the 11th century has seen more of the global surface than any but a handful of the men of his time. Messer Marco Polo led us over mountains and deserts as endless as time he did, until we reached a land called Cathay. The caravan of Marco Polo opened the east to European exploration. It is a land of strange contrivances, rich spices, exotic perfumes, cloth as fine as a spider's web. Yes, but they are a strange people in Cathay. For example, they have invented a peculiar substance which is used to make loud noises. So rapidly does it expand when burned in a confined space that it could destroy anything, even a large city. But so strange are these people that they use it only to make noises for religious observations. They call it gunpowder. So through the strange land, great cities grew along the caravan routes, destined to flourish and a while later die. Great cities that developed in the center of the heartland. They flourished and declined as the Westerner learned how to deal with the East. If it is true that the world is not a flat plain... This is not a scientist of the Middle Ages, but a businessman. He projects a plan of commercial exploration. What a nonsense you speak. If the world is not a flat, what is it around? Your laughter will turn to tears if the last caravan you sent over Lantau Cathay is despoiled by the bandits of Sink Young. Perhaps I am a visionary, an impractical dreamer. And yet we must protect our trade routes to Asia or all Europe will go into an economic decline. We might attempt to support a strong government in the East which could cope with the local bandit chieftains who first exact tribute and then rob us. I think not, my friend. A strong government in the East would eventually compete with the Western powers. We do not want that. No, we must divide them more. Ah, I see. Divide them and set them up on each other. A good plan indeed. Furthermore, there are in our country and in Spain and Portugal as well, men, ship captains, who believe that the world is round. Oh, come now those crackpots. They claim that by sailing to the West they could reach the East. There may be crackpots, and I'll grant they have more courage than money. But think you, at very little more than the cost of a slaughtered caravan, this theory could be put to the test. Not with my money. Nor with mine. But as responsible citizens, we should encourage our governance to make this small investment. In the name of scientific knowledge, of course. And a safe sea passage might be found. A westward passage to China and an eastward passage to the Indies. Westward and eastward sailed the explorers, charting the new, the adventurous round world. The flags of Spain and France, of Portugal and Holland, of Britain and the city-states that were to be Italy, flew in the ports of the Yellow Sea and the Bay of Bengal. And wherever there was a commercial opportunity to be seized, there was a Westerner to seize it. And the riches of the Orient were neatly stowed in the holes of the westbound ships. China was divided from within and became a feast for all nations. But India was a baffled round. Here the British Empire defeated France, secured its richest colonial hunting preserve. It is really a pleasure, Your Highness, to release you. The ransom is adequate for me and, I dare say, not a great inconvenience to you. In the 18th century, Lord Clive of India defeated the French at Pondicherry and secured the whole of India for England. He addresses a Maharaja whom he has held for ransom. You have not deigned to speak to me. And yet, I have secured your caste system for centuries to come. You represent the wealth and power of India. You and your children, for generations to follow, will be protected by Britain, if you cooperate. I have had the knowledge and the skill and courage to make the richest land in the world a part of the British Empire forever. The centuries rolled over the heartland. An endless list of raw materials moved to the west, traded for cheap cotton prints and manufactured iron goods and cutlery and medicines and machine tools and things in cheap tin cans. And there was traded to the east another commodity upon which no embargo could be placed. That was the knowledge, the know-how, of modern mechanized civilization. It was open season upon the Asiatics for a thousand years. The Asiatic has learned to hate the Westerner. But more, for a thousand years, Oriental was divided against Oriental. The Kuomintang must dominate our China. We must suppress Communism. Communism is a plague upon China. This is 1940 in the city of Chengdu. But the Nationalist government is corrupt. That is no better than the old warlords. The Kuomintang talks loudly of reforms, but none appear. That is because of the war against Japan. Tung Kai-Chek has promised reforms. Tung Kai-Chek is a dictator. He is not democratic. Sun Yat-sep promised us freedom and democracy. But Tung Kai-Chek has betrayed that promise. In India, already invaded by the Japanese, religious differences blocked the struggle for independence. As a Mohammedan, I must oppose any plan for Indian freedom, which does not grant to Muslims at least one third of India, the Punjab, Calcutta, and other concessions. Otherwise, we would be oppressed by the Hindus, for we are a minority of 90 million. But the Hindu ridicules this position. The Hindus consider the Muslims' stand on Indian freedom as a British scheme to keep us weak and divided. How can we possibly oppress the Muslims when our own Hindu people are divided by a hideous and outworn caste system? And among the many other minorities in India speaks the Anglo-Indian. Like 120,000 others, one of my parents was British, one Indian. Although I am acceptable to neither group, under the empire, I received an education and an opportunity to work as a clerk for a British firm. Will independence for India deny me the precarious position I maintain? The undefeated West lost face in 1905, when Japan defeated Russia, a Western power. Again, after World War I, the West lost face, when it disregarded the Declaration of Self-Determination of Nations. But after the war... The Declaration of Self-Determination, obviously, was not meant to apply east of a line drawn through the Suez Canal. Another World War came and the support of the Orient was necessary for the defeat of Japan. The Oriental was not certain that a Western oppressor was more kindly than an Oriental one. The Asiatics pondered the Four Freedoms, a world founded upon the essential Four Freedoms. But with victory over the Axis came swift dissolution for Oriental and Occidental alike. How do you like that? Chinese nationalist troops wearing GI shoes. Look at them. And those Ford and Chevy trucks weren't made in China. Who do you think's paying for that, huh? That's good old American tax money, brother, and we're paying for it. And so are our folks back in the States. Well, my old man writes that income taxes are terrific. Sure. And another thing. Why don't these Chinese get together? I figured that under the Four Freedoms they could settle their own differences without us taking sides. Why don't they wise up? That question is being asked throughout Asia, as the West loses more face. Interest grows among Chinese concerning Indian affairs. The Indian considers the East Indian. It is obvious that the great Western powers have no intention of ceding any of the areas in Asia which they have exploited for years. In the Dutch East Indies, for example, British troops equipped with land lease American tanks have attempted to destroy the movement for freedom. At their backs they depend upon armed Japanese troops to keep the peace. Is this done merely out of generosity for Queen Wilhelmina of Holland, or is it to maintain the Western status quo in Asia? The question is asked in Shanghai and Hong Kong, which recovered from the Japs, are now again subject to all the extraterritorial rights forced from the Chinese. Part of the answer is spoken in London. The Four Freedoms are an ideal which we hope to see a reality for all the world. Naturally, they do not apply to territories captured by the Japanese and since returned to their original government. The Four Freedoms are not legal commitments in British colonies any more than they are new legal instruments in London, New York, or Paris. Although I myself am a scholar, my family has banking connections. Naturally, I lean toward the nationalist side of the Chinese controversy. This is in Chungking, 1946. We appreciate extremely the assistance of the United States in settling civil warfare with the communists. Yet we find ourselves in an untenable position. First, our nationalist government may fall of its own impotence long before the communists are crushed. We must settle quickly. They have but to hang on, unless of course there is active participation on the part of the United States. He knows that this would be extremely unpopular with the American people. Furthermore, continued aid from the West will only entrench Western imperialism in China. You exact your price for your help, but your imperialism is completely outmoded. Colonial empires are crumbling at their foundations. This scholar is convinced that the Western powers realize this also. Should Asia be left to its own destiny at this moment, the masses of India and China, living as animals in donk piles, wretched, starved, and with nothing to lose, might well turn to communism. He fears for the national integrity of his country. The Asiatic Russian gives us his hand in friendship and equality. He threatens no territorial aims. And yet, were China to turn communist, is it not feasible that even between two communist states that there might be differences which would lead to aggression? Certainly the capitalist countries make war on each other. Could not two communist countries do the same? The question rises whether the Western powers overestimate or minimize the position of Asiatic Russia. It is my observation that few of the capitalist countries recognize that Asiatic Russia with 100 million people represents the only modern and the most powerful agricultural and industrial unit in Asia. Even the traditionally narrow soldier is well versed in the ideology of his country. Our policy at home and abroad differs from that of the Western powers. First, we have ended feudalism, established collective farms, increased agricultural production. This alone applied to the rest of Asia would end famine. Industrial production in Asiatic Russia has frequently increased faster than in European Russia. Indian industrialism is also expanding rapidly and has during the war. Most important, all Asiatic nations we believe should have their full share of further agricultural and industrial improvement. Russians do not feel they are a master race destined to rule over other countries. Confronted by a worldwide disapproval of its colonial policy, the Britain is on the defensive. The British Empire is committed to freedom for India. We have been castigated for our colonial policy. It is true that there are diehards who continually embarrass His Majesty's government by loudly blasting the radio with nonsensical beliefs in the preservation of colonies. The world asks which type of thinking will prevail, realizes the only proof will be in the accomplished fact. However, when Britain leaves India, she leaves 400 years of investments in railroads, factories, highways, schools, military establishments, and a reasonably efficient government mechanism. Britain knows that she has planted the orchard and that the fruits may be plucked by those who shake the finger of scorn most opportunely. In exploiting Asia, the Westerner of Nessensity gave her the tools for forging her freedom, introduced the concept of conquest. He dug the grave of imperialism with the very spades he sold to the Oriental. And when that business lagged, he was not above selling guns. As one news bulletin follows another. New Delhi. Today the Muslim League Council accepted the British cabinet mission's plan for an independent federal union of India. The Muslim Council stated that its action was prompted by an earnest desire for a peaceful solution to the Indian problem. It had been expected that the British proposal would be unacceptable. But agreement is far from complete. Weighty problems bogged down any practical solution. The Council reiterated that establishment of a separate Muslim state remains the Muslims' unalterable objective. In China also, public pressure and United States conciliators exert influence upon the continuance of civil strife. Unmanking China. Negotiations are continuing under the 15-day truce negotiated by General Marshall between the nationalist government and warring communists, despite sporadic outbreaks of fighting. The flags of goodwill fly high in China, but peace is not yet merely a step around the corner. Our Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek reiterated his stand that this action in no way prejudices the rights of the government to recover sovereignty in Manchuria. It is a truce, yet not a truce. The people want peace on both sides, and yet they fight. Do the people know why? This is a front-line post. This is a communist soldier. It is difficult to establish a truce in China. When the country united back up Chiang Kai-shek in order to fight the Japanese, many of the old warlords became regular army generals. Some of the communist guerrilla leaders also used to be warlords. War is their profession. A peaceful, unified China would destroy their means of livelihood. Many are not true nationalists or communists, for the war is a good excuse for old-fashioned Chinese oppression. I know what I fight for. It is for land reform and money lending reform, which we communists have put into effect. But most of all, I fight for today's bowl of rice. Whatever the British and Americans have done during the war, they have brought the Asiatics together. Over the Boma Road, which they made possible, I travel between India and China, and I see it is very important that we heed the call of the Union now for Asia. We must insist that racial imperialism, as well as political and economic imperialism, shall disappear from Asia. Western supporters of the theory of one world, one peace, speak up, but not so loudly nor so warlike, as the proponents of the supremacy of the white race. You must remember that Mr. Winston Churchill no longer speaks for the British government, nor, I presume, for the American government when he is in that country. He adopted the theory of Union now for the English-speaking peoples, and from it has developed a proposal for an Anglo-American bloc dedicated to maintain world peace, an Anglo-American world peace, by force of arms if necessary. Back of it is not only a desire to hem in Russia, but also to maintain the colonial system of his forefathers. This is not the general British point of view. Any such organization will force a coalition of Asiatics, will fail to achieve world mastery, eventually will create a war of survival between East and West. Above the old caravan routes fly airplanes from West to East, still bent upon commerce. South of the Shannan Range, across the Xinjiang deserts, roar motor trucks built in Detroit and the suburbs of London. From the heartland of the world they come, turn north to Soviet Asia, west to the Persian Gulf, or south, skirting mountain peaks five miles high, roll down to India. The harbors of Calcutta, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Port Arthur, where once sailed galleons, brigantines, and Yankee clippers, are now churned by giant ships also bent upon trade with the heartland. And from the heartland comes the cry for Union of all Asiatics. United, it may be most potent in creating world peace. It is the largest landmass in the world, home of the greatest numbers of people having essentially common interests. If the West continues its policy of imperialism, if it continues to manipulate the diseases of Asia's disunity, to suppress the pulse that beats strongly for racial, political, and economic freedom, the cry of Union now may become the core of a holy war of East against West. Remember, we speak of the great world island, of the heartland. To attack it is like trying to push your fist through a feather pillow. You have been listening to the Pacific Story, presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-currents of life in the Pacific Basin. For a reprint of this Pacific Story program, send ten cents in stamps or coins to University of California Press, Berkeley, California. The Pacific Story program is presented by the National Broadcasting Company and its affiliated independent stations to clarify events in the Pacific and to make understandable the cross-currents of life in the Pacific Basin. The Pacific Story is produced and directed by Arnold Markowitz. The original musical score was composed and conducted by Thomas Peluso. Your narrator, Gain Whitman. Programs in this series of particular interest to servicemen and women are broadcast overseas through the worldwide facilities of the Armed Forces Radio Service. Ladies and gentlemen, by this time everyone knows the buying of U.S. savings bonds is a measure against inflation. But buying U.S. savings bonds is more than that. It is a means by which we as individuals can ensure our future. Money invested in U.S. savings bonds today means security and happiness tomorrow. Buy U.S. savings bonds and hold them. This program came to you from Hollywood. This is NBC, the National Broadcasting Company.
