Unleashing Chiang
Since I had to read some classes about the Korean War in college, I know what a reference to “unleashing Chiang” means. But I would easily forgive a person for not knowing. It’s slightly obscure, and many people don’t know about the early days of the conservative movement in which they were every bit as crazy as they are today, but it wasn’t considered fashionable to pretend they weren’t crazy. But as Brad DeLong argues it takes a special kind of idiot to be going around making references to “unleashing Chiang” while having absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
And yet here’s Jeb Bush, the less stupid of George H.W. Bush’s sons:
Bush then unsheathed a golden sword and gave it to Rubio as a gift. “I’m going to bestow to you the sword of a great conservative warrior,” he said, as the crowd roared. The crowd, however, could be excused for not understanding Bush’s enigmatic foray into the realm of Eastern mysticism. We’re here to help. In a 1989 Washington Post article on the politics of tennis, former President George Bush was quoted as threatening to “unleash Chang” as a means of intimidating other players. The saying was apparently quite popular with Gov. Bush’s father, and referred to a legendary warrior named Chang who was called upon to settle political disputes in Chinese dynasties of yore. The phrase has evolved, under Gov. Jeb Bush’s use, to mean the need to fix conflicts or disagreements over an issue. Faced with a stalemate, the governor apparently “unleashes Chang” as a rhetorical device, signaling it’s time to stop arguing and start agreeing. No word on if Rubio will unleash Chang, or the sword, as he faces squabbles in the future.
Jeb is badly confused here. His father wasn’t going to “unleash Chang” he was going to “unleash Chiang.” And “Chiang” wasn’t an ancient Chinese warrior, he was a mid-twentieth century would-be dictator of China. Jeb’s dad was making a joke about the wingnuts within his own party, the MacArthur and McCarthy followers who believed that the Truman administration administration was deliberately failing to defeat Chinese Communism by keeping Chiang locked up in Taiwan.
And just remember: Jeb Bush will be President of the United States one day. Most likely in 2016, but possibly in 2012 or 2020 depending on the course of events. The Republicans are bound to win one of these days, and they just can’t quit to Bush family.
75 Responses to “Unleashing Chiang”
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January 11th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Now, that’s Chiang we can believe in!
January 11th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
You know, you’re really starting to scare me with these Jeb Bush predictions, Matthew.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Am *I* missing the joke? What the heck does the Korean War have to do with Chiang Kai-shek? I found this from a google, but the connection is tenuous at best.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I suppose I should have read Delong’s link first.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I think they just liked it ’cause it sounds like a dick joke. I’m sure the Bush family also has their equivalent of fart jokes too.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
You know, you’re really starting to scare me with these Jeb Bush predictions, Matthew.
I know. I’m hoping they’re just part of a running schtick, like the “robot overlords” meme.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Matt might be on to something, the last Republican ticket to get elected without a Bush or Nixon?
Herbert Hoover, way back in 1928.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
His father wasn’t going to “unleash Chang” he was going to “unleash Chiang.”
I think that that part of the mistake is one that you of all people should be able to forgive, Yggy.
January 11th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
It’s worth noting that the utter misunderstanding of who Chiang was in that piece does not come from a Jeb quote…
January 11th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Re Kolche
After Communist China intervened in the Korean War, General MacArthur, among others, demanded that Chaing Kai Shek be allowed to invade mainline China in order to divert Red Chinese Army troops away from the Korean Peninsula. This is what is referred to as unleashing Chiang.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Re: Jeb Bush will be President of the United States one day.
Yes, around the same time I ascend the Throne of St Peter in the vatican.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I’m hoping they’re just part of a running schtick, like the “robot overlords” meme.
Just wait until after the Singularity, when Robo-Bush will rule the Earth.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Another interesting point is that, even without the Chiang Kai-shek misunderstanding, what Jeb is doing is super racist. In the part Yggi didn’t quote, he says “Chiang is a mystical warrior” before unsheathing his golden sword. Does he also have an imaginary black friend who lives out every cheap Hollywood racial stereotype he can think of?
January 11th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
It could also be that he knows full well the useage his father had for the expression, thinks that was ridiculous, and now uses it currently to poke mild fun at his own father.
I don’t know that it’s fair to assume he’s using it “incorrectly” because he doesn’t know any better. It’s entirely possible that he just means something completely different.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
“After Communist China intervened in the Korean War, General MacArthur, among others, demanded that Chaing Kai Shek be allowed to invade mainline China in order to divert Red Chinese Army troops away from the Korean Peninsula.”
It shouldn’t be forgotten that this incident in 1950-51 was actually pretty much the precise moment the post-war conservative movement really got cooking.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
to Blow Lep: I think you are right that he is using it to mean something completely different, though I doubt he’s jacking with his father (those Bush boys are a loyal bunch). Though, since his father, despite his failings, had a much better understanding of IR, one would think he’d want to listen a bit more attentively to the old man. In this case, I think he is using it incorrectly b/c he’s a conservative moron who thinks that the truth is whatever comes out of his mouth in the moment, with little regard for knowledge, experience, or history.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Lay off the racism charge, for God’s sakes. It is so cliche as to be sickening.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
That was informative, thanks. But also a reminder that with these guys stupidity isn’t ever easy to separate from nutty ideology. I think a recent post about the roots of Bush’s incompetence (was he ignorant of everything or suckered by those around him?) forgot that. However stupid things seem to us, these people believe these things.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Speaking of stupidity, though, I can only hope that the blanket assertion that Bush will be president is tongue in cheek and not an attempt at the all-wise.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Let’s quite this stupid blame game right now. Jeb Bush has been a tremendously popular Governor of Florida; by some measures he is the most popular Florida politician.
Nothing wrong with the good man.
January 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Of course, if he was referring to Micheal Chang, it would make more sense:
January 11th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Lay off the racism charge, for God’s sakes. It is so cliche as to be sickening.
“cliche” s/b “true”
January 11th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Stephen Myles is having a laugh on all of us again. The truth being that Jeb Bush as Florida governor was a human wrecking crew who botched just about everything and nearly brought the state to ruin. His successor is busily undoing everything he did.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
An excellent, but somewhat hard to find book on the craziness of early post-war Republicans and the Korean War:
The Korean War and American Politics: The Republican Party as a Case Study by Ronald J. Caridi (1968)
January 11th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
“And many things were written on their foreheads, such as ‘Unleash Chaing kai-Shek’ and ‘I love my wife, but oh you kid’…-Bored of the Rings
I wonder if Jeb was winging it here, or believed what someone (and from the sound of it, a 12 year old) told him about the legend of Chang…
January 11th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“And “Chiang” wasn’t an ancient Chinese warrior, he was a mid-twentieth century would-be dictator of China.”
Chiang Kai-Shek goes to the history books as the father of Taiwan, a bona fide developed country populated by refugees from one of the poorest countries in the world. That is a work of genius.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Petey – here’s what Jeb had to say about “Chang” the “Mystical Warrior”:
This looks to me like an “utter misunderstanding of who Chiang was.”
Now, it’s true that the Gainesville Sun reporter also seems to share this profound misunderstanding of who Chiang was:
It ought to be asked where on earth the reporter got this from, though? I can’t imagine he just made it up himself – I suppose we can’t say for certain but it most likely was an explanation coming from Jeb Bush’s office when they asked for clarification.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Yeah, refugees who looted their poor homeland for everything they could steal. It’s bit easier to found a prosperous nation when you start with massive wealth and add a generous dollop of aid from blindly anti-communist blowhards.
Not so much a work of genius as a work of graft.
January 11th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Chiang Kai-Shek goes to the history books as the father of Taiwan, a bona fide developed country populated by refugees from one of the poorest countries in the world.
Taiwan didn’t need a father — it’s been there for millennia. Thinking along these lines is why the ROC is still split politically between the refugees and their decsendants and the Taiwanese, spent the first forty years of its existence under martial law, and didn’t have an elected president til 1996.
Great democratic hero, that Chiang. Fortunate in his choice of enemies, more like.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Yeah, refugees who looted their poor homeland for everything they could steal. It’s bit easier to found a prosperous nation when you start with massive wealth and add a generous dollop of aid from blindly anti-communist blowhards.
Not so much a work of genius as a work of graft.
And still waaaaay better off than poor Communist China!
January 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
“Chiang Kai-Shek goes to the history books as the father of Taiwan, a bona fide developed country populated by refugees from one of the poorest countries in the world. That is a work of genius.”
A real work of genius is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1989 movie “City of Sadness”, which does not precisely agree with that opinion.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:15 pm
A real work of genius is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1989 movie “City of Sadness”, which does not precisely agree with that opinion.
But compare it to the Chinese director well-known for his criticism of Communist dictatorship and Chinese way of life, Mr… Oops! They’re all dead or in jail.
January 11th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
hahahah! Awesome “Anchorman” moment!
January 11th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Jeb Bush (remembering Election 2000 and T. Schiavo) is starting to look better and better now that Sarah “Fluffernutter” Palin has high-heeled it onto the national stage. It’s not that the GOP can’t quit the Bush family, it’s that the annointed alternatives are scarier still.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Matt might be on to something, the last Republican ticket to get elected without a Bush or Nixon?
Herbert Hoover, way back in 1928.
Are we sure that Hoover wasn’t a Bush?
January 11th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
People growing up in educated families in the 1960s (Jeb was born in 1953; I’m a year younger than he) damned well knew who Chiang Kai-shek was, and had heard the expression “unleash Chiang Kai-Shek,” particularly if they were conservative Republicans.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
burrito — I saw Good Men, Good Women but wasn’t that into it — how does City of Sorrows compare?
January 11th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Some elaboration is worth it, to unveil the full lunacy of the phrase.
China, back in 1950 was a nation of some 400 million people. Taiwan was probably less than 10 or 15. The Kuomintang movement of Dr. Sun Yat Sen, to which Chiang Kai Shek, succeeded, had through the 1920’s and 1930’s, established control over China, defeating or making peace with warlords, only to confront the Japanese, and later suffer defeat and expulsion at the hands of the communists.
The refugees who had fled to Taiwan comprised the wealthy and powerful ruling classes of the Kuomintang, their hangers on, the skeleton of their military forces and assorted refugees. They’d wound up in Taiwan a scant couple of years before the Korean war at best, and comprised a broken and dispirited force.
Even a highly trained and disciplined spartan-type national military force, such as the IDF would hesitate before taking on an enemy 40 times its size, and certainly would never engage in a protracted war of attrition.
But the broken KMT remnants washed up in Taiwan were miles away from the IDF. They were equal parts corrupt and incompetent, they’d been so spectacularly corrupt that Chiang Kai Shek himself blamed it for their fall from power, and the United States had been unable to fund or support the KMT. Through much of the war, they’d focused on attempting to purge the communists rather than fight the Japanese, which had cost them much of their credibility and goodwill.
And yet, it was a truism of the lunatic right wing at that time that the people of China were simply waiting to rise up and overthrow the communists. They also believed that Chiang Kai Shek was a competent fire breathing warlord with a super-army at his back.
If only we could ‘Unleash Chiang’ he’d hit the Chinese coast like a hurricane with his (nonexistent) crack armies, establish a beachhead, foment uprisings, and sweep the communists out of power… thus winning back China and winning the Korean war.
The real result, if this had ever been tried, would have been more like the Bay of Pigs, except that it would have been a spectacularly humiliating fiasco.
Chiang Kai Shek was all for it, so long as there wasn’t a chance of it actually happening.
Even back then, the right wing was smoking crack.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
sherifffruitfly Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
hahahah! Awesome “Anchorman” moment
I may be mistaken, but I believe Diversity is an old, old wooden ship used during the Civil War era.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
One thing to keep in mind is that thanks to Japanese, Taiwan was more industrialized and richer than most parts of China in 1945. By some measure, Taiwanese had higher standard of livng compares to most part of Japanese home islands. Near the end of WWII, there were even Taiwanese elected to sit in Japanese Imperial Diet. By comparison, there were never any MPs elected from Hong Kong to be seated in Westminster.
So I am far from being impressed by KMT. What ever they achieved in Taiwan, should had been compare to what it would had been had Taiwan stayed with Japan, or allowed to break away from Japan.
After all, Chinese betrayed Taiwanese when they signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki.
January 11th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Actually, I forgot that before there were Taiwanese elected to lower house of Imperial Diet. There were Taiwanese already appointed to House of Peers(=UK House of Lords).
January 11th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
Chiang was an interesting figure of history…. probably the only figure who ever took aid from (at various times during the ’30s and ’40s) the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Americans. Gives a new meaning to the term ‘opportunist’. It’s true, of course, that he was better than Mao, but then just about anyone was better than Mao.
Apparently the American diplomats in China at the time referred to him derisively as “General Cash-My-Check”.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Matt W,
Greetings from Pgh. City of Sadness, if it’s the film I’m thinking of (which I saw abroad with a different title) is a masterpiece that is not to be missed.
You should give Hou Hsiao-Hsien another chance.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
This comment thread cannot end without someone repeating the wingnut GOP line from that time: “Who Lost China?”.
The implication/accusation was that commies in the US State Dept. delivered China to Mao and stole it from the KMT, when in fact the Nationalist Chinese Government and Army was rotten inside with corruption, incompetence and disloyalty.
Those who are shocked today at how out of touch the GOP is at the national level with their calls for Hoover II just don’t understand that dementia has been at work on the GOP brain ever since FDR took office. Nixon, Reagan, the Bushes, McCain, Palin were not accidents but the inevitable result of enthroning clearly right-marginal voices as the leadership pickers.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
“burrito — I saw Good Men, Good Women but wasn’t that into it — how does City of Sorrows compare?” I like City of Sadness much better, for whatever that’s worth. It’s truly a wonderful film.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
“This comment thread cannot end without someone repeating the wingnut GOP line from that time: “Who Lost China?”.”
It shouldn’t be forgotten that ALL of post-war conservatism was effectively generated by the “Who Lost China?” debate. Bob Taft, the most overlooked of the major American politicians of the twentieth century (there is still only three biographies of him, two of them written many years ago) intended that debate precisely to revive the fortunes of the Republicans as the standard-bearers of true Americana. Taft said that the State Department had: “been guided by a left-wing group who obviously have wanted to get rid of Chiang and were willing at least to turn China over to the Communists for that purpose.”
Prescott Bush was a very close political ally to Bob Taft, by the way.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
what does ” read some classes ” mean ?
January 11th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
MR Bill at 25
Dammit, MR, you beat me to it!! I don’t have the book with me right now, but as I remember it, these were badges worn by Goodgulf (Gandalf) when he comes back to life after defeating the Ballhog (Balrog). Matt Y would love the Ballhog, who goes dribble dribble. shoot shoot” and had written on his chest, in cruel runes, the legend “Villanova”.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Dammit, MR, you beat me to it!!
As a longtime peruser of comments on this blog, I’d venture to suggest that Bored of the Rings—like Surfer Rosa, The Simpsons and the works of Thomas Pynchon—doesn’t even need to be cited when quoted from here, due to the target demographic’s extreme familiarity with it.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
George Plimpton reported on this years ago. Here’s the link to the passage in Google Books. Because George Plimpton is always worth reading.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Howard Porter was a Balrog? That would explain that years eastern region final.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
It really should be repeated that if this [”In a 1989 Washington Post article on the politics of tennis, former President George Bush was quoted as threatening to “unleash Chang”“)is correct, GHW Bush was almost certainly referring to Michael Chang while making a pun about Chaing Kai-Shek and that Jeb, the reporter and MY all seem to have hopelessly confused the issue.
January 11th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Myself, I just don’t see Jeb Bush as a future president. It’s too early to tell how much criminality will stick to the Bush family over torture, spying, falsifying war “intelligence” and other crimes the past 8 years, but some is absolutely bound to. Seymour Hersh has said that lots of folks have told him to call back after January 20th.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:21 am
“A real work of genius is Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s 1989 movie “City of Sadness”, which does not precisely agree with that opinion.”
There is no stronger reason for the Left to hate Chiang than the observation that his little island is a astounding success. There is only one other country that managed to move from third world backwater to advanced economy status: South Korea.
Anyone that cares a little bit about raising the incomes of the poor in third world countries should be working hard to learn and EMULATE (after all, there is no patent on wealth-creating, poverty-reducing good government!) whatever virtues Chiang and the South Korean leaders had.
January 12th, 2009 at 12:28 am
“Yeah, refugees who looted their poor homeland for everything they could steal. It’s bit easier to found a prosperous nation when you start with massive wealth and add a generous dollop of aid from blindly anti-communist blowhards.”
In the meantime, there was another island, where a dictator took power 50 years ago, received billions of dollars of aid from pro-communist blowhards, and the end result is that the agriculture productivity in that island is lower than it was 100 years ago. Of course, such a spectacular disaster, Cuba, is the darling of the Left (not so much in the US, but certainly in Europe and Latin America), while Chiang who led a country into riches is painted as some minor historical figure.
Which brings me to the morale of my tale:
There is nothing the Left loves more than failure.
January 12th, 2009 at 2:49 am
The common thing about both South Korea and Taiwan is they were part of Japan. As I mention before Taiwanese had representation in both house of Japanese Imperial Diet. Taiwanese had to wait long time for that level of democracy after Chiang/KMT’s arrival.
To the extend Taiwan had developed since 1945, I credited it to the foundation layed by Japanese and the hardworks of Taiwanese majority, rather than those 49ers from China.
To the extend that Taiwanese were on par with rest of Japan in 1945, but had since fallen behind their former countrymen (*) in development, I blame it on Chiang and KMT. They hold us back, not other way around.
(*) See article 5 of Treaty of Shimonoseki.
January 12th, 2009 at 3:12 am
An additional note.
My family was dispossessed by Chiang/KMT’s so-called “Land Reform of 1953.” The land that’s “paid for with blodd,” as it was a land grant for my ancestors as victor over Dutch East Indie company in 1661.
The land was more or less outright confiscated and redistributed to the sharecroppers.
I found the praise on Chiang by American conservative laughable.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Spot Check Billy is right. It’s a joke about Michael Chang, the Chinese-American tennis player.
Matt is too young to remember that 1989 was the heyday of tennis player Michael Chang, who won the French Open that year. So, when George H.W. Bush made a joke about “unleashing Chang” while playing tennis in 1989, he was humorously conflating Chiang Kai-shek and Michael Chang, which Matt and the reporter and were too unsophisticated to get.
Unlike Matt, Jeb might actually know what he’s talking about and just uses “unleash Chang” because he finds it an amusing Bush family inside joke. Or he might just be ignorant, too.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Anyway, there’s this thing you should know about called Google that lets bloggers look up facts before making fools of themselves by trusting Brad DeLong.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:41 am
Another part of GHW Bush’s “unleash Chang” tennis joke is that Michael Chang was a rather unformidable-looking tennis player at only 5-9 and 160 pounds.
Now that I think about it, “unleash Chang” is probably the cleverest thing I’ve heard any Bush ever say.
January 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Matt asserts:
“And just remember: Jeb Bush will be President of the United States one day.”
No, the Bush plan is for Jeb’s half-Mexican son George P. Bush-Garnica to be President one day. George W. Bush, who calls his father “41″ and himself “43″, used to jokingly call his handsome and politically ambitious nephew “44.”
A lot of the impetus for Bush’s ardent support for illegal immigrants was to position the Bush Dynasty for the Hispanicized future in which George P., whose mother was an illegal alien for a few years as a child, would carry on the family trade of President.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:29 am
And here comes Steve Sailer, for those moments when we think, “Is there anything more racist than Jeb Bush’s ‘mystical Chinese warrior spirit’?” Yes, yes there is.
January 12th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Apparently the American diplomats in China at the time referred to him derisively as “General Cash-My-Check”.
Joe Stilwell just called him “the Peanut.”
January 12th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Please, Jose Ventura. Maybe some of the Castro apologist set is dogmatically opposed to Taiwan and what it stands for (although I suspect that even many of them find the contemporary RoC more congenial than the contemporary PRC, due to the PRC abandoning many of the lefty principles they like and a bit of cognitive dissonance that allows them to see Chinese political prisoners working in reeducation camps more easily than they see Cuban political prisoners working in similar camps), but most of the center-left commenters on this thread find many things to complain about regarding Chiang Kai-shek, irrespective of Taiwan’s subsequent success. Chiang Kai-shek’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, might have had almost as much of a role of shaping Taiwan as his father, and did so in a much more positive manner: incorporating native Taiwanese into the government, relaxing martial law, and laying the foundations for democracy.
What’s Chiang Kai-shek’s great achievement? You don’t get to lose 99.6% of your country to the reds and call yourself a great anti-communist warrior. At best, you can claim botched good intentions. I don’t think that Chiang Kai-shek could really even claim that much.
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