[size=+1]
1939, Spring - The World of Tomorrow
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[size=-2]May issue highlighting the New York World’s Fair[/size]
30 March: The Mas have just given Li Zongren another trouncing in their on-again off-again war. This time around, the hostilities started back on the 14th. Seeing that the Kwangtung border was again empty as Zongren had redirected his troops once more to face off against the Japanese, Ma Buqing was ordered to take the army and sweep in to grab as much territory as could reasonably be claimed without a major battle. Work is also under way to create a new port at Beihai, so the strategic goal here is to create a buffer of territory around it plus move the army closer to striking range of Canton. Infantry brigades have slowly been trickling out of Golmud, but these men alone are not enough. Engineer battalions are also being trained up as I saw, but more will also be required if the Mas hope to take on a major power like Japan in the near future. Buqing has complained frequently that the lives of his soldiers are at risk while they lack modern equipment and heavy support weapons, but Ma Hongkui is still committed to going for quantity over quality at this stage, since his borders are too big and the overall size of the army still too small. Things have improved somewhat, as there are now roughly three corps available over the two that were present at the very start of hostilities a few years ago, so progress is being made, but it comes slowly, slowly.
[size=-2]The first week of the latest attack against Kwangtung[/size]
The attack went as well as could be expected. In the first week the Mas blitzed through numerous undefended provinces and stopped only when Guangxi Clique troops appeared to form a defensive line. Ma Bufang was authorized to make a small attack near Tengxian, which he won despite the difficult conditions. The defenders were well entrenched behind a river, so his men had to ford it under fire in small boats to serve as a diversion while other detachments of troops attempted to cross the river at the flanks and engage the defenders from the rear.
[size=-2]Ma infantry attempt to ford a river near Tengxian[/size]
The maneuver was successful, but the loss of life was high and he was discouraged from doing any more such attacks until the Engineer battalions were fully trained. As a consequence, little other fighting took place except to move ahead into provinces left vacated by the defenders as they attempted to shorten their lines. Li Zongren was once again pressured to agree to a truce by the generals secretly on Ma Hongbin’s payroll. The fighting ended with a large territory gain that had little inherent value, but Hongkui’s strategic goals were well met. As I understand it now, most of the army is being sent back up to the far north. Perhaps this means Tibet will finally be dealt with?
[size=-2]The Mas' border reaches closer to Canton[/size]
7 April: An announcement came over the wireless today that Australia is fully behind the United Kingdom and their alliance with France and Poland. It seems that I’m not the only one envisioning an inevitable showdown between Germany and Poland over a territorial dispute, but now it looks like things might go a little bit differently this time. If the democracies form a strong alliance before matters even come to a head, they might make a much more convincing argument at the negotiating table.
9 April: This Sunday marks the end of a very grueling week of negotiations. Our bridge club of Peter, Claire, Max, and I have decided to go into business as an investment group. We chose to name the company the Sino-American Finance Exchange in lieu of the Sino-American Investment Group, as the SAFE group had a much better ring to it. Of course, Max is German, not American (and neither am I), but he isn’t quibbling over the issue as most of our money comes from the States. Peter and I form the major partners but the assets available to us all in aggregate are considerable. The developments by the Mas make China ripe for investment, although the main worry is always that a war with Japan will make everything come crashing down. This has been both a pro and a con for us, since the high risks involved mean there is little competition for anything we might set our hands to.
We’ve decided to undertake two big projects and one small one to start things off. The first is to get to work on establishing telephone service in the Mas’ half of the country. Way back in the last century, the Qing had established the Imperial Chinese Telegraph Administration as a government-controlled corporation with the goal of getting the entire country wired. This corporation was later given the responsibility of establishing a telephone network for the nation before the Great War. After the War, the corporation had been absorbed by the Ministry of Posts and Communications and was fully nationalized. At this time, there were perhaps maybe 7,000 telephones in all of China, most of which were concentrated in the Nanking-Shanghai belt. Today that ministry and all of that equipment are in the hands of Jingwei’s Japanese-sponsored puppet government, and no telephones are extant anywhere else in the country. So the SAFE group’s primary goal is to get that situation reversed. This is going to be quite challenging. The assumption is that if we can get service established down through Hong Kong, it would be possible to make trunk calls back to the States, as the AT & T company there already has service established across the Pacific (they use radio to make the transoceanic connections). However difficulties arise from the fact that AT & T won’t sell their equipment, nor are they inclined to license it. The rising tensions in Europe are causing the Americans to limit the sales of certain technologies under their Neutrality Acts, just as the sales of materials like helium are already restricted. This is going to be a big opportunity to try and get Henry to use his Congressional influence to get AT & T to do business with us; but whatever we can get to happen, it won’t happen soon. Ma Hongkui has assured us that Ma Hongbin is fully at our disposal for any agreements we may need to negotiate to get telephones into Golmud.
[size=-2]Old advertisement for the AT & T company (image courtesy of AT & T)[/size]
Our second big project is working to get port facilities created in Beihai, ones that will be suitable for a major industrial nation. This city has a harbor already; it was one of the places opened up to trade when the Western powers had their way with China in the 19th century
[size=-2][1][/size]. But it remained small and never amounted to much when compared with more important places like Shanghai and Tsingtao. The city is more known for its beaches and was a popular place for the European elite living in China to have their vacations. We need to drastically increase both the cargo capacity of the place as well as render it suitable for serving as a naval base. I don’t know what real plans Ma Hongkui has of yet vis-à-vis a navy, but I suspect that he realizes if you plan to end up in a war with a transoceanic power, you can’t ever ultimately defeat them if you can’t project some kind of power into their home. Of course, even if he doesn’t produce any warships, China will need vastly expanded shipbuilding capability just to keep up with a merchant marine large enough to handle the level of industry I know Hongkui hopes to achieve. A lot of work is ahead of us on this score, but at least we don’t have to start entirely from scratch as we do with the telephone exchange.
[size=-2]The port of Beihai, mainly known for its beaches[/size]
Our last little investment is to help Konrad in expanding his business. We are going to help him buy one of the buildings next door to him and convert it into a restaurant. The layout will be such as to have a stage area where there could potentially be some live shows, or he can just use that back wall to show his movies. The current owner of the building is also running a bar there, but he hasn’t been able to compete with Konrad for business, and is happy to sell. We’re going to have the building torn down and replaced with a new one that will better serve its purpose as a restaurant. Konrad has decided to call the new place `Der Amberger` to be a counterpoint of sorts to The Americaine, as he’s originally from Amberg. I thought the name sounded too much like `The Hamburger`, personally, but since it is going to be a restaurant, I suppose that is okay.
Most of the business work is going to be handled by Max and Peter, as they are already full-time businessmen, and I’m more interested in fronting the money than I am in dealing with the details. I prefer to spend most of my time taking pictures and seeing the world, but getting the houses built for myself and the Sheng family has already been taking me away from that of late. I did manage to find an excuse to not have the houses *too* close together- the sites are about twenty minutes away by motorcar (which neither myself nor the Sheng family have). Of course, this plan could backfire if Jie insists we take a taxi every day to visit them, but we’ll have to see how it goes. I could always make an excuse that SAFE business has me too occupied to make a visit, if need be...
14 April: More news from the wireless: the French government has announced military exercises and a full mobilization of their army. It looks like more powers in Europe are jumping at the chance to rattle their sabers. Perhaps the German chancellor will stay quiet if he sees the democracies getting aggressive, but we’ll have to wait and see.
24 April: The bridge club threw me a nice birthday party at The Americaine. The highlight was receiving a great present from Jie (sent by proxy): a set of Glenn Miller records, I thought it was aces. I had heard his music at times on the wireless and I understand he is becoming quite popular in the States, so it is nice to have. I’m sure she had some help in picking these records out, but it’s fine, I’m happy to have anything from her. November still seems so far away.
[size=-2]The Glenn Miller band is starting to dominate the music scene
of the late 1930s[/size]
Later this same evening we had word that Hungary has joined the Axis alliance of Germany, Japan, and Italy. Given the recent support that they received in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, it seems like the least they could do. This news is going to come as a big blow to Poland, as I know that the idea of a Polish-Hungarian alliance was one of the few things the German government had ever worried about. Now it is the Poles who will be surrounded on all sides by hostile forces if things ever turn ugly.
17 May: Ma Hongkui summoned me in to witness a very unexpected meeting. The Japanese sent their ambassador Shigeru Kawagoe to Golmud in order to try and influence the Mas to join the Axis alliance, or at least stay neutral in regards to their affairs. However they made a key mistake in sending Chiang Kai-shek along with the ambassador. I presume he is there to help Ambassador Kawagoe `read` Ma Hongkui, but this move is going to misfire badly, as the split between the two men now runs too deep. I don’t think his gift of yamamomo
[size=-2][2][/size] ice cream is going to help as much as he might have thought, either.
[size=-2]Japanese Ambassador Shigeru Kawagoe (far left) with Chiang Kai-shek[/size]
Hongkui has a tough diplomatic road ahead. The world has several powerful factions, so prudence would seem to indicate that an alliance with one would be helpful to avoid being trampled underfoot should conflict erupt between them. But his choices are fairly limited. He is so diametrically opposed to Communism’s ideology that there is no chance whatsoever of aligning with Stalin’s Soviet Union, unless it was part of the groundwork for a grand betrayal later. Joining Germany might be an option if it wasn’t for Japan. An alliance along those lines will mean a
de facto surrendering of China’s east coast to permanent Japanese control, and Hongkui is too much of a nationalist to allow that to happen. Likewise, the Japanese seem to feel they cannot become a Great Power if they are limited to controlling their Home Islands only, so I doubt they would submit to German pressure to surrender their Chinese conquests back to Ma Hongkui. This makes the German-Japanese alliance all the more puzzling as the two nations really have little to offer each other; a Sino-German alliance would have proved far more beneficial to both parties. The only thing these Axis powers have to dangle as a carrot to Hongkui is to turn a blind eye to a possible Chinese move into Indochina or India, but he doesn’t need anything from them if he chose to move in those directions on his own.
Hongkui’s only real choices seem to be to try and push independence for as long as possible, or join up with the Franco-British alliance. These Allied powers can offer him something he doesn’t have already: support as the official government for all of China, and possible support against Japan if a full Sino-Japanese war erupts. However the Western democracies are still unwilling to accept him. My own theory is that he will end up waiting in the wings until either the Axis or Communist powers become such a threat that the Allies come to him hat in hand to try and maintain their power base in Asia. As a consequence, although Ambassador Kawagoe will be treated well during his visit, I expect him to be returning to Tokyo sorely disappointed.
26 May: The Mas finally have control of a port large enough to handle international trade! Ma Hongkui was down at Beihai for a special ribbon-cutting ceremony. I had wanted to attend and immortalize the event on film, but I have been sick for most of the week and had to miss it. I think I have already commented on the fact that Beihai has already been a port-of-call of sorts for at least a hundred years, but this event marks a major expansion. Aside from increasing the port facilities, there are now shipyards there too, so work can begin on creating more of a merchant marine to handle all the increased trade that Hongkui hopes to generate. Our SAFE group will now have the responsibility of financing continued expansion to make the port one of the largest facilities in Southeast Asia, surpassing even Shanghai and Haiphong. It’s an incredible opportunity for investment, but not without some risk, as there is a possibility of being blockaded by Japan if international diplomacy takes a turn for the worse.
[size=-2]The Mas gain a port for shipbuilding or trade[/size]
15 June: I’ve been hearing a lot of interesting news reports about the New York World’s Fair that opened last April. They plan on being open for two seasons, so if I have a chance to go there with Jie, I think I will take it. It would be a great opportunity for her to visit the States and to meet my parents. I also understand that they have buried a time capsule there to be opened in the year 6939, and some of the items placed inside include issues of LIFE, one of which contains my cover article discussing the Mas! How’s that for good press?
[size=-2]Nighttime view of the Fair showing the Trylon and Perisphere[/size]
While most Fairs like to showcase the latest technologies, this one in particular has been strongly themed to promote science and the future. All of the latest gadgets are on display and the overall architecture of the park has been done to evoke this theme. It is perhaps most evident in the Fair’s iconic central buildings, the Trylon and Perisphere. Despite all this, there have been some grumblings from the scientific community. One of the things I heard on the wireless was an interview with noted scientist Albert Einstein, who was commenting on the fact that while the Fair does have a fairly scientific emphasis, this is geared more to consumerism and commercial products rather than science in its own right (as you might have seen in Chicago’s Fair, with all of Tesla’s displays). A good example of this is probably the demonstrations of the new communications system called `television` (`far-seeing`, matching up with the `far-speaking` telephone and `far-writing` telegraph). The American President, Franklin Roosevelt, gave an opening address at the start of the Fair that was broadcast over the television airwaves, to be seen by perhaps only 200 people or so who were equipped with the sets to receive the signal. While certainly a great technical achievement, this new device is most likely to be used for entertainment purposes (unless somehow they can make it small enough to be portable) and won’t necessarily lead to any new scientific breakthroughs, which is Einstein’s point.
Regardless of Albert’s grumblings, there do seem to be a few things there that would please a die-hard scientist. If I could get out there, I would love to see Elektro, the man-sized robot that can not only talk but respond to a human operator speaking to it
[size=-2][3][/size]. I have memories of seeing robots in films like
Metropolis when I was younger, so it would be a great thrill to run into a real one and see it. Even aside from marvels like Elektro, the Fair promises to have galleries of classical culture so that you can find something for everyone there, including things like Vermeer paintings and even an original copy of the Magna Carta
[size=-2][4][/size]! If I can’t get out there, I will have to count this as one of the major disappointments of my life.
[video=youtube;T35A3g_GvSg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35A3g_GvSg[/video]
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[size=-2]Editor’s Notes:
1. The 1876 Treaty of Yantai granted access to the city for the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Portugal, and Belgium, among other things. Oddly enough, the Treaty was ratified immediately by the Qing government but not ratified in Britain until 1885
2. Meaning `mountain peach` in Japanese, also known as `yangmei` in China
3. Elektro has survived through to the present day and can be seen at the Mansfield Memorial Museum in Mansfield, Ohio. His most notable post-Fair appearance may have been his role as `Thinko` in the movie
Sex Kittens go to College in 1960. The `family in Canada` he is asked about in the clip refers to the birth of the Dionne quintuplets, at the time, the largest birth in which all the children survived
4. Due to the outbreak of war, this document was left guarded in Fort Knox alongside the original copy of the American Constitution until years after the hostilities were over. The war also caused the Czechoslovak and Polish pavilions to close before the 1940 season[/size]
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