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Crusader Kings III Available Now!
The realm rejoices as Paradox Interactive announces the launch of Crusader Kings III, the latest entry in the publisher’s grand strategy role-playing game franchise. Advisors may now jockey for positions of influence and adversaries should save their schemes for another day, because on this day Crusader Kings III can be purchased on Steam, the Paradox Store, and other major online retailers.
ToC
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A Note from Qwerty
A Note from Qwerty
Welcome to my fifth attempt at an AAR on these forums. Though my last one ended about three years ago after only a couple updates (a record for me), it still serves as an example of the kind of AAR I like to read and write - a history book with only a modest connection to the shenanigans the game spits out. Hopefully I can get to at least the third update this time.
Unlike my past AARs, my interest in the Republic of China came before the idea for the AAR itself. I had read up on Iraq following the 2003 invasion and the process of creating a new government there. I had been interested by the efforts to build a democratic government in a nation that previously hadn't had one. Shortly after, I came upon Jonathan Spence's excellent survey, In Search of Modern China. I started thinking about what a Chinese democracy, emerging in the 1950s and 1960s, would look like. It would be the world's most populous democracy, and an incredibly diverse one too with numerous religions, cultures, ethnicities, social statuses, and beliefs coming up against radically different institutions than the population had encountered before.
What would be the nature of the political parties, if any, that might arise? How would national campaigns, such as general elections or referenda, be carried out? How would it navigate the Cold War? In OTL Maoism offered an alternative to Marxism-Leninism, particularllly in third world countries where the influence of the PRC provided the possibility of an alternative system to American capitalism or Soviet socialism. Might a democratic China serve a similar role, perhaps leading its own pact of Unaligned Nations? Or would it be a vital American ally, ensuring the triumph of liberal democracy in Asia and an earlier death of the Soviet system? These questions led me ever deeper into the history of China during the 20th century (in both the Mainland and Taiwan).
Unfortunately, my reading has far outpaced my writing and thus I have frequently delayed progress on this AAR. Indeed, I had originally written this note as a lengthy essay on the reasons for the defeat of the Nationalists in the Civil War, but I cut it down in the interest of time and practicality. This AAR will be both an exploration in Chinese history and an exercise in time and practicality. So, without further ado...
I would like to thank the developers of the Cold War Expansion Mod I will be using. I would also like to thank the writers and readers in the Victoria II subforum especially, for I have always found myself drawn to the history driven AARs it contains.
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Preface
Preface
"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
"The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been."
T'ai-yüan, Shansi Province, China
In T'ai-yüan the people are divided. Two crowds gather in the city's center around a large bronze figure. One has come to honor it, the other to destroy it. It is a statue of an old man. He is bald save for the mustache which rests atop an easy smile. He looks off towards some unseeable distance, one hand lay on his hip while the other holds onto a cane. Foreigners in T'ai-yüan take pictures with the friendly old gentleman, unaware of the deep passions which his image invokes. He is Chiang Kai-shek. To some, the Father of a Nation, who brought peace and stability to a people torn by conflict. To others he is the Generalissimo, the war hero who defended against warlords, Japanese invaders, and Communists. And to many he is the greatest criminal of the century, the fascist dictator who silenced opposition and terrorized his people through the military and a brutal secret police. The mass murderer, who considered violence the most effective form of politics.
Following the defeat of the Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s, Chiang commissioned thousands of statutes and monuments to commemorate himself and the victory. Allies and opportunistic politicians looking to gain influence built many thousands more across the country. By the time of his overthrow, it was nearly impossible to not encounter a bronze Generalissimo in urban China. But since his overthrow every administration - whether national, provincial, or local - has had to deal with the question of what to do with these statues.
The arguments for and against their removal have been hashed out endlessly elsewhere and it is not my intention to go through them. What interests me about this debate is the deep connection of the political to the historical. The old cliche of history being a collection of facts and dates rings hollow for the residents of T'ai-yüan where history is alive. The battle in the city center embodies Faulkner's quote that the "past is never dead. It's not even past."
In early February 2018 I was invited to T'ai-yüan to deliver a lecture at university there about the politics of the post-Civil War era. As the last members of that first generation die off, there has been a growing popular interest in the early Republic. No doubt the present political situation further motivates this interest. The condition of Chinese democracy is more precarious than it has ever been in the last half century. Tensions between a rising nationalism and the increasing liberalization of society - politically, culturally, and economically - combine with the growing populism and personalism that has come with the internet age. There seems no escape from a 24/7 news cycle of clashes in the South China Sea, border skirmishes in remote mountain bases, business scandals in Shanghai, or corruption in Nanking. Liberal democracy is in crisis in China and the world.
As China comes to a crossroads, I think that it is vital to understand the history of the republic. It is a history of triumph, tragedy, and struggle. Numerous times the heart of Chinese democracy has been at stake. The present threats of nationalism, globalization, corruption, and polarization are common themes in the republic's history. In understanding these past struggles we will be better equipped to contend with them whenever they appear.
It is for this reason that I began writing a history of China since the War of Resistance aimed at the general reading public. Although there are many great histories that take place during this period, there has not been a single volume on the period since Cheng Pu-yung's excellent work published back in 1999. Much has happened in the twenty years since then, especially in the historical profession where there have been extensive studies and thousands of new documents have been declassified and discovered. Now is an appropriate time to synthesize this work for a wider audience.
I begin my narrative with the Japanese surrender ending the War of Resistance. Why then and not in 1912 with its official establishment? Or in 1927 when Chiang seized power? Part of this was motivated by concerns of time and length and part of it by my area of specialization. But most importantly it is because the end of the Civil War was seen by many Chinese as the end of the chaos which had wrecked the nation for thirty years. It seemed as though China was once again united. Comparisons were made between Chiang and Ch'in shih huang, the first Emperor who had united the country after the Warring States period. Although it was a republic, the regime used the imagery and dress of dynasty to bolster support. The empire, long divided, had been united.
If Faulkner is to be believed, then the past will always be present (and future). And the past, like the present and future, is fiercely contested. The younger generation is coming of age during a great historical juncture. One of the duties of the historical profession is to remind the public of the past. This means all of the past, even those parts which makes the public uncomfortable. Another duty is to safeguard the past by those who wish to control it or destroy it. Great atrocities occur when the past is taken from the historian or when the historian gives it up to self-interested individuals. I consider this book to be doing my part to fulfill this duty.
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Nicely done. Feels scarily timely, too. Some very tantalising hints dropped in about the course of 20th century China, and its eventual fate in the years after the Millennium.
An interesting opening, looking forward to seeing how CKS leverages his significant advantages post-war more effectively than in real life.
I like the attention to detail - though the idea of Wade-Giles remaining the default system of romanization instead of Pinyin is... disheartening.
Interesting opening, I'll look forward to the rest.
I've never tried this mod by the way, I might give it a shot someday.
I've never tried this mod by the way, I might give it a shot someday.
Ch. 1 Prelude to Civil War
Ch. 1 Prelude to Civil War
"Do you not understand that the plans elaborated in a little chamber decide success over thousands of miles?"
On August 15, 1945 Emperor Hirohito announced over radio to the people of Japan their surrender to Allied forces. The announcement would be formalized in a written agreement weeks later on the USS Missouri. In China, this meant the end of the eight year War of Resistance which had origins in the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931. China had experienced almost continuous warfare since the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty in 1911 with internal conflict often interrupted by war with Japan. Many celebrated its end and looked forward to the reconstruction of the country. August 15 signified the end of external conflict, but internal conflict remained. A persisting question of Chinese history was unanswered: Who would rule?
The international community recognized the Republic of China (ROC), led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang (KMT), as the official government of the country. As the largest political entity in China, it ruled over 350 million people and controlled China's industrial and urban centres. Chiang had taken power in 1926 and then undertook the Northern Expedition, a campaign against the country's warlords. The success of the expedition was followed by the Nanking Decade, ten years of relative peace and stability. During the Nanking Decade, the ROC most closely resembled a military dictatorship with significant elements of personalism and fascism. Chiang was the locus of power and the KMT was a weak, corrupt, and inefficient organization dominated by factions vying for close relationships with Chiang. The main political currency of the time was force. While Chiang's rivals were often politicians who had to rely on self-interested warlords for manpower, Chiang had cultivated a following of officers during his time as Commandant of the Whampoa Military Academy. He thus held the loyalty of the best officers and soldiers, ensuring his military supremacy over his rivals. He used this military dominance to maintain control of the country's financial centre, Shanghai, securing vital support for his army.
The second largest political organization was the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its strength was concentrated in the North, particularly in the countryside where it had at times undertaken revolutionary programmes of land redistribution and at other times provided progressive plans of land reform, rent reduction, and interest rate decreases. Its history with the KMT was complicated. During the leadership of Sun Yat-sen, the KMT had cooperated with the Communists against the warlords under the First United Front. When Chiang rose to power, he initiated a purge by ordering the deaths of thousands of Communists in Shanghai and then expelling the the remainder from the party. The two parties fought one another until the Japanese invasion and the kidnapping of Chiang brought them back into alliance under the Second United Front. Cooperation between the two groups during the war was uneasy. In 1941, clashes broke out in the New Fourth Army Incident, ending the alliance. Even without the alliance, the CCP managed to stay alive during the war through the use of guerilla tactics against the Japanese forces. With victory approaching, it held its Seventh National Congress in April 1945. At the Congress, the CCP affirmed Mao Tse-tung as the leader of the party and enshrined Mao Tse-tung Thought as the party's official doctrine.
In contrast to Chiang and the KMT, the CCP built a popular base of support by appealing to the peasantry. The party had gained adherents mainly among the peasantry through their revolutionary campaigns of land reform and redistribution that pushed out and killed landlords and rich peasants. However, many landlords retreated to the cities and organized groups to retake the countryside and many often did, overturning the work done by the Communists. The countryside was still contested. Yet in 1945, the Communists were still far outnumbered by the KMT. And even if the Communists were to assert full control of the countryside, they would still have to face the KMT which held superior advantages in manpower, firepower, seapower, airpower, and supply lines. At the end of the War of Resistance, the CCP had only 860,000 troops compared to the 2.5 million of the KMT. The relative disadvantages of the CCP would lead to an often dangerous underestimation by the KMT and the Great Powers.
Chiang Kai-shek (top) and Mao Tse-tung (bottom)
Despite a history of conflict, the resumption of civil war did not appear inevitable with the surrender of Japan. There was still the possibility of a Third United Front committed to the reconstruction of China as a multiparty democracy. This was embodied in the goals of a third group, a collection of small political parties that were alienated by the militarism and authoritarianism of the KMT yet rejected the communism of the CCP. This third force, as it was often called, consisted mainly of liberal intellectuals, businessmen, and artists. They held very little institutional power and were unable to either organize a mass movement or else gain access to military power. Still, they often received the backing of American diplomats who saw them as crucial to peaceful negotiations between the two major parties. They were also courted by both the CCP and KMT who saw these third parties as adding legitimacy to their respective regimes.
The presence of foreign powers cannot be discounted in post-war China. Although recognized as an emerging force, China was not considered an equal among the Great Powers. At the Cairo Conference in 1943, Chiang had met with Roosevelt and Churchill to discuss the war with Japan. But Stalin, fearing retaliation from the Japanese, declined to attend. Chiang would not participate in any of the succeeding conferences at Tehran, Yalta, or Potsdam. China's humiliation was furthered at the Foreign Ministers' Conferences in London and Moscow in late 1945. China participated as a non-voting member in both. In London, Chinese delegates watched helplessly as Soviet diplomats protested the inclusion of China and France at the meeting, accusing the Americans and the British of forming an anti-Soviet alliance. In Moscow, the Great Powers pledged their support for a unified, democratic China and promised not to interfere in the country. While nominally encouraging, the Chinese delegates were disheartened that their country was being discussed in the same way as Korea or Iran were, and that China was not recognized as a power to be negotiated and consulted with in its own right.
Interference would be unavoidable for the Great Powers, especially the US and USSR. In August, the Soviets invaded and took control of Manchuria, northern Korea, and parts of Mongolia. The surrender of Japan would not mean the immediate withdrawal of the many Soviets troops stationed in these regions. The United States had been deeply involved in the Chinese war effort by providing resources, soldiers, and strategic advice to the ROC. After the war, US sent aid and diplomatic missions to prevent the outbreak of civil war. America had emerged from WWII as a superpower, and in China it realized the limits of its power. Most of the US diplomats sent to China in the immediate postwar era lacked a solid understanding of Chinese politics. This was best exemplified in George Marshall's comment that the Nationalists and Communists were much like "Republicans and Democrats." Furthermore, US personnel shared the belief of many of China's liberal intellectuals in characterizing the CCP was not actually a revolutionary communist party in the Soviet style, and thus often dismissed the idea of strong Soviet support of the CCP. This also led them to believe that the CCP would eventually agree to give up their independent military forces and join a coalition with the KMT and other parties to establish democracy and rebuild the nation. For their part, the CCP did all they could to perpetuate such a belief. In reality, although both parties had internal conflicts about the possibility of civil war, it was highly unlikely that either group would submit to the other voluntarily.
Long before Japan's surrender, the KMT and CCP took steps to strenghten their post-war position. Manchuria quickly became the source of much frustration for Chiang. At the Yalta conference in February 1945, Stalin had agreed to join the war against Japan with Anglo-American assurance of Soviet claims in China. Upon hearing of the results of this secret meeting, Chiang was furious, but there was nothing he could do to reverse it. In negotiations with the Soviets shortly therafter, Stalin privately agreed to KMT diplomats that he would support Chiang in unifying China. When the Soviet did invade Manchuria, their forces included a brigade of Chinese Communists whom the Japanese had driven to Siberia in the thirties. Additionaly, Stalin informed the CCP of the imminent Soviet invasion, prompting Mao to halt ongoing negotiations with the KMT in the ROC's wartime capital of Chungking and prepare to take as much Japanese territory in northern China as possible. Even after Mao announced in June that he would resume negotiations, CCP soldiers continued attacks on the KMT in Manchuria. Fierce negotiations ensued in Moscow between the Soviets and delegates from the ROC. Stalin still supported the KMT as they were able to provide him with economic concessions which the CCP lacked. Nevertheless, the Soviet occupation of Manchuria would turn out to be invaluable for the CCP and the Soviets. The CCP receive much of the Japanese stores of ammunition plus they gained crucial territory, and the Soviets plundered millions from Manchuria by stripping factories of machinery and equipment.
Joseph Stalin
Japan had set up several puppet regimes in China during the war. Although many Chinese fled to the southwest, many others remained in the new puppet territories. They took jobs in the puppet administration, civil service, and military even if they were unethusiastic about Japanese rule. Surrender meant the immediate collapse of these short-lived puppet governments and with them a mass of newly unemployed soldiers and bureaucrats. Around 2 million Japanese and Korean living in Chinese puppet regimes were forced back to their home countries. Many of the refugees from the southwest returned to find their homes inhabited by strangers. Fights and accusations of treason led to much of this property being returned, and many took advantage of the general chaos to acquire as much property as they could get their hands on. People found themselves suddenly homeless and unemployed as Japanese factories shut down. And to make matters worse, the currency used by the puppet regimes had to be exchanged for the highly inflated Nationalist fabi currency. The government settled upon an arbitrary exchange rate of 200 to 1 for all the currencies, leading to numerous bankruptcies. Although many Nationalists wanted those who had collaborated with the puppet regimes to be severly punished, the KMT could not afford either to conduct the massive amount of trials required nor lose the large pool of soldiers and bureaucrats who would be prosecuted. Instead, the KMT (and the CCP) punished high profile collaborators while absorbing the rest of them into their regimes. The handling of the transition from the puppet regimes brought on economic dislocation, social unrest, and a distrust among the urban population towards the KMT.
In August, Mao travelled Chungking to again hold talks with Chiang overseen by the US Ambassador J. Patrick Hurley. While the two leaders were promising generous concessions to one another, the Americans were transporting KMT troops north and the CCP was advancing into Manchuria. Chiang had initiated the talks with the hopes of securing more aid from the US. Mao looked to negotiation as a means of survival. Stalin did not want to risk civil war against the KMT (and probably the US) especially when he did not think that the CCP would win. Therefore, Stalin told Mao to cooperate with Chiang. The talks concluded in October with both leaders promising to rebuild and reunify the country under a democratic government and that they would establish a Political Consultative Conference (PCC) towards this end. Mao further pledged that the CCP would finally integrate its People's Liberation Army (PLA) into the ROC's military.
Mao and Chiang at Chungking
Meanwhile, the KMT continued negotiations with the Soviets in Moscow over trade, Manchuria, and the CCP. Back in June, Stalin had assured KMT diplomats of Soviet support for the ROC as the rulers of a united China. He also had promised that the Soviets would withdraw from Manchuria within a month of Japanese surrender. But Soviet withdrawal would be repeatedly postponed. In October, the Soviets blocked KMT entry into Manchurian ports. Chiang was restrained in aggressively advancing into Manchuria by his desire for good relations with the Soviets and by his belief that the US likely would not back him in Manchuria if he pursued such a course. While continuing to transport more troops into the region, Chiang lodged protests to Moscow and Washington over Soviet behavior. In response, the Soviets agreed to a withdrawal date (proposed by Chiang) of February 1 and began further negotiations about economic issues and local government in Manchuria.
Chiang's frustration was compounded by the growing anti-war movement in the ROC. The opposition to civil war was mainly led by students and liberal professors. The centres of liberal opposition to the KMT were in the southwestern cities of K'un-ming (controlled by Yünnan warlord Lung Yun) and Ch'ang-sha, inital home of Southwest Associated University. The university was founded in 1937 by professors who had fled Japanese occupation in the north and east, and in 1938 the university moved to K'un-ming. It was as this university, on December 1, 1945, that a protest against civil war led to a brutal suppression that killed four students. More student demoncstrations arose from this December First movement which called for both a peaceful end to civil war and opposed the continued presence of American marines in China. In response, Chiang and the KMT cracked down hard. KMT agents frequently arrested and even tortured student protest leaders and kept informants in the universities. This only served to increase the popularity of the movement and decrease support for the KMT.
In November, Hurley resigned, citing frustrations over "un-American elements" in the State Department working against him and the KMT. US President Truman recognized the growing tensions in China, and so he appointed General George Marshall as Special Envoy to the country. Marshall was one of the most distinguished American generals, having served as Army Chief of Staff during the second World War and gained international fame. Marshall's main purpose was to prevent civil war and oversee a peaceful, unified reconstruction of the country. He was to use the threat of withholding aid to steer Chiang towards cooperation with the CCP. But in the event of war, the US would back the KMT. Marshall himself had very little knowledge about China and its politics. He sincerely believed that peace was possible in China so long as both sides were willing to cooperate. Chou En-lai and the CCP frequently took advantage of Marshall's attitude by presenting themselves as committed to peace and reunification. Chiang lacked such tact and diplomatic cunning, and this led to him to butt heads with Marshall, who often blamed Chiang on the failure of peace negotiations. Chiang did not for one second believe that the Communists were genuinely willing to give up their territory and independent military, and he was angered that Marshall took a different view.
Marshall with Chiang and his wife, Soong Mei-ling
Shortly after arriving, Marshall set up a Committee of Three charged with overseeing the peace process. Marshall chaired the Committee and was joined by a representative from the two major parties, Chou for the CCP and Chang Ch-ün for the KMT. It produced promising results. By January 1946, the Committee had organized a ceasefire with plans for the two parties to unite politically and militarily. They ordered a freeze on troop movements in northern China. In Peiping, the Committee established a truce headquarters to uphold the ceasefire.
On January 11, 1946, the long awaited Political Consultative Conference convened. Its purpose was to organize an interim coalition government to oversee the adoption of a new constitution ensuring a multiparty democracy and a unified armed forces. There were thirty eight delegates in total with eight from the KMT, seven from the CCP, and twenty two independents and members of various third parties. Whereas the KMT and CCP saw the PCC as a means to the end, the third parties considered the PCC to be their goal.
From the outset there was much optimism surrounding the PCC. Chiang gave a speech at its opening in which he declared his support for broad political freedoms and multiparty democratic elections. However, divisions between the KMT and the other parties arose over the constitution. The KMT delegates supported a strong central government and a strong presidency elected indirectly through a National Assembly. The opposition won out with a more democratic, decentralized plan. Another issue arose over the question of Communist controlled territory in the countryside. The CCP delegates argued that they should have the power of self-governance in these areas. The KMT delegates harshly opposed this. The CCP eventually acquiesced in the PCC's resolution that the Three Principles of the People[1] would be the sole national doctrine and that democratization would take place in a multiparty coalition led by Chiang. The CCP further agreed again to integrate their military into the national military of the ROC. The PCC conluded its session in early February. Marshall applauded the outcome. He saw it as an important step towards the peaceful rebuilding of China.
The PCC proved to be a propaganda victory for the CCP. Marshall and the third parties believed that the CCP were sincere in their support of democratization and unification. Public opinion of the KMT was much less optimistic. Within the KMT, there was opposition to the PCC's resolutions, specifically those concerning the constitution which KMT delegates had opposed. Right-wing and military factions within the KMT expressed their disapproval, although at a party meeting in March the KMT official endorsed the PCC's outcome. But this official endorsement was betrayed by the party's actions. During the PCC, members of the KMT had raided the homes of three third party delegates. After its conclusion, KMT members launched assaults on Communist and third party newspapers. Most important of all, the KMT repeatedly delayed the implementation of the PCC's resolutions.
During this time, fighting had broken out in Manchuria periodically. The Peiping truce headquarters was ineffective in monitoring and upholding the ceasefire. The Soviets were still in Manchuria by the agreed upon withdrawal date of February 1. The Soviets would finally withdraw by the end of April. The KMT and CCP rushed into to fill the vacuum. KMT advances onto Ch'ang-ch'un led to intense fighting in April which ended in the CCP evacuating the city. Marshall was infuriated by what he saw as Chiang's aggressive expansion into Manchuria and by Chiang's sabotage of teams from the truce headquarters. The CCP had maintained their support for a ceasefire and the PCC throughout, but Chiang had refused until KMT forces Ch'ang-ch'un. On June 20, Marshall managed to get the Committee of Three to establish a two week ceasefire in Manchuria to allow negotiations to take place. In July, the peace movement suffered a fatal blow when KMT agents assassinated two prominent leaders of the Democratic League (a liberal, pro-democracy third party) in K'un-ming. The ceasefire expired soon thereafter without being renewed.
Marshall remained in China until January 1947 when he returned to the US to accept Truman's appoint of him as Secretary of State. But long before then it was clear that the peace mission had failed. One last attempt at a ceasefire was organized in August, but failed to reconcile the two parties. Marshall believed that peace failed primarily because of Chiang's unwillingness to cooperate with the CCP, and Marshall's subsequent tenure as Secretary of State would not prove beneficial for Chiang. By the fall of 1946, the civil war was in full swing. The KMT still held significant advantages in manpower, firepower, airpower, seapower, and it enjoyed the (tenuous) support of the US. Yet the ROC was suffering hyperinflation, mass unemployment, deep corruption, and increasing unpopularity. The question of who would rule China was still far from having an answer.
[1] The Three Principles of the People are a set of fundamental political principles outlined by Sun Yat-sen, a pivotal figure in the overthrow of the Ch'ing dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China.
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Thanks to all who have subscribed so far. Next chapter is on the civil war proper. Now, just to answer some questions and clarify things.
Edit: I'll write up a bibliography at the end of Part I
Wade-Giles is a sad sight indeed. Later chapters will deal with romanization and language reform. I've based the romanization mostly on the system used in Taiwan, which is to say that there is a huge mess of romanizations running about. ITTL, Wade-Giles is typically used although place names will often be written in the local romanization and names of people will usually be written in the romanization the person themself uses.
I have played up to about 1960, but I don't recall getting any special event for a Nationalist win. Although I did get a decision to retreat to Taiwan (which I declined of course).
Edit: I'll write up a bibliography at the end of Part I
A very well written introduction to the background of the civil war. Plenty of interesting developments already.
Great background chapter! You've certainly done your homework on the period.
Oh dear. Poor Zhou Youguang... (In all seriousness though, the language nerd in me is very interested to see how you handle Mandarin modernization!)
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STOP! COOKIE TIME