Originally Posted by Buster Hyman
I wonder if Chinese doctrine includes any reference to the Americans helping to defend the PROC?
Ummm...
I'm sure there is no mention of the event you describe... because it never happened!
There
was no PROC when Chennault & his boys of the AVG were operating.
Mao and his folks were holed up in north-western China while the
Republic of China, the only recognized government of China at the time [usually referred to by the name of its ruling party:
Kuomintang (KMT)], was paying the AVG to fight Japan for it.
That way, the KMT could carry on with the (to it) far more important job of keeping the
Communist Party of China properly isolated and cut off from support and resources.
Thus, I am sure the PROC has plenty of mention of the "Capitalist Tools of the Oppressive and Fascist KMT"... at least the
older books would phrase it that way.
There IS a modern memorial to the Flying Tigers... approved by the PROC government, and which presents the AVG in a positive light:
People's Daily Online -- Flying Tigers Memorial Hall opens in central-south China
Originally Posted by People's Daily Online
UPDATED: 08:12, September 08, 2005
A memorial hall for the Flying Tigers opened Wednesday in central China's Hunan Province to commemorate the heroes fighting at the anti-Fascist battlefields in China during World War II, known in China as the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. The memorial hall, located at the Zhijiang Airport that used to host US General Claire Lee Chennault's Flying Tigers and the Sino-US Air Force, keeps a Sino-American Joint Air Force control tower and many relics and documents about the Flying Tigers.
About 100 Chinese, American and Russian World War II veterans visited the memorial hall on its opening day.
The veterans came to Zhijiang for the second China Zhijiang International Peace Culture Festival to mark the 60th anniversary of China's victory in the war.
The Flying Tigers were a voluntary flying group made up of 300 young US servicemen under the leadership of retired US Army Air Corps' captain and air advisor to China, Claire Lee Chennault.
Their main task was to protect the Burma Road, which linked southwest China's Kunming and Burma's Rangoon, the only land supply route open to bring war materials into China.
Source: Xinhua
Note the lack of political rhetoric... or any mention of who had hired them... they are simply listed as "Heroes of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression".