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CHAPTER 9 THE RED DRAGON PLAN I am ready to do business with any established government on earth but I cannot help to make a government to do business with. —J. P. Morgan In late 1908 Lea unsuccessfully sought to become a U.S. trade representative to China for the Roosevelt administration. Concurrently, he contrived an audacious military venture in China called the Red Dragon plan that attested to his extraordinary imagination and ambition . The plan initially called for organizing a revolutionary conspiracy to conquer several Chinese provinces and later expanded to include the entire Chinese Empire. It bordered on fantasy. Yet that did not stop him from convincing a coterie of supporters to embark on a quest so risky that it seemed doomed from the outset—but also so potentially lucrative as to be irresistible to some. By 1909 Lea’s continued success as a writer, with the publication of The Valor of Ignorance, a geopolitical study that warned of an impending East-West clash, helped him gain additional notoriety as he made another unsuccessful bid for a government position in China, this time as U.S. minister to China for President William H. Taft’s administration. Lea was undaunted by such setbacks. By late 1909 he had reason for optimism as his rising literary career began opening new doors with important contacts. When Lea wrote Ethel that he wished there was a way she could return to him, he also informed her that he planned to offer the U.S. government his services as a commercial trade representative in China.1 At that time a Chinese boycott of American goods had been in effect for well over a year in reaction to America’s exclusion policy. 146 • Homer Lea With this problem weighing heavily on certain American commercial interests, Lea believed he could reap vast economic rewards and help American interests by breaking the boycott. In order to do this, however, he needed to convince President Roosevelt to grant him an appointment as a government trade representative in Canton, China. He chose Canton specifically for two reasons. First, he believed that “there alone would I be able to do the good I believe I am able to accomplish. Canton is the storm center of all anti-Americanism and all boycotts originate in its environs. The Canton merchants are the most active of any in the Empire; their Guild-houses are to be found in every large city from Manchuria to Singapore, the ramifications of their trade interests and power are, in the Orient without end.”2 Lea also had ulterior motives. After rescuing American commercial interests and reaping lucrative rewards for his service in Canton, he planned to pursue his earlier dreams of liberating China, this time by financing and leading an anti-Ch’ing revolution in southern China.3 Lea counted on help from an acquaintance, Charles Beach Boothe, a prominent businessman who had previously lived nearby on Bonnie Brae Street. Among his various pursuits, Boothe was a member of a number of civic and fraternal organizations. For example, he was a leading member of the National Irrigation Association and interested in the history of irrigation in other countries, particularly in China. Earlier, in 1905, Lea had arranged for Boothe, who happened to be in St. Louis during K’ang Yu-wei’s cross-country trip, to meet K’ang Yu-Wei, and the two likely discussed irrigation. More recently, in early 1908, Boothe had been after Lea to help arrange another meeting with K’ang Yu-wei, who was visiting America. In the course of their correspondence, Lea approached Boothe with his own plans of getting rich as a trade representative and revolutionary. Although Boothe first hesitated to get involved in such an incredible plot, Lea soon persuaded him to join the Chinese revolutionary venture with promises of financial returns beyond his wildest dreams.4 Together they possessed a valuable pool of resources to further Lea’s plan. Boothe claimed a career of sound financial experience and also had a number of important financial connections in the East. He was president of the National Irrigation Association, vice president of the National Motor Car Company, a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and one of the driving forces in Los Angeles ’s prestigious California Club, whose members included leaders in business, industry, and government. It would be his job to handle the [13.58.197.26] Project MUSE (2024-04-19 04:32...

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