Film opens with outline map of Japan shown in contrast to 20 times larger China and figures representing China's 6 times greater population. Map of China is shown in pieces representing its numerous internal fiefdoms. In contrast, Japanese soldiers are shown marching in review before their singular leader, Emperor Hirohito and other national military leaders. Film shows contrasting 20th century characteristics of China and Japan. Sun Yat-sen, who figured prominently in post-Imperial China, and is considered the founding father of the Republic of China, is shown speaking to crowds. Narrator states that in 1911, this man fathered a peoples' revolution which brought to an end, China's ancient Imperial government. View of Chinese people marching and carrying flags and banners. Books are shown comparing China's Sun Yat-sen to America's George Washingon. Sun Yat-sen's political statement, shown in Chinese, contains words similar those in Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg address. View of schools and colleges built in the new Republic of China. Chinese students shown in libraries. A couple dining in a Chinese hotel restaurant, overlooking other buildings. A tall clock tower looms at the same height outside their window. Steel being erected for a tall building. Architects at work. Scientist looking through a microscope. Technicians at work in a chemistry laboratory. Medical staff and patients in a modern hospital. Children in school under compulsory education program. Chinese people exercising their freedoms of expression and religion. The funeral of Sun Yat-sen, in 1925, attended by his successor, Chiang Kai-shek, and other Chinese leaders in military uniforms. Chinese people attending an outdoor ceremony. Examples of areas needing modernisation. Chinese workers using manually operated machinery to process fabrics. Commercial vessel plying a river using wind and sail only. Views of steam locomotives and trains being introduced to link parts of China. Trucks moving goods over roads (still unpaved). Miners working in open air mines, digging coal and iron. Molten tin being poured from a crucible. Machines performing complex tasks in a fabric mill and women tending spinning and knitting machines. School children engaged in collective outdoor games and exercise drills. Scene shifts to Japan, where Emperor Hirohito, on a white horse, leads military leaders in reviewing Japanese forces. A formation of Japanese Model 97 medium tanks passing in review, with tank commanders saluting from their turrets. Glimpse of Japanese steel mill. Headline in World-Telegram newspaper of 14 february, 1934, reads: "Tokyo House Passes Huge Arms Budget." A Los Angeles newspaper of 23 November, 1934, expands on the same story. New Orleans Times-Picayune, Sunday, 5, May, 1936, reports that Japan is strained by its huge arms costs.
A fashion parade in Malaya. The fashion parade starts with European styles moving eastward to India, Pakistan, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong and Burma. People gather from various places to watch the event. A model presents a dress. People watch. Men play music in the background. A model presents evening gown. Another model presents Indian Sari. A model wears Rajasthan dress. Model wearing Hyderabad costume. A model wears a Vietnamese Áo dài dress. Chinese women wearing modern Cheongsam dress and Hong Kong-style Samfu everyday attire.
United States Army Nike-Hercules missile site in Taipei, Taiwan during Operation Hurry Up. President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai Shek poses with an American military officer at the Nike-Hercules missile site. Nike-Hercules missile in the background. Chiang Kai Shek walks towards a car and gets into the car.
Republic of China (ROC) soldier in Taipei, Taiwan during Operation Hurry Up in the Cold War. Chinese soldiers come running down a ramp. They run towards Nike missiles and make checks before firing it. Soldiers check different parts of the missile. Various gauges show readings.
Nike-Hercules missile site in Taipei, Taiwan during Operation Hurry Up. Republic of China President Chiang Kai Shek and others arrive at the Nike-Hercules missile site. He gets out of the car. President Chiang Kai Shek and other Chinese and American officers at the site. An officer briefs the Chinese President as he points at a chart with a sign on it that reads 'Trajectory'.
Riots break out in Algeria after Charles de Gaulle returns to power in France, and after De Gaulle dismissed from command the French paratrooper General Jacques Émile Massu for his opposition to DeGaulle's self determination plan for Muslim North Africa. French soldiers with rifles patrol at their posts and keep a vigil in Algiers during the crisis. Next scene is a flashback to May 1958: A crowd of supporters is seen around General Jacques Massu. A group of angry protestors is seen amassing, scaling a building and using a truck to break through fences onto the grounds of an official building. These scenes, the narrator indicates, are from May 5, 1958, during the May 1958 crisis, also called the Algiers putsch or the Coup of 13 May, when paratroopers under General Massu and civilians together succeeded in a coup and establishment of a "Committee of Public Safety". The narrator indicates that thus far in the 1960 crisis, the Army has remained loyal.