The Concise Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History by Edwards Rebecca Kazin Michael Rothman Adam & Rebecca Edwards & Adam Rothman

Author:Edwards, Rebecca, Kazin, Michael, Rothman, Adam & Rebecca Edwards & Adam Rothman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2011-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Aftermath of War

Cold war tensions between the United States and the PRC remained high during and after the Korean War. The question of “who lost China” became a powerful and divisive issue in American politics. Anti-Communists accused Foreign Service officers, who had reported on the strength of Mao and the Communists and the weakness of Chiang and the Nationalists, of having contributed to the Communists’ victory in the civil war. Between 1951 and 1953, many of these “China Hands” were fired from the State Department.

The Eisenhower administration provided more support for the Nationalist government of Taiwan than Truman had done. Early in the Korean War, the Truman administration had sent the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet into the Strait of Taiwan separating the island from the mainland. The aim was to protect Taiwan from a Communist attack but also to discourage the Nationalists from attacking the mainland. Eisenhower lifted the naval defense of Taiwan in 1953. A year later, Jiang sent 70,000 troops to the islands of Quemoy and Matsu, three miles off the coast of mainland China. In September the Chinese Communists began shelling these islands, and in November Communists planes bombed the Tachen Islands in the Taiwan Strait.

During this first Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended using atomic weapons against the mainland, and political pressure mounted on Eisenhower to send U.S. troops to protect the offshore islands. In the fall of 1954, the president decided against direct U.S. military involvement in the crisis. Instead, the United States signed a defense treaty with the Republic of China. Under this agreement, the United States promised to protect the island of Taiwan but was silent about the offshore islands. The first Taiwan Strait Crisis intensified in April 1955 when the president said that “A-bombs might be used . . . as you would use a bullet.” China said it was willing to negotiate with the United States over the islands and the future of Taiwan. On May 1 China stopped shelling the islands.

Ambassadorial talks between the United States and Communist China began in the summer of 1955 and continued, off and on, mostly in Warsaw, for the next 16 years, until President Richard Nixon announced that he would visit Beijing. These conversations made no progress on the future of the Republic of China in Taiwan, but they did lead to the repatriation of U.S. and Chinese citizens who had been stranded in China or the United States, respectively, during the Chinese civil war and the Korean War. A second Taiwan Strait Crisis began in August 1958, when the Communists resumed shelling Quemoy and Matsu. Eisenhower asserted that the shelling was part of a plan “to liquidate all of the free world positions in the Western Pacific.” China stopped shelling the offshore islands on January 1, 1959.

Tensions persisted, and the United States continued to see Communist China as a major threat. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate John F. Kennedy accused the Eisenhower administration of sending mixed signals to China, which had encouraged its aggressive moves in the Taiwan Strait.

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