Abstract
The early 1950s were the formative years for Taiwan’s post-war development. The island remained capitalist, integrated into the world economy and under Chinese Nationalist control. The emergence of ‘Two Chinas’ had a profound influence on the course of Anglo-Chinese-American relations. This chapter will consider how the respective positions of the US, China and Britain ensured that Taiwan remained in the hands of the Chinese Nationalists; it will analyse how the US increased informal economic and political control over the island of Taiwan; and it will determine how Britain tried to reconcile its far eastern strategy with a deepening American commitment to a non-communist Taiwan.
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Notes
See Shu Guang Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American Confrontations, 1949–1958, Ithaca and London 1992, pp. 64–7.
Sergei N. Goncharov, John W. Lewis and Xue Litai, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War, Stanford, Calif. 1993, p. 79.
Whiting, China Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War, New York 1960, p. 64.
Qiang Zhai, The Dragon, the Lion and the Eagle: Chinese-British-American Relations, 1949–1958, Kent, Ohio and London 1994, p. 96.
G. Kerr, Formosa Betrayed, London 1966, p. 434.
See Jon W. Hueber, ‘The Abortive Liberation of Taiwan’, China Quarterly, no. 110, June 1987, p. 267: Whiting, 1960, p. 22 and Shu Guang Zhang, 1992, p. 68.
Chou En-lai, ‘The Chinese Peoples’ Successes’, Communist Review, Nov. 1950, p. 336.
For an account in the context of American policy towards China, see Tang Tsou, America’s Failure in China, 1941–1950, Chicago 1963.
For an understanding of the link between American policy towards Taiwan and Korea see William W. Stueck, The Road to Confrontation: American Policy towards China and Korea, 1947–1950, Chapel Hill 1981 and
Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War, London 1986
For the differing views within the American State Department see W.I. Cohen, ‘Acheson, his Advisers and China, 1949–50’, in D. Borg and W. Hendricks, eds, Uncertain Years: Chinese-American Relations, 1947–1950, New York 1980.
For a critical assessment of America’s failure to disengage from China see Nancy Tucker, Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy 1949–50, New York 1983, pp. 184–6.
(The Dutch and Spanish had recognised the strategic importance of Taiwan as far back as the sixteenth century. See D. Mendel, The Politics of Formosan Nationalism, Berkeley 1970, p. 11.)
Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, Vol. II: The Roaring of the Cataract 1947–1950, Princeton 1990, pp. 531–44.
See Ong Joktik, ‘A Formosan’s View of The Formosan Independent Movement’, in M. Mancali, ed., Formosa Today, New York 1964, pp. 165–9.
United States General Services Administration, Public Papers of the Presidents of the US: HS. Truman, Washington 1965, p. 193.
For an account of his visit to Taiwan and his message to the Veterans, see D. MacArthur, Reminiscences, Greenwich, Conn. 1965, pp. 372–452.
R. MacFarquhar, Sino-American Relations 1949–71, New York 1972; doc. 11, p. 91.
See B. Cumings, ‘The Origins and Development of Northeast Asian Political Economy: Industrial Sectors, Product Life Cycles, and Political Consequences’, in F. Deyo, ed., The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, Ithaca and London 1989.
See S.P.S. Ho, ‘Colonialism and Development: Korea, Taiwan, Kwantung’, in R.H. Myers and M.R. Petrie, eds, The Japanese Colonial Empire, 1895–1945, Princeton 1984.
See M. Scott, ‘Foreign Trade’, in W. Galenson, ed., Economic Growth and Structural Change in Taiwan: The Post War Experience of the Republic of China, London 1979, pp. 310–13 and
S. Ho, Economic Development of Taiwan, 1860–1970, New Haven 1978, p. 115
Denis Fred Simon, ‘External Incorporation and Internal Reformx2019;, in E.A. Winckler and S. Greenhalgh eds, Contending Approaches to the Political Economy of Taiwan, New York 1988, p. 146.
For a discussion of the negotiations between Britain and the US on this issue see P. Lowe, ‘Great Britain and the Japanese Peace Treaty’, in P. Lowe and H. Moeshart, eds, Western Interactions with Japan: Expansion, Armed Forces and Readjustment, 1859–1956, Sandgate 1990.
Karl Lott Rankin, China Assignment, Seattle 1964, pp. 69 and 99.
John L. Gaddis, ‘The Unexpected John Foster Dulles: Nuclear Weapons, Communism and the Russians’, in Richard Immerman, ed., John Foster Dulles and the Diplomacy of the Cold War, Princeton 1990, pp. 60–7.
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© 1997 David Clayton
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Clayton, D. (1997). The Origins of ‘Two Chinas’, 1950–54. In: Imperialism Revisited. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-13829-6_3
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