The China Threat: Memories, Myths, and Realities in the 1950s

As Dwight Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles sought to make policy toward China, they balanced public opinion against flexibility and pragmatism. History suggested that in that contest, listening to opinion—whether of the congressional China bloc, the broader China Lobby, the Republican right, the Nationalist Chinese, or the general public—would be vital. Many serious dilemmas remained unresolved, from the lingering Chinese civil war, to the deadlocked Korean conflict, to the trade embargo and travel restrictions. The new leaders in Washington had to settle or find ways to manage political, security, economic, and cultural problems. In almost every instance, the administration pursued a tough policy. But Eisenhower and Dulles were careful not to cast the Chinese as unredeemable with nothing to offer the West. Not only was this view unpopular abroad, it did not comport with reality, it did not promise commercial benefits for Americans, nor did it provide opportunities for deescalating confrontation through diplomacy.

A careful review of the new—and old—sources regarding policymaking in the 1950s shows that the Eisenhower-Dulles team pursued a more interesting and nuanced approach than historians have accorded to the administration. Although the political trends of the period comprised formidable barriers, Eisenhower and Dulles sought alternatives and complained privately about a persistent lack of maneuvering room. China, though it had a detestable government, was not just a potentially Communist Iran or a more chaotic Guatemala that merited covert action to topple an undesirable regime. China was entirely different in both the type and scale of the problem as well as the importance of a resolution to the world community.

By the time that Eisenhower and Dulles entered office, they understood that the Chinese Communist regime, however loathsome to Americans, would endure. Dulles spoke often about the disintegration of Communism in China, but neither he nor others in positions of authority actually expected a change of government on the mainland. Intelligence and national security papers consistently affirmed Mao’s control and spoke of China’s growing prosperity, industrialization, and military modernization, which ensured stability and popular support for the regime.¹

The U.S. government accordingly never sought to overthrow the Communist Chinese. Contrary to the usual image of Eisenhower and Dulles as dedicated proponents of liberation, they abandoned the most belligerent features of Republican doctrine on China, such as regime change and rollback, in the presidentially approved paper NSC 5429/5 (December 1954).² In fact, the NSC deliberately left out a key point of the earlier NSC 166/1 directing the United States to render assistance to Taiwan for raids and “other offensive operations” against China.³ Instead, the Eisenhower administration readjusted its image of Asia and its regional goals. With a hostile government at the center, Washington worried about the defense needs and trade potential of Asia in an entirely new context. Japan, Korea, Indochina, and Taiwan all comprised potential targets for Chinese intimidation and/or subversion. Fresh from Korean War battlefields, Americans, perhaps unavoidably, emphasized containment and isolation. And yet, recognizing that the People’s Republic of China would survive, Eisenhower and Dulles knew there were benefits to dealing with the Chinese as well as potential hazards in ignoring them. It would be this struggle between approaches to China that would characterize the thinking of the president, his secretary of state, and many officials around them.

Even though Eisenhower and Dulles understood they could not disregard China, a broad consensus in the country made engagement impossible. The State Department office responsible for public opinion research told the new administration in January 1953 that “the overwhelming weight of opinion in the United States holds that the Chinese Communist regime is a willing and subservient tool of the Kremlin and opposes any steps toward [a] relationship with the regime.”⁴

Korea posed a formidable barrier to improving U.S.-China relations from the moment Chinese crossed the Yalu River and engaged U.S. troops. As promised in his campaign, Eisenhower searched for a way to end the war, but his options were few. Intensifying the fighting as the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed meant air and naval attacks on China as well as use of tactical atomic weapons and so was unacceptable to Ike. On the other hand, the persistence of war in Korea led 60 percent of Americans polled in a March 1953 canvas to call for arming the Chinese Nationalists to blockade and bomb the China coast.⁵ The China Lobby cultivated this sentiment and utilized it to pressure the administration. Confronting such strong negative views, Eisenhower believed that U.S. trade with Beijing would be unacceptable and relations anathema.

Conversely, Eisenhower began his presidency with an unexpectedly fluid situation internationally. Shortly after his inauguration, Joseph Stalin died and at the funeral on March 9, 1953, the new prime minister, Georgii Malenkov, announced a “peace offensive” aimed at ending the Cold War. Charles Bohlen, U.S. ambassador in Moscow, and members of the NSC called for cautious but friendly policies as Soviet leaders withdrew territorial claims against Turkey, offered to reestablish diplomatic relations with Israel, Yugoslavia, and Greece, and made substantial military budget cuts.

China, much like the Soviet Union, emerged from the Korean struggle seeking better relations with Washington. Like Moscow it wanted to facilitate domestic development, which required a peaceful and stable international environment and integration into the world community. A policy of peace would allow Beijing to improve relations with the United States even as it facilitated efforts to alienate Washington from Taipei and from its European allies. A policy of peace might also render China’s markets more appealing and accessible. Thus China developed its own version of peaceful coexistence in 1952 that, historian Chen Jian has noted, was seen by the Chinese as “fundamentally different from the dominant codes and norms created by Western powers.”⁶ It entailed mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, nonaggression, noninterference in internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful coexistence. Zhou presented the principles in 1953 to Jawaharlal Nehru—with whom the so-called Pancha Shila are most often identified—and to the Geneva conference in 1954, where China highlighted mutual benefit and tolerance.⁷

Mao was no less determined to pursue China’s core objectives, such as recovering Taiwan, reforming the economy, and cooperating with the Soviet Union, but believed that the threat from the United States had diminished.⁸ “‘The law of imperialist war’, Zhou said in June 1953, ‘is that the weakest will be the first target of attack.’ As long as China continued to build up its strength and influence, it was highly likely that ‘the US may not dare to attack China.’”⁹ Furthermore, Eisenhower had too many problems, too many worldwide obligations, and too many disputes with allies to desire a confrontation with China.

Indeed, Eisenhower issued his own call for peaceful coexistence in April 1953 in his “Chance for Peace” speech urging the new Soviet leadership to demonstrate its break from the Stalin era.¹⁰ Eisenhower rejected the somber predictions that basic Communist policies would not change. Although he suspected that they might be duplicitous in their peace feelers, he sought to grasp the potential opening and, in any case, ensure that peace not be perceived as a Soviet idea.¹¹

Nevertheless, Beijing and Moscow encountered resistance from Washington. Despite Ike’s potentially positive approach and the encouragement of allied powers, such as Britain and France, the United States failed to formulate an effective policy of conciliation, instead devoting its energies to building positions of strength. John Foster Dulles scoffed at the tentative initiatives from Moscow and Beijing, insisting that the Communists simply sought to fracture the Western alliance. By 1955, his view would shift and he would caution against “rebuff[ing] a change which might be that for which the world longs,” but in 1953 he asserted that Eisenhower’s “Chance for Peace” did not mean any softening of U.S. policy.¹² The president’s entreaties would not end parallel efforts to cultivate power and stockpile arms.¹³

As though anti-Communism was not enough to discourage accommodation, racism played a significant part in China policy, reflecting the contemporary ethos in America as well as Eisenhower’s personal biases. As noted previously, the president had few reservations about segregation, ignoring the plight of minorities. A prominent Japanese observer wondered “If Americans can regard Negroes as inferior, how do they really regard Asians?”¹⁴ He and others would have been appalled had they known that privately the president thought of them in stereotypically bigoted ways. When trying to understand Jawaharlal Nehru’s neutralist policies, for instance, Eisenhower concluded that India’s leader would overlook more Communist violence than would a Westerner because “life… is cheaper in the Orient.”¹⁵

Accordingly, toward the Chinese Eisenhower brought a paternalistic and patronizing attitude to bear. He told advisers that “we are always wrong when we believe that Orientals think logically as we do.” He characterized his adversaries in Beijing at various times as “hysterical” and “fanatical,” taking Mao’s rhetoric about atomic bombs being “paper tigers,” for example, as evidence of depravity, not self-protection. Even the Soviets seemed more civilized and approachable than the Chinese since, Eisenhower asserted, they “were human beings, and they wanted to remain alive.”¹⁶ In fact, Eisenhower did not see China as seriously menacing the United States and used such rhetoric to prove to China’s enemies in America that he was aware of, and alert to, the China threat.

Although Eisenhower and Dulles understood that they could not topple the Communist government in China, they did not hesitate to try to destabilize it. A CIA operation (Project Paper) along the China-Burma border that had been launched in 1950 to force Beijing to move troops away from the Korean theater endured throughout the 1950s, consolidating under the leadership of Nationalist Chinese General Li Mi. The force of several thousand soldiers who had fled defeat in mainland China set up a base in Burma’s unruly minority Shan state and plotted attacks on the Chinese. Two major thrusts occurred in 1950 and 1952 and smaller forays in 1953 and 1954, but all failed abysmally. Meanwhile, the troops began trading in opium and arms and attacking local villagers. Fearing internal unrest and potential Chinese intervention, the helpless Burmese authorities appealed to Washington to terminate the feckless venture. Given mounting international criticism, the Eisenhower administration pretended to end it. In fact, the alleged evacuation of 1954 was a sham, with weapons left behind and soldiers resuming their insurgency after training in Taiwan.¹⁷ As late as May 1959, the effort continued, although intelligence agents were forced to admit to Eisenhower that Project Paper had been ineffective.¹⁸

Eisenhower similarly built on CIA involvement in Tibet that had begun in the Truman years. In 1951, with Chinese occupation imminent, the U.S. ambassador in India offered the Dalai Lama asylum in the United States, where he could be an international symbol of the struggle against Communist tyranny. In exchange, the United States would provide his followers with immediate financial and military aid and future support for an autonomous Tibet.¹⁹ The Dalai Lama, however, chose to stay in Tibet and tried to accommodate to Chinese rule until authorities launched a vigorous atheist indoctrination campaign. The subsequent violence gave U.S. intelligence new opportunities. In 1956, the CIA created a Tibetan affairs unit in the Division of Operations in response to Dulles’s desire for a more active Tibet policy. The secretary had little real interest in Tibet but thought it a useful platform for disrupting Chinese Communist governance. Eisenhower personally approached India’s Prime Minister Nehru regarding schemes to support the Tibetans. Nehru, who had been shocked by Soviet intervention in Hungary and pleased with U.S. handling of the Suez crisis, agreed to ignore airspace violations as the CIA supplied Tibetan resisters.²⁰

Operation Circus created enough turmoil to necessitate, and provide cover for, the escape of the Dalai Lama in 1959. U-2 flights assisted in pinpointing rebels and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) columns while transport aircraft dropped supplies and weapons. But Washington sought to harass Chinese Communist forces, not to promote political change. The administration did not favor independence, preferring continuing turmoil. In February 1960, Eisenhower acknowledged this reality, speculating that “the net result of these operations would… be more brutal repressive reprisals by the Chinese Communists.”²¹ Eisenhower nevertheless approved further involvement and passed the effort along to John F. Kennedy upon leaving office.²²

The administration conducted additional covert efforts to overthrow or cripple unreliable Asian governments. In Cambodia the CIA mounted an anti-Sihanouk rebel movement and supported efforts by an indigenous force, with help from Thailand and South Vietnam, to detach the province of Siem Riep. The Laotian struggle aimed at thwarting neutralism by flooding the country with economic and military aid and ended up driving moderate Laotians to side with the Communist Pathet Lao in opposing an American-sponsored government. Eisenhower allowed his intelligence, diplomatic, and military representatives to become even more deeply involved in Vietnam, taking over from France after the 1954 rout at Dien Bien Phu, dividing the country at the Seventeenth Parallel and creating a pro-U.S. regime thoroughly dependent on Washington. Finally, the administration waded into Indonesian politics to stem what it saw as growing Chinese influence by using the CIA and the Seventh Fleet as well as assistance from Taiwan, the Philippines, Britain, and Australia to oust President Sukarno.²³ For Washington it was simpler to justify covert interference in Indonesian politics if Sukarno could be portrayed as a Communist dupe rather than a nationalist.²⁴

The main impetus to all these interventions was the Eisenhower-Dulles fear of Communism’s rapid spread. China, although poor and backward, could wreck havoc across the region, surpassing others with its “coherence, discipline, mobilizing power, and sense of purpose.”²⁵ While in places like Guatemala or Iran, the president and secretary had to guess at Communist affiliation and intentions, in China they knew that Communists were in charge and dedicated to extending Communist influence. In 1957, Mao even sought to reconcile his peace policy (Pancha Shila) with support for Communist insurgencies by asserting the higher calling of world revolution.²⁶

Throughout the region and beyond, moreover, there appeared to be evidence not just of turmoil but of Chinese penetration. Overseas Chinese populations remained scattered everywhere with unclear loyalties and the potential to subvert weak governments. According to the Taipei Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, thirteen million Chinese lived overseas, with the largest concentration in Thailand and populations exceeding one million in Malaya, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Vietnam.²⁷

Washington monitored overseas Chinese communities at home and abroad. Until 1954, both Taipei and Beijing unabashedly attempted to seduce these communities and secure their substantial remittances. Beijing found that although it was more successful than Taipei, it was also more feared and resented.²⁸ Southeast Asian governments saw “recruitment” activities as destabilizing and considered the overseas Chinese increasingly as outsiders to be discriminated against. In many cases, anti-Communism melded with long-standing resentment that under colonial rule, Chinese had come to dominate local economies.²⁹ Increasingly, Beijing worried not just about discrimination against overseas Chinese but also about the alienation of governments whose good will and support Beijing desired.³⁰ Thus, the People’s Republic retreated in 1954, recommending that Chinese minorities pledge allegiance to local authorities, declaring that it would no longer welcome dual citizenship, and denying that revolution could be exported.³¹ Nevertheless, the contest between Beijing and Taipei persisted,³² as did American efforts to influence overseas Chinese.³³

Washington tried to persuade Taipei to welcome the overseas Chinese to Taiwan even though inside the United States, the FBI suspected Chinese Americans of harboring sympathies for the Red Chinese.³⁴ Chiang’s government resisted, fearing that it might import Communist agents, and competitors for local businessmen and intellectuals.³⁵ Taipei also wanted to maintain communities of sympathizers in Southeast Asia who would fight the Red Chinese and champion the Republic of China (ROC) cause. Washington might be caught between supporting local governments and assisting Chiang Kai-shek, but Chiang’s motives were not divided and Taipei cooperated only grudgingly.³⁶

Eisenhower and Dulles deplored Chiang Kai-shek’s shortsightedness on this and other issues. Dulles, in fact, had a history of wrestling with the “Chiang problem.” In 1950, having been recruited by the Truman administration to work on the Japanese peace treaty, he lent his weight to a scheme of then Assistant Secretary Dean Rusk to neutralize Taiwan. Agreeing with Rusk that Chiang’s leadership was dismal and deploring Kuomintang avarice, he supported the idea of eliminating the Generalissimo and making Taiwan a UN trusteeship. As secretary, he did not seek to oust Chiang but continued to complain of the Generalissimo’s misguided policies. Dulles and Eisenhower lamented Chiang’s resistance to local investment, a policy the latter distained because, he believed, it squandered military resources and made his people content to remain in Taiwan.³⁷ They objected to a military budget that consumed roughly 15 percent of Taiwan’s gross national product and made up some 85 percent of the government’s expenditures—roughly double that of the United States. But although Taiwan had become one of the most militarized societies in the world (its equivalent in the United States would have yielded eleven million soldiers), they believed a return to the mainland far exceeded KMT capabilities. Moreover, it would not be welcomed by the Chinese people.³⁸

Chiang, however, argued that a return to the mainland would be neither as difficult nor as costly as Eisenhower and Dulles imagined. Aware that he could not hope to sustain an offensive without American assistance, Chiang assiduously sought U.S. equipment, training, and logistical support but with minimal U.S. oversight.³⁹ He followed the traditional path for small countries that manipulated their large power protectors by using one part of the U.S. government against other segments of the administration.⁴⁰ In this he had an ally in the U.S. ambassador whom Dulles recognized as a Chiang partisan. Karl Rankin argued to Washington that a retrained, disciplined, and properly armed Nationalist military might be able to provoke rebellion in China and topple the Communists. He undermined Dulles by advising Chiang to ignore assertions that there would be no U.S.-assisted attack; eventually the United States would have to help him.⁴¹ Admiral Arthur Radford furthered that illusion by asking Chiang in July 1953 whether he would be willing to let Americans command an assault.⁴²

Initially thrilled by Eisenhower’s election victory, Chiang had come to see the president as lacking “common sense.” Dulles he dismissed as “a purely opportunistic politician.”⁴³ He resisted efforts to reorganize his forces, eliminate political indoctrination, and modernize command and control. He had no compunctions about attempting to circumvent administration “interference” through sympathizers in Congress and the executive branch.⁴⁴

Chiang’s dedication to the enterprise of mainland recovery disturbed Eisenhower and Dulles most of all because it threatened to plunge the United States into an unwanted war. Even refusing to support an invasion would not immunize Washington if Nationalist forces became trapped on a collapsing beachhead. This possibility seemed magnified as the Nationalists began, in March 1953, to lobby for a mutual defense treaty.

Eisenhower had elevated the concept of alliance diplomacy to a core strategy in fighting the Cold War. Washington concluded a security pact with the Philippines, launched talks with South Korea, and undertook planning for SEATO, which was loosely modeled upon NATO. Taipei wanted equal guarantees as well as public confirmation of Washington’s commitment to the Nationalist cause.⁴⁵ Kuomintang entreaties grew strident during the winter of1954 as the French position in Indochina crumbled and Communist expansion appeared increasingly likely to engulf Taiwan.

Eisenhower and Dulles, however, resisted a treaty. The president believed that an alliance agreement would be an unduly large and hazardous commitment. Dulles considered a formal tie to the Nationalists undesirable, necessitating consultation and dictating types and levels of support that he preferred to determine unilaterally. Moreover, the secretary believed he could better restrain Beijing if China’s leaders did not know the extent of Washington’s obligations for Taiwan’s security. Most particularly, Dulles preferred to keep the status of a scattering of Nationalist-held islands off China’s coast nebulous.⁴⁶ Eisenhower worried about staking U.S. prestige on retention of indefensible island chains, remarking later that on military grounds, “in any struggle involving only the territory of those islands, we would see no reason for American intervention.”⁴⁷

Early 1954 also looked like a singularly ill-chosen moment to discuss treaty relations. France had grown weary of its costly and ineffective war to save its Indochina colonies and opted for an international conference to seek a negotiated peace. The United States preferred that the French fight on to prevent Communist domination of the area but would not provide the aid required to forestall the Geneva conference scheduled for spring 1954. Movement toward a security pact with Taiwan would, therefore, be perceived as a deceitful attempt to derail the proceedings. Dulles, who often incurred criticism from allied governments for rash or belligerent acts, in this case saw no reason to antagonize them.⁴⁸ Indeed, he had a clear incentive not to irritate the French as they approached a decision that Dulles considered crucial, on whether to approve creation of a European Defense Community that would arm and integrate Germans into the defense of Western Europe. Pointing to this critical juncture, the State Department’s European and United Nations bureaus as well as the Policy Planning Staff opposed an accord with Taipei.

To Chiang, by contrast, the impending Geneva meetings provided still more reason to demand a treaty. Once the great powers convened at an East Asian conference dealing with Indochina and Korea, there were no assurances that Taiwan would not be discussed. Only if the United States aligned itself unambiguously with the Kuomintang through a mutual security pact could Chiang have confidence that adverse action would be deterred.⁴⁹ Chiang called upon the U.S. Congress and Vice President Richard Nixon to press his case.⁵⁰

Probably the strongest opposition to a treaty came from Beijing, which saw it as a security threat and a barrier to consummation of the Chinese civil war. Mao had grown increasingly dismayed that there had been no progress on the Taiwan issue and that the Chinese people and the world community either ignored or accepted the status quo.⁵¹ Already menaced by American military units based in Japan and the routine patrolling of the Seventh Fleet, Beijing now confronted the possibility that U.S. forces would be permanently stationed just 100 miles from the Chinese coast. To deter Washington, Chinese leaders looked first to diplomacy and then, when thwarted, turned to military means.

The diplomatic opening came with the conference in Geneva. China joined with the United States, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union to address problems in Korea and Indochina. China’s international standing immediately rose even though Washington firmly declared that the invitation to Beijing carried with it no implications of recognition.⁵² Indeed, Dulles objected to sitting at the same table with Zhou and refused to shake the premier’s extended hand lest he be condemned by Republican hard-liners who had denounced the inclusion of China at Geneva and warned Dulles against contact with Chinese representatives.⁵³

The Chinese, however, grasped the opportunities provided by Geneva. Mao decided that “the door can no longer and should not be kept closed,” that China had to engage the world. China’s strength had reached the point that his injunction to “have the house swept first and then invite guests in” had been honored.⁵⁴ Beijing fielded a large and skillful delegation, including two master chefs to captivate delegates through food diplomacy.⁵⁵ Furthermore, Beijing used Geneva as a vehicle for initiating future diplomatic interaction with Washington. Declaring that China would facilitate the release of U.S. citizens if direct discussions began, Beijing made talks with the United States inescapable. The Chinese understood that some Americans in the government and specifically in the U.S. delegation supported a fresh approach toward Beijing.⁵⁶ Mao asserted that divisions placed Eisenhower in a moderate camp arrayed against Dulles over how much risk to take in Sino-American relations.⁵⁷ And, late in May, American diplomats told Soviet and British authorities that elements of their own policy were “unrealistic” and that changes might be possible.⁵⁸ Zhou responded with alacrity.

The talks, which occurred on four occasions during June 1954, focused narrowly on the repatriation issue, eschewing any broader agenda. Eisenhower would not permit dialogue over improved Sino-American relations, Taiwan’s future, a Taiwan treaty, or the impending SEATO alliance. But Chinese leaders hoped that simply talking would improve relations, convincing Washington not to sign a defense treaty with Taipei.⁵⁹ After the Geneva meeting ended, the two sides agreed to continue exchanging views at the consular level.⁶⁰ Thus, the fact of direct contact between Washington and Beijing had been established even if there had been no breakthrough on specific issues in dispute.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles believed that U.S. security depended on opposing the Soviet Union and protecting Europe. They found that Asia demanded much more of their time than anticipated or desired. Both the pressure of events and the demands of opinion groups forced them to try to understand Chinese affairs and wrestle with the dilemma of China’s influence in the region. They came quickly to understand that the Communist regime would remain in power in Beijing and would challenge them politically and militarily in places like Geneva, Southeast Asia, and the Taiwan Strait. They mounted clandestine efforts to destabilize the Chinese government—it was not in U.S. interests to watch Chinese power grow—but never seriously considered trying to oust the Communist regime.